Physical modelling and scale effects of air-water flows on stepped spillways

INTRODUCTION The stepped channel design has been used fomore than 3500 years. Greek and Minoan engineerswere probably the first to design an overflow steppedweir and stepped storm waterways respectively(Chanson, 2001). Later, Roman, Moslem, Mughaand Spanish designers used a similar technique. Thesteps increase significantly the rate of energy dissipation taking place on the channel face, reducing thesize of the required downstream energy dissipationand the risks of scouring. Rec…     

Structures of argumentative discourse: Effects of type of referential space

Written argumentative texts were collected from 7 to 14 year-old-children in two situations: one in which a scientific-like issue was to be debated (formal discourse: FD) and one in which an opinion was to be defended (natural discourse: ND). The structure of the supporting arguments advanced in the individual protocols were analyzed. Various structural indices were defined and calculated for each protocol, and then input into a factorial correspondence analysis. In both the FD and ND conditions, the main factorial axis opposes long protocols to short ones. This finding held true even though the other indices were weighted to compensate for protocol length. The length variable thus appears to be a discourse characteristic as such. Furthermore, long FD protocols were associated with embedded structures and a substantial amount of rewording. Long ND protocols had a low degree of embedding, and contained many accumulated arguments and thematic breaks. The second axis opposes sequential chaining of arguments to argument coordination in FD. In ND, it opposes the absence of structure and many rewordings to a variety of more or less highly organized structures, but without sequential chaining. These analyses revealed some interesting differences between formal and natural discourse: the key role played by sequential chaining in FD versus the insignificance of this type of structure in ND, and the important but different role of rewording in FD and ND. Protocol length was found to be strongly linked to subject age: older subjects have more arguments at their disposal. But in addition to acquiring the ability to write longer texts, older children are able to use different structures for argumentation, depending on the type of referential space involved.     

Stability of reflective–impulsive style in coincidence–anticipation motor tasks

The relationships between response latencies and accuracy on the matching familiar figures test (MFFT) and two gross motor tasks (batting or catching a ball) were studied in twenty-nine 9-year-old boys. Children were classified into four groups using a double dichotomy of response latencies and errors on the MFFT: reflective, impulsive, fast-accurate, and slow-inaccurate on intertask comparison. The components (errors and time) used to classify the children show stability for errors but not latencies on cognitive versus motor intertask comparison. The comparison between motor tasks shows the stability for latencies and accuracy, a nonlinear relationship between latency and accuracy for the ball-hitting but not the ball-catching task, and reflective boys to be the most efficient on the task requirement.These results lend support to the hypothesis that strategies are more a consequence of a “competence” than a “conceptual tempo” factor.     

The cost of being professors and administrators of color in predominantly white institutions: unpacking microagression,isolation, exclusion,and unfairness through a critical race lens

ABSTRACT

Teaching in predominantly white institutions is a terrific challenge for professors of color. In addition to being expected to fulfill professional obligations, including publishing, teaching, advising, and mentoring students, professors of color constantly have to fight against microaggression, lack of diversity, inclusion, and fairness in the academy. Drawing on critical race theory and testimonios from professors of color from diverse backgrounds, this essay seeks to examine ways in which these professors have experienced these intersecting forms of oppression in the academy. Their testimonios showcase their resilient spirit resisting institutional oppression. This essay presents a very complex portrait of the experiences of professors of color and goes on to offer suggestions that might be helpful to those interested in social justice issues in higher education.     

Der Einfluss von Bildungs- und Wirtschaftspolitik auf den Ertrag des Hochschulstudiums in 21 OECD-Ländern

Returns to Higher Education in 21 OECD Countries: The impact of economic and university policies. – We present new estimates of the private internal rate of return (IRR) to Higher Education (HE) in 21 OECD countries. In 2001 the IRR varied considerably across countries, ranging from 4 percent for women in Italy (5 percent for men in Spain) to 14 percent in Ireland. IRR are relatively homogeneous across gender. At 6¼ percent the IRR for Germany falls short of the OECD average (8½ percent). The largest contributor to benefits from HE is the educational wage premium; the largest contributor to costs is foregone income while studying. Cross-country differences in IRR are driven by differences in the wage premium (27 percent in Spain versus 91 percent in Hungary and the United States), in the duration of HE, the marginal tax rate, and direct costs of HE. We then simulate the effect of policy reforms on the IRR. An increase in tuition fees equivalent to 15 percent of average national income would reduce the IRR by 0.8 to 1.6 percentage points (Germany: 1.1 percent). Shortening the duration of studies by 10 percent and reducing the progressiveness of the income tax schedule would compensate for the fall in the IRR.     

Disentangling the impact of semantic and formal factors in the acquisition of number inflections: Noun, adjective and verb agreement in written French

In written French, the acquisition of the nominal plural (-s) occurs earlier and faster than the acquisition of the verbal plural (-nt) (Totereau, Thevenin & Fayol, 1997, Learning to Spell). The reasons for this difference are not well known. The objective of the present research is to test two alternative hypotheses, which may provide an account of this difference by exploiting a particularity of written French: The agreement of adjectives. According to the first hypothesis, the nominal plural is acquired before the verbal plural because it is semantically grounded, unlike the latter. According to the second, the early emergence of noun agreements is due to the fact that -s occurs more consistently than -nt. These two hypotheses lead to different predictions, that can be tested empirically, with regard to the agreement of adjectives. These predictions were studied in three experiments using sentences recall or completion tasks presented to children from 7 to 10 years old. The results confirm the semantic hypothesis but reveal an impact of consistency on performance.     

The Training of Physical-Education Teachers in France and China: A Comparative Analysis of Curricula and Attitudes

This study in comparative physical education examines the curricula followed by physical-education teachers in China and France. It explores how theories of physical education and sport in each country have developed out of specific political, cultural and educational contexts, yet resulted in strong similarities in terms of the priority given to training programs. Nonetheless, it can be seen that the two curricula reflect genuinely divergent concepts of physical education influencing both theory and practice. The attitudes of Chinese and French teacher-trainers towards physical education and sport are shown to display significant ideological differences with regard to the meaning and educational import of these activities.     

The acquisition of subject-verb agreement in written French: From novices to experts' errors

Recent studies have shown that many subject-verb agreement errors consist of making the verb agree with the immediately preceding noun, as in The smell of the rubbish-bins are foul. Assuming that it is the automaticity of the agreement operation which is responsible for these attraction errors in expert writers, the present studies aimed at demonstrating the gradual automatization of this operation in young writers by examining developmental changes in the occurrence of agreement errors. In three experiments we found that subjects' performance moves from systematic errors in number agreement in young children (e.g., no use of plural marks) to attraction errors in fifth graders and older adults through an intermediate phase characterized by an attention-demanding and easily disrupted computation of verb agreement displayed by some second graders. Attraction errors are a byproduct of the automatization of the implementation of the agreement process.