What do error patterns tell us about Hong Kong Chinese and Australian students’ understanding of decimal numbers?

Mathematics educators have had a long standing interest in students’ understanding of decimal numbers. Most studies of students’ understanding of decimals have been conducted within Western cultural settings. The present study sought to gain insight into Chinese Hong Kong students’ and regional Australian students’ general performance on a variety of decimals tasks and to investigate students’ error patterns

HONG KONG GRADE 6 STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE AND MATHEMATICAL REASONING IN DECIMALS TASKS: PROCEDURALLY BASED OR CONCEPTUALLY BASED?

© 2014, National Science Council, Taiwan. Most studies of students’ understanding of decimals have been conducted within Western cultural settings. The broad aim of the present research was to gain insight into Chinese Hong Kong grade 6 students’ general performance on a variety of decimals tasks. More specifically, the study aimed to explore students’ mathematical reasoning for their use of ‘rules’ and algorithms and to determine whether connections exist between students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge when completing decimals tasks. Results indicated that conceptual understanding for rules and procedures were built into the students’ knowledge system for most of the items concerned with place value in decimals—ordering decimals, translating fractions into decimals, the representation of place value in decimals, the concept of place value in decimals on number line and the concept of continuous quantity in decimals. However, the students were not able to provide such clear explanations for the use of algorithms for the multiplication and division items. The findings are discussed in the light of Chinese perspectives on procedural and conceptual understanding

Teaching with procedural variation: A Chinese way of promoting deep understanding of mathematics

In mathematics education, there has been tension between deep learning and repetitive learning. Western educators often emphasize the need for students to construct a conceptual understanding of mathematical symbols and rules before they practise the rules (Li, 2006). On the other hand, Chinese learners tend to be oriented towards rote learning and memorization (Marton, Watkins & Tang, 1997). One aspect of the criticism is that rote learning is known to lead to poor learning outcomes (Watkins & Biggs, 2001). However, Chinese students consistently outperform their Western counterparts in many international comparative studies on mathematics achievement such as TIMSS (Beaton, Mullis, Martin, Gonzalez, Kelly & Smith, 1997; Mullis, Martin, & Foy, 2008) and PISA (OECD, 2004; OECD, 2010). This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of the “paradox of the Chinese learners” (Marton, Dall‟ Alba & Lai, 1993) by exploring the procedural variation and its place in the development of mathematical understanding

Culture Consideration in the Design of Government Housing Estates - A case study of selected estates in Maiduguri, Borno State - Nigeria

A study to investigate the extent to which design and planning have considered culture of the target users was carried out on three selected government-built estates in Maiduguri, northeastern Nigeria. The estates were: Abbaganaram or ‘State’ Low-cost, Dikwa Low-cost and 303 Estate. The original designs of these estates were studied and so were the post-occupancy modifications made to them. Although an attempt was made in all the three estates to cater for the value systems of the people through the provision of courtyards, the relationship between the various activity areas with the courtyards rendered the courtyards virtually none functional. So also, majority of the houses have been modified through the provisions of additional facilities in order to accommodate cultural issues of value to the people like polygamy, large extended families, privacy, gender segregation, etc. Thus, recommendations are made to government and estate developers to consider cultural traits in housing design and development.Key words: Culture, Estates, Design and Planning

The business value of BIM for asset owners : a cross case analysis

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate and identify the activity systems that drive Building Information Modelling (BIM) business value in Asset Management (AM). The utilisation of BIM has widened in scope, functionality, flexibility and interoperability to support the AM business process. However, research concerning BIM business value in AM has been inadequate despite its considerable potential and significance in the attainment of organisational objectives. The realisation of BIM business value requires a concerted effort by the asset owner to be able to determine and appraise the critical activities that drive business value in AM. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopted a qualitative research approach based on a multi-case study strategy that aimed to identify the key business processes that drive BIM business value in AM. The study involved a three-stage research design using interviews and document analysis to facilitate a cross-case analysis from the perspective of the activity systems and dimensions of BIM governance. Findings – The paper identified six critical activity systems that drive BIM business value for an asset owner: BIM strategy, contract management, lifecycle management, maintenance management, work-order management and value realisation management. The study found that the most developed activity system is the BIM strategy, and the least is value realisation management across all cases. Also, the paper points out that the most proficient BIM governance dimension is Process, and the least is People across the three cases. The study noted that the ability of an asset owner to realise BIM business value has maturity undertones and that the asset owner could derive BIM business value, if the six activity systems are effectively executed and continuously improved to an advanced stage of maturity. Originality – An original contribution of the study is the development of the understanding of asset owners in relation to the discovery of key activity systems that drive BIM business value in AM. Another significant contribution of this paper is the demonstration of a novel approach to evaluate organisational maturity of asset owners from the perspectives of the activity systems and BIM governance dimensions of people, process and technology

BIM business value for asset owners : key issues and challenges

There is a need to develop the understanding of asset owners concerning the constraints of building information modelling (BIM) implementation, and its subsequent value realisation activities in asset management (AM) cannot be overstated. This is because the life cycle cost of a built asset is three times more than construction costs and five times more than the initial investment outlays. Hence, this paper investigated and identified the key issues and challenges of realising BIM business value in AM. The study adopted an explorative and deductive approach. A qualitative four-stage research design strategy was adopted using 10 semi-structured interviews and document analysis to collect data. These were analysed through qualitative thematic analysis. The study identified 15 key barriers and classified them from the perspective BIM governance dimensions, namely people, process and technology. Furthermore, the study identified that more process-based challenges are experienced than people or technology. Of the identified challenges, three are people-related, eight are process-related and four are technology-related. The analysed results focussed on the development of the understanding of asset owners, policymakers and researchers regarding the complex challenges that hinder BIM utilisation and value realisation in AM. The findings of this paper support progress towards enhanced BIM adoption in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry by highlighting the significance of the identified challenges, their nature (people-, processor technology-based) and the resultant effect on BIM business value realisation during asset operations. The original contribution of this study was the exploration and identification of the current challenges experienced by asset owners in implementing BIM during asset operations and how these affect the derivation of BIM business value

Supersymmetry Without Prejudice at the 7 TeV LHC

We investigate the model independent nature of the Supersymmetry search strategies at the 7 TeV LHC. To this end, we study the missing-transverse-energy-based searches developed by the ATLAS Collaboration that were essentially designed for mSUGRA. We simulate the signals for ~71k models in the 19-dimensional parameter space of the pMSSM. These models have been found to satisfy existing experimental and theoretical constraints and provide insight into general features of the MSSM without reference to a particular SUSY breaking scenario or any other assumptions at the GUT scale. Using backgrounds generated by ATLAS, we find that imprecise knowledge of these estimated backgrounds is a limiting factor in the potential discovery of these models and that some channels become systematics-limited at larger luminosities. As this systematic error is varied between 20-100%, roughly half to 90% of this model sample is observable with significance S>5 for 1 fb^{-1} of integrated luminosity. We then examine the model characteristics for the cases which cannot be discovered and find several contributing factors. We find that a blanket statement that squarks and gluinos are excluded with masses below a specific value cannot be made. We next explore possible modifications to the kinematic cuts in these analyses that may improve the pMSSM model coverage. Lastly, we examine the implications of a null search at the 7 TeV LHC in terms of the degree of fine-tuning that would be present in this model set and for sparticle production at the 500 GeV and 1 TeV Linear Collider.Comment: 51 pages, 26 figure

Southern Chinese patients with systemic lupus erythematosus in Hong Kong have low vitamin D levels

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D insufficiency has been linked to pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. This study aimed to measure serum 25(OH)D level in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in Hong Kong and to evaluate association between serum 25(OH)D level and disease activity. METHODS: Serum 25(OH)D level was measured by radioimmunoassay in SLE patients and healthy controls. Lupus disease activity was determined by SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI), serum anti-dsDNA antibody, C3 and C4 levels. RESULTS: Fifty-two SLE patients with mean ± standard deviation disease duration of 15.5±8.6 years were recruited. Five patients had active lupus disease. Five (9.6%) patients had serum 25(OH)D levels <30 nmol/L. Serum 25(OH)D level was significantly lower in SLE patients compared to age- and sex-matched controls (n=52) [45.5±12.3 vs 51.1±12.6 nmol/L, P=0.02]. Serum 25(OH)D levels were not found to be related to SLEDAI, elevated anti-dsDNA antibody, low C3 or C4 levels or medications. One vitamin D insufficient patient had low serum albumin-corrected calcium. Serum 25(OH)D levels were found to correlate negatively with estimated glomerular filtration rate (r= –0.30, P=0.03) but was not different between patients who had normal and impaired renal function (P=0.38). CONCLUSION: SLE patients in Hong Kong were found to have low serum 25(OH)D level despite its subtropical location.published_or_final_versionThe 15th Medical Research Conference (15th MRC), Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 16 January 2010. In Hong Kong Medical Journal, 2010, v. 16 n. 1, suppl. 1, p. 47, abstract no. 7