International collaborative follow - up investigation of graduating high school students’ understandings of the nature of scientific inquiry: is progress Being made?

Understandings of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI), as opposed to engaging students in inquiry learning experiences, are included in science education reform documents around the world. However, little is known about what students have learned about NOSI during their pre-college school years. The purpose of this large-scale follow-up international project (i.e. 32 countries and regions, spanning six continents and including 3917 students for the high school sample) was to collect data on what exiting high school students have learned about NOSI. Additionally, the study investigated changes in 12th grade students’ NOSI understandings compared to seventh grade (i.e. 20 countries and regions) students’ understandings from a prior investigation [Lederman et al. (2019). An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students’ understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(4), 486–515. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21512]. This study documents and discusses graduating high school students’ understandings and compares their understandings to seventh grade students’ understandings of the same aspects of scientific inquiry for each country. It is important to note that collecting data from each of the 130+ countries globally was not feasible. Similarly, it was not possible to collect data from every region of each country. A concerted effort was made, however, to provide a relatively representative picture of each country and the world

Joint modelling of drought characteristics derived from historical and synthetic rainfalls: Application of Generalized Linear Models and Copulas

Study region Çoruh Basin in Northeastern Turkey. Study focus In recent years, copulas have been widely used to model the joint distribution function of duration and severity series which are the major characteristics of a drought event to be considered in the planning and management of water resources systems. However, as the copula functions are typically fitted to the drought series that are derived from a limited amount of observed data, it may be insufficient to characterize the full range of the analyzed drought characteristics. Therefore, General Linear Models (GLMs) were used to model and simulate rainfall data in this study. The Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) method was used to obtain the drought characteristics from simulated and historical rainfall series. Four Archimedean copulas, namely Ali-Mikhail-Haq, Clayton, Frank and Gumbel-Hougaard, were evaluated to model the joint distribution functions of these characteristics. New hydrological insights for the region The Gumbel-Hougaard copula was found to be the most suitable copula in modelling the joint dependence structure of the drought characteristics at five stations in the basin. The derived Gumbel-Hougaard copulas for each station were employed to obtain joint and conditional return periods of the historical and generated drought characteristics. The drought risks that are estimated based on bivariate return periods for different circumstances can provide useful information in planning, management and in assessing adequacy of the water structures in the basin

Multivariate assessment of low-flow hazards via copulas: The case study of the Çoruh basin (Turkey)

Bivariate modeling and hazard assessment of low flows are performed exploiting copulas. 7-day low flows observed, respectively, in the upper, middle and lower parts of the Çoruh basin (Turkey) are examined, considering three pairs of certified stations located in different sub-basins. A thorough statistical analysis indicates that the GEV distribution can be used to model the marginal behavior of the low-flow. The joint distributions at each part are modeled via a dozen of copula families. As a result, the Husler–Reiss copula adequately fits the joint low flows in the upper part, while the t-Student copula turns out to best fit the other parts. In order to assess the low-flow hazard, these copulas are then used to compute joint return periods and failure probabilities under a critical bivariate “AND” hazard scenario. The results indicate that the middle and lower parts of the Çoruh basin are likely to experience the largest drought hazards. As a novelty, the statistical tools used allow to objectively quantify drought threatening in a thorough multivariate perspective, which involves distributional analysis, frequency analysis (return periods) and hazard analysis (failure probabilities)

Attribution of the record-breaking extreme precipitation events in July 2021 over central and eastern China to anthropogenic climate change

In July 2021, Typhoon In-Fa produced record-breaking extreme precipitation events (hereafter referred to as the 2021 EPEs) in central and eastern China, and caused serious socioeconomic losses and casualties. However, it is still unknown whether the 2021 EPEs can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and how the occurrence probabilities of precipitation events of a similar magnitude might evolve in the future. The 2021 EPEs in central (eastern) China occurred in the context of no linear trend (a significantly increasing trend at a rate of 4.44%/decade) in the region-averaged Rx5day (summer maximum 5-day accumulated precipitation) percentage precipitation anomaly (PPA), indicating that global warming might have no impact on the 2021 EPE in central China but might have impacted the 2021 EPE in eastern China by increasing the long-term trend of EPEs. Using the scaled generalized extreme value distribution, we detected a slightly negative (significantly positive) association of the Rx5day PPA time series in central (eastern) China with the global mean temperature anomaly, suggesting that global warming might have no (a detectable) contribution to the changes in occurrence probability of precipitation extremes like the 2021 EPEs in central (eastern) China. Historical attributions (1961–2020) showed that the likelihood of the 2021 EPE in central/eastern China decreased/increased by approximately +47% (-23% to +89%)/+55% (-45% to +201%) due to ACC. By the end of the 21st century, the likelihood of precipitation extremes similar to the 2021 EPE in central/eastern China under SSP585 is 14 (9–19)/15 (9–20) times higher than under historical climate conditions

Reliability maps and probabilistic guarantee of task motion for robotic manipulators

There are many applications for which reliable and safe robots are desired. For example, assistant robots for disabled or elderly people and surgical robots are required to be safe and reliable to prevent human injury and task failure. However, different levels of safety and reliability are required for different tasks so that understanding the reliability of robots is paramount. Currently, it is possible to guarantee the completion of a task when the robot is fault tolerant and the task remains in the fault-tolerant workspace (FTW). The traditional definition of FTW does not consider different reliabilities for the robotic manipulator\u27s different joints. The aim of this paper is to extend the concept of a FTW to address the reliability of different joints. Such an extension can offer a wider FTW while maintaining the required level of reliability. This is achieved by associating a probability with every part of the workspace to extend the FTW. As a result, reliable fault-tolerant workspaces (RFTWs) are introduced by using the novel concept of conditional reliability maps. Such a RFTW can be used to improve the performance of assistant robots while providing the confidence that the robot remains reliable for completion of its assigned tasks. © 2012 Copyright Taylor & Francis and The Robotics Society of Japan