Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest.

Announces the 2007 recipient of the Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in the Psychology in the Public Interest: Rhoda K. Unger. A brief biography, highlighting areas of special focus in Unger's work, is provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

R. Chris Fraley: Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology.

Presents the citation, biography, and selected bibliography for R. Chris Fraley, one of the 2007 recipients of the American Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology (individual differences). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Introducing Students to Professional Practice in Civil Engineering

This paper describes a module that was introduced into a civil engineering degree program with the help of professional engineers. The aim was to develop a bridge between the world of learning and professional practice by putting students in the role of consulting engineers working with industry to produce a feasible solution to a real inquiry from a client. The module is placed in context by comparing the goals of accredited civil engineering programs in the United Kingdom and America, by describing how it is linked to the degree program and by explaining the matrix developed to identify the skills the students needed to demonstrate their ability to practice as professional engineers. Details of the module are given with examples of student work and feedback.     

A longitudinal examination of the social-cognitive model applied to high school girls' choices of nontraditional college majors and aspirations.

This study tested a partial version of R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, and G. Hackett's (1994) social-cognitive career theory model. Among 204 high school girls who attended science, math, and engineering (SME) career conferences, the authors used a 4-year longitudinal design to predict the choice of an SME college major and SME self-efficacy and outcome expectations in college. In addition, among students who had declared SME majors, variables assessed in high school and college were used to predict aspirations to become leaders in SME fields. The results generally provided empirical validation of the model. Regression analyses revealed that college SME outcome expectations were associated with plans to become a leader in an SME field. Implications for research and interventions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Local Exact Particle Tracing on Unstructured Grids

For analyzing and interpreting results of flow simulations, particle tracing is a well established visualization method. In addition, it is a preliminary step for more advanced techniques such as line integral convolution. For interactive exploration of large data sets, a very efficient and reliable particle tracing method is needed. For wind channel experiments or flight simulations, large unstructured computational grids have become common practice. Traditional approachs, based on numerical integration methods of ordinary differential equations however fail to deliver sufficiently accurate path calculation at the speed required for interactive use. In this paper we extend the local exact approach of Nielson and Jung in such a way that it can be used for interactive particle tracing in large data sets of steady flow simulation experiments. This will be achieved by sophisticated preprocessing using additional memory. For further visual enhancement of the streamline we construct an implicitly defined smooth Bézier curve that is used for ray tracing. This allows us to visualize additional scalar values of the simulation as attributes to the trajectory and enables the display of high‐quality smooth curves without creating any visualization geometry and providing a good impression of the spatial situation at the same time. ACM CSS: I.3.3 Computer Graphics—Line and curve generation; I .3.7 Computer Graphics—Raytracing; G.1.2 Numerical Analysis—Spline and piecewise polynomial approximation     

The effects of attrition on baseline comparability in randomized experiments in education: A meta-analysis.

Using meta-analysis, randomized experiments in education that either clearly did or clearly did not experience student attrition were examined for the baseline comparability of groups. Results from 35 studies suggested that after attrition, the observed measures of baseline comparability of groups did not differ more than would be expected given sampling error. The degree of either overall or differential attrition did not relate to baseline comparability, a finding that held under sensitivity analyses. Also, both overall and differential attrition rates were unrelated to posttest effect sizes. All of these analyses, however, lacked sufficient statistical power to detect small but potentially meaningful effects. Results suggest caution is warranted when applying quality scales and other blanket rules pertaining to attrition that are meant to either serve as inclusion-exclusion criteria or in scoring study quality. Much greater attention is needed to both the reporting of attrition in primary studies and to the development of conceptual and empirical models of the attrition process. These developments would aid further investigation of the relation between attrition and study outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why is science difficult to learn? Things are seldom what they seem

Abstract The difficulties of learning science are related to the nature of science itself and to the methods by which science is customarily taught without regard to what is known about children's learning. An information processing model is proposed to guide thinking and research in this area.     

工业工程继续教育和高等教育自学考试方案研究

根据作者参与工业工程（ＩＥ）研究和学术活动的实践，阐述了如何把学习国外先进经验与中国国情相结合，并以机电制造工业为主要对象，研究和设计了ＩＥ专业继续教育和高等教育自学考试教学计划。同时说明了该计划的实施，为大批培养社会迫切需要的ＩＥ人才创造了条件，并对我国ＩＥ学科建设起到了积极的推动作用。     

参数三次B样条曲线的一种整体光顺方法

本文在能量法的基础上，提出了一种新的目标函数，给出了参数三次Ｂ样条曲线的一种新的整体光顺方法。利用这种方法得到的曲线不仅具有较小的应变能，而且曲率变化比较均匀，具有很好的光顺效果。该方法能推广到对曲面的光顺。     

职业教育如何适应新形势的发展

针对重视职业教育的重要性及迫切性，探讨了我国加入WTO之后职业教育新的使命和发展的方向，同时提出了新形势下对职业教育的要求和如何适应发展的措施。