Enabling skills in early reading acquisition: A study of children in Latvian kindergartens

Preschool children in Latvia were tested in order to examine the relationships among various enabling skills and early reading performance. A principal component analysis indicated three factors: a phonemic awareness factor, a naming factor, and a short-term memory factor. Multiple regression analyses with word identification and sentence comprehension as dependent variables yielded further support to the powerful role played by phonemic awareness in explaining variance in both these aspects of reading. Unexpectedly, neither naming nor short-term memory contributed to explain unique variance in word and sentence reading. The Latvian orthography is very consistent, and our results provide further evidence to the importance of phonemic awareness in early reading acquisition especially in a transparent language. Therefore, the tasks used when assessing phonemic awareness can be very useful when screening children at risk for developing reading problems. Enhancing children's letter knowledge and phonemic awareness skills should be a priority goal in the kindergarten classroom.     

考虑复杂气象变化的智能船舶动态航线规划方法

鉴于恶劣海况将引起船舶失速、剧烈横摇甚至倾覆,为避开恶劣海况区域,提出一种考虑复杂气象变化的智能船舶动态航线规划方法。通过改进A*算法的启发式函数,将风、浪对船舶失速的影响加入路径代价值的估算中,进而规划出一条避开恶劣海况的动态航线。跨北大西洋的航线规划仿真结果表明:本文提出的动态航线规划方法可以将船舶的跨洋航行时间缩短18.17%,并且能有效地避开风浪较大的危险海域。运用该动态航线规划方法能缩短船舶航行时间,节约航行成本,提高航运企业的经济效益。     

巧用VBA制作日历式教学课表模板

笔者根据教学管理及实施工作的需要,利用Word VBA技术设计开发了日历式教学课表,旨在服务于教育工作者,提高工作效率。