Research and Reflection: Potential Impact on the Professional Development of Undergraduate Occupational Therapy Students

In occupational therapy education in South Africa, community service (CS) focuses learning opportunities during fieldwork placements. CS therefore enabled the researcher to utilise successive small scale research projects to guide learning of students during fieldwork while simultaneously developing the occupational therapy service at a residential care facility. This community setting provided a powerful environment through which research, in combination with opportunities for reflection, contributed to nurturing skills needed by these future health professionals. A technical action research (AR) approach incorporated AR cycles and opportunities for structured reflection. Therefore situations were created for the students to embrace experiential learning. Experiential learning in the form of anticipatory reflection, reflection-in-action, reflection on reflection and retrospective reflection impacted on the quality of the students’ work. Besides encouraging unique leaning opportunities for students when engaging in research during their fieldwork placement, engagement in AR cycles simultaneously improved service delivery to residents in the facility. Key benefits of this investigation were that fieldwork education utilising AR cycles within a CS situation promoted students to identify voids in their theoretical background as well as practice skills; to apply reflective practice that could contribute to their personal and professional development; and to utilize learning opportunities optimally. Despite positive gains showed by this study, the role of power relations between the researcher as fieldwork educator and the students prohibited the AR cycles from being more emancipatory in nature and should be addressed in follow-up studies.     

An equivalency condition of nonsingularity in nonlinear semidefinite programming

<正> In this paper,an equivalency condition of nonsingularity in nonlinear semidefinite programming,which can be viewed as a generalization of the equivalency condition of nonsingularity for linearsemidefinite programming,is established under certain conditions of convexity.     

New design and analysis of finite difference domain decomposition algorithm for the two-dimensional heat equation

<正> It is presented in this paper that the new design and its analysis of finite difference domaindecomposition algorithms for the two-dimensional heat equation,and the numerical results have shownthe stability and accuracy of the algorithms,where Saul'yev asymmetric schemes have been used atthe interface points.The Algorithm Ⅱ in this paper has further extended those developed by Dawsonand the others,Zhang and Shen.     

Integral-type tests for goodness-of-fit

<正> A family of integral-type goodness-of-fit tests is investigated.This family includes someexisting tests,such as the Cramér-von Mises test and Anderson-Darling test,etc.The asymptoticdistributions of the tests in the family under the null and local alternative hypotheses are established.The almost sure convergence under a fixed underlying distribution is obtained.Furthermore,simulationsare conducted to compare the powers of the tests in the family.Simulation results show that fordifferent alternatives,the more powerful tests are different,and the parameter λ has great influence onthe tests in small sample cases.     

Analysis for gene networks based on logic relationships

The reverse construction and analysis of the networks of molecular interactions are essential for understanding their functions within cells. In this paper, a logic network model is constructed to investigate the complicated regulation mechanism of shoot genes of Arabidopsis Thaliana in response to stimuli. The dynamics of the complicated logic network is analyzed, discussed, and simulated. The simulation results show that the logic network of the active genes of shoot eventually evolves into eleven attractors under the stimuli, including five 1-periodic and six 2-periodic attractors. Our work provides valuable reference and guidance for biologists to understand and explain Arabidopsis’ response to external stimuli by experiments.     

A new approach of available transfer capability incorporating wind generation

The approach of available transfer capability (denoted as ATC) incorporating wind generation has been paid very high attention since the development of wind generation. Based on the maximum function, this paper presents an ATC model. The characteristic of the new model is twofold. First, it considers wind turbines connected to power system and static security of power system simultaneously. Second, it is a system of semismooth equations and can be solved easily. By using the smoothing strategy, a smoothing Newton method is adopted for solving the proposed new ATC model. Numerical simulation results of the IEEE 30-bus and 118-bus system show that the new model and algorithm are feasible and effective. The impact of wind turbines connected to power system on ATC is also analyzed.     

DISTRIBUTED FINITE-TIME χ-CONSENSUS ALGORITHMS FOR MULTI-AGENT SYSTEMS WITH VARIABLE COUPLING TOPOLOGY

<正> This paper considers finite-time χ-consensus problem for a multi-agent system with firstorderindividual dynamics and switching interaction topologies.Several distributed finite-time consensusrules are constructed for multi-agent dynamics in a unified way with the help of Lyapunovfunction and graph theory as well as homogeneity.Time-invariant non-smooth forms of finite-timeneighbor-based controllers are proposed and a numerical example is shown for illustration.     

Performance analysis of optimal channel estimation and multiuser detection in a randomly-spread CDMA channel

<正> This paper analyzes performance of optimal channel estimation and multiuser detection(MUD) in a block-fading code-division multiple-access (CDMA) channel on the assumptions of randomspreading and large-system limit,by using the replica method developed in statistical mechanics.The authors find that the asymptotic spectral efficiency of the linear minimum mean-squared error(LMMSE) MUD which was proposed and analyzed by Evans and Tse in 2000 is indistinguishable fromthat of the optimal MUD for small system loads.Our results imply that performance of MUD scarcelyimproves even if one spends more computational cost than that of the LMMSE MUD,i.e.,at most thecube of the number of users,on the above-described conditions.     

Adaptive tracking control for actuator failure compensation based on MT-filters

<正> This paper considers the problem of actuator failure compensation for a class of nonlinearsystems in the form of output-feedback.MT-filters are exploited to estimate the unmeasured states.The backsteppping technique is used to construct the controller recursively.The proposed compensationscheme can grantee the boundedness of all the closed-loop signals and asymptotic output tracking.Thetheoretical results are illustrated by a simulation example.     

Boundary control of two PDE’s separated by interface conditions

<正> This paper discusses the null boundary controllability of two PDE's,modeling a compositesolid with different physical properties in each layer.Interface conditions are imposed.