Examining influences of science teachers’ practices and beliefs about technology-based assessment on students’ performances : a hierarchical linear modeling approach

Abstract: This study aimed at investigating how the factors across the student and school levels would influence students’ performance on a technology-based assessment (TBA). TBAs not only enable teachers to evaluate their students’ complex abilities, but have also been adopted by large-scale and international evaluation programs in recent years. Although some factors such as students’ engagement or teachers’ beliefs about assessments have been articulated, relatively little is understood about how the factors across levels affect students’ performances on TBAs. This study thus collected data of 494 science teachers and 1774 eighth and 11th graders from 32 schools, and conducted a hierarchical linear modeling analysis to provide a more accurate estimation of the effects of the variables in each level on students’ performances. The results indicated the importance of students’ engagement in related learning activities and their computer experiences at both the individual and school levels. Additionally, although none of the teachers’ variables at the school level such as the time teachers spent on the use of various types of TBAs or their intentions to use TBAs had significant main effects on students’ performances, the teachers’ influence at the school level on students’ learning could still be found by a significant moderating effect from teachers’ usage of TBAs. Our results provide insight into how to promote students’ performance on TBAs and can contribute in various ways to future research efforts concerning the use of TBAs in classrooms

Polarization-independent phase modulation of a homeotropic liquid crystal gel

A homeotropic liquid crystal (LC) gel with submicron domain size is fabricated and its phase-only modulation property evaluated. The LC gel is highly transparent in the voltage-off state and exhibits pure phase modulation before light scattering occurs. Compared to a nanosized polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (nano-PDLC), our gel possesses a larger phase change but at a lower operating voltage because of a higher LC concentration. Similar to a nano-PDLC, our gel also exhibit submillisecond response time, hysteresis-free, and polarization-independent phase change

Investigating Knowledge Management Activities and Influential Factors of Contract Research Organizations (CRO)

The pharmaceutical industry is critical to a nation’s economic development and welfare. However, most pharmaceutical companies do not have the capabilities to complete clinical trials by themselves and need assistance from the contract/clinical research organization (CRO). Clinical trials are highly knowledge-intensive and include several fields, such as toxicology, statistics, production, biology, health care, pharmacology, trial protocol design, and legal regulation. In academic research, few studies have focused on studying this important area from the perspective of knowledge management. Consequently, this research aims to fill this research gap by investigating knowledge management activities and influencing factors of CRO. A holistic framework was designed for this research, with the former (knowledge management activities) including four major constructs: knowledge creation and absorption, knowledge accumulation and storage, knowledge flow and diffusion, and knowledge protection, and the latter (influencing factors) including strategy and leadership, organizational culture, people, and information technology. Four CROs in Taiwan were selected for in-depth case studies. The research results are expected to contribute to both academia and industry

Spatial heterogeneity of tectonic stress and friction in the crust: new evidence from earthquake focal mechanisms in Taiwan

We performed inversions of earthquake focal mechanisms in central Taiwan to investigate the heterogeneity of the stress field and fault strength, and temporal variations of stress parameters, friction and pore pressure associated with the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. We divided the focal mechanism data into two groups: before and after the Chi-Chi earthquake, and analysed them separately. With the assumption of a uniform stress field, the friction coefficient is mostly within a range of 0.2–0.4 in central Taiwan, which is lower than the commonly quoted laboratory result, 0.6–0.85. The low friction coefficient is also inferred by the rotation of principal stress axes after the Chi-Chi earthquake. By contrast, if we assume that the friction is constant and failures occur on optimally oriented planes, we find that the resulting stress orientations must be spatially variable. However, a large dispersion of stress orientations is not seen in borehole breakouts and fault slip data, implying a constant friction model might be ruled out. Our analysis suggests that either the distribution of the coefficient of friction or pore pressure changed during the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. We infer that the pore pressure probably rose in the Chi-Chi rupture area and northern Longitudinal Valley and dropped in the areas south of the coseismic rupture area after the main shock

Mutations in the PKM2 exon-10 region are associated with reduced allostery and increased nuclear translocation.

PKM2 is a key metabolic enzyme central to glucose metabolism and energy expenditure. Multiple stimuli regulate PKM2's activity through allosteric modulation and post-translational modifications. Furthermore, PKM2 can partner with KDM8, an oncogenic demethylase and enter the nucleus to serve as a HIF1α co-activator. Yet, the mechanistic basis of the exon-10 region in allosteric regulation and nuclear translocation remains unclear. Here, we determined the crystal structures and kinetic coupling constants of exon-10 tumor-related mutants (H391Y and R399E), showing altered structural plasticity and reduced allostery. Immunoprecipitation analysis revealed increased interaction with KDM8 for H391Y, R399E, and G415R. We also found a higher degree of HIF1α-mediated transactivation activity, particularly in the presence of KDM8. Furthermore, overexpression of PKM2 mutants significantly elevated cell growth and migration. Together, PKM2 exon-10 mutations lead to structure-allostery alterations and increased nuclear functions mediated by KDM8 in breast cancer cells. Targeting the PKM2-KDM8 complex may provide a potential therapeutic intervention

Electroconvulsive Therapy and Risk of Dementia—A Nationwide Cohort Study in Taiwan

Background: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, and a temporary memory loss may occur after ECT. However, the association between ECT in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, and the risk of dementia is yet to be examined.Objective: This study aimed to clarify as to whether ECT is associated with the risk of dementia after ECT in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, using Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD).Methods: A total of 3,796 enrolled participants (schizophrenia, 46.68%; bipolar disorder, 11.77%; and major depressive disorder, 41.55%) with 994 patients who had received ECT and 2,982 controls matched for sex and age, between January 1, and December 31, 2000, were selected from the NHIRD. After adjusting for confounding factors, Fine and Gray's survival analysis was used to compare the risk of developing dementia during the 10 years of follow-up.Results: Of the study patients, 45 (4.53%) of them developed dementia when compared to 149 (5.0%) in the control group. Fine and Gray's survival analysis revealed that the study patients were not associated with an increased risk of dementia [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.612, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.438–1.854, P = 0.325]. After adjusting for sex, age, monthly income, urbanization level, geographic region, and comorbidities, the adjusted HR was 0.633 (95% CI = 0.448 – 1.895, P = 0.304).Conclusion: This study supports that ECT was not associated with the increased risk of dementia in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, using the NHIRD

Overweight worsens apoptosis, neuroinflammation and blood-brain barrier damage after hypoxic ischemia in neonatal brain through JNK hyperactivation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Apoptosis, neuroinflammation and blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage affect the susceptibility of the developing brain to hypoxic-ischemic (HI) insults. c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) is an important mediator of insulin resistance in obesity. We hypothesized that neonatal overweight aggravates HI brain damage through JNK hyperactivation-mediated upregulation of neuronal apoptosis, neuroinflammation and BBB leakage in rat pups.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Overweight (OF) pups were established by reducing the litter size to 6, and control (NF) pups by keeping the litter size at 12 from postnatal (P) day 1 before HI on P7. Immunohistochemistry and immunoblotting were used to determine the TUNEL-(+) cells and BBB damage, cleaved caspase-3 and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), and phospho-JNK and phospho-Bim_ELlevels. Immunofluorescence was performed to determine the cellular distribution of phospho-JNK.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared with NF pups, OF pups had a significantly heavier body-weight and greater fat deposition on P7. Compared with the NF-HI group, the OF-HI group showed significant increases of TUNEL-(+) cells, cleaved levels of caspase-3 and PARP, and ED1-(+) activated microglia and BBB damage in the cortex 24 hours post-HI. Immunofluorescence of the OF-HI pups showed that activated-caspase 3 expression was found mainly in NeuN-(+) neurons and RECA1-(+) vascular endothelial cells 24 hours post-HI. The OF-HI group also had prolonged escape latency in the Morris water maze test and greater brain-volume loss compared with the NF-HI group when assessed at adulthood. Phospho-JNK and phospho-Bim_ELlevels were higher in OF-HI pups than in NF-HI pups immediately post-HI. JNK activation in OF-HI pups was mainly expressed in neurons, microglia and vascular endothelial cells. Inhibiting JNK activity by AS601245 caused more attenuation of cleaved caspase-3 and PARP, a greater reduction of microglial activation and BBB damage post-HI, and significantly reduced brain damage in OF-HI than in NF-HI pups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Neonatal overweight increased HI-induced neuronal apoptosis, microglial activation and BBB damage, and aggravated HI brain damage in rat pups through JNK hyperactivation.</p

Dynamics of the Energy Relaxation and Decoherence of a Photon-Atom Bound State in an Anisotropic Photonic Crystal

An atom embedded inside photonic crystals can form a photon-atom bound state if the emission frequency of the excited atom is lying inside the photonic-band gap of photonic crystals. We studied the dynamics of the energy relaxation and decoherence of a QPAB, qubit made by a photon-atom bound state in photonic crystals. Dynamics of these measurements are solved analytically through the fractional calculus which has been shown to be appropriate mathematical method for the optical systems with non-Markovian dynamics. From these dynamics, we find that the losses of energy, coherence, and information of a QPAB are inhibited. As compared with those qubits without forming photon-atom bound states, the energy relaxation and decoherence rates of these QPABs are strongly suppressed. Other systems suitable for realizing these properties are discussed

An integrated analysis tool for analyzing hybridization intensities and genotypes using new-generation population-optimized human arrays

The cross-sample plot of the multipoint LOH/LCSH analyses of the three samples used in Fig. 5. The plot comprises four panels: (a) The top-left panel is a cross-sample and cross-chromosome plot. The vertical axis is the index of study samples, and the horizontal axis is the physical position (Mb) on each of the 23 chromosomes. The blue and red bars represent SNPs without and with LOH/LSCH, respectively. (b) The top-right panel is a histogram of cross-chromosome aberration frequency. The vertical axis is the index of study samples, and the horizontal axis is the cross-chromosome aberration frequency of the corresponding samples. The pink (skyblue) background represents that the genetic gender of a sample is female (male). The histogram represents the aberration frequency of LOH/LCSH SNPs across the chromosomes of the corresponding samples. (c) The bottom-left panel is a histogram of the cross-sample aberration frequency. The vertical axis is the cross-sample aberration frequency of a SNP, and the horizontal axis is the physical position (Mb) on each of the 23 chromosomes. The purple line represents the aberration proportion of samples carrying the SNPs with LOH/LCSH. (d) The bottom-right panel is the legend of the genetic gender that is used in panel (b), where the pink (skyblue) background represents that the genetic gender of a sample is female (male). (TIFF 1656 kb