Three-feature model to reproduce the topology of citation networks and the effects from authors’ visibility on their h-index

Various factors are believed to govern the selection of references in citation networks, but a precise, quantitative determination of their importance has remained elusive. In this paper, we show that three factors can account for the referencing pattern of citation networks for two topics, namely “graphenes” and “complex networks”, thus allowing one to reproduce the topological features of the networks built with papers being the nodes and the edges established by citations. The most relevant factor was content similarity, while the other two – in-degree (i.e. citation counts) and age of publication – had varying importance depending on the topic studied. This dependence indicates that additional factors could play a role. Indeed, by intuition one should expect the reputation (or visibility) of authors and/or institutions to affect the referencing pattern, and this is only indirectly considered via the in-degree that should correlate with such reputation. Because information on reputation is not readily available, we simulated its effect on artificial citation networks considering two communities with distinct fitness (visibility) parameters. One community was assumed to have twice the fitness value of the other, which amounts to a double probability for a paper being cited. While the h-index for authors in the community with larger fitness evolved with time with slightly higher values than for the control network (no fitness considered), a drastic effect was noted for the community with smaller fitness.     

Constitutive Pluralism of Chemistry: Thought Planning, Curriculum, Epistemological and Didactic Orientations

Maybe the most difficult aspect of thinking about chemistry arises from the fact that chemistry isn’t an homogeneous subject. As a central science, it draws on a range of philosophical perspectives which in turn can result in different cognitive, learning and teaching styles in chemical education. This idea, apparently non-controversial, needs to be validated by more research. Without assuming this constitutive pluralism, describing it, and determining it, it becomes difficult to think of curricular goals and content. Thus, if we intend to improve the teaching of chemistry it is necessary, first, to assume explicitly this constitutive pluralism, then to map it in order to find the guiding principles: first for the mind (thought process), then for the curriculum and finally for the teaching, in such a way that it is as close as possible to the chemical way of operating and thinking. This is the aim of this paper. It reports the authors’ experiences in drafting structural ideas and planning for the subject “didactic of chemistry” based on the philosophy of chemistry at the University of Porto in Portugal.     

The visualization of spatial transformations in diagrams of molecular structures

Summaries

English

The investigation sets out to determine in absolute terms the average level of performance of English and Portuguese students in visualizing how diagrams of molecules should be drawn after performing a rotation, reflection or inversion on the molecule itself. A second aim was to determine the factor structure of these tasks. Both aims were investigated using tests comprising samples of items randomly selected from domains of items which operationally defined each task. The results showed that for the students in both countries, the average level of performance on each of these tests was far from satisfactory. The factor structure separated items corresponding to the rotations, reflections and inversions. Within the categories of items corresponding to rotations and reflections, the students from the two different countries give rise to different patterns of loadings for the three different types of rotations and three different types of reflection.     

Information literacy in managers’ education

This research reflects on information literacy (IL) when taking business decisions and, on the education of future managers. We focus on two aspects; characterizing IL skills and their link to academic performance. This research provides interesting conclusions. First, IL may be broken down into various dimensions – access, evaluation and use – and these skills are not independent: our research shows how persons skilled at applying information will lose their advantage if they are not skilled at interpreting or at prior selection. Second, our study also shows how the IL skills have differing effects on the different components of the academic performance.     

互补性与次协调性

玻尔互补性原理的准确意义已引起了许多争论。这里我们并不打算对玻尔的观点进行详细的评论,而是对在一种明确的意义上包含互补性被我们称之为C-理论的理论所能理解的东西作尽可能有道理的解释。那些理论的基本逻辑是一种通过对经典逻辑的演绎概念作恰当修改而得到的所谓＂次经典＂逻辑。粗略地说,C-理论是含有＂物理上＂不相容定理（尤其是矛盾定理）的非平庸理论。因此,其基本逻辑是一种次协调逻辑。本文被视为我们有关C-理论及其应用的一系列作品的第一篇。     

Resilience does not predict academic performance in gross anatomy

Few studies have evaluated resilience in an academic environment as it relates to academic success or failure. This work sought to assess resilience in regular and remedial students of gross anatomy during the first and second semesters of medical school and to correlate this personal trait with academic performance. Two groups of students were compared: the first group included first‐year medical students in the regular course, and the second group included first‐year medical students who did not pass the regular anatomy course and so were enrolled in the remedial course. Both groups completed anonymous surveys designed to gather demographic data and establish scores on the Connor‐Davidson resilience scale, which includes 25 statements rated zero to four on a Likert scale (maximum score 100). The average resilience score was the same for both groups, 80 ± 9. The average anatomy grades differed significantly between regular students (67± 15.0) and remedial students (61 ± 12.0). While there was no overall correlation between resilience score and anatomy grade, regular students with resilience scores of 75 or greater showed slightly better academic performance than their classmates. Similarly, remedial students with resilience scores of 87 or greater faired better academically. Resilience does not predict academic performance in gross anatomy, and further work is necessary to identify those intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence students' achievements. Anat Sci Educ. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Teaching skills to promote clinical reasoning in early basic science courses

Basic and superior reasoning skills are woven into the clinical reasoning process just as they are used to solve any problem. As clinical reasoning is the central competence of medical education, development of these reasoning skills should occur throughout the undergraduate medical curriculum. The authors describe here a method of teaching reasoning skills in a clinical context during a human anatomy course. Anat Sci Educ 3:267–271, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Output-feedback binary adaptive control of MIMO systems using monitoring function

The problem of adaptive control design for multivariable linear time-invariant plants with unknown control direction is considered. A solution is proposed based on the SDU factorization of the high frequency gain matrix (HFG) and the monitoring function approach. The adaptation scheme is the binary model reference adaptive control (BMRAC) which utilizes parameter projection and sufficiently high adaptation gains. The signs of the leading principal minors of the HFG define the control directions, and the lack of knowledge of which is a major challenge in the multivariable framework. The role of the monitoring function is to monitor the output error transient and then provide the necessary changes of the adaptation gain signs to guarantee a stable adaptive control. In addition to proving the signal boundedness of the resulting closed-loop system, the output tracking error is shown to be asymptotically as well as exponentially practically stable, i.e., exponentially stable with respect to a small residual compact set of size inversely proportional to the BMRAC adaptation gain. The latter implies good transient properties of the output tracking error in contrast to conventional adaptive laws which only guarantee asymptotic stability but can lead to extremely slow error convergence. The extension of the proposed approach to matched disturbances is also briefly discussed following the classical paradigm of disturbance estimators. Numerical results with a visual servoing application illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method.     

School science as a rite of passage: A new frame for familiar problems

The purpose of this article is twofold: to characterize and describe school science as a rite of passage, and to expose problems in school science that are made visible through the use of this metaphor. Like other rite-of-passage studies by van Gennep, Turner, and White, school-science-as-a-rite-of-passage follows the classic model: First, science students are separated from other students through their enrollment in introductory science classes and laboratory (the phase of separation). Science students are then secluded in the classroom and laboratory where a specialized body of knowledge unique to the scientific community is transmitted to them (the phase of transition). Eventually, students are presented via graduation ceremonies to the ordinary world with accompanying changes in their status and rights (the phase of reincorporation). However, unlike traditional passage rites, school science is a lengthy and ambiguous process that muddles the points of separation and reincorporation and fails to clarify the value of transition rituals.