Interview by Leong P

I have known Mdm X for over twenty years. We knew each other when we worked in a library in Lok Fu Estate as volunteers. The voluntary service was related with helping in tutorial work and summer services as provided by the library. Mdm X is known to me as a very enthusiastic, helpful, accountable and mature person, who never declines to offer help whenever she has time and the ability to help. Her help is solid and wholehearted. She is now a teacher in a secondary school. Her childhood was spent in a resettlement estate, namely Wang Tau Hom Resettlement Estate, in the Kowloon Peninsular. Her childhood is typical of the one in resettlement estate. She came from a family of many siblings, a total of 9 in all in hers. Her house was so congested and the basic provisions for living so primitive that I am of the opinion that the situation must have significant influence on her mentality development as well as socialization as she grew up. So, before the interview, I had a pre-meeting with her to discuss about my presumption and the kind of questions that I would like to put to her for answer. She was very kind because she also takes a very keen interest in my project and did a lot of preparation before coming for the recording on 20th February 2000. I do have to say that during the interview, Mdm X demonstrated organization and precision in her disclosure of information and her answers to my questions. Her exposition far exceeds my expectation. We had also seen some of her childhood and teenage photographs before the interview. The photographs did help us to focus more sharply on the context of the interview. On the whole, I have a strong feeling that the kind of hardship that Mdm X had gone through in her childhood has a profound positive influence on her mentality development and socialization. She had a warm and loving family, in which every family members maintain a tight link to each others, linkage of which being highly constructive and enduring in nature. Filial piety is also well established. The cause for all these morality development seemingly lies on successful family education which results in Mdm X an early development of goal pursuit in life. It was an enjoyment doing the interview because the happenings in her childhood and the mentality development so seen were highly cheering in nature

Coherent cavity networks with complete connectivity

When cavity photons couple to an optical fiber with a continuum of modes, they usually leak out within a finite amount of time. However, if the fiber is about one meter long and linked to a mirror, photons bounce back and forth within the fiber on a much faster time scale. As a result, {\em dynamical decoupling} prevents the cavity photons from entering the fiber. In this paper we use the simultaneous dynamical decoupling of a large number of distant cavities from the fiber modes of linear optics networks to mediate effective cavity-cavity interactions in a huge variety of configurations. Coherent cavity networks with complete connectivity can be created with potential applications in quantum computing and simulation of the complex interaction Hamiltonians of biological systems.Comment: revised version, improved analysis, 4 pages and 4 figure

Haze in the Klang Valley of Malaysia

Continuous measurements of dry aerosol light scattering (Bsp) were made at two sites in the Klang Valley of Malaysia between December 1998 and December 2000. In addition 24-h PM2.5 samples were collected on a one-day-in-six cycle and the chemical composition of the aerosol was determined. Periods of excessive haze were defined as 24-h average Bsp values greater than 150 Mm-1 and these occurred on a number of occasions, between May and September 1999, during May 2000, and between July and September 2000. The evidence for smoke being a significant contributor to aerosol during periods of excessive haze is discussed and includes features of the aerosol chemistry, the diurnal cycle of Bsp, and the coincidence of forest fires on Sumatra during the southwest (SW) monsoon period, as well as transport modelling for one week of the southwest Monsoon of 2000. The study highlights that whilst transboundary smoke is a major contributor to poor visibility in the Klang Valley, smoke from fires on Peninsular Malaysia is also a contributor, and at all times, the domestic source of secondary particle production is present

Managing risk in a four-digit number game

SIAM Review444601-615SIRE

Insulinoma management in a geriatric local dog

A 14-year-old, spayed female local dog was presented to University Veterinary Hospital-University Putra Malaysia (UVH-UPM) for the complaint of uncontrollable seizures. The intracranial neoplasia or trauma as a cause of seizures was ruled out based on magnetic resonance imaging conducted prior to presentation. Full diagnostic investigation inclusive of haematology, serum biochemistry, parasitology, thoracic and abdominal radiography and abdominal ultrasonography was conducted. A diagnosis of insulinoma was made from the persistent, low fasting blood glucose levels and the inappropriately high fasting insulin level, as well as the response to treatment with prednisolon

Positioning analysis of multiple antennas in a dense RFID reader environment

©2006 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.The study and analysis of RFID antenna positioning is important for supply chain large-scale deployment. In a dense reader environment, there will be multiples of RFID readers and readers interference will reduce the reliability and efficiency of the RFID system. In the worst case, the interference would paralyse an entire RFID system. This paper explores antenna positioning in an RFID deployment zone and aims to provide guidelines on safe distance between antennas in a dense reader environment or even in a "Listen Before Talk" regulated area. By planning of antenna positioning, a RFID system can be optimised and its interference to other RF systems in the surroundings can be minimised. All the simulations results presented in this paper are obtained using MATLAB.Kin Seong Leong, Mun Leng Ng, Peter H. Col

Exploring Language Learning Motivation among Primary EFL Learners

The present study examined factors contributing to motivation of young EFL learners. Specifically, it explored learners’ attitudes and purposes for studying English, and how their perceptions of social support (teacher, family, peers) and that of the formal learning environment (learning tasks and class activities) varied at different levels of motivation. In total, 23 grade six students who studied at a Macau primary school completed a 10-item open-ended questionnaire. Findings revealed that most of the participants were highly motivated and learned English for both instrumental (e.g., for work and travel) and integrative (e.g., wanting to integrate within the target language culture) reasons. Most respondents reported that they viewed their teachers positively, which may explain why most of them also had a positive view of studying English despite indicating that their family expected them to get high grades on exams, and that most of their classmates perceived studying English negatively. Unsurprisingly, participants also reported that games and songs were their favored activities because they increased their intrinsic motivation to learn. The results of this study suggest that young learner motivation may be largely influenced by the learning environment (as opposed to family or peer social relationships), notably the positive relationship with the teacher and the types of learning activities employed to achieve learning aims

Physically-Realizable Uniform Temperature Boundary Condition Specification on a Wall of an Enclosure: Part II – Problem Solution

Temperature measurements along one side of the rectangular plate showed severe temperature non-uniformity along one side of a wall of a cubical experimental apparatus where the uniform temperature was physically desired. Despite proper planning and analyses, this non-uniformity was high enough that a benchmark study could not be carried out to the desired accuracy of about one percent error. This paper presents and extends analyses made previously based on the modifications to the original design of the apparatus to reduce the temperature non-uniformity on the wall by adding an auxiliary heater around a wall where the uniform temperature was desired. A detailed mathematical analysis shows significant reduction in temperature non-uniformity from about four percent (based on the initial design) to less than one percent (for the modified design). By examining the temperature difference between two locations on the plate, the predicted temperature difference obtained through mathematical analyses show excellent agreement with the measured temperature difference. The temperature non-uniformity along the boundary of a wall was reduced to less than one percent of the overall temperature difference

Physically-Realizable Uniform Temperature Boundary Condition Specification on a Wall of an Enclosure: Part I – Problem Investigation

Designing an experimental apparatus requires considerable amount of planning. Despite proper planning, one can easily overlook a design such as the standard uniform temperature boundary condition applied to all or portion of a wall of an experimental apparatus. Although this boundary condition is mathematically simple and precise, achieving it physically may not be that simple. This paper addresses one such three-dimensional natural convection heat transfer apparatus that was designed to measure benchmark Nusselt numbers at various Rayleigh numbers with uniform temperatures specified at two walls of the enclosure. It was found that the effect of thermal spreading/constriction resistance on one wall where this uniform temperature condition was prescribed was significant, and as a result, the uniform temperature profile based on the initial design was not physically achieved. In support of this non-uniform temperature observation, this paper presents a thermal resistance model of a plate (which is a portion of this overall heat transfer apparatus) to explain the observed temperature non-uniformity. The results obtained from the current model are validated with measured data, and in terms of a temperature difference between two locations on the plate, the approximate analytical solution is well within the experimental error of 0.03K