The design and development of online authentic learning environment for knowledge construction in learning inferential statistics

One of the major problems in learning statistics is due to the learning decontextualized from the real world experience. The students are unable to apply statistical knowledge learnt in real world upon completion of the course. The authentic learning is viewed as a favourable approach in statistics delivery to overcome the problem. However, implementing authentic learning in online platform can be extremely resource intensive and costly to develop. Therefore this paper looked into an innovative and cost effective approach to incorporate the nine critical characteristics of Authentic Learning Model by Herrington and Oliver (2000), underpinned by Vygotsky (1978) Social Development Theory and Lave and Wenger (1991) Situated Learning Theory to develop an online authentic learning environment (OnALE) that foster students' knowledge construction in learning inferential statistics among non-statistics major undergraduates. This environment is established in a social learning network, Edmodo by incorporating Web 2.0 technologies. Perception survey done indicates that OnALE assisted students learning

Studies of release properties of ISOLDE targets

Off-line release rates of Be, Mg, S, Mn and Kr from refractory materials were studied. Mn yields were determined from a ZrO2 target and Kr yields from a SrO and ZrO2 targets. A Monte Carlo code to optimize ISOLDE targets was introduced

Comparative Analysis of Ribosomal Protein Gene, eL14 Expression between Two Types of Colorectal Carcinoma Cell Lines

Association between the expression of ribosomal protein (RP) genes and cancer is widely known. More specifically, the extra-ribosomal functions of RPs have been linked to carcinogenesis. The ribosomal protein gene, eL14 has been reported to be associated with malignancy of the colorectum, albeit of mechanism yet unclear. Its expression in cells derived from different tissue origin of colorectal carcinoma (CRC) has never been explored. Therefore, this study aims to comparatively analyse the expression pattern of eL14 between two different CRC cell lines (DLD-1 and HCT116). It involved a conventional gene expression analysis, the Reverse-Transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) assays. Products of RT-PCR assay were resolved via an agarose gel electrophoresis method, and band intensities of amplicons were documented and quantified using TotalLab Quant software. We observed differential expression patterns of eL14 between DLD-1 and HCT116 cells, but statistical analysis revealed insignificant differences. Therefore, the relevance of eL14 as a biomarker to distinguish between different colorectal cancer cells is suggestive but not conclusive

Critical Exponents of the Classical 3D Heisenberg Model: A Single-Cluster Monte Carlo Study

We have simulated the three-dimensional Heisenberg model on simple cubic lattices, using the single-cluster Monte Carlo update algorithm. The expected pronounced reduction of critical slowing down at the phase transition is verified. This allows simulations on significantly larger lattices than in previous studies and consequently a better control over systematic errors. In one set of simulations we employ the usual finite-size scaling methods to compute the critical exponents $\nu,\alpha,\beta,\gamma, \eta$ from a few measurements in the vicinity of the critical point, making extensive use of histogram reweighting and optimization techniques. In another set of simulations we report measurements of improved estimators for the spatial correlation length and the susceptibility in the high-temperature phase, obtained on lattices with up to $100^3$ spins. This enables us to compute independent estimates of $\nu$ and $\gamma$ from power-law fits of their critical divergencies.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures (not included, available on request). Preprint FUB-HEP 19/92, HLRZ 77/92, September 199

Soft landing of size selected clusters in rare gas matrices

Soft landing of mass selected clusters in rare gas matrices is a technique used to preserve mass selection in cluster deposition. To prevent fragmentation upon deposition, the substrate is covered with rare gas matrices to dissipate the cluster kinetic energy upon impact. Theoretical and experimental studies demonstrate the power of this technique. Besides STM, optical absorption, excitation, and fluorescence experiments, x-ray absorption at core levels can be used as a tool to study soft landing conditions, as will be shown here. X-ray absorption spectroscopy is also well suited to follow diffusion and agglomeration of clusters on surfaces via energy shifts in core level absorption

Protein design in a lattice model of hydrophobic and polar amino acids

A general strategy is described for finding which amino acid sequences have native states in a desired conformation (inverse design). The approach is used to design sequences of 48 hydrophobic and polar aminoacids on three-dimensional lattice structures. Previous studies employing a sequence-space Monte-Carlo technique resulted in the successful design of one sequence in ten attempts. The present work also entails the exploration of conformations that compete significantly with the target structure for being its ground state. The design procedure is successful in all the ten cases.Comment: RevTeX, 12 pages, 1 figur

A fast stroboscopic spectral method for rotating systems in numerical relativity

We present a numerical technique for solving evolution equations, as the wave equation, in the description of rotating astrophysical compact objects in comoving coordinates, which avoids the problems associated with the light cylinder. The technique implements a fast spectral matching between two domains in relative rotation: an inner spherical domain, comoving with the sources and lying strictly inside the light cylinder, and an outer inertial spherical shell. Even though the emphasis is placed on spectral techniques, the matching is independent of the specific manner in which equations are solved inside each domain, and can be adapted to different schemes. We illustrate the strategy with some simple but representative examples.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure

Simulation of Lattice Polymers with Multi-Self-Overlap Ensemble

A novel family of dynamical Monte Carlo algorithms for lattice polymers is proposed. Our central idea is to simulate an extended ensemble in which the self-avoiding condition is systematically weakened. The degree of the self-overlap is controlled in a similar manner as the multicanonical ensemble. As a consequence, the ensemble --the multi-self-overlap ensemble-- contains adequate portions of self-overlapping conformations as well as higher energy ones. It is shown that the multi-self-overlap ensemble algorithm reproduce correctly the canonical averages at finite temperatures of the HP model of lattice proteins. Moreover, it outperforms massively a standard multicanonical algorithm for a difficult example of a polymer with 8-stickers. Alternative algorithm based on exchange Monte Carlo method is also discussed.Comment: 5 Pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses epsf.st

Towards absorbing outer boundaries in General Relativity

We construct exact solutions to the Bianchi equations on a flat spacetime background. When the constraints are satisfied, these solutions represent in- and outgoing linearized gravitational radiation. We then consider the Bianchi equations on a subset of flat spacetime of the form [0,T] x B_R, where B_R is a ball of radius R, and analyze different kinds of boundary conditions on \partial B_R. Our main results are: i) We give an explicit analytic example showing that boundary conditions obtained from freezing the incoming characteristic fields to their initial values are not compatible with the constraints. ii) With the help of the exact solutions constructed, we determine the amount of artificial reflection of gravitational radiation from constraint-preserving boundary conditions which freeze the Weyl scalar Psi_0 to its initial value. For monochromatic radiation with wave number k and arbitrary angular momentum number l >= 2, the amount of reflection decays as 1/(kR)^4 for large kR. iii) For each L >= 2, we construct new local constraint-preserving boundary conditions which perfectly absorb linearized radiation with l <= L. (iv) We generalize our analysis to a weakly curved background of mass M, and compute first order corrections in M/R to the reflection coefficients for quadrupolar odd-parity radiation. For our new boundary condition with L=2, the reflection coefficient is smaller than the one for the freezing Psi_0 boundary condition by a factor of M/R for kR > 1.04. Implications of these results for numerical simulations of binary black holes on finite domains are discussed.Comment: minor revisions, 30 pages, 6 figure