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.     

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。     

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.     

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.     

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.     

一个修正的PVT算法

对Fkshima(1998）所提出的PVT算法给出一种修正算法，称为修正PVT算法，这一修正算法对PVT原算法中的并行步中的停止准则和同步步骤作了修正。修正PVT算法的停止条件对PVT原算法的停止条件弱，因此更适用于并行计算，并且计算时间比PVT原算法少。     

泄爆诱导的湍流、旋涡和外部爆炸

基于k-ε湍流模型和Eddy-dissipation燃烧模型,采用同位网格SIMPLE算法,对充满甲烷-氧气预混气的带导管柱形泄爆容器向空气中泄爆的情形进行了数值模拟．根据计算结果,分析了泄爆后外流场中可燃云团、火焰和压力的变化过程．结果表明,外部爆炸是因射流火焰点燃高压区中的可燃云团,从而引起的剧烈湍流燃烧所致．同时还讨论了外流场湍流和涡量的分布特征．射流火焰进入外部可燃云团后,湍流主要分布在平均动能梯度较大的区域,而不在火焰阵面上．涡量分布主要受斜压效应的影响,在压力和密度梯度斜交区域,其值较大．     

Comparing the Development of Fractions in the Fifth‐ and Sixth‐Graders' Textbooks of Singapore,Taiwan, and the USA

This research examined the presentation of fractions in textbooks used by fifth and sixth graders in Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. The specific textbooks examined were My Pals Are Here! Maths (MPHM) in Singapore; Kung Hsung (KH) in Taiwan; and Mathematics in Context (MiC) in the USA. Results show the problems posed in MiC put more emphasis on real‐life situations than KH textbooks in Taiwan and MPHM in Singapore. Designing materials that provide opportunities to connect mathematics content with applications in real life is consistent with recommendations from professional organizations. The activities in KH and MPHM tended to emphasize procedures, while the activities of MiC focused more on conceptual understanding and less on the development of procedures. An examination of the mathematics textbooks revealed that MPHM introduced and developed fractions the earliest among the three countries investigated and the content taught in MPHM was about one grade earlier than when the same content was experienced by students in KH and MiC.     

Nevanlinna theory of meromorphic functions on annuli

In this survey paper, we discuss the recent development of Nevanlinna theory of meromorphic functions on annuli, which extends results in Nevanlinna theory in the complex plane or in a disk. In particular, we show that the approach taken on annuli is a unified treatment of functions meromorphic in the complex plane, a disk and an annulus. It allows one to obtain many results in the complex plane and in a disk as corollaries of our results in annuli.     

Minimax lower bound for kink location estimators in a nonparametric regression model with long-range dependence

In this paper, a lower bound is determined in the minimax sense for change point estimators of the first derivative of a regression function in the fractional white noise model. Similar minimax results presented previously in the area focus on change points in the derivatives of a regression function in the white noise model or consider estimation of the regression function in the presence of correlated errors.     

A recursive basis for primitive forms in symplectic spaces and applications to Heisenberg groups

This paper is divided in two parts: in Section 2, we define recursively a privileged basis of the primitive forms in a symplectic space(V~(2n), ω). Successively, in Section 3, we apply our construction in the setting of Heisenberg groups H~n, n ≥ 1, to write in coordinates the exterior differential of the so-called Rumin's complex of differential forms in H~n.     

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.     

Bootstrap and empirical likelihood methods in extremes

One of the major interests in extreme-value statistics is to infer the tail properties of the distribution functions in the domain of attraction of an extreme-value distribution and to predict rare events. In recent years, much effort in developing new methodologies has been made by many researchers in this area so as to diminish the impact of the bias in the estimation and achieve some asymptotic optimality in inference problems such as estimating the optimal sample fractions and constructing confidence intervals of various quantities. In particular, bootstrap and empirical likelihood methods, which have been widely used in many areas of statistics, have drawn attention. This paper reviews some novel applications of the bootstrap and the empirical likelihood techniques in extreme-value statistics. Dedicated to Professor Laurens de Haan on the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

Improving the adaptability in automated vessel scheduling in container ports using intelligent software agents

Faster turnaround time of vessels and high berth productivity are paramount factors in container terminals for assuring competitive advantage in the shipping industry. An autonomous decision-making capability in the terminal is vital in achieving the required productivity. Vessel scheduling/berthing system in a container terminal is regarded as a very complex dynamic application in today’s business world. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) community has been researching in the field of intelligent (or rational) agents for more than a decade and implementations are found in many commercial applications. The Beliefs, Desires and Intention (BDI) agent architecture is probably the most mature model for many industrial applications in today’s context. However, it is not the best agent model for complex applications that must learn and adapt their behaviours in making rational decisions. We propose a new hybrid BDI framework with an intelligent module to overcome the limitations in the generic BDI model. Learning and the adaptability of the environments are assured with the introduction of the Knowledge Acquisition Module (KAM) in the generic BDI architecture in our proposed framework. The dynamic selection of the intention structures has been improved with a trained neural network. The knowledge required to handle vagueness or uncertainty in the environment has been modelled with an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) in berths. Finally, the benefits and the usability of hybrid BDI model for a vessel berthing application is discussed with experiential results.     

Exponential dispersion relation and its effects on unstable propagating pulses in unidirectionally coupled symmetric bistable elements

The propagation of pulses in unidirectionally coupled symmetric bistable elements is studied. The speeds of unstable traveling pulse waves in a ring of elements increase with pulse width in an exponential manner. This dispersion relation causes exponential increases in the duration of transient propagating pulses and the noise-sustained propagation of pulses, which are qualitatively the same as those in a reaction-diffusion-convection equation and a ring of sigmoidal neurons. However, the speeds of pulse fronts in propagating pulses depend on the backward pulse width. Properties of pulse transmission in an open chain of elements then differ from those in the above two systems qualitatively.     

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。     

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。     

From lessons to lectures: NCEA mathematics results and first-year mathematics performance

Given the recent radical overhaul of secondary school qualifications in New Zealand, similar in style to those in the UK, there has been a distinct change in the tertiary entrant profile. In order to gain insight into this new situation that university institutions are faced with, we investigate some of the ways in which these recent changes have impacted upon tertiary level mathematics in New Zealand. To this end, we analyse the relationship between the final secondary school qualifications in Mathematics with calculus of incoming students and their results in the core first-year mathematics papers at Canterbury since 2005, when students entered the University of Canterbury with these new reformed school qualifications for the first time. These findings are used to investigate the suitability of this new qualification as a preparation for tertiary mathematics and to revise and update entrance recommendations for students wishing to succeed in their first-year mathematics study.     

Scan Statistics on Enron Graphs

We introduce a theory of scan statistics on graphs and apply the ideas to the problem of anomaly detection in a time series of Enron email graphs. Previous presentation: Workshop on Link Analysis, Counterterrorism and Security at the SIAM International Conference on Data Mining, Newport Beach, CA, April 23, 2005. Carey E. Priebe received the B.S. degree in mathematics from Purdue University in 1984, the M.S. degree in computer science from San Diego State University in 1988, and the Ph.D. degree in information technology (computational statistics) from George Mason University in 1993. From 1985 to 1994 he worked as a mathematician and scientist in the US Navy research and development laboratory system. Since 1994 he has been a professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. At Johns Hopkins, he holds joint appointments in the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Imaging Science. He is a past President of the Interface Foundation of North America—Computing Science & Statistics, a past Chair of the Section on Statistical Computing of the American Statistical Association, and on the editorial boards of Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, and Computational Statistics. His research interests are in computational statistics, kernel and mixture estimates, statistical pattern recognition, statistical image analysis, and statistical inference for high-dimensional and graph data. He was elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2002. John M. Conroy received a B.S. in Mathematics from Saint Joseph's University in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1986. Since then he has been a research staff member for the IDA Center for Computing Sciences in Bowie, MD. His research interest is applications of numerical linear algebra. He is a member of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Association for Computational Linguistics. David J. Marchette received a B.A. in 1980, and an M.A. in mathematics in 1982, from the University of California at San Diego. He received a Ph.D. in Computational Sciences and Informatics in 1996 from George Mason University under the direction of Ed Wegman. From 1985–1994 he worked at the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego doing research on pattern recognition and computational statistics. In 1994 he moved to the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren Virginia where he does research in computational statistics and pattern recognition, primarily applied to image processing, text processing, automatic target recognition and computer security. Dr. Marchette is a Fellow of the American Statistical Society. Youngser Park received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from Inha University in Korea in 1985, the M.S. degree in computer science from The George Washington University in 1991, and had pursued a doctoral degree there. From 1998 to 2000 he worked at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes as a senior research engineer. Since 2003 he is working as a research analyst in the Center for Imaging Science at the Johns Hopkins University. His research interests are clustering algorithm, pattern classification, and data mining.     

A Comparison of Two Sequential Metropolis-Hastings Algorithms with Standard Simulation Techniques in Bayesian Inference in Reliability Models Involving a Generalized Gamma Distribution

In this paper we consider the generalized gamma distribution as introduced in Gåsemyr and Natvig (1998). This distribution enters naturally in Bayesian inference in exponential survival models with left censoring. In the paper mentioned above it is shown that the weighted sum of products of generalized gamma distributions is a conjugate prior for the parameters of component lifetimes, having autopsy data in a Marshall-Olkin shock model. A corresponding result is shown in Gåsemyr and Natvig (1999) for independent, exponentially distributed component lifetimes in a model with partial monitoring of components with applications to preventive system maintenance. A discussion in the present paper strongly indicates that expressing the posterior distribution in terms of the generalized gamma distribution is computationally efficient compared to using the ordinary gamma distribution in such models. Furthermore, we present two types of sequential Metropolis-Hastings algorithms that may be used in Bayesian inference in situations where exact methods are intractable. Finally these types of algorithms are compared with standard simulation techniques and analytical results in arriving at the posterior distribution of the parameters of component lifetimes in special cases of the mentioned models. It seems that one of these types of algorithms may be very favorable when prior assessments are updated by several data sets and when there are significant discrepancies between the prior assessments and the data.