Curriculum research to improve teaching and learning: national and cross-national studies

Curriculum, as a cultural and system-specific artifact, outlines mathematics teaching and learning activities in school education. Studies of curriculum and its changes are thus important to reveal the expectations, processes and outcomes of students’ school learning experiences that are situated in different cultural and system contexts. In this article, we aim to propose a framework that can help readers to develop a better understanding of curriculum practices and changes in China and/or the USA that have been reported and discussed in articles published in this themed issue. Going beyond the selected education systems, further studies of curriculum practices and changes are much needed to help ensure the success of educational reforms in the different cultural and system contexts.     

σ‐Noninnocence: Masked Phenyl‐Cation Transfer at Formal NiIV

Reductive elimination is an elementary organometallic reaction step involving a formal oxidation state change of ?2 at a transition‐metal center. For a series of formal high‐valent Ni^IV complexes, aryl–CF₃ bond‐forming reductive elimination was reported to occur readily (Bour et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015 , 137, 8034–8037). We report a computational analysis of this reaction and find that, unexpectedly, the formal Ni^IV centers are better described as approaching a +II oxidation state, originating from highly covalent metal–ligand bonds, a phenomenon attributable to σ‐noninnocence. A direct consequence is that the elimination of aryl–CF₃ products occurs in an essentially redox‐neutral fashion, as opposed to a reductive elimination. This is supported by an electron flow analysis which shows that an anionic CF₃ group is transferred to an electrophilic aryl group. The uncovered role of σ‐noninnocence in metal–ligand bonding, and of an essentially redox‐neutral elimination as an elementary organometallic reaction step, may constitute concepts of broad relevance to organometallic chemistry.     

Experimental and computational investigation of autoignition of jet fuels and surrogates in nonpremixed flows at elevated pressures

Experimental and computational investigations are carried out to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of autoignition of surrogates of jet-fuels at elevated pressures up to 6 bar. The jet-fuels tested are JP-8, Jet-A, and JP-5, and the surrogates tested are the Aachen Surrogate made up of 80 % n-decane and 20 % 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene by mass, Surrogate C made up of 60 % n-dodecane, 20 % methylcyclohexane and 20 % o-xylene by volume, and the 2nd generation Princeton Surrogate made up of 40.4 % n-dodecane, 29.5 % 2,2,4-trimethylpentane, 7.3 % 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene and 22.8 % n-propylbenzene by mole. Using the counterflow configuration, an axisymmetric flow of a gaseous oxidizer stream, made up of a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, is directed over the surface of an evaporating pool of a liquid fuel. The experiments are conducted at a fixed value of mass fraction of oxygen in the oxidizer stream and at a fixed value of the strain rate. The temperature of the oxidizer stream at autoignition, T_ig, is measured as a function of pressure, p. Experimental results show that the critical conditions, of autoignition of the surrogates are close to that of the jet-fuels. Overall the critical conditions of autoignition of Surrogate C agree best with those of the jet-fuels. Computations were performed using skeletal mechanisms constructed from a detailed mechanism. Predictions of the critical conditions of autoignition of the surrogates are found to agree well with measurements. Computations show that low-temperature chemistry plays a significant role in promoting autoignition for all surrogates. The low-temperature chemistry, of the component of the surrogate with the greatest volatility, was found to have the most influence on the critical conditions of autoignition.     

Hawking Radiation as a Possible Probe for the Interior Structure of Regular Black Holes

The notion of black hole singularity and the proof of the singularity theorem were considered great successes in classical general relativity whereas they meanwhile brought with deep puzzles. Conceptual challenges were set up by the intractability of the singularity. The existence of black hole horizons which cover up the black hole interior including the singularity from outside observers, builds an information curtain, further hindering physicists from understanding the nature of the singularity and the interior structure of black holes. The regular black hole is a concept produced out of multiple attempts of establishing a tractable and understandable interior structure for black holes as well as avoiding the singularity behind the black hole horizon. The practicality of the new constructions of black holes would be considered more reliable if there can be found some connection between the interior of regular black holes and some far-reaching signals released from the black hole. After studying the Hawking radiation by fermion tunnelling from one type of regular black hole, structure dependent results were obtained. The result being structure dependent hints the prospects of employing the Hawking radiation as a method to probe into the structure of black holes.     

中国人头发纤维在UVA紫外光老化中的光谱学研究

生活中,日光中的紫外辐射是导致头发光老化/光损伤的重要环境因素。长时间光照可使染发和天然发出现包括颜色褪变在内的退行性变化。以中老年人的自然灰发为样本来源,通过分离和人工漂染处理,获得了包括自然发色、漂白和染黑的六种头发类型,经过UVA(320～400 nm)紫外光老化,采用漫反射光谱、三维荧光光谱和衰减全反射傅里叶变换红外光谱对头发纤维的老化特征进行无损分析,结合头发中光产生过氧化氢的定量分析,探讨了不同发色和漂染处理对头发耐光性的影响。结果表明,UVA辐照可通过Ⅱ型电子转移机制诱导头发中的光敏基团产生过氧化氢,导致纤维表面蛋白和色素分子的光氧化降解。自然发色与漂染发在光老化中的颜色变化不同： 灰发和白发主要发生光黄化,人工染发和漂白发分别发生光褪色和光漂白。高湿度环境能加速头发的光降解。化学漂染处理会使头发中的光致过氧化氢水平升高,使纤维处于较高的氧化压力从而影响头发的光稳定性;而头发中的黑色素分子,包括天然黑色素和染发剂的人工黑色素,可能具有自由基产生与清除双重性。研究结果为建立中国人头发光损伤的光谱学评价方法和进一步研发针对国人发质的染护发产品提供了重要的实验基准数据。     

Temperature dependence of a macrobending edge filter based on a high-bend loss fiber

The temperature dependence of a macrobending bare-fiber-based edge filter is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The fiber used is a high-bend loss fiber, type 1060XP. The experimental results show a good agreement with the proposed theoretical model over a temperature range from 0 degrees C to 80 degrees C. It is shown that the strong temperature dependence of a high-bend loss fiber has a significant influence on the performance of a fiber edge filter used in a wavelength measurement application. However, it is also concluded that such a temperature-dependent performance can be beneficially utilized in a fiber temperature sensing application.     

Real-time color-flow MRI at 3 T using variable-density spiral phase contrast

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate and evaluate the performance of real-time color-flow MRI at 3 T using variable-density spiral (VDS) phase contrast. Spiral phase contrast imaging was implemented within a flexible real-time interactive MRI system that provided continuous image reconstruction and an intuitive user interface. The pulse sequence consisted of a spectral-spatial excitation, bipolar gradient, spiral readout and gradient spoiler. VDSs were utilized to increase spatial and/or temporal resolution relative to uniform-density spirals (UDSs). Parameter choices were guided by specific applications. Sliding window reconstruction was used to achieve a maximum display rate of 40 frames/s. No breath-holding or gating was used. Our results demonstrated that real-time color-flow movies using UDS and VDS provided adequate visualization of intracardiac flow, carotid flow and proximal coronary flow in healthy volunteers. Average aortic outflow velocity measured at the aortic valve plane using VDS was 29.4% higher than that using UDS. Peak velocity measured in the common carotid artery using VDS was 9.8% higher than that using UDS.     

The extent to which a position-based explanation accounts for binaural release from informational masking

Detection was measured for a 500 Hz tone masked by noise (an "energetic" masker) or sets of ten randomly drawn tones (an "informational" masker). Presenting the maskers diotically and the target tone with a variety of interaural differences (interaural amplitude ratios and/or interaural time delays) resulted in reduced detection thresholds relative to when the target was presented diotically ("binaural release from masking"). Thresholds observed when time and amplitude differences applied to the target were "reinforcing" (favored the same ear, resulting in a lateralized position for the target) were not significantly different from thresholds obtained when differences were "opposing" (favored opposite ears, resulting in a centered position for the target). This irrelevance of differences in the perceived location of the target is a classic result for energetic maskers but had not previously been shown for informational maskers. However, this parallellism between the patterns of binaural release for energetic and informational maskers was not accompanied by high correlations between the patterns for individual listeners, supporting the idea that the mechanisms for binaural release from energetic and informational masking are fundamentally different.     

Shock pattern in the plume of rocket nozzles: needs for design consideration

For ideal nozzles, basically two different types of shock structures in the plume may appear for overexpanded flow conditions, a regular shock reflection or a Mach reflection at the nozzle centreline. Especially for rocket propulsion, other nozzle types besides the ideal nozzles are often used, including simple conical, thrust-optimized or parabolic contoured nozzles. Depending on the contour type, another shock structure may appear: the so-called cap-shock pattern. The exact knowledge of the plume pattern is of importance for mastering the engine operation featuring uncontrolled flow separation inside the nozzle, appearing during engine start-up and shut-down operation. As consequence of uncontrolled flow separation, lateral loads may be induced. The side-load character strongly depends on the nozzle design, and is a key feature for the nozzle’s mechanical structure layout. It is shown especially for the VULCAIN and VULCAIN 2 nozzle, how specific shock patterns evolve during transients, and how - by the nozzle design - undesired flow phenomena can be avoided.     

Preparation and Radical Oligomerization of anFe(II) Complex without Loss of Spin-Crossover Properties

 11-(4H-1,2,4-Triazol-4-yl)-undecylmethacrylate (1), a new ligand for Fe(II) spin-crossover (SCO) complexes containing a polymerizable group, was synthesized and characterized. The complex [Fe·1 ₃](BF₄)₂ (2) was obtained by reaction of 1 with Fe(BF₄)₂·6H₂O (molar ratio 1/Fe(II) = 3/1) in THF. Complex 2 showed a gradual spin-crossover between 80 and 230 K. The methacrylate units in the ligands of complex 2 could be oligomerized radically in solution (initiator: azoisobutyronitrile) without loss of the spin-crossover behaviour.