Elaborating the Concepts of Part and Whole in Variation Theory: The Case of Learning Chinese Characters

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the concepts of part and whole in Ference Marton's variation theory for dealing with how learners come to understand something of a whole as made up of its parts. Understanding of the parts and the whole is more difficult than expected; as the whole may have an influence on the parts, the nature of the parts of the whole may differ from that of the parts on their own. As such it is not enough for learners just to know the parts in isolation. They also have to recognize the whole to which the parts refer and how the whole influences the parts. To achieve this, teachers have to provide learners with the experience of variation of the parts and the whole. To demonstrate these concepts, I have applied them to the case of children's learning of Chinese characters in this paper.     

防污损涂料添加剂Irgarol-1051降解产物对H4IIE鼠肝癌细胞的基因影响(英文)

为研究海洋防污损涂料添加剂Irogarol-1051的降解产物M2的基因毒性,应用微阵列技术,选取Affymetrix公司鼠基因组230 2.0基因芯片检测30μmol/L M2暴露下的鼠肝癌细胞基因表达变化.实验结果显示,96 h的M2暴露导致了38个基因在全部4组可能的对照/暴露中均发生显著变化(p0.002 5),其中只有Accn5基因研究较为透彻,该基因表达的抑制可能影响上皮钠通道的功能.此外,分别有10和82个功能注释基因在至少一组对照/暴露组中上调和下调.M2诱导的基因主要和细胞核(细胞成分)相关.M2抑制的基因则主要影响生物过程中的G蛋白偶联信号通路功能和细胞成分中的细胞膜内整合功能.     

ICT's impact on family solidarity and upward mobility in translocal China

Information communication technologies (ICTs) create new channels and repertoires for mediated communication among parents and their children in mobile locations, thus playing a special role in reinvigorating intergenerational family solidarity in contemporary translocal China. For China's rapid, uneven economic development since 1978, social mobility has been fast growing and many family members are separated into different locations for seeking upward mobility as reciprocal aspirations. Some cases of translocal Chinese, studying, working, and living apart from their elderly parents were studied to investigate ICT's impact on family solidarity within the new dynamics of more symbolic and symmetrical family obligations and interactions. Their demonstrations of redefined sociability and intergenerational relationships via connected presence provide a promising new direction for social support and knowledge exchanges in translocal China with a special attention to the multifacets of mobilities and localities in the lives of the contemporary Chinese. A new model of family solidarity is proposed by the proper use of ICTs as new channels for intergenerational communication to supplement but not to replace the traditional ways of ‘togetherness’ by face-to-face interaction among the elderly Chinese parents and their adult children in remote locations. And this is deployed to reinvigorate parent–child relationships of the ‘relational families’ characterized by ‘autonomy of the generations’ in a balance of individualism and collectivism for seeking upward mobility and social cohesion in order to partly solve the social pressure of aging population and rural–urban divide, especially under the special conditions of China's one-child policy and jumping scale of economic development.     

Examining Factors Affecting Science Achievement of Hong Kong in PISA 2006 Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the influence of a range of factors on the science performances of Hong Kong students in PISA 2006. Hong Kong has been consistently ranked highly in international science assessments, such as Programme for International Student Assessment and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study; therefore, an exploration of the factors that affect science performances of Hong Kong students can give a lens to examine how science education can be improved in Hong Kong and other countries. The analyses reveal that student backgrounds as male, at higher grade levels, and born in mainland (when in the same grade) are associated with better science performance. Among the attitudinal factors, enjoyment of science and self-efficacy in science play important roles in scientific achievements. Most of the parental factors, on the other hand, are not having significant impacts on achievement after student attitudes are taken into account, with only parents’ value of science having a small effect. School student intake is found to be a strong predictor of school average achievement, as well as a major mediator of the effects of school enrollment size and school socio-economic status. The findings differ from recently reported results, which suggested that school enrollment size was associated with achievement. This study also points out the problems of the use of science instruction time as a school-level variable to explain science achievement in Hong Kong.     

Glimpses of a century-old story

The story of Agrobacterium has been widely discussed for over a century. Fridiano Cavara in 1897 first described the occurrence of plant-derived tumors with bacterial origin. Detailed molecular analysis of this microbe accelerated in the last 30 years and it gained worldwide acceptance as a ‘natural genetic engineering tool’. This tool has an interesting history starting from the tumors that it makes, nomenclature, genome, pathogenicity and DNA transfer, to its economic importance. This review is a glimpse of some basic and interesting facts of the unique Agrobacterium.     

Age, Gender, and Ethnicity of Counsellor Trainees and Corresponding Counselling Self-Efficacy: Research Findings and Implications for Counsellor Educators

This study explored the counselling self-efficacy of students in a counsellor education programme, in regard to age, gender, and ethnicity characteristics. To assess counselling self-efficacy, the Counselling Self-Estimate Inventory (COSE) of Larson et al. (Counsellor Education & Supervision 41: 120–130, 1992) was administered at the end of a semester to counselling students engaged in different stages of a counsellor training program. No significant differences were found in regard to gender and age-group categories, but significant differences were found among ethnic groups. It was found that Asian and White students generally had similar and also lower counselling self-efficacy means than the other ethnic groups in the sample in regard to several counselling-specific categories. Implications for counsellor educators in training counselling students of diverse characteristics are discussed.     

Drawing on the variation theory to enhance students’ learning of Chinese characters

The variation theory of Ference Marton and his collaborators has widely been used as a framework for explaining what can possibly be learned in a particular classroom and what cannot. This paper reports on an experiment that put this theory to test in the context of students’ learning of the orthographic structures of Chinese characters. The experiment was carried out in the classrooms of two primary schools in Hong Kong. In each of the schools, two classes of students were taught differently, as informed by the theory, about the significance of the location of a component in the orthographic structure of a character in relation to whether the component provided a clue to the meaning of the character (called the part–part relations). The results of the experiment are consistent with the prediction of the theory that those students who were given the possibility to experience variation in the locations of components in the orthographic structures significantly outperformed those who were not. The results of the experiment demonstrate the power of the theory in guiding the design of teaching that affords students’ learning to happen.     

Use and evaluation of a technology-rich experimental collaborative classroom

In order to pilot a shift towards greater use of collaborative learning in our higher education programs, the University of Hong Kong has invested in the development of a prototype technology-enhanced collaborative learning space. The space was created by retrofitting a vacant studio, turning it into an innovative classroom space in which collaborative learning is promoted and facilitated both through the provision of technology and by the physical layout of the room. We have used the space to pioneer collaborative learning both by holding professional development workshops for faculty in the room and also by helping academic staff to run experimental courses in the learning space. The opportunity to offer professional development and support for academic staff in this environment is particularly valuable as it ensures they do not simply deliver traditional didactic lectures in a space designed to promote interactive student learning and engagement. By using the space as a ‘student’ they are able to consider how they may use collaborative learning environments with their students. This paper describes use of the room for professional development of academic staff and also provides two examples of the use and evaluation of the room by faculty who used the room to teach experimental classes.     

Micromixer based on viscoelastic flow instability at low Reynolds number

We exploited the viscoelasticity of biocompatible dilute polymeric solutions, namely, dilute poly(ethylene oxide) solutions, to significantly enhance mixing in microfluidic devices at a very small Reynolds number, i.e., Re≈0.023, but large Peclet and elasticity numbers. With an abrupt contraction microgeometry (8:1 contraction ratio), two different dilute poly(ethylene oxide) solutions were successfully mixed with a short flow length at a relatively fast mixing time of <10 μs. Microparticle image velocimetry was employed in our investigations to characterize the flow fields. The increase in velocity fluctuation with an increase in flow rate and Deborah number indicates the increase in viscoelastic flow instability. Mixing efficiency was characterized by fluorescent concentration measurements. Our results showed that enhanced mixing can be achieved through viscoelastic flow instability under situations where molecular-diffusion and inertia effects are negligible. This approach bypasses the laminar flow limitation, usually associated with a low Reynolds number, which is not conducive to mixing.