This paper examines the practice of benchmarking universities using a "league table" approach. Taking the example of the "Sunday Times University League Table", the author reanalyses the descriptive data on UK universities. Using a linear programming technique, data envelope analysis (DEA), the author uses the re-analysis to…

Teachers should not assume a problem is difficult for the students just because it appears difficult. A teacher solves one such difficult mathematical problem, an egg dilemma problem.

This article features questions regarding logarithmic functions and hair growth. The first question is, "What is the underlying natural phenomenon that causes the natural log function to show up so frequently in scientific equations?" There are two reasons for this. The first is simply that the logarithm of a number is often used as a replacement…

This paper describes how parametric cubic splines and cubic Bezier curves may be used in designing a two dimensional shape. A simple aerofoil shape is designed using both methods. The mathematics is described and the shape drawn using Excel. The effect of varying parameters is shown in both methods.

The majority of research on mathematics practice in everyday situations within cultures has investigated the use of arithmetic and geometry concepts and processes. To extend this research to a situation using measurement ideas, this paper investigates the mathematics practice of a group of carpet layers in an effort to detail how ordinary people…

There is a dream, among mathematics educators, for a common direction that would unite teachers, policy makers and researchers, with researchers collaborating to accumulate knowledge and thus contribute to the understanding and improvement of school practice. But this dream becomes less and less realistic in view of the tendency of mathematics…

The author tells the story of mathematics from ancient times to the present. The influence of mathematics on technology and thus on civilization is depicted by a thematic collection of postage stamps, the photographs of which are interspersed throughout the text. Checklists of stamps depicting mathematicians and scientists and applications of…

Outlines the facts being presented in the literature about mathematical models, their related components, and their practical and theoretical uses. (Author)

This guide, published by the New York City Board of Education, presents 62 lesson plans in basic mathematics for tenth grade students. Lesson plans and performance objectives focus on the following areas: (1) fundamental operations with signed numbers; (2) linear, weight and temperature measurements; (3) fractions, decimals and percents; (4)…

This is one of a series that is a collection of translations from the extensive Soviet literature of the past 25 years on research in the psychology of mathematics instruction. It also includes works on methods of teaching mathematics directly influenced by the psychological research. Selected papers and books considered to be of value to the…

This document is the student workbook for a course in mathematics for water quality control personnel. This version contains complete problems, answers and references. Problems are arranged alphabetically by treatment process. Charts, graphs, and drawings represent data forms an operator might see in a plant containing information necessary for…

This manual indicates a practical approach to the topic of general or consumer mathematics as taught in senior high school. This course is intended for those pupils who cannot succeed in the sequential high school mathematics course. The material for this course has been selected to provide experiences which will tend to improve the mathematical…

This bibliography presents a series of studies that focus on the topic of networks and on the manner in which they have been considered in the literature. Each section of the bibliography provides a working set of references for one of the five major areas of research in which network analysis has been used. The first section deals primarily with…

The purpose of the study reported here was to do an automata-theoretical and experimental investigation of the learning of the syntax and semantics of a second natural language. The main thrust of the work was to ask what kind of automaton a person can become. Various kinds of automata were considered, predictions were made from them, and these…