University reputations and international student recruitment

Universities have had to change rapidly in recent years to cope with major challenges to their traditional positions, and, further, to successfully compete in the recruitment of international students. As a relative latecomer to this market, HKU, over just ten years, now attracts, on average, some 10,000 unique applications a year from Mainland China alone for the 300 places available. The strategic and action plans mapped out to achieve this focused on the reputation, perception, image, or brand of the university, with recruitment itself following on as a lower priority set of actions. The necessity to understand the target market, the psychology and motivation of the Chinese applicant, and what determines reputation in this part of Asia, and to differentiat6e amongst diverse markets as well as amongst different providers, is critical. The presentation will also emphasize the importance of alignment, that is, a consistent message that emerges from a set of actions, in the development of brand.published_or_final_versio

Economics methods in Cochrane systematic reviews of health promotion and public health related interventions.

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Discrete cortical areas responsible for semantic processing of Chinese characters and sentences as identified with fMRI

Poster Session - Language: no. 1276INTRODUCTION: The study focuses on how cortical activations are modulated by the processing of different linguistic units when people perform semantic language tasks. From the perspective of cognitive science, semantic activation entails a process of combining the meanings of small parts (units) into a large whole (4). Brain mapping data indicated a significant difference in semantic retrieval of Chinese single characters and phrases (1, 3). Here we hypothesize that ...postprin

Electrophysiological dynamics of Chinese phonology during visual word recognition in Chinese-English bilinguals

Silent word reading leads to the activation of orthographic (spelling), meaning, as well as phonological (sound) information. For bilinguals, native language information can also be activated automatically when they read words in their second language. For example, when Chinese-English bilinguals read words in their second language (English), the phonology of the Chinese translations is automatically activated. Chinese phonology, however, consists of consonants and vowels (segmental) and tonal information. To what extent these two aspects of Chinese phonology are activated is yet unclear. Here, we used behavioural measures, event-related potentials and oscillatory EEG to investigate Chinese segmental and tonal activation during word recognition. Evidence of Chinese segmental activation was found when bilinguals read English words (faster responses, reduced N400, gamma-band power reduction) and when they read Chinese words (increased LPC, gamma-band power reduction). In contrast, evidence for Chinese tonal activation was only found when bilinguals read Chinese words (gamma-band power increase). Together, our converging behavioural and electrophysiological evidence indicates that Chinese segmental information is activated during English word reading, whereas both segmental and tonal information are activated during Chinese word reading. Importantly, gamma-band oscillations are modulated differently by tonal and segmental activation, suggesting independent processing of Chinese tones and segments

<i>Trypanosoma brucei</i> DHRF-TS revisited:characterisation of a bifunctional and highly unstable recombinant dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase

<div><p>Bifunctional dihydrofolate reductase–thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS) is a chemically and genetically validated target in African trypanosomes, causative agents of sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in cattle. Here we report the kinetic properties and sensitivity of recombinant enzyme to a range of lipophilic and classical antifolate drugs. The purified recombinant enzyme, expressed as a fusion protein with elongation factor Ts (Tsf) in ThyA^- <i>Escherichia coli</i>, retains DHFR activity, but lacks any TS activity. TS activity was found to be extremely unstable (half-life of 28 s) following desalting of clarified bacterial lysates to remove small molecules. Stability could be improved 700-fold by inclusion of dUMP, but not by other pyrimidine or purine (deoxy)-nucleosides or nucleotides. Inclusion of dUMP during purification proved insufficient to prevent inactivation during the purification procedure. Methotrexate and trimetrexate were the most potent inhibitors of DHFR (<i>K</i>_i 0.1 and 0.6 nM, respectively) and FdUMP and nolatrexed of TS (<i>K</i>_i 14 and 39 nM, respectively). All inhibitors showed a marked drop-off in potency of 100- to 1,000-fold against trypanosomes grown in low folate medium lacking thymidine. The most potent inhibitors possessed a terminal glutamate moiety suggesting that transport or subsequent retention by polyglutamylation was important for biological activity. Supplementation of culture medium with folate markedly antagonised the potency of these folate-like inhibitors, as did thymidine in the case of the TS inhibitors raltitrexed and pemetrexed.</p></div

Objectively assessed recess physical activity in girls and boys from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds

BackgroundThe school environment influences children&rsquo;s opportunities for physical activity participation. The aim of the present study was to assess objectively measured school recess physical activity in children from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds.MethodsFour hundred and seven children (6&ndash;11 years old) from 4 primary schools located in high socioeconomic status (high-SES) and low socioeconomic status (low-SES) areas participated in the study. Children&rsquo;s physical activity was measured using accelerometry during morning and afternoon recess during a 4-day school week. The percentage of time spent in light, moderate, vigorous, very high and in moderate- to very high-intensity physical activity were calculated using age-dependent cut-points. Sedentary time was defined as 100 counts per minute.ResultsBoys were significantly (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001) more active than girls. No difference in sedentary time between socioeconomic backgrounds was observed. The low-SES group spent significantly more time in light (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001) and very high (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.05) intensity physical activity compared to the high-SES group. High-SES boys and girls spent significantly more time in moderate (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001 and p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.05, respectively) and vigorous (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001) physical activity than low-SES boys.ConclusionsDifferences were observed in recess physical activity levels according to socioeconomic background and sex. These results indicate that recess interventions should target children in low-SES schools.<br /

Validity of instruments to assess students' travel and pedestrian safety

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are designed to make walking and bicycling to school safe and accessible for children. Despite their growing popularity, few validated measures exist for assessing important outcomes such as type of student transport or pedestrian safety behaviors. This research validated the SRTS school travel survey and a pedestrian safety behavior checklist.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fourth grade students completed a brief written survey on how they got to school that day with set responses. Test-retest reliability was obtained 3-4 hours apart. Convergent validity of the SRTS travel survey was assessed by comparison to parents' report. For the measure of pedestrian safety behavior, 10 research assistants observed 29 students at a school intersection for completion of 8 selected pedestrian safety behaviors. Reliability was determined in two ways: correlations between the research assistants' ratings to that of the Principal Investigator (PI) and intraclass correlations (ICC) across research assistant ratings.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The SRTS travel survey had high test-retest reliability (κ = 0.97, n = 96, p < 0.001) and convergent validity (κ = 0.87, n = 81, p < 0.001). The pedestrian safety behavior checklist had moderate reliability across research assistants' ratings (ICC = 0.48) and moderate correlation with the PI (r = 0.55, p =< 0.01). When two raters simultaneously used the instrument, the ICC increased to 0.65. Overall percent agreement (91%), sensitivity (85%) and specificity (83%) were acceptable.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These validated instruments can be used to assess SRTS programs. The pedestrian safety behavior checklist may benefit from further formative work.</p

Risk factors and obstetric complications of large for gestational age births with adjustments for community effects: results from a new cohort study

Background: High birth weight has serious adverse impacts on chronic health conditions and development in children. This study identifies the social determinants and obstetric complications of high birth weight adjusted for gestational age and baby gender. Methods: Pregnant women were recruited from three maternity hospitals in South-East Queensland in Australia during antenatal clinic visits. A questionnaire was completed by each participant to elicit information on ecoepidemiological exposures. Perinatal information was extracted from hospital birth records. A hierarchical mixture regression model was used in the analysis to account for the heterogeneity of birth weights and identify risk factors and obstetric complications of births that were large for gestational age. A generalized linear mixed model was used to adjust for (random) "community" effects. Results: Pre-pregnancy obesity (adjusted OR = 2.73, 95% CI = 1.49-5.01), previous pregnancy (adjusted OR = 2.03, 95% CI = 1.08-3.81), and married mothers (adjusted OR = 1.85, 95% CI = 1.00-3.42) were significantly associated with large for gestational age babies. Subsequent complications included the increased need for delivery by caesarean sections or instrumental procedures (adjusted OR = 1.98, 95% CI = 1.10-3.55), resuscitation (adjusted OR = 2.52, 95% CI = 1.33-4.79), and transfer to intensive/special care nursery (adjusted OR = 3.76, 95% CI = 1.89-7.49). Communities associated with a higher proportion of large for gestational age births were identified. Conclusions: Pre pregnancy obesity is the principal modifiable risk factor for large for gestational age births. Large for gestational age is an important risk factor for the subsequent obstetric complications. The findings improve the evidence-base on which to base preventive interventions to reduce the impact of high birth weight on maternal and child health.Griffith Health, School of MedicineFull Tex

The cognitive neuroscience of prehension: recent developments

Prehension, the capacity to reach and grasp, is the key behavior that allows humans to change their environment. It continues to serve as a remarkable experimental test case for probing the cognitive architecture of goal-oriented action. This review focuses on recent experimental evidence that enhances or modifies how we might conceptualize the neural substrates of prehension. Emphasis is placed on studies that consider how precision grasps are selected and transformed into motor commands. Then, the mechanisms that extract action relevant information from vision and touch are considered. These include consideration of how parallel perceptual networks within parietal cortex, along with the ventral stream, are connected and share information to achieve common motor goals. On-line control of grasping action is discussed within a state estimation framework. The review ends with a consideration about how prehension fits within larger action repertoires that solve more complex goals and the possible cortical architectures needed to organize these actions

Reduction spheroids preserve a uranium isotope record of the ancient deep continental biosphere

S.M. acknowledges the support of the NASA Astrobiology Institute grant NNA13AA90A, Foundations of Complex Life, Evolution, Preservation and Detection on Earth and Beyond, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement 747877. Av.S.H. was supported by a NASA Astrobiology Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship and acknowledges the support of Xiangli Wang and Devon Cole for lab assistance. S.M. and Av.S.H. thank Noah Planavsky for technical advice, lab support, and comments on an early draft. J.P. was supported by NERC under grant number NE/L001764/1. The isotope facility at SUERC is supported by NERC. The authors thank the two anonymous referees for constructive criticisms that improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD