'5 Minutes With Matt': the Innovative use of Micro Video Blogging in Higher Education

Recent developments in online learning platforms and associated technologies have changed the dynamics of higher education by forcing practitioners to reconsider traditional assumptions of teaching and learning (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004). This has fundamentally changed the nature and parameters of pedagogy within higher education whilst also shifting the associated expectations of students (HEA, 2000). Today, face-to-face teaching alone is considered somewhat antiquated; instead an effective higher education practitioner is now someone who can draw upon a myriad of blended learning strategies (see HEFCE, 2009). Because of this, the author of this paper contends that it is a fundamental responsibility of higher education practitioners today to be responsive to such changes and to continually seek ways of innovatively ‘blending’ traditional face-to-face methods of teaching and learning with new technologies and online platforms. In this vein, this short paper provides an example of how micro-video-blogging has been used as a blended learning tool within a social science programme

Hadwiger Integration of Random Fields

Hadwiger integrals employ the intrinsic volumes as measures for integration of real-valued functions. We provide a formula for the expected values of Hadwiger integrals of Gaussian-related random fields. The expected Hadwiger integrals of random fields are both theoretically interesting and potentially useful in applications such as sensor networks, image processing, and cell dynamics. Furthermore, combining the expected integrals with a functional version of Hadwiger's theorem, we obtain expected values of more general valuations on Gaussian-related random fields

Book Review: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

I first stumbled across the research of Angela Duckworth after she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 for her work investigating the character traits that impact the achievement of long-term goals. So, when it was announced that she would be publishing a book in 2016, I immediately pre-ordered copy so that I could dig into her insights as soon as possible. When I received my copy of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance in the mail, I was excited to crack it open… and then the self-doubt settled in. “What if, after reading the brilliant ideas of a scholar whom I highly regard, I realize that I have no grit… What if I don’t have what it takes?” I was terrified. But, I am convinced that I am not alone. In our current educational culture, one that reinforces a transactional ideology that success is unequivocally defined by test scores and GPA, what is one to do if they literally do not “measure up” to the competition? Is that the end of the road? Is success forever out of reach

Application of a PC based, real-time, data-aquisition system in rotorcraft wind-tunnel testing

Data has been acquired for a rotocraft test in the NASA Langley Transonic Dynamics Tunnel using a desktop data acquisition system. The system, which consists of an IBM Personal Computer AT (PC-AT) and an Omega Engineering OM-900 Stand-Alone Interface System, is well suited for acquiring high speed data on a limited number of channels. The data acquisition system and the interrupt driven software which provides the capability for near real-time cyclic data acquisition as well as data storage and display are described

On Quantifying Dependence: A Framework for Developing Interpretable Measures

We present a framework for selecting and developing measures of dependence when the goal is the quantification of a relationship between two variables, not simply the establishment of its existence. Much of the literature on dependence measures is focused, at least implicitly, on detection or revolves around the inclusion/exclusion of particular axioms and discussing which measures satisfy said axioms. In contrast, we start with only a few nonrestrictive guidelines focused on existence, range and interpretability, which provide a very open and flexible framework. For quantification, the most crucial is the notion of interpretability, whose foundation can be found in the work of Goodman and Kruskal [Measures of Association for Cross Classifications (1979) Springer], and whose importance can be seen in the popularity of tools such as the $R^2$ in linear regression. While Goodman and Kruskal focused on probabilistic interpretations for their measures, we demonstrate how more general measures of information can be used to achieve the same goal. To that end, we present a strategy for building dependence measures that is designed to allow practitioners to tailor measures to their needs. We demonstrate how many well-known measures fit in with our framework and conclude the paper by presenting two real data examples. Our first example explores U.S. income and education where we demonstrate how this methodology can help guide the selection and development of a dependence measure. Our second example examines measures of dependence for functional data, and illustrates them using data on geomagnetic storms.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-STS405 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Performance Monitoring of Control Systems using Likelihood Methods

Evaluating deterioration in performance of control systems using closed loop operating data is addressed. A framework is proposed in which acceptable performance is expressed as constraints on the closed loop transfer function impulse response coefficients. Using likelihood methods, a hypothesis test is outlined to determine if control deterioration has occurred. The method is applied to a simulation example as well as data from an operational distillation column, and the results are compared to those obtained using minimum variance estimation approaches