Using A Light Barrier To Repel Mosquitoes - Forbes

Columbia physicist Szabolcs Marka


What if it turned out that you could ditch the bug spray to keep mosquitoes away –and use a beam of light instead? That’s what Szabolcs Márka, an experimental physicist, is in the early stages of researching.

Márka, 42, an associate professor at Columbia University, is an academic who lets his curiosity lead him. He had been studying optics as part of his astrophysics research (on what happens when two black holes merge) several years ago when the idea popped into his head that mosquitoes find their targets using complex sensory systems, so what about damaging or confusing those sensors? Working with colleagues including his wife associate research scientist Zsuzsa Márka (a physicist and a chemist) and Imre Bartos (an astrophysicist), he first tried knocking out and damaging the sensors of Anopheles gambiae, a malaria mosquito. Then the researchers came up with the idea of a light barrier. “We stumbled on this: If you have an invisible wall of light, how will mosquitoes and fruit flies react? They do walk or fly into it. Then they turn back. They don’t want to cross it,” says Márka. (Watch this video here to see how the mosquitoes stop at the invisible wall of light.)

He applied to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and got a $100,000 grant in 2008 to pursue the research. His results were so interesting that the Gates Foundation gave him a second grant, of $1 million, to keep going. His is just one of five research groups to receive a second grant as a follow up to the foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations grants.

The Gates Foundations’ primary interest in this research is its possible use for preventing malaria. Despite successful efforts to reduce the incidence of the disease in some countries, malaria still kills nearly 1 million people a year –mostly in sub Saharan Africa and mostly children under age 5. But the applications could be much wider. Imagine beams of light in your backyard patio keeping the bugs away — or a beam across your bedroom window, keeping the mosquitoes from entering your room.

Márka says it will be years before real practical tools emerge. Right now, his team is using the Gates Foundation grant to study the parameters of the effect they discovered. Does this apply to old mosquitoes as well as young ones? Does it work on mosquitoes that are well fed as well as those who are not? Is the best beam of light one by a window, or encircling a bed? They are also developing a mathematical model that will predict the broader effects of this tool. If you protect 50% of the people from mosquitoes, will it make the situation worse for the other 50%?

Just why the mosquitoes are repelled by the light barrier is a mystery Márka and his colleagues are still trying to unravel. “For practical purposes, it doesn’t really matter why. When I put on my scientist hat, this is the most interesting question,” says Márka. If scientists can understand how a mosquito identifies odors and gases and finds the right place to bite, Márka envisions one day creating robots with these qualities. “Imagine someone is down in a mine –we don’t want to go there. Or there’s a wounded soldier. Or there’s a person trapped close to a nuclear reactor,” he says, describing the opportunities for robots that can find humans the way mosquitoes and other arthropods do.

His insect research on the surface looks like quite a leap from previous projects in fundamental science. Márka, who is from Hungary but got his PhD at Vanderbilt University, was a nuclear physicist and spent time characterizing materials that could make nuclear reactors safer. Then he switched to particle physics and worked on building and using particle detectors destined to figure out aspects of how quarks behave. As the leader of the experimental gravity group at Columbia, he is looking into what happens when two black holes or neutron stars merge in the distant universe, is collaborating with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, a facility funded by the National Science Foundation and located in Louisiana and Hanford, Wash. that aims to detect cosmic gravitational waves Márka describes it as an instrument that “takes a light beam, splits it into two parts, brings them back together and measures whether one traveled longer than the other.” The purpose? “It’s opening a new window on the universe. You could see wonderful processes through gravitational waves—figuratively speaking, ‘the ripples of space-time itself’ –that you do not see otherwise.”

Prof. Márka’s work has earned him a spot as a finalist for the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, given out under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences and backed by Russian-American billionaire industrialist Len Blavatnik. The winner of the Blavatnik Award will be announced on Nov. 14.

Happy people make better, faster decisions - Straits Times

A study published on Thursday in the Journal of Consumer Research has found that it's better to go shopping when the going's not so tough, and we're in a good mood, because we make faster and more consistent decisions. -- ST PHOTO: JOSEPH NAIR

WASHINGTON - THERE used to be a saying written on some shopping bags that said, 'When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping'. But a study published on Thursday in the Journal of Consumer Research has found that it's better to go shopping when the going's not so tough, and we're in a good mood, because we make faster and more consistent decisions.

Researchers Paul Herr and Derrick Davis of Virginia Tech, Christine Page of Skidmore College and Bruce Pfeiffer of the University of New Hampshire conducted a study to determine how mood influences the 'very basic element of decision-making' - deciding whether or not we like or dislike an object.

The authors manipulated study participants' moods by showing them pictures of positive things, like cute puppies, or unpleasant things, like diseased feet, and then showed them pictures of common objects, one at a time. The objects were flashed on a screen and then replaced by a word - like, dislike; good, bad; favourable, unfavourable; appealing, repulsive.

The participants were asked to press a key labelled 'yes' if the word matched their feeling about the object they had just seen, or the key marked 'no' if it did not. The researchers found that people who were in a good mood - probably the ones who had seen the pictures of puppies, not diseased feet - responded more quickly and more consistently to the words.

In other words, if they responded that they liked an object, they were less likely to respond later, when the same object was shown again but with a negative word associated with it, that they disliked it. The study's findings are relevant not only to shoppers, who might want to hit the mall when they're in a good mood because it will mean they'll get home faster and are unlikely to regret their purchases, but also to retailers and manufacturers.

Because retailers want shoppers to spend more in their stores, they 'may want to be aware of factors that can induce negative moods, like abrasive salespeople and negative shopping environments,' the authors of the study say. And the study's findings may help manufacturers to understand why some new products fail where others succeed: it could have something to do with whether consumers like or dislike a new product at first glance, which in turn might be affected by the consumers' moods, something manufacturers could manipulate. -- AFP

Kongsi Idea Penyelidik Dalam & Luar Negara Di Myren Cloud - MStarOnline

SERDANG: Institusi pengajian tinggi (IPT), institusi penyelidikan serta pihak industri yang terlibat dengan pembangunan dan penyelidikan (R&D) diminta menggunakan jaringan perkhidmatan ICT terbaru, Myren Cloud, untuk berkomunikasi dan menjalin kerjasama di alam maya bersama rakan penyelidik dalam dan luar negara.

Menteri Pengajian Tinggi Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin berkata melalui perkhidmatan itu mereka boleh bertukar-tukar pandangan dan pengetahuan mengenai bidang penyelidikan masing-masing, sekaligus memberi manfaat kepada negara-negara terlibat.

"Ini merupakan satu lagi kepesatan pertumbuhan infrastruktur kita yang kita hasilkan bagi meningkatkan kemampuan penyelidikan. Ini antara usaha-usaha yang sedang kita lakukan untuk memantapkan lagi R&D dalam negara selari dengan hasratuntuk membawa negara ini kepada ekonomi berasaskan inovasi," katanya kepada pemberita selepas melancarkan Myren Cloud di sini Isnin.

Beliau berkata R&D berkualiti yang dihasilkan para penyelidik hasil daripada perkongsian maklumat dari dalam dan luar negara, akan membawa impak besar kepada rakyat dan negara.

Myren adalah Rangkaian Penyelidikan dan Pengajaran Kebangsaan yang menyediakan jalur lebar khusus berkapasiti tinggi untuk universiti, politeknik, kolej komuniti, institut penyelidikan dan makmal saintifik menjalankan penyelidikan dan pendidikan. Rangkaian itu terhubung terus dengan komuniti penyelidik dan pendidik yang berada di Asia Pasifik, Australasia, Eropah dan Amerika Utara melalui Trans Eurasian Information Network 3 (TEIN 3).

Rangkaian MYREN serta projek MYRENCLOUD adalah projek negara dan Kementerian Pengajian Tinggi merupakan peneraju bagi menggerakkan perluasan penggunaan perkhidmatan tersebut di kalangan komuniti pendidik (termasuk fasilitator latihan) dan penyelidik dari pelbagai agensi dari semua kementerian.

Mohamed Khaled berkata kerajaan telah memperuntukkan sebanyak RM20 juta sebagai dana permulaan untuk Myren Cloud.

Sementara itu, Pengarah Bahagian Perancangan Kecemerlangan IPT, Profesor Ir Dr Mohd Jailani Mohd Nor berkata kira-kira 30,000 penyelidik daripada IPT, institusi penyelidikan serta pihak industri di negara ini akan mendapat manfaat daripada penggunaan Myren Cloud.

Sehubungan itu, beliau meminta semua penyelidik mendaftar untuk menggunakan perkhidmatan itu dengan yuran RM25,000 setahun dikenakan untuk setiap institusi.

"Perkomputeran cloud ini adalah pendekatan terkini di mana perkhidmatan ICT diperolehi secara dalam talian atau atas permintaan pada bila-bila masa, di mana juga dan menggunakan apa juga peranti," katanya.

Menurutnya sebagai permulaan, beberapa perkhidmatan menerusi aplikasi telah disediakan iaitu “On Demand Infrastructure for Research and Education Collaborative Technologies" (OnDIRECT) untuk kolaborasi video dan imej, pelayan maya untuk menghoskan pembangunan ICT dan simulasi, storan maya, dan makmal pengkomputeran maya (VCL)", kata beliau. - BERNAMA

Survey: 80% of M'sians want to work abroad - Malaysiakini

An online recruitment company said results from a survey on local jobseekers confirm that money, career growth and children's education are the main factors behind the country's brain drain.

JobStreet.com today released the results of their survey of 700 over respondents - over 80 percent of whom are in middle to senior positions - on their interests in working abroad, and the reasons behind it.

The survey revealed just under a third (33 percent) of the respondents are already actively seeking overseas employment while 30 percent are passively looking. Another 30 percent are still weighing the pros and cons of working abroad.

42 percent cited better income as the key reason for their choice, while 24 percent cited career advancement, and 13 percent were thinking of their children's education.

Unfortunately for the government and the Talent Corp, only 2.4 of the respondents said they were staying in the country to “contribute to national interest”.

Over half said they were not working abroad mainly because of their families.

Top in destinations for job seeking was Australia (24 percent) followed by Singapore (16 percent), followed by UK (15 percent), US (10 percent), Far East (8 percent) and New Zealand (7 percent).

The survey, conducted in May, comprised 40 percent senior executives, 29 percent managers and 16 percent senior managers, with junior executives making up the rest.

Jobstreet said 60 percent were male and 40 percent female, while ethnic breakdown was not cited.

Some Chinese don’t speak Bahasa at all - The Malaysian Insider

By Sheridan Mahavera May 14, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — A The Malaysian Insider street poll of 107 Chinese adults has found that 28 of them, or 26.1 per cent of those surveyed, had almost no command or could not understand Bahasa Malaysia.

Of the 75 respondents who understood BM and took the survey, 16, or 21 per cent of them felt that knowing or using the national language was not as important in their lives as knowing Mandarin or other Chinese dialects.

About 37 per cent of those who took the survey (or 28 respondents) used BM less than five times a day. While 20 of them said they either did not have to use it all or only used it less than three times.

The results suggest that within the Chinese community, there is a significant class whose members only interact with those who speak Chinese.

Recently, a separate national study by a well-known teachers’ association showed that one in every three Chinese primary school pupil cannot understand BM or English when they prepare to enter national secondary school.

The school survey by the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) also found that one in every four Chinese child who enters national secondary school will drop out.

This has led to claims that the dropout rate and the low level of BM proficiency have created a group of Chinese adults who only interact with other Chinese, creating a barrier for greater inter-ethnic integration in plural Malaysia.

In another The Malaysian Insider article on the NUTP survey, educators, parents and former Chinese school students argued that it is not the vernacular education system that is at fault.

Family attitudes, the Chinese community and individual choice are bigger influences on how much BM Chinese children pick up, retain and use once they leave school and enter adulthood.
The street poll is a follow-up to both the NUTP survey and the contention that it’s not really the vernacular school system’s fault. The poll is to gauge how the Chinese community regards BM.

If the vernacular education is not at fault, are parents and the community creating an environment where Chinese kids feel that they can get by without knowing the national language?

Methodology

The entire survey was conducted in Bahasa Malaysia among 107 Chinese individuals. They were asked four questions.

1) Do you understand BM?

2) How important is BM in your life?

3) Which is more important in your life, BM or English?

4) On a typical day, how many times do you use BM?

— Less than three times.

— Less than five times.

— Five times and more.

— More than 10 times.

(This includes occasions such as talking multiple times to one person or talking to multiple people.)

Those who were judged as not being able to “understand BM” were individuals who could not reply to the interview questions. They rejected the survey by gesturing silently when asked “if they could speak BM”.

This group differs from another group of four who understood but declined the survey as they said in BM that “they were busy”.

The survey was conducted in Sepang district, an evenly diverse part of suburban southern Selangor, and in the Chinese enclave of Jinjang Utara in Kuala Lumpur.

Part 2 economic success = social fragmentation

The dominance of Chinese in certain areas of the private sector explains why some in the community feel that BM is not necessary to get by.

The majority 68 per cent in the poll who found BM important were either shopkeepers, salespeople or those working in large corporations where they interacted with non-Chinese individuals on a daily basis.

This group also represents the 62 per cent who used BM more than five times a day. Sixteen per cent used it more than 10 times a day.

Many of those who found BM less important and who used it less than five times a day worked in technical fields such as small engine repair or small-scale construction.

Michael Tay, who works in the property industry, says there is a belief that because you could still get a job just by speaking Chinese, there is no motivation to learn other languages.

“They feel comfortable mixing with people from a similar culture and language, and they don’t have to depend on non-Chinese to survive. But this is not good for integration,” says Tay, a Bandar Baru Tampoi MCA branch leader in Johor Baru.

A majority of the 28 who could not speak the national language were in their 50s and older. Some of the BM speakers said this was a trend with the Merdeka generation who did not enter the formal education system.

But of the 28, 10 of them were individuals aged 40 and below. About five of them were young adults who worked in mobile phone shops and who politely declined and deferred to their friends when asked in BM.

According to their friends, these individuals had trouble understanding BM because they “dropped out of school”.

Part 3 Malaysia: A bowl or pot?

Low BM usage does not translate into feeling it is less important. For instance, a handful of Chinese shopkeepers who catered to a mainly Chinese clientele felt that BM was important. This is even though they said their command and use of it was low.

“Ini Malaysia maa. Semua kena cakap Melayu. Kalau tak cakap Melayu macam mana Melayu, Cina, India mau satu,” said a shopkeeper who sells joss sticks and Chinese prayer items and who said there were days he didn’t use BM at all.

A stationery shop owner refused to believe the survey’s findings that some Chinese could not speak BM.

“Mana ada? Mesti boleh cakap punya. Ini Malaysia maa,” said the 46-year-old. These same sentiments were expressed by 10 of the respondents.

When asked whether BM or English was more important, 33 per cent of respondents said BM while 20 per cent said both languages were important. Twenty-nine per cent chose English over BM, while 17 per cent did not know.

The proportion of those who don’t speak BM versus those who do reveals how the community views integration with the larger non-Chinese environment. But this is not unique just to the Chinese.

Arguably, there are proportions of Malays and Indians who also go days without meeting someone from a different ethnicity.

Historian Prof Tan Sri Khoo Kay Kim believes each ethnic community has evolved this way because they have been taught to think of the group first rather than the nation-state.

“We have always been a people who have lived apart from each other. Even the early Indonesian settlers, the Minangs, Banjars, Javanese lived in separate colonies first. They did not automatically become ‘Malays’.”

Malaysia’s model of integration then, which is more a “salad bowl” than a “melting pot”, makes it hard for individuals to adopt a common culture or language as the priority is always with what the group thinks.

“If you notice, Chinese and Indians are not comfortable at all speaking BM to one another. This is different from the Peranakan Chinese in the past who spoke BM to each other,” observes Khoo.

Though the bright side from survey shows a positive attitude among its Chinese respondents concerning BM, it is harder to gauge how deep their feelings of togetherness with Malaysia and other Malaysians as a whole.

And if the same trends are present in Malaysia’s other communities, it may well be that we are still a nation of separate peoples.

Study links lower education to faster ageing - The Star

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - People who leave education with fewer qualifications are prone to age more quickly, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers from Britain and the United States examined the length of sections of DNA known as telomeres from around 450 people taking part in a long-term health study and found that people who did less well at school had shorter telomeres, suggesting they may age faster.

Telomeres are sections of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage and the loss of cell functions associated with ageing. Shorter telomeres are thought to be an indicator of faster ageing.

"The key implication of this study backs up one of the main messages to have come out of long-term studies..that your experiences early in life can have important influences on your health," said Stephen Holgate, of Britain's Medical Research Council, which part-funded the research.

He said that as with all observational research, it was difficult to to establish the root causes of these findings, but said the study provided evidence "that being educated to a higher level can benefit you more than in the job market alone."

The study participants were separated into four education groups: those who had no qualifications at all, those who left formal education after exams at around 16 years of age, those who left after exams at around 18 years, and those who earned a degree from a university or other higher education institution.

The research was published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity on Wednesday.

The results showed that people with lower educational achievements had shorter telomeres, indicating that they may age faster, and the study also offered strong evidence that this is not affected by people's social and economic status later in life, as was previously thought, the researchers said.

"We already know from previous research that people with poor backgrounds are prone to age more quickly," said Andrew Steptoe, a professor of psychology at the British Heart Foundation which part-funded the study.

"Education is a marker of social class that people acquire early in life, and our research suggests that it is long term exposure to the conditions of lower status that promotes accelerated cellular ageing."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland, editing by Paul Casciato)

Copyright © 2011 Reuters

Online polls on youth - The Star

By PRIYA KULASAGARAN (educate@thestar.com.my)

LOCAL researchers looking to delve into the minds of Malaysian youth now have a new resource to base their research on. In a bid to reach out to young people, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (Utar) has started a year-long series of online opinon polls which focus on youth issues.

Officially launched in July, the initiative is the brainchild of Utar vice-president (R&D and commercialisation) Prof Lee Sze Wei.

“The point is to gather raw data for researchers who are looking into certain aspects of society, and being a non-commercial enterprise, we will share our findings with participants and interested parties.

“Ultimately, we want to reach out to other members of society as well; right now we want to build up a base of followers first,” he said.

He added that for the purposes of the polls, the definition of youth would generally be those below the age of 30. While conceding that online polls have their weaknesses, Prof Lee said that the benefits outweigh the shortcomings.

From left: Prof Lee, Dr Wu, Datuk Ng Poh Tip, Utar Centre for Media and Creative Communication chairperson and Chin Yee Mun (standing) its Faculty of Creative Industries lecturer, during an interview on the varsity’s online polls initiative.

“It’s a very cost-effective process, and this platform makes sense if we want to engage young people since using the Internet is second nature to them.

“Also I don’t think there will be much room for fraudulent responses, as the registration process requires a fair amount of time and personal details which can be verified,” he said.

To entice young people to spare a few minutes to participate in the polls, Utar has teamed up with KFC and Pizza Hut to offer rewards to respondents.

Not only will the first 1,000 respondents of each poll receive discount vouchers at the fast-food outlets, but those who chalk up the most number of referrals each quarter, stand to receive a grand prize of meal vouchers worth up to RM2,000.

“This is to give the respondents a value-added experience so that they will continuously participate in the initiative,” said Centre for Social Change and Trends chairperson Dr Wu Ming Chu.

“We’re in the process of sourcing out more sponsors to offer even more prizes for future polls.”

The first poll in the series started on July 1, and deals with young adults’ lifestyles and how they spend their study, work and leisure time.

As of July 28, a total of 2151 respondents had taken part in the survey, mostly university students and young working adults.

At the time of print, a full analysis of the data had yet to be completed; but the team has drawn some conclusions on the information gathered so far.

For instance, it appears that most young people rate surfing the Internet (49% of students and 34% of working adults) and watching TV (12% of students and 18% of working adults) as the top ways to spend their leisure time. This is something that Prof Lee is concerned about.

“Although the working adult group seem to socialise more compared to students, it is a bit worrying to see that activities that involve real human interaction rank quite low.

“I wonder if this has any correlation to fresh graduates encountering problems in the workplace because they lack proper communication skills,” he said.

The issues to be tackled by upcoming polls include political awareness, health and hygiene, and familial relationships, but Prof Lee shared that the team is open to more suggestions.

“Anyone can approach us with their ideas, be it researchers, non-governmental organisations or government agencies - we’ve even teamed up with The Star to run a special poll on youth views of sex,” he said.

“In fact, the August poll is driven by specific research needs, where we will touch on gambling.

“Our current hypothesis is that young people will have a generally negative view on sports betting and gambling, but who knows, maybe their responses will surprise us.”

Titled ‘Youth and Gambling’, this month’s poll goes live today and will run until August 31.

To be part of the Utar opinion polls, log on to http://
poll.utar.edu.my.

More adult Malaysians turn to the Net for sex info - Star

Oct 13, 2009 By JOSHUA FOONG

PETALING JAYA: More adults are relying on the Internet to get information on sex, according to a Durex Sexual Wellbeing Survey.

As much as 75% of Malaysians gave credit to the Internet for teaching them the bedroom “how-tos”.

Men (75%) outnumber women (71%) in using the Internet to surf about sex.

Seventy-three per cent of the respondents also learn about sex through magazines.

Other sources include books (65%), friends and peers (56%) and partners (43%).

All these surpass sex education at school, which makes up only 36% of them.

The number of respondents was at 1,026 with an equal number of women and men aged 18 years and above.

Despite the figures, less than half of Malaysians — 45% of men and 39% of women — think there is enough advice and information available on the issue.

The survey stated that 73% of Malaysians who had formal sex education are satisfied with their sexual wellbeing while the global average of sexual satisfaction stands at 59%.

However, the survey also found that 51% of those who received sex education at school did not learn about conception while 71% were not taught about sexually transmitted diseases.

Less than half of Malaysians (48%) had wished their sex education had included love, respect and on giving pleasure to one’s partner.

It found that about 44% of those aged between 16 and 24 liked to have received more information on the subject in comparison to 62% among those aged between 35 and 44.

The survey is the fourth in a series of reports by Durex, with this one emphasising on knowledge and education.

Previous results of the three surveys titled “Satisfaction”, “In the Bedroom” and “The Big O” can be found on www.durex.com.

Public, Private Universities Receive RM25 Million Research Grants

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 9 (Bernama) -- The government has allocated RM25 million under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) to sponsor 602 projects undertaken by public and private universities this year.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said 20 researchers from public universities and three from private universities received the sponsorship this year.

He said public universities had been allocated with RM23.63 million to carry out 411 projects while private universities received RM1.41 million to bring 191 projects to fruition.

The grants were channelled through the Education Ministry, the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry, and the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry, he told reporters at the International Exposition of Research and Invention of Institutions of Higher Learning 2009 (PECIPTA 2009) award presentation here on Friday.

He said the FRGS research focused on pure science, applied science, engineering and technology, medical science, social science and humanities, arts and professional arts and natural sciences, and national heritage.

Universiti Malaya was adjudged the winner of the Premier Research Award, having clinched four gold, 14 silver and 10 bronze medals in PECIPTA 2009.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) came in a close second with four gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze medals.

PECIPTA 2009 with the theme "Driving Research Innovation Towards Value Creation" scrutinised 465 research submitted by 22 public and private universities.

It was jointly held by Higher Education Ministry and Universiti Malaya to spur innovations by local universities.

-- BERNAMA

Survey finds firms now want accountants to go beyond crunching numbers - Malaysian Insider

SINGAPORE, Oct 10 — Post-crisis, accountants who believe their job is solely about counting beans and making sure the balance sheet balances will do so at their own peril.

As the operations and strategies of firms become inextricably linked with numbers and finance, accountants need be more than number crunchers, Tony Osude, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants' (ACCA) acting director of professional development, told an ACCA conference yesterday.

“In our interviews with chief financial officers, I am getting a sense of frustration from them that accountants are not stepping up to act as the companies' business partners,” said Osude.

As businesses become increasingly pressed for solutions in a credit-scarce environment, it has become crucial to bridge the gap between practical business knowhow and financial acumen.

Research done for the latest ACCA Accountants for Business report found that some business leaders are beginning to consider training business personnel in finance to bridge that gap, instead of turning to accountants for counsel.

“This has quite significant and severe implications for the accounting profession,” Osude warned yesterday.

In the survey, the finance director of a venture capital fund management firm had said: “A bad accountant will produce a set of numbers. A good accountant will say there is a set of numbers, use a bit of analysis and provide a description of what it means for the business.”

Even when accountants do offer analysis of the business, the bar has been raised. “Accountants are very good at cutting costs but very poor at driving profits,” Osude said.

“European companies, for example, have been doing a lot of cost-cutting and the figures look OK. But what will happen next year when there are no more costs to cut?”

As part of a seismic shift in accounting approaches caused by the downturn, if cash was king before, it is now supreme ruler. “The past few months have been about cash, cash, cash. All the accountants we interviewed said that in terms of strategy, they are not looking beyond the next month,” Osude revealed.

Across the landscape of accountants, some sand dunes dwarf others. The report found that 65 per cent of respondents placed the CFO within the top five finance roles that add the most value to organisations, compared with 22 per cent for financial accountants and 18 per cent for heads of risk management.

While all the implications of such numbers are not immediately clear — Osude conceded that respondents could merely have taken a hierarchical view to answering the question — one implication is certain.

“There is too much riding on the shoulders of the CFO — he is doing too much,” said Osude.

The survey also unearthed a growing need for effective finance information technology systems, so the accountant spends less time bound to his spreadsheet and more time analysing the final numbers.

A partner from one of the Big Four accounting firms is quoted in the report as saying: “What we've found is that they spend so much time producing the number . . . and reworking and re-crunching it. . . They collapse it into the meeting not even having thought what the number means.”

The survey was conducted online with 1,353 ACCA members from more than 170 countries. — Business Times Singapore

PPSMI -- 20 questions on the UPSI study on the teaching of Maths and Science in English

Jul 11, 2009 Posted by Azly Rahman

Below is a Bahasa Melayu version of the UPSI (Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris) study on the teaching of science and mathematics in English.

Think of the following questions as you read the summary. I invite comments as well.

1. Who sponsored the research?

2. What methodology is used?

3. What is the nature of the sampling strategy?

4. How is the data triangulated to check for validity and reliability?

5. What are the strategies of data gathering used?

6. How complex is the analysis, given that the questions are simple (the questions asked are not higher order questions nor phenomenological)?

7. What paradigm governs this research?

8. What theory informs the process and premises of data interpretation?

9. What dimensions of race, gender, class, and ethnicity, school culture, curricular design, ecology of the child, etc. is at play here?

9. How are recommendations made in vis-a-viz influencing factors and political demands?

10. Who are the researchers? What political affiliation do they hold, if any? How political is the institution?

11. How does the institution influence the reporting and next, public sharing of the findings?

12. How conclusive, as claimed, is the finding? Why does the finding warrant such a political decision?

13. How will policy-makers use findings?How has it been used now and will continue to be used?

14. What long-term consequence will this brief and inconclusive study have on the politics of education, race, teacher professionalism, human capital development, and national preparedness on globalization as well?

15. Is there a qualitative/discursive dimension of this research available in order for another set of findings to be be compared to; dimensions such as narratives, ethnographic observation, document and conversational analysis, etc.?

16. Is there a follow up study on teaching strategy, teacher qualification, etc.?

17. What is the level of competency desired as baseline and what set of rubrics is used to define competency?

18. Since the beginning of the implementation of the program, has the Teacher Education Research Unit of the Ministry of Education develop a cumulative research strategy (say, over a five-year period) to collect baseline data on the multidimensional aspects the effectiveness of the strategy?

19. How is ideology tied to this research agenda?

20. What premises inform the claim of neutrality of this research? In other words, what is this study neutral against, if any?



THE STUDY

Kajian PPSMI oleh UPSI

Kajian dijalankan oleh sekumpulan penyelidik dari Fakulti Sains Kognitif dan Pembangunan Manusia, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris Tanjung Malim yang diketuai oleh Profesor Emeritus Isahak Haron anjuran Yayasan Kajian dan Strategi Melayu.

Kajian tersebut membabitkan hampir 4000 murid tahun 5 di 68 buah sekolah rendah di Semenanjung Malaysia antara tempoh Februari 2007 dan Januari 2008.

Kajian UPSI tersebut adalah berkaitan dengan PPSMI dalam menjawab beberapa isu Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran berikut:

1. Sejauh manakah guru menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sebagai bahasa pengantar Sains dan Matematik ?

Kajian dari sample yang berlainan pelajar sekolah rendah sepanjang 2003-2007 mendapati:

i. Lebih 85% pelajar melaporkan guru mengajar Sains dan Matematik dengan campuran Bahasa Inggeris dan Bahasa Melayu . Ini adalah kerana guru-guru ingin membantu murid-murid yang lemah Bahasa Inggeris memahami apa yang diajar.
ii. Hanya 02% guru menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sepenuhnya.
iii. Dan 05% menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia sahaja.

2. Sejauh manakah pelajar sukar mempelajari Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris ?

Berdasarkan sampel Januari 2008:

i. 83% murid pelbagai kaum menyatakan sukar belajar Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.
ii. 87.2% di kajian di kalangan pelajar Melayu mengatakan sukar belajar Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.
iii. 65%kajian di kalangan pelajar Melayu mengatakan sukar belajar Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

Berdasarkan sampel Februari 2007:

i. 70-80 peratus pelajar Melayu sekolah kebangsaan masih menghadapi masalah mempelajari Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris walaupun telah menggunakan Bahasa Inggeris sejak tahun 2003.

3. Adakah mempelajari Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi Matematik pelajar ?

Kajian Sampel murid Tahun 5 Januari 2008 mendapati:

i. Skor prestasi Matematik pelajar-pelajar berkenaan adalah rendah iaitu 7.89 daripada skor maksimum 20.0.
ii. Skor murid Melayu (7.66) adalah lebih rendah dari skor murid Cina (13.0) dan India (8.21)
iii. Peratus murid Melayu yang memberi jawapan tepat adalah lebih rendah dari murid Cina dan India terutama dalam soalan yang memerlukan murid memahami ayat atau arahan dalam Bahasa Ingerís.
iv. Murid Melayu lemah dalam operasi asas dengan hanya 58.2 peratus yang mampu menjawabnya.
v. Dalam asas darab hanya 53.9 peratus murid Melayu mampu menjawab berbanding murid Cina 80 peratus boleh menjawab dengan betul.
vi. Dalam asas bahagi yang memerlukan membaca ayat dalam Bahasa Ingerís , hanya 14 peratus dan 35 peratus sahaja murid Melayu yang mampu memberi jawapan yang betul.

4. Adakah mempelajari Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi Sains pelajar ?

i. Prestasi am Sains murid semua keturunan adalah rendah dengan skor hanya 4.28 daripada maksima 14.00.
ii. Skor murid Melayu lebih rendah (4.11) dari skor murid Cina (7.22) dan India (4.64).
iii. Kira-kira 83 peratus murid Tahun 5 dari semua keturunan mendapati sukar mempelajari Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris dengan peratusan tertinggi di kalangan murid Melayu (84 peratus).
iv. Hampir 83 peratus murid Melayu tidak faham pengajaran guru Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris.

5. Adakah pengajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris membantu meningkatkan pembelajaran dan prestasi pelajar dalam Bahasa Inggeris ?

i. Prestasi am Bahasa Inggeris murid Tahun 5 dari semua keturunan adalah amat rendah dengan skor 11.97 daripada skor maksimum 31.0. Skor murid Melayu hanya 11.87. Skor murid Cina (21.77) dan India (16.14).

ii. Kira-kira 73.7 peratus murid Tahun 5 dari semua kaum menyatakan sukar mempelajari Bahasa Inggerics dengan peratus tertinggi ialah murid Melayu (81.4 Peratus).

iii. Lebih 75 peratus murid Melayu tidak faham pengajaran guru Bahasa Inggerís.

Sumber: Suara Keadilan 24-31 Dis 2008

SPM SURVEY: Survey not representative - NST

By : PROFESSOR DR NOR HAYATI OTHMAN Dean, Clinical Science Research &Chairman, Conjoint Board Pathology Universiti Sains Malaysia Kubang Kerian, Kelantan

THE results of the New Straits Times online poll on the place of English in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examination ("Majority says aye" -- NST, June 10) cannot be used as a basis for discussion.

The subjects of the survey were most likely people who read your newspaper, that is, they are already conversant in English, have Internet access (most likely urban), probably were not from interest groups such as students, teachers, academics or parents.

Also, the sample size of 1,027 is only a minute fraction of the Malaysian adult population, indicating that the survey was not representative.

If the survey were to be replicated using hardcopy questionnaires, with good random sampling of the subjects, equal distribution of gender, socio-economic stratification and people from urban and rural areas, the results might be completely different.

I am not against saying "aye" to the discussion (having a pass in English for SPM). Indeed, I think that is a very good proposal. I am just questioning the conclusion that was drawn from what I think is poor statistical methodology.

I would like to add to the proposal. Other than having a pass in English, students should have a good credit in Bahasa Malaysia. We should also encourage our students to learn a third or a fourth language, like many students do in European countries.

Kuching girl’s pollution project wins global award - Star

Jan 19, 2009

JOHOR BARU: She has been actively taking part in international competitions to gain experience and generate funds for her studies and research.

It was a great start to 2009 for Wendy Teo Boon Ting, 24, who struck gold when her year-long research was picked as the winner under the next generation category at the Holcim Foundation for Sustai-nable Construction Awards held in New Delhi.

The foundation awarded her US$20,000 (RM73,000) for her project on flooding and water pollution in Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek, considered one of the most polluted rivers in the world.

“With this prize money, I will be able to do more research in Malaysia,” said Teo who is from Kuching.

She said that the project was part of the thesis for her Masters in digital architecture which she is pursuing in Taiwan.

Teo added that she had won several other awards, with all her prize money going towards her studies and research.

The competition which received some 5,000 entries from 90 countries, also saw five students from Malaysia picking up an award.

The team from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, won the next generation encouragement prize. They took home US$2,500.

Team leader Ho Ching Keng, 21, said the team never expected to win because they had very little time to put together a project as they only found out about the competition days before the submission date.

The team concentrated on a mechanism to grow trees in urban areas and harsh conditions.

“Teamwork is crucial when pressed for time,” Ho said.

Holcim Foundation management board chairman and CEO of Holcim Limited Markus Akermann said that the foundation wanted to bring into focus the many opportunities and benefits of adopting sustainable approaches within building projects and processes.

The global Holcim awards will be held in Switzerland next year.