Communication And Research Skills In The Information Systems Curriculum: A Method Of Assessment

Assessment of learning goals has become the norm in business programs in higher education across the country.  This paper offers a methodology for the assessment of both communication skills and research skills within a curriculum of the Bachelor of Science in Information Systems Program.  Program level learning goals assessed in this paper are: (1) To be able to effectively communicate complex information system and business concepts both orally and in writing, (2)  To be able to do research of the IS literature that will allow life-long learning in the field, and (3) To understand both individual and group dynamics of project teams.   The discussion of each of the three learning goals includes: (1) the assessment methodology, (2) the assessment results and (3) recommendations on how to close-the-loop.&nbsp

Using Relational Database Software To Prepare An Archival Dataset For Importation Into A Statistical Analysis Package

Researchers frequently find that archival data that they need to test their theoretical models must undergo a variety of preparatory steps before the data are ready to be loaded into their favorite statistical analysis package.  Although some powerful software tools and techniques to handle such data preparation do exist and are relatively easy to learn, many researchers remain unaware of them.  The purpose of this paper is to introduce some of these data preparation tools and techniques by use of a hands-on demonstration.  The demonstration begins with data embedded in a Web page and shows how a spreadsheet, a word processor, and the SQL language from a relational database can be used to make the extracted “ready for prime-time.”  The original Web page data for the demonstration can be downloaded from the authors’ web page; the software packages used to prepare the data are MS Excel, MS Word, and MS Access.  Although SPSS is used for the statistical analysis described in the final phase of the process, readers do not have to have this software to benefit from the demonstration.  Any statistical analysis package could be used

Data Preparation 101: How To Use Query-By-Example To Get Your Research Dataset Ready For Primetime

Researchers are often distressed to discover that the data they wanted to use in their landmark study is not configured in a way that is usable by a Statistical Analysis Software Package (SASP). For example, the data needed may come from two or more sources and it may not be clear to the researcher how to get them combined into one analyzable dataset. Fortunately, there is hope. The query facility within database management software (DBMS), such as Microsoft Access, is particularly well-equipped to do the data reconfigurations necessary to get datasets ready for a SASP. Unfortunately, most researchers have either never been exposed to a DBMS or are unaware of the powerful data-transforming queries that they can perform. The purpose of this paper is to introduce researchers to some very helpful and relatively easy to learn techniques for solving common dataset misconfiguration problems. It is presented in three sets of hands-on examples: (1) how to import a dataset from an electronic spreadsheet into a database table, (2) how to use an easy-to-learn DBMS facility called Query-By-Example (QBE) to perform specific data reconfiguration tasks, and (3) how to import the reconfigured dataset from the DBMS into a SASP. The software used is MS Excel, MS Access, and SPSS (originally called Statistical Package for the Social Sciences). The examples are presented step-by-step so that the reader can follow along using files downloadable from the authors websit

Quantum Hall conductance of two-terminal graphene devices

Measurement and theory of the two-terminal conductance of monolayer and bilayer graphene in the quantum Hall regime are compared. We examine features of conductance as a function of gate voltage that allow monolayer, bilayer, and gapped samples to be distinguished, including N-shaped distortions of quantum Hall plateaus and conductance peaks and dips at the charge neutrality point. Generally good agreement is found between measurement and theory. Possible origins of discrepancies are discussed

Learning SO(3) Equivariant Representations with Spherical CNNs

We address the problem of 3D rotation equivariance in convolutional neural networks. 3D rotations have been a challenging nuisance in 3D classification tasks requiring higher capacity and extended data augmentation in order to tackle it. We model 3D data with multi-valued spherical functions and we propose a novel spherical convolutional network that implements exact convolutions on the sphere by realizing them in the spherical harmonic domain. Resulting filters have local symmetry and are localized by enforcing smooth spectra. We apply a novel pooling on the spectral domain and our operations are independent of the underlying spherical resolution throughout the network. We show that networks with much lower capacity and without requiring data augmentation can exhibit performance comparable to the state of the art in standard retrieval and classification benchmarks.Comment: Camera-ready. Accepted to ECCV'18 as oral presentatio

Measurement of the Tip-Induced Potential in Scanning Gate Experiments

We present a detailed experimental study on the electrostatic interaction between a quantum dot and the metallic tip of a scanning force microscope. Our method allowed us to quantitatively map the tip-induced potential and to determine the spatial dependence of the tip's lever arm with high resolution. We find that two parts of the tip-induced potential can be distinguished, one that depends on the voltage applied to the tip and one that is independent of this voltage. The first part is due to the metallic tip while we interpret the second part as the effect of a charged dielectric particle on the tip. In the measurements of the lever arm we find fine structure that depends on which quantum state we study. The results are discussed in view of scanning gate experiments where the tip is used as a movable gate to study nanostructures.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, minor changes to fit published versio

Improved Current Densities in MgB2 By Liquid-Assisted Sintering

Polycrystalline MgB2 samples with GaN additions were prepared by reaction of Mg, B, and GaN powders. The presence of Ga leads to a low melting eutectic phase which allowed liquid phase sintering and produces plate-like grains. For low-level GaN additions (5% at. % or less), the critical transition temperature, Tc, remained unchanged and in 1T magnetic field, the critical current density, Jc was enhanced by a factor of 2 and 10, for temperatures of \~5K and 20K, respectively. The values obtained are approaching those of hot isostatically pressed samples.Comment: 12 pages, 1 table, 4 figures, accepted in Applied Physics Letter

Thin-Film Trilayer Manganate Junctions

Spin-dependent conductance across a manganate-barrier-manganate junction has recently been demonstrated. The junction is a La$_{0.67}$Sr$_{0.33}$MnO$_3$% -SrTiO$_3$-La$_{0.67}$ Sr$_{0.33}$MnO$_3$ trilayer device supporting current-perpendicular transport. Large magnetoresistance of up to a factor of five change was observed in these junctions at 4.2K in a relatively low field of the order of 100 Oe. Temperature and bias dependent studies revealed a complex junction interface structure whose materials physics has yet to be understood.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures. To appear in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A vol.356 (1998

Raising Bi-O bands above the Fermi energy level of hole-doped Bi2_2Sr2_2CaCu2_2O8+δ_{8+\delta} and other cuprate superconductors

The Fermi surface (FS) of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ (Bi2212) predicted by band theory displays Bi-related pockets around the $(\pi,0)$ point, which have never been observed experimentally. We show that when the effects of hole doping either by substituting Pb for Bi or by adding excess O in Bi2212 are included, the Bi-O bands are lifted above the Fermi energy ($E_F$) and the resulting first-principles FS is in remarkable accord with measurements. With decreasing hole-doping the Bi-O bands drop below $E_F$ and the system self-dopes below a critical hole concentration. Computations on other Bi- as well as Tl- and Hg-based compounds indicate that lifting of the cation-derived band with hole doping is a general property of the electronic structures of the cuprates.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; PRL (2006, in press