The impact of teachers' pedagogical knowledge of triplet relationship on their decision to teaching triplet in chemistry

Strand 3: Science teaching processesThe Conference proceedings' website is located at http://www.esera.org/publications/esera-conference-proceedings/science-education-research-for-evidence-/Since early nineties, Johnstone (1991) introduced the idea of three levels of representation in chemistry, the first is ‘descriptive and functional’, the second is ‘explanatory’, and the third is ‘representational’. These three levels of chemistry representation were named as ‘triplet relationship’ (Gilbert & Treagust, 2009). Despite considerable research evidence about the positive impact of explicit teaching of triplet relationship on students’ conceptual understanding in chemistry, it is not commonly seen in Hong Kong chemistry classrooms. The lack of enthusiasm among chemistry teachers in implementing this approach in teaching chemistry suggests that there are issues and concerns to be resolved before teachers see considerable advantages of this approach over their current practices. This study follows Boz and Boz’s (2008) arguments to explore: What and how much of pedagogical knowledge related to the triplet relationship do chemistry teachers possess, and does such pedagogical knowledge affect their decision to teach the triplet relationship in their lessons, and how? Three chemistry teachers were recruited for this multiple-case qualitative study. The data collected from each teacher includes field notes taken during the class observation, video record of all lessons observed, artefacts of lesson materials, and hours long in-depth interviews were conducted with each teacher. Simon’s pedagogical knowledge of triplet relationship is comparatively weaker than others, he thinks linking up any two levels is adequate. Pamela has good pedagogical knowledge of triplet relationship, she uses macroscopic as the core of teaching, followed by (sub)microscopic level explanation and symbolic level representation. Johnson has very good pedagogical knowledge of triplet relationship, he thinks choosing the appropriate context is the most important idea of teaching triplet, such as teaching with demonstration as the core for the topic of acid, focusing on particle theory for the topic of periodicity, and using graphs as the major pedagogies to teach equilibrium.postprin

Developing Student Teachers Conception of Good Science Teaching Prior to Formal Teacher Education

A CD-ROM comprising videos of exemplary science teaching was used to elicit student teachers conception of good science teaching at several stages a teacher education programme. It is found that the videos have served as an effective probe to elicit participants conceptions and had significant impact on those conceptions even prior to the commencement of formal instruction. The videos have reinforced, shaped and developed particpants conceptions of good science teaching through the provision of teacher models demonstrating exemplary teaching, extending awareness of alternative teaching approaches, providing proof of existence of good practices, etc. In several ways, the videos have also acted as a catalyst in socializing the transition of participants from the role of student to the role of teacher.published_or_final_versio

On the the grammaticalization of stative verbs into continuative markers : the case of Malay asyik ‘desire’ and Cantonese gwaazyu ‘keep thinking about'

The conference was hosted by the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, the ASEAN Studies Center, the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University, and the National Institute of Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL), Japan.2012-2013 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperOther Versio

Use of clinical chromosomal microarray in Chinese patients with autism spectrum disorder—implications of a copy number variation involving DPP10

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Combinatorial CRISPR-Cas9 screens for de novo mapping of genetic interactions.

We developed a systematic approach to map human genetic networks by combinatorial CRISPR-Cas9 perturbations coupled to robust analysis of growth kinetics. We targeted all pairs of 73 cancer genes with dual guide RNAs in three cell lines, comprising 141,912 tests of interaction. Numerous therapeutically relevant interactions were identified, and these patterns replicated with combinatorial drugs at 75% precision. From these results, we anticipate that cellular context will be critical to synthetic-lethal therapies

Copy number variation in Hong Kong patients with autism spectrum disorder

Oral Free Paper Session: Oral Presentation 6 [best oral presentation]BACKGROUND AND AIMS: When offering chromosomal microarray for patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as according to international standards, copy number variations of uncertain significance (CNV VUS) are frequently identified, which leads to challenges in genetic counselling. We aim to study the CNV findings in children with ASD in Hong Kong, and to gather information for reclassification of recurrent CNV VUS. METHODS: ASD patients from the Department of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine QMH/HKU were recruited if their Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (aCGH) were done anytime from January 2011 to August 2014 in Prenatal Diagnostic Laboratory, Tsan Yuk Hospital. Diagnosis of ASD was made by developmental paediatricians and clinical psychologists using the criteria from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth or Fifth Edition. NimbleGen CGX-135k oligonucleotide array and Agilent CGX 60k oligonucleotide array were used. Information was summarised from the literature and existing databases to re-classify CNV VUS occurring in our ASD cohort. RESULTS: Among 288 patients with ASD in our cohort, we identified 5 patients with pathogenic CNV (1.74%) and 5 patients with likely pathogenic CNV (1.74%). Among all the CNV VUS, one variant overlapping DPP10 (hg[19] chr2:116,534,689-116,672,358) was recurrently found in Chinese individuals. The frequency of this variant in our ASD cohort was 0.35% (1 in 288), and 0.96% (9 in 935) in our controls. (P=0.467, two-tailed Fisher’s exact test). Similar CNVs were suggested to be ASD-related in previous studies recruiting mainly Caucasians. However, there were Chinese individuals with typical development possessing similar CNVs identified in independent sources (9 from our internal database, 1 from Singapore Genome Variation Project, 24 from The Singapore Prospective Study Program). CONCLUSIONS: Our study explored the CNV findings in Hong Kong paediatric ASD patients. The CNV overlapping DPP10 may be a Chinese-related copy-number variation in Hong Kong Chinese, and we reclassified it to be likely benign in our locality. Our result emphasized the need to account for ethnicity to give the most precise interpretation of aCGH data.published_or_final_versio

A TNF-JNK-Axl-ERK signaling axis mediates primary resistance to EGFR inhibition in glioblastoma.

Aberrant epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling is widespread in cancer, making the EGFR an important target for therapy. EGFR gene amplification and mutation are common in glioblastoma (GBM), but EGFR inhibition has not been effective in treating this tumor. Here we propose that primary resistance to EGFR inhibition in glioma cells results from a rapid compensatory response to EGFR inhibition that mediates cell survival. We show that in glioma cells expressing either EGFR wild type or the mutant EGFRvIII, EGFR inhibition triggers a rapid adaptive response driven by increased tumor necrosis factor (TNF) secretion, which leads to activation in turn of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase and extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK). Inhibition of this adaptive axis at multiple nodes rendered glioma cells with primary resistance sensitive to EGFR inhibition. Our findings provide a possible explanation for the failures of anti-EGFR therapy in GBM and suggest a new approach to the treatment of EGFR-expressing GBM using a combination of EGFR and TNF inhibition

Properties and expression of Na+/K+-ATPase α-subunit isoforms in the brain of the swamp eel, Monopterus albus, which has unusually high brain ammonia tolerance

10.1371/journal.pone.0084298PLoS ONE812-POLN

Heart Rate Variability Dynamics for the Prognosis of Cardiovascular Risk

Statistical, spectral, multi-resolution and non-linear methods were applied to heart rate variability (HRV) series linked with classification schemes for the prognosis of cardiovascular risk. A total of 90 HRV records were analyzed: 45 from healthy subjects and 45 from cardiovascular risk patients. A total of 52 features from all the analysis methods were evaluated using standard two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (KS-test). The results of the statistical procedure provided input to multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural networks, radial basis function (RBF) neural networks and support vector machines (SVM) for data classification. These schemes showed high performances with both training and test sets and many combinations of features (with a maximum accuracy of 96.67%). Additionally, there was a strong consideration for breathing frequency as a relevant feature in the HRV analysis