4,166 research outputs found
Viewing basic math through the lens of history: Undergraduatesâ reflective learning in a history-augmented mathematics classroom
This study is aimed at determining first-year university studentsâ reflections when Fibonacci tiling, the ancient Chinese fang cheng procedures, and the ancient Indian meru prastara recursions were introduced as historical snippets in an adventure pedagogy for basic mathematics. Seventy-eight first year students enrolled in a course in basic mathematics at a University in North Central Nigerian provided composite self-reports in an action research paradigm, describing their reflective learning after exposure to the historical snippets. Qualitative data reduction strategies were used to explore the studentsâ reflections and progress in the course. The results of the study revealed that the introduction of the historical snippets aids in concretizing of concepts, spurring of behavioural engagement in learners, adding of aesthetic value to mathematics, sustaining of students attention, computational ease and effective recall of mathematical procedures. The activities of the cultural and historical augmentation were reported by participants as plays that accomplish real mathematical tasks. The outcome of this study has strengthened the belief that the history-as-a-tool style of mathematics instruction stimulates curiosity and sustains interest in students while establishing meaningful relationships between abstract ideas and practical applications in the context of the real world
Apperceptive patterning: Artefaction, extensional beliefs and cognitive scaffolding
In âPsychopower and Ordinary Madnessâ my ambition, as it relates to Bernard Stieglerâs recent literature, was twofold: 1) critiquing Stieglerâs work on exosomatization and artefactual posthumanismâor, more specifically, nonhumanismâto problematize approaches to media archaeology that rely upon technical exteriorization; 2) challenging how Stiegler engages with Giuseppe Longo and Francis Baillyâs conception of negative entropy. These efforts were directed by a prevalent techno-cultural qualifier: the rise of Synthetic Intelligence (including neural nets, deep learning, predictive processing and Bayesian models of cognition). This paper continues this project but first directs a critical analytic lens at the Derridean practice of the ontologization of grammatization from which Stiegler emerges while also distinguishing how metalanguages operate in relation to object-oriented environmental interaction by way of inferentialism. Stalking continental (Kapp, Simondon, Leroi-Gourhan, etc.) and analytic traditions (e.g., Carnap, Chalmers, Clark, Sutton, Novaes, etc.), we move from artefacts to AI and Predictive Processing so as to link theories related to technicity with philosophy of mind. Simultaneously drawing forth Robert Brandomâs conceptualization of the roles that commitments play in retrospectively reconstructing the social experiences that lead to our endorsement(s) of norms, we compliment this account with Reza Negarestaniâs deprivatized account of intelligence while analyzing the equipollent role between language and media (both digital and analog)
Seeing the smart city on Twitter: Colour and the affective territories of becoming smart
This paper pays attention to the immense and febrile field of digital image files which picture the smart city as they circulate on the social media platform Twitter. The paper considers tweeted images as an affective field in which flow and colour are especially generative. This luminescent field is territorialised into different, emergent forms of becoming âsmartâ. The paper identifies these territorialisations in two ways: firstly, by using the data visualisation software ImagePlot to create a visualisation of 9030 tweeted images related to smart cities; and secondly, by responding to the affective pushes of the image files thus visualised. It identifies two colours and three ways of affectively becoming smart: participating in smart, learning about smart, and anticipating smart, which are enacted with different distributions of mostly orange and blue images. The paper thus argues that debates about the power relations embedded in the smart city should consider the particular affective enactment of being smart that happens via social media. More generally, the paper concludes that geographers must pay more attention to the diverse and productive vitalities of social media platforms in urban life and that this will require experiment with methods that are responsive to specific digital qualities
O(N) methods in electronic structure calculations
Linear scaling methods, or O(N) methods, have computational and memory
requirements which scale linearly with the number of atoms in the system, N, in
contrast to standard approaches which scale with the cube of the number of
atoms. These methods, which rely on the short-ranged nature of electronic
structure, will allow accurate, ab initio simulations of systems of
unprecedented size. The theory behind the locality of electronic structure is
described and related to physical properties of systems to be modelled, along
with a survey of recent developments in real-space methods which are important
for efficient use of high performance computers. The linear scaling methods
proposed to date can be divided into seven different areas, and the
applicability, efficiency and advantages of the methods proposed in these areas
is then discussed. The applications of linear scaling methods, as well as the
implementations available as computer programs, are considered. Finally, the
prospects for and the challenges facing linear scaling methods are discussed.Comment: 85 pages, 15 figures, 488 references. Resubmitted to Rep. Prog. Phys
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