Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Developing Countries

In recent years universities in developing countries have followed their counterparts in developed countries in adopting quality assurance to improve the quality of their teaching, research and direct community service programmes. While many of the conditions required for the successful implementation of quality assurance programmes are not present in most universities in developing countries, their adoption will still be useful. Such programmes show how a university's seemingly disparate activities are related to one another to serve a common cause and how the quality of these can best be improved by adopting an integrated approach. In the process, they provide more focus and direction to the work of the traditional academic committee system. However, the quality assurance programmes must be modified to suit the conditions prevailing in developing countries, by being simple in design, modest in expectations, and realistic in requirements.     

Educational Assessment in Singapore

Educational assessment in the Singapore context is shaped, to a large extent, by the country's educational policies and programmes, as well as the general principles and practices of assessment. This paper presents a profile of the assessment system in Singapore and how it complements the education system to realise the fullest potential of its precious human resources. National examinations and school-based assessments at each milestone in the education system are described so as to highlight the distinctive features of educational assessment in Singapore.     

Impacting the Positioning of Teaching as Life-long Career

This article attempts to provide an overview of relevant recent initiates undertaken in Singapore to attract and retain school teachers. A teaching track in the new career structure seeks to recognise and provide opportunities for teachers who prefer to serve life-long as teachers instead of being promoted to administrative positions. Coupled with this is the draw of financial incentive in the new recognition structure to reward the good ones who have the stamina to stay, and a competitive gross starting salary to entice new entrants into the profession. The author presents the thrust in education of the country as a means to an economic end and surfaces inherent contradictions. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Use of NSE/PS2m-transgenic mice in the study of the protective effect of exercise on Alzheimer's disease

In its late stage, Alzheimer's disease results in progressive muscle weakness in the arms and legs. The aim of this study was to determine whether mice expressing the skeletal muscle-specific mutant PS2 gene (a model of Alzheimer's disease) are a useful experimental system to study the protective effect of exercise on A beta-42 reduction, improvement of behavioural function and changes in metabolic parameters. With this aim in mind, the transgenic mice were subjected to treadmill exercise for 3 months. The results showed that in transgenic mice, but not in normal mice, treadmill exercise resulted in a reduction of A beta-42 deposits and an improvement in behavioural function, thereby restoring normal concentrations of total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride. Thus, exercise may represent a practical therapeutic strategy for use with human patients with Alzheimer's disease.     

集自然历史、世界文化于一身的皇家安大略博物馆

皇家安大略博物馆融合自然历史和世界文化于一身,藏品超过1250万件,大量开展国际范围的研究。2017年参观人数超过130万人次。该馆设有27个永久的世界文化和自然历史展厅、2个儿童动手实践探索展厅和4个用于临时展览的展区。该馆收集了两只鲸鱼的骨架,将其中一只鲸鱼的心脏做塑化处理后在主展厅展出,将在加拿大各地和其他国家和地区进行巡回展出。     

Zone 3 relay blocking scheme to prevent cascaded events

Defense systems are needed to prevent catastrophic failures of a power grid due to cascaded events. Cascaded events can be attributed to improper operations of protective relays. The most challenging problem for the design and implementation of a defense system is the performance in accuracy and speed in a real time environment. Protective devices are normally designed to operate fast in order to isolate the fault(s). This paper proposes a new methodology to distinguish line overloads from actual faults for distance relays. In order to distinguish between line flow transfers from a line outage and an actual fault, the line outage distribution factor (LODF) and generation shift factor (GSF) based power flow estimation method, and a secure peer to peer (P2P) communication structure are adopted. Computer simulations of cascaded events for a 6-bus system and the Korean power grid have been performed to establish the feasibility of the proposed scheme. Supported by Ministry of Science & Technology of Korea and Korea Science & Engineering Foundation Through ERC (Engineering Research Center) Program.     

Teachers' pedagogical beliefs and their planning and conduct of computer-mediated classroom lessons

In this study, we observed and interviewed six teachers from two Singapore primary school classrooms. The schools were reportedly achieving high levels of computer integration as reflected in a nationwide questionnaire survey. Out of the 18 lessons that we observed, 14 lessons have incorporated some elements of constructivist teaching. However, closer examination revealed that the underlying orientation of the lessons was inclined towards information acquisition and regurgitation. Five out of the six teachers we interviewed were reportedly inclined towards constructivist notion of teaching. The teachers accounted for the inconsistency between their espoused beliefs and the teacher-centric teaching practice as due to contextual constraints. The teachers expressed that the need to complete the syllabi according to stipulated schedules so as to get the students ready for examination was the main barriers that prevented them from engaging in more constructivist teaching. This case study therefore highlights that although it is necessary for teachers to hold pedagogical beliefs that are compatible with the constructivist notion of teaching and learning, this is an insufficient condition to shift traditional teaching practice. Changes in assessment systems and substantial professional development are further conditions that have to be addressed.     

Information networks and social media use in public diplomacy: a comparative analysis of South Korea and Japan

This article examines how South Korean and Japanese public diplomacy organizations employ digital media to embrace the principle of ‘networked public diplomacy’ through analyses of the web and social media practices. A network analysis was used to map interorganizational information networks among core public diplomacy organizations in each country. To reveal the key organizations' communication strategies on Facebook, a content analysis was also conducted. The findings indicate that Japan had a strong internal network infrastructure achieved through dispersed connections and partnerships; however, Korea had a centralized network, including a limited number of dominant actors. The results of content analysis suggest that both South Korea and Japanese public diplomats focused on promoting their cultural products and national values through their use of texts and visual images. In addition, user profile analysis gaged the degree of users' engagement in the organizations' profiles and identified the demographic features of users. Comparative data suggest the Korean public diplomacy organization was more successful at attracting and engaging with foreign public than the Japanese public diplomacy organization. These results imply that although these two countries had similar sociopolitical backgrounds and perspectives of public diplomacy, they had distinct forms of internal information networks, communication strategies, and social networking performances with public.     

Who Says What About Whom: Young Voters' Impression Formation of Political Candidates on Social Networking Sites

Social information processing theory claims that computer-mediated communication users form impressions of others by utilizing available information in the web environment. As social networking sites offer a wider variety of cues, however, the environment has become increasingly complex. This study explores which cues influence computer-mediated communication users in a cue-rich environment. More specifically, based on the social identification and deindividuation model, we examined not only how others' opinions but also how the perceived age of the commenters and candidates influenced young people's impressions of political candidates. Participants (N = 520) were randomly placed into a 2 (positive/negative comments) × 2 (younger/older commenters) × 2 (younger/older candidate) design and exposed to a fictitious candidate's Facebook profile with unknown others' comments before reporting the candidate's trustworthiness. Although comments' valence was the strongest cue, the results showed that older commenters' opinions were more influential than young commenters'. This two-way interaction between comments' valence and commenters' age was significant only when the candidate was young, suggesting that social networking sites users utilize multiple cues depending on the situation.