Optimization of handheld gauge sizes for rocker measurements of skate blades and bobsleigh runners

This work uses numerical methods to investigate the feasibility of modifying an instrument used in speed skating to analyze blades from four different ice sports. The instrument, a handheld rocker gauge, is adapted to create a device that can effectively profile other types of skate blades and bobsleigh runners. Since there are significant differences between short and long-track blades one could expect a difference in the gauges used to study these blades. Despite this expectation, the same gauge is used in both disciplines. The usefulness of these gauges has been proven in speed skating so it is expected that they should also be useful to study hockey blades and bobsleigh runners. To optimize the gauge size for different blade types we digitize the profile of a blade, which we use to simulate gauge data. Then we use that gauge data to reconstruct the profile and compare it to the original digital profile. The result is compared for various gauge sizes and the gauge size is optimized for each of the four disciplines. The only commercially available device seems optimal for bobsleigh and long track speed skating. Smaller gauges are recommended for analyzing short track speed skates and hockey skates.

Teacher education and family–school partnerships in different contexts: A cross country analysis of national teacher education frameworks across a range of European countries

Abstract

Collaboration with parents is widely regarded as important in the education of children and young people, yet teachers rarely feel sufficiently prepared for this task. Several studies indicate that initial teacher education (ITE) programmes struggle to address issues of family–school partnerships (FSP). Our purpose in this study was to assess whether national ITE frameworks in seven European countries enable or constrain effective FSP preparation for preservice teachers. Our data, drawn from document analysis and national surveys, suggests that, despite the importance officially attributed to FSP at both governmental and ITE institutional levels, no single country presents a satisfactory picture in terms of FSP provision within their ITE programmes or in the extent to which preservice teachers are prepared to deal with the issue. Regardless of the existence (or not) of a national curriculum and variations, both in terms of legally-required competences and the amount of attention given to FSP in ITE programmes, it appears that simply making FSP compulsory is not the solution. Nor do national frameworks, in themselves, really appear to shape and direct the provision offered. Essentially FSP preparation still seems to depend upon the proclivities and expertise of individual teacher educators.     

Print Media

Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson All in Color For a Dime (Arlington House, 81 Centre Ave., New Rochelle, New York 10801, $11.95, or $7.95 from Nostalgia Book Club)

Warren Chappell's A Short History of the Printed Word (Knopf, $12.50)

Turner Catledge's My Life and The Times (Harper & Row, $10.00)

Hodding Corter's Their Words Were Bullets: The Southern Press in War, Reconstruction, and Peace (University of Georgia Press, 04:00)

Winzola McLendon and Scottie Smith's Don't Quote Me: Washington Newswomen and the Power society (Dutton, $5.95)     

Images of rate and operational understanding of the fundamental theorem of calculus

Conceptual analyses of Newton's use of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus and of one 7th-grader's understanding of distance traveled while accelerating suggest that concepts of rate of change and infinitesimal change are central to understanding the Fundamental Theorem. Analyses of a teaching experiment with 19 senior and graduate mathematics students suggest that students' difficulties with the Theorem stem from impoverished concepts of rate of change and from poorly-developed and poorly coordinated images of functional covariation and multiplicatively-constructed quantities.Research reported in this paper was supported by National Science Foundation Grants No. MDR 89-50311 and 90-96275, and by a grant of equipment from Apple Computer, Inc., Office of External Research. Any conclusions or recommendations stated here are those of the author and do not necessarity reflect official positions of NSF or Apple Computer. Also, I wish to thank Paul Cobb and Guershon Harel for their helpful reactions to an earlier draft of this article.