Preservice Teachers\u27 Epistemological Beliefs and Conceptions about Teaching and Learning : Cultural Implications for Research in Teacher Education.

Four epistemological belief and two teaching/learning conception dimensions were identified from a questionnaire study of a sample of Hong Kong preservice teacher education students. The epistemological belief dimensions were labelled Innate/Fixed Ability, Learning Effort/Process, Authority/Expert Knowledge and Certainty Knowledge. The somewhat different results on epistemological beliefs from Schommer’s findings with North American college students suggested the possible influence of cultural contexts. The teaching/learning conceptions were labeled Traditional and Constructivist Conceptions. MANOVA indicated no significant statistical differences across age, gender and elective groups in their epistemological beliefs and conceptions. Canonical Correlation Analysis showed significant relations between epistemological beliefs and conceptions about teaching and learning. Implications were drawn for future research in teacher education with respect to the relations of epistemological beliefs and teaching/learning conceptions in different cultures

Josephson and quasiparticle tunneling studies of LiTi2O4

Josephson and quasiparticle tunneling measurements have been performed on superconducting LiTi(,2)O(,4). High quality, dense samples were made by arc melting LiTi(,2)O(,4) pellets produced by sintering con- stituent powders of Li(,2)CO(,3), Ti(,2)O(,3) and TiO(,2). The conductive spinel phase was recovered by annealing the ingot for about two months. The sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction and a.c. suscepti- bility, and it was shown to be in the correct crystal structure with only a slight amount of impurity and have a proper superconducting criti- cal temperature of 11.3 K. The measured density was about 99.3% of the single crystal value, hence the sample was dense and suitable for the tunneling experiment;Josephson point contact tunneling between LiTi(,2)O(,4) and Nb reveals, under K-band microwave radiation of frequency (nu) = 25.2 GHz, Shapiro steps of spacing approximately h(nu)/2e. Assuming the validity of the analysis of Pals and van Haeringen, we were led to the conclusion that the pairing in superconducting LiTi(,2)O(,4) was of the s-wave type, as in Nb;The squeezable junction method of Moreland and Hansma has been applied to study the superconducting energy gap of an arc melted bulk LiTi(,2)O(,4) sample and also of co-sputtered MoRe films. The MoRe film was estimated to have an energy gap of 1.05 mV, corre- sponding to a Re concentration of 17%. The energy gap of LiTi(,2)O(,4) is determined to be 1.95 (+OR-) 0.03 mV corresponding to 2(DELTA)/k(,B)T(,c) = 4.00 (+OR-) 0.06, making this material a conventional, electron-phonon strong coupled superconductor. The new results for LiTi(,2)O(,4) rule out the recent suggestion of Alexandrov and Ranninger that this material;might exhibit a bipolaronic form superconductivity, for such a form would be gapless, contrary to our results; *DOE Report IS-T-1245. This work was performed under contract No. W-7405-Eng-82 with the U.S. Department of Energy

Fabrication Of Indium Phosphide Misfet

The presence of excessive energy states in the bandgap of III-V semiconductor surfaces is commonly found and has considerably hindered the development of III-V semiconductor technology. Although InP metal-insulator-semiconductor field effect transistors (MISFETs) are attractive switching and driving elements for the InP-based optoelectronic devices which have been widely used for communication applications, interface states of the dielectric/InP structure are known to cause surface Fermi level pinning and drain current drifting, a fact which causes the MISFETs to be unacceptable for any practical usage. In this study, we used a wide range of surface and interface analytical techniques to investigate a gas phase polysulphide passivation method to reduce the surface states on InP, and a remote plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (RPCVD) technique for SiN{dollar}\sb{lcub}\rm x{rcub}{dollar} deposition. Polysulfide treated Al/SiN{dollar}\sb{lcub}\rm x{rcub}{dollar}/InP metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) diodes with an anneal of 500{dollar}\sp\circ{dollar}C for 15 minutes gave an average intensity state density of 5 {dollar}\times{dollar} 10{dollar}\sp{lcub}11{rcub}{dollar}cm{dollar}\sp{lcub}-2{rcub}{dollar}eV{dollar}\sp{lcub}-1{rcub}{dollar} by the high-low frequency method and 5 {dollar}\times{dollar} 10{dollar}\sp{lcub}10{rcub}{dollar}cm{dollar}\sp{lcub}-2{rcub}{dollar}eV{dollar}\sp{lcub}-1{rcub}{dollar} by Terman analysis. We also found that the sulphur at the interface did not show diffusion into either SiN{dollar}\sb{lcub}\rm x{rcub}{dollar} or InP with such a MIS fabrication process.;A procedure for fabricating InP MISFETs that made use of the polysulphide treated SiN{dollar}\sb{lcub}\rm x{rcub}{dollar}/InP interface was developed. Operational n-channel and p-channel enhancement InP MISFETs with a drain current drift of less than 12% in 24 hours were obtained. In addition, n-channel depletion mode InP MISFETs with a high drain current were fabricated

Deep Learning-Enabled Breast Cancer Endocrine Response Determination From H&E Staining Based on ESR1 Signaling Activity

Estrogen receptor (ER) positivity by immunohistochemistry has long been a main selection criterium for breast cancer patients to be treated with endocrine therapy. However, ER positivity might not directly correlate with activated ER signaling activity, which is a better predictor for endocrine therapy responsiveness. In this study, we investigated if a deep learning method using whole-slide H&E-stained images could predict ER signaling activity. First, ER signaling activity score was determined using RNAseq data available from each of the 1082 breast cancer samples in the TCGA Pan-Cancer dataset based on the Hallmark Estrogen Response Early gene set from the Molecular Signature Database (MSigDB). Then the processed H&E-stained images and ER signaling activity scores from a training cohort were fed into ResNet101 with three additional fully connected layers to generate a predicted ER activity score. The trained models were subsequently applied to an independent testing cohort. The result demonstrated that ER + /HER2- breast cancer patients with a higher predicted ER activity score had longer progression-free survival (p = 0.0368) than those with lower predicted ER activity score. In conclusion, a convolutional deep neural network can predict prognosis and endocrine therapy response in breast cancer patients based on whole-slide H&E-stained images. The trained models were found to robustly predict the prognosis of ER + /HER2- patients. This information is valuable for patient management, as it does not require RNA-seq or microarray data analyses. Thus, these models can reduce the cost of the diagnosis workflow if such information is required

Course Design based on Enhanced Intercultural Transformation Theory (EITT): Transforming Information Systems (IS) Students into Inventors during Academic Exchange

In this paper, we propose the enhanced intercultural transformation theory (EITT) with additional factors (i.e., support and motivation) as an extension to the existing intercultural transformation theory (ITT). Based on the EITT, we propose a three-phased (i.e., learner, explorer and inventor) framework of an exchange experience assessment (EEA) course with all five EITT factors (i.e., stress, adaptation, growth, support and motivation) interfaced with three stakeholders (i.e., student, patent advisor and instructor). Also, we report the design of the EEA course and its implementation in a university. The collected data confirmed our proposed EITT and EEA course framework that helped to transform information systems (IS) students into inventors. We found that students could develop patentable inventions through the stress-adaptation-growth process during their academic exchanges, but they still needed the patent advisors’ and instructor’s support and motivation. Our findings can enable any interested faculty in any university to attempt offering a similar course for the benefit of budding undergraduate inventors during academic exchange