INORGANIC CHEMISTRY PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

The resolution of problem situations under the teacher’s guidance makes students compare, generalize, analyze phenomena, and not only memorize them mechanically. The processes of advancing and resolving problem situations are an unbroken chain, since when a problem is advanced, its solution begins simultaneously, which leads to the formulation of new problems. That is, a contradictory and continuous process of new scientific concepts active cognition is carried out. We see from the experience that using the methods of problem-based learning in the lessons that they promote development of cognitive activity, creative students’ independence, the formation of their worldview, intellectual development, and as a result, the improvement of the knowledge’s quality. Today, it is necessary when learning future specialists, in addition to the implementation of existing educational state standards in this specialty, to focus on the development of their creative qualities, creative thinking, which, ultimately, will promote to the formation of highly professional competent personnel.

The Eastern Traditions Today

Greek Orthodox monasticism comprises both legendary historical monasteries and thriving contemporary establishments all over the world. The chapter begins with an outline of its recent history, organization, and administrative structures. It then outlines its spiritual map, highlighting such features as: the sense of continuity that results from an unbroken chain of living and recorded experience going back to the ancient desert; the sense of unity in plurality, where individual charismata are integrated within the community; the contemplative spirit and its relationship to mission and doctrine; and the importance of spiritual parenthood. Today, many monasteries—and Mount Athos is a perennial example—are centres of spiritual replenishment and refreshment. They offer counsel, worship, and sacramental confession. Despite the signs of secularization, the main goal remains the same: transformation of self-love into love, which means, in theological terms, transfiguration of the human being in God’s unifying, uncreated grace.

5. Persistence and change

The never-ending lists of kings imparted the view of an unbroken chain extending into the past, but they also suggested the repeated rise and fall of ruling houses. Did dynasties necessarily follow the organic trajectory of birth, growth, maturity, old age, and death? ‘Persistence and change’ compares cyclical views of dynastic power throughout history and across the globe. It also asks how scale, change over time, and regional variety impacted dynasties. Finally, it considers the rise of Europe: royalty worldwide would undergo the impact of modernization first and foremost in the shape of European military and commercial dominance.

Institutional Identity

For some sufficiently long-standing institutions, such as the English Crown, there is no single thread, whether specified in terms of constitutive rules or assigned functions, that would connect the stages of that institution. Elizabeth II and Egbert are not connected by an unbroken chain of primogeniture and they have importantly different powers and functions. Derek Parfit famously sought to illuminate his account of personal identity by comparing a person to a club. If Parfit could use our intuitions about clubs to help motivate his neo-Lockean account of personal identity over time, which resists the idea that personal identity requires a common psychological thread, then I argue that an adapted version of his account of identity might, in turn, be reapplied to clubs and other institutions, such as the Crown.

A high resolution extra-terrestrial solar spectrum determined from ground-based solar irradiance measurements

A high resolution extraterrestrial solar spectrum has been determined from ground-based measurements of direct solar spectral irradiance over the range 300 nm to 500 nm using the Langley-plot technique. The measurements were obtained at the Iza\\`na Atmospheric Research Center from AEMET, Tenerife, Spain during the period 12 to 24 September 2016. This solar spectrum (QASUMEFTS) was combined from medium resolution (bandpass of 0.86 nm) measurements of the QASUME spectroradiometer in the range 300 nm to 500 nm and high resolution measurements (0.025 nm) from a fourier transform spectroradiometer over the range 305 nm to 380 nm. The KittPeak solar atlas was used to extend this high resolution solar spectrum to 500 nm. The expanded uncertainties of this solar spectrum are 2 % between 310 nm and 500 nm and 4 % at 300 nm. The comparison of this solar spectrum with solar spectra measured in space (top of the atmosphere) gives very good agreements in some cases, while in some other cases discrepancies of up to 5 % could be observed. The QASUMEFTS solar spectrum represents a benchmark dataset with uncertainties lower than anything previously published. The metrological traceability of the measurements to the International System of Units (SI) is assured by an unbroken chain of calibrations leading to the primary spectral irradiance standard of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Germany.

New light on the origins of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club

The history of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists’ Club (OFNC) is a subject of considerable interest given the organization’s great longevity and significant influence on the evolution of Canadian science and conservation. A probe of 19th-century Ottawa newspapers has led to the proper identification of a little known precursor organization — the “Ottawa Naturalists’ Field Club” — that appears to have significantly strengthened a weak link in the otherwise unbroken chain of natural history investigation in Ottawa reaching back to the pre-Confederation era. This and additional findings suggest that Dr. Edward Van Cortlandt, while duly recognized as an important pioneer naturalist, played an even greater role than generally understood in the emergence of a robust natural history tradition in Canada’s capital and the eventual creation of the OFNC.