Investigating the effectiveness of animations in exploring learning a case study in a Chemical Engineering course

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Using technology in the classroom environment has become increasingly popular among educators. One way of employing technology is using instructional animations to teach concepts, favoured owing to their ability to depict changes in object over time. Animations are commonly believed to increase motivation and foster learning, but there is little empirical evidence for this belief. Some researchers have found that animations can be effective; others, however, show that animations have the same effect as a combination of static pictures and text. Some have even showed that animations could actually have negative effects on student learning. A lecturer at the University of Cape Town had planned to use animations in his third year undergraduate Chemical Engineering Course in Reactor Design. This became the context for the present study which investigated the effectiveness of these animations for promoting conceptual understanding as well as exploring students' perspective on learning from animations as well as students' enjoyment level. A quasi-experimental case study was conducted over four topics in Reactor Design and one topic was repeated. Each investigation was on one topic, and in each investigation, the Reactor Design class was split so that the student either attended a traditional lecture or an animation lecture. The two groups of students were used to compare the impact of animations on student learning

Mars Ascent Vehicle - Payload?, Spacecraft?, Launch Vehicle? - A Systems Approach to MAV

Significant effort has been expended over the past few years in order to examine propulsion technologies for an eventual robotic Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV). The recent emphasis on studies for an overall sample return campaign, and specifically the Sample Return Lander (SRL) includes the full slate of systems required to implement a MAV. Depending on your point of view, the MAV is a major SRL flight system payload, a Mars Surface Spacecraft, or a Launch Vehicle. We will examine the MAV from these three perspectives in order to tease out the key architectural trades required to be completed prior to the start of a project Phase A activity

Clones of Canadian Hedge Funds

Although Hedge fund is a very appealing investment tool, its drawbacks start to draw investors‘ attention, the need of getting the similar return under the similar risk exposure without facing the high fee and less transparency issues becomes a study subject in the financial industry. In this study, we hand select the historical price of 118 Canadian Hedge funds and 6 market indexes with the time span from 2005 to 2010, and calculate the returns of these funds and indexes to study, we employ the linear regression model and construct the linear clones of 51 hedge funds with higher R square values under the portfolio weight obtained from the regression of the individual hedge fund on the same market risk factors. The outcome from this cloning process is somewhat in our favour in that the clones can represent some, but not 100% , of the returns of the respective hedge funds under the similar risk exposure

Appropriateness in design

When the term ‘design object’ is used to refer to artifacts, we presuppose that they can serve mundane functions and provide aesthetic pleasure. In many cases, the visual form of a design object is a result of achieving aesthetic function and practical function. What is the relation between these two functions? In the design process, designers also strike a balance between aesthetic pursuit, utilitarian purpose and other factors, such as environmental protection. What is the balance of these aims (aesthetic aim and the non-aesthetic aims)? My research on this topic suggests that it may be useful to conceive it in terms of appropriateness. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the relation between aesthetic and non-aesthetic functions in design objects. Another, larger and more fundamental, purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the notion of appropriateness in design through the conceptions of aesthetic value and moral value. The findings of this research contribute to my argument that appropriateness as a property found in design objects is a balance of aesthetic value, functional value and moral value. This unique quality found in design object can be found in many successful universal designs, and it is also part of the reason why this style can prevail for decades. This research also brings two academic disciplines (the studies of design and aesthetics) together. It is something new and timely from which both disciplines could benefit. In addition, the discussion of Wucius Wong’s art, which is part of the analysis of the different functions of design objects, is an original finding which contributes a detailed understanding of Wong’s art and its relation with design concepts. The appropriateness of design is a decision after all things have been considered in the deliberation. It is not necessarily the best and it can be ever changing according to different situations. The investigation of this topic is not aimed at finding an ideal approach to achieve the appropriateness in design, but through the investigation of the relation between aesthetic function and non-aesthetic functions, and the relation of aesthetic value, functional value and moral value of design objects to contribute architects and designers in making an appropriate decision during the design process

Constraints to Exercising Leadership in the Call Center Environment

This paper addresses the constraints to exercising leadership in the call center environment. It combines a review of existing research on leadership, research on call centers as organizations, and a case study with call center team leaders

Combining isotonic regression and EM algorithm to predict genetic risk under monotonicity constraint

In certain genetic studies, clinicians and genetic counselors are interested in estimating the cumulative risk of a disease for individuals with and without a rare deleterious mutation. Estimating the cumulative risk is difficult, however, when the estimates are based on family history data. Often, the genetic mutation status in many family members is unknown; instead, only estimated probabilities of a patient having a certain mutation status are available. Also, ages of disease-onset are subject to right censoring. Existing methods to estimate the cumulative risk using such family-based data only provide estimation at individual time points, and are not guaranteed to be monotonic or nonnegative. In this paper, we develop a novel method that combines Expectation-Maximization and isotonic regression to estimate the cumulative risk across the entire support. Our estimator is monotonic, satisfies self-consistent estimating equations and has high power in detecting differences between the cumulative risks of different populations. Application of our estimator to a Parkinson's disease (PD) study provides the age-at-onset distribution of PD in PARK2 mutation carriers and noncarriers, and reveals a significant difference between the distribution in compound heterozygous carriers compared to noncarriers, but not between heterozygous carriers and noncarriers.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/14-AOAS730 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Admission predictors for success in a mathematics graduate program

There are many factors that can influence the outcome for students in a mathematics PhD program: bachelor's GPA (BGPA), bachelor's major, GRE scores, gender, Under-Represented Minority (URM) status, institution tier, etc. Are these variables equally important predictors of a student's likelihood of succeeding in a math PhD program? In this paper, we present and analyze admission data of students from different groups entering a math PhD program at a southern California university. We observe that some factors correlate with success in the PhD program (defined as obtaining a PhD degree within a time-limit). According to our analysis, GRE scores correlate with success, but interestingly, the verbal part of the GRE score has a higher predictive power compared to the quantitative part. Further, we observe that undergraduate student GPA does not correlate with success (there is even a slight negative slope in the relationship between GPA and the probability of success). This counterintuitive observation is explained once undergraduate institutions are separated by tiers: students from "higher tiers" have undergone a more rigorous training program; they on average have a slightly lower GPA but run a slightly higher probability to succeed. Finally, a gender gap is observed in the probability to succeed with female students having a lower probability to finish with a PhD despite the same undergraduate performance, compared to males. This gap is reversed if we only consider foreign graduate students. It is our hope that this study will encourage other universities to perform similar analyses, in order to design better admission and retention strategies for Math PhD programs.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 4 table

Defining the chromatin signature of inducible genes in T cells

BACKGROUND Specific chromatin characteristics, especially the modification status of the core histone proteins, are associated with active and inactive genes. There is growing evidence that genes that respond to environmental or developmental signals may possess distinct chromatin marks. Using a T cell model and both genome-wide and gene-focused approaches, we examined the chromatin characteristics of genes that respond to T cell activation. RESULTS To facilitate comparison of genes with similar basal expression levels, we used expression-profiling data to bin genes according to their basal expression levels. We found that inducible genes in the lower basal expression bins, especially rapidly induced primary response genes, were more likely than their non-responsive counterparts to display the histone modifications of active genes, have RNA polymerase II (Pol II) at their promoters and show evidence of ongoing basal elongation. There was little or no evidence for the presence of active chromatin marks in the absence of promoter Pol II on these inducible genes. In addition, we identified a subgroup of genes with active promoter chromatin marks and promoter Pol II but no evidence of elongation. Following T cell activation, we find little evidence for a major shift in the active chromatin signature around inducible gene promoters but many genes recruit more Pol II and show increased evidence of elongation. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the majority of inducible genes are primed for activation by having an active chromatin signature and promoter Pol II with or without ongoing elongation

Exploring the Form, Function, and Meaning of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) is a grappling martial art derived from Judo and primarily uses chokeholds and joint locks to incapacitate an attacker. These techniques require little strength and can apply tremendous amounts of force to anatomically weaker areas of the body. BJJ is a growing martial art due to its popularity in self-defense and its effectiveness in sports like mixed martial arts (MMA). This study uses a phenomenological approach and aims to increase the understanding of the form, function, and meaning of BJJ through the lived experiences of BJJ practitioners from different experience levels. Participants will be recruited and interviewed from one BJJ academy either in person or through Zoom and transcripts will be coded. Themes will be later identified. Implications include understanding of BJJ on a deeper level. Human beings express themselves through their participation in their selected occupations which also correlates with their overall health and quality of life. Occupational science is the study of occupations, and it allows occupational therapists to understand occupations on a deeper level which then helps create meaningful interventions.https://soar.usa.edu/otdcapstonessummer2021/1012/thumbnail.jp