Hypervideo

Methods for incorporating video in hypermedia programs are discussed in this article. Hypermedia is defined, and linear and interactive video are contrasted. It is argued that hypermedia presents unique problems in knowledge representation affecting video production, and that techniques are required differing from those for linear video and other forms of interactive video. Suggestions are made for giving interactive video the “look and feel” of hypermedia that primarily involve condensing information and accelerating presentation pace. They are based on the authors' experiences evaluating interactive media and creating “compressed” video programs. Existing media and visual ability research is re-interpreted to support these interactive, “hypervideo” methods.     

Disciplinary and interdisciplinary affiliations of experienced researchers

This article reports on a study of senior academics’ views of their disciplinary and interdisciplinary affiliations. It questions the idea that academics have a firm and fixed disciplinary identity from which they then act and suggests that academic work in the contemporary university challenges and changes how individuals view their disciplinary affiliation. The article provides empirical data that lends weight to critical questioning of anthropological metaphors, which have tended to dominate discussions of disciplinarity. It suggests that contemporary understandings of disciplinary and interdisciplinary identity need more fluid metaphors and models; ones that can capture the shifting and questioning uncertainties that give expression to the rhetorical and reflexive nature of academics’ disciplinary affiliations. The article explores the implications of a dominant emphasis on disciplinary relationships for understanding disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity and examines the practical implications for structures and systems that are designed to enhance and evaluate research and teaching within higher education.     

Situational and Personal Causes of Student Cheating

The causes of students’ academic dishonesty behavior were explored using survey and experimental vignette methods. Participants were surveyed about their own cheating behavior, neutralizing attitudes, performance/mastery orientation and perceptions of peer attitudes and behavior. As predicted, neutralizing attitudes influenced cheating behavior directly, but also indirectly, increasing the effect of individual attitudes. Observing others cheating was strongly correlated with one’s own cheating behavior. These variables are also shown to have different effects on exam cheating and plagiarism and cases of giving and receiving unauthorized information. Correlations were tested using experimental vignette methods, which supported the claims made from survey data.     

Highlighting the role of the episodic situation model in the solving of arithmetical problems

The objective of this research was to compare two types of models used in problem solving: those which give priority to intermediate qualitative representations, such as the episodic situation model, and those which are centred on the activity of the participant and are of a procedural nature. Two-step distributive problems were chosen that could be solved using two different strategies: factorisation or development. These problems were given to French primary school pupils in year groups 3rd grade (8–9 years old) and 5th grade (10–11 years old). Each problem was formulated in four different ways by crossing two variables which modify the text: on the one hand, the presence of an element structuring the objects enumerated in the problem and on the other hand, the order of the numerical data. We have noted the percentage of ‘factorisation’ strategies used by the pupils. The results show that (1) factorisation was most often used by the older pupils; (2) the presence of a structuring element increased the number of factorisations whereas the order of the numerical data had no effect. This suggests that the problem-solving models which involve the episodic situation model are more suited to result interpretation than procedural models.     

Engaging Undergraduates in Science Research: Not Just About Faculty Willingness

Despite the many benefits of involving undergraduates in research and the growing number of undergraduate research programs, few scholars have investigated the factors that affect faculty members’ decisions to involve undergraduates in their research projects. We investigated the individual factors and institutional contexts that predict faculty members’ likelihood of engaging undergraduates in their research project(s). Using data from the Higher Education Research Institute’s 2007–2008 Faculty Survey, we employ hierarchical generalized linear modeling to analyze data from 4,832 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty across 194 institutions to examine how organizational citizenship behavior theory and social exchange theory relate to mentoring students in research. Key findings show that faculty who work in the life sciences and those who receive government funding for their research are more likely to involve undergraduates in their research project(s). In addition, faculty at liberal arts or historically Black colleges are significantly more likely to involve undergraduate students in research. Implications for advancing undergraduate research opportunities are discussed.     

Diversity and Peer Selection: Where Do They Intersect?

A common criticism of accountability schemes that are based on comparisons is that they fail to address legitimate and practical questions about how differentiation among institutions can be measured and promoted, and about how distinctive institutional mandates and roles — some of them determined by government mandate — can be recognised and appropriately funded within single systems of higher education. Responding to these queries and suggestions requires some yardstick by which to express and measure similarities and dis-similarities among institutions. At the same time individual institutions, for a variety of reasons ranging from accountability to the allocation of scarce resources, attempt to compare or ‘benchmark’ themselves against other institutions. Both activities involve measurement, classification, and the selection of peers. Although customarily addressed apart from one another, diversity and peer selection can be conceptually closely linked within single scales of similarity and dis-similarity. Existing paradigms that explain diversity might be too simple for reliable peer selection and comparison, and might fail to account for all expressions of diversity. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Multivariate predictive model for dyslexia diagnosis

Dyslexia is a specific disorder of language development that mainly affects reading. Etiological researches have led to multiple hypotheses which induced various diagnosis methods and rehabilitation treatments so that many different tests are used by practitioners to identify dyslexia symptoms. Our purpose is to determine a subset of the most efficient ones by integrating them into a multivariate predictive model. A set of screening tasks that are the most commonly used and representative of the different cognitive aspects of dyslexia was proposed to 78 children from elementary school (mean age = 9 years ± 7 months) exempt from identified reading difficulties and to 35 dyslexic children attending a specialized consultation for dyslexia. We proposed a multi-step procedure: within each category, we first selected the most representative tasks using principal component analysis and then we implemented logistic regression models on the preselected variables. Spelling and reading tasks were considered separately. The model with the best predictive performance includes eight variables from four categories of tasks and classifies correctly 94% of the children. The sensitivity (91%) and the specificity (95%) are both high. Forty minutes are necessary to complete the test.     

具有凸多面体不确定参数Delta算子时滞系统的可靠保性能控制

研究Delta算子描述的线性不确定时滞系统的可靠保性能控制问题。考虑系统含有具有凸多面体不确定性参数和连续模型执行器故障,根据Lyapunov稳定性理论,给出对于所有允许的不确定性和执行器故障．均使闭环系统渐近稳定且给定性能指标具有一定上界的状态反馈控制器的存在条件,由此提出相应控制器的设计方法。通过数值算例验证了设计方法的可行性。     

Modeling Pupils' Understanding and Explanations Concerning Changes in Matter

The explanations of thirty primary pupils for changes in matter were recorded through individual, semi-structured interviews. The analysis of data pointed to the construction of a system for classifying pupils' explanations of changes in matter. A parallel analysis of data focused on the identification and interpretation of associations between the explanatory categories resulting from the classification, and certain variables of the context, that is (a) category of change to be explained, and (b) familiarity with the system about which they were being questioned. The results of the two phases of the analysis were combined with the findings of a previous study, to produce the formation of a limited number of pupils' models concerning matter, changes in matter and their explanations. Pupils' models involve a variety of conceptions which could be attributed to the presence of a conceptual obstacle: that is the “continuous and static conception of matter.” The definition of teaching objectives in relation to obstacles (“obstacles as objectives”) can bring together pupils' conceptions with concepts to be built and consequently to contribute to the design and evaluation of constructivist teaching and appropriate material.     

Uncertainty analysis for peer assessment: oral presentation skills for final year project

Peer assessment plays an important role in engineering education for an active involvement in the assessment process, developing autonomy, enhancing reflection, and understanding of how to achieve the learning outcomes. Peer assessment uncertainty for oral presentation skills as part of the FYP assessment is studied. Validity and reliability for complex assessments were conceptualised in the context of quantification, hierarchical system of uncertainties, aleatory uncertainty, and epistemic uncertainty. Systems as assessment methods were also conceptualised to define elements (i.e. examiner, examinee, and difficulty) as variables or/and constants, and to study the uncertainty behaviour of the peer assessment within the framework of the parametric uncertainty model. As a result, a singularity, at which the hierarchical structure of uncertainties breaks down, and its related behaviour were theoretically predicted and experimentally verified. Also, a validity paradox, when the ‘difficulty’ level is sufficiently lowered, was found to be possible and verified for oral presentation skills. It may be useful for understanding fundamental characteristics of the peer assessment in which epistemic uncertainties are dependent on how the assessment is close to the singularity point.     

Delay-dependent robust<Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis><Subscript>∞</Subscript> control for a class of uncertain switched systems with time delay

For linear switched system with both parameter uncertainties and time delay, a delay-dependent sufficient condition for the existence of a new robustH _∞ feedback controller was formulated in nonlinear matrix inequalities solvable by an LMI-based iterative algorithm. Compared with the conventional state-feedback controller, the proposed controller can achieve better robust control performance since the delayed state is utilized as additional feedback information and the parameters of the proposed controllers are changed synchronously with the dynamical characteristic of the system. This design method was also extended to the case where only delayed state is available for the controller. The example of balancing an inverted pendulum on a cart demonstrates the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed design methods. Project (No. 2002CB312200) supported by the National Basic Research Program (973) of China     

In search of a happy medium in instructional technology research: Issues concerning external validity,media replications,and learner control

Due in part to the diverse characteristics and training of its researchers, the field of instructional technology is currently plagued by much uncertainty regarding meaningful research questions and accepted paradigms for investigating them. Major areas in which these uncertainties are manifested concern the degree of emphasis to be placed on basic versus developmental research and considerations involving the separation of media from methods in research designs. To help researchers achieve a “happier medium” in balancing instructional technology goals with the performance of well-designed and scientifically sound studies, greater attention to three concerns is advocated: the external validity of studies to increase the relevance of findings to applied technologies; usage of media replications to test the generalizability of findings obtained with individual media and to demonstrate delivery applications; and learner control as a potentially effective and practical means of adapting validated instructional strategies to individuals. Each of these issues is discussed in relation to research conducted by the authors and to suggested designs for future studies. The authors would like to thank Robert D. Tennyson for his helpful suggestions regarding an earlier draft.     

Cross-Grade Comparison of Students’ Understanding of Energy Concepts

The aims of this cross-grade study were (1) to determine the level of understanding of energy concepts of students at different academic grades and the differences in understanding between these grades and (2) to analyse the conceptual development of these students. Two hundred and forty-three students at 3 different levels (high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate) participated in this study. The students’ understandings of energy concepts were determined using a questionnaire, which requested them to define the concept verbally, and to represent it graphically. The most important findings of this study may be summarised as follows. Students from the different groups generally succeeded in defining ‘energy’ in a similar way, namely as the ‘ability to do work’. Nevertheless, some students (including those at university) also provided different alternative conceptions related to the energy concept. In addition, some students also found difficulty in visually analysing the relationships between different variables using graphs. This finding could help explain why attainment levels of all groups falls short in questions that involve the graphical representation of data.     

Computer-based assessment of Complex Problem Solving: concept, implementation, and application

Complex Problem Solving (CPS) skills are essential to successfully deal with environments that change dynamically and involve a large number of interconnected and partially unknown causal influences. The increasing importance of such skills in the 21st century requires appropriate assessment and intervention methods, which in turn rely on adequate item construction, delivery, and scoring. The lack of assessment tools, however, has slowed down research on and understanding of CPS. This paper first presents the MicroDYN framework for assessing CPS, which is based on linear structural equation systems with input and output variables and opaque relations among them. Second, a versatile assessment platform, the CBA Item Builder, which allows the authoring, delivery, and scoring of CPS tasks for scientific and educational purposes is introduced. Third, we demonstrate the potential of such a tool for research by reporting an experimental study illustrating the effect of domain specific content knowledge on performance in CPS tasks both on an overall performance and on a process level. The importance of accessible and versatile technical platforms not only for assessment and research but also for intervention and learning are discussed with a particular focus on educational contexts.     

The Stratification of Students in Israeli Universities: Persistent Outcomes of an Educational Expansion Policy

Expansion trends of higher education systems involve the planned growth of new universities, frequently stratified lower than established ones in academic breadth and excellence as well as in the socio-demographic origins of their students. The persistence of this internal stratification of the university system subsequent to its expansion remains a controversial issue. Between the early and mid-1990s the Israeli Council for Higher Education has expanded the three ‘‘target’’ universities, aimed at peripheral or specific sectors. Compared to the three established elitist institutions, these universities have concentrated on the liberal arts and attracted students of lower social origins. The present study examines the stratification of students into elitist and target universities a few years after this particular expansion policy was abandoned in favor of college accreditation. Though the overall growth rate of university freshmen since 1995 has subsequently declined, the relative share of the target universities is still steadily growing. Our analysis of data from a 1999 national survey of freshmen in all six universities reveals that students of the target universities still tend to originate from lower status groups and ethnic minorities regardless of academic ability. Furthermore, their general study motivations, particular study considerations, and institutional choice orientations are more practical and vocationally oriented than those of students in the elitist universities. It therefore seems that expansion policies of university systems should not overlook their long-term consequences for the stratification of universities and their students.     

Adaptive terminal sliding mode control for high-order nonlinear dynamic systems

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A Self-Study of the Role of Technology in Promoting Reflection and Inquiry-Based Science Teaching

   This self-study examined the 1st-year science teacher educator's integration of instructional technology into a science methods course and modeled the reflective practice of her own teaching. Elementary science methods students participated in a series of inquiry-based activities that utilized various instructional technologies. Data sources included daily reflections, formative assessments, concern-based surveys, and class assignments. Findings from this self-study revealed that the teacher educator's own reflections and practical inquiry influenced and paralleled her students’ development of learning how to teach scientific inquiry using instructional technology. Results suggest that inviting preservice teachers into reflective practice and modeling for them the development of professional practical knowledge allow them to address the uncertainties in their own learning about using technology for inquiry-based science teaching.     

A pooled-neighbor swarm intelligence approach to optimal reactive power dispatch

INTRODUCTION The reactive power dispatch is aimed at mini- mizing the active power loss in the transmission network by allocating the reactive power generation under several security constraints. The reactive power dispatch problem has significant influence on secure and economic operation of power systems. The reac- tive power generation affects the overall generation cost via transmission loss. A procedure which allo- cates the reactive power generation so as to minimize the transmissio…     

Ehrenfest’s theorem and nonclassical states of light 1. Ehrenfest’s theorem in quantum mechanics

When it was first enunciated, Ehrenfest’s Theorem provided a necessary and important link between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Today, the content of the theorem is understood to be a natural and immediate consequence of the equation of motion for operators when quantum mechanics is formulated in the Heisenberg picture. Nevertheless, the theorem leads to useful approximations when systems with Hamiltonians of higher than quadratic order in the dynamical variables are considered. In this two-part article, we use it to provide a convenient illustration of the differences between so-called classical and nonclassical states of radiation.