From calculus to wavelets: A new mathematical technique

A ‘wavelet’ is a function that exhibits oscillatory behaviour in some interval and then decays rapidly to zero outside this interval. A remarkable discovery of recent years is that the translations and dilations of certain wavelets can be used to form sets of ‘basic’ functions for expanding general functions into infinite series, and these expansions have many theoretical and practical applications.     

Roles and characteristics of department chairmen in state universities as related to level of decision-making

Academic departments and their chairmen have long been a part of colleges and universities. A tendency toward more centralization as a result of state and federal requirements could threaten the status and loci of power within departments. The present study seeks information on the outlook of departmental chairmen in order to provide background information on what motivates chairmen and their outlook on roles required to be played.This study, which has 1,198 responses from chairmen in 38 state universities, focuses on the perception of chairmen on where major decisions are made (university, college, or departmental level), characteristics of departments by academic field, and selected personal attributes of chairmen. The implication is made that goals, duties, and satisfactions of chairmen should be given serious attention before the institution responds to external or internal pressures to restrict the decision-making process.     

degreeism: Disease or cure?

Drawing upon recent literature on educational inflation, overeducation, and the diploma disese, this paper examines analytically both the positive and negative aspects of degreeism in developed as well as in developing nations. Some of the positive effects of degreeism found are, for example, (1) a positive employment effect, (2) a proxy information effect, and (3) ritualistic effects. Among the major negative effects of degreeism discussed are (1) economic waste, (2) imbalance between job expectations and labor market realities, and (3) consumer deceit. Finally, alternative policy suggestions are presented for addressing the problem of degreeism. Some of the policies discussed are the degree tax, incomes policy, improved labor market information services, and modified civil service procedures. The major implication of such policies is to direct attention to the real issue of competency, not diplomas.     

Epidemiology of child homicide in Jefferson County, Alabama

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to present the epidemiology of homicide among children younger than 6 years of age in Jefferson County, Alabama. This study focused on obtaining great detail on homicides and suspicious deaths occurring within a fixed population. METHODS: For purposes of this study, cases included Jefferson County deaths attributed to "homicide" or that were "undetermined" as noted in the coroner files among children younger than 6 years of age who were born and died between January 1, 1988 and December, 31, 1998. Victim and offender characteristics were obtained from the Jefferson County Coroner/Medical Examiner Office records. Environmental factors and circumstances surrounding the death were noted as well. RESULTS: The 53 study subjects were mainly female (55%), Black (69%), younger than 2 years of age (85%), had single mothers (38%), and a history of abuse (53%). Offenders were more likely to be male (64%), Black (73%), and a parent of the victim (53%). Homicides primarily resulted from an angry impulse (61%), with hands the most common weapon (61%). CONCLUSIONS: The majority of deaths in this study occurred among children younger than age 2, with a high proportion of fatalities among Black children of unmarried mothers. The offender most often knew the victim, with half of all homicides and two-thirds of all infant homicides involving a parent. More than half of the homicides resulted from an angry impulse, while the most common scenario for deaths with undetermined intent involved the caretaker finding the child unresponsive.     

The emerging fourth tier in K-12 education finance in British Columbia,Canada: increasing privatisation and implications for social justice

This paper examines increasing privatisation of education in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Conceptually, the paper is informed by theories of privatisation and social justice; and methodologically, it uses policy analysis to examine documents and financial records obtained from government departments. The paper critically analyses education policy that has enabled the emergence of private sources of revenue (tuition fees and for-profit revenue) and the establishment of school and programme choice. Analysis of levels of international student tuition generated by school districts in the province reveals differential capacity to produce such revenue. The authors argue that this differential capacity is leading to the development of a fourth tier within a pre-existing three-tier K-12 education system in British Columbia. The article concludes with a discussion of implications related to social justice in education.     

Solutions to certain classes of linearized reaction–diffusion equations

A systematic study is presented for the linear manifold of solutions to a generic system of reaction–diffusion equations in the neighborhood of a constant uniform (equilibrium) solution. The theory pertains directly to an arbitrary number of reacting and diffusing molecular or biological species in an arbitrary bounded spatial (1-, 2- or 3-dimensional) region with an impermeable boundary, so that the normal gradient of any species concentration function is zero at all boundary points. The stability analysis developed by previous authors is streamlined here for the case of two reacting and diffusing species, worked out completely for the case of three species, and made more amenable to specialized treatment for cases with four or more species. With the use of modern algebraic computational methods, explicit analytical general solutions to the linearized reaction–diffusion equations are derived for certain classes of model theories. These results either apply directly or admit extension to a wide range of practical reaction–diffusion problems in physical chemistry and biology.     

Dynamics of the frame in visual composition

The position of an object within a visual composition produces an effect on the observer. Does an observer see the object as strong and active if it is in the center of the picture, in one corner, “floating” off-center? Does the framing of the object or the field surrounding it give an object more meaning? Forty-four college students rated six framed, black-andwhite, single-object pictures. The 264 observations were subjected to principal axis factoring, resulting in four dimensions: activity, potency, evaluative, and verticality.