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En este artículo se describe la construcción y utilización de uncampus virtual para la educación a distancia en el mundo virtual denominadoSecond Life. El campus está asentado en una superficie de aproximadamentedoce mil metros cuadrados sobre los que se construyeron las siguientesinstalaciones: un museo universitario, salas de juntas, un auditorio, salones declases, una sala audiovisual, edificio para residentes, helipuerto de llegada así como una área para actividades recreativas. Asimismo se describen lasactividades que se realizan actualmente en el campus, clasificadas en lassiguientes categorías: formación académica, docencia, investigación, difusión yactividades sociales y recreativas.

Palabras clave:
Virtualización, Mundos virtuales, Realidad virtual, Campusvirtual, Educación a distancia.

Anxiety that learners encounter while speaking in the foreign language classrooms is considered to be one of the most effective problem that can prevent learners from learning the target language. This quasi-experimental study aims at finding the sources of speaking anxiety learners feel in the foreign language classroom, and investigates the effect of using specific teaching strategies on mitigating this feeling. In order to do that, 79 female Saudi English foreign language learners, at their first year in the college of economy, participated in this study. The data were collected through a questionnaire and interviews that were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The participants were randomly divided into two groups experimental and control group. The teaching strategies were used with the experimental group only during the second term of the year 2014. However, the same material and time was given to the control group in order to achieve the goal of this study. The analysis of the collected data revealed a number of issues causing foreign language learners' speaking anxiety. Furthermore, the use of specific teaching strategies helped in alleviating and reducing the speaking anxiety felt by the foreign language learners' and encouraged them to use the target language. As a result, foreign language learners in the experimental group showed great improvements in their willingness to speak and participate in different tasks and activities in their foreign language classroom.

Translating culture-specific concepts seem to be one of the most challenging tasks to be performed by a translator; in other words, culture and intercultural awareness, are far more complex phenomena than it may seem to the translator. The more a translator is aware of complexities of differences between cultures, the better a translator s/he will be. It is probably right to say that there has never been a time translators were unaware of cultural differences and their significance for translation. Translation theorists have been aware of the problems of cultural knowledge and cultural differences at least since ancient Rome. Cultural knowledge and cultural differences have been a major focus of translator training and translation theory for as long as either has been in existence. The present paper aims to present some procedures and strategies of translating cultural concepts by different theorists, which might help translators during the translation process and make them choose the procedures that seem to be more effective than the others.

The ALMA project (Atacama Large Millimeter Array) is a collection of 50 radio telescopes that will be installed and operated in the high altitude desert of Atacama in northern Chile. The array is phased locked using a microwave reference generated from highly stable phase locked laser signals transmitted over 15km single mode fiber. In this paper we demonstrate the ability of generating and distributing high frequency photonic based microwave reference in a single mode fiber of 14 km to 2 of the ALMA radio telescopes. 81GHz photonic LO reference is generated and transmitted over the single mode fiber to the receivers of the 2 antennas. The paper will also present the method used to measure and dynamically stabilize the phase of the microwave photonics reference transmitted to 2 antennas while simulating antenna motion. The photonic phase correction system will null the unwanted phase in the microwave reference resulted from the motion of the telescope, maintaining coherence between the 2 antennas. Downloaded From: http://www.spiedl.org/ on 01/29/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Proc. of SPIE Vol. 6893 68930I-2 Downloaded From: http://www.spiedl.org/ on 01/29/2014 Terms of Use: http://spiedl.org/terms Fig. 4 A schematic of the ALMA prototype Line Length Corrector (LLC) and the photonic components in the LOPR.