27,359 research outputs found
Book Review of David Lester, Making Sense of Suicide: An In-depth Look at Why People Kill Themselves (The Charles Press 1997)
Review of the book David Lester, Making Sense of Suicide: An In-depth Look at Why People Kill Themselves (The Charles Press 1997). Preface, bibliographical references, index. ISBN 0-914783-82-3. [208 pp. Paper $22.95. P.O. Box 15715, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
Students' Understanding of Direct Current Resistive Electrical Circuits
Research has shown that both high school and university students' reasoning
patterns regarding direct current resistive electric circuits often differ from
the currently accepted explanations. At present, there are no standard
diagnostic examinations in electric circuits. Two versions of a diagnostic
instrument called Determining and Interpreting Resistive Electric circuits
Concepts Tests (DIRECT) were developed, each consisting of 29 questions. The
information provided by the exam provides classroom instructors a means with
which to evaluate the progress and conceptual difficulties of their students
and their instructional methods. It can be used to evaluate curricular packages
and/or other supplemental materials for their effectiveness in overcoming
students' conceptual difficulties. The analyses indicate that students,
especially females, tend to hold multiple misconceptions, even after
instruction. During interviews, the idea that the battery is a constant source
of current was used most often in answering the questions. Students tended to
focus on current in solving the problems and to confuse terms, often assigning
the properties of current to voltage and/or resistance. Results indicated that
students do not have a clear understanding of the underlying mechanisms of
electric circuit phenomena. On the other hand, students were able to translate
easily from a "realistic" representation of a circuit to the corresponding
schematic diagram.Comment: This article has been accepted for publication in the American
Journal of Physics - Physics Education Research Supplement. No known
publication date as ye
The discontinuous nature of the exchange-correlation functional -- critical for strongly correlated systems
Standard approximations for the exchange-correlation functional have been
found to give big errors for the linearity condition of fractional charges,
leading to delocalization error, and the constancy condition of fractional
spins, leading to static correlation error. These two conditions are now
unified for states with both fractional charge and fractional spin: the exact
energy functional is a plane, linear along the fractional charge coordinate and
constant along the fractional spin coordinate with a line of discontinuity at
the integer. This sheds light on the nature of the derivative discontinuity and
calls for explicitly discontinuous functionals of the density or orbitals that
go beyond currently used smooth approximations. This is key for the application
of DFT to strongly correlated systems.Comment: 5 pages 2 figure
Tackling Arithmophobia : Teaching How to Read, Understand, and Analyze Financial Statements
This discussion presents different ideas on how to teach accounting and practical finance to law students
Techniques for improving the accuracy of cyrogenic temperature measurement in ground test programs
The performance of a sensor is often evaluated by determining to what degree of accuracy a measurement can be made using this sensor. The absolute accuracy of a sensor is an important parameter considered when choosing the type of sensor to use in research experiments. Tests were performed to improve the accuracy of cryogenic temperature measurements by calibration of the temperature sensors when installed in their experimental operating environment. The calibration information was then used to correct for temperature sensor measurement errors by adjusting the data acquisition system software. This paper describes a method to improve the accuracy of cryogenic temperature measurements using corrections in the data acquisition system software such that the uncertainty of an individual temperature sensor is improved from plus or minus 0.90 deg R to plus or minus 0.20 deg R over a specified range
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