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This paper examines and dissects eight popular conjectures about exchange rates. The conjectures are: there exists a systematic linkage between economic fundamentals and exchange rates; flexible exchange rates are unstable due to destabilising speculation; flexible exchange rates are excessively volatile; the foreign exchange market is efficient; purchasing power parity holds; volatile exchange rates are harmful to trade; depreciating exchange rates trigger a “vicious” inflationary circle; and countries with current account deficits have depreciating exchange rates. The main message is that there is weak theoretical and empirical support for the majority of the conjectures. Only one proposition, relative PPP has strong empirical support but its policy relevance is weakened by the difficulty of interpreting departures from PPP. The remaining group for which there is inconclusive support presents the greatest challenge to research and policy as it includes the first conjecture.

This paper aims to present a model of collaborative inquiry play: rule-based imaginary situations that provide challenging problems and support agentic multiplayer interactions (c.f., Vygotsky, 1967; Salen and Zimmerman, 2003). Drawing on problem-based learning (PBL, Hmelo-Silver, 2004), this paper provides a design case to articulate the relationship between the design goals and the game-based learning environment.

Drawing on conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014), this paper presents an iterative development of the conjecture map for crystal island: ecojourneys and highlights the development of the story and tools in crystal island: ecojourneys, an immersive game based on PBL pedagogy. By articulating this development, the authors highlight the affordances and constraints of designing for collaborative inquiry play and address challenges in supporting learner agency.

The PBL inquiry process served as the foundation of collaborative inquiry play. Attending to the rules of inquiry fostered student agency, and in turn, playful engagement in the game-based learning environment. Agency however meant holding students accountable to actions undertaken, especially as it pertained to generating group-based explanations and reflecting on productive collaboration. Moreover, socially shared regulation of learning and systems thinking concepts (i.e. phenomenon, mechanisms, and components) must also be externalized in representations and interactions in the game such that students have the agency to decide on their learning paths.

This paper presents the model of collaborative inquiry play and highlights how to support player agency and design content-rich play environments which are not always completely open.

The purpose of this current paper is to deal with the study of non-constant entire solutions of some non-linear complex differential equations in connection to Brück conjecture, by using the theory of complex differential equation. The results generalize the results due to Pramanik et al.

39B32, 30D35.

In the current paper, we mainly study the Brück conjecture and the various works that confirm this conjecture. In our study we find that the conjecture can be generalized for differential monomials under some additional conditions and it generalizes some works related to the conjecture. Also we can take the complex number a in the conjecture to be a small function. More precisely, we obtain a result which can be restate in the following way: Let f be a non-constant entire function such that σ2(f)<∞, σ2(f) is not a positive integer and δ(0, f)>0. Let M[f] be a differential monomial of f of degree γM and α(z), β(z)∈S(f) be such that max{σ(α), σ(β)} <σ(f). If M[f]+β and fγM−α share the value 0 CM, then

This is an original work of the authors.

The methodological individualism and subjectivism of the Austrian tradition in economics is often associated with a methodological dualism, i.e. the claim that the nature of its subject matter, namely purposeful and intentional human action, requires economics to adopt a methodology that is fundamentally different from the causal explanatory approach of the natural sciences. This paper critically examines this claim and advocates an alternative, explicitly naturalistic and empiricist outlook at human action, exemplified, in particular, by the research program of evolutionary psychology. It is argued that, within the Austrian tradition, a decidedly naturalistic approach to subjectivism can be found in F. A. Hayek’s work.

Goldbach conjecture of prime numbers is one of the unsolved mathematical problems. Many trial solutions appeared in the literature, but so far none has been accepted by the mathematics societies. This paper describes a graphical method devised by me to explain the mystery of the said conjecture. My method based on the teachings of analytical geometry using a rectangular coordinate frame with even numbers as ordinates and prime numbers as abscissas. Straight lines with 45 degree slop and intercepets of varying prime numbers on the ordinate are drawn to meet all the vertical straight draw grom the abscissas. These diagonal lines are designated as separation lines and identified by its intercept number. The intersection of vertical abscissa line, the separation line and a horizontal line drawn from the ordinates shows the relationship of an even number and its pair of prime numbers. These intersections vividly appear on the horizontal even number line and can be easily seen. This method is a graphical version of binary combination of prime numbers and can locate the prime-pairs of any even nuber by drawing a family of separation lines.

Seeks to derive a class of “homogeneous” rules for numerical integration from earlier results and empirical findings to treat the apparently magical reordering of a pack of cards after successive shuffles, previously discussed by Zeeberg, from a new angle and to form a mathematical conjecture.

The studies were made using computer programs for which the language JavaScript proved adequate.

The rules for numerical integration are more precise than earlier versions. The conjecture associated with card shuffling appears to be novel.

Improved methods of numerical integration have practical value in many areas. The conjecture is in the field of number theory, with no obvious immediate applications.

The findings and methods are original. The demonstration of a plausible mathematical conjecture may provoke further studies aimed at its proof as a theorem, or its refutation.

Presents an investigation of some aspects of the axiomization of conditional independence of probability. Contributes to the understanding of Pearl's completeness conjecture and identifies a direction for revision which could remove some of the difficulties of Pearl's axiom set, but this alternative is not without its own difficulties. This approach largely simplifies the definition of conditional independence. Then shows the completeness conjecture to be incorrect by presenting counter examples; a new axiom based on the counter examples follows. Discusses the reason for the conjecture being incorrect. Notes that an alternative conjecture could be suggested, but this raises many new questions and increases complexity. Finally, shows that “the disjointness condition on variable sets” is in fact necessary. Concludes that while the axiomization of conditional independence has attractions, it is probably too complex to be pragmatic. Suggests an alternative way forward in inexact reasoning.

According to the Parasuraman‐Berry‐Zeithaml conjecture, the greater the importance of a given quality dimension, the thinner the corresponding tolerance zone would be. This paper seeks to test the conjecture when attribute items are individually considered. The original data have been collected to assess the quality of postal services in Brazil. A qualitative stage yielded a list comprising 39 attribute items. In the quantitative stage the three‐column format of a SERVQUAL questionnaire was employed to permit the computation of importance weights and tolerance widths for each attribute item. The questionnaire was mailed to a sample of some 5,900 firms. About 10 per cent (540) of mailed questionnaires returned and were considered valid. The values obtained for the correlation coefficients were significantly negative and consistently close to each other. The inverse association between importance and tolerance of service quality attributes was then accepted. The most interesting consequence of this finding is that simply ordering the computed width of attributes’ zones of tolerance will yield the most important attributes. Other implications are also discussed.

In response to the underexplored need for holistically inclusive makerspaces for learning, we put propose the “SCAFFOLD” framework, which considers equity, inclusion and accessibility in the design of spaces and activities for socioculturally diverse learners.

This paper proposes a universal design (UD) framework that is intersectionally inclusive for learners with diverse needs in makerspaces and maker activities. This paper provides conjecture mapping to put forth theoretical and empirical arguments for the design of holistically inclusive makerspaces that consider gender equity and cultural inclusivity, as well as accessibility for diverse learners with divergent and unique abilities and dis/abilities.

Combining related literature and three existing UD frameworks (i.e. UD, web accessibility and UD for learning) and prior research on equity and inclusivity in making, this paper proposes the integration of eight principles, which leverage individuals’ diverse abilities to become agentic makers: simplicity, collaboration, accessibility, flexibility, fail-safe, object-oriented, linkability and diversity.

Researchers who have implemented conjecture maps (Lee et al., 2018) have found them to be useful for developing theory and learning designs grounded in research and practice. However, it should be noted that design research is iterative and contextual, and conjecture maps are effective in providing visibility and rigor, but are meant to be flexible and responsive to changes in context (Lee et al., 2018; Sandoval, 2014).

This paper provides practical guidelines and principles for researchers, educators, instructional designers and product developers to assess and redesign makerspaces and activities that are intersectionally and universally inclusive, equitable and accessible.

Professor Shackle is the most courteous, the most erudite, and the most radical critic of orthodox economics. The concept of profit, which apparently serves as such a convenient instrument of equilibrium, on closer enquiry is revealed to be necessarily subversive of such schemes of order; for profit can arise only where knowledge is not adequate to support any agreed — even probabilistically agreed — assessment of a situation. Thus any consideration of Professor Shackle's (1972, Chapter 35) discussion of profit focuses our attention on the insufficiency of knowledge which is the core of his criticism of orthodoxy. It should be no surprise, therefore, to find that the problem of coherence within economic systems resembles the problem of coherence in the growth of knowledge. Both appear to depend upon a productive but precarious tension between imaginative conjectures and a framework of serviceable conventions within which they may be tested.