History of Mathematics in Korean Mathematics Textbooks: Implication for Using Ethnomathematics in Culturally Diverse School

From a multicultural perspective, this research investigated to what extent Korean mathematics textbooks use history of mathematics. The results show even though educational use of history presented in Korean mathematics textbooks may provide a rich outlook, it does not encourage a fundamental change in the educational practice of school mathematics that has traditionally been entrenched in the Eurocentric narrative of mathematics. This suggests that the mathematics textbooks were not organized effectively to promote students’ understanding of diversity. Based on the results, we discuss the implications for the development of mathematics textbook from multicultural perspectives.     

Maintaining the reversibility of foldings: Making the ethics (politics) of information technology visible

This paper will address the question of the morality of technology. I believe this is an important question for our contemporary society in which technology, especially information technology, is increasingly becoming the default mode of social ordering. I want to suggest that the conventional manner of conceptualising the morality of technology is inadequate – even dangerous. The conventional view of technology is that technology represents technical means to achieve social ends. Thus, the moral problem of technology, from this perspective, is the way in which the given technical means are applied to particular (good or bad) social ends. In opposition to this I want to suggest that the assumed separation, of this approach, between technical means and social ends are inappropriate. It only serves to hide the most important political and ethical dimensions of technology. I want to suggest that the morality of technology is much more embedded and implicit than such a view would suggest. In order to critique this approach I will draw on phenomenology and the more recent work of Bruno Latour. With these intellectual resources in mind I will propose disclosive ethics as a way to make the morality of technology visible. I will give a brief account of this approach and show how it might guide our␣understanding of the ethics and politics of technology by considering two examples of contemporary information technology: search engines and plagiarism detection systems.     

Evaluation of orthotopic liver transplantation with no veno-venous bypass

Objective: To assess the feasibility and outcome of orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) with no veno-venous bypass(v-v bypass) in adult patients. Methods: Between 1999 and 2001, 43 adult patients underwent OLT with v-v bypass, 33 with no v-v bypass. The operation time, anhepatic time, amount of blood loss, amount of blood transfusion, ICU stay days of the two groups were compared; renal function and gastrointestinal function in the two groups were examined. Results: There was no significant difference in mean serum creatinine on day 3 and gas discharge time in patients with v-v bypass or not. With no v-v bypass, the average operation time was 5.7±1.3 hours, anhepatic time was 64±13 minutes, median amount of blood loss in operation was 4000±820 mL, median amount of blood transfused intraoperatively was 4650±910 mL, median ICU stay was 5.7 days; all those were lower or shorter than those with v-v bypass; and these differences between the two groups had statistical significances. Conclusion: OLT with no v-v bypass is safe and can be performed in the majority of adult patients. The practice of liver transplantation with no v-v bypass is associated with shorter total operation time, shorter anhepatic time, lower blood product usage, and shorter ICU stay compared with standard technique of OLT with routine use of v-v bypass. Project supported by Zhejiang Provincial Health Bureau (No.2000/ZD003)     

Influence of deep sea environment on the performance of a LiFePO<Subscript>4</Subscript> polymer battery

A lithium-ion polymer battery cell is an ideal energy source for underwater vehicles due to its high energy density and small volume. However, the performance of lithium-ion batteries in a 10 000 m deep sea is still unknown and is of particular concern in the design of 10 000 m autonomous remote vehicles (ARVs). In this paper, we explore how the external characterizing parameters of a LiFePO₄ polymer battery during discharge are affected by a high pressure of 100 MPa and low temperature of 3 °C for simulating the conditions experienced in a 10 000 m deep sea environment. An unscented Kalman filter (UKF) algorithm is applied to estimate the state of charge (SoC) of a battery to investigate the influence of high hydrostatic pressure on SoC estimation due to changes in parameters. The results indicate that the LiFePO4 polymer battery works under 100 MPa hydrostatic pressure, but its parameters change obviously and influence SoC estimation. SoC estimation accuracy was improved through compensating the functions of open circuit voltage (OCV) versus the state of charge (OCV-SoC) of the battery in a 100 MPa hydrostatic pressure and a low temperature environment.     

Scaffolding reflection and articulation of scientific explanations in a data-rich,project-based learning environment: An investigation of progress portfolio

In this study, we examined how learners developed scientific explanations about light with the assistance of various technology-based scaffolds. The study emphasis was on scaffolding processes of reflection and articulation. We used a content-neutral software program (Progress Portfolio) to create the instructional scaffolds. A qualitative research design was used to investigate two pairs of prospective teachers in a science content course in engineering. Our findings suggested that the computer-based scaffolds used in our study were useful to support articulation, reflection, and revision of explanations, when certain conditions were met. A major theme of our findings relates to interacting effects among learner characteristics, teacher coaching, software scaffolding design, and task characteristics. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF REC 9980055, which was granted to the second author. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge Joe Taylor for his role in the design and implementation of the study.     

QTL analysis for some quantitative traits in bread wheat

Quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis was conducted in bread wheat for 14 important traits utilizing data from four different mapping populations involving different approaches of QTL analysis. Analysis for grain protein content (GPC) sug- gested that the major part of genetic variation for this trait is due to environmental interactions. In contrast, pre-harvest sprouting tolerance (PHST) was controlled mainly by main effect QTL (M-QTL) with very little genetic variation due to environmental interactions; a major QTL for PHST was detected on chromosome arm 3AL. For grain weight, one QTL each was detected on chromosome arms 1AS, 2BS and 7AS. QTL for 4 growth related traits taken together detected by different methods ranged from 37 to 40; nine QTL that were detected by single-locus as well as two-locus analyses were all M-QTL. Similarly, single-locus and two-locus QTL analyses for seven yield and yield contributing traits in two populations respectively allowed detection of 25 and 50 QTL by composite interval mapping (CIM), 16 and 25 QTL by multiple-trait composite interval mapping (MCIM) and 38 and 37 QTL by two-locus analyses. These studies should prove useful in QTL cloning and wheat improvement through marker aided selection.     

Proactive interference by cues presented without outcomes: Differences in context specificity of latent inhibition and conditioned inhibition

This report is part of a larger project examining associative interference as a function of the nature of the interfering and target associations. Lick suppression experiments with rats assessed the effects of context shifts on proactive outcome interference by latent inhibition (LI) and Pavlovian conditioned inhibition (CI) treatments on subsequently trained Pavlovian conditioned excitation treatment. LI and CI were trained in Context A during Phase 1, and then excitation treatment was administered in Context B during Phase 2, followed by tests for conditioned excitation in Contexts A, B, or C. Experiment 1 preliminarily established our LI and CI treatments and resulted in equally retarded acquisition of behavioral control when the target cue was subsequently trained as a conditioned excitor and tested in Context A. However, only CI treatment caused the target to pass a summation test for inhibition. Centrally, Experiment 2 consisted of LI and CI treatments in Context A followed by excitatory training in Context B. Testing found low excitatory control by both LI and CI cues in Context A relative to strong excitatory control in Context B, but CI treatment transferred to Context C more strongly than LI treatment. Experiment 3 determined that LI treatment failed to transfer to Context C even when the number of LI trials was greatly increased. Thus, first-learned LI appears to be relatively context specific, whereas first-learned CI generalizes to a neutral context. These observations add to existing evidence that LI and CI treatments result in different types of learning that diverge sharply in transfer to a novel test context.