Conceptualizations of slope in Mexican intended curriculum

Slope is a fundamental mathematics concept in middle and high school that transcends to the university level. An understanding of slope is needed at the university level since slope plays an important role in understanding problems involving variation and change. In this study Mexican curricula documents were examined to determine which conceptualizations of slope are addressed in the intended mathematics curriculum. To explain the results, we use conceptualizations of slope identified in previous research. Our findings reveal that, to a certain extent, the conceptualizations proposed in the Mexican intended mathematics curriculum differ slightly in terms of the emphasis and timing of instruction from what others have identified in the U.S., with slope as a geometric ratio receiving less emphasis in the Mexican curriculum. There was also noted discontinuity within the Mexican curriculum in introducing slope in grade 9 and subsequently introducing of linear functions in grade 10 without explicit mention of slope. Suggestions are made for future studies, both to consider the conceptualizations of slope promoted in the Mexican textbooks and the impact they have in classroom instruction and student learning of slope.     

Integrating design problems in mathematics curriculum: an architecture college case study

This paper reports an attempt to improve results in the mathematics course in one of the architecture colleges in Israel through practise in applications. The effect of integrating structure design problems in the calculus curriculum on students' achievements and attitudes was examined. The applied topics in the curriculum were connected to calculus topics and studied through problembased learning activities. The integrated curriculum was implemented and the learning results in experimental and control groups were assessed by means of achievement tests, attitude questionnaires and student interviews. The learning achievements in the experimental group proved to be significantly higher than in the control group. The positive impact of learning applications on motivation, understanding, creativity and interest in mathematics is indicated.     

我国制造业背景下质量管理活动的量表开发研究

质量管理的测度是质量管理实证研究的基础,但我国在此领域还处于起步阶段。以重庆市制造业企业为样本,采用基于偏最小二乘法的证实性因子分析方法,对我国制造业企业的质量管理活动进行了实证度量。结论显示,我国制造业企业质量管理活动包含六个方面的主要内容:企业高层的支持、员工的参与、供应商关系、重视客户、产品设计和流程管理。研究给出了具体的我国质量管理活动的测度量表。     

产能约束对闭环供应链回收渠道选择的影响

在制造商存在产能约束下,建立了再制造闭环供应链回收渠道决策的Stackelberg博弈模型,得出了三种回收渠道下的回收率、零售价以及制造商、零售商和供应链的利润,分析了制造商的生产能力对回收渠道决策的影响。研究表明:存在产能约束时,制造商回收渠道中的回收率总是最高的,这与无产能约束时零售商回收渠道中回收率最高的情况明显不同;同时,若废旧产品回收转移支付价格较低,制造商会选择自己回收,此时的零售价最低,制造商、零售商和供应链利润最高;若回收转移支付价格较高,制造商会选择零售商回收,此时的零售价最低,制造商和供应链利润最高。     

Rawlsian altruism with perfect discrimination leads to social efficiency

Recent studies draw attention on the highly specialized capacity of human beings in recognizing altruists versus cheaters in social interactions. These results hint at the existence of specialized abilities that support discriminating behavior in strategic interactions. In this paper, we explore the implications of discriminating behavior in the study of the indirect evolutionary selection of selfish versus altruistic motivations in the context of generic 2×2 base games, and in particular for coordination and cooperation scenarios. We find that inequality averse (Rawlsian) altruism can enforce under rather general conditions socially optimal outcomes, including cases where selfishness cannot, such as in prisoner’s dilemmas. Inequality seeking (Nietzschian) altruism in no case improves upon Rawlsian altruism in terms of social optimality of outcomes, and often does worse. In the cooperation scenario in particular, Nietzschean altruism never manages to implement the cooperative outcome. Under perfect discrimination, moreover, inequality averse (Rawlsian) altruism often evolves at the expense of selfishness. These results suggest that the development of sophisticated discrimination abilities may be strongly adaptive in supporting fairness-oriented forms of pro-sociality in humans in the context of social dilemmas and coordination problems.     

基于平行DEA模型的我国小学教育资源配置效率分析

小学教育是教育阶段的基础,也是我国强制教育的一部分。但如何在各省份性别比例相差较大的情况下,更加有效的提高各省份小学教育资源配置效率是一个值得思考的问题。为了避免性别带来的影响,可以通过平行结构DEA模型根据学生性别分为两个平行子系统,来衡量我国2012~2018年各省份小学教育的资源配置情况。研究发现大部分省份小学教育资源配置的总系统效率未达到有效边界,仍有需要改进的地方。男学生在小学教育阶段的效率通常优于女学生在小学教育阶段的效率,但随着近些年我国教育体制的日益完善,女学生在小学教育阶段的效率呈上升趋势。此外,我国西部地区的小学教育资源配置效率在一些年份普遍优于东部和中部地区,而中部地区和东部地区小学教育总系统效率相对稳定,西部地区小学教育总系统效率波动较大。     

Controlling an oscillating Jackson-type network having state-dependent service rates

We consider a Jackson-type network comprised of two queues having state-dependent service rates, in which the queue lengths evolve periodically, exhibiting noisy cycles. To reduce this noise a certain heuristic, utilizing regions in the phase space in which the system behaves almost deterministically, is applied. Using this heuristic, we show that in order to decrease the probability of a customers overflow in one of the queues in the network, the server in that same queue – contrary to intuition – should be shut down for a short period of time. Further noise reduction is obtained if the server in the second queue is briefly shut down as well, when certain conditions hold.     

火灾发生的周期性规律及其在火灾非线性组合预测模型中应用

研究火灾发生规律及发展趋势,具有实用价值.分析历年中国火灾统计数据,发现中国火灾的发生规律同时具有增长趋势性和周期波动性特征:①中国火灾从90年代开始大幅度增加,在2002年达到最大,然后逐年缓慢下降;②每年12个月呈正弦函数波动,周期为12,1、2月发生起数最大,8、9月最小.借助于M ATLAB软件,根据2000-2006年中国火灾统计数据,建立火灾的月发生起数的非线性周期性组合预测模型,预测值与实际值的平均相对误差小于0.07.研究结论为消防研究、消防部门决策提供科学依据.     

On Potential Theoretic Skeletons of Polyhedra

We prove that any polyhedron in two dimensions admits a type of potential theoretic skeleton called mother body. We also show that the mother bodies of any polyhedron in any number of dimensions are in one-to-one correspondence with certain kinds of decompositions of the polyhedron into convex subpolyhedra. A consequence of this is that there can exist at most finitely many mother bodies of any given polyhedron. The main ingredient in the proof of the first mentioned result consists of showing that any polyhedron in two dimensions contains a convex subpolyhedron which sticks to it in the sense that every face of the subpolyhedron has some part in common with a face of the original polyhedron.     

Preface

We are presenting in this volume the collection of extended abstracts of 66 talks that were presented at Combinatorics 2012 in Perugia, Italy. Combinatorics 2012 is the 17th in the series of combinatorics conferences held in Italy, first in 1981, next in 1982 and every two years since then.     

Scientists and mathematicians collaborating to build quantitative skills in undergraduate science

There is general agreement in Australia and beyond that quantitative skills (QS) in science, the ability to use mathematics and statistics in context, are important for science. QS in the life sciences are becoming ever more important as these sciences become more quantitative. Consequently, undergraduates studying the life sciences require better QS than at any time in the past. Ways in which mathematics and science academics are working together to build the QS of their undergraduate science students, together with the mathematics and statistics needed or desired in a science degree, are reported on in this paper. The emphasis is on the life sciences. Forty-eight academics from eleven Australian and two USA universities were interviewed about QS in science. Information is presented on: what QS academics want in their undergraduate science students; who is teaching QS; how mathematics and science departments work together to build QS in science and implications for building the QS of science students. This information leads to suggestions for improvement in QS within a science curriculum.     

An overview on the history of actuarial calculus in Portugal until the late 19th century

Pension funds, namely survivors' pension funds were established in Portugal in the late 18th century, in mutual benefit societies. The first Portuguese life assurance companies were created in the first half of the 19th century but their activity was not very extensive. Only in the 20th century did both institutions become actuarially-based. In this paper, we provide an overview of the development of actuarial calculus in Portugal until the late 19th century, in order to contextualise the scientific progress of those institutions, mainly the former. This paper lays the groundwork for further research on the history of actuarial calculus in Portugal.     

Modeling and simulation of severe slugging in air-water systems including inertial effects

A mathematical model and numerical simulations corresponding to severe slugging in air-water pipeline-riser systems are presented. The mathematical model considers continuity equations for liquid and gas phases, with a simplified momentum equation for the mixture. A drift-flux model, evaluated for the local conditions in the riser, is used as a closure law. In many models appearing in the literature, propagation of pressure waves is neglected both in the pipeline and in the riser. Besides, variations of void fraction in the stratified flow in the pipeline are also neglected and the void fraction obtained from the stationary state is used in the simulations. This paper shows an improvement in a model previously published by the author, including inertial effects. In the riser, inertial terms are taken into account by using the rigid water-hammer approximation. In the pipeline, the local acceleration of the water and gas phases are included in the momentum equations for stratified flow, allowing to calculate the instantaneous values of pressure drop and void fraction. The developed model predicts the location of the liquid accumulation front in the pipeline and the liquid level in the riser, so it is possible to determine which type of severe slugging occurs in the system. A comparison is made with experimental results published in literature including a choke valve and gas injection at the bottom of the riser, showing very good results for slugging cycle and stability maps. Simulations were also made assessing the effect of different strategies to mitigate severe slugging, such as choking, gas injection and increase in separation pressure, showing correct trends.     

CFD simulation of gas–solid flow with a cluster structure-dependent drag coefficient model in circulating fluidized beds

To model the effect of clusters on hydrodynamics of gas and particles phases in risers, the interfacial drag coefficient is taken into account in computational fluid dynamic simulations by means of a two-fluid model. The momentum and energy balances that characterize the clusters in the dense phase and dispersed particles in the dilute phase are described by the multi-scale resolution approach. The model of cluster structure-dependent (CSD) drag coefficient is proposed on the basis of the minimization of energy dissipation by heterogeneous drag (MEDHD) in the full range of Reynolds number. The model of CSD drag coefficient is then incorporated into the two-fluid model to simulate flow behavior of gas and particles in a riser. The distributions of volume fraction and velocity of particles are predicted. Simulated results are in agreement with experimental data published in the literature.     

Multilevel preconditioning and low‐rank tensor iteration for space–time simultaneous discretizations of parabolic PDEs

This paper addresses the solution of parabolic evolution equations simultaneously in space and time as may be of interest in, for example, optimal control problems constrained by such equations. As a model problem, we consider the heat equation posed on the unit cube in Euclidean space of moderately high dimension. An a priori stable minimal residual Petrov–Galerkin variational formulation of the heat equation in space–time results in a generalized least squares problem. This formulation admits a unique, quasi‐optimal solution in the natural space–time Hilbert space and serves as a basis for the development of space–time compressive solution algorithms. The solution of the heat equation is obtained by applying the conjugate gradient method to the normal equations of the generalized least squares problem. Starting from stable subspace splittings in space and in time, multilevel space–time preconditioners for the normal equations are derived. In order to reduce the complexity of the full space–time problem, all computations are performed in a compressed or sparse format called the hierarchical Tucker format, supposing that the input data are available in this format. In order to maintain sparsity, compression of the iterates within the hierarchical Tucker format is performed in each conjugate gradient iteration. Its application to vectors in the hierarchical Tucker format is detailed. Finally, numerical results in up to five spatial dimensions based on the recently developed htucker toolbox for MATLAB are presented. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sur la détermination d'une relation binaire à partir d'informations locales

This paper deals with the problematic aspect of the reconstruction of binary relations: it includes all the questions raising the possibility or impossibility to determine a structure by gathering given substructures. It is the continuation of three studies: the first made by G. Lopez [9] in 1972 about the determination of a binary relation through the types of isomorphism of its restrictions, the second made by K. B. Reid and C. Thomassen [15] in 1976 about the strongly self-complementary tournaments (every subtournament is self-complementary), the third made by C. Thomassen [16] in 1989 about the cycle space of a tournament. In the second section, we use the notion of class of difference (which was introduced in [9]) to extend a study made in [16] to binary relations. Then, in the third section, we improve the result of this last study in the case of the tournaments. After noticing that the result of [15] inferred itself naturally from the approach developed in [9], we extend, in the fourth section, the study made in [15] to binary relations.     

On Problems in the Calculus of Variations in Increasingly Elongated Domains

This paper deals with minimization problems in the calculus of variations set in a sequence of domains, the size of which tends to infinity in certain directions and such that the data only depend on the coordinates in the directions that remain constant. The authors study the asymptotic behavior of minimizers in various situations and show that they converge in an appropriate sense toward minimizers of a related energy functional in the constant directions.     

Mathematical modelling of social obesity epidemic in the region of Valencia,Spain

In this article, we analyse the incidence of excess weight in 24- to 65-year-old residents in the region of Valencia, Spain, and predict its behaviour in the coming years. In addition, we present some possible strategies to prevent the spread of the obesity epidemic.

We use classical logistic regression analysis to find out that a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy nutritional habits are the most important causes of obesity in the 24- to 65-year-old population in Valencia. We propose a new mathematical model of epidemiological type to predict the incidence of excess weight in this population in the coming years. Based on the mathematical model sensitivity analysis, some possible general strategies to reverse the increasing trend of obesity are suggested.

The obese population in the region of Valencia is increasing (11.6% in 2000 and 13.48% in 2005) and the future is worrisome. Our model predicts that 15.52% of the population in Valencia will be obese by 2011. Model sensitivity analysis suggests that obesity prevention strategies (healthy advertising campaigns) are more effective than obesity treatment strategies (physical activity) involving the obese and overweight subpopulation in controlling the increase of adulthood obesity in the region of Valencia.     

Lightcone dualities for hypersurfaces in the sphere

In this paper, we consider hypersurfaces in the unit lightlike sphere. The unit sphere can be canonically embedded in the lightcone and de Sitter space in Minkowski space. We investigate these hypersurfaces in the framework of the theory of Legendrian dualities between pseudo‐spheres in Minkowski space.     

On slice hyperholomorphic fractional Hardy spaces

In this paper we introduce and study the fractional Hardy spaces of the half space and of the unit ball in the quaternionic setting. In particular, we discuss their properties of invariance and of factorization in terms of functions in the Hardy space of the half space in the first case, and in terms of a suitable reproducing kernel Hilbert space in the case of the unit ball.