Schooling and pastoral care in Hong Kong

The theme of this thesis is to pin-point the problems that most Hong Kong school teachers have had to face since September, 1978 following the legislation to enforce 9 years of free and compulsory education, raising the school leaving age to 15. The essential problems that most Hong Kong teachers have had to face recently are those resulting from the non selective recruitment of pupils, both socially and academically. These are viewed in the context of "social class", which can be studied from two aspects primary social class, according to the occupation of the pupil's father (i.e. middle and working classes) and, secondary social class defined by the pupil's academic performance in schools. (i.e. grammar and technical schools, upper and lower streams). As children of different social classes respond differently in the same situation, the social interaction in school can be explained by either the sub-culture or the adaptation model. This forms the theoretical foundation of this thesis. The study of this thesis was based on two Hong Kong secondary schools of similar backgrounds. It was a research on the attitudes of the third year boys, their parents and teachers towards the existing pastoral care system in Hong Kong schools. The findings revealed that the pupils' views were more affected by their secondary social class backgrounds while their parents, their primary social class. However, teachers' viewpoints differed mainly because of their qualifications and work load. The message that the findings carry is that the teachers' conditions of service should be improved and more parental involvement in the school process should be encouraged before innovations in the pastoral system can be implemented. Summing up, the essence of this thesis is to highlight the importance of the teachers' role and their partnership with parents in the caring for school children

Continuous intraoperative vagus nerve stimulation for monitoring of recurrent laryngeal nerve during minimally invasive esophagectomy

Review Article on Esophageal Surgerypublished_or_final_versio

The Nucleosome Assembly Protein TSPYL2 Regulates the Expression of NMDA Receptor Subunits GluN2A and GluN2B

published_or_final_versio

Development of a Health Empowerment Programme to improve the health of working poor families: protocol for a prospective cohort study in Hong Kong

Introduction: People from working poor families are at high risk of poor health partly due to limited healthcare access. Health empowerment, a process by which people can gain greater control over the decisions affecting their lives and health through education and motivation, can be an effective way to enhance health, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), health awareness and health-seeking behaviours of these people. A new cohort study will be launched to explore the potential for a Health Empowerment Programme to enable these families by enhancing their health status and modifying their attitudes towards health-related issues. If proven effective, similar empowerment programme models could be tested and further disseminated in collaborations with healthcare providers and policymakers. Method and analysis: A prospective cohort study with 200 intervention families will be launched and followed up for 5 years. The following inclusion criteria will be used at the time of recruitment: (1) Having at least one working family member; (2) Having at least one child studying in grades 1–3; and (3) Having a monthly household income that is less than 75% of the median monthly household income of Hong Kong families. The Health Empowerment Programme that will be offered to intervention families will comprise four components: health assessment, health literacy, self-care enablement and health ambassador. Their health status, HRQOL, lifestyle and health service utilisation will be assessed and compared with 200 control families with matching characteristics but will not receive the health empowerment intervention. Ethics and dissemination: This project was approved by the University of Hong Kong—the Hospital Authority Hong Kong West Cluster IRB, Reference number: UW 12-517. The study findings will be disseminated through a series of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations, as well as a yearly report to the philanthropic funding body–Kerry Group Kuok Foundation (Hong Kong) Limited.published_or_final_versio

Satellite-Based Estimates of Long-Term Exposure to Fine Particles and Association with Mortality in Elderly Hong Kong Residents

published_or_final_versio

Hospital Authority audit of the outcome of endoscopic resection of superficial upper gastro-intestinal lesions in Hong Kong

published_or_final_versio

Measurement of cosmic-ray muons and muon-induced neutrons in the Aberdeen Tunnel Underground Laboratory

postprin

Effects of seasonal variations on sediment-plume streaks from dredging operations

When mixtures of aggregates and water dredged from the seabed are discharged at the surface into the adjacent water from a barge, coarse sediments sink immediately and fine sediments are suspended forming a plume. Recently, elongated plumes of fine sediment were observed by satellites near a dredging location on the continental shelf. Such plume streaks were longer in certain conditions with seasonality than expected or reported previously. Therefore, the present work studied the appearance of sediment plume with field measurements and numerical simulations and explains the seasonally varying restoring force and thicknesses of the surface mixed layer resulting from the vertical density distribution near the surface, along with mixing by hydrodynamic process. The resulting mixtures, after vertical restoring and mixing with the surroundings, determine the horizontal transport of suspended sediments. A numerical model successfully reproduced and explained the results from field measurements and satellite images along with the seasonal variations

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns