Functional dyspepsia: recent advances in pathophysiology

Functional (non-ulcer) dyspepsia is a common disease. With effective treatment now available for peptic ulcer; functional dyspepsia remains a major therapeutic challenge in gastrointestinal medicine. Despite advances in technology and diagnostic methods, the 'true' underlying pathogenic abnormality in this disease remains elusive. It is likely that functional dyspepsia is a heterogeneous disorder with multiple aetiological factors. In this article various pathophysiological abnormalities in functional dyspepsia are discussed, and possible aetiological mechanisms proposed.published_or_final_versio

A Network to Support Educational Changes

In 1998, there was a major shift in the medium of instruction in Hong Kong secondary schools from English to Chinese. This change had many educational advantages. However, its implementation was not without problem. For example, the general public will probably label those schools using Chinese (CMI schools) as inferior to those using English (EMI schools). More seriously, most of the teachers, with their own learning experience only in English, may not be able to use Chinese as a language for teaching their subject-specific knowledge. This paper reports the work of a computer network, specifically established to support the educational change and discusses the strategies on providing effective support to educational changes through computer networking. The most important contribution of the network lies in the knowledge creation and the growth of the CMI school community as a whole, collecting, uplifting and disseminating high quality pedagogical knowledge within the community. Close collaboration with the front-line teachers at schools has also been highly valued, hoping to tackle down-to-earth problems of the teachers.published_or_final_versio

Gastro-oesophageal reflux in bronchiectasis

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A gradient flow approach to robust pole assignment in second-order systems

Assignment for second-order systems is considered. It is shown that assignment can be achieved by solving a linear matrix equation or linear system. An objective function measuring the robustness of the closed-loop spectrum is minimized via gradient flow.published_or_final_versio

An analysis of the participation of an online educational discussion forum - the study of Hong Kong Cyber Campus Forum

Information technology is now widely used in the education sector, and online discussion forum has been regarded as a useful tool for education. A large number of online forums have been set up with an unexamined assumption that participants will learn through interacting with others in the forums. This paper reports a case study of the discussion forum of the Hong Kong Cyber Campus (www.hkcampus.net). It is the in one of the largest public educational discussion forums in Hong Kong set up jointly by local higher education institutions, to provide a venue for educators, teachers, students and parents to discuss about educational issues and the use of information technology for teaching and learning. The current study addresses the following issues: (1) What are the major objects of discussion in the forum? (2) How the structure of the forum may affect interactions between the different types of participants? (3) To what extent is online discussion conducive to conceptual learning of the participants? (4) What are the characteristics of the interactions of the participants in online forum? (5) How should the moderator act effectively to facilitate discussion? What kinds of moderator's messages will spark off more discussion? What kinds of messages tend to end the discussion? To address these research questions, we have conducted an analysis of the messages of the forum generated in its first twelve months from Feb.1999 to Feb.2000. Some of the findings are highlighted in this paper, namely: (1) The objects of discussion are mostly about everyday work and life of students and teachers; (2) The structure of the forum does affect the amount of interaction between different types of participants; (3) Online discussion affords gathering opinion, exchanging information and expressing feelings; (4) Online forum appears weak in resolving conflicting views. Participants seldom exhibit a change of their beliefs during the discussion. It also tends to polarize the discussion, lead the participants to extreme points of view. This is especially salient when the participants do not share a common experience of the issue. (5) The kind of moderator's messages that try to round up, make conclusion and provide authoritative information tend to terminate the discussion, while the expression of example/experience with open meaning tend to spark off more discussion.published_or_final_versio

School support and teacher motivation to implement project-based learning

The present study investigated how school support was related to teachers' motivation and willingness to persist in project-based learning. The participants were 182 Hong Kong teachers who completed a questionnaire about their school's support and their motivation to implement project-based learning. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that when teachers perceived their schools as being stronger in collegiality and more supportive of teacher competence and autonomy, they had higher motivation in project-based learning and stronger willingness to persist in this educational innovation. Perceived school support predicted teachers' attitude for future persistence both directly and indirectly through its influence on teacher motivation. The results suggest that social-contextual factors are important for teacher motivation in the implementation of educational innovations. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd.published_or_final_versio

Helicobacter pylori sero-prevalence in asthma

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Comparison between the responsiveness and sensitivity of the Hong Kong Specific and Standard US SF-12

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A genetic algorithm for assigning train arrival dates at a maintenance centre

© 2019, IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) Hosting by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The paper is concerned with planning heavy maintenance of train-sets at a maintenance centre. The heavy maintenance process is complex and, for each train-set, the actual duration of maintenance is uncertain at the time of planning. The allocation of the dates when train-sets should arrive at the maintenance centre is crucial phase of the planning procedure. The objective function is a weighted sum of two components, the expected total penalty for not meeting the required number of train-sets in active service and the total cost for the deviation (earliness and tardiness) from the desired dates of arrival. A genetic algorithm is presented for the considered problem and its effectiveness is demonstrated by the computational experiments that used real-world data provided by a big maintenance centre

A study on the effect of COX-2 inhibitors on gastric mucosal prostaglandin synthesis

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