“Can you help me count these pennies?”: Surfacing preschoolers’ understandings of counting

ABSTRACT

Capturing the breadth and variety of children’s understanding is critical if studies of children’s mathematical thinking are to inform policy and practice in early childhood education. This article presents an investigation of young children’s counting. Detailed coding and analyses of assessment interviews with 476 preschoolers revealed understandings that would be overlooked by solely assessing the accuracy of their responses. In particular, many children demonstrated understandings of counting principles on a challenging task that were not captured by other, simpler tasks. We conclude that common approaches to capturing young children’s mathematical understanding are likely underestimating their capabilities. This study contributes to researchers’ understanding of what making sense of counting looks and sounds like for preschool age children (3–5 years), the development and relations among counting principles (one-to-one, cardinal, and patterns of the number sequence), and the affordances of challenging, open-ended tasks. We close by considering the implications of recognizing and building from what children know and can do for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.     

Benchmark calculations with correlated molecular wavefunctions. XIII. Potential energy curves for He2, Ne2 and Ar2 using correlation consistent basis sets through augmented sextuple zeta

The potential energy curves of the rare gas dimers He2, Ne2, and Ar2 have been computed using correlation consistent basis sets ranging from singly augmented aug-cc-pVDZ sets through triply augmented t-aug-cc-pV6Z sets, with the augmented sextuple basis sets being reported herein. Several methods for including electron correlation were investigated, namely Møller—Plesset perturbation theory (MP2, MP3 and MP4) and coupled cluster theory [CCSD and CCSD(T)]. For He2 CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z calculations yield a well depth of 7.35 cm-1 (10.58 K), with an estimated complete basis set (CBS) limit of 7.40 cm-1 (10.65 K). The latter is smaller than the 'exact' well depth (Aziz, R. A., Janzen, A. R., and Moldover, M. R., 1995, Phys. Rev. Lett., 74, 1586) by about 0.2 cm-1 (0.35 K). The Ne2 well depth, computed with the CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z method, is 28.31 cm-1 and the estimated CBS limit is 28.4 cm-1, approximately 1 cm-1 smaller than the empirical potential of Aziz, R. A., and Slaman, M., J., 1989, Chem. Phys., 130, 187. Inclusion of core and core—valence correlation effects has a negligible effect on the Ne2 well depth, decreasing it by only 0.04 cm-1. For Ar2, CCSD(T)/d-aug-cc-pV6Z calculations yield a well depth of 96.2 cm-1. The corresponding HFDID potential of Aziz, R. A., 1993, J. chem. Phys., 99, 4518 predicts of De of 99.7 cm-1. Inclusion of core and core-valence effects in Ar2 increases the well depth and decreases the discrepancy by approximately 1 cm-1.     

Automatic determination of the number of targets present when using the time reversal operator

Acoustical time reversal mirrors have been shown to provide a highly accurate means of studying and focusing on acoustical sources. The DORT method is a derivation of the time reversal process, which allows for focusing on multiple targets. An important step in this process is the determination of the number of targets or sources present. This is achieved by examining the eigenvalues of the time reversal operator (TRO). The number of significant eigenvalues is then chosen as the number of sources present. However, as mentioned in [N. Mordant, C. Prada, and M. Fink, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105, 2634-2642 (1999) and C. Prada, M. Tanter, and M. Fink, in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium, 1997, pp. 679-683], factors such as low signal to noise ratio (SNR), small data sample, array configuration and the target location may result in the eigenvalues corresponding to the targets no longer being distinguishable from the background noise eigenvalues. This paper proposes a robust method of automatically determining the number of targets even in the presence of a small number of snapshots. For white Gaussian noise, the profile of the ordered eigenvalues is seen to fit an exponential law. The observed eigenvalues are then compared to this model and a mismatch is detected between the observed profile and the noise-only model. The index of the mismatch gives the number of scatterers present.     

Aromaticity and tautomerism—VII: Empirical resonance energy and conjugation energy of pyrazole and isoxazole from heats of dehydration data

The dehydration of various 4,5-dihydro-4- and -5-hydroxy derivatives of pyrazole and isoxazole has been investigated. Heats of dehydration of 4,5-duiydro-4-hydroxy-1,3,5-tripbenylpyrazole and 4,5-dihydro-5-hydroxy-isoxazole are evaluated and used to assess the empirical resonance energy and conjugation energy of pyrazole and isoxazole. The former possesses resonance stabilisation comparable to pyrrole but that of the latter is low.     

Comparison of measurements of phase velocity in human calcaneus to Biot theory

Biot's theory for elastic propagation in porous media has previously been shown to be useful for modeling the dependence of phase velocity on porosity in bovine cancellous bone in vitro. In the present study, Biot's theory is applied to measurements of porosity-dependent phase velocity in 53 human calcanea in vitro. Porosity was measured using microcomputed tomography for some samples (n = 23) and estimated based on bone mineral densitometry for the remaining samples (n = 30). The phase velocity at 500 kHz was measured in a water tank using a through-transmission technique. Biot's theory performed well for the prediction of the dependence of sound speed on porosity. The trend was quasilinear, but both the theory and experiment show similar slight curvature. The root mean square error (RMSE) of predicted versus measured sound speed was 15.8 m/s.     

Truncation of the correlation consistent basis sets: an effective approach to the reduction of computational cost?

The systematic reduction of commonly used basis sets as a means to reduce computational cost is examined for a small test set of molecules, which includes H(2), CH(4), NH(3), H(2)O, HF, and HCN. Coupled cluster with single, double, and quasiperturbative triple excitations calculations were performed using both the correlation consistent basis sets, and a set of systematically reduced basis sets to examine both the impact of the reduction upon the accuracy of the structures and energies, and the computational cost savings achieved. The effect of several truncation scenarios upon basis set convergence is also examined. Overall, for the systems studied, a reduction can occur which preserves the well-established systematic convergence behavior of the correlation consistent basis sets.     

Wavelet stabilization and preconditioning for domain decomposition

The aim of this paper is to propose a stabilization technique in order to circumvent the two inf–sup conditions neededfor stability of the discretization of the three fields formulationfor domain decomposition methods (following the work of Brezzi& Marini (1993) Optimisation et Controle 89–96). Realization of this technique in terms of wavelets is presented. Furthermore, the resulting discrete problem is shown to admitan asymptotically optimal preconditioner also based on wavelets. Received 24 February, 1999. Revised 7 October, 1999. ^* aivlis@ian.pv.cnr.it; http://www.ian.pv.cnr.it/~aivlis kunoth@iam.un-bonn.de; http://www.iam.uni-bonn.de/~kunoth