A Review of Studies in Science Education in Singapore: 1971 - 1990     

Toh Kok Aun 《Asia Pacific Journal of Education》1993,13(1):50-60

Research should play a central role in decision making. Practitioners as well as policy makers can illafford to ignore the importance of research, particularly those involving the local context, in informing practice. Contextual differences are often incurred when overseas research findings are imported. A very strong case can therefore be made for more local research studies for use within the local context. There is, however, a dearth of local studies in science education over the past two decades. This paper attempts to briefly survey the field to account for the impoverished state. It will then review some thirty-six research studies carried out in Singapore spanning the period from 1971 to 1990—these representing the studies where documentation were available—with the view of pooling together the findings of the studies and eliciting trends for the benefit of future research efforts as well as enlightening practice and policy.  相似文献   

Quantum lithography: A?non-computing application of quantum information     

Colin Williams  Pieter Kok  Hwang Lee  Jonathan P. Dowling 《Informatik - Forschung und Entwicklung》2006,21(1-2):73-82

Quantum information theory holds the promise of revolutionizing technologies other than computing and communications. In this article we show how quantum entanglement can be harnessed to beat the Rayleigh diffraction limit of conventional optical lithography, and to permit nano-devices to be fabricated at a scale arbitrarily shorter than the wavelength used. Given the relative ease of performing optical lithography compared with other schemes, and the relative costs associated in migrating the lithography industry to each new fabrication technology, exploiting quantum entanglement to extend the useful life of optical lithography could be economically attractive.  相似文献   

Towards a People-Centred Education: Possibilities and Struggles in the Philippines     

Swee-Hin Toh  Floresca-Cawagas 《International Review of Education/Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft/Revue internationale l'éducation》1997,43(5-6):527-545

Focusing on the Philippines, the article describes the role played by people's movements and non-governmental organizations in empowering citizens and combating injustice. Educational programmes are an important element in this struggle. The authors cite examples of what Paolo Freire called the "pedagogy of dialogue", which seeks to develop creative, critical enquiry and self-reliant understanding. Such programmes have made an impact in areas such as women's empowerment, poverty-alleviation and the combating of environmental destruction. The authors argue that this type of education can also play an important role in challenging the materialist vision of progress and awakening people to deeper values.  相似文献   

Optimizing between data transformation and parametric weighting for stable binary classification     

Kangrok Oh  Zhengguo Li  Beom-Seok Oh  Kar-Ann Toh 《Journal of The Franklin Institute》2018,355(4):1614-1637

In this paper, an optimization problem is formulated for stable binary classification. Essentially, the objective function seeks to optimize a full data transformation matrix along with the learning of a linear parametric model. The data transformation matrix and the weight parameter vector are alternatingly optimized based on the area above the receiver operating characteristic curve criterion. The proposed method improves the existing means via an optimal data transformation rather than that based on the diagonal, random and ad-hoc settings. This optimal transformation stretches beyond the fixed settings of known optimization methods. Extensive experiments using 34 binary classification data sets show that the proposed method can be more stable than competing classifiers. Specifically, the proposed method shows robustness to imbalanced and small training data sizes in terms of classification accuracy with statistical evidence.  相似文献   

A new Lyapunov functional approach to sampled-data synchronization control for delayed neural networks     

Shen-Ping Xiao  Hong-Hai Lian  Kok Lay Teo  Hong-Bing Zeng  Xiao-Hu Zhang 《Journal of The Franklin Institute》2018,355(17):8857-8873

This paper discusses the problem of synchronization for delayed neural networks using sampled-data control. We introduce a new Lyapunov functional, called complete sampling-interval-dependent discontinuous Lyapunov functional, which can adequately capture sampling information on both intervals from $r(t?\overline{\tau })$ to $r(t_k?\overline{\tau })$ and from $r(t?\overline{\tau })$ to $r(t_{k+1}?\overline{\tau })$. Based on this Lyapunov functional and an improved integral inequality, less conservative conditions are derived to ensure the stability of the synchronization error system, leading to the fact that the drive neural network is synchronized with the response neural network. The desired sampled-data controller is designed in terms of solutions to linear matrix inequalities. A numerical example is provided to demonstrate that the proposed approaches are effective and superior to some existing ones in the literature.  相似文献   

Parental family stress during pregnancy and cognitive functioning in early childhood: The Generation R Study     

Jens Henrichs  Jacqueline J. SchenkRianne Kok  Bouchra FtitacheHenk G. Schmidt  Albert HofmanVincent W.V. Jaddoe  Frank C. VerhulstHenning Tiemeier 《Early childhood research quarterly》2011,26(3):332

We investigated whether parental family stress during pregnancy is associated with cognitive functioning in early childhood in a population-based cohort (n = 3139). Family stress was assessed using the Family Assessment Device at the 20th week of pregnancy and was reported by mothers and fathers. Mothers completed the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, measuring children's verbal cognitive functioning, when children were 18 months and they completed the Parent Report of Children's Abilities, measuring nonverbal cognitive functioning, when children were 2 years old. Maternal prenatal family stress was related to children's low word comprehension and poorer nonverbal cognitive development independent of paternal reports. In a subset of 639 children, maternal prenatal family stress was also associated with observational assessments of poor effortful control at age 37 months. Paternal prenatal family stress was only related to poorer nonverbal cognitive development, independent of the mother. When both parents had high levels of prenatal family stress, children displayed particularly poor nonverbal cognitive development. These findings emphasize the significance of parental prenatal family stress for child developmental outcomes.  相似文献   

Peace Building and Peace Education: Local Experiences,Global Reflections     

Toh  Swee-Hin 《Prospects》2002,32(1):87-93

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Teaching, Teacher Knowledge and Constructivism     

Kok-Aun Toh  Boon-Tiong Ho  Charles M.K. Chew  Joseph P. Riley II 《Educational Research for Policy and Practice》2003,2(3):195-204

An effective education program delivers a satisfactory level of achievement for every student. For this to happen, we must examine carefully the implications of educational theories and research for teaching and learning. The way a teacher conducts his or her lessons must also be examined critically. This paper will deal with teaching, teacher knowledge and constructivism. For teaching, some reasons were suggested for the observation why it had not changed significantly since the last 40 years in Asian classrooms. In the area of teacher knowledge, the authors report a recent research finding on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development. The paper concludes with a discussion on whether constructivism is indeed a better way to teach. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

HIV Education for Young People: Intervention Effectiveness,Programme Development,and Future Research     

Schaalma  Herman P.  Kok  Gerjo  Abraham  Charles  Hospers  Harm J.  Klepp  Knut I.  Parcel  Guy 《Prospects》2002,32(2):187-206

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Professional Characteristics and Teacher Professionalism of Secondary School Teachers     

Chia Soo Keng  Diong Cheong Hoong  Toh Kok Aun 《Asia Pacific Journal of Education》1994,14(1):55-66

Questionnaire responses from 338 secondary school teachers were analysed to relate teachers' professional characteristics (comprising teaching experience, professional development, and academic and professional qualifications) to teacher professionalism, defined in terms of the two dimensions, teaching competence and commitment to teaching. The Professional Development and Teacher Professionalism Instrument (PDTPI) was devised to measure professional development and teacher professionalism. Inferential statistical techniques employed in the study showed that the variable, teaching experience, was not related to teacher professionalism. Professional development, on the other hand, was found to be an important variable, with the mean teacher professionalism scores between the “high” and “low” professional development groups being significantly different. The study also found that academic qualification was not related to teacher professionalism. However, teachers who had higher professional qualifications were found to possess a higher degree of teacher professionalism.  相似文献