Teacher learning and professional development in school-university partnership: How do mentors learn?

This study investigates teacher learning and professional development in school-university partnership in Myanmar. This study explores teacher learning and professional development through engaging in a school-university partnership through mentoring activity. Research studies have shown mentoring can improve teachers' learning and professional development (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2000). A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was applied in this study. Participants were 120 schoolteachers in the quantitative part while 4 participants were interviewed. This study aimed to answer how the impact of school-university partnership on teacher learning and professional development can be understood. To answer this research question, two groups of schoolteachers (mentor and non-mentors) and three groups of teachers based on communication level with student teachers were compared. The results showed that teachers who had mentoring experiences improved their professional skills and competencies more than non-mentor teachers mainly in the areas: pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge about learners' behaviours and characteristics and cross-curricular skills. Furthermore, teachers who had intensive communication with student teachers showed higher mean values in self-confidence, enjoyment in teaching and reflection on teaching practices and feeling like a responsible person in education. Findings from the qualitative part showed that teachers learned these skills and competencies through intensive collaborative activities such as discussing teaching and learning, guiding student teachers in their classroom management and planning a lesson and having a friendly conversation with them. Overall, this study confirms that engaging in school-university partnership through mentoring enhances mentors develop their self-confidence, and enjoyment in teaching as well as their professional knowledge and skills

Adaptability and problem solving as survival skills : How did student teachers learn to survive?

This study investigates student teachers' adaptability and problem-solving abilities during their practice teaching in a school-university partnership. The study explores how student teachers tried to adapt to the new school environments and how they overcame the obstacles they encountered. This study applied a mixed-methods design. In the quantitative part, 50 student teachers participated, and four student teachers volunteered for interviews. The results showed that student teachers used their adaptability and problem-solving skills to win stressful situations, including difficulties in teaching and learning and communication with school teachers. In addition to that, student teachers also increased their self-confidence and learned to build professional identity

School-university Partnerships in Teacher Education : Tension Between Partners and How They Handle It

Myanmar, a country of developing status, is facing many challenges in reforming its education system. This article investigates the current practices of school-university partnerships from the perspective of student teachers and mentor teachers in Myanmar, where there is an ongoing process of teacher education reform. The aim of this article is to investigate the practices of school-university partnerships and the tension between partners in the training of pre-service teachers within the context of teacher education. A qualitative research method is applied in this study where six candidates were interviewed individually. Participants include three student teachers from educational universities and three mentor teachers from basic education high schools in Myanmar. The results showed that, except for student teachers’ practice teaching, there is no intensive collaboration between schools and universities. Trust is a major problem between student teachers and mentor teachers. Different opinions and perspectives towards teaching and learning are also causing tension between partners. Although there is tension between mentor teachers and student teachers, they handle this through alternative collaboration activities and negotiation between partners

ONTOLOGICAL META-ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS OF HIPAA

We present ontological meta-analysis and synthesis of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) as a method for reviewing, mapping, and visualizing the research literature in the domain cumulatively, logically, systematically, and systemically. The method will highlight the domain\u27s bright spots which are heavily emphasized, the light spots which are lightly emphasized, the blind spots which have been overlooked, and the blank spots which may never be emphasized. It will highlight the biases and asymmetries in the domain\u27s research; the research can then be realigned to make it stronger and more effective. We present an ontology for HIPAA, map the literature onto the ontology, and highlight its bright, light, and blank/blind spots in an ontological map. We conclude with a discussion of how such a map can be used to realign HIPAA research and practice

Information Security System Based on English and Myanmar Text Steganography

Due to the growth in frequent exchange of digital data over public channel, information security plays an important role in daily part of communication. Hence, various techniques like steganography are applied in information security area for more efficient information security system. This paper proposes two new text steganographic approaches using two different languages which are based on Unicode standard for secure data transfer over the public channel. The main aim is to overcome the limited embedding capacity, suspiciousness, and data damaging effect due to modification of existing steganographic approaches. The first approach conceals a message, without degrading the cover, by using four specific characters of words of the English cover text. The second approach performs message hiding by using the three specific groups of characters of combined words in Myanmar cover text while maintaining the content of the cover. The structure and operation of the proposed approaches based on the idea of existing text steganographic technique: Hiding Data in Paragraph (HDPara) algorithm. In this work, an empirical comparison of the proposed approaches with HDPara approach is presented. According to the comparison results, the proposed approaches outperform the existing HDPara approach in terms of embedding capacity.

An Information Security System Based on Optimized Pixel Mapping Method

In the field of communication system and internet, the information security is playing a crucial role. At the present time, communication through Internet is becoming popular and it should be accurate and secure. To make it reality, cryptography is very useful tool to protect the content of confidential data in many research areas. Another one, steganography is also commonly used to hide the existence of data into cover media known as text, image, audio and video. In this work, it is considered that the two most popular techniques (Cryptography and Steganography) should be combined to develop the strong and robust security system. At first, confidentiality and message authentication requirements are fulfilled with the help of Byte-Rotation Encryption Algorithm (BREA) and Secure Hash Algorithm-512(SHA-512). On the other hand, a new data hiding approach based on the optimization of Pixel Mapping Method (OPMM) also provides the system the higher embedding capacity with minimum degradation of stego image quality. To analyze the performance of the proposed OPMM, the comparison is also presented in terms of embedding capacity and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) values

Determination of Oncogenic Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Genotypes in Anogenital Cancers in Myanmar

Molecular and epidemiologic investigations suggest a causal role for human papillomavirus (HPV) in anogenital cancers. This study identified oncogenic HPV genotypes in anogenital cancers among men and women in a 2013 cross-sectional descriptive study in Myanmar. In total, 100 biopsy tissues of histologically confirmed anogenital cancers collected in 2008-2012 were studied, including 30 penile and 9 anal cancers from Yangon General Hospital and 61 vulvar cancers from Central Women's Hospital, Yangon. HPV-DNA testing and genotyping were performed by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Overall, 34% of anogenital cancers were HPV-positive. HPV was found in 44.4% of anal (4/9), 36.1% of vulvar (22/61), and 26.7% of penile (8/30) cancers. The most frequent genotypes in anal cancers were HPV 16 (75%) and 18 (25%). In vulvar cancers, HPV 33 was most common (40.9%), followed by 16 (31.8%), 31 (22.7%), and 18 (4.6%). In penile cancers, HPV 16 (62.5%) was most common, followed by 33 (25%) and 18 (12.5%). This is the first report of evidencebased oncogenic HPV genotypes in anogenital cancers among men and women in Myanmar. This research provides valuable information for understanding the burden of HPV-associated cancers of the anus, penis, and vulva and considering the effectiveness of prophylactic HPV vaccination

Motor Function and Manual Ability in Children with Cerebral Palsy: A Primary Report

Abstract This descriptive study aims to describe the motor type, topographical distribution and motor function of lower limbs, and the manual ability of upper limbs. Cerebral Palsy (CP) describes a group of disorders in the development of movement and posture in the developing brain. This study was carried out during 2015 on 60 CP children. Multiple sources of assessment were used, including medical records of patients at the Physical Medicine Department in 550 Bedded Mandalay Children’s Hospital. Children were grouped according to motor type, topographical pattern, Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) and Manual Ability Classification System (MACS) scales. During the study period, 60 CP children (29 males and 31 females) aged 4-12 years were observed, with a mean (SD) age of 7.7 (3.7) years. In this study, spastic CP was the most common type (80%) and more specifically, bilateral CP (70%) was more common than unilateral (10%). With respect to the GMFCS classification, level II (30%), and to the MACS classification, level II (38.3%), was the most common. This study is only a hospital based, descriptive study and therefore there are many limitations. We are trying to establish a neuro-clinic, as well as a development clinic, with few resources and man power. This research team is in the first few steps of developing a coordinated, multidisciplinary team to help children with cerebral palsy and developmental delay. The significance of the study results will help to educate the community about the role of early intervention, the earlier the better, for children with cerebral palsy

Antigen Production of Dengue Type 4 Virus strains in Aedes albopictus clone C6/36 and Vero Cell Cultures

Antigen production of seven dengue type 4 virus strains in Aedes albopictus clone C6/36 cells at 28℃ and in Vero cells at 37℃ was studied. These seven strains could roughly be divided into three different entities according to their pattern of antigen production. The first entity of prototype strain (H-241) produced ELISA antigen in vero cells at 37℃, whereas its antigen production was undetectable in C6/36 cells upto day 11 post infection. The second entity, strain No.17 (1978-Sri Lankan strain) revealed the reverse pattern: high antigen titer in C6/36 cells and undetectable titer in vero cells. The remaining five strains belonged to the third entity, in which viral antigen production was found in both cell lines to similar titers