Multi-ethnic school environment from the school leader’s perspective: challenges and approaches to improve multi-cultural competency among teachers in Malaysia

This study aims to identify the challenges and approaches to improve a multicultural competency among teachers in multi-ethnic schools environment based on school leaders’ perspective. Data collection method used in this study is qualitative method. A total of nine school leaders from the states of Kedah, Penang, and Perak were included in the interview session. The results of this study show that the challenges faced by teachers in practicing the multicultural competency are lack of experience toward cultural diversity. A late exposure to cultural diversity makes it difficult for teachers to accept and adapt in a multi-ethnic school environment. The approaches suggested by school leaders to improve the multicultural competency are as follows: (1) Courses on cultural diversity should be organized to enhance the knowledge about cultural diversity; (2) the development of more open and better policy for education system in Malaysia in order to prepare teachers with a higher multicultural competency for teaching students from diverse ethnic and cultural groups; (3) an early exposure to cultural diversity in order to increase the multicultural competency, especially during teaching practicum.     

The discrepancy of P-values and posterior probability: Two-sided hypothesis of variance of normal distribution with unknown mean

This article is concerned with the comparison of P-value and Bayesian measure in point null hypothesis for the variance of Normal distribution with unknown mean. First, using fixed prior for test parameter, the posterior probability is obtained and compared with the P-value when an appropriate prior is used for the mean parameter. In the second, lower bounds of the posterior probability of H₀ under a reasonable class of prior are compared with the P-value. It has been shown that even in the presence of nuisance parameters, these two approaches can lead to different results in the statistical inference.     

汉语动词“遮”掩饰义的产生及其词义系统的演变

魏晋时动词“遮”由对物体位移的阻拦扩大为空间上对光线等的遮蔽,遮蔽义继而在唐代又引申出对事件进行隐瞒的掩饰义。语境的转换凸显了“遮”不同的概念要素,从而诱发新义。“遮”的遮蔽义宋元时已取代拦截义而在该词的词义系统中占主导地位,这与“遮”在“拦截”概念场中的败落时代上基本相当,反映了词汇的词义系统对概念场成员演变的影响。比较汉语和其它语言“拦截”概念的语义地图,可以假设“某词同时有拦截义、掩饰义蕴含该词有遮蔽义”。今人有将作掩饰义讲的“遮”释为“用贿赂去请托”的,忽视了“遮”本身的语义特征。     

Psychosocial Correlates of Interpersonal Sensitivity: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis examines how interpersonal sensitivity (IS), defined as accurate judgment or recall of others’ behavior or appearance, is related to psychosocial characteristics of the perceiver, defined as personality traits, social and emotional functioning, life experiences, values, attitudes, and self-concept. For 215 independent studies reported in 96 published sources, higher IS was generally associated with favorable or adaptive psychosocial functioning. Significant mean correlations were found for 27 of the 40 categories of psychosocial variables; these categories covered many different personality traits, indicators of mental health, and social and work-related competencies. Moreover, many additional studies that fell outside these conceptual categories also showed significant positive relations between IS and numerous other psychosocial variables. Taken together, the results support the construct validity of IS tests and demonstrate that IS is associated with many important aspects of personal and social functioning.

感悟化：《东方的太阳》拓展政治抒情诗的新路径

谭仲池先生的《东方的太阳》,把抒情建立在与客体的心灵对话之上,结构穿梭在“求谒”的且歌且行之中,语言紧贴智性化的生命律动,作品以感悟的方式丰富、拓展了政治抒情诗的新路径。     

对外开放形势下的利率风险管理问题研究

我国加入世贸组织后 ,利率市场化进程将加快 ,利率风险将成为我国商业银行的一种主要风险。文章在介绍西方主要的利率风险衡量技术的基础上 ,分析了对外开放形势下 ,我国商业银行利率风险产生的原因 ,并从商业银行、监管当局、金融市场三个层面提出利率风险管理的有关建议     

应用GIS 技术辅助油藏管理

油气藏开发涉及油气藏的三维空间分布和内部状态变化的复杂问题,信息系统是支持油藏管理的基本手段。传统油气藏开发管理信息系统基于表格形式表现对象属性,无法反映描述对象的空间联系和系统的空间分布模式。地理信息系统( GIS) 能够有效描述二维空间问题,将GIS 技术引入油气藏开发管理信息系统将极大地扩展管理信息系统的描述能力和表现形式,但是对于油气藏开发这类特殊的三维问题还缺少描述和分析能力。通过分析传统的油藏管理信息系统所面临的问题,提出了油气藏开发管理GIS 系统的体系结构、目标设计和功能设计,讨论油气藏开发管理GIS 系统的技术路线、信息组织方式、表示方式以及开发模式,指出需要研究更完善的三维空间描述方法和表现手法,结合油藏描述技术及其成果,在地质建模的基础上开展空间分析,将会使油气田开发中的GIS 技术更加完善。     

利用思维导图提高高职学生的英语语法能力

本文提出将思维导图运用到英语语法的学习、记忆、复习之中，将有助于高职学生掌握英语语法的一些难点。     

Local predictive influence in bayesian linear models with conjugate priors

Cook (1986) presented the idea of local influence to study the sensitivity of inferences to model assumptions:introduce a vector δ of perturbations to the model; choose a discrepancy function D to measure differences between the original inference and the inference under the perturbed model; study the behavior of D near δ = 0, the original model, usually by taking derivatives. Johnson and Geisser (1983) measure influence in Bayesian inference by the Kullback-Leibler divergence between predictive distributions. I~IcCulloch (1989) is a synthesis of Cook and Johnson and Geisser, using Kullback-Leibler divergence between posterior or predictive distributions as the discrepancy function in Bayesian local influence analyses. We analyze a special case for which McCulloch gives the general theory; namely, the linear model with conjugate prior. We present specific formulae for local influence measures for 1) changes in the parameters of the gamma prior for the precision, 2) changes in the mean of the normal prior for the regression coefficients, 3) changes in the covariance matrix of the normal prior for the regression coefficients and 4) changes in the case weights. Our method is an easy way to find locally influential subsets of points without knowing in advance the sizes of the subsets. The techniques are illustrated with a regression example.     

Reliability of global sensitivity indices

Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis is an essential ingredient of model development and applications. For many uncertainty and sensitivity analysis techniques, sensitivity indices are calculated based on a relatively large sample to measure the importance of parameters in their contributions to uncertainties in model outputs. To statistically compare their importance, it is necessary that uncertainty and sensitivity analysis techniques provide standard errors of estimated sensitivity indices. In this paper, a delta method is used to analytically approximate standard errors of estimated sensitivity indices for a popular sensitivity analysis method, the Fourier amplitude sensitivity test (FAST). Standard errors estimated based on the delta method were compared with those estimated based on 20 sample replicates. We found that the delta method can provide a good approximation for the standard errors of both first-order and higher-order sensitivity indices. Finally, based on the standard error approximation, we also proposed a method to determine a minimum sample size to achieve the desired estimation precision for a specified sensitivity index. The standard error estimation method presented in this paper can make the FAST analysis computationally much more efficient for complex models.