Pharmacy Student's perceptions of Natural Science and Mathematics Subjects

Objective. To determine the level of importance pharmacy students placed on science and mathematics subjects for pursuing a career in pharmacy. Method. Two hundred fifty-four students completed a survey instrument developed to investigate students’ perceptions of the relevance of science and mathematics subjects to a career in pharmacy. Pharmacy students in all 4 years of a master of pharmacy (MPharm) degree program were invited to complete the survey instrument. Results. Students viewed chemistry-based and biology-based subjects as relevant to a pharmacy career, whereas mathematics subjects such as physics, logarithms, statistics, and algebra were not viewed important to a career in pharmacy. Conclusion. Students’ experience in pharmacy and year of study influenced their perceptions of subjects relevant to a pharmacy career. Pharmacy educators need to consider how they can help students recognize the importance of scientific knowledge earlier in the pharmacy curriculum

Continuous-time Mean-Variance Portfolio Selection with Stochastic Parameters

This paper studies a continuous-time market {under stochastic environment} where an agent, having specified an investment horizon and a target terminal mean return, seeks to minimize the variance of the return with multiple stocks and a bond. In the considered model firstly proposed by [3], the mean returns of individual assets are explicitly affected by underlying Gaussian economic factors. Using past and present information of the asset prices, a partial-information stochastic optimal control problem with random coefficients is formulated. Here, the partial information is due to the fact that the economic factors can not be directly observed. Via dynamic programming theory, the optimal portfolio strategy can be constructed by solving a deterministic forward Riccati-type ordinary differential equation and two linear deterministic backward ordinary differential equations

An index of syntactic development for Cantonese-Chinese preschool children

This research study aimed to develop an index of syntactic development for Cantonese-speaking children. Language samples taken from 14 normal children aged from 4;1 to 5;0, 16 normal children aged from 5;1 to 6;5 and 15 SLI children aged from 5;1 to 6;4 were analyzed and credited according to the framework developed. Normal children aged from 4;1 to 5;0 performed poorer on the index than those aged from 5;1 to 6;5 with the same clinical status. Children with language difficulty performed poorer than their normal age peers on the index as well. The index was validated against MLU and the two indices moderately correlated with each other. A linear combination of age, D and the index was entered into discriminant analysis, yielding a classification accuracy of 86.7% of all the children. The index was found to be a potentially useful clinical marker of SLI yet replication is needed to confirm the findings. Further modification of the index was discussed. The age and language growth sensitivity of MLU was discussed as well.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILL OF CHILDREN IN HONG KONG

The phase of fundamental movement abilities represents a time in which young children are actively involved with exploring and experimenting with the movement capabilities of their bodies. The development of fundamental movement skills, which is believed to form the foundation for more complex sports and game skills, should be essential teaching content in the lower form, kindergarten and primary school curriculum (Gallahue and Ozmun, 1998). However, in Hong Kong, there is no specific school teaching syllabus aimed at developing students' fundamental skills in primary school physical education lessons. Moreover, there is currently a lack of information about the standards of children's abilities in this area. The aim of this study is to evaluate the current level of students' fundamental movement in different age groups using field tests and then comparing the results with the norm in USA samples

Onset of natural convection in gas-gas system induced by bottom-up transient mass diffusion

The onset of convection induced by transient mass diffusion in a stationary gas was succesfully predicted with transient instability theory and simulated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) scheme. 2D time-dependent simulations were conducted for bottom-up diffusion of a light gas in a stagnant heavy gas. The results of simulations were used to calculate the transient Rayleigh number adopted from the theory of Tan and Thorpe (1996 and 1999). The average transient maximum Rayleigh number from simulations is 707, which is close to the theoretical value of 817 for analogous bottom heating with constant heat flux. The simulated critical times of the onset of convection were in reasonably good agreement with the predicted values from theory

A village adoption project in Yunnan, China : sustainable micro-economy pilot : feasibility analysis of agricultural transition from tobacco to walnut planting

This report has been compiled to record and share our experiences and lessons learned from our walnut planting pilot program which is part of a micro-economy stream of our Village Adoption Project in Yunnan. The walnut planting pilot was initiated to assist the sustainability of the micro-economy of Gezhangla Village, Yunnan, by working with the community to evolve its agriculture and reduce its a dependency on tobacco. Jenny Chen, a student of Lingnan University, went to Yunnan for a preliminary study of the development of walnut planting program in Gezhangla Village from 30 December of 2012 to 5 January of 2013 and in the summer of 2013. Later, John Law, the Consultant of Strategy and Consulting of Deloitte China, also went to Yunnan with the service group from 15 to 18 September 2013 to follow up the project. During the trip, he also interviewed a number of farmers, school principals and teachers in the villages to collect more research data. This report was compiled in joint efforts by Deloitte China and Lingnan University, which combines the observations and findings of walnut trees planting obtained during the service trip, and summarizes the development and progress of walnut planting in Yunnan villages. The report provides an overview of the tobacco leaves planting in the related villages. Then it reviews the progress of walnut tree planting in Gezhangla and Yangjia villages, and Gezhangla Primary School, Wanyaoshu Primary School and Shilata Central Primary School, and reviews the opportunities and challenges faced by schools and villages in walnut tree planting. This report also tackles different challenges and provides suggestions, while the conclusion focuses on the overall feasibility of walnut planting in Yunnan villages.https://commons.ln.edu.hk/osl_book/1023/thumbnail.jp

Reduced loss of NH3 by coating urea with biodegradable polymers, palm stearin and selected micronutrients

In agricultural lands, the loss of NH3 from surface-applied urea and micronutrient deficiencies are the two most common problems, which can be solved by using coated urea with micronutrients and biodegradable natural materials. These coatings can improve the nutrient status in the soil and simultaneously reduce nitrogen loss from urea. To control ammonia loss and urea’s hydrolysis process, two laboratory studies were conducted to compare the effects of using coated urea with that of using only urea. Both studies consisted of consecutive incubation experiments that were conducted on the same Typic Paleudult soil (Serdang Series). Eight treatments (labeled as Urea, UPS1, UPS2, UPS3, UAG1%, UAG2%, UG1% and UG2%) in study 1 and six treatments (labeled U, UPSCu, UAGCu, UGCu, UCu, and UCuZn) in study 2 were prepared and used to determine the effects of various concentrations of natural materials and the inhibitory effects of micronutrients on both ammonia loss and the hydrolysis process. The NH3 loss was measured by forced draft techniques; the soil’s exchangeable ammonium, available nitrate and urea-N were determined by using standard procedures. The outcomes of the study did not show any significant difference among various concentrations ofnatural material. Coated urea treatments significantly reduced ammonia loss by 30 to 40% in study 1 and by 40 to 67% in study 2 in comparison to urea alone. The same observation was made with respect to urea hydrolysis. All of the coated urea treatments significantly slowed down the hydrolysis process in comparison to urea. The outcomes of the study may improve urea fertilizer by reducing the loss of NH3 volatilization.Key words: Biodegradable polymers, coated urea, CuSO4, NH3 volatilization loss, urease inhibitor, urea

PEGylated graphene oxide for tumor-targeted delivery of paclitaxel.

AIM: The graphene oxide (GO) sheet has been considered one of the most promising carbon derivatives in the field of material science for the past few years and has shown excellent tumor-targeting ability, biocompatibility and low toxicity. We have endeavored to conjugate paclitaxel (PTX) to GO molecule and investigate its anticancer efficacy. MATERIALS & METHODS: We conjugated the anticancer drug PTX to aminated PEG chains on GO sheets through covalent bonds to get GO-PEG-PTX complexes. The tissue distribution and anticancer efficacy of GO-PEG-PTX were then investigated using a B16 melanoma cancer-bearing C57 mice model. RESULTS: The GO-PEG-PTX complexes exhibited excellent water solubility and biocompatibility. Compared with the traditional formulation of PTX (Taxol®), GO-PEG-PTX has shown prolonged blood circulation time as well as high tumor-targeting and -suppressing efficacy. CONCLUSION: PEGylated graphene oxide is an excellent nanocarrier for paclitaxel for cancer targeting

CopyRNeRF: Protecting the CopyRight of Neural Radiance Fields

Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) have the potential to be a major representation of media. Since training a NeRF has never been an easy task, the protection of its model copyright should be a priority. In this paper, by analyzing the pros and cons of possible copyright protection solutions, we propose to protect the copyright of NeRF models by replacing the original color representation in NeRF with a watermarked color representation. Then, a distortion-resistant rendering scheme is designed to guarantee robust message extraction in 2D renderings of NeRF. Our proposed method can directly protect the copyright of NeRF models while maintaining high rendering quality and bit accuracy when compared among optional solutions.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted by iccv 2023 non-camera-ready versio