What makes a truly prosperous society? Coexistence & cooperation for the future of Asia & Oceania

This short essay was submitted as part of the application for the 2006 JAL Scholarship Program, organised by Japan Airlines International Co. Ltd. In this short essay, the writer shares his ideas on the necessary elements for achieving a truly prosperous society and how he may contribute towards achieving this goal of a truly prosperous societ

A case study of the integration of ICT in teaching and learning in a smart school in Sabah

This research investigates teachers’ views of their use of ICT in teaching and learning (T&LICT). The objective of this research was to study in depth the thoughts, beliefs and opinions of the teachers’ attempt towards pedagogical improvement as part of the Smart School Project. Specifically this research examines and describes the teachers’ implementation of T&LICT in the classroom in terms of the instructional practice, the instructional roles and the instructional environment. A case study research methodology is employed. The case is Sekolah Menengah Bestari (a psuedonym), which is a Smart School in Sabah. Analysis of data from 52 survey questionnaires complemented the qualitative data from the 13 interviews and 3 observations, as well as document analysis. Findings indicated that hardware and software technology infrastructure were available to support the T&LICT implementation. Nevertheless, the teachers felt it was not enough to implement T&LICT effectively. It was estimated that about half of Sekolah Menengah Bestari staff, mainly Bestari and ETeMS teachers, implemented T&LICT. Findings indicated that teacher practices were little changed. IT was used mainly to support the existing teacher-directed and teacher-centered approach. The role of the teacher extended to that of facilitating without releasing control of lesson to the students

Ringing in a new order? Hegemony, hierarchy, and transition in East Asia

This paper examines how to account for the continuing though changing character of US preponderance in the East Asia region; the extent, potential, and meaning of China’s rise; and what non-great powers have to do with it.Executive summaryRegional institutions have been created not only to socialise China, but also to legitimise the United States’ continuing role in East Asia.East Asian regionalism poses a limited challenge to the US-led global order.There remains significant regional demand for the US to define and prioritise public goods and how they are provided, especially in managing conflicts on the Korean peninsula and in the South China Sea.The continuing divorce between China and Japan facilitates US regional leadership.We have witnessed the parallel strategic resurgence of both the US and China in East Asia.East Asian states have been renegotiating the US hegemonic order to incorporate China as a constrained, pro-status quo power.This hierarchical order framework points to urgent strategic choices beyond balancing, bandwagoning and ‘hedging’.Policy recommendations Australia should persuade Washington to recognise China’s legitimate growing interests and to negotiate shared responsibilities for regional order. Australia should help to cultivate regional constituencies to legitimise the US role, and to negotiate acceptable terms for China’s legitimate inclusion. Australia should consult with and learn from the experiences of its East Asian neighbours. Australia should overcome the artificial divide between the economic and security realms in strategy formulation and policy coordination

Bootstrap-based Bandwidth Selection for Semiparametric Generalized Regression Estimators

This paper considers the problem of implementing semiparametric extremum estimators of a generalized regression model with an unknown link function. The class of estimator under consideration includes as special cases the semiparametric least-squares estimator of Ichimura (1993) as well as the semiparametric quasi-likelihood estimator of Klein and Spady (1993). In general, it is assumed to involve the computation of a nonparametric kernel estimate of the link function that appears in place of the true, but unknown, link function in the appropriate location in a smooth criterion function. The specific question considered in this paper concerns the practical selection of the degree of smoothing to be used in computing the nonparametric regression estimate. This paper proposes a method for selecting the smoothing parameter via resampling. The particular method suggested here involves using a resample of smaller size than the original sample. Specific guidance on selecting the resample size is given, and simulation evidence is presented to illustrate the utility of this method for samples of moderate size.Bandwidth selection, semiparametric, single-index model, bootstrap, m-out-of-n bootstrap, kernel smoothing

Nonparametric Inferences on Conditional Quantile Processes

This paper is concerned with tests of restrictions on the sample path of conditional quantile processes. These tests are tantamount to assessments of lack of fit for models of conditional quantile functions or more generally as tests of how certain covariates affect the distribution of an outcome variable of interest. This paper extends tests of the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) type as introduced by Fan, Zhang and Zhang (2001) to nonparametric inference problems regarding conditional quantile processes. As such, the tests proposed here present viable alternatives to existing methods based on the Khmaladze (1981, 1988) martingale transformation. The range of inference problems that may be addressed by the methods proposed here is wide, and includes tests of nonparametric nulls against nonparametric alternatives as well as tests of parametric specifications against nonparametric alternatives. In particular, it is shown that a class of GLR statistics based on nonparametric additive quantile regressions have pivotal asymptotic distributions given by the suprema of squares of Bessel processes, as in Hawkins (1987) and Andrews (1993). The tests proposed here are also shown to be asymptotically rate-optimal for nonparametric hypothesis testing according to the formulations of Ingster (1993) and of Spokoiny (1996).quantile regression, nonparametric inference, minimax rate, additive models, local polynomials, generalized likelihood ratio

Hopf bifurcation from fronts in the Cahn-Hilliard equation

We study Hopf bifurcation from traveling-front solutions in the Cahn-Hilliard equation. The primary front is induced by a moving source term. Models of this form have been used to study a variety of physical phenomena, including pattern formation in chemical deposition and precipitation processes. Technically, we study bifurcation in the presence of essential spectrum. We contribute a simple and direct functional analytic method and determine bifurcation coefficients explicitly. Our approach uses exponential weights to recover Fredholm properties and spectral flow ideas to compute Fredholm indices. Simple mass conservation helps compensate for negative indices. We also construct an explicit, prototypical example, prove the existence of a bifurcating front, and determine the direction of bifurcation