2,670 research outputs found
Assessment in senior secondary physical education. Questions of judgement
The ways in which various aspects of senior physical education courses should be assessed and whether some can, or indeed should be incorporated in external examinations, are matters of longstanding professional debate across Australia and internationally. Differences in current practice across Australasia reflect an ongoing lack of consensus about how assessment requirements and arrangements and particularly, examinations in senior physical education, can best address concerns to ensure validity, reliability, equity and feasibility. An issue never far from such debates is that of ‘professional judgement’ and more specifically, whether and how professional judgement does and/or should ‘come into play’ in assessment. This paper reports on research that has explored new approaches to examination assessment and marking in senior physical education, using digital technologies. It focuses specifically on the ways in which ‘professional judgement’ can be deemed to be inherent to two contrasting methods of assessment used in the project: ‘analytical standardsbased’ assessment and ‘comparative pairs’ assessment. Details of each method of assessment are presented. Data arising directly from assessors’ comments and from analysis which explored intermarker reliability for each method of assessment and compared results generated by internal teacher assessment, standards-based and comparative pairs assessment, is reported. Discussion explores whether the data arising can be seen as lending weight to arguments for (i) more faith to be placed in professional judgement and (ii) for the comparative pairs methods to be more widely employed in examination assessment in senior physical education
Investigating the Effect of Stratospheric Radiation on Seed Germination and Growth
Three seed types: bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), corn (Zea mays) and radish (Raphanus sativus) were flown in a high altitude weather balloon into the mid-stratosphere to investigate the effects of high altitude radiation on germination success and seedling growth. After recovering and planting the seeds, the bean seeds showed lower germination success with exposure to high altitude radiation, and consequently stunted seedling growth. Cord and radish seeds experienced a statistically significant positive effect on germination success form radiation exposure compared to control seeds, but negative effect on seedling growth. Overall, the field experiments presented here support laboratory studies that show radiation exposure on vegetable seeds has a mixed effect on the germination success and negative effect on seedling growth on investigated seed types
The Use of Noise Signals for Multi-Mode Beam Shaping
Noise as a transmitted signal has been used in radar, ultrasonic Doppler flow measurement, and ultrasonic flaw detection. In each of these applications, the unique properties of noise have mainly influenced the design and operation of the signal processing portions of the system in which it was used. Our present work shows that the use of noise as a transmitted signal may also benefit the properties of phased array transducers used in imaging systems. Some imaging systems excite the transducer array sequentially in several modes. The echoes resulting from each of the transmitted modes are stored separately and then processed together to yield an effective beam pattern which cannot be realized by any elementary mode of the array. Although phased arrays are frequently used to simultaneously receive in a number of modes, it has not, up to now, been possible for an array to transmit more than one mode at a time. A technique is described which allows several modes to be transmitted simultaneously from a transducer array. This is achieved by exciting each mode with its own independent random signal. The echoes corresponding to each transmitted signal can then be unambiguously identified by correlation with the desired reference signal. This technique generally leads to simplified system design and permits operation in real time. Preliminary results for a small random signal phased array system will be described
Perspective: tobacco manufacturers are now compensating states for smoking-related costs: how will this affect the economy?
Smoking out the social and economic benefits of the 1998 tobacco settlement for Massachusetts.Tobacco industry ; Medical care, Cost of
The Economic Impacts of the Tobacco Settlement
Recent litigation against major tobacco companies culminated in a Master Settlement Agreement' (MSA) under which the participating companies agreed to compensate most states for Medicaid expenses. We outline the terms of the settlement and analyze whether it was a move toward economic efficiency using data from Massachusetts. Medicaid spending will fall, but only a modest amount ($0.1 billion). The efficiency issue turns mainly on the treatment of health benefits from reduced smoking induced by the settlement. We conclude that the settlement was a move towards economic efficiency.
From synchronization to multistability in two coupled quadratic maps
The phenomenology of a system of two coupled quadratic maps is studied both
analytically and numerically. Conditions for synchronization are given and the
bifurcations of periodic orbits from this regime are identified. In addition,
we show that an arbitrarily large number of distinct stable periodic orbits may
be obtained when the maps parameter is at the Feigenbaum period-doubling
accumulation point. An estimate is given for the coupling strength needed to
obtain any given number of stable orbits.Comment: 13 pages Latex, 9 figure
How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement?: Assessing Payments to Massachusetts
We estimate the increment in Massachusetts Medicaid program costs attributable to smoking from December 20, 1991, to 1998. We describe how our methods improve upon earlier estimates of analogous costs at the national level. Current costs to the Massachusetts Medicaid program approximate the payments to Massachusetts under the tobacco settlement of November 1998. Whether these payments are viewed as appropriate compensation for Medicaid costs over time depends upon the rate of increase in future health care costs, the rate of decline in smoking, the proportion of smoking that should be attributed to the actions of the tobacco companies and the liklihood that state would have prevailed at trial. The costs to the Medicaid program are dwarfed by the internal costs to smokers themselves.
On stochastic sea of the standard map
Consider a generic one-parameter unfolding of a homoclinic tangency of an
area preserving surface diffeomorphism. We show that for many parameters
(residual subset in an open set approaching the critical value) the
corresponding diffeomorphism has a transitive invariant set of full
Hausdorff dimension. The set is a topological limit of hyperbolic sets
and is accumulated by elliptic islands.
As an application we prove that stochastic sea of the standard map has full
Hausdorff dimension for sufficiently large topologically generic parameters.Comment: 36 pages, 5 figure
Temperature dependence of interlayer coupling in perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions with GdOx barriers
Perpendicular magnetic tunnel junctions with GdOX tunneling barriers have
shown a unique voltage controllable interlayer magnetic coupling effect. Here
we investigate the quality of the GdOX barrier and the coupling mechanism in
these junctions by examining the temperature dependence of the tunneling
magnetoresistance and the interlayer coupling from room temperature down to 11
K. The barrier is shown to be of good quality with the spin independent
conductance only contributing a small portion, 14%, to the total room
temperature conductance, similar to AlOX and MgO barriers. The interlayer
coupling, however, shows an anomalously strong temperature dependence including
sign changes below 80 K. This non-trivial temperature dependence is not
described by previous models of interlayer coupling and may be due to the large
induced magnetic moment of the Gd ions in the barrier.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
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