Vocational education and training for Hong Kong into the 21st century: an investigative report

Demands from the 21st century customers will change fundamentally from that of past years. This article attempts to review the traditional strength of Hong Kong economy and its people\u27s ability to meet with these new demands. Vocational Education and Training plays an important role in the provision of human resources. In this article the concept and methodology for Shaping the 21st century worker is proposed. The main issue being investigated is to provide workers with knowledge and ability, not just to cope with skills and knowledge require for their related field of work, but also the ability to control their work organization and to shape and design new methods / processes for new generations of products and services. Occupational-related didactics, alongside with their methodological implications and applications are also investigated. It is proposed that project based learning type of education and training are needed to be developed and implemented for various professional profiles . The requirements of the new age VET trainer to suit the changing needs of service / industry are also discussed

A comparison theorem for permanents and a proof of a conjecture on (t, m)-families

AbstractA comparison theorem for permanents is established and it is used to prove a conjecture on (t, m)-families

Peritoneal Adipocytes and Their Role in Inflammation during Peritoneal Dialysis

Adipose tissue is a major site of chronic inflammation associated with peritoneal dialysis (PD) frequently complicating peritonitis. Adiposity-associated inflammation plays a significant contributory role in the development of chronic inflammation in patients undergoing maintenance PD. However, the molecular and cellular mechanisms of this link remain uncertain. Adipose tissue synthesizes different adipokines and cytokines that orchestrate and regulate inflammation, insulin action, and glucose metabolism locally and systemically. In return, inflammation retards adipocyte differentiation and further exacerbates adipose dysfunction and inflammation. An understanding of the inflammatory roles played by adipose tissue during PD and the healing mechanism of injured mesothelium will help to devise new therapeutic approach to slow the progression of peritoneal damage during peritoneal dialysis. This article reviews the roles of peritoneal adipose tissue in chronic peritoneal inflammation under PD and in serosal repair during PD

A fast preemptive scheduling algorithm with release times and inclusive processing set restrictions

AbstractWe consider the problem of preemptively scheduling n independent jobs on m parallel machines so as to minimize the makespan. Each job Jj has a release time rj and it can only be processed on a subset of machines Mj. The machines are linearly ordered. Each job Jj has a machine index aj such that Mj={Maj,Maj+1,…,Mm}. We first show that there is no 1-competitive online algorithm for this problem. We then give an offline algorithm with a running time of O(nklogP+mnk2+m3k), where k is the number of distinct release times and P is the total processing time of all jobs

Simultaneously characterizing the comparative economics of routine female adolescent nonavalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and assortativity of sexual mixing in Hong Kong Chinese: a modeling analysis.

BACKGROUND: Although routine vaccination of females before sexual debut against human papillomavirus (HPV) has been found to be cost-effective around the world, its cost-benefit has rarely been examined. We evaluate both the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit of routine female adolescent nonavalent HPV vaccination in Hong Kong to guide its policy, and by extension that of mainland China, on HPV vaccination. One major obstacle is the lack of data on assortativity of sexual mixing. Such difficulty could be overcome by inferring sexual mixing parameters from HPV epidemiologic data. METHODS: We use an age-structured transmission model coupled with stochastic individual-based simulations to estimate the health and economic impact of routine nonavalent HPV vaccination for girls at age 12 on cervical cancer burden and consider vaccine uptake at 25%, 50%, and 75% with at least 20 years of vaccine protection. Bayesian inference was employed to parameterize the model using local data on HPV prevalence and cervical cancer incidence. We use the human capital approach in the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and GDP per capita as the indicative willingness-to-pay threshold in the cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). Finally, we estimate the threshold vaccine cost (TVC), which is the maximum cost for fully vaccinating one girl at which routine female adolescent nonavalent HPV vaccination is cost-beneficial or cost-effective. RESULTS: As vaccine uptake increased, TVC decreased (i.e., economically more stringent) in the CBA but increased in the CEA. When vaccine uptake was 75% and the vaccine provided only 20 years of protection, the TVC was US$444 ($373-506) and $689 ($646-734) in the CBA and CEA, respectively, increasing by approximately 2-4% if vaccine protection was assumed lifelong. TVC is likely to be far higher when non-cervical diseases are included. The inferred sexual mixing parameters suggest that sexual mixing in Hong Kong is highly assortative by both age and sexual activity level. CONCLUSIONS: Routine HPV vaccination of 12-year-old females is highly likely to be cost-beneficial and cost-effective in Hong Kong. Inference of sexual mixing parameters from epidemiologic data of prevalent sexually transmitted diseases (i.e., HPV, chlamydia, etc.) is a potentially fruitful but largely untapped methodology for understanding sexual behaviors in the population

Social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong.

The spread of many respiratory infections is determined by contact patterns between infectious and susceptible individuals in the population. There are no published data for quantifying social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong which is a hotspot for emerging infectious diseases due to its high population density and connectivity in the air transportation network. We adopted a commonly used diary-based design to conduct a social contact survey in Hong Kong in 2015/16 using both paper and online questionnaires. Participants using paper questionnaires reported more contacts and longer contact duration than those using online questionnaires. Participants reported 13 person-hours of contact and 8 contacts per day on average, which decreased over age but increased with household size, years of education and income level. Prolonged and frequent contacts, and contacts at home, school and work were more likely to involve physical contacts. Strong age-assortativity was observed in all age groups. We evaluated the characteristics of social contact patterns relevant to the spread of respiratory infectious diseases in Hong Kong. Our findings could help to improve the design of future social contact surveys, parameterize transmission models of respiratory infectious diseases, and inform intervention strategies based on model outputs

Optimizing the Dose of Pre-Pandemic Influenza Vaccines to Reduce the Infection Attack Rate

Steven Riley and colleagues examine the potential benefits of "stretching" a limited supply of vaccine and suggest that substantial reductions in the attack rate are possible if vaccines are given to more people at lower doses

Opportunities & challenges of international service project

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to nurturing students to become responsible global citizens with a strong sense of social responsibility and a good global outlook. Students from PolyU participated in an International Service Learning Programme- Yogyakarta Kampung Field School (YKFS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the summer of 2012. The programme was jointly organized by Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) in Indonesia, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and PolyU. This overseas service learning programme was a new programme for PolyU students and staff that reaching the southern hemisphere and also a new attempt that collaborating with two other universities in service learning project. The theme of the Programme was ‘Improving the Living Quality of the Rural Settlements as a Basic of Developing Tourism village in Banjaroya’. Students were required to live in villages in Indonesia where they learned about the diversity of culture and made friends with other students by serving the rural community. Students coming from three universities mixed together and grouped themselves into teams, and stayed at the homes of the local villagers for nearly one month. While adapting to a very different lifestyle, they learned about the local culture and wisdom, and served the local community with their professional knowledge. As students were coming from different academic disciplines, they formed good teams which members were with different abilities and they were also able to carry out a variety of service projects after surveying on the needs of the local communities. During the programme, students studied different aspects of the rural villages and contributed rich ideas on improving the living quality of the local people. The programme has provided a good opportunity for students to learn how to be global citizens and to enhance their generic competences. It also served as a pilot service learning programme for the planning of a credit-bearing service learning subject. Meanwhile, this programme delivered challenges to students in the aspects of culture shock, unfamiliar serving community, language barrier…etc. It also appeared as a great challenge to the programme staff in the areas of risk and uncertainty management, which required the orientation, adjustment and balancing of different supervision dimensions -teaching, guidance, monitoring and consultant dimensions. This paper will discuss the characteristics of this programme and evaluate the project achievements and the new attempts of teaching that contributing for project outcomes