Researching mobile learning: overview, September 2006 to September 2008

This is the summary of the report, which brought together the findings from the third phase of a two-year development and research project that focused on the impact of one-to-one personal ownership of mobile devices. Two areas emerged from the analysis as important in relation to impact, namely students' use of and attitudes to their mobile devices and the professional development of teachers

Perceived oral health status and its association with oral health-related quality of life of patients with rheumatoid arthritis - a pilot study

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that affects not only the joints, but also other organ systems including the oral cavity. Studies have demonstrated an association between RA and oral disease, in particular periodontal disease. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine self-reported oral health problems among RA patients and its association with oral health-related quality of life. A total of 67 RA patients attending the Rheumatology Clinic, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia participated in this study. Self-administered questionnaires including the Malay version of Short Oral Health Impact Profile [S-OHIP(M)] questionnaire were used to obtain the variables of interests. Most patients perceived their oral health status as good or very good (70.2%) although some reported having at least one oral health problem (40.3%). Commonly reported oral health problems were cavitated tooth (16.4%), swollen gums (16.4%), bad breath (14.9%), and bleeding gums (13.4%). Some patients have lost all upper teeth (32.8%) and all lower teeth (28.4%). The median S-OHIP(M) score was 3.00 (IQR 7.00). With regard to prevalence of impact, item discomfort due to food getting stuck has the highest prevalence of 13.4%, followed by avoided eating certain foods (7.5%). No significant association was found between median S-OHIP(M) score and self-reported oral health problem among RA patients, but a significant association was found between median S-OHIP(M) score and perceived oral health status (P=0.013). In conclusion, oral health problems were common in RA patients, and the association between patients’ oral health perceptions and severity of impact from oral problems was apparent

Isolation, Characterization and Synthesis of a Phenyl-substituted Pyrrole Isolated from the Flavonoid Fraction of Mānuka Honey

Compound 1, which occurs in the flavonoid fraction of mānuka honey and showed a statistical correlation with the non-peroxide antibacterial activity of the honeys, was extracted from fifteen kilograms of mānuka honey using Amberlite XAD-2 resin and liquid-liquid extraction, and isolated by a combination of Sephadex-LH20 column chromatography and HPLC. Characterization of 1 was achieved by one and 2D- 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy and GC-MS and 1 was identified as 2-formyl-5-(2-methoxyphenyl)-pyrrole. In addition to 1, two other non-flavonoids were isolated from the flavonoid fraction and their identities confirmed as caffeic acid and p-coumaric acid. Synthesis of 9 (3-hydroxy-1-(2-methoxyphenyl)-3-(oxazol-4-yl) propan-1-one), an intermediate in the route to 1, gave a yield of 67.5% as a pale yellow crystals after crystallization from CH2Cl2/hexane. Synthesis of 1 from 9 only resulted in barely traceable amount of 1. The dominant product after recrystallization from CH2Cl2/hexane was 10 ((E)-1-(2-methoxyphenyl)-3-(oxazol-4-yl)prop-2-en-1-one) which was the dehydrated analogue of 9. The synthesis of 1 was repeated. The product mixture was fractionated on a silica gel column, followed by two cycles of preparative layer chromatography applied to the fractions which contained 1 and yield 0.36 mg of 1 (0.00179 mmol, 0.2%)

An Empirical Analysis about Population, Technological Progress, and Economic Growth in Taiwan

This paper empirically analyzed the relationship between population, technological progress, and economic growth in Taiwan from 1954 to 2005, using the LA-VAR (lag-augmented vector autoregression) model. The empirical results reveal that a major conformational change in the economic development of Taiwan after 2000.

Back Lanes as Social Spaces in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur

The back lane is often associated with annoying, disgusting, narrow and dark. This paper concerns the use of the back lanes of the old shop houses in China Town, Kuala Lumpur.  The instruments used in collecting data include observation, unstructured interview and literature review.  The use and physical characteristics of back lanes were identified.  It was found that the back lanes of China Town in Kuala Lumpur showed the success of turning back streets into lively alleys.  Thus, the back lane could be considered as part of urban design strategies and not as leftover spaces.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: back  lane; social place; pedestrian; urba

TTA school-based research consortium initiative, the evaluation, final report

This is the final report of the evaluation of th School-Based Research Consortium Initiative which ran in England from 1998 to 2001. The initiative was sponsored via a public/private partnership between the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), a UK Government agency, and the Centre for British Teachers (CfBT), a private not-for-profit company. The aim of the initiative was to create local infrastructures of support and action for teachers to engage ‘in and with’ research. Those infrastructures were made up of consortia, consisting in each case of a small number of schools together with a university department of education and at least one local education authority (LEA). Over the three years that it ran, the initiative spawned a considerable range and volume of research activities, including peer observation of teaching, peer review of videos of teaching, interview-based study, surveys measuring such things as rewards and sanctions in the classroom. In addition to well-developed teacher-university collaborations and some joint work with local education authorities, there were many examples of teacher-teacher collaboration (some of it between different schools), and also times when teachers and pupils worked together to devise, carry out or interpret research activity. In practice, the initiative created an environment in which it was possible to develop new research relationships across a range of partners, rather than merely transfer the locus of research to schools. Three aspects of teacher experience of the initiative are important to highlight. The first was the overwhelming testimony of teachers that the value of the initiative for them was the rediscovery of their professional confidence in a climate of low trust accountability, characterised by constant monitoring, target setting and bureaucratic demands. The second was the growth of familiarity with research practices that teachers gained through working collaboratively with their peers, with pupils, and with colleagues from the university. The third was how the process of research itself was necessarily situated in teachers’ own practices