Activating Boxmind: an evaluation of a web‐based video lecture with synchronized activities

The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of synchronous computer‐mediated communication activities in a video e‐lecture. Previous research has reported that learning is facilitated when communication activities are added to a video lecture. Twelve postgraduate students participated in the study and they viewed a video e‐lecture on the perspective‐taking theory of communication. The lecture consisted of a video image of the lecturer, an audio track, slides, the transcript and a number of communication activities. They were given a pre‐test a week before the lecture and a post‐test a week after. They were also asked to rate the helpfulness of various aspects of the lecture. Students’ post‐test scores were statistically significantly higher than their pre‐test scores. They found the audio track, transcript, slides and activities helpful. The most helpful aspects were the communication activities. The implications of these findings are discussed

Five Lectures On Dissipative Master Equations

1 First Lecture: Basics 1.1 Physical Derivation of the Master Equation 1.2 Some Simple Implications 1.3 Steady State 1.4 Action to the Left 2 Second Lecture: Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors of L 2.1 A Simple Case First 2.2 The General Case 3 Third Lecture: Completeness of the Damping Bases 3.1 Phase Space Functions 3.2 Completeness of the Eigenvectors of L 3.3 Positivity Conservation 3.4 Lindblad Form of Liouville Operators 4 Fourth Lecture: Quantum-Optical Applications 4.1 Periodically Driven Damped Oscillator 4.2 Conditional and Unconditional Evolution 4.3 Physical Signicance of Statistical Operators 5 Fifth Lecture: Statistics of Detected Atoms 5.1 Correlation Functions 5.2 Waiting Time Statistics 5.3 Counting StatisticsComment: 58 pages, 10 figures; book chapter to appear in ``Coherent Evolution in Noisy Environments'', Lecture Notes in Physics, (Springer Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York). Notes of lectures given in Dresden,23-27 April 200

Beyond the Standard Model for Hillwalkers

In the first lecture, the Standard Model is reviewed, with the aim of seeing how its successes constrain possible extensions, the significance of the apparently low Higgs mass indicated by precision electroweak experiments is discussed, and defects of the Standard Model are examined. The second lecture includes a general discussion of the electroweak vacuum and an introduction to supersymmetry, motivated by the gauge hierarchy problem. In the third lecture, the phenomenology of supersymmetric models is discussed in more detail, with emphasis on the information provided by LEP data. The fourth lecture introduces Grand Unified Theories, with emphases on general principles and on neutrino masses and mixing. Finally, the last lecture contains short discussions of some further topics, including supersymmetry breaking, gauge-mediated messenger models, supergravity, strings and $M$ phenomenology.Comment: Lectures presented at 1998 European School of High-Energy Physics, 64 pages LaTeX, 37 eps figures, uses cernrep.cl

Discrete Torsion, Quotient Stacks, and String Orbifolds

This is the writeup of a lecture given at the May Wisconsin workshop on mathematical aspects of orbifold string theory. In the first part of this lecture, we review recent work on discrete torsion, and outline how it is currently understood in terms of the B field. In the second part of this lecture, we discuss the relationship between quotient stacks and string orbifolds.Comment: 38 pages, 5 figure