李應林校長致教務長朱有光、文學院院長莊澤宣、總務長謝昭杰和附中主任楊重光有關嶺南大學於大村復課的信件 (原稿)

第二次世界大戰爆發，香港於1941年末淪陷，嶺南亦告停課，師生逃難。當時嶺南大學校長李應林博士於1942年初經香港潛往重慶，再轉到韶關，開展在大村復課的籌備工作。李校長當時於大村覓地重建校園，待校址確定後，便著手通知因戰亂而流徙各地的嶺南師生回來復課。當時李校長得文書主任盧惠風幫忙抄錄，以口述形式準備了署名「笑庵」(即李應林校長的別名) 的信件給教務長朱有光、文學院院長莊澤宣、總務長謝昭杰和附中主任楊重光，通知他們復課安排，信件另附有一份「轉換銀行存款印鑑通知書」，授權朱有光處理提款事項。李校長將此信交託當時為學生自治總會主席李毓宏學長 (1943年榮社)，偷渡回澳門和香港送交上述四人。 李毓宏學長曾於1992年10月15日出版的第120期 《嶺南通訊》撰文，詳細交待信件的背景詳情，原文附註於此紀錄中作參考。另根據由李學長家人提供的「李毓宏的抗戰時期香港教育口述歷史訪談文稿」中，亦有交待更多有關信件的故事。李學長提到因偷渡回港澳須途經廣東省中部的淪陷區，為安全起見，信中採用了暗語，最後信件亦成功送交四人，但礙於當時香港的形勢，沒有一人願意願獨自把它收下，信件原稿最後由李毓宏學長保留。 至2014年6月，李毓宏學長的家人將他生前珍藏、包括此信件在內的嶺南文獻轉交嶺南大學作永久保存。https://commons.ln.edu.hk/lingnan_history_bks/1011/thumbnail.jp

Opportunities & challenges of international service project

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is committed to nurturing students to become responsible global citizens with a strong sense of social responsibility and a good global outlook. Students from PolyU participated in an International Service Learning Programme- Yogyakarta Kampung Field School (YKFS) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in the summer of 2012. The programme was jointly organized by Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU) in Indonesia, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia and PolyU. This overseas service learning programme was a new programme for PolyU students and staff that reaching the southern hemisphere and also a new attempt that collaborating with two other universities in service learning project. The theme of the Programme was ‘Improving the Living Quality of the Rural Settlements as a Basic of Developing Tourism village in Banjaroya’. Students were required to live in villages in Indonesia where they learned about the diversity of culture and made friends with other students by serving the rural community. Students coming from three universities mixed together and grouped themselves into teams, and stayed at the homes of the local villagers for nearly one month. While adapting to a very different lifestyle, they learned about the local culture and wisdom, and served the local community with their professional knowledge. As students were coming from different academic disciplines, they formed good teams which members were with different abilities and they were also able to carry out a variety of service projects after surveying on the needs of the local communities. During the programme, students studied different aspects of the rural villages and contributed rich ideas on improving the living quality of the local people. The programme has provided a good opportunity for students to learn how to be global citizens and to enhance their generic competences. It also served as a pilot service learning programme for the planning of a credit-bearing service learning subject. Meanwhile, this programme delivered challenges to students in the aspects of culture shock, unfamiliar serving community, language barrier…etc. It also appeared as a great challenge to the programme staff in the areas of risk and uncertainty management, which required the orientation, adjustment and balancing of different supervision dimensions -teaching, guidance, monitoring and consultant dimensions. This paper will discuss the characteristics of this programme and evaluate the project achievements and the new attempts of teaching that contributing for project outcomes

Polynomial Fuzzy Observer-Based Feedback Control for Nonlinear Hyperbolic PDEs Systems

This article explores the observer-based feedback control problem for a nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) system. Initially, the polynomial fuzzy hyperbolic PDEs (PFHPDEs) model is established through the utilization of the fuzzy identification approach, derived from the nonlinear hyperbolic PDEs model. Various types of state estimation and controller design problems for the polynomial fuzzy PDEs system are discussed concerning the state estimation problem. To investigate the relaxed stability problem, Euler’s homogeneous theorem, Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional with polynomial matrices (LKFPM), and the sum-of-squares (SOSs) approach are adopted. The exponential stabilization condition is formulated in terms of the spatial-derivative-SOSs (SD-SOSs). Additionally, a segmental algorithm is developed to find the feasible solution for the SD-SOS condition. Finally, a hyperbolic PDEs system and several numerical examples are provided to illustrate the validity and effectiveness of the proposed results

Figures in international service project

As the Hong Kong society continues to promote the culture of caring for the needy, more students are encouraged to participate in voluntary services during their primary and secondary school study. These students have experiences to serve the needy in forms of social gathering activities, tour guiding & language tutorial…etc, which enhance their confidence and motivation to attempt service learning projects in future. Based on surveyed figures of the students participated in different service learning projects in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, at the early stage of the projects, it is revealed that these students would easily overlook the dimension of professional knowledge applications, sustainable impacts to beneficiary and learning achievements. This indicates that their pre-university voluntary service experiences may be the barriers for their learning process in service learning projects that they have tendency to omit the learning dimension in service learning and to overly focus on service delivery. Teachers of service learning subjects in university need to handle this phenomenon carefully especially for the projects consisted of students from multi-disciplines. In order to let students smoothly transit from the role of volunteers to effective service learners, teachers should take these figures into consideration when designing their course frame work, course syllabus and teaching approaches accordingly. Information collected from narrative reflection submissions at different stages in service learning project provides objective information to measure the extent of students’ generic growth, professional knowledge application and their learning achievement from service learning. These interim data also provides an indicator to teachers for striking a balance between teacher intervention and students autonomy at the service delivery stage. It would be the important information to evaluate the learning outcome at the final stage too. The figures of post project survey would also provide effective evaluation information of whole service learning period. These accumulated data from different projects formed a database for teachers’ preparation and operation in the future projects. The figures used in this paper come from service learning projects in Hong Kong, mainland China and Indonesia. These figures were measured from pre and post project surveys and narrative reflective journals at different project stages. This paper will discuss the figures in details and the corresponding teachers’ responses. Part of the post project figures evaluated the effectiveness of transiting students from volunteers to effective service learners

Intermedia and interculturalism: practitioners’ perspectives on an interactive theatre for young ethnic minority students in Hong Kong

This paper reports findings from a case study of an interactive theatre for young ethnic minority pupils in Hong Kong. Drawing upon Higgins’s (1966) notion of ‘intermedia’ as a configurational principle, this creative project entails collaboratively-designed performances with elements of drama, music, dance, puppetry, and language learning principles. This study explores – from practitioners’ perspectives – the pedagogical affordances of this intermedia-inspired collaborative project in early childhood settings targeting culturally diverse groups in Hong Kong. Qualitative findings emerging out of autoethnographic reflections of five practitioners, complemented with nonparticipant observation, have pointed to the emergence of an interculturalist gestalt in dialogue with an intermedial configuration. We argue that this opens up spaces for artistic participation and learning beyond language(s) in the early years through tapping into the pedagogical potentials of this creative project. Qualitative data also suggest that practitioners’ abilities to exercise flexibility and openness in response to an intermedial configuration have a mediating effect. Concluding remarks are made of the under-utilisation of intermedia as a boundary-destabilising and configurational principle in arts-based endeavours, and as a pedagogical principle in which multimodal and multisensory learning is embraced as the way forward, with insights drawn from cultural democracy and culturally responsive pedagogy

The Arabidopsis R2R3 MYB transcription factor MYB15 is a key regulator of lignin biosynthesis in effector-triggered immunity

Lignin, a major component of the secondary cell wall, is important for plant growth and development. Moreover, lignin plays a pivotal role in plant innate immunity. Lignin is readily deposited upon pathogen infection and functions as a physical barrier that limits the spread of pathogens. In this study, we show that an Arabidopsis MYB transcription factor MYB15 is required for the activation of lignin biosynthesis genes such as PAL, C4H, 4CL, HCT, C3′H, COMT, and CAD, and consequently lignin formation during effector-triggered immune responses. Upon challenge with the avirulent bacterial pathogen Pst DC3000 (AvrRpm1), lignin deposition and disease resistance were reduced in myb15 mutant plants. Furthermore, whereas invading pathogens, together with hypersensitive cell death, were restricted to the infection site in wild-type leaves, they spread beyond the infected area in myb15 mutants. The exogenous supply of the lignin monomer coniferyl alcohol restored lignin production and rescued immune defects in myb15 plants. These results demonstrate that regulation at the transcriptional level is key to pathogen-induced lignification and that MYB15 plays a central role in this process

Cross-disciplinary collaboration through WuZhiQiao Project to foster cultural exchange and community engagement

In 2013, students of the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi), with the support of WuZhiQiao (WZQ) Charitable Foundation, formed a core team of 11 students to organize and participate in social service projects to help the underprivileged in the Chinese mainland. WuZhiQiao (WZQ) projects, the first cross-region social service engagement by THEi students, bring together students from Hong Kong and the Mainland. WZQ Charitable Foundation aims to help the Chinese traditional village in building Pedestrian Bridge and organizing community projects. Since there are Chinese villages facing flooding during rainy seasons, the local villagers will be trapped inside the village without the chance to go outside or wade outside the village. There are hundreds of such villages and they highly need our help. Each project mainly involves two or three institutes from Hong Kong and the Mainland, and they organize the whole volunteer project including planning, investigation, design, promotion and operation. Through involvement in different states or provinces, WZQ projects provide good chance of communication and interaction between Hong Kong teams and the Mainland teams and advocate intercultural social services. The projects can foster the cultural exchange between Hong Kong and the Mainland. Moreover, the majority of WZQ project members are coming from the fields of engineering, architecture and health care. We can practice our learning from lectures through the project implementation. Different parties are involved in the engineering projects including clients, consultants, contractors, surveyors, engineers and workers. Engineering students can gain good understanding of the holistic picture of a real-life engineering project. We visited the location village for investigation to learn more about the local culture, geometry and the people’s needs and discussed with the Mainland Team through online chatting tools in order to propose the optimal pedestrian building design and other community projects. Having spent over six months in planning and preparation, THEi students will implement a bridge-building and community project in Chongqing in January 2015. Through engagement in this service-learning project, not only the undergraduates of THEi can benefit through personal development but the life quality of the disadvantaged can also be improved

Accuracy of Intraocular Lens Power Calculation Formulas for Highly Myopic Eyes

Purpose. To evaluate and compare the accuracy of different intraocular lens (IOL) power calculation formulas for eyes with an axial length (AL) greater than 26.00 mm. Methods. This study reviewed 407 eyes of 219 patients with AL longer than 26.0 mm. The refractive prediction errors of IOL power calculation formulas (SRK/T, Haigis, Holladay, Hoffer Q, and Barrett Universal II) using User Group for Laser Interference Biometry (ULIB) constants were evaluated and compared. Results. One hundred seventy-one eyes were enrolled. The Barrett Universal II formula had the lowest mean absolute error (MAE) and SRK/T and Haigis had similar MAE, and the statistical highest MAE were seen with the Holladay and Hoffer Q formulas. The interquartile range of the Barrett Universal II formula was also the lowest among all the formulas. The Barrett Universal II formulas yielded the highest percentage of eyes within ±1.0 D and ±0.5 D of the target refraction in this study (97.24% and 79.56%, resp.). Conclusions. Barrett Universal II formula produced the lowest predictive error and the least variable predictive error compared with the SRK/T, Haigis, Holladay, and Hoffer Q formulas. For high myopic eyes, the Barrett Universal II formula may be a more suitable choice

Cryptopleurine Analogs with Modification of E Ring Exhibit Different Mechanism to Rac-Cryptopleurine and Tylophorine

Tylophorine analogs exhibit a broad range of pharmacological activities, including anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, anti-autoimmune, and anti-virus effects. Structure-activity relationship study of different structure tylophorine analogs can provide further understanding of their biological activity. Modifications on the E ring of the quinolizidine moiety of cryptopleurine analogs changed the potency and the selective inhibitory effect on NF-κB, AP-1, and CRE signaling pathways. Functional cryptopleurine analogs showed potent inhibition of NF-κB signaling pathway in both HepG2 and HEK-293 cell lines. The E ring structure analogs also differed in suppression of protein translation, and expression of cyclin D1. Our results showed that DCB-3503 or Rac-cryptopleurine could be a scaffold for modification to yield compounds with different mechanisms of action