Musselin,Christine & Teixeira,Pedro N ed (2014) Reforming higher education Springer (Berlin) isbn 978‐94‐007‐7027‐0 233 pp £90 http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/higher+education/book/978‐94‐007‐7027‐0

As a whole, this is an extraordinary book if you wish to study and understand the evolution of higher education—especially in Europe in these times of change of educational paradigms generated by the Bologna Process. However, if the subject of this book is relevant to you as a learning technologist, I advise that you will probably find only parts of it of interest or use. Jesus Garcia Laborda     

Stein,Jared & Graham,Charles R (2014) Essentials for blended learning Routledge (New York & London) isbn 978‐0‐415‐63616‐2 210 pp £19.99 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415636162/

This reader‐friendly jargon‐free volume is a down‐to‐earth and visual guide for practitioners seeking new ways to improve educational opportunities in times when quality needs to be enriched by simple but effective online experiences. It is a must for those involved in integrating technology into the classroom. If this book deals with a subject likely to be relevant to you, I recommend you buy a copy. Jesus Garcia Laborda     

Overeducation in developing economies: How can we test for it, and what does it mean?

A worker is said to be overeducated if he/she has acquired more education than is required to perform his/her job. In the absence of data measuring the number of years of schooling required to perform particular jobs, we propose a new approach to testing for overeducation. Overeducation is confirmed if we observe that education levels rose in jobs that offer very low returns to education and that underwent little technological change. Using labor force surveys from four developing countries, we find evidence of overeducation in unskilled jobs in the Philippines, mild evidence in Mexico, and little evidence in India and Thailand. We show that a job's mean and modal years of schooling are poor proxies for required education. We also show that overeducation sometimes increases within unskilled jobs, even while a growing share of educated workers enter skilled jobs. This may be because the quality of education segments the labor market.     

Optimal and robust control for linear state-delay systems

This paper presents the optimal regulator for a linear system with state delay and a quadratic criterion. The optimal regulator equations are obtained using the maximum principle. Performance of the obtained optimal regulator is verified in the illustrative example against the best linear regulator available for linear systems without delays. Simulation graphs demonstrating better performance of the obtained optimal regulator are included. The paper then presents a robustification algorithm for the obtained optimal regulator based on integral sliding mode compensation of disturbances. The general principles of the integral sliding mode compensator design are modified to yield the basic control algorithm oriented to time-delay systems, which is then applied to robustify the optimal regulator. As a result, the sliding mode compensating control leading to suppression of the disturbances from the initial time moment is designed. The obtained robust control algorithm is verified by simulations in the illustrative example.     

Chinese and Indian higher education students go abroad: listening to them to determine what their needs are

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper voices the opinions of international students’ from China and India, and highlights the intentional process of integrating their perceptions of...     

Analysis of the distances covered and technical actions performed by professional tennis players during official matches

The purpose of this study was to analyse the physical and technical performances of professional tennis players during official matches. The trajectories of eight players were obtained during matches, using an automatic tracking method. The distances covered and technical performances were analysed for the first and second sets. The athletes covered (mean ± standard deviation) a total of 1702.4 ± 448.2 m in the first set, 1457.6 ± 678.1 m in the second set and 3160.0 ± 880.1 in the entire match. No differences were found between the sets for the physical variables (lateral and forward displacements, distance covered per rally, per game and per set, and the percentage of time spent in each range of velocity). However, the distances covered by the athletes during the rallies in which they were serving (median = 5.2; interquartile range (IQR) = 6.7 m) were statistically smaller than when they were returning (median = 6.2; IQR = 7.7 m). Forehand ground stroke proficiency decreased from the first (mean ± standard deviation: 75.2 ± 4.11%) to the second set (mean ± standard deviation = 65.5 ± 14.3%). In conclusion, tennis players did not present reduced physical performance from the first to the second set.     

Contributions of joint rotations to racquet speed in the tennis serve

The purpose of this study was to measure the contributions of the motions of body segments and joints to racquet head speed during the tennis serve. Nine experienced male players were studied using three-dimensional film analysis. Upper arm twist orientations were calculated with two alternative methods using joint centres and skin-attached markers. The results showed that skin-attached markers could not be used to calculate accurate upper arm twist orientations due to skin movement, and that the use of joint centres produced errors of more than 20 degrees in the upper arm twist orientation when the computed elbow flexion/extension angle exceeded 135 degrees in the final 0.03 s before impact. When there were large errors in the upper arm twist orientation, it was impossible to obtain accurate data for shoulder or elbow joint rotations about any axis. Considering only the contributors that could be measured within our standards of acceptable error, the approximate sequential order of main contributors to racquet speed between maximum knee flexion and impact was: shoulder external rotation, wrist extension, twist rotation of the lower trunk, twist rotation of the upper trunk relative to the lower trunk, shoulder abduction, elbow extension, ulnar deviation rotation, a second twist rotation of the upper trunk relative to the lower trunk, and wrist flexion. The elbow extension and wrist flexion contributions were especially large. Forearm pronation made a brief negative contribution. Computed contributions of shoulder internal rotation, elbow extension and forearm pronation within the final 0.03 s before impact were questionable due to the large degree of elbow extension. Near impact, the combined contribution of shoulder flexion/extension and abduction/adduction rotations to racquet speed was negligible.     

“Suited to Their Needs”: White Innocence as a Vestige of Segregation

Discourses that supported de jure segregated schools often invoked White innocence in the form of altruistic motivations. These same invocations are found in more contemporary school policy discourses. The authors of this article argue, based on the concept of intertextuality of discourse, the existence of contemporary schooling policies as vestiges of segregation.     

Robust integral backstepping control for sensorless IPM synchronous motor controller

In this paper, a sensorless speed control for interior permanent magnet synchronous motors (IPMSM) is designed by combining a robust backstepping controller with integral actions and an adaptive interconnected observer. The IPMSM control design generally requires rotor position measurement. Then, to eliminate this sensor, an adaptive interconnected observer is designed to estimate the rotor position and the speed. Moreover, a robust nonlinear control based on the backstepping algorithm is designed where an integral action is introduced in order to improve the robust properties of the controller. The stability of the closed-loop system with the observer–controller scheme is analyzed and sufficient conditions are given to prove the practical stability. Simulation results are shown to illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme under parametric uncertainties and low speed. Furthermore, the proposed integral backstepping control is compared with the classical backstepping controller.