Australian teachers’ views of effective mathematics teaching and learning

Thirteen Australian teachers who had been nominated by their professional mathematics teachers’ associations as excellent teachers of elementary school mathematics were interviewed on their beliefs about mathematics, mathematics learning and mathematics teaching. In particular, they were asked to discuss the characteristics of effective teachers of mathematics and excellent mathematics lessons. In spite of their differences in location, experience and teacher education, the teachers displayed a lot of consistency in their responses and in their lists of characteristics. While this group of teachers cannot be claimed to be representative of Australian teachers, they have provided a snapshot of what is regarded as effectiveness in mathematics education in Australian elementary schools.     

Generalization of the proof on the existence of hidden measurements to experiments with an infinite set of outcomes

We generalize Aerts' proof concerning the existence of hidden measurements for experiments withn outcomes to general experiments with an infinite set of outcomes. More specific we prove that, if is a set of experiments on an entityS with a set of pure states , and alle are such that the outcomes can be represented as a measurable subset of a finite dimensional real space, on which for every initial state of the entity there exists a probability measure, then there exists a hidden measurement representation for this set of experiments.Research Assistant of the National Fund for Scientific Research.Supported by Flanders' Federale Diensten voor Wetenschappelijke, Technische en Culturele Aangelegenheden in the framework of IUAP-III No 9.     

Optimisation of solvent desorption conditions for chemical warfare agent and simulant compounds from Porapak Q using experimental design. I. Methyl salicylate and di(propylene glycol) monomethyl ether

Factorial design (FD) was applied in order to develop an optimised method for the detection of chemical warfare (CW) agent simulant compounds on Porapak Q. Application of FD allowed study of the adsorption/desorption mechanism of analytes. Di(propylene glycol) monomethyl ether (DPM) and methyl salicylate (MS) were selected for study as both compounds are employed in agent simulation trials but are currently analysed by different methods. An analytical method for simultaneous determination of both compounds was developed using solvent desorption. The optimised method identified non-polar interactions as the primary adsorption/desorption mechanism. Steel tubes were shown to be more suited for sampling of simulants, due to lower variability in recovery compared to glass tubes. Atmospheric detection limits for both simulants were estimated to be 0.2 mg m(-3) allowing the trace analysis of these compounds by gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC-FID).