New Interpretation of Extracurricular Activities via Social Networking Sites: A Case Study of Artificial Intelligence Learning at a Secondary School in Hong Kong

During the COVID-19 pandemic, attending after-school activities now becomes a luxury to students, which used to establish interests, friendships and social networks in an informal setting. Students lost contact with peers and teachers and were forced to attend blended courses at home, which may constitute threats to their non-academic issues, especially social needs and mental health of the most vulnerable students. This article overviews a new interpretation of extracurricular activities (ECAs) to teach artificial intelligence (AI) via a social networking site (SNS) among junior secondary school students in Hong Kong. A three-stage action research with the use of semi-structured interviews, motivational surveys and lesson observation was conducted. Based on how students perceived such pedagogical changes, the teachers employed various strategies to transform the “after-school” activities online. The investigation presented the planning processes on how to transform the informal learning activities to an online mode via SNSs that can reach the roles of ECAs in schooling. Our study indicated that meaningful activities rely on teachers’ leading role to build a collaborative social media environment in order to facilitate social engagement among students

Motivating Students to Learn AI Through Social Networking Sites: A Case Study in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, after-school activities have long been used to foster friendships and to allow students to pursue their interests in an informal setting. This case study reports on a three-phase action research process in which information technology teachers delivered after-school activities focused on artificial intelligence during the COVID-19 transition to remote learning. Using semi-structured interviews, a motivational questionnaire, and lesson observations, this study describes how extracurricular activities were delivered online using social networking sites and how students perceived the new experience. Our results suggest that, in order to deploy meaningful activities via social media, teachers need to build collaborative environments that facilitate social engagement among students. These findings have implications for new practices in social media and other blended technologies, and can help students strike a healthy balance between their academic and non-academic life during this challenging period

Clean Hydrocarbon Refrigerant Explosion Hazards

Explosion hazards are fire safety concerns resulting from the development of clean hydrocarbon refrigerants (environmental friendly flammable refrigerants) to reduce the emission of substances with high global warning potential. Several clean hydrocarbon refrigerants are flammable with propane. Explosion hazards due to flammable refrigerant leakage from refrigerators put inside a small cupboard may give a concentration higher than its lowest flammability. A small amount of ignition energy can ignite the flammable gas to give combustion. Limiting the pressure development in a small cupboard will result in deflagration, and then transition to detonation. Since the compositions of many of environmental friendly flammable refrigerants are not disclosed and odourless, it is very difficult to assess their hazard upon leakage. This study reveals that the hidden hazard of environmental friendly flammable refrigerants would lead to serious consequences using earlier experimental studies on explosion. This is a big problem taking time to solve. Indoor aerodynamics would affect the mixing between leaked refrigerant with air in the room. Appropriate ventilation should be provided to avoid keeping the heavier explosive gas at lower levels. Different ventilation modes with air inlets and outlets at high and low positions should be considered. Use of environmental friendly flammable refrigerants and the ways in protecting against possible explosion hazards for refrigerators commonly put in kitchen cupboards in small rooms, inter alia, economy-class hotel rooms, small apartments, or subdivided units in densely populated cities, such as Hong Kong have to be watched. At the moment, fire safety management must be enhanced to address the problem

The effect of support surface and footwear condition on postural sway and lower limb muscle action of the older women

Background: Diminished somatosensory function is a critical age-related change which is related to postural instability in the older population. Footwear is a cost-effective way to modulate the postural stability by altering sensorimotor inputs via mechanoreceptors on the plantar surface of the feet. Compared to insoles with indentions in the entire surface, we innovatively developed a textured insole with site-specific nodulous protrudous. This study thus aimed to investigate the immediate effect of the nodulous insole and supporting surface condition on static postural stability and lower limb muscle activation for healthy older women. Methods: This is a single-session study with repeated measurements. Twenty-three healthy older women stood on the firm (i.e., concrete floor) and foam surfaces with their eyes open in the three footwear conditions, namely barefoot, plain shoes and shoes with an innovative textured insole, for 30 seconds. Static postural sway and muscle activation of biceps femoris (BF), vastus lateralis (VL), tibialis anterior (TA), and lateral gastrocnemius (LG) of the dominant leg were measured during each testing condition. Results: Compared to a firm surface, standing on the foam could significantly increase the body sway and lower limb muscle activation (p<0.05). When standing on the foam, compared to barefoot, wearing footwear significantly decreased the VL and TA muscle activation and minimize the postural sway in medial-lateral and anterior-posterior direction, while the influence is larger for the shoes with nodulous insloe compared to the plain shoes. No significant differences between the footwear conditions for static stability and muscle activation were observed on firm surface condition. Conclusions:For older women, footwear could improve the postural stability in the unstable surface, particularly the footwear with nodulous insole, with the underlying mechanism as enhancing the mechanoreceptors on the plantar surface of the feet

How competitive, cooperative, and collaborative gamification impacts student learning and engagement

Gamification is an increasingly popular approach to engage learners in educational contexts. Although many studies have examined the effects of gamification in comparison to a non-gamification approach, less attention has been paid to the impact of different ways of implementing gamification on students’ learning and engagement. In this study, we performed a quasi-experiment on the competitive, cooperative, and collaborative types of gamification among secondary school students who learn English as a foreign language. The quantitative results indicate students in the competitive condition significantly outperformed their peers in the cooperative condition on a reading-related skill (morphological awareness), word reading, and reading comprehension. They also had higher gains in morphological awareness than students in the collaborative condition, although these two groups showed similar improvement in far-transfer measures (i.e., word reading and reading comprehension). Concerning engagement, qualitative data collected from interviews suggested gamification contributed to students’ behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement. The qualitative data also reflected the possible reasons for the quantitative results. We conclude that cooperative and collaborative gamification should be designed carefully and take various factors into account (e.g., establishing shared goals and rewards, emphasising individual and collective contributions, and collaboration training) to ensure that the gamification approach does not hinder student learning

Bridging dentistry and traditional Chinese medicine : a study on the current mutual understanding among the future practitioners

Objectives: This project aimed to promote the mutual understanding between dental and TCM students. The objectives were to describe the current teaching of dentistry in the TCM schools and that of TCM in the dental school, to describe the TCM students’ knowledge on dentistry and the dental students’ knowledge on TCM, and to produce promotional materials for enhancing the mutual understanding between dental and TCM students. Methods: Information on the current teaching of dentistry in the TCM schools and that of TCM in the dental school was collected through a search on the undergraduate programme syllabus and conducting interviews with the leaders of the schools. Questionnaire surveys were conducted among the final year students of the TCM and the dental schools to collect information on their knowledge of the counter profession. Two leaflets and a short video were produced with the aid of computer software and used in the promotional activities. Results: It was found that very little information on dentistry was covered in the undergraduate programmes of the three TCM schools, and vice versa in the dental school. A total of 39 TCM students and 55 dental students completed the questionnaire survey. Most of the students did not know the basic theories and practice of the counter profession. Less than half of the student knew what types of patient cases may be suitable for cross-referral to the other profession. Conclusions: The TCM and dental schools in Hong Kong do not have scheduled teaching on the counter profession. The TCM students have little knowledge on dentistry and how to collaborate with dental practitioners on patients presented with oral problems. Conversely, it is the same for the dental students. Lastly, informative printed and audio-visual promotional materials can be produced with limited resources and used to facilitate the mutual understanding between TCM and dental practitioners.published_or_final_versio

Effectiveness of Nutritional Advice for Community-Dwelling Obese Older Adults With Frailty: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objectives: This systematic review was aimed to examine the effectiveness of nutritional advise interventions compared with usual care, or exercise, or exercise combined with nutritional advice as a means of improving the body weight, body composition, physical function, and psychosocial well-being of frail, obese older adults. Methods: CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Scopus databases were searched to identify relevant studies. The quality of the included studies was assessed using Cochrane's risk of bias tool 2. Meta-analysis was performed with respect to body weight and fat mass. Other outcomes were synthesized narratively. Results: Eight articles (from two studies) with a total of 137 participants were included in the review. The results revealed that nutritional advice was more effective than exercise in reducing body weight and fat mass. The nutritional advice was also beneficial in enhancing physical function and psychosocial well-being. However, it was less effective than exercise or combined interventions in increasing muscle strength and preventing lean mass loss. Conclusions: Nutritional advice is an essential intervention for reducing body weight and fat mass, for enhancing physical function, and for improving the psychosocial well-being of obese older adults experiencing frailty. The limited number of studies included in this review suggests that there is a need for more well-designed interventional studies in order to confirm these findings

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Ng Tsz Kit, Davy's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity