Designing programs for computeranxious adults: The trainer’s dilemma

Summary Recognizing and validating the existence of computer anxiety in the training process is the first step toward helping adult learners to overcome this barrier. By taking steps to ensure that the environment is conducive to learning, trainers will effectively traverse the first hurdle in an often tedious process-developing trust and encouraging exploration among the computerphobic.     

Gender differences in the junior secondary (grade 7) mathematics curriculum in Hong Kong

This article seeks to examine gender differences across the mathematics curriculum in the various topic areas and mathematical abilities. It is suggested that a profile of these differences, when compared with students at different grade levels or across curricula, would be more fruitful for classroom teachers and curriculum developers. Breakdown and discriminant function statistics reveal that boys performed better than girls in Geometry and excelled in comprehension, and solving routine and non-routine problems. Girls were better at mathematical manipulation problems.     

Fractals and the large-scale structure in the Universe

During the last decade it has been argued by some investigators that the distribution of galaxies in the Universe is a fractal. This is contrary to the standard view that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales. In this article, the basic concepts of fractals and their characterization are introduced with the help of simple examples. The applications of these concepts in the context of cosmology will be discussed in the second part. A K Mittal is currently a visiting scientist at Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, on leave from the University of Allahabad. His research interests include chaos, fractals and their applications, partleularly in cosmology and in weather prodiction. T H Seshadri is at the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi. He is presently on lien from Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad. Areas of his interest include cosmic microwave background radiation, large scale structures in the Universe and application of fractals in these.     

Science and technology of ceramics

Ceramics can be classified broadly as traditional and advanced. Ceramics made from naturally occurring raw materials and without much processing are the traditional ceramics. These ceramics are widely used all over the world.