e-Math Workshops : a forum for exchanging experiences of mathematics e-learning at university level

We report here about a series of international workshops on e-learning of mathematics at university level, which have been jointly organized by the three publicly funded open universities in the Iberian Peninsula and which have taken place annually since 2009. The history, achievements and prospects for the future of this initiative will be addressed.

History of mathematical statistics research at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories.

Mode of access: Internet.

A Análise Matemática no Ensino Universitário Brasileiro: a contribuição de Omar Catunda

The goal of this paper is to show the diffusion, reception, and utilization of Omar Catunda's book Course of Mathematical Analysis for mathematics and engineering teaching in Brazilian universities, e. g., University of Sao Paulo and the University of Bahia from 1950 to 1976. We used interviews of some ex-alumni or users of his book. We also present some signs of the influence of his book and of Catunda himself at University of Rio Grande do Sul. We argue that Catunda and his book were important agents of process of modernizing the teaching of calculus and analysis, through his classes as well as his book.

A história da ciência nas obras de química do Programa Nacional do Livro Didático para o Ensino Médio: uma análise através do conceito de substância

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Lectures and conferences on mathematical statistics and probability.

Original mimeographed ed. published in 1938 under title: Lectures and conferences on mathematical statistics.

A history of the mathematical theory of probability from the time of Pascal to that of Laplace.

Mode of access: Internet.

A history of the mathematical theories of attraction and the figure of the earth from the time of Newton to that of Laplace.

Available on demand as hard copy or computer file from Cornell University Library.

A history of the mathematical theory of probability from the time of Pascal to that of Laplace.

Mode of access: Internet.

The philosophical and mathematical commentaries of Proclus on the first book of Euclid's Elements. To which are added a History of the restoration of Platonic theology by the latter Platonists, and a translation from the Greek of Proclus's Theological elements.

The translator's preface is followed by his Dissertation on the Platonic doctrine of ideas; Demonstrative syllogism; Nature of the soul; Dissertation on the true end of geometry; Life and commentaries of Proclus, including the life of Proclus by Marinus.

The history and proceedings of the House of Commons from the Restoration to the present time. Containing the most remarkable motions, speeches, resolves, reports and conferences to be met with in that interval: as also the most exact estimates of the charge of government, state of the public revenue, the rise and growth of the national debt, expence of the war, proceedings on ways and means, speeches and messages from the throne, addresses, and remonstrances, also the numbers pro and con upon every division &c. Many of which curious particulars were never before printed. Collected from the best authorities, compared with the journals of the House, and illustrated with a great variety of historical and explanatory notes. Together with a large appendix, containing exact lists of every Parliament, the names of the speakers, their several posts under the government, and other valuable, supplemental pieces.

Includes indexes.

A brief history of labor-management conferences.

Mode of access: Internet.

An historical and geographical description of Formosa ... Giving an account of the religion, customs, manners, &c., of the inhabitants. Together with a relation of what happen'd to the author in his travels; particularly his conferences with the Jesuits, and others, in several parts of Europe. Also the history and reasons of his conversion to Christianity, with his objections against it (in defence of paganism) and their answers ...

Mode of access: Internet.

A compleat history of the present state of war in Africa, between the Spaniards and Algerines ; giving a full and exact account of Oran and Al-Mursa ; compiled from the best approved Spanish writers ; the author's twenty years knowledge of the country ; and from diverse late conferences with Haj Mahammed, the Algerine envoy and Haj Ali, His Excellency's secretary, now here resident ; with a new map of the Kingdom of Algiers ; and several useful annotations /

Mode of access: Internet.

Application of wavelets to the study of political history

\The idea that social processes develop in a cyclical manner is somewhat like a `Lorelei'. Researchers are lured to it because of its theoretical promise, only to become entangled in (if not wrecked by) messy problems of empirical inference. The reasoning leading to hypotheses of some kind of cycle is often elegant enough, yet the data from repeated observations rarely display the supposed cyclical pattern. (...) In addition, various `schools' seem to exist which frequently arrive at di erent conclusions on the basis of the same data." (van der Eijk and Weber 1987:271). Much of the empirical controversies around these issues arise because of three distinct problems: the coexistence of cycles of di erent periodicities, the possibility of transient cycles and the existence of cycles without xed periodicity. In some cases, there are no reasons to expect any of these phenomena to be relevant. Seasonality caused by Christmas is one such example (Wen 2002). In such cases, researchers mostly rely on spectral analysis and Auto-Regressive Moving-Average (ARMA) models to estimate the periodicity of cycles.1 However, and this is particularly true in social sciences, sometimes there are good theoretical reasons to expect irregular cycles. In such cases, \the identi cation of periodic movement in something like the vote is a daunting task all by itself. When a pendulum swings with an irregular beat (frequency), and the extent of the swing (amplitude) is not constant, mathematical functions like sine-waves are of no use."(Lebo and Norpoth 2007:73) In the past, this di culty has led to two di erent approaches. On the one hand, some researchers dismissed these methods altogether, relying on informal alternatives that do not meet rigorous standards of statistical inference. Goldstein (1985 and 1988), studying the severity of Great power wars is one such example. On the other hand, there are authors who transfer the assumptions of spectral analysis (and ARMA models) into fundamental assumptions about the nature of social phenomena. This type of argument was produced by Beck (1991) who, in a reply to Goldstein (1988), claimed that only \ xed period models are meaningful models of cyclic phenomena".We argue that wavelet analysis|a mathematical framework developed in the mid-1980s (Grossman and Morlet 1984; Goupillaud et al. 1984) | is a very viable alternative to study cycles in political time-series. It has the advantage of staying close to the frequency domain approach of spectral analysis while addressing its main limitations. Its principal contribution comes from estimating the spectral characteristics of a time-series as a function of time, thus revealing how its di erent periodic components may change over time. The rest of article proceeds as follows. In the section \Time-frequency Analysis", we study in some detail the continuous wavelet transform and compare its time-frequency properties with the more standard tool for that purpose, the windowed Fourier transform. In the section \The British Political Pendulum", we apply wavelet analysis to essentially the same data analyzed by Lebo and Norpoth (2007) and Merrill, Grofman and Brunell (2011) and try to provide a more nuanced answer to the same question discussed by these authors: do British electoral politics exhibit cycles? Finally, in the last section, we present a concise list of future directions.