Learner strategy instruction and student uptake of strategies in a Japanese as a foreign language context

The Japanese language is recognised as being more difficult than European languages, needing three times more tuition time to reach comparable levels of proficiency. Encouraging Japanese as a Foreign Language (JFL) students to become aware of, and effectively use, learner strategies is one way to assist them become more controlled, effective learners leading to enhanced language learning. This thesis investigates the development and implementation of a JFL curriculum implemented in a university course for students learning JFL. The curriculum was developed specifically to assist beginner university students with the development of learner strategies appropriate for a JFL reading context. The theoretical underpinning of the study was informed by Educational Criticism (Eisner, 1998), which aims to describe, interpret and evaluate the processes of interaction between the teacher, the learner and the curriculum and the students' learning processes in a tertiary JFL classroom. The study investigated the effect on student learning processes of a JFL reading program that incorporated explicit learner strategy instruction and identified factors that enhanced or impeded the development of learner strategy knowledge. The participants in the study were 29 students enrolled in the course, 10 of whom volunteered to undertake additional tasks, and the two teachers who implemented the curriculum. Data collection involved a number of different strategies to observe the students' participation in the classroom and learning experiences. Learning processes were investigated through TOL protocols, classroom observations, course evaluations, interviews, and learner strategy use measurement instruments (SILL, SILK and SORS) to document student uptake of learner strategies. The design of the study and its applied focus recognised my expertise as a JFL teacher, curriculum writer and researcher, an approach that aligns with the purpose of a Professional Doctorate. Four general thematics, or principles, were identified in this study: „h Explicit learner strategy instruction provides the context for students to develop awareness of learner strategies and take control of their learning; „h Collaborative learning and interaction with teachers offers students the opportunity for shared knowledge construction; „h Reflection offers teachers and students the opportunity to reflect on their own learning style and strategy knowledge, and raises awareness of other available strategies; and „h Diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds have an impact on curriculum implementation and student uptake of learner strategies. The study¡¦s methodological contribution is that it is one of the first in Australia to use Educational Criticism (Eisner, 1998) as a research methodology. The findings contribute to theoretical knowledge in the fields of Applied Linguistics, Second Language Teaching and Learning, Second Language Acquisition and JFL Teaching and Learning by offering new knowledge on the importance of learner strategies in the beginner JFL classroom, the potential of explicit strategy instruction, the value of reflection for both teachers and students, and the important role of the teacher in the process of curriculum implementation. The general principles identified and the findings of this in-depth study of a JFL classroom can be drawn upon to inform other teaching practice situations, and invite practitioners from not just Japanese, but from other language areas and other disciplines, to examine and improve their own practices, and suggest further research questions to pursue this line of enquiry.

Reconceptualizing statistical learning in the early years

This chapter argues for the need to restructure children’s statistical experiences from the beginning years of formal schooling. The ability to understand and apply statistical reasoning is paramount across all walks of life, as seen in the variety of graphs, tables, diagrams, and other data representations requiring interpretation. Young children are immersed in our data-driven society, with early access to computer technology and daily exposure to the mass media. With the rate of data proliferation have come increased calls for advancing children’s statistical reasoning abilities, commencing with the earliest years of schooling (e.g., Langrall et al. 2008; Lehrer and Schauble 2005; Shaughnessy 2010; Whitin and Whitin 2011). Several articles (e.g., Franklin and Garfield 2006; Langrall et al. 2008) and policy documents (e.g., National Council of Teachers ofMathematics 2006) have highlighted the need for a renewed focus on this component of early mathematics learning, with children working mathematically and scientifically in dealing with realworld data. One approach to this component in the beginning school years is through data modelling (English 2010; Lehrer and Romberg 1996; Lehrer and Schauble 2000, 2007)...

Ten basic factors to identify suitable subcontractors for construction projects

With unpredictable workloads and a need for a multitude of specialized skills, many main contractors rely heavily on subcontracting to reduce their risks (Bresnen et al., 1985; Beardsworth et al., 1988). This is especially the case In Hong Kong, where the average direct labour content accounts for only around 1% of the total contract sum (Lai, 1987). Extensive usage of subcontracting is also reported in many other countries, including the UK (Gray and Flanagan, 1989) and Japan (Bennett et al., 1987). In addition, and depending upon the scale and complexity of works, it is not uncommon for subcontractors to further sublet their works to lower tier(s) subcontractors. Richter and Mitchell (1982) argued that main contractors can obtain a higher profit margin by reducing their performance costs by subcontracting work to those who have the necessary resources to perform the work more efficiently and economically. Subcontracting is also used strategically to allow firms to employ a minimum work force under fluctuating demand (Usdiken and Sözen, 1985). Through subcontracting, the risks of main contractors are also reduced, as errors in estimating or additional costs caused by delays or extra labour requirements can be absorbed by the subcontractors involved (Woon and Ofori, 2000). Despite these benefits, the quality of work can suffer when incapable or inexperienced subcontractors are employed. Additional problems also exist in the form of bid shopping, unclear accountability, and high fragmentation (Palaneeswaran et al., 2002). A recent CIB TG 23 International Conference, October 2003, Hong Kong report produced by the Hong Kong Construction Industry Review Committee (CIRC) points to development of a framework to help distinguish between capable and incapable subcontractors (Tang, 2001). This paper describes research aims at identifying and prioritising criteria for use in such a framework.

Experimental arts practice incorporating motion capture

My practice-led research explores and maps workflows for generating experimental creative work involving inertia based motion capture technology. Motion capture has often been used as a way to bridge animation and dance resulting in abstracted visuals outcomes. In early works this process was largely done by rotoscoping, reference footage and mechanical forms of motion capture. With the evolution of technology, optical and inertial forms of motion capture are now more accessible and able to accurately capture a larger range of complex movements. Made by Motion is a collaboration between digital artist Paul Van Opdenbosch and performer and choreographer Elise May; a series of studies on captured motion data used to generate experimental visual forms that reverberate in space and time. The project investigates the invisible forces generated by and influencing the movement of a dancer. Along with how the forces can be captured and applied to generating visual outcomes that surpass simple data visualisation, projecting the intent of the performer’s movements. The source or ‘seed’ comes from using an Xsens MVN – Inertial Motion Capture system to capture spontaneous dance movements, with the visual generation conducted through a customised dynamics simulation. In my presentation I will be displaying and discussing a selected creative works from the project along with the process and considerations behind the work.

Are we there yet? A step closer to theorizing information systems success

The need for native Information Systems (IS) theories has been discussed by several prominent scholars. Contributing to their conjectural discussion, this research moves towards theorizing IS success as a native theory for the discipline. Despite being one of the most cited scholarly works to-date, IS success of DeLone and McLean (1992) has been criticized by some for lacking focus on the theoretical approach. Following theory development frameworks, this study improves the theoretical standing of IS success by minimizing interaction and inconsistency. The empirical investigation of theorizing IS success includes 1396 respondents, gathered through six surveys and a case study. The respondents represent 70 organisations, multiple Information Systems, and both private and public sector organizations.

Contours in Motion

My practice-led research explores and maps workflows for generating experimental creative work involving inertia based motion capture technology. Motion capture has often been used as a way to bridge animation and dance resulting in abstracted visuals outcomes. In early works this process was largely done by rotoscoping, reference footage and mechanical forms of motion capture. With the evolution of technology, optical and inertial forms of motion capture are now more accessible and able to accurately capture a larger range of complex movements. The creative work titled “Contours in Motion” was the first in a series of studies on captured motion data used to generating experimental visual forms that reverberate in space and time. With the source or ‘seed’ comes from using an Xsens MVN - Inertial Motion Capture system to capture spontaneous dance movements, with the visual generation conducted through a customised dynamics simulation. The aim of the creative work was to diverge way from a standard practice of using particle system and/or a simple re-targeting of the motion data to drive a 3d character as a means to produce abstracted visual forms. To facilitate this divergence a virtual dynamic object was tether to a selection of data points from a captured performance. The proprieties of the dynamic object were then adjusted to balance the influences from the human movement data with the influence of computer based randomization. The resulting outcome was a visual form that surpassed simple data visualization to project the intent of the performer’s movements into a visual shape itself. The reported outcomes from this investigation have contributed to a larger study on the use of motion capture in the generative arts, furthering the understanding of and generating theories on practice.

Secure coprocessor-based private information retrieval without periodical preprocessing

Early works on Private Information Retrieval (PIR) focused on minimizing the necessary communication overhead. They seemed to achieve this goal but at the expense of query response time. To mitigate this weakness, protocols with secure coprocessors were introduced. They achieve optimal communication complexity and better online processing complexity. Unfortunately, all secure coprocessor-based PIR protocols require heavy periodical preprocessing. In this paper, we propose a new protocol, which is free from the periodical preprocessing while offering the optimal communication complexity and almost optimal online processing complexity. The proposed protocol is proven to be secure.

An intervention to discourage Australian mothers from unnecessarily exposing their babies to the sun for therapeutic reasons

Parents play a key role in children’s sun-protective behaviour, with good sun-protective habits established early tending to be sustained. We designed a maternity hospital-based educational intervention to reduce myths that could result in mothers intentionally sunning their babies. Interviews were conducted with two cross-sections of healthy post-partum inpatients in the maternity ward of a large regional public hospital. The first group (n¼106) was recruited before the commencement of educational in-services for maternity nursing staff; the second group (n¼203) was interviewed after the last staff in-service session. More pre-intervention than post-intervention women reported they would expose their baby to sunlight to: treat suspected jaundice (28.8% vs. 13.3%; p<0.001) or help their baby’s skin adapt to sunlight (10.5% vs. 2.5%; p¼0.003). Fewer post-intervention women indicated they would sun themselves to treat breastfeeding-associated sore/cracked nipples (7.6% vs. 2%; p¼0.026). This educational intervention should be used to educate parents, health professionals and students

The biology of breast tumor progression : acquisition of hormone independence and resistance to cytotoxic drugs

Many breast tumors appear to follow a predictable clinical pattern, being initially responsive to endocrine therapy and to cytotoxic chemotherapy but ultimately exhibiting a phenotype resistant to both modalities. Using the MCF-7 human breast cancer cell line as an example of an 'early' phenotype (estrogen and progesterone receptor positive, steroid responsive, low metastatic potential), we have isolated and characterized a series of hormone-independent but hormone-responsive variants (MIII and MCF7/LCC1). However, these variants remain responsive to both antiestrogens and cytotoxic drugs (methotrexate and colchicine). MIII and MCF7/LCCl cells appear to mimic some of the critical aspects of the early progression to a more aggressive phenotype. An examination of the phenotype of these cells suggests that some hormone-independent breast cancer cells are derived from hormone-dependent parental cells. The development of a hormone-independent phenotype can arise independently of acquisition of a cytotoxic drug resistant phenotype.

A combinatorial approach to anonymous membership broadcast

A set system (X, F ) with X= {x 1,...,x m}) and F = {B1...,B n }, where B i ⊆ X, is called an (n, m) cover-free set system (or CF set system) if for any 1 ≤ i, j, k ≤ n and j ≠ k, |B i >2 |B j ∩ B k | +1. In this paper, we show that CF set systems can be used to construct anonymous membership broadcast schemes (or AMB schemes), allowing a center to broadcast a secret identity among a set of users in a such way that the users can verify whether or not the broadcast message contains their valid identity. Our goal is to construct (n, m) CF set systems in which for given m the value n is as large as possible. We give two constructions for CF set systems, the first one from error-correcting codes and the other from combinatorial designs. We link CF set systems to the concept of cover-free family studied by Erdös et al in early 80’s to derive bounds on parameters of CF set systems. We also discuss some possible extensions of the current work, motivated by different application.

The validity and reliability of the Parent Fever Management Scale: A study from Palestine

Background Parental fever phobia and overuse of antipyretics to control fever is increasing. Little is known about childhood fever management among Arab parents. No scales to measure parents’ fever management practices in Palestine are available. Aims The aims of this study were to translate and examine the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the Parent Fever Management Scale (PFMS). Methods A standard “forward–backward” procedure was used to translate PFMS into Arabic language. It was then validated on a convenience sample of 402 parents between July and October 2012. Descriptive statistics were used, and instrument reliability was assessed for internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Validity was confirmed using convergent and known group validation. Results Applying the recommended scoring method, the median (interquartile range) score of the PFMS was 26 (23-30). Acceptable internal consistency was found (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.733) and the test–retest reliability value was 0.92 (P < 0.001). The chi-squared (χ2) test showed a significant relationship between PFMS groups and frequent daily administration of antipyretic groups (χ2 = 52.86; P < 0.001). The PFMS sensitivity and specificity were 77.67% and 57.75%, respectively. The positive and negative predictive values were 67.89% and 32.11%, respectively. Conclusions The findings of this validation study indicate that the Arabic version of the PFMS is a reliable and valid measure which can be used as a useful tool for health professionals to identify parents’ fever management practices and thus provide targeted education to reduce the unnecessary burden of care they place on themselves when concerned for a febrile child.

When to pull the plug and when to take the plunge : timing strategic decisions about new ventures

It is not uncommon for firms to explore a new venture under the belief it will generate profits, only to find out later that although costs accumulated, profits did not materialize. To manage the high level of uncertainty involved in this process, new ventures are generally designed as vehicles of exploration (Wu, 2012) that allow for a staged investment of resources, starting with small initial investments that can be scaled up or discontinued as uncertainty is resolved over time (Folta, 1998; Li and Chi, 2013). As such, new ventures provide firms a vehicle by which they can probe an uncertain future (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997) without fully committing early on to an irreversible course of action (Folta, Johnson, and O’Brien, 2006). Our focus in the present paper is on the timing of strategic decisions that firms make regarding their exploration ventures. Prior research in the fields of entrepreneurship, real options reasoning, and decision speed has demonstrated a link between the timing of making decisions and performance (Baum and Wally, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989; Judge and Miller, 1991). The antecedents to the timing of decisions, however, are less understood and pose an interesting dilemma.

The N170 observed ‘in the wild’: robust event-related potentials to faces in cluttered dynamic visual scenes

As a social species in a constantly changing environment, humans rely heavily on the informational richness and communicative capacity of the face. Thus, understanding how the brain processes information about faces in real-time is of paramount importance. The N170 is a high temporal resolution electrophysiological index of the brain's early response to visual stimuli that is reliably elicited in carefully controlled laboratory-based studies. Although the N170 has often been reported to be of greatest amplitude to faces, there has been debate regarding whether this effect might be an artifact of certain aspects of the controlled experimental stimulation schedules and materials. To investigate whether the N170 can be identified in more realistic conditions with highly variable and cluttered visual images and accompanying auditory stimuli we recorded EEG 'in the wild', while participants watched pop videos. Scene-cuts to faces generated a clear N170 response, and this was larger than the N170 to transitions where the videos cut to non-face stimuli. Within participants, wild-type face N170 amplitudes were moderately correlated to those observed in a typical laboratory experiment. Thus, we demonstrate that the face N170 is a robust and ecologically valid phenomenon and not an artifact arising as an unintended consequence of some property of the more typical laboratory paradigm.

Quantification of gammaH2AX foci in response to ionising radiation

DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which are induced by either endogenous metabolic processes or by exogenous sources, are one of the most critical DNA lesions with respect to survival and preservation of genomic integrity. An early response to the induction of DSBs is phosphorylation of the H2A histone variant, H2AX, at the serine-139 residue, in the highly conserved C-terminal SQEY motif, forming gammaH2AX(1). Following induction of DSBs, H2AX is rapidly phosphorylated by the phosphatidyl-inosito 3-kinase (PIKK) family of proteins, ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM), DNA-protein kinase catalytic subunit and ATM and RAD3-related (ATR)(2). Typically, only a few base-pairs (bp) are implicated in a DSB, however, there is significant signal amplification, given the importance of chromatin modifications in DNA damage signalling and repair. Phosphorylation of H2AX mediated predominantly by ATM spreads to adjacent areas of chromatin, affecting approximately 0.03% of total cellular H2AX per DSB(2,3). This corresponds to phosphorylation of approximately 2000 H2AX molecules spanning approximately 2 Mbp regions of chromatin surrounding the site of the DSB and results in the formation of discrete gammaH2AX foci which can be easily visualized and quantitated by immunofluorescence microscopy(2). The loss of gammaH2AX at DSB reflects repair, however, there is some controversy as to what defines complete repair of DSBs; it has been proposed that rejoining of both strands of DNA is adequate however, it has also been suggested that re-instatement of the original chromatin state of compaction is necessary(4-8). The disappearence of gammaH2AX involves at least in part, dephosphorylation by phosphatases, phosphatase 2A and phosphatase 4C(5,6). Further, removal of gammaH2AX by redistribution involving histone exchange with H2A.Z has been implicated(7,8). Importantly, the quantitative analysis of gammaH2AX foci has led to a wide range of applications in medical and nuclear research. Here, we demonstrate the most commonly used immunofluorescence method for evaluation of initial DNA damage by detection and quantitation of gammaH2AX foci in gamma-irradiated adherent human keratinocytes(9)

Learning Chinese as a heritage language in Australia and beyond : the role of capital

The benefits of learning and retaining heritage languages are well documented in the literature. Chinese heritage language learners’ commitment to their heritage language learning has gained significant research ground in social psychological and post-structural schools, with empirical evidence predominantly emerging from the North American contexts. There is scant sociological examination of similar problems conducted outside North America. The current study aims to make a contribution in this regard. The use of Bourdieu's sociological notion of capital in the Australian context complements the social psychological and post-structural work predominantly produced in the North American contexts. The initial quantitative sub-study analyses the impacts of various resources on the Chinese heritage language proficiency of 230 snowball-sampled Chinese Australian respondents to an online survey. The subsequent qualitative sub-study explores the profits of learning Chinese heritage language through interviews with a subset of the survey sample. Findings indicate that cultural, social, and symbolic capital significantly positively contributes to Chinese Australians’ Chinese heritage language proficiency, which, in return, produces profits in different forms of capital. The study suggests a reciprocal relationship between ‘capital’ and Chinese heritage language proficiency.