Traditional Exposition Research Articles

An elementary treatise on elliptic functions as trigonometry

This article concerns the examination of trigonometric identities from an elliptic perspective. The treatment of elliptic functions presented herein adheres to a structure analogous to the traditional exposition of trigonometric functions, with the exception that an ellipse replaces the unit circle. The degree of similarity between the elliptic functions and their trigonometric counterparts is moderated by the periodicity of the so-called El- functions. These identities not only establish the values of the functions, but also establish a correlation between their ratios and the major and minor axes of the underlying ellipse. The resemblance between the functions is somewhat modified by the periodic nature of the El-identities, whereby each ratio is associated with the major and minor axis of the ellipse. This article adopts the notation (E) to denote the El- functions and distinguish them from the opposite circular functions.

The History of the Bergsonian Interpretation of Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Bergson offers an epistemological critique of Darwin’s theory that focuses on his gradualism: for Darwin variation is “minute”, and Bergson glosses “insensible.” His main argument is that if variations are insensible, they cannot confer an advantage to the organism and therefore be selected. Yet, for Darwin, the selected variation is not insensible: to be selected, it must be beneficial to its bearer in the struggle for existence. This article aims at understanding the origin of this misunderstanding by tracing the history of this critique. To do this, we will study Bergson’s sources, showing that his interpretation of Darwin is in line with the critique of many biologists at the turn of the 20th century, albeit in a confused way. This will lead us back to the origin of this critique: the work of Mivart. In this study, we wish to reveal the anchor of the Bergsonian interpretation in the debates of his time, and the shifts from the traditional exposition of the argument that led Bergson to formulate this false paradox. This article will also analyze more precisely the counterexample of the “analogy of structure” to show that, despite Bergson’s misunderstanding, he did point to actual limits of the Darwinian theory.

Teaching zoology in basic education in Brazil: an analysis of bibliographic publications (2010-2020)

The teaching of zoology, although recent in basic education, is questioned methodologically. The main criticisms are that zoology teaching still follows an Aristotelian essentialist view. It is based on traditional expositions in the classroom, and it fragments and decontextualizes contents. All this hinders learning, especially when we are dealing with such a complex area with a wide variety of names and concepts. Thus, through bibliographic research, we seek to identify, analyze, and describe some study trends in Brazil, during the period 2010-2020. We also verify the challenges involved in attaining improvement in pedagogical practices. A total of 197 articles, 32 dissertations, and one thesis were identified. The following descriptors were used: a) type of production; b) temporal distribution; c) geographic distribution; d) institution of origin of the publications; e) levels of education; f) thematic focus; g) type of research. With this, it was possible to describe the main aspects related to the teaching of zoology in basic education in Brazil, providing an insight into the direction of academic productions towards this theme, thus serving as a basis for other investigations

Epistemological Disjunctivism and the Value of Presence

AbstractEpistemological disjunctivists make two strong claims about perceptual experience's epistemic value: (1) experience guarantees the knowledgeable character of perceptual beliefs; (2) experience's epistemic value is “reflectively accessible”. In this paper I develop a form of disjunctivism grounded in a presentational view of experience, on which the epistemic benefits of experience consist in the way perception presents the subject with aspects of her environment. I show that presentational disjunctivism has both dialectical and philosophically fundamental advantages over more traditional expositions. Dialectically, presentational disjunctivism resolves a puzzle disjunctivists face in their posture vis-à-vis skeptical scenarios. More systematically, presentational disjunctivism provides an especially compelling view of disjunctivism as an internalist view of perceptual consciousness by explaining the way perceptual presence manifests the subject's rationality in a distinct way.

Aprender la Física a través de anotaciones de vídeos en línea

El soporte de vídeo en el ambiente de aprendizaje se usa hoy en día para muchos fines, ya sea para demostración, investigaciones o para compartir. Está pensado para reforzar el espacio antes y después de la clase e introducir una nueva dinámica e interacción en el aula. La innovación pedagógica puede lograrse mediante diferentes enfoques para motivar a los estudiantes y obtener mejores resultados. El contenido didáctico audiovisual se ha difundido en los últimos años en el dominio de Física, principalmente a través de la plataforma de YouTube. Muchos aspectos de las actividades de producción de vídeo pueden aumentar la autoestima de los estudiantes, aumentar su satisfacción con la experiencia de aprendizaje, promover una actitud positiva hacia la materia, proporcionar a los estudiantes un nivel de comprensión inferior con una amplia tutoría individual, alentar a los estudiantes a discutir entre ellos, intercambiar sus opiniones, y comparar los resultados de las actividades de laboratorio. Por otro lado, el vídeo puede apoyar las actividades de investigación, ofreciendo al investigador acceso a una agregación de datos rica para investigar los procesos de aprendizaje. Este documento presenta una revisión de la literatura sobre el potencial del uso de la anotación de vídeo en el contexto educativo y las perspectivas del uso de los maestros de los sistemas de anotación colaborativa, para promover la reflexión, específicamente en el dominio de la Física, utilizando una herramienta de anotación de código abierto. Se analiza la creación de referencias audiovisuales, ya sea para el acceso rápido a partes del contenido de video anotado organizado por el profesor, la creación de conocimientos o la revisión por y para otros estudiantes. Este estudio se complementa con un banco de pruebas, que muestra el potencial de usar contenido audiovisual anotado dentro de un contexto k-12. Se invitó a los estudiantes a seleccionar contenido de vídeo, anotar, organizar y publicar las anotaciones, lo que podría apoyar el proceso de aprendizaje en el dominio de la física. Los resultados muestran que la mayoría de los aspectos bajo análisis recibieron una evaluación positiva y los estudiantes expresaron un beneficio de las conferencias orales y el acceso a nuevas fuentes de aprendizaje. La única excepción se relaciona con la capacidad del enfoque de los estudiantes motivados para estudiar Física, ya que la mayoría de los estudiantes no vieron esta metodología demasiado motivadora. El impacto de esta investigación se relaciona con métodos alternativos de enseñanza / aprendizaje dentro del dominio de la Física, utilizando la anotación de vídeo en línea en apoyo de las metodologías tradicionales de exposición y memorización.

Physical Physics — Learning and Assessing Light Concepts in a novel way

ABSTRACTPhysics forms a core subject on any Materials Science and Engineering programme. In order to engage first year undergraduate students in the formal education environment, motivating the students is fundamental to ensuring their success. This qualitative study focuses on the use of technology to assess a student’s comprehension of fundamental light phenomena. A knowledge of light phenomena is essential in Materials Science, for the characterization of materials, where electromagnetic (EM) radiation is used as an analytical tool. Using visible light, students can easily see what is happening and when they have to capture digital evidence of the phenomena they focus on the event.Physical Physics a structured guided approach which initially leads the students through the theory and problem solving. It provides the knowledge scaffold the students require to allow them to use their individual creativity to express their understanding. In this case, understanding is captured and assessed by the production of a portfolio of original photographs of Light phenomena taken by the student.In addition to a traditional lecture exposition, Physical Physics takes an active learning approach with authentic assessment designed for deep learning. Students learn about relevant light phenomena in the familiar landscape of their world. The assessment provides opportunities for choice, creativity and reflection. It fosters students’ interest to encourage intrinsic motivation and engagement.This approach has been successfully piloted with first year undergraduate students. Samples of the students’ work is shown. The students interviewed reveal how this approach enhanced their understanding of these Light concepts and changed their perceptions of studying Physics in general.

Lattice Models of Finite Fields

Finite fields form an important chapter in abstract algebra, and mathematics in general, yet the traditional expositions, part of Abstract Algebra courses, focus on the axiomatic presentation, while Ramification Theory in Algebraic Number Theory, making a suited topic for their applications, is usually a separated course. We aim to provide a geometric and intuitive model for finite fields, involving algebraic numbers, in order to make them accessible and interesting to a much larger audience, and bridging the above mentioned gap. Such lattice models of finite fields provide a good basis for later developing their study in a more concrete way, including decomposition of primes in number fields, Frobenius elements, and Frobenius lifts, allowing to approach more advanced topics, such as Artin reciprocity law and Weil Conjectures, while keeping the exposition to the concrete level of familiar number systems. Examples are provided, intended for an undergraduate audience in the first place.

O conceito de estado em Max Weber

O artigo apresenta o conceito weberiano de Estado. Acompanhando diferentes formulações do conceito em momentos distintos da obra weberiana, destaca-se a importância que assume a valorização do enunciado presente no capítulo sobre as soziologische Kategorienlehre ("categorias sociológicas") de Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Economia e sociedade). Nesse capítulo, Weber explicita duas dimensões do Estado: (1) o Estado como associação política (politischer Verband) e (2) o Estado como empresa (Betrieb). Analisadas conjuntamente, tais dimensões permitiriam compreender a coincidência no âmbito estatal de uma drástica eficácia dos meios de coação, com a possibilidade de uma ordenação racional de sua aplicação, permitindo ir além das exposições tradicionais do conceito weberiano de Estado.

Comparative Advantage: Answering Some Student Questions

Most textbooks of international trade deal with comparative advantage with money prices in a cursory manner, if at all. Students on the other hand think primarily in terms of money prices and tend to think of higher productivity solely in terms of lower prices. This paper provides a step by step exposition of comparative advantage and trade using money prices and exchange rates, taking as the initial starting point the student perspective of productivity and comparative advantage, typically a disequilibrium perspective. Such an exposition, used in conjunction with the traditional exposition, may be of added benefit to students in internalizing the concept of comparative advantage.

Reconstructing the Kalman Filter for Stationary and Non Stationary Time Series

A Kalman filter, suitable for application to a stationary or a non-stationary time series, is proposed. It works on time series with missing values. It can be used on seasonal time series where the associated state space model may not satisfy the traditional observability condition. A new concept called an `extended normal random vector' is introduced and used throughout the paper to simplify the specification of the Kalman filter. It is an aggregate of means, variances, covariances and other information needed to define the state of a system at a given point in time. By working with this aggregate, the algorithm is specified without direct recourse to those relatively complex formulae for calculating associated means and variances, normally found in traditional expositions of the Kalman filter. A computer implementation of the algorithm is also described where the extended normal random vector is treated as an object; the operations of addition, subtraction and multiplication are overloaded to work on instances of this object; and a form of statistical conditioning is implemented as an operator.

Practical formalism: A new methodological proposal for business ethics

The traditional exposition of Kantian ethical theory in the business ethics literature is abstract, esoteric, and impractical compared to the more usable presentations of utilitarianism. This situation can be improved by identifying and describing the conceptual dimensions of formalistic ethical reasoning, as contained in the interplay between case and principle, with examples from the business/society literature.

The ideologies of contract

The immediate problem of Plato’s prisoners in the cave, it will be recalled, was understanding what was going on in the cave (for they could see only the shadows on the wall). In our contention, the situation of those who try to operate consistently within the constraints imposed by the traditional exposition of contract (sometimes pejoratively referred to as the ‘black-letter’ approach), is somewhat akin to that of Plato’s prisoners. They may perceive shadows, but they are unable to interpret them from the confines of their position. The purpose of this article is to sketch a framework for the law of contract, which we hope will assist in this interpretive exercise.

Classical Fields: General Relativity and Gauge Theory

Moshe Carmeli 1982 New York: John Wiley xvii + 650 pp price £42.70 ISBN 0 471 864374 The first 400 or so pages of this book provide a detailed and traditional exposition of tensor calculus and general relativity. The concepts and modern notation of differential geometry are relegated to a few pages in chapter 10.

The Post-Corporatist State?

This paper is an attempt to sketch out some ideas concerning changes which have been taking place in the engine of the British state in the very recent past and in particular in the post-1979 period. In earlier work1 we have argued that the British state is neither a rechstaat, nor does it conform to the idealism of a democratically responsible House of Commons operating on the basis of some clouded notion of mandate and reinforced by an independent judiciary dispensing a rule of law. This latter traditional exposition, normally associated with Dicey,2 has held a firm grip on the popular imaginatiuon in spite of forcefully documented evidence to the contrary. This evidence has demonstrated that the British state is an extremely diffused phenomenon, even if highly concentrated locations of extra-parliamentary power can be identified.3 This diffused state, while relying heavily on Cabinet/Treasury hegemony, needs also to be traced through a bewildering network of relationships, both formal and informal, through processes of patronage and many other forms.4 In recent years, however, there has been considerable concentration on the formal or semi-formal articulations of state power usually subsumed under the label corporatism. The recent literature surrounding this elastic concept is formidable but, at least in term of industrial politics, is most comprehensively catalogued by Middlemas.5 If scholars and commentators have correctly identified something approximating to corporatist bias over a period going back to the First World War at least, then it would be surprising if the whole edifice, if anything so unspecific can be so described, had disintegrated over the life of one Parliament. Nevertheless, there is already mounting prima facie evidence to suggest that major changes in the way the British state is conducting its business have occurred over a period of seven to ten years. Such changes have not occurred in the form of a deus ex machina but we would argue that developmental trends over the last decade have been afforded a major impetus over the life of the first Thatcher administration. The ideological underpinnings of the development will not be pursued here. Instead we shall seek to map out some of those developments.

THE CONSISTENCY OF PERFECT AND MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION

SUMMARY In this paper I have suggested the formal consistency between the models of perfect and monopolistic competition. When products are differentiated only by their quality, the zero-profit equilibrium position of the perfectly competitive firm can be recast diagrammatically in a way which coincides with the traditional exposition of Chamberlinean tangencies. The illusory excess capacity theorem confuses average revenue product curves with demand schedules. These results should hardly be surprising. Indeed, if such a thing as “perfect” competition actually exists (even in theory), it must be conceivable within a model in which firms are allowed to compete in other dimensions as well as price.

Les problèmes d'adaptation en Islam

Profound changes in politics, the structure of internal affairs and culture during recent decades have led inside Islam to the problem of the "Aggiornamento" — the adjustment to a knowledge of the demands of the times and the adaptation and practice of religion in a new industrial milieu — in a way similar to what happened within the Catholic Church. The charismatic period of primitive Islam is recalled. In Egypt especially, which is the centre of efforts at reform, the connection between Socialism and Islam is a point of interest. Political factors (Colonialism) and matters of domestic economy did not result for Islam, as they frequently did for Christian Europe, in a conflict between the political demands of the working class and religious allegiances. One can speak of Islam as "system neutral". At the same time there is taking place, to use Bultmann's terminology, a "demythologising". The teachings of the Koran are explained in terms of modern thought and the traditional exposition of them is criticised. The old mysticism and asceticism still survive alongside this rationalism, together with the forms of their degeneration. A particular tendency is the close connection between Sufism and Pantheism observable today in Iraq and Persia. The Muslim Brotherhood can be held up as an example of a political offshoot of Sufism. The picture of Islam which the European has is even today stamped with prejudices dating back to the time of the Crusades, whereas Islam has in its favour, by reason of its recognition of the New Testament as valid revelation, a certain tolerance with regard to Christ which formerly was only broken with for purely political motives. Various problems of adjustment reveal themselves in situations of everyday life; co-education for men and women in schools, the form in which prayer shonld be performed — here one discerns even stronger resistance of Orthodoxy. But efforts will be made during the transitiou to a mass society to prevent the kind of friction and estrangement between Church and State which took place in 19th century Europe. Islam could, through adjustment to modern life, win a new missionary attractiveness, especially among the peoples of Central Africa.