Factors contributing to successful public private partnership projects - Comparing Hong Kong with Australia and the United Kingdom

Purpose: With the increasing interest in Public Private Partnership (PPP) there is a need to investigate the factors contributing to successful delivery of PPP projects. Design/methodology/approach: An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong and Australia. The survey respondents were asked to rate eighteen factors which contribute to delivering successful PPP projects. Findings: The findings from this survey were further compared with the results achieved by a previous researcher (Li, 2003) in a similar survey conducted in the United Kingdom. The comparison showed that amongst the top five success factors ranked by Hong Kong respondents, three were also ranked highly by the Australians and British. These success factors included: ‘Commitment and responsibility of public and private sectors’; ‘Strong and good private consortium’; and ‘Appropriate risk allocation and risk sharing’. Originality/value: These success factors were therefore found to be important for contributing to successful PPP projects irrespective of geographical locations

Embodied carbon and construction cost differences between Hong Kong and Melbourne buildings

Limiting the amount of embodied carbon in buildings can help minimize the damaging impacts of global warming through lower upstream emission of CO2. This study empirically investigates the embodied carbon footprint of new-build and refurbished buildings in both Hong Kong and Melbourne to determine the embodied carbon profile and its relationship to both embodied energy and construction cost. The Hong Kong findings suggest that mean embodied carbon for refurbished buildings is 33-39% lower than new-build projects, and the cost for refurbished buildings is 22-50% lower than new-build projects (per square metre of floor area). The Melbourne findings, however, suggest that mean embodied carbon for refurbished buildings is 4% lower than new-build projects, and the cost for refurbished buildings is 24% higher than new-build projects (per square metre of floor area). Embodied carbon ranges from 645-1,059 kgCO2e/m2 for new-build and 294-655 kgCO2e/m2 for refurbished projects in Hong Kong, and 1,138-1,705 kgCO2e/m2 for new-build and 900-1,681 kgCO2e/m2 for refurbished projects in Melbourne. The reasons behind these locational discrepancies are explored and critiqued. Overall, a very strong linear relationship between embodied energy and construction cost in both cities was found and can be used to predict the former, given the latter

Narrative Inquiry: A Dynamic Relationship between Culture, Language and Education

Human development is a cultural process, and language serves as a cultural tool is closely related to virtually all the cognitive changes. The author addresses issues of language in education, and suggests that changing the medium of instruction should not be understood as purely a pedagogical decision. The connection between culture and language is examined for understanding why Hong Kong Chinese learners are stereotyped as passive learners. Through exploring personal experience with a student teacher, the author exemplifies how narrative inquiry is found to be a pragmatic approach to support teachers to become reflective thinkers. This study argues that narrative methods can serve as pedagogical strategies in teacher education since narrative can help both teachers and learners reflect on, question, and learn from their storied experiences

The Transforming Power of Narrative in Teacher Education

The focus of this study is to examine pre-service teachers’ experiences of learning through narrative inquiry that gives insight into how teachers’ development and knowledge construction can be improved. The article begins by inquiring into the learning culture in the Hong Kong context and explaining how the examination system affects knowledge construction. Then it discusses the use of narrative curricula to promote students\u27 thinking and self-reflection. A case, explored through a teacher educator\u27s interpretations of experience, is presented to demonstrate how narrative inquiry is able to change the learning habits of pre-service teachers and what it can do to transform them into active learners. This article argues that narrative inquiry method with its constructivist stance, offering opportunities for students to make sense from their past experiences can facilitate change and learning

Blended Learning Dilemma: Teacher Education in the Confucian Heritage Culture

With the rapid development of Internet technologies, higher education institutions have adopted blended learning to engage students in active learning and enhance their learning outcomes. This study investigated 261 preservice student teachers participating in a teacher education programme that was based on a blended learning design. Questionnaires and focus group interviews were administered to obtain data. The purpose of this study was to understand student’ perceptions of blended learning and examine how the interaction between traditional and constructivist conceptions influences learning. The result indicated that the participants favoured face-to-face lectures over e-learning, and they exhibited strong preferences for traditional modes of learning. The author suggests that there is still some way to go before students fully engage with online learning but, as they are rooted in the Confucian heritage culture, this can also be used to encourage students to engage with this mode of learning as the process of transformation

Examining mathematical sophistications in collaborative problem solving

This paper reports on efforts to characterise levels of mathematical sophistication for students in collaborative mathematics problem solving. Using a laboratory classroom in Australia, data were captured with multiple cameras and audio inputs. Students worked individually, in pairs, and in small groups (4 to 6 students). We focused on investigating collaborative work, with the goal of studying the mathematical sophistications of students’ reasoning when solving problems. Drawing from two analytical frameworks to document the mathematical sophistication in students’ exchange, levels of cognitive demands and mathematical practices, this research highlights different aspects of students’ reasoning in solving these tasks

Gelebte Religiosität in der Moderne: Religionswissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf eine neocharismatische Megakirche im gegenwärtigen Singapur

Die Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Topos Religionen in der Moderne jenseits von klassischer Säkularisierungstheorie und der unspezifischen Rede von einer „Wiederkehr der Religionen“. Als Fallbeispiel dient die gelebte Religiosität in der neocharismatischen Megakirche City Harvest Church im gegenwärtigen Singapur. Anliegen der Arbeit ist es, die bereits vorliegende Forschungsliteratur durch eine spezifisch religionswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf die gelebte Dimension einer gegenwärtigen Megakirche zu bereichern und dabei dem wechselseitigen Verhältnis von gelebter Religiosität und globaler Moderne nachzugehen: Wie gestaltet sich die gelebte Religiosität in einer Kirche wie der City Harvest Church und dazu noch in Singapur als einer Stadt, die gleichsam von Anfang an modern war? In welcher Beziehung steht diese gelebte Religiosität zum Kontext einer globalen Moderne bzw. global zirkulierenden Diskursen und Praktiken (die gleichsam die portable „Grammatik“ dieser Moderne bilden) einerseits und dem spezifischen, lokalen Kontext des modernen Singapur andererseits? Die Beantwortung dieser Fragen erfolgt in der vorliegenden Arbeit von einem kulturwissenschaftlich-kritischen Standpunkt aus. Im Anschluss an die Kultursoziologin Eva Illouz geht es der Arbeit darum zu verstehen, wie religiöse Diskurse, Praktiken, Vergemeinschaftungs- und Subjektformen in globalen und lokalen Verflechtungsprozessen zu dem wurden, was sie sind, und wie sie als das, was sie sind für die Menschen „etwas leisten“. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung machen einmal mehr deutlich, dass die globale Moderne keineswegs mit einem Bedeutungsverlust religiöser Diskurse, Praktiken und Vergemeinschaftungsformen oder mit ihrem Rückzug in die Privatsphäre einhergehen muss. Stattdessen schärfen sie unseren Blick für die bleibende Bedeutung und die sich wandelnden Erscheinungsformen von Religionen unter dem Eindruck einer globalen Moderne

Can noncomplementarity of agency lead to successful problem solving? A case study on students’ interpersonal behaviors in mathematical problem-solving collaboration

In student collaboration, purposeful peer interaction crucial for success on the task. Such collaboration requires adequate and purposeful student agency. Theoretically, the between-individual complementarity of agency be-haviors enhances purposeful interaction. However, the level of agency of group members can disrupt the collaborative interactions. We conducted a case study of collaborative mathematical problem solving, where one student's behaviors of noncomplementary agency characterized the group interaction. We examined the video recording of the group by continuous quantitative coding of students' agency behaviors and segmented the interaction process into four phases. We analyzed qualitatively these phases based on the verbal transcript. We found that the target student's agency grew in relation to the other students despite her lack of mathematical competence. The findings provide us with a new perspective to understand the role of the situational individual agency in collaborative learning that underlines the tolerance of noncomplementarity of agency in student collaboration.Peer reviewe

Convex Hull of Points Lying on Lines in o(n log n) Time after Preprocessing

Motivated by the desire to cope with data imprecision, we study methods for taking advantage of preliminary information about point sets in order to speed up the computation of certain structures associated with them. In particular, we study the following problem: given a set L of n lines in the plane, we wish to preprocess L such that later, upon receiving a set P of n points, each of which lies on a distinct line of L, we can construct the convex hull of P efficiently. We show that in quadratic time and space it is possible to construct a data structure on L that enables us to compute the convex hull of any such point set P in O(n alpha(n) log* n) expected time. If we further assume that the points are "oblivious" with respect to the data structure, the running time improves to O(n alpha(n)). The analysis applies almost verbatim when L is a set of line-segments, and yields similar asymptotic bounds. We present several extensions, including a trade-off between space and query time and an output-sensitive algorithm. We also study the "dual problem" where we show how to efficiently compute the (<= k)-level of n lines in the plane, each of which lies on a distinct point (given in advance). We complement our results by Omega(n log n) lower bounds under the algebraic computation tree model for several related problems, including sorting a set of points (according to, say, their x-order), each of which lies on a given line known in advance. Therefore, the convex hull problem under our setting is easier than sorting, contrary to the "standard" convex hull and sorting problems, in which the two problems require Theta(n log n) steps in the worst case (under the algebraic computation tree model).Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 1 appendix; a preliminary version appeared at SoCG 201