Educational software design: Applying models of learning

Numerous psychological models exist which aim to explain how people learn, but the knowledge from educational theory is often missing from the design of computer‐based learning applications. This may stem from the abstract and complex nature of many learning models. In order to address this problem, there is a need for simplified models of learning which include guidelines indicating how such models can be implemented in courseware design. This paper identifies such a model, and presents a series of guidelines intended to enable courseware designers to apply educational theory to the practical design of quality computer‐based learning materials

Technology transfer methodology

Information on technology transfer methodology is given in viewgraph form. Information is given on new systems development, the developer's perspective, barriers to providing a home for technology, and incentives for using new technologies

Effective Project Management for Software Development

The development of information systems, and software in particular, can benefit enormously from sound project management. Information systems are generally complex and their development takes place in a dynamic environment where business conditions and technologies change rapidly. In addition, users are often unsure of their needs and often changing requirements midway through the project. As a result, the whole software industry is plagued by cost overruns, late deliveries, poor reliability, and user dissatisfaction (Abel-Hamid and Madnick, 1991)

Reducing the length of a Goldberg Based Personality Questionnaire using Item Response Theory & Confirmatory Factor Analysis : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

Objectives: This study seeks to reconstitute an existing personality questionnaire by identifying the items that capture the best quality information as measured through item Response Theory (IRT). This process will reduce the length of this measure and increase its measurement precision. Method: A polytomous IRT model (Graded Response: Samejima, 1969) will be used to assess the psychometric properties of each item in this questionnaire and produce item level graphs in order to select the best three items for each of the 26 first-order factors. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) will be used to assess the model fit and unidimensionality before and after the IRT selections are made. This will illustrate the improvement gained through both the deletion of redundant items and the selection of high-quality items. Results: This questionnaire was reduced from 246 items down to 78 items with three high-quality items identified for each of the 26 first-order factors. The model fit considerably improved through this selection process and the reduction of information was minimal in comparison to the amount of items that were deleted. Conclusions: This study illustrated the power of using IRT for test development. The item selections are not only of benefit for the organisation that supplied the data for this study, but also the original developers as well as any other users of these items as they are freely available via an online source

pySDC - Prototyping spectral deferred corrections

In this paper we present the Python framework pySDC for solving collocation problems with spectral deferred correction methods (SDC) and their time-parallel variant PFASST, the parallel full approximation scheme in space and time. pySDC features many implementations of SDC and PFASST, from simple implicit time-stepping to high-order implicit-explicit or multi-implicit splitting and multi-level spectral deferred corrections. It comes with many different, pre-implemented examples and has seven tutorials to help new users with their first steps. Time-parallelism is implemented either in an emulated way for debugging and prototyping as well as using MPI for benchmarking. The code is fully documented and tested using continuous integration, including most results of previous publications. Here, we describe the structure of the code by taking two different perspectives: the user's and the developer's perspective. While the first sheds light on the front-end, the examples and the tutorials, the second is used to describe the underlying implementation and the data structures. We show three different examples to highlight various aspects of the implementation, the capabilities and the usage of pySDC. Also, couplings to the FEniCS framework and PETSc, the latter including spatial parallelism with MPI, are described

Bridging the Gap in the Technology Commercialization Process

Cogeneration merges the production of usable heat and electricity into a single process that helps to reduce carbon emissions, energy waste and energy costs. Until now, this source of sustainable energy has been used mostly in the industrial sector, the consumer market is unknown. One type of cogeneration system, the Stirling engine, is a heat engine that is operated by a cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas at different temperatures. This cogeneration system is capable of charging a smartphone’s battery using the heat of everyday objects like a hot cup or a radiator, or a human hand. There are two main goals of this project; 1) is to design and build a small prototype using the Stirling engine technology to generate electricity; and 2) to conduct a market test to assess the appeal of the Stirling sustainable charger among consumers. Online surveys will be employed to conduct research to evaluate overall purchase interest in this new technology. The information to be collected will include demographic and attitudinal characteristics that can be used to help build consumer profiles, and identify which profiles correlate with higher levels of purchase interest for the Stirling sustainable charger. This research will be used to help position the Stirling charge, and to identify key target segments for the marketing of this product

Geographic Information Systems: The Developer\u27s Perspective

Geographic information systems, which manage data describing the surface of the earth, are becoming increasingly popular. This research details the current state of the art of geographic data processing in terms of the needs of the geographic information system developer. The research focuses chiefly on the geographic data model--the basic building block of the geographic information system. The two most popular models, tessellation and vector, are studied in detail, as well as a number of hybrid data models. In addition, geographic database management is discussed in terms of geographic data access and query processing. Finally, a pragmatic discussion of geographic information system design is presented covering such topics as distributed database considerations and artificial intelligence considerations

ENRICHING APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE (API) DOCUMENTATION USING A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL (LLM) ARCHITECTURE TO IMPROVE LLM API INTERPRETABILITY

Proposed herein is an innovative system designed to address the critical challenge of maintaining accurate and detailed Application Programming Interface (API) documentation in the fast-past environment of software development. Broadly, the system streamlines the creation and updating an of API documentation by leveraging a Large Language Model (LLM) that intelligently analyzes code changes and generates documentation patches/updates based on any detected code changes