Development of nutritionally balanced and acceptable army ration packs : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Technology in Product Development at Massey University

Pg 198 not in original - misnumberedNutritionally balanced and consumer acceptable one man ration packs were developed for the N.Z. Army. The rations were designed quantitatively, using firstly mixed integer linear programming and secondly, menu planning techniques with spread sheet analysis. For the mixed integer linear programming model, nutritional and food quantity constraints were obtained from a literature search and from a consumer survey on the present ration packs. The four menus of the first prototype ration pack, developed using mixed integer linear programming model, were consumer tested with a small group of soldiers during a field exercise in New Zealand. Focus groups determined the soldiers' attitudes to the new pack. The results showed that the first prototype ration pack was superior to the present ration pack, though improvements were still required. Redesigning of the ration pack menus included the selection of commercially available foods and the development of 5 canned meat meals with army personnel consumer groups. The final menu planning used spreadsheet analysis, as it provided a quicker output of results. A second prototype ration pack, with four menus, was finally developed. This second prototype ration pack was consumer tested with larger groups of soldiers in Malaysia and New Zealand, on separate field exercises. Both trials indicated high acceptance of the second prototype ration pack, with only the weight and the bulkiness being major problems. A final prototype ration pack was developed based on the foods included in the second prototype. This pack included two main meals in the form of canned meat meals, several snack foods and beverages. The average weight and cost of this final prototype ration pack were 1.411 kg and $10.62, compared to 1.275 kg and$8.10 for the present ration pack. The nutritional composition of this final prototype did not meet all the human requirements, as it was based on the foods in the second prototype ration pack. Some of these foods, particularly the canned meals, need to be reformulated to ensure that the pack provides the complete requirements of the soldiers over the period of an exercise

Forty hours of declarative programming: Teaching Prolog at the Junior College Utrecht

This paper documents our experience using declarative languages to give secondary school students a first taste of Computer Science. The course aims to teach students a bit about programming in Prolog, but also exposes them to important Computer Science concepts, such as unification or searching strategies. Using Haskell's Snap Framework in combination with our own NanoProlog library, we have developed a web application to teach this course.Comment: In Proceedings TFPIE 2012, arXiv:1301.465

Automata Tutor v3

Computer science class enrollments have rapidly risen in the past decade. With current class sizes, standard approaches to grading and providing personalized feedback are no longer possible and new techniques become both feasible and necessary. In this paper, we present the third version of Automata Tutor, a tool for helping teachers and students in large courses on automata and formal languages. The second version of Automata Tutor supported automatic grading and feedback for finite-automata constructions and has already been used by thousands of users in dozens of countries. This new version of Automata Tutor supports automated grading and feedback generation for a greatly extended variety of new problems, including problems that ask students to create regular expressions, context-free grammars, pushdown automata and Turing machines corresponding to a given description, and problems about converting between equivalent models - e.g., from regular expressions to nondeterministic finite automata. Moreover, for several problems, this new version also enables teachers and students to automatically generate new problem instances. We also present the results of a survey run on a class of 950 students, which shows very positive results about the usability and usefulness of the tool

Automated Feedback for 'Fill in the Gap' Programming Exercises

Timely feedback is a vital component in the learning process. It is especially important for beginner students in Information Technology since many have not yet formed an effective internal model of a computer that they can use to construct viable knowledge. Research has shown that learning efficiency is increased if immediate feedback is provided for students. Automatic analysis of student programs has the potential to provide immediate feedback for students and to assist teaching staff in the marking process. This paper describes a “fill in the gap” programming analysis framework which tests students’ solutions and gives feedback on their correctness, detects logic errors and provides hints on how to fix these errors. Currently, the framework is being used with the Environment for Learning to Programming (ELP) system at Queensland University of Technology (QUT); however, the framework can be integrated into any existing online learning environment or programming Integrated Development Environment (IDE

A Novice's Process of Object-Oriented Programming

Exposing students to the process of programming is merely implied but not explicitly addressed in texts on programming which appear to deal with 'program' as a noun rather than as a verb.We present a set of principles and techniques as well as an informal but systematic process of decomposing a programming problem. Two examples are used to demonstrate the application of process and techniques.The process is a carefully down-scaled version of a full and rich software engineering process particularly suited for novices learning object-oriented programming. In using it, we hope to achieve two things: to help novice programmers learn faster and better while at the same time laying the foundation for a more thorough treatment of the aspects of software engineering

A review of Australasian investigations into problem solving and the novice programmer

This Australasian focused review compares a number of recent studies that have identified difficulties encountered by novices while learning programming and problem solving. These studies have shown that novices are not performing at expected levels and many novices have only a fragile knowledge of programming, which may prevent them from learning and applying problem solving strategies. The review goes on to explore proposals for explicitly incorporating problem solving strategy instruction into introductory programming curricula and assessment, in an attempt to produce improved learning outcomes for novices. Finally, directions suggested by the reviewed studies are gathered and some unanswered questions are raised

How do particle physicists learn the programming concepts they need?

The ability to read, use and develop code efficiently and successfully is a key ingredient in modern particle physics. We report the experience of a training program, identified as "Advanced Programming Concepts", that introduces software concepts, methods and techniques to work effectively on a daily basis in a HEP experiment or other programming intensive fields. This paper illustrates the principles, motivations and methods that shape the "Advanced Computing Concepts" training program, the knowledge base that it conveys, an analysis of the feedback received so far, and the integration of these concepts in the software development process of the experiments as well as its applicability to a wider audience.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, CHEP2015 proceeding