Coping with textbook controversies: From policy development to implementation

This article focuses on how schools can cope with today’s increasing number of textbook controversies. Educators should understand the concerns generated by textbook controversies, the importance of sound and useful policies in dealing with them, how effective policies are developed, and the responsibilities of superintendents, principals, teachers, librarians, and publishers in addressing controversies and implementing policies.     

Engaging the Audience in a Digitised Television Production Process

This article discusses producer practices and the reasons why they engage their audience in the production process. In a digitised media context, audiences have become more visible, mainly through social media, and have more means to participate. Our research deconstructs the production process of a particular television programme by means of the “hierarchy of influences” model, which separates micro and macro levels that influence production. It draws on in-depth interviews with all editors of Flemish current affairs programme De Afspraak (The Appointment) and on a three-month participatory observation. We conclude that immersive ways of engaging the audience are applied in our specific case. More broadly, we argue that although practices change, pre-existing norms and values about the television audience remain central to how producers engage their audience through digital and social media.     

Quantum Yang-Baxter equation and constant R -matrix over Grassmann algebra

Constant solutions to Yang-Baxter equation are investigated over Grassmann algebra for the case of 6-vertexR-matrix. The general classification of all possible solutions over Grassmann algebra and particular cases with 2,3,4 generators are studied. As distinct from the standard case, whenR-matrix over number field can have a maximum 5 nonvanishing elements, we obtain over Grassmann algebra a set of new full 6-vertex solutions. The solutions leading to regularR-matrices which appear in weak Hopf algebras are considered.     

Conversation with Chen-Ning Yang: reminiscence and reflection

Chen-Ning Yang ( ) is the most distinguished Chinese theoretical physicist. In 1954, together with Robert Mills, he formulated the Yang–Mills Gauge Theory, which led to the development of the Standard Model, the leading framework for understanding particle physics. In 1956, Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee ( ) proposed the possibility of parity non-conservation in weak interaction, which won them the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1957. Besides these two major achievements, Yang made many other seminal contributions to particle physics, statistical physics and condensed matter physics. At the end of 2003, Yang returned to China from the US and established the Institute for Advanced Study at Tsinghua University in Beijing. NSR’s Executive Editor-in-Chief Mu-ming Poo ( ), a neurobiologist, and Alexander Wu Chao ( ), an accelerator physicist at Stanford University, talked with Professor Yang on a variety of topics, ranging from his retrospective view on Yang–Mills theory, on his contemporary physicists, on tastes in scientific research, and on the current and future developments of Chinese science. The following is an excerpt from this conversation that took place on 21 March 2019 at Tsinghua University, Beijing.     

An application of the knowledge management maturity model: the case of credit unions

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of knowledge management (KM) maturity of credit unions. The application of a maturity model to 15 credit unions in North America revealed that an overall level of KM maturity is at an early stage of development, but there are signs of future improvement. Credit unions operate in a highly competitive, knowledge-intensive financial industry and experience various pressures to increase their efficiency, which they can achieve through the implementation of KM solutions. Despite the absence of official KM strategies, KM projects were introduced locally in order to fill particular knowledge gaps. The availability of IT infrastructure and the implementation of KM-related technologies alone are insufficient to ensure universal success of organizational KM activities. Credit union managers periodically access and use academic research in their decision making. At the same time, they prefer accessing scholarly knowledge in translated form from books, practitioner magazines, and consultants. It was concluded that organizations competing in the knowledge-intensive sector have an inner need for KM solutions.     

Constitutive Laws of the Underground Opening Collapse due to Dynamic Load

The constitutive laws of the collapse of underground openings in a rock massif were investigated based on the results of laboratory and field experiments,and computations using analytical and numerical models.It is shown that the principal mechanism of failure of underground openings over important for practice peak particle velocity amplitude range of 1 to 10 m/s is the roof and wall breakage due to the fall of key blocks.Over this load range the material crushing is of considerably less importance.The geometry of discontinuities influences mainly the stability of key blocks.Further caving depends weakly on block structure of near-tunnel zone.The mean volume of fall material is a rather stable quantity for rock massifs of different structures.Lower tunnel stability in the zones of high fracturing is caused by a higher probability of the presence of the unstable key blocks and the decrease of strength characteristics of fractured bounding blocks.The decrease of average block size is a less important accompanying factor.