Science Education for the 21st Century

Paul DeHart Hurd was a biology teacher and science supervisor in Colorado and California high schools and junior colleges for 20 years and a professor of science education at Stanford University for 22 years. He has authored 11 books and monographs on developments in the sciences and over 300 articles on various aspects of science education in the US and foreign countries. He has served on the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for Science Education and as a special educational consultant to the National Academy of Sciences, Commission on Life Sciences. Honors include the Apollo Award from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the Distinguished Contributions to Science Education Through Research Award from the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, and the Award for National Leadership in Science Education from the National Science Teachers Association. Dr. Hurd is currently focusing his writings on the history of science and technology education in the US over the past 200 years and current activities to modernize the precollege science curriculum.     

Compactly supported refinable distributions in Triebel-Lizorkin spaces and besov spaces

The aim of this article is to characterize compactly supported refinable distributions in Triebel-Lizorkin spaces and Besov spaces by projection operators on certain wavelet space and by some operators on a finitely dimensional space.Research partially supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China # 69735020, the Tian Yuan Projection of the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, the Doctoral Bases Promotion Foundation of National Educational Commission of China #97033519 and the Zhejiang Provincial Sciences Foundation of China # 196083, and by the Wavelets Strategic Research Program funded by the National Science and Technology Board and the Ministry of Education, Singapore.     

The equality cases for the inequalities of Oppenheim and Schur for positive semi-definite matrices

In this paper, necessary and sufficient conditions for equality in the inequalities of Oppenheim and Schur for positive semidefinite matrices are investigated. Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10531070), National Basic Research Program of China 973 Program (No. 2006CB805900), National Research Program of China 863 Program (No. 2006AA11Z209) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (Grant No. 06ZR14049).     

Volume comparison à la Aleksandrov

Sans résumé Supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.     

Complementary radicals revisited

The third author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the National Science Council of the Republic of China and the kind hospitality of the National Cheng-Kung University, Tainan, R.O.C.     

Nonlocal superconductivity

The research of D. Brandon was partially supported by the National Science Foundation through grant # DMS-9296011 and by the Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation through the Center for Nonlinear Analysis.     

A valuation model for NFL and NHL draft positions

This paper describes an approach to the valuation of draft positions for the annual National Football League and National Hockey League entry drafts. We then use this valuation to evaluate and construct exchanges of draft positions.     

A Vision for What Science Education Should Be Like for the First 25 Years of a New Millennium

Robert Yager is a native Iowan who was worked at the University of Iowa since 1956. He has served as president of seven national associations, including the National Science Teachers Association, School Science and Mathematics Association, the National Association of Biology Teachers, the Association for the Education of Teachers of Science, the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Section Q of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Association of Science‐Technology‐Society. Yager has directed over 100 projects supported by the National Science Foundation, several research projects supported by the U.S. Department of Education, and several project evaluations. The University of Iowa has one of the largest graduate programs in the U.S., while also focusing on in‐service programs for science teachers and a model preservice program (which enjoyed NSF support for a 10‐year period). Yager has published over 500 books, monographs, and research reports. Currently, he is active with several research projects in Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Israel, and Estonia.     

Stochastic regression model with heteroscedastic disturbance

This paper discusses some properties of stochastic regression model with continuous form of heteroscedastic disturbance. The strong consistency and asymptotic normality of a generalized weighted least squares estimate will be investigated under certain conditions on the stochastic regressors and errors. More, the linear hypothesis testing problem also be discussed and an example to be demonstrated to reestablish the results of Cheng and Chang (1990, Tech. Report, National Tsing Hua University).Supported by the National Science Council Grant No. 810208M763 at National Tsing Hua University.     

Über einige Multiplikatorenklassen

Ohne ZusammenfassungDie Arbeit wurde unterstützt durch die National Science Foundation (U.S.A.) (NSF G 14876) während der Verfasser an der Northwestern University war und durch den National Research Council of Canada.     

Gap Functions and Existence of Solutions for a System of Vector Equilibrium Problems

In this paper, a gap function for a system of vector equilibrium problems is introduced and studied. Some necessary and sufficient conditions for the system of vector equilibrium problems are established. Characterizations of the solutions set for the system of vector equilibrium problems are also derived. Furthermore, some existence results of solutions for the system of vector equilibrium problems are proved. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Youth Foundation, Sichuan Education Department of China, the National Natural Science Foundation, Sichuan Education Department of China (2004C018), and a grant from the National Science Council of ROC.     

The Paley-Wiener theorem in the non-commutative and non-associative octonions

The Paley-Wiener theorem in the non-commutative and non-associative octonion analytic function space is proved. This work was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 1999075105), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10471002) and Research Foundation for Doctoral Programm (Grant No. 20050574002)     

A criterion for quasi-heredity and the characteristic module

The aim of this paper is to give a criterion for quasi-heredity by the existence of a faithful module, and a test for the characteristic module by using a property of faithful and partial tilting. Supported by the National Education Committee of China, the Chinese Academy of Science and the National Natural Science Foundation of China     

A NOTE ON MERRIS＇ CONJECTURES

The Merris‘ conjectures for threshold graphs and d-regular graphs are proved. Andthe one of the conjectures of Merris holds for trees is also proved.     

Limit theorems for sums of dependent random variables occurring in statistical mechanics

Summary By the use of conditioning, we extend previously obtained results on the asymptotic behavior of partial sums for certain triangular arrays of dependent random variables, known as Curie-Weiss models. These models arise naturally in statistical mechanics. The relation of these results to multiple phases, metastable states, and other physical phenomena is explained.Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Research supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant MPS 76-06644A01Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Research supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant MCS 77-20683 and by U.S.-Israel Binational Science FoundationResearch supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant PHY77-02172     

Conceptions of Science Achievement in Major Reform Documents

The construct of science achievement—what K‐12 students should know and be able to do in science—is central to science education reform. This paper examines current conceptions of science achievement in major reform documents in the context of standards‐based and systemic reform. The paper reviews documents on (a) science content standards, including the National Science Education Standards ( National Research Council, 1996 ) and Project 2061 ( American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, 1993 ); (b) performance standards in the New Standards Project ( National Center on Education and the Economy, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1998 ); and (c) assessment frameworks, including the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress ( National Assessment Governing Board, 1994, 1996 ) and the Third International Mathematics and Science Study ( Martin & Kelly, 1996 ; McKnight, Schmidt, & Raizen, 1993 ; Robitallie et al., 1993 ). Although there is an overall agreement on the conceptions of science achievement among the documents, there are also noticeable differences. Based on the analysis of the five sets of documents, an aggregated view of science achievement is presented in terms of science content and process. Implications for promoting science achievement in standards‐based and systemic reform are discussed.     

Gaining efficiency via weighted estimators for multivariate failure time data

Multivariate failure time data arise frequently in survival analysis. A commonly used technique is the working independence estimator for marginal hazard models. Two natural questions are how to improve the efficiency of the working independence estimator and how to identify the situations under which such an estimator has high statistical efficiency. In this paper, three weighted estimators are proposed based on three different optimal criteria in terms of the asymptotic covariance of weighted estimators. Simplified close-form solutions are found, which always outperform the working independence estimator. We also prove that the working independence estimator has high statistical efficiency, when asymptotic covariance of derivatives of partial log-likelihood functions is nearly exchangeable or diagonal. Simulations are conducted to compare the performance of the weighted estimator and working independence estimator. A data set from Busselton population health surveys is analyzed using the proposed estimators. This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10628104), Fan was also supported by National Institutes of Health (Grant No. R01-GM072611) and Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. DMS-0714554), Zhou was supported by National Natural Science Funds for Distinguisheel Young Scholar (Grant No. 70825004), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 10731010, 10628104), the National Basic Research Program (Grant No. 2007CB814902), Creative Research Groups of China (Grant No. 10721101) and Leading Academic Disipline Program, the 10 ^th five year plan of 211 Project for Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (the 3 ^rd phase), Cai was supported by National Institutes of Health (Grant No. R01-HL57444)     

The setting of boundary conditions for boundary value problems of hyperbolic-elliptic coupled systems

This paper is devoted to the study of the proper setting of the boundary conditions for the boundary value problems of the hyperbolic-elliptic coupled systems of first order. The wellposedness of the corresponding boundary value problems is also established. The Lopatinski conditions for the boundary value problems of the elliptic systems is then extended to the case for hyperbolic-elliptic coupled systems. The result in this paper can be applied to the Euler system in fluid dynamics, especially to give wellposed boundary value problems describing subsonic flow.     

Global existence of shock front solution to axially symmetric piston problem in compressible flow

In this paper we study the global existence of BV solution to two-dimensional piston problem in fluid dynamics. Different from previous results on related problems we remove the restriction on the strength of the leading shock and require the velocity of the piston is rather fast or the density is quite small instead. The main tool in our proof is Glimm Scheme with some improvement. To define the Glimm functional we derive more precise estimates for the interaction of elementary waves, particularly in the region near the leading shock. The paper is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China 10531020, the National Basic Research Program of China 2006CB805902 and the Doctorial Foundation of National Educational Ministry 20050246001.     

Tauberian relations between the Abel-type and the Borel-type methods of summability

We consider the conditions underwhich a series, summable by an Abel-type method, is also summable by a Borel-type method. This extends and improves the known result of G. Doetsch.Supported in part by the National Research Council of Canada.Supported in part by the Mathematics Research Center, National Science Council, Taiwan, Republic of China.