The cultural dimension of beliefs: an investigation of future primary teachers’ epistemological beliefs concerning the nature of mathematics in 15 countries

Beliefs constitute a central part of a person’s professional competencies and are crucial to the perception of situations as they influence our choice of actions. This paper focuses on epistemological beliefs about the nature of mathematics of future primary teachers from an international perspective. The data reported are part of a larger sample originating from the TEDS-M study which compares primary mathematics teacher education in 15 countries. In this paper we examine the pattern of beliefs of future teachers aiming to teach mathematics at primary level. We explore whether and to what extent beliefs concerning the nature of mathematics are influenced by cultural factors, in our case the extent to which a country’s culture can be characterized by an individualistic versus collectivistic orientation according to Hofstede’s terminology. In the first part of the paper, the literature on epistemological beliefs is reviewed and the role of culture and individualism/collectivism on the formation of beliefs concerning the nature of mathematics will be discussed. In the empirical part, means and distributions of belief ratings will be reported. Finally, multilevel analyses explore how much of the variation of belief preferences between countries can be explained by the individualistic orientation of a country.     

A Family of Irreducible Representations of the Witt Lie Algebra with Infinite-Dimensional Weight Spaces

We define a 4-parameter family of generically irreducible and inequivalent representations of the Witt Lie algebra on which the infinitesimal rotation operator acts semisimply with infinite-dimensional eigenspaces. They are deformations of the (generically indecomposable) representations on spaces of polynomial differential operators between two spaces of tensor densities on S ¹, which are constructed by composing each such differential operator with the action of a rotation by a fixed angle.     

Nanosized aerosols from consumer sprays: experimental analysis and exposure modeling for four commercial products

Consumer spray products are already on the market in the cosmetics and household sector, which suggest by their label that they contain engineered nanoparticles (ENP). Sprays are considered critical for human health, because the lungs represent a major route for the uptake of ENP into the human body. To contribute to the exposure assessment of ENP in consumer spray products, we analyzed ENP in four commercially available sprays: one antiperspirant, two shoe impregnation sprays, and one plant-strengthening agent. The spray dispersions were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICPMS) and (scanning-) transmission electron microscopy ((S)TEM). Aerosols were generated by using the original vessels, and analyzed by scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) and (S)TEM. On the basis of SMPS results, the nanosized aerosol depositing in the respiratory tract was modeled for female and male consumers. The derived exposure levels reflect a single spray application. We identified ENP in the dispersions of two products (shoe impregnation and plant spray). Nanosized aerosols were observed in three products that contained propellant gas. The aerosol number concentration increased linearly with the sprayed amount, with the highest concentration resulting from the antiperspirant. Modeled aerosol exposure levels were in the range of 10¹⁰ nanosized aerosol components per person and application event for the antiperspirant and the impregnation sprays, with the largest fraction of nanosized aerosol depositing in the alveolar region. Negligible exposure from the application of the plant spray (pump spray) was observed.     

Searching for extensible Korobov rules

Extensible lattice sequences have been proposed and studied in [F.J. Hickernell, H.S. Hong, Computing multivariate normal probabilities using rank-1 lattice sequences, in: G.H. Golub, S.H. Lui, F.T. Luk, R.J. Plemmons (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Scientific Computing (Hong Kong), Singapore, Springer, Berlin, 1997, pp. 209–215; F.J. Hickernell, H.S. Hong, P. L’Ecuyer, C. Lemieux, Extensible lattice sequences for quasi-Monte Carlo quadrature, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 22 (2001) 1117–1138; F.J. Hickernell, H.Niederreiter, The existence of good extensible rank-1 lattices, J. Complexity 19 (2003) 286–300]. For the special case of extensible Korobov sequences, parameters can be found in [F.J. Hickernell, H.S. Hong, P. L’Ecuyer, C.Lemieux, Extensible lattice sequences for quasi-Monte Carlo quadrature, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 22 (2001) 1117–1138]. The searches made to obtain these parameters were based on quality measures that look at several projections of the lattice. Because it is often the case in practice that low-dimensional projections are very important, it is of interest to find parameters for these sequences based on measures that look more closely at these projections. In this paper, we prove the existence of “good” extensible Korobov rules with respect to a quality measure that considers two-dimensional projections. We also report results of experiments made on different problems where the newly obtained parameters compare favorably with those given in [F.J. Hickernell, H.S. Hong, P. L’Ecuyer, C. Lemieux, Extensible lattice sequences for quasi-Monte Carlo quadrature, SIAM J. Sci. Comput. 22 (2001) 1117–1138].     

Spectral inclusion for unbounded block operator matrices

In this paper we establish a new analytic enclosure for the spectrum of unbounded linear operators A admitting a block operator matrix representation. For diagonally dominant and off-diagonally dominant block operator matrices, we show that the recently introduced quadratic numerical range W²(A) contains the eigenvalues of A and that the approximate point spectrum of A is contained in the closure of W²(A). This provides a new method to enclose the spectrum of unbounded block operator matrices by means of the non-convex set W²(A). Several examples illustrate that this spectral inclusion may be considerably tighter than the one by the usual numerical range or by perturbation theorems, both in the non-self-adjoint case and in the self-adjoint case. Applications to Dirac operators and to two-channel Hamiltonians are given.     

Contingent derivatives and regularization for noncoercive inverse problems

Abstract

We study the inverse problem of parameter identification in noncoercive variational problems that commonly appear in applied models. We examine the differentiability of the set-valued parameter-to-solution map using the first-order and the second-order contingent derivatives. We explore the inverse problem using the output least-squares and the modified output least-squares objectives. By regularizing the noncoercive variational problem, we obtain a single-valued regularized parameter-to-solution map and investigate its smoothness and boundedness. We also consider optimization problems using the output least-squares and the modified output least-squares objectives for the regularized variational problem. We give a complete convergence analysis showing that for the output least-squares and the modified output least-squares, the regularized minimization problems approximate the original optimization problems suitably. We also provide the first-order and the second-order adjoint method for the computation of the first-order and the second-order derivatives of the output least-squares objective. We provide discrete formulas for the gradient and the Hessian calculation and present numerical results.     

Bifurcation analysis of a generalized Gause model with prey harvesting and a generalized Holling response function of type III

In this paper we study a generalized Gause model with prey harvesting and a generalized Holling response function of type III: . The goal of our study is to give the bifurcation diagram of the model. For this we need to study saddle-node bifurcations, Hopf bifurcation of codimension 1 and 2, heteroclinic bifurcation, and nilpotent saddle bifurcation of codimension 2 and 3. The nilpotent saddle of codimension 3 is the organizing center for the bifurcation diagram. The Hopf bifurcation is studied by means of a generalized Liénard system, and for b=0 we discuss the potential integrability of the system. The nilpotent point of multiplicity 3 occurs with an invariant line and can have a codimension up to 4. But because it occurs with an invariant line, the effective highest codimension is 3. We develop normal forms (in which the invariant line is preserved) for studying of the nilpotent saddle bifurcation. For b=0, the reversibility of the nilpotent saddle is discussed. We study the type of the heteroclinic loop and its cyclicity. The phase portraits of the bifurcations diagram (partially conjectured via the results obtained) allow us to give a biological interpretation of the behavior of the two species.