An adaptive strategy for controlling chaotic system

This paper presents an adaptive strategy for controlling chaotic systems. By employing the phase space reconstruction technique in nonlinear dynamical systems theory, the proposed strategy transforms the nonlinear system into canonical form, and employs a nonlinear observer to estimate the uncertainties and disturbances of the nonlinear system, and then establishes a state-error-like feedback law. The developed control scheme allows chaos control in spite of modeling errors and parametric variations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been demonstrated through its applications to two well-known chaotic systems: Duffing oscillator and Rössler chaos.     

Using a Substitute Activity to Eliminate Eye Poking in a 3‐year‐old Visually Impaired Child in the Classroom

This paper documents the effectiveness of a substitute activity in decreasing the frequency of eye poking in a 3‐year‐old nonretarded visually impaired child who was involved in a highly participatory, full‐day reading program with four sighted classmates. Following 49 days of training, eye poking had been eliminated, and the subject was able to read 25 word cards. Elements to consider when selecting a substitute activity to interrupt an established self‐stimulating behaviour such as eye poking are discussed.     

The Role of Parents and Community in the Education of the Japanese Child

In Japan, there has been an increased concern about family and community participation in the childs education. Traditionally, the role of parents and community in Japan has been one of support and less one of active involvement in school learning. Since the government commenced education reforms in the last quarter of the 20th century, a more active role for parents and the community in education has been encouraged. These reforms have been inspired by the need to tackle various problems that had arisen, such as the perceived harmful elements of societys preoccupation with academic achievement and the problematic behavior of young people. In this paper, the following issues are examined: (1) education policy and reform measures with regard to parent and community involvement in the childs education; (2) the state of parent and community involvement at the eve of the 20th century.     

Market segmentation for improved distance education program planning

Distance education planners face two basic, yet difficult decisions: which students should be targeted and which programs should be offered? This paper reports the process and results of the planning committee of a consortium of engineering schools in the United States that was tasked with these very decisions. A market research study measured the program preferences of potential students. Three program characteristics (course type, delivery method, and time availability) were examined. The results show there is no ‘average’ student and no single program will satisfy all the needs of the student population. Rather, the committee must choose one or more segments based on the program preferences of the students and the resources required to provide the programs.     

Orthographic analogies and early reading: Explorations of performance and variation in two transfer tasks

Two experiments investigated the use of orthographic analogies in 6 year olds. In Experiment 1, 26 children were shown CVC clue and target word pairs sharing either rimes (`fork' – `pork'), heads (`fork' – `ford') or were controls (`fork' – `hurl'). A modest advantage for rime-clued over head-cluedtargets was unreliable over by-subject and by-item analyses. Improvements in target word reading were correlated with pretest scaffolding errors (e.g. `pork' misread as `park'). In Experiment 2, 50 children were pretaught three clue words for each target word before being shown words that shared either rimes (`leak' – `peak'), or medial vowel digraphs (`leak') – `bean'), or were controls (`leak' – `herd'). A modest advantage for rime-clued over vowel digraph-clued targets was again unreliable over by-subject and by-item analyses. Neither rime nor phoneme awareness measures were correlated with rime inference use. Vowel, but not rime inference, was correlated with scaffolding errors. Rime detection was the strongest predictor of reading ability, whereas phoneme segmentation was the strongest predictor of the use of scaffolding errors.     

Matching Cloze as an Evaluation Procedure for Slow Learning Children

The matching cloze procedure, which does not require language production skills and which is simple enough for the classroom teacher to construct unaided, was originally developed to measure reading skills of elementary English‐second‐language pupils. The results of this pilot study with opportunity school children indicate the validity of the procedure as an evaluation technique for slow learning children.