297,155 research outputs found
An Online Tutor for Astronomy: The GEAS Self-Review Library
We introduce an interactive online resource for use by students and college
instructors in introductory astronomy courses. The General Education Astronomy
Source (GEAS) online tutor guides students developing mastery of core
astronomical concepts and mathematical applications of general astronomy
material. It contains over 12,000 questions, with linked hints and solutions.
Students who master the material quickly can advance through the topics, while
under-prepared or hesitant students can focus on questions on a certain topic
for as long as needed, with minimal repetition. Students receive individual
accounts for study and course instructors are provided with overview tracking
information, by time and by topic, for entire cohorts of students. Diagnostic
tools support self-evaluation and close collaboration between instructor and
student, even for distance learners. An initial usage study shows clear trends
in performance which increase with study time, and indicates that distance
learners using these materials perform as well as or better than a comparison
cohort of on-campus astronomy students. We are actively seeking new
collaborators to use this resource in astronomy courses and other educational
venues.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures; Vogt, N. P., and A. S. Muise. 2015. An online
tutor for general astronomy: The GEAS self-review library. Cogent Education,
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A fractional B-spline collocation method for the numerical solution of fractional predator-prey models
We present a collocation method based on fractional B-splines for the solution of fractional differential problems. The key-idea is to use the space generated by the fractional B-splines, i.e., piecewise polynomials of noninteger degree, as approximating space. Then, in the collocation step the fractional derivative of the approximating function is approximated accurately and efficiently by an exact differentiation rule that involves the generalized finite difference operator. To show the effectiveness of the method for the solution of nonlinear dynamical systems of fractional order, we solved the fractional Lotka-Volterra model and a fractional predator-pray model with variable coefficients. The numerical tests show that the method we proposed is accurate while keeping a low computational cost
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