Education as Service: The Understanding of University Experience Through the Service Logic

With the marketization of UK higher education, this paper develops a framework from services marketing that can assist universities in understanding what market orientation means and how students would value their offerings. Our study shows that the core service in a university experience is a learning experience that is cocreated and that the value is emergent, unstructured, interactive, uncertain, with a hedonic dimension. Our paper modifies the gap model of service quality to show that an ideological gap exists that may also impede the quality of the university experience. We propose that a one-sided expectation by students leads to student consumerism and disengagement. Paradoxically, we show that a true student-orientated marketing puts the university ideology at the center of marketing efforts and that marketing may well be an effective tool to communicate such ideologies.     

Science and computer-based technologies: attitudes of secondary science teachers

As is the case with most developed countries, pressures from various sectors of society have seen computers make a big presence in Australian education systems in the last decade. In the state of Victoria, integrating learning technology (LT) into all key learning areas of every school's curriculum has been a priority policy of governments. Over the last 8–10 years, large amounts of money have been provided to set schools up with computers and associated technologies. In the area of science, a range of LT resources is available for use in the teaching and learning processes in the classroom. However, there has been limited evaluation into teachers' attitudes towards, and types of, methodology and effectiveness of usage of computer-based technologies in knowledge construction. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, a study aimed at identifying science teachers' opinions and practices with the use of computer-based technologies in their teaching has been carried out in Victorian government schools. The focus of this paper is on the attitudes of these science teachers towards the use of computer-based technologies in their teaching. The study showed that most teachers have embraced the introduction of these technologies into the school structure well and are generally positive about their potential in the classroom. However, their use in the classrooms is infrequent and often on an ad hoc basis. A range of obstacles preventing the use of these technologies are identified and discussed in this paper.     

Using E-mail to Foster Collaboration in Distance Education

This paper reports on a case study in which an e-mail system was used as a tool to foster collaboration among a group of students enrolled in an educational management course offered by the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK). It focuses on a set of interview data and, in analysing the interview data, it takes into account the sociocultural perspective on learning in relation to the use of computer-mediated communication in education. The aim of this study is to draw out implications for improved practices in managing online discussion groups in contexts such as the OUHK.     

Editors' column

This article proposes a theoretical frame for technical communication peda- gogy based on six layered literacies: basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical. The layered literacies frame advocates diverse instruction in technical communication programs, ranging from the ancient art of rhetoric to the most contemporary of technologies, from basic reading and writing skills to ethical and critical situational analyses. The article also suggests how the frame can be applied to a program of study or individual course in order to establish teaching objectives; develop course and lesson activities; and assess pedagogical materials, students, and programs.     

The effect of superfluous information on children's solution of story arithmetic problems

Forty 6- to 7-year-old children were tested with single-step, addition/subtraction story problems with and without superfluous numerical information. Half of the children were allowed to find out the solution using objects and half were given pen and paper. Fewer problems with superfluous information than those without such information were solved accurately. Less than half of the problems were attempted with spontaneous modelling with objects and rarely were pen and paper used. In many cases, the use of objects could not facilitate solution of problems with superfluous information thus suggesting that in these cases children's failure to solve the problems could not be explained just by an increase in the cognitive demand for selective attention to, and memory of, the relevant information.     

Effects of an Ancient Chinese Mathematics Enrichment Programme on Secondary School Students’ Achievement in Mathematics

Ancient Chinese mathematics has been the focus of many research studies and scholarly works from a historical perspective. However, no move has been made to investigate its role in the teaching and learning of mathematics. This pilot study examined the effects of an Ancient Chinese Mathematics Enrichment Programme (ACMEP) on the academic achievement of second-year students from a secondary school in Singapore – a strand of a principle study with the intent of investigating the possible roles of ancient Chinese mathematics in the Singapore secondary school mathematics curriculum. Analysis of covariance was used to examine the difference in mean scores on a variety of formal assessments in mathematics between students who participated in the ACMEP and those who did not. In addition, the scores on formal assessments of other relevant subjects were analyzed to further investigate the ACMEP’s scope of influence.     

A comparison of teacher and principal perception of an outstanding biology teacher

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the level of agreement or disagreement between principals and teachers when using established criteria to measure the effectiveness of a biology teacher. To obtain information regarding their perceptions of an outstanding biology teacher, twenty-two principals and forty-one biology teachers were chosen randomly from English-speaking high schools within a 50 km radius of metropolitan Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The measuring instrument was a modified version of Dieter's questionnaire that evolved from his doctoral study of the National Association of Biology Teachers-Outstanding Biology Teacher Award Program. The data collected from the two populations were tested using one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) or by applying normal approximation. Results indicated that both the principals and teachers agree on the relative importance of most criteria, particularly those related to the teacher's classroom behavior and academic background in biology. From such results, it was possible to construct one stereotype of the outstanding biology teacher. A number of recommendations were made from the results of the study, which were directed to the (a) teachers and their professional organization, (b) principals and the school boards, (c) teacher training institutions, and (d) researchers in teacher evaluation.     

Towards precision medicine: from quantitative imaging to radiomics

Radiology (imaging) and imaging-guided interventions, which provide multi-parametric morphologic and functional information, are playing an increasingly significant role in precision medicine. Radiologists are trained to understand the imaging phenotypes, transcribe those observations (phenotypes) to correlate with underlying diseases and to characterize the images. However, in order to understand and characterize the molecular phenotype (to obtain genomic information) of solid heterogeneous tumours, the advanced sequencing of those tissues using biopsy is required. Thus, radiologists image the tissues from various views and angles in order to have the complete image phenotypes, thereby acquiring a huge amount of data. Deriving meaningful details from all these radiological data becomes challenging and raises the big data issues. Therefore, interest in the application of radiomics has been growing in recent years as it has the potential to provide significant interpretive and predictive information for decision support. Radiomics is a combination of conventional computer-aided diagnosis, deep learning methods, and human skills, and thus can be used for quantitative characterization of tumour phenotypes. This paper discusses the overview of radiomics workflow, the results of various radiomics-based studies conducted using various radiological images such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron-emission tomography (PET), the challenges we are facing, and the potential contribution of radiomics towards precision medicine.     

制药企业跨洋合作的前景

全球研发正呈现向亚洲转移的趋势，驱动这一现象的主要原因是研发费用的最优化和创新成果的最大化。身处亚洲的中国和印度在研发模式上具有多样性，制药企业同生物科技公司可分早、中、晚三个阶段进行合作。早期开发合作即利用化学、ADME—TOX筛选技术、药物活性研究和生化信息学缩短药物的研发周期；中期药物开发合作，将先导化合物设计能力同GMP条件进行优势结合，共同开发新剂量和非专利药物的市场：晚期开发合作，如新药的临床Ⅱ、Ⅲ或Ⅳ期转让，通过商业化权利进行风险共享。