Mathematics in ancient India

Inadvertently, an earlier draft of this article got printed in the November 2003 issue and, since the new draft clarified some of the points, the section ‘Brahmagupta’s lemma and modern algebra’ of the final draft and a few small remarks are being reprinted for the reader’s convenience. The error is regretted.     

Observed peer victimization during early elementary school: continuity, growth, and relation to risk for child antisocial and depressive behavior

The rate at which 266 boys and girls ages 5 to 7 years old were victimized by peers was observed on multiple occasions in kindergarten and first grade. Individual differences in victimization were observed at kindergarten entry and in growth over the subsequent 2 years. Victimization increased for some children but decreased for others. Growth in victimization was reciprocally related to growth in teacher-reported antisocial and depressive behavior for boys. For girls, kindergarten victimization was related to growth in parent-reported antisocial behavior, teacher-reported depressive behavior to growth in victimization, and growth in victimization to parent-reported depression. At a short-term group level, antisocial behavior had a lagged suppressive effect on victimization for boys but a facilitating effect for girls.     

Āryabhata and axial rotation of Earth

Āryabhata (born 476 CE) is regarded as a pioneer of mathematical astronomy in ancient India. In this three-part article, I shall discuss one important contribution of Āryabhata in astronomy involving the least technical background —the principle of axial rotation (Part 1) and computations on the sidereal day (Part 2). Portions of 4 verses, pertaining to Earth’s rotation, from his famous treatise Āryabhatīya will be quoted. In Part 3, I shall give a brief historical account on the concept of axial rotation of Earth.     

Mathematics in ancient India

In this series of articles, we intend to have a glimpse of some of the landmarks in ancient Indian mathematics with special emphasis on number theory. This issue features a brief overview of some of the high peaks of mathematics in ancient India. In the next part we shall describe Aryabhata’s general solution in integers of the equationax -by =c. In subsequent instalments we shall discuss in some detail two of the major contributions by Indians in number theory. The climax of the Indian achievements in algebra and number theory was their development of the ingeniouschakravala method for solving, in integers, the equation x² -Dy² = 1, erroneously known as the Pell equation. We shall later describe the partial solution of Brahmagupta and then the complete solution due to Jayadeva and Bhaskaracharya.     

如何看待考研

考研无疑是大学生们毕业时选择人数最多的道路之一,从这个实际情况来看,他最适合绝大多数同学.这是什么原因呢?我们在这里尝试综合一下,也许是画蛇添足,但也许能给低年级的同学们一点启发.     

Infants' Reliance on a Social Criterion for Establishing Word-Object Relations

The language children hear presents them with a multitude of co-occurrences between words and things in the world, and they must repeatedly determine which among these manifold co-occurrences is relevant. Social factors—such as cues regarding the speaker's referential intent—might serve as one guide to whether word-object covariation should be registered. In 2 studies, infants (15–20 months and 18–20 months in Studies 1 and 2, respectively) heard novel labels at a time when they were investigating a single novel object; in one case the label was uttered by a speaker seated within the infant's view and displaying concurrent attention to the novel toy (coupled condition), whereas in the other case the label emanated from a speaker seated out of the infant's view (decoupled condition). In both studies, subsequent comprehension questions indicated that infants of 18–20 months registered a stable link between label and object in the coupled condition, but not in the decoupled condition, despite the fact that covariation between label and object was equivalent in the 2 conditions. Thus, by 18–20 months children are inclined to establish a mapping between word and object only when a speaker displays signs of referring to that object.     

考研:名校比一般学校好考

在选择考研的学校时,考哪个学校是和考哪个专业一样重要的问题,考名校还是考一般的学校,考本校还是外校,这是个问题.我的观点是,还是考名校比较好.     

Gender in plants

Complex evolutionary forces determine whether plants are male, female or hermaphrodite throughout their lives or whether they switch from one sex to another. This article explores these often conflicting forces and seeks answers for sex change in plants.     

Gender in plants

What is the difference between plant sex and plant gender? Why does stress sometimes cause maleness and other times result in femaleness? Do plant hedge mating bets using sex change? This article addresses these and other evolutionary questions about plant gender.     

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation,a New Approach

There has been a fundamental change in health care pedagogy to address the demands and challenges posed by the present generation of millennial students. There is also a growing recognition of the role of intrinsic motivation as a catalyst in a positive learning experience. The term intrinsic motivation refers to energizing behavior that comes from within an individual and develops due to an inherent interest in the activity at hand. However, stimulating intrinsic motivation in the present generation of millennial health care students is a daunting task, considering their diverse and disparate nature. In addition, the inherent generational differences between educators and students, and an increasing emphasis on technological tools have resulted in a dichotomy in the educational environment leading to the development of a greater incidence of burnouts among students. Hence, numerous innovative techniques have been introduced in health care education to enhance the levels of intrinsic motivation in these students. Unfortunately, most of these approaches have only been moderately successful due to their limited ability to address the unique educational expectations of millennial students. The cumulative evidence suggests that specific approaches to stimulate intrinsic motivation should aim at nurturing the learning efforts of students, bridging the generational barriers between educators and students, and ameliorating the stress associated with health care education. Hence, the specific aim of this narrative review is to suggest empirically proven curricular strategies and institutional reforms to enhance intrinsic motivation in health care students belonging to the Millennial Generation.