East Asian pop culture and the trajectory of Asian consumption

This article focuses on Chua Beng Huat’s work on the East Asian pop culture that became more prominent in East and Southeast Asia from the 1990s, when the circulation of multilingual and multi-format pop culture started to exceed linguistic, ethnic and national boundaries. It argues that Chua’s work indicates that the pop-cultural production and innovation that support the globalisation and regionalisation processes in East Asia need not be national in origin but can hail from different national origins – and this despite the existing political realities of the region and its history of political fractures. Chua Beng Huat cautions, though, that the national popular can also be marshalled to defeat the border-crossing potential of an inter-Asian pop culture. What is the “Asia” imagined or being represented in such cultural production? Chua’s work is also distinctive in that it deals with the political and economic conditions that underpin mainstream pop consumption as a socio-cultural phenomenon, instead of examining consumption as identity politics. The article concludes by noting the significance that Chua as an institutional builder has played in enabling the study of East Asian pop culture in the region.     

A cross-cultural investigation of teachers’ and reporting officers’ self-ratings on teaching and leadership skills across Singapore and Bahrain

Self-rating bias is particularly likely in organizational behavior research as individuals tend to inflate their expertise, skills and character. This study aims to examine how two culturally diverse groups of teachers and their reporting officers respond to self-ratings of their own teaching skills and leadership skills respectively. It is posited that such response may be culturally based. To ensure validity of comparisons, analyses were done using linear Rasch measures in logits rather than the non-linear raw scores. No significant differences were found between the perceptions of Singaporean teachers and their reporting officers on teaching and leadership skills. The Bahraini data however revealed teachers’ perceptions of own teaching skills were significantly higher than that of their reporting officers. The opposite is true for the Reporting officers’ perceptions of our leadership skills. Bahraini teachers’ perceptions of their own teaching skills were also found to be significantly higher than that of their Singaporean counterparts. The findings support the notion that individuals’ thinking and behavior is influenced by how they process social and cultural information.     

One-heater flow-through polymerase chain reaction device by heat pipes cooling

This study describes a novel microfluidic reactor capable of flow-through polymerase chain reactions (PCR). For one-heater PCR devices in previous studies, comprehensive simulations and experiments for the chip geometry and the heater arrangement were usually needed before the fabrication of the device. In order to improve the flexibility of the one-heater PCR device, two heat pipes with one fan are used to create the requisite temperature regions in our device. With the integration of one heater onto the chip, the high temperature required for the denaturation stage can be generated at the chip center. By arranging the heat pipes on the opposite sides of the chip, the low temperature needed for the annealing stage is easy to regulate. Numerical calculations and thermal measurements have shown that the temperature distribution in the five-temperature-region PCR chip would be suitable for DNA amplification. In order to ensure temperature uniformity at specific reaction regions, the Re of the sample flow is less than 1. When the microchannel width increases and then decreases gradually between the denaturation and annealing regions, the extension region located in the enlarged part of the channel can be observed numerically and experimentally. From the simulations, the residence time at the extension region with the enlarged channel is 4.25 times longer than that without an enlarged channel at a flow rate of 2 μl/min. The treated surfaces of the flow-through microchannel are characterized using the water contact angle, while the effects of the hydrophilicity of the treated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannels on PCR efficiency are determined using gel electrophoresis. By increasing the hydrophilicity of the channel surface after immersing the PDMS substrates into Tween 20 (20%) or BSA (1 mg/ml) solutions, efficient amplifications of DNA segments were proved to occur in our chip device. To our knowledge, our group is the first to introduce heat pipes into the cooling module that has been designed for a PCR device. The unique architecture utilized in this flow-through PCR device is well applied to a low-cost PCR system.     

Examining power,knowledge and power relations in a science research apprenticeship

Cultural Studies of Science Education - The science laboratory is a politically entrenched space where complex power relations interplay while social agents learn about the rules and routines to...     

Examining Chinese vocabulary knowledge in Taiwanese first- and second graders using confirmatory factor analysis

How the construct of vocabulary is defined remains unclear although multiple theories have been put forth. In light of the lack of empirical work investigating the dimensionality of vocabulary knowledge in Chinese, the present study investigated the factor structure of Chinese print vocabulary in a sample of 111 Taiwanese children in Grades 1 and 2. Participants completed six written measures designed to assess breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge in receptive or expressive formats. Three hypothesized models corresponding to (1) a unidimensional model on which all six measures loaded onto, (2) a 2-factor model comprising breadth and depth dimensions, and (3) a 2-factor model consisting of receptive and expressive dimensions, were compared using confirmatory factor analyses. Results indicated that the unidimensional model was preferred over two dimensional models, indicating that it is useful to view Chinese vocabulary as a holistic construct rather than as comprising separable dimensions among young Taiwanese children.

     

A Cross-cultural Exploration of Children's Everyday Ideas: Implications for science teaching and learning

Children's everyday ideas form critical foundations for science learning yet little research has been conducted to understand and legitimize these ideas, particularly from an international perspective. This paper explores children's everyday ideas about the environment across the US, Singapore and China to understand what they reveal about children's relationship to the environment and discuss its implications for science teaching and learning. A social constructivist lens guides research, and a visual methodology is used to frame children's realities. Participants' ages range from elementary to middle school, and a total of 210 children comprized mainly of Asians and Asian Americans were sampled from urban settings. Drawings are used to elicit children's everyday ideas and analyzed inductively using open coding and categorizing of data. Several categories support existing literature about how children view the environment; however, novel categories such as affect also emerged and lend new insight into the role that language, socio-cultural norms and perhaps ethnicity play in shaping children's everyday ideas. The findings imply the need for (a) a change in the role of science teachers from knowledge providers to social developers, (b) a science curriculum that is specific to learners' experiences in different socio-cultural settings, and (c) a shift away from inter-country comparisons using international science test scores.     

Evaluation of Quality of DNA Extracted from Buccal Swabs for Microarray Based Genotyping

Buccal cell usage has been shown by many to be a cost effective and safe method to isolate DNA for various biological experiments especially large epidemiological studies (Garcia-Closas et al. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 10:687–696, 2001). Non-invasive DNA collection methods are preferred over phlebotomy in order to increase study participation and compliance in research centers and for sick patients in hospital settings. There have been conflicting reports about the methodology and results obtained from using buccal DNA. It is not very clear if phlebotomy can be confidently replaced by buccal cell DNA. It is often left for the user to take an intelligent decision. To address this issue, we compared the performance of buccal and blood DNA from same subjects in a genotyping experiment and this paper reports the results. Cotton swab derived buccal cells were scraped from the inner side of cheeks from 16 subjects, and blood was also drawn from the same 16 subjects participating in a genotypic association study of a lipid disease. The DNA quality was assessed by resolving on agarose gels, checking purity (A260/A280) and finally by microarray hybridization. This study showed that DNA degradation affects the total yield and performance of the buccal DNA when compared to the blood DNA in microarray based genotyping. Genotyping results can be seriously compromised if care is not taken to check the quality and yields of such specimens.     

Models of English and Chinese word reading for adolescent Chinese–English bilinguals

These two studies examined the processes underlying English and Chinese word reading in Chinese–English bilinguals in relation to their experiences with their second language (L2), as determined by length of time in an English-speaking environment. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness and vocabulary measures were administered in English and Chinese to adolescents and young adults living in Canada. The results show that similar word reading processes were used to read English and Chinese for the bilinguals who were recent immigrants and had less exposure to English. Specifically, vocabulary knowledge was directly related to English and Chinese word reading in the more recent immigrants. However, phonological awareness was not related to English word reading in this group. Conversely, reading processes in the two languages were less similar for participants who were long-term immigrants. In the long-term immigrant group, English reading was related to phonological awareness. The writing system of the first language (L1) exerted an influence on L2 reading and the degree of influence was related to language experience.     

Teaching and Learning About Inquiry: Insights and Challenges in Professional Development

The purpose of this study was to determine if teachers who participated in a professional development program continued to learn about inquiry and inquiry teaching as they implemented inquiry in their classrooms. A qualitative design utilizing inductive analysis was used to investigate teachers’ understanding and classroom implementation of inquiry. Findings are presented as assertions, drawing support from four focal teachers. For each assertion, confirming and disconfirming data are presented. Based on these data, we assert that a) there was little or no change in teachers’ individual understanding of inquiry, and b) professional development enhanced teachers’ ability to design inquiry-based activities – however, classroom implementation did not reflect a high level of inquiry.