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This paper considers the classical problem of the deformation of an elastic‐plastic body subjected to a prescribed history of loading. Attention is focused on the basis for the time discretization of the problem for numerical solution. It is suggested that this discretization can be achieved consistently by conceiving of the problem as a sequence of holonomic, or non‐linear elastic, problems. Complementary work bounds can be given, in special circumstances, for increasing numbers of time steps. The holonomic problem for a single time step is a non‐linear mathematical programming problem: it is shown that the conventional Newton‐Raphson algorithm used in elastic‐plastic finite element analysis can be interpreted as an iterative procedure for finding the least value of the holonomic potential work functional.

This chapter describes how conversational computer agents have been used in collaborative problem-solving environments. These agent-based systems are designed to (a) assess the students’ knowledge, skills, actions, and various other psychological states on the basis of the students’ actions and the conversational interactions, (b) generate discourse moves that are sensitive to the psychological states and the problem states, and (c) advance a solution to the problem. We describe how this was accomplished in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) in 2015. In the PISA CPS 2015 assessment, a single human test taker (15-year-old student) interacts with one, two, or three agents that stage a series of assessment episodes. This chapter proposes that this PISA framework could be extended to accommodate more open-ended natural language interaction for those languages that have developed technologies for automated computational linguistics and discourse. Two examples support this suggestion, with associated relevant empirical support. First, there is AutoTutor, an agent that collaboratively helps the student answer difficult questions and solve problems. Second, there is CPS in the context of a multi-party simulation called Land Science in which the system tracks progress and knowledge states of small groups of 3–4 students. Human mentors or computer agents prompt them to perform actions and exchange open-ended chat in a collaborative learning and problem-solving environment.

The main body of literature that has developed about educator stress indicates ours is a profession marked by high levels of distressful encounters and that educators are not faring well in this environment. The authors believe this case is over‐stated and that education, as a field, is not nearly so marked by the littered casualties of distress that the literature would have us believe exist. This conclusion is founded on both a small literature base which holds a contrary point of view, and on three studies of administrators and teachers which consistently indicate educators are much more adaptable and consequently, less stressed, than we have been led to believe. The purpose of the first study was to identify the levels of stress school principals experience on the job and to investigate the impact of perceived locus of control and powerlessness on their stress levels. The second study examined the extent to which school principals' perceived level of stress is related to their role relationship with groups internal and external to the school organization. The goals of the third study were to establish the levels of teachers' perceived stress, the organizationally‐based factors that are most stress‐inducing, and the predominant ways in which teachers manifest stress. The results of these studies, with great consistency, indicate low educator stress. These findings have important implications for the development of new approaches to stress research and for policy decisions concerning allocation of organizational resources to stress management design and staff development.

Team cognition research continues to evolve as the need for understanding and improving complex problem solving itself grows. Complex problem solving requires members to engage in a number of complicated collaborative processes to generate solutions. This chapter illustrates how the Macrocognition in Teams model, developed to guide research on these processes, can be utilized to propose how intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs) could be developed to train collaborative problem solving. Metacognitive prompting, based upon macrocognitive processes, was offered as an intervention to scaffold learning these complex processes. Our objective is to provide a theoretically grounded approach for linking intelligent tutoring research and development with team cognition. In this way, team members are more likely to learn how to identify and integrate relevant knowledge, as well as plan, monitor, and reflect on their problem-solving performance as it evolves. We argue that ITSs that utilize metacognitive prompting that promotes team planning during the preparation stage, team knowledge building during the execution stage, and team reflexivity and team knowledge sharing interventions during the reflection stage can improve collaborative problem solving.

FINANCIAL fears are only less cruel than those of war, and lead men into extravagances which they would repudiate indignantly in their cooler moments. If the doings of the Economy Committee at Manchester in relation to children's libraries, as described in the article by Mr. Lamb in our last issue, are true, we have in them an example of a kind of retrenchment at the expense of the young which we hope is without parallel and will have no imitators. Some reduc‐tion of estimates we hear of from this or that place, but in few has the stupid policy which urges that if we spend nothing we shall all become rich been carried into full effect. Libraries always have suffered in times of crisis, whatever they are; we accept that, though doubtfully; but we do know that the people need libraries.

In a paper presented to the U.C.E.A. Conference on Thought and Research in Educational Administration held in honour of Professor Dan Griffiths, Professor Donald Willower drew the participants' attention to the existence of evidence of a special brand of humour in educational administration subcultures. Willower categorised this humour as the “war story” variety, and suggested such humour may turn what could be considered a personal attack on the administration into a less threatening, amusing incident and, when expressed in meetings with the members of the subculture, seemed to evoke shared ordeals, common meanings and social support. Wood, in studying coping mechanism in a British high school, concluded that humour and laughter played a major role in coping strategies of teachers and students alike. The positions raised by these authors prompted certain questions regarding humour and its importance to school communities and became the stimulus for the study reported here into the relationship of humour to the role of the school principal, and the implications of such a relationship for research in education. This article outlines the rationale for studying the humour of principals, the methodology of the study, its findings and conclusions.