A Model Music Curriculum for Elementary-Level Students in Taiwan

The purpose of this project was to develop a model music curriculum for elementary-level students in Taiwan. With the current music curriculum utilized recently in Taiwan, this project will help the elementary-level students to develop their music potentials. In addition, teachers can educate students according to their level oflearning at different periods of time. To accomplish this purpose, a review ofrelated literature was conducted. Additionally, selected materials were obtained and adapted for use

A study of the role of structural configuration in visual recognition of Chinese characters using primed lexical decision task

The Lexicality Constituency Model (LCM) (Perfetti, Liu and Tan, 2006) postulated the role of structural configuration in Chinese character recognition, however, with no concluding evidence from past research. To investigate the role of configuration, a primed lexical decision task was used. The configuration and the radicals of the primes were manipulated. Behavioral data and electrophysiological data were collected from 34 Cantonese-speaking individuals. The behavioral results indicated an interdependent relationship of radicals and configuration, whereby the effect of radical similarity was only exhibited when the primes had the same configuration as the targets. Interestingly, the electrophysiological results suggested that the effect of radicals and configuration were independent of each other. A modified LCM was thus proposed to account for the present findings.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

Environmental impacts of construction and demolition waste management alternatives

Construction and demolition waste (C&DW) arises mainly as by-products of rapid urbanisation activities. C&DW materials have high potential for recycling and reusing. Despite its potential, landfilling is still the most common disposal method. In Malaysia, C&DW practices are principally guided by economic incentives such as low disposal cost or inexpensive virgin material outweighing recycling cost resulting in low recycling rate. The purpose of this study is to access the environmental impacts caused by landfilling and the alternatives especially in assessing the damages to human health, ecosystems, and to the resources in the future 10 y. It aims to identify the better alternatives in reducing the environmental impacts of landfilling C&DW. Life cycle assessment (LCA) used in this study assessed the environmental impacts associated with all stages, from waste production to end-of-life of waste material. LCA can help to avoid the short-sighted, quick-fix landfilling as the main solution for C&DW by systematically compiling an inventory of energy, fuel, material inputs, and environmental outputs. The environmental impact of landfilling C&DW is estimated to increase 20.2 % if the business as usual (BaU) landfilling continues to the year 2025. Recycling will reduce 46.0 % of total damages and with the shorter travel distance, the environmental damage is further reduced by 82.3 %. Applying industrial building system (IBS) to reduce waste generation at-site reduced 98.1 % impacts as compared to landfilling scenario. The negative impacts derived from landfilling activity is significantly reduced by 99.5 % (scenario 8) through shifting to IBS, recycling, and shorter the travel distance from construction sites to material recycling facilities (MRF). The what-if scenarios illustrated the alternatives future circumstances, the inclusion of the uncertainty concept, and define the future path of C&DW industry outlook. The outcome of this study is informative and useful to policymakers, particularly in defining the way forward of C&DW industry in Malaysia

Applications of Built-up Sections in Lightweight Steel Trusses

Lightweight steel structures have been widely used in the construction industry. It is flexible and thus can be designed to cater for different usages. To enhance the application of cold-formed steel structures, innovative configurations are developed. These include increasing the load bearing capacity of the structure and stretching it over a larger span. Built-up section of lipped channels, either back-to-back or boxed-up for the critical elements of a truss is often adopted when it may have practical limitations in increasing the truss depth. This paper presents some of such applications in the construction industry. The built-up section possesses apparent improvement in lateral stiffness. Although these sections act together, they are currently designed individually. Current design codes do not have comprehensive provision for the design of built-up sections reflecting the improvement in design strength. The modified slenderness ratio for built-up sections in the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members is adopted from researches and recommendations for hot-rolled sections. From literature search, field observation and preliminary test conducted, it reveals that the modification rule can be further developed to better reflect the improvement in the slenderness ratio of the built-up sections

Thermal-tactile integration in object temperature perception

The brain consistently faces a challenge of whether and how to combine the available information sources to estimate the properties of an object explored by hand. While object perception is an inference process involving multisensory inputs, thermal referral (TR) is an illusion demonstrating how interaction between thermal and tactile systems can lead to deviations from physical reality – When observers touch three stimulators simultaneously with the middle three fingers of one hand but only the outer two stimulators are heated (or cooled), thermal uniformity is perceived across three fingers. Here we used TR of warmth to examine the thermal-tactile interaction in object temperature perception. We show that TR is consistent with precision-weighted averaging of thermal sensation across tactile locations. Further, we show that prolonged contact with TR stimulation results in adaptation to the local variations of veridical temperatures instead of the thermal uniformity perceived across three fingers. Our results illuminate the flexibility of processing that underlies thermal-tactile interactions and serve as a basis for thermal display design

Characteristics of a silk fibre reinforced biodegradable plastic

Silk fibre is one kind of well recognized animal fibres for bio-medical engineering and surgical operation applications because of its biocompatible and bio-resorbable properties. Recently, the use of silk fibre as reinforcement for some bio-polymers to enhance the stiffnesses of scaffolds and bone fixators has been a hot research topic. However, their mechanical and biodegradable properties have not yet been fully understood by many researchers, scientists and bio-medical engineers although these properties would govern the usefulness of resultant products. In this paper, a study on the mechanical properties and bio-degradability of silk fibre reinforced Poly (lactic-acid) (PLA) composites is conducted. It has been found that the Young’s modulus and flexural modulus of the composites increased with the use of silk fibre reinforcement while their tensile and flexural strengths decreased. This phenomenon is attributed to the disruption of inter- and intra-molecular bonding on the silk fibre with PLA during the mixing process, and consequent reduction of the silk fibre strength. Moreover, bio-degradability tests showed that the hydrophilic properties of the silk may alter the biodegradation properties of the composites compared to that of a pristine PLA sample