Enforcement of Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Disclosure of Government Information and Continual Development of a Group of Basic Human Rights

Introduction 2013 saw the sixth anniversary of the formulation of Regulations of the People＇s Republic of China on Disclosure of Government Information （hereinafter referred to as the Regulations） and the fifth anniversary of their being put into effect. As the Regulations were stipulated and put into force,

Research on Training Needs,Training Transfer,and Training Effectiveness of In-Service Teachers in Local Normal Colleges

This study aims to understand the in-service training needs,training transfer,and training effectiveness of teachers in local normal universities in China,while also proposing a continuous professional development plan for teachers.Descriptive research methods were employed,with questionnaires serving as the primary data collection tool.The survey revealed that the educational background of teachers in local normal universities is characterized by an unreasonable distribution of academic qualifications,with a shortage of teachers holding postgraduate and higher degrees.Additionally,the training effectiveness for female teachers was found to be lower than that of male teachers.There is a lack of personalization in training needs,which tends to be more generalized.The transfer effect of training is moderate,and there is a need for further enhancement at the behavioral level of training effectiveness.A continuous professional development plan for teachers has been formulated to improve training effectiveness and promote professional development.

Continuing professional development:progress beyond continuing medical education

Continuing medical education(CME)is rapidly evolving into competency-based continuing professional development(CPD)and this is driving change in self-directed CPD programs undertaken by individual practitioners as well as CPD programs or frameworks offered by CPD educators.This progression is being led by many factors including the rapid change in medical knowledge and medical practitioners along with changes in patients and society,healthcare systems,regulators and the political environment.We describe our experiences primarily concerning low-resource environments,in creating the International Council of Ophthalmology(ICO)Guide to Effective CPD/CME and in developing a CPD program for the Cambodian Ophthalmological Society(COS)twinned with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists(RANZCO).At the conclusion of the project,47(100%)Cambodian practicing ophthalmologists were registered in the CPD program and 21(45%)were actively participating in the online COS-CPD program recording.We discuss challenges in CPD,propose solutions to overcome them and recommend developing research in CPD as needed to effectively enhance educational activities with impact in public health.

Continuing Professional Development: Perspectives of Kenyan Nurses and Midwives

Background: The purpose of this paper is to report the perceptions of continuous professional development by the nurses and midwives in a low resource country. These findings are part of a larger study on the experiences of nurses and midwives providing postpartum care in rural areas of Kenya. Besides being the main healthcare providers in rural areas, nurses in low resource countries have limited access to continuous professional development. Research design: This is a qualitative research guided by critical theory and Foucault’s concepts of power and knowledge. Focused ethnography provided the framework of data collection and analysis. 23 in-depth interviews were contacted, and thematic analysis was used for data analysis. Reflexive memos kept throughout the research process helped to ensure the trustworthiness of data. Findings: This paper will focus on the theme of continuing professional development (CPD) as a resource for a healthy work environment. While the knowledge of the nurses and midwives allowed them to provide care to the mothers and their infants adequately, personal and structural barriers prevented them from participating in continuing professional development. Discussion and Conclusion: A well-prepared nursing and midwifery workforce could have the capacity to transform the health outcomes of their clients through the application of evidence-based practices. Therefore, courses that are context-appropriate and meet the needs of different learners should be available to support the nurses’ and midwives’ professional growth. There is a need for more research on the nurses’ and midwives’ participation in CPD in Kenya, and the effect of CPD on specific health outcomes.

Teaching through social media

Timely and widely available,social media(SM)platforms and tools offer new and exciting learning opportunities in medical education.Despite scarce,we sought for a body of consistent evidence allowing us to substantially approach the concept of SM and how physicians as learners and medical educators can use SM based-education to benefit their clinical practice and their patients’outcomes.We correlate education theories with the progression of world-wide web phases and how this influences the process of teaching and learning.We mention some examples of SM tools already in use in healthcare education.Potential advantages and effectiveness SM in medical education,as well as limitations of SM and pre-requisites for its use are discussed.Our concluding remarks underline the good practices in effectively utilizing SM in healthcare education.

Essential Maternal and Newborn Care Skills Training for Midwives: Their Impact on Reducing Maternal and Neonatal Mortalities in Kenya

Continuing professional development (CPD) continues to gain acceptance as a model for health care professionals to engage in lifelong learning. Little is known about how CPD participants put the experience and the new knowledge into practice and whether it has impact on patient care outcomes. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of CPD of Midwives on Essential Maternal and Newborn care skills on maternal and neonatal mortality in Embu County, Kenya. The study was an interventional non-randomized pretest post test study design of midwives from the participants of the 2010 ministry of health training on essential maternal and newborn care skills. Sixty (60) midwives working in maternity unit of Embu level five hospitals were targeted. The study was carried out in two phases. Phase one involved environmental scanning of the factors that support good performance in the workplace using a questionnaire. Phase two involved evaluation of the impact by testing a hypotheses using data collected by use of questionnaires, evaluation checklist and chart audit. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis and presented using percentages and frequency tables. Chi-square test and correlation analysis were used to show the association between variables, which are midwives essential maternal and newborn care skills and maternal and neonatal mortality. A chi-square χ2 = 14.143, df = 9 and a coefficient = 0.357. This coefficient is less than p-value at Alpha 0.05 and therefore is not significant, proving that the essential maternal and neonatal care skills do not contribute to reduction in mortalities as such two variables are almost independent of each other, whether one exists does not necessitate the existence of another nor does it reduce maternal and neonatal mortalities in Kenya.

Health Training Needs at Primary Care Level Health Facilities in Rural Western Uganda

Introduction: Continual education is recognized worldwide as a tool for the professional development of health care practitioners. It is however effective when the training targets the appropriate needs of the target beneficiaries. This study was therefore aimed at identifying priority training needs of Primary Care Level health professionals in rural Western Uganda. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional survey among 35 rural community health facilities represented by their managers in rural Western Uganda. Participants were invited to Mbarara University of Science and Technology and responded to a self-administered questionnaire and also participated in qualitative group discussions guided by Facilitators from the Community Based Education and Research Services unit within the Community Health Department of Mbarara University of Science and Technology. Priority health training needs were determined based on the computed weighted scores. Results: The majority of managers of rural primary care level health facilities were medical officers by the level of training (51.43%) and male by gender (68.57%). Priority health training needs identified were child health and maternal health with total weighted scores of 12.0 and 10.9 respectively. Qualitatively, emerging themes included;leadership and management, and supervisory roles during student field attachments. Conclusion: Priority health training needs at rural Primary Care level health facilities were child health, maternal health, leadership and management, and supervisory skills. There is dire need to train rural primary care level, health professionals. In-service training based on identified needs should be offered by MUST in partnership with regional stakeholders. This is likely to enhance the quality of services provided by rural primary care level health facilities.

Distance Education as a Tool for Training Veterinarians in Laboratory Animal Medicine

With increasing globalization and a trend towards international harmonization of standards for the care and use of animals in research and testing,there is a significant need to assist and support countries to develop training programs for laboratory animal veterinarians.Although formal educational opportunities for training laboratory animal veterinarians exist through well-established specialty colleges of laboratory animal medicine such as ACLAM,ECLAM,JCLAM,and KCLAM or through other professional organisations,such as the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations(FELASA),opportunities for participating in these programs are often limited to veterinarians in North America,Western Europe and specific regions of Asia.Creative thinking is required to develop cost-effective,practical,entry-level and advanced continuing education and applied training programs for veterinarians working in the field of laboratory animal medicine around the world.This paper will describe one potential solution for this issue,the use of a distance education program that provides theoretical information in a virtual classroom with applied training modules to deliver knowledge and practical skills to laboratory animal veterinarians.This type of program takes advantage of the online learning environment and can be an effective means to deliver training at the grassroots level to adult learners.

Gender Differences in Motivation and Learning Preferences of Pharmacists in Lifelong Learning

Objectives： To analyse motivation and preferences of pharmacists who participate in CE （continuing education） to develop suitable lifelong learning programmes for pharmacists. Methods： An online questionnaire, which explored the motivation and preferences of the pharmacists to lifelong learning, was sent to all members of the Royal Dutch Pharmaceutical Society （4321） in the Netherlands. The data were analysed using a non-hierarchical clustering technique. Key findings： Two clusters of pharmacists were discovered. Cluster A pharmacists （n = 474） were more motivated by credit points （63.5% vs. 47.2%）, personal interest （84.1% vs. 56.3%）, updating knowledge （73.8% vs. 56.8%） and topicality of CE courses （47.7% vs. 26.1%）. Cluster B pharmacists （n = 199） were predominantly motivated by the aspect ＂duty as a care-giver＂ （97.0% vs. 0 % in cluster A）. Pharmacists who belonged to cluster A tended to be women （60.5%）, often worked part-time （29.3%） and mostly preferred lectures （71.1%）. Cluster B pharmacists consisted of statistically significantly more male pharmacists （52.8%, p = 0.001）, worked more full time （77.4%, p = 0.009） and mostly preferred blended learning （62.3%, p = 0.047）. Conclusions： These results suggest the use of different education formats for different kinds of pharmacists to participate in CE activities.

Petroleum Industry in China will Develop Continuously in the 21st Century

China Is Rich in Petroleum and natural Gas Resources China is rich in petroleum and natural gas resources with over 500 sedimentary basins and 6.7 million km2 of sedimentary rock. There are more than 420 Mesozoic and Cenozoic basins stretching over 5.3 million km2 that are over 1000- meter thick in sedimentary rock.

High speed continuous turning of hardened steel with newly developed low content PCBN

In this study,newly developed low content PCBN was used to evaluate the cutting performance in high speed turning of hardened steel.Using new PCBN and commercially available PCBN tipped inserts under the same cutting condition,cutting performance with variable cutting speed,feed rate and depth of cuts on tools were measured by observation of flank and crater wear.Its microstructures were analyzed through SEM microscope,measurement of surface roughness on workpiece was also performed. According to cutting performance results,it is shown that new PCBN shows much longer tool life in high speed continuous turning than our conventional PCBN tools,with improved wear and chipping resistance.This result on the machinability of new PCBN for hardened steel will provide effective guidelines to manufacturing engineers,also provide useful economic machining solution for high speed continuous turning for hardened steel.

Continuing professional development of principals in Hong Kong region

The quality of principals is pivotal for quality education.It is only through continuing professional development(CPD)that principals can further enhance professionalism.In this study,both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyze the responses of 194 principals and vice-principals.The research findings show that Hong Kong region principals are facing challenges posed by ever-changing school environments of the 21st century and educational reforms.Based on this study,implications for future continuing professional development of principals in Hong Kong region are speculated.

“I Cannot Dance Upon My Toes”: A Case Study Into Teacher Learning Through Participating in an English Teaching Contest in China

The professional development of College English （CE） teachers in China has received considerable attention due to their responsibility in preparing university graduates for adequate English proficiency. Many continuous professional development （CPD） activities have been conducted （e.g., national teaching contest） to improve CE teachers＇ teaching effectiveness, an essential component of teacher learning. However, it has remained unknown concerning how teacher learning takes place in these well-intended CPD activities, and what mediating factors play an important role in teacher learning. To address this gap, this case study reports on a CE teacher＇s （]anna, pseudonym） experience in preparing for and participating in an English teaching contest. Drawing upon multiple sets of data such as teacher reflective journals, interviews, observations of group discussions, and video-recorded teaching demonstration and lesson plan presentation, the findings reveal that teacher learning takes place at a superficial level through legitimate peripheral participation, yet at a deeper level through identity crisis. Vulnerable teacher learning is also identified in the CPD activity, with differentiated learning possibilities created by the tensions between resources and power relations within the community and the teacher＇s conceptions of teaching and learning. The study concludes with implications for research of teacher learning and practice for teacher professional development.

Effects of Waxy Maize Relay Intercropping and Residue Retention on Rhizosphere Microbial Communities and Vegetable Yield in a Continuous Cropping System

Intercropping and residue retention contribute to high yield and quality of crops. However, their coupled effects on rhizospheric microbial communities under a continuous vegetable cropping system have not been adequately addressed. The objective of the present study was to assess the effects on soil microbial community and yields of waxy maize（Zea mays L.） intercropped with or without residue retention in a continuous broccoli（Brassica oleracea L.） cropping system, i.e., relay intercropping of broccoli and waxy maize（B/M-B）, relay intercropping of broccoli and waxy maize with residue retention（B/MR-B）, and broccoli monoculture（B-B）. The biomass yields of spring and autumn vegetables in B/MR-B were 16.3%–32.5% and 30.1%–46.1% higher than those of B-B,respectively. Autumn vegetable economic yields of B/MR-B were 28.2%–40.3% higher than B-B. The average well color development followed the order： B/MR-B ＆gt; B/M-B ＆gt; B-B. The Shannon index, Simpson index, and Mc Intosh index were higher in B/MR-B than under monoculture. A principal component analysis showed that microbial communities of B/MR-B soils differed from those of B/M-B and B-B soils. Carbon（C） sources utilized by the rhizosphere microorganisms were mainly carbohydrates, carboxylic acids, amino acids, and polymers; however, the C sources for the soil microbial community differed between intercropping and monoculture. The communities from B/MR-B preferred amino acids and polymers. Available nitrogen（N）, potassium（K）, and phosphorus（P） had an obvious impact on soil microbial community. Additionally, the C source utilization by microorganisms was significantly affected by p H and available K and P. Cropping system diversification through relay intercropping and residue retention effectively improved the functional diversity of the soil microbial communities and increased the yields of vegetables.