上海市在职教师融合教育自我效能感的调查研究

本研究采用Sharma等人编制的<教师融合教育自我效能感量表>以及<融合教育忧虑量表>对上海市110名特殊教育学校教师以及213名普通学校教师进行了调查,结果发现:两类教师对开展融合教育具有一定水平的自我效能感;特殊教育学校教师的自我效能感要高于普通学校教师;普通学校教师在开展融合教学以及与他人合作方面的自我效能感普遍低于特殊教育学校教师,但在行为管理方面,则与特殊教育学校教师没有差异;两类教师对开展融合教育抱有中等水平的忧虑,且融合教育自我效能感与其忧虑水平存在显著负相关,教师对开展残疾学生教学的自信心水平越高,则对融合教育的忧虑越少.教师融合教育忧虑程度对自我效能感的方差贡献率超过50%以上.     

Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an authentic physics setting

Recent research on principles of best practice for designing effective multimedia instruction has rarely taken into account students’ alternative conceptions, which are known to strongly influence learning. The goal of this study was to determine how well students of quantum mechanics could learn ‘vicariously’ by watching a student-tutor dialogue based on alternative conceptions. Two video treatments were created to summarize key aspects of quantum tunneling, a fundamental quantum mechanical phenomenon. One video depicted a student-tutor dialogue, incorporating many of the common alternative conceptions on the topic, and resolving inconsistencies in reasoning through discussion. The other presented the same correct physics material in an expository style without alternative conceptions. Second year physics students were randomly assigned to one of the two treatments and were tested before and after watching the video during a lecture. Results show a statistically significant (p < .01) advantage for the learners in the dialogue treatment (d = 0.71). Follow-up interviews of students yielded insight into the affective and cognitive benefits of the dialogue video.     

Serum super oxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in urinary disorders

Evaluation of serum SOD and MDA level was done in 21 first episode renal stone formers, 9 recurrent stone formers, 20 patients with obstructive uropathy other than urolithiasis and 12 patients with urinary infection. Twenty-two healthy volunteers were taken as controls. The level of SOD in respective groups was 2.12±0.84, 2.78±0.85, 1.42±0.31, 1.98±0.70 and 2.32±0.62 units/ml and of MDA was 2.61±1.07, 2.69±1.15, 1.65±0.33, 1.33±0.34 and 1.55±0.48 n mol/ml respectively. The results indicate increased peroxidative stressin nephrolithiasis only. Since SOD level was normal in all groups, this increased peroxidative stress in nephrolithiasis should be due to factors other than this one.     

The racialized surveillant assemblage: Islam and the fear of terrorism

ABSTRACT

Increasingly intense, multifaceted, and integrated forms of surveillance are a central feature of Western national security attempts to counter the violence of “Islamic terrorism.” However, there has been a lack of research examining contemporary regimes of surveillance as profoundly racialized. This study examines how counterterrorism efforts are underpinned by ill-conceived accounts of radicalization that preemptively construct Muslim migrants as a threat to national security, thereby justifying practices of mass surveillance that further propagate racist discourses of uncertainty and risk. We advance an analysis of a racialized surveillant assemblage, which is generative of mutable, algorithmically determined profiles of the Muslim-as-terrorist. Such a regime of mass surveillance effectively puts all Muslims under suspicion. We highlight that, paradoxically, mass data-mining operations stifle, rather than aid, the identification of actual terrorist threats. This conditions a paranoid surveillant racism, through which Muslim populations become modulated as an unknowable threat of death and destruction.     

Exploring best practices in public–private partnership (PPP) in e-Government through select Asian case studies

e-Government has emerged as a popular governance reform in recent years, to improve the productivity of the government and quality of services provided by it to various stake-holders. However, e-Government implementation is hampered by certain roadblocks such as lack of financial resources, lack of technical and soft skills, etc. Public–private partnership (PPP) has emerged as a viable model to counter these factors, apart from improving the economic sustainability of e-Government projects. PPP essentially implies sharing of risks and rewards of a venture. Successful implementation of PPP in e-Government requires the adoption of some key best practices, and incorporation of the learning obtained from previous PPP experiences. Four successful “PPP in e-Government” projects, implemented in Asia, are discussed to highlight the best practices and key learning obtained from each project. This is intended to highlight the necessary steps to be taken, especially in an Asian setting, to implement a successful PPP in e-Government.     

Chemistry at the Nanoscale

Traditionally the kinetics of a chemical reaction has been studied as a set of coupled ordinary differential equations. The law of mass action, a tried and tested principle for reactions involving macroscopic quantities of reactants, gives rise to deterministic equations in which the variables are species concentrations. In recent years, though, as smaller and smaller systems – such as an individual biological cell, say – can be studied quantitatively, the importance of molecular discreteness in chemical reactions has increasingly been realized. This is particularly true when the system is far from the ‘thermodynamic limit’ when the numbers of all reacting molecular species involved are several orders of magnitude smaller than Avogadro’s number. In such situations, each reaction has to be treated as a probabilistic ‘event’ that occurs by chance when the appropriate reactants collide. Explicitly accounting for such processes has led to the development of sophisticated statistical methods for simulation of chemical reactions, particularly those occurring at the cellular and sub-cellular level. In this article, we describe this approach, the so-called stochastic simulation algorithm, and discuss applications to study the dynamics of model regulatory networks.     

Serum oestradiol in women with carcinomas of the breast and uterine cervix

Endogenous oestrogens are thought to be involved in breast cancer, but few studies could show the direct relationship between hormones and pathological process of the disease. In the present study, oestradiol was estimated in the serum of pre-and postmenopausal breast cancer patients along with normal healthy controls and patients with carcinoma of the uterine cervix which is not dependent on oestrogens. Premenopausal patients with breast cancer showed higher levels of oestradiol as compared to premenopausal control women as well as cervical cancer patients. Whereas, no statistically significant differences were observed in serum oestradiol levels amongst postmenopausal groups of breast cancer, cervical cancer and normal women. The result of the study reflects the association of oestradiol as well as its difference in the pathological events of pre and postmenopausal breast cancer.     

Serum apolipoproteins in the patients of myocardial infarction in different age groups

The level of serum cholesterol (Ch), serum-high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLc), serum-low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLc), serum very low density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDLc), Triglyceride (Tg), Apolipoprotein A-1, B and ratio of Apolipoprotein A1/B were observed in 151 survivors of myocardial infarction in different age groups. A significant increase was found in the level of triglyceride, LDLc, apolipoprotein-B and a significant decrease in apolipoprotein-A1 and the ratio of apolipoprotein A1/B. No significant alteration was found in serum cholesterol, HDLc except in the age group of 31–40 years and 41–50 years and VLDLc. Thus, serum Apo A-1 and Apo-B may be considerably better markers for coronary artery disease than traditional lipid parameters.     

Effects of roller burnishing process parameters on surface roughness of A356/5%SIC composite using response surface methodology

In this study, a simple roller burnishing tool was made to operate burnishing processes on A356/5%SIC metal matrix composite fabricated by electromagnetic stir casting under different parameters. The effects of burnishing speed, burnishing force and number of burnishing passes on the surface roughness and tribological properties were measured. Scanning electron microscopy （SEM） graphs of the machined surface with PCD （insert-10） tool and roller burnished surface with tungsten carbide （WC） roller were taken into consider- ation to observe the surface finish of metal matrix composites. The mechanical properties （tensile strength, hardness, duc- tility） of A356/5%SIC metal matrix composites were studied for both unburnished samples and burnished samples. The results revealed that the roller burnished samples of A356/ 5%SIC led to the improvement in tensile strength, hardness and ductility. In order to find out the effects of roller bur- nishing process parameters on the surface roughness of A356/ 5%SIC metal matrix composite, response surface methodol- ogy （RSM） （Box-Behnken design） was used and a prediction model was developed relevant to average surface roughness using experimental data. In the range of process parameters, the result shows that roller burnishing speed increases, and surface roughness decreases, but on the other hand roller burnishing force and number of passes increase, and surface roughness increases. Optimum values of burnishing speed （1.5 m/s）, burnishing force （50 N） and number of passes （2） during roller burnishing of A356/5%SIC metal matrix com- posite to minimize the surface roughness （predicted 1.232 μm） have been found out. There was only 5.03% error in the experimental and modeled results of surface roughness.     

Serum lipid profile in diabetics with and without retinopathy

Diabetics showed significantly raised levels of total and LDL cholesterol, (257.0±68.88 mg% 173.5±67.7mg% respectively) compared to controls matched with age, sex and socioeconomic status. No significant difference was observed in these parameters in diabetics with and without retinopathy.