Understanding of the Mole Concept Achieved by Students in a Constructivist General Chemistry Course

The purpose of this research project was to study the conceptual understanding achieved in a general chemistry course based on a constructivist approach. A group of 28 students participated in repeated measures obtained by means of conceptual maps about the mole concept prepared three times during the course: at the beginning the course, immediately after the concept was studied, and after studying other related concepts. In addition, eight students selected from the group of 28 were interviewed. The interviews were carried out focusing on their conceptual maps. The analysis of the repeated measures indicated significant differences among the three times, especially between the first two. It was evidenced, therefore, that these students obtained a significantly higher level of understanding of the mole concept. The qualitative analysis carried out with students identified a broad range of responses that represent different levels of hierarchical organization, of progressive differentiation, and of formation of significant relations of the mole concept. Some recommendations offered are to develop and implement teaching methods that promote understanding of scientific concepts, and to prepare science professors and teachers to emphasize teaching for conceptual understanding

Multivectorial strategy to interpret a resistive behaviour of loads in smart buildings

In Smart buildings, electric loads are affected by an important distortion in the current and voltage waveforms, caused by the increasing proliferation of non linear electronic devices. This paper presents an approach on non sinusoidal power theory based on Geometric Algebra that clearly improves traditional methods in the optimization of apparent power and power factor compensation. An example is included that demonstrates the superiority of this approach compared with traditional methods.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Classical Antiferromagnetism in Kinetically Frustrated Electronic Models

We study the infinite U Hubbard model with one hole doped away half-filling, in triangular and square lattices with frustrated hoppings that invalidate Nagaoka's theorem, by means of the density matrix renormalization group. We find that these kinetically frustrated models have antiferromagnetic ground states with classical local magnetization in the thermodynamic limit. We identify the mechanism of this kinetic antiferromagnetism with the release of the kinetic energy frustration as the hole moves in the established antiferromagnetic background. This release can occurs in two different ways: by a non-trivial spin-Berry phase acquired by the hole or by the effective vanishing of the hopping amplitude along the frustrating loops.Comment: 12 pages and 4 figures, with Supplementary Material. To be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Explosion of white dwarfs harboring hybrid CONe cores

Recently, it has been found that off-centre carbon burning in a subset of intermediate-mass stars does not propagate all the way to the center, resulting in a class of hybrid CONe cores. Here, we consider the possibility that stars hosting these hybrid CONe cores might belong to a close binary system and, eventually, become white dwarfs accreting from a non-degenerate companion at rates leading to a supernova explosion. We have computed the hydrodynamical phase of the explosion of Chandrasekhar-mass white dwarfs harboring hybrid cores, assuming that the explosion starts at the center, either as a detonation (as may be expected in some degenerate merging scenarios) or as a deflagration (that afterwards transitions into a delayed detonation). We assume these hybrid cores are made of a central CO volume, of mass M(CO), surrounded by an ONe shell. We show that, in case of a pure detonation, a medium-sized CO-rich region, M(CO)<0.4 Msun, results in the ejection of a small fraction of the mantle while leaving a massive bound remnant. Part of this remnant is made of the products of the detonation, Fe-group nuclei, but they are buried in its inner regions, unless convection is activated during the ensuing cooling and shrinking phase of the remnant. In contrast, and somehow paradoxically, delayed detonations do not leave remnants but for the minimum M(CO) we have explored, M(CO)=0.2 Msun, and even in this case the remnant is as small as 0.13 Msun. The ejecta produced by these delayed detonations are characterized by slightly smaller masses of 56Ni and substantially smaller kinetic energies than obtained for a delayed detonation of a 'normal' CO white dwarf. The optical emission expected from these explosions would hardly match the observational properties of typical Type Ia supernovae, although they make interesting candidates for the subluminous class of SN2002cx-like or SNIax.Comment: Accepted for Astronomy and Astrophysics, 11 pages, 4 figure

Exploring the Physics of Type Ia Supernovae Through the X-ray Spectra of their Remnants

We present the results of an ongoing project to use the X-ray observations of Type Ia Supernova Remnants to constrain the physical processes involved in Type Ia Supernova explosions. We use the Tycho Supernova Remnant (SN 1572) as a benchmark case, comparing its observed spectrum with models for the X-ray emission from the shocked ejecta generated from different kinds of Type Ia explosions. Both the integrated spectrum of Tycho and the spatial distribution of the Fe and Si emission in the remnant are well reproduced by delayed detonation models with stratified ejecta. All the other Type Ia explosion models fail, including well-mixed deflagrations calculated in three dimensions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the "Stellar end products" workshop, 13-15 April 2005, Granada, Spain, ed. M.A. Perez-Torres, Vol. 77 (Jan 2006) of MmSA