Assessment of wind speeds based on damage observations from the Angus (Ontario) Tornado of 17 June 2014

A tornado occurred in Angus, Ontario, during the late afternoon hours of 17 June 2014. The authors conducted a damage investigation on the morning following the storm. The damage indicators support the classification of the tornado as an EF-2 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, including the observation of several complete roof failures of recently-constructed, wood-frame houses. Most of the damage to residential homes was contained along two streets, with the tornado appearing to have gone down the backyards between the two. In total, 101 houses were observed to have sustained some level of damage. The evidence suggests that the quality of construction likely affected the performance of failed roofs. A detailed fragility analysis was conducted to assess wind speeds associated with these failures of the roof-to-wall connections. An overturned and lofted box truck provided the opportunity to correlate this failure with adjacent, repetitive failures of roof sheathing, shingles, and garage doors. </jats:p

Experimental Evidence for Quantum Structure in Cognition

We proof a theorem that shows that a collection of experimental data of membership weights of items with respect to a pair of concepts and its conjunction cannot be modeled within a classical measure theoretic weight structure in case the experimental data contain the effect called overextension. Since the effect of overextension, analogue to the well-known guppy effect for concept combinations, is abundant in all experiments testing weights of items with respect to pairs of concepts and their conjunctions, our theorem constitutes a no-go theorem for classical measure structure for common data of membership weights of items with respect to concepts and their combinations. We put forward a simple geometric criterion that reveals the non classicality of the membership weight structure and use experimentally measured membership weights estimated by subjects in experiments to illustrate our geometrical criterion. The violation of the classical weight structure is similar to the violation of the well-known Bell inequalities studied in quantum mechanics, and hence suggests that the quantum formalism and hence the modeling by quantum membership weights can accomplish what classical membership weights cannot do.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Classical Logical versus Quantum Conceptual Thought: Examples in Economics, Decision theory and Concept Theory

Inspired by a quantum mechanical formalism to model concepts and their disjunctions and conjunctions, we put forward in this paper a specific hypothesis. Namely that within human thought two superposed layers can be distinguished: (i) a layer given form by an underlying classical deterministic process, incorporating essentially logical thought and its indeterministic version modeled by classical probability theory; (ii) a layer given form under influence of the totality of the surrounding conceptual landscape, where the different concepts figure as individual entities rather than (logical) combinations of others, with measurable quantities such as 'typicality', 'membership', 'representativeness', 'similarity', 'applicability', 'preference' or 'utility' carrying the influences. We call the process in this second layer 'quantum conceptual thought', which is indeterministic in essence, and contains holistic aspects, but is equally well, although very differently, organized than logical thought. A substantial part of the 'quantum conceptual thought process' can be modeled by quantum mechanical probabilistic and mathematical structures. We consider examples of three specific domains of research where the effects of the presence of quantum conceptual thought and its deviations from classical logical thought have been noticed and studied, i.e. economics, decision theory, and concept theories and which provide experimental evidence for our hypothesis.Comment: 14 page

Longitudinal associations between paternal mental health and child behavior and cognition in middle childhood

IntroductionPaternal mental health has been associated with adverse consequences on offspring psychosocial development, and family environmental factors may partly explain those associations. To clarify this, we need comprehensive prospective studies, particularly in middle-childhood when the child enters school and is expected to make use of behavioral and cognitive skills as part of their interactions and learning.MethodUsing data from a sub-sample of the prospective 3D birth cohort study comprised of mother-father-child triads, and a follow-up of the parents and the children at 6–8 years of age (n = 61; 36 boys, 25 girls), we examined whether paternal anxious and depressive symptoms measured during the pregnancy period (i.e., prenatally) or concurrently when the child was assessed at 6–8 years old were associated with children's cognition/behavior.ResultsIn contrast to our hypotheses, we found that greater prenatal paternal depressive symptoms predicted fewer child behavioral difficulties; and that greater concurrent childhood paternal depression or anxiety symptoms were associated with higher child full-scale IQ, controlling for the equivalent maternal mental health assessment and parental education. Father parenting perception did not mediate these associations, nor were they moderated by maternal mental health at the concurrent assessment, or paternal ratings of marital relationship quality.DiscussionThese findings suggest that higher symptoms of paternal mental health symptoms are associated with fewer child behavioral difficulties and higher cognitive performance in middle childhood. Potential clinical implications and future research directions are discussed

Modelagem na Sala de Aula: resistências e obstáculos

Este artigo tem como objetivo descrever e analisar os obstáculos e resistências de professores e futuros professores, egressos de cursos de formação, em desenvolver atividades relacionadas à Modelagem na Educação Matemática nas suas práticas docentes, conforme relatado em dissertações e teses. Para a obtenção dos dados, fez-se um recorte do trabalho de Silveira (2007), no qual se analisam 14 das 65 teses e dissertações sobre Modelagem produzidas entre 1976 e 2005. Os resultados nos mostraram que os professores cursistas apresentam algumas resistências à prática de sala de aula com a Modelagem, sendo que essas resistências se mostram nas relações do professor com o trabalho, com a escola, com o currículo, com os alunos e com a família dos alunos