Individual differences in extended practice functions and solution strategies for basic addition facts.

Practice on addition basic facts and changes in solution strategies were examined in 3rd- and 4th-grade students, practicing over 3 months. Response latencies decreased, indicating positive practice effects. Each of 3 student groups demonstrated different solution–strategy mixtures. Different mixtures led to different practice effects, indexed by shifts to more efficient counting strategies and more direct retrieval. Expectations about effects of practice and instructional strategies for optimizing practice must be sensitive to a child's actual strategy pattern. Most students had decreasing latency practice functions. However, quantitative functions fit to the practice session data indicated a high proportion of cases where the latency pattern over sessions was nonmonotonic. Trends over a small number of practice sessions may be inadequate for decisions about the utility of further practice, because such data may poorly represent long-term, cumulative effects on modifying strategy usage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

So What is Wrong with Our Profession?

As IT tries to emerge from an identity crisis, a look at history shows that solutions are complex but within reach. The author ponders the IT profession's cohesiveness and whether it can control its future.     

Mechanical properties of poly(ether-ether-ketone) for engineering applications

An outline of the characteristics of PEEK and the versatility of its compositional forms (micro and macro composites) are given to illustrate its wide potential for success in engineering applications. Although it is necessary to have particular tabulations of mechanical properties for engineering design, these are seldom available and consequently it is argued that an understanding of stiffness, toughness and strength properties are required to fully exploit available manufacturer's data and thus develop the full potential of PEEK and its composites. Stiffness characteristics are considered in terms of a modulus function which is dependent on time under load and temperature. In its composite forms, whether reinforced with short or continuous fibres, stiffness anistropy can be both considerable and complex, but some empirical ground-rules are apparent. For continuous fibre composites even in the form of complex lay-ups, it is also possible to attempt some stiffness prediction from certain pseudo-elastic constants. Toughness of PEEK and its composites is described in terms of both comparative and intrinsic properties. Instrumented falling weight impact data, particularly as a function of temperature enable some insight into ductile-brittle transitions for the unreinforced material, but crack initiation and crack propagation processes for the various fibre reinforced forms. Intrinsic toughness is described in terms of linear elastic fracture mechanics theory. Strength properties are described for static and dynamic loading configurations. In particular, PEEK and its composites are evaluated for increasing test severities for strength characteristics; stress concentration, loading form and test temperature are considered.     

A new technique for on-line and off-line high speed computation

A novel technique for both online and offline computation is presented. With this technique, a reconstruction analysis in elementary particle physics, otherwise prohibitively long, has been accomplished. It will be used online in an upcoming Fermilab experiment to reconstruct more than 100000 events per second and to trigger on the basis of that information. The technique delivers 40 gigaoperations per second, has a bandwidth on the order of gigabytes per second, and has a modest cost. An overview of the program, details of the system, and performance measurements are presented     

Scatter reduction with energy-weighted acquisition

The theory of energy-weighted acquisition (EWA) in nuclear medicine imaging is outlined, and a system that implements EWA is described. EWA reduces the effects of scattered radiation by allowing events of all energies to contribute to image formation, processing each energy with its own short-range spatial filter. This approach implements short-range energy-dependent filtering with an image buffer called a weighted acquisition module, providing scatter reduction with controllable noise and resolution properties. The system's response to point sources and planar distributions of radioactivity embedded in radiation-scattering media have been measured. EWA is compared to conventional energy-window acquisition, showing that the EWA approach provides improved image contrast     

On the singularity-induced bifurcation theorem

The singularity-induced bifurcation theorem (SIBT) is extended in this note to quasi-linear singular ordinary differential equations. The hypotheses supporting this result are simplified and rewritten in terms of matrix pencils. This approach shows that the SIB follows from a minimal index change at the singularity. The use of a quasi-linear reduction leads to a simple statement of the SIBT for semiexplicit index-1 differential algebraic equations.     

Augmented rectangular load flow model

This paper presents some improvements to the load flow solution in rectangular coordinates. First, in an attempt to use as linear a model as possible, both the nodal equations and the bus constraints are retained. The Newton-Raphson (NR) method is then applied to the enlarged set of equations, and written in terms of bus voltages and currents. This scheme, combined with a simple procedure to handle PV buses, leads to a computationally efficient algorithm, particularly advantageous in the presence of zero-injection buses. Experimental results are provided comparing the performance of the proposed approach with that of the conventional formulation