Teacher modeling: Its impact on an extensive reading program

This case study investigates whether teachers model reading in 1 Singapore primary school during an exercise called uninterrupted sustained silent reading (USSR) carried out in the classroom. Even though reading is an important determinant of a student’s growth in language skills and ability, and modeling the act of reading is essential in influencing students, we hypothesize that teachers do not model the act of reading. This study seeks to find out if teachers practice what they preach about reading by making the effort to model the act of reading. This study uses an observation log, questionnaire surveys, and semi-structured interviews. Fifty teachers were observed during USSR daily for 10 weeks and surveyed. Purposeful and systematic samplings were used to identify the teachers for the interviews. The study confirms our hypothesis that even though the teachers believe in the importance of reading and modeling, they do not model reading

The role of entanglement in calibrating optical quantum gyroscopes

We consider the calibration of an optical quantum gyroscope by modeling two Sagnac interferometers, mounted approximately at right angles to each other. Reliable operation requires that we know the angle between the interferometers with high precision, and we show that a procedure akin to multi-position testing in inertial navigation systems can be generalized to the case of quantum interferometry. We find that while entanglement is a key resource within an individual Sagnac interferometer, its presence between the interferometers is a far more complicated story. The optimum level of entanglement depends strongly on the sought parameter values, and small but significant improvements may be gained from choosing states with the optimal amount of entanglement between the interferometers

The (re) construction of beginning teachers : a narrative journey.

In a performativity-driven school system, where academic results determine the annual assessment of its teachers. an undeniable amount of pressure is exacted on beginning teachers, Within each school in such a system, there exists a set of cultural practices that dictate how teaching is done, so as to maximize the academic output of its pupils, It is within such an environment that beginning teachers learn to survive after their initial teacher training. It is thus important to understand how such a school culture impacts and influences the beliefs and practices of beginning teachers. In the midst of the massive recruitment of teachers. the questions that naturally arise are 'Are beginning teachers' identities and their pedagogical approaches socialized by school systems? and 'If so, in what ways?' This narrative study is set within the context of Singapore, where the performativity discourse is dominant. It explores the journey of four beginning teachers from their pre-service training to their second year of teaching. The beginning teachers' narratives reveal how the micropolitics of the schools shape their values, beliefs and practices. It uncovers the process of teacher socialisation in the Singapore school system. Through a narrative approach, their, otherwise suppressed, stories are heard, And with this revelation, teacher education and the teacher education institute's existing relationship with schools must fundamentally change

Computation of Nonlinear Hydrodynamic Loads on Floating Wind Turbines Using Fluid-Impulse Theory

A hydrodynamics computer module was developed to evaluate the linear and nonlinear loads on floating wind turbines using a new fluid-impulse formulation for coupling with the FAST program. The new formulation allows linear and nonlinear loads on floating bodies to be computed in the time domain. It also avoids the computationally intensive evaluation of temporal and spatial gradients of the velocity potential in the Bernoulli equation and the discretization of the nonlinear free surface. The new hydrodynamics module computes linear and nonlinear loads — including hydrostatic, Froude-Krylov, radiation and diffraction, as well as nonlinear effects known to cause ringing, springing, and slow-drift loads — directly in the time domain. The time-domain Green function is used to solve the linear and nonlinear free-surface problems and efficient methods are derived for its computation. The body instantaneous wetted surface is approximated by a panel mesh and the discretization of the free surface is circumvented by using the Green function. The evaluation of the nonlinear loads is based on explicit expressions derived by the fluid-impulse theory, which can be computed efficiently. Computations are presented of the linear and nonlinear loads on the MIT/NREL tension-leg platform. Comparisons were carried out with frequency-domain linear and second-order methods. Emphasis was placed on modeling accuracy of the magnitude of nonlinear low- and high-frequency wave loads in a sea state. Although fluid-impulse theory is applied to floating wind turbines in this paper, the theory is applicable to other offshore platforms as well.United States. Department of Energy (National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Contract DE-AC36-08GO28308)United States. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Wind and Water Power Technologies OfficeMassachusetts Clean Energy Cente

An importance-performance analysis of international visitors to Penang, Malaysia

As one of the leading tourism destinations in Malaysia particularly after Kuala Lumpur and Pahang, Penang faces competition with its neighbouring competitors. To remain competitive, Penang needs to identify its strengths and weaknesses and consequently develop its future marketing strategies to secure high tourists’ satisfaction. Indeed, tourist satisfaction needs to be measured and monitored. In light of this consideration, it is believed that the importanceperformance analysis (IPA) was found to be a practical and useful technique for evaluating attributes that satisfy tourist and at the same time measure the importance of the same attributes to the tourists. This paper presents an application of the IPA technique to a sample of 372 international visitors who visiting Penang Island between September to October 2012. The data, analyzed quantitatively using matrices, showed the mean score of importance, which were plotted against performance onto two-dimensional axis. Results show that Penang performs well in five items namely (1) safety and security; (2) image of destination; (3) variety of attractions; (4) value for money; and (5) accessibility to the destination. On the other hands, findings show that there is room for improvement for accommodation services, and other areas like friendliness of the people and cultural/historical uniqueness appear to get too much attention. Moreover, this study is significant in identifying the prime market segments and evaluating the products and services provided. As a result, it provides an insight for tourism stakeholder such as hotels operators, public transport operators, food operators, policy makers and others towards enhancing future development of tourism in Penang

Deterministic generation of an on-demand Fock state

We theoretically study the deterministic generation of photon Fock states on-demand using a protocol based on a Jaynes Cummings quantum random walk which includes damping. We then show how each of the steps of this protocol can be implemented in a low temperature solid-state quantum system with a Nitrogen-Vacancy centre in a nano-diamond coupled to a nearby high-Q optical cavity. By controlling the coupling duration between the NV and the cavity via the application of a time dependent Stark shift, and by increasing the decay rate of the NV via stimulated emission depletion (STED) a Fock state with high photon number can be generated on-demand. Our setup can be integrated on a chip and can be accurately controlled.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure

Kalman Filter Models for the Prediction of Individualised Thermal Work Strain

It is important to monitor and assess the physiological strain of individuals working in hot environments to avoid heat illness and performance degradation. The body core temperature (Tc) is a reliable indicator of thermal work strain. However, measuring Tc is invasive and often inconvenient and impractical for real-time monitoring of workers in high heat strain environments. Seeking a better solution, the main aim of the present study was to investigate the Kalman filter method to enable the estimation of heat strain from non-invasive measurements (heart rate (HR) and chest skin temperature (ST)) obtained ‘online’ via wearable body sensors. In particular, we developed two Kalman filter models. First, an extended Kalman filter (EFK) was implemented in a cubic state space modelling framework (HR versus Tc) with a stage-wise, autoregressive exogenous model (incorporating HR and ST) as the time update model. Under the second model, the online Kalman filter (OFK) approach builds up the time update equation depending only on the initial value of Tc and the latest value of the exogenous variables. Both models were trained and validated using data from laboratory- and outfield-based heat strain profiling studies in which subjects performed a high intensity military foot march. While both the EKF and OKF models provided satisfactory estimates of Tc, the results showed an overall superior performance of the OKF model (overall root mean square error, RMSE = 0.31°C) compared to the EKF model (RMSE = 0.45°C)

Integrative multi-omics database (iMOMdb) of Asian pregnant women

Asians are underrepresented across many omics databases, thereby limiting the potential of precision medicine in nearly 60% of the global population. As such, there is a pressing need for multi-omics derived quantitative trait loci (QTLs) to fill the knowledge gap of complex traits in populations of Asian ancestry. Here, we provide the first blood-based multi-omics analysis of Asian pregnant women, constituting high-resolution genotyping (N= 1079), DNA methylation (N=915) and transcriptome profiling (N=238). Integrative omics analysis identified 219 154 CpGs associated with cis-DNA methylation QTLs (meQTLs) and 3703 RNAs associated with cis-RNA expression QTLs (eQTLs). Ethnicity was the largest contributor of inter-individual variation across all omics datasets, with 2561 genes identified as hotspots of this variation; 395 of these hotspot genes also contained both ethnicity-specific eQTLs and meQTLs. Gene set enrichment analysis of these ethnicity QTL hotspots showed pathways involved in lipid metabolism, adaptive immune system and carbohydrate metabolism. Pathway validation by profiling the lipidome (similar to 480 lipids) of antenatal plasma (N = 752) and placenta (N = 1042) in the same cohort showed significant lipid differences among Chinese, Malay and Indian women, validating ethnicity-QTL gene effects across different tissue types. To develop deeper insights into the complex traits and benefit future precision medicine research in Asian pregnant women, we developed iMOMdb, an open-access database.Peer reviewe

Biodiversity protection through networks of voluntary sustainability standard organizations?

This paper explores the potential for voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) organizations to contribute to policy-making on biodiversity protection by examining their biodiversity policies, total standard compliant area, proximity to biodiversity hotspots, and the networks and p