Whiteboard Animations for Flipped Classrooms in a Common Core Science General Education Course

[EN] Whiteboard animation, an engaging tool for teaching and learning, consists of a series of hand-drawing illustrations with voice-over narration to explain complex and abstract ideas. Our team had produced four short whiteboard animations tailor-made for a common core science general education (GE) course. This study aims at evaluating the effectiveness of using these whiteboard animations for flipped classrooms in the common core science GE course. The pre-tutorial survey showed that students who watched the animations got significantly higher average marks in the quizzes at the beginning of the tutorials (p<0.001). The post-tutorial feedback survey indicated that the whiteboard animations attracted 67% of students to watch the animations. For students who watched the animations, over 86% of them reported that the animations raised their interest in the issues discussed in the tutorial classes, and learning materials in the form of whiteboard animation were more interesting than lecture videos; more than 90% of the students agreed the whiteboard animations were helpful in (i) understanding the assigned readings, (ii) clarifying the concepts of the discussed issues, and (iii) gaining the related knowledge before the tutorial. We concluded that whiteboard animation is an effective and engaging tool for flipped classrooms in the common core science GE course.We want to thank the Centre for eLearning and Innovation Technology of The Chinese University of Hong Kong for their support. This project was funded by the Micro-module Courseware Development Grant Scheme.Li, M.; Lai, CW.; Szeto, WM. (2019). Whiteboard Animations for Flipped Classrooms in a Common Core Science General Education Course. En HEAD'19. 5th International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 929-938. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD19.2019.9250OCS92993

Effective Photodegradation of Methyl Orange Using Fluidized Bed Reactor Loaded with Cross-Linked Chitosan Embedded Nano-CdS Photocatalyst

Chitosan-based photocatalyst composites containing CdS nanocrystals with and without glutaraldehyde or epichlorohydrin cross-linking treatments were investigated and the catalyzed photodegradation of methyl orange in aqueous solution was examined. In addition, the effects of catalyst dosage, initial dye concentration, and initial pH of the dye solution on the photodegradation kinetics were investigated. In this study, the effect of initial solution pH was more important than other factors. The photocatalyst composite could remove 99% dye in 80 minutes at pH 4. The catalyst composite was characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and visible reflectance spectroscopy. The dye removal mechanism of methyl orange involved an initial sorption process followed by photodegradation. The sorption process underwent the pseudo-second order kinetics, while photodegradation followed the Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetics. Although the glutaraldehyde cross-linked chitosan enhanced the initial dye sorption, the epichlorohydrin cross-linked catalyst composite demonstrated a better overall dye removal performance, especially in the photodegradation step. Both chitosan encapsulated catalyst with and without epichlorohydrin cross-linking demonstrated the same pseudo-first order photodegradation kinetic constant of 0.026 min−1 and the same dye removal capacity. The catalyst composite could be reused but the photocatalytic activity dropped successively in each cycle

Piperacillin/tazobactam Induced Myelosuppression

Neutropenia, secondary to immune destruction or maturation arrest, is the most commonly described adverse haematological effect of beta-lactam antibiotics. We describe a case of reversible pancytopenia, with evidence of hypocellular marrow, after a prolonged course of piperacillin/tazobactam for 26 days

A Student Perspective on the Effectiveness of PASS in Seminar Courses: A Mixed-Method Study

The General Education Foundation (GEF) Programme, consisting of two seminar courses, namely “In Dialogue with Humanity” and “In Dialogue with Nature,” has been a common core requirement of The Chinese University of Hong Kong since 2012. Aided by selected classics, students from all faculties engage in dialogues with their teachers and each other to reflect on what it means to have a good life, what an ideal society is, and the nature of intellectual pursuit in the sciences. Reading classics and discussing serious questions in class, however, can be challenging for some students. To help students meet these challenges, Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) were introduced in the pilot stage of GEF in 2010 and, with subsequent refinements, continue to this day. The seminar-style and interdisciplinary nature of GEF makes it an atypical case for PASS. This paper will examine and evaluate how PASS can improve student learning in seminar-style courses like GEF with a mixed-method study from a student perspective. According to evidence from online surveys and focus group interviews, PASS successfully 1) improves students’ understanding of the course content at a cognitive level, 2) assists and motivates them to prepare better for seminar discussions, effecting a behavioural change, and 3) facilitates affective learning outcomes in terms of confidence and motivation. Major challenges—including students’ misperceptions about PASS, differences in leaders’ approaches and organisational difficulties—are identified. Proposed solutions to these challenges will also be discussed

Comparison of 1- and 2-year screening intervals for women undergoing screening mammography

We compared the long-term impact of 1- and 2-year screening mammography intervals using prognostic, screening, and outcome information for women aged 50–74 years obtained from the Screening Mammography Program of British Columbia in two time periods, prior to 1997 (policy of annual mammography) and after 1997 (biennial mammography). Survival was estimated for both periods using a prognostic model and the expected rate of interval and screen-detected cancers. The likelihood of a screen-detected cancer with annual screening was 2.32 per thousand screens and with biennial screening was 3.32 per thousand screens. The prognostic profile of screen-detected cancers was better than that of interval cancers. Among both screen-detected and interval cancers, the prognostic profiles with annual and biennial screening were similar. The estimated breast cancer-specific survival rates for women undergoing annual and biennial screening mammography were 95.2 and 94.6% at 5 years, and 90.4 and 89.2% at 10 years, respectively. Annual compared to biennial mammography was associated with a 1.2% increase in the estimated 10-year breast cancer-specific survival for women aged 50–74 years, diagnosed with invasive breast cancer after screening programme attendance

Towards a global partnership model in interprofessional education for cross-sector problem-solving

Objectives A partnership model in interprofessional education (IPE) is important in promoting a sense of global citizenship while preparing students for cross-sector problem-solving. However, the literature remains scant in providing useful guidance for the development of an IPE programme co-implemented by external partners. In this pioneering study, we describe the processes of forging global partnerships in co-implementing IPE and evaluate the programme in light of the preliminary data available. Methods This study is generally quantitative. We collected data from a total of 747 health and social care students from four higher education institutions. We utilized a descriptive narrative format and a quantitative design to present our experiences of running IPE with external partners and performed independent t-tests and analysis of variance to examine pretest and posttest mean differences in students’ data. Results We identified factors in establishing a cross-institutional IPE programme. These factors include complementarity of expertise, mutual benefits, internet connectivity, interactivity of design, and time difference. We found significant pretest–posttest differences in students’ readiness for interprofessional learning (teamwork and collaboration, positive professional identity, roles, and responsibilities). We also found a significant decrease in students’ social interaction anxiety after the IPE simulation. Conclusions The narrative of our experiences described in this manuscript could be considered by higher education institutions seeking to forge meaningful external partnerships in their effort to establish interprofessional global health education

Bi-objective bimodal urban road network design using hybrid metaheuristics

In this paper a bimodal discrete urban road network design problem with bus and car modes is investigated. The problem consists of decision making for lane addition to the existing streets, new street constructions, converting some two-way streets to one-way streets, lane allocation for two-way streets, and the allocation of some street lanes for exclusive bus lanes. Two objectives are considered in the problem: maximization of consumer surplus, and maximization of the demand share of the bus mode. The interaction of automobile and bus flows are explicitly taken into account and a modal-split/assignment model is used to obtain the automobile and bus flows in the deterministic user equilibrium state. The main contribution of the paper lies in proposing a new network design problem that combines the road network design decisions with the decision making for bus networks. The problem is formulated as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints. A hybrid of genetic algorithm and simulated annealing, a hybrid of particle swarm optimization and simulated annealing, and a hybrid of harmony search and simulated annealing are proposed to solve the problem. Computational results for a number of test networks are presented and investigated. © 2011 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 21 Feb 201

Dynamic traffic assignment : formulations, properties, and extensions

Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA), which is to determine the network traffic pattern over time as a result of dynamic supply and demand interactions, is an important research area because DTA models have a wide range of applications in 1) real-time traffic control and management, and 2) off-line network planning and policy evaluations. Essentially, DTA consists of two components: a travel choice principle and a traffic-flow component. The travel choice principle models how travelers decide on whether to travel or not, and if so, how they select their routes, departure times, modes, or destinations. The traffic-flow component, on the other hand, depicts how traffic propagates inside a transport network. This thesis develops three general frameworks for DTA problems through the nonlinear complementarity problem approach, the variational inequality problem approach, and the fixed-point problem approach. Rather than considering traffic dynamics or the traffic-flow component as constraints, as is typically accomplished in the literature, the proposed frameworks model traffic through a unique mapping of route flows directly. This approach opens up a new way to analyze DTA problems. These frameworks allow the encapsulation of a range of dynamic traffic flow models and can be solved by many existing solution methods. For the traffic-flow component, this thesis reviews and compares two modeling paradigms for DTA purposes: point-queue and physical-queue paradigms, and depicts existing dynamic traffic-flow modeling approaches under each modeling paradigm, including their advantages and disadvantages. A numerical study is performed to demonstrate their different travel time predictions, time-dependent queuing locations, and time-dependent link occupancies. This thesis also investigates and discusses the implications of the properties of point-queue and physical-queue DTA problems, in the areas of causality, the continuity, differentiability, and monotone properties of route travel times, the existence and uniqueness of solutions, the first-in-first-out properties, and the continuity property of origin-destination travel times. In particular, this thesis proves that the existence of solutions to the DTA problems with physical queues is not guaranteed. This could be problematic because most existing planning and management procedures are developed under the equilibrium notion. Nevertheless, this finding may prove to be important in the search of new travel choice principles that are behaviorally sound and consistent with actual network behavior. Finally, based on the notion of bounded-rationality, this thesis proposes the tolerance-based Dynamic User Optimal (DUO) principle that includes the DUO principle as a special case. This new principle is behaviorally sound and consistent with actual traffic behavior. Based on the theoretical gap, the condition for the existence of solutions to the problem is provided. Two new design methods are proposed and discussed. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effects of parameters and initial solutions to the existence of solutions and network performance over time. Future research directions are addressed