Using Mashups and Multimedia to Provide Online User Independence for all Learning Styles

In the globalized e-learning environment, students coming from different cultures have different characteristics and require different support designed for their approaches to study and learning styles. Learn effective strategies of how to revolutionize your web pages and online instructional efforts to create engaging online learning tools and mashups that appeal to diverse learning styles. Improve your ability to move from passive presentation methods to more effective online instruction that focuses on independent student active learning. After a discussion of a usability study to assess learning style preferences as they pertain to library tutorials, the audience will help to redesign a web page by pulling in various (preselected by the speaker) multimedia tools with the end goal being to create a page that allows for maximum control by students so that they can pick and choose the elements they need. By the end of the session, audience members will have experienced a glimpse of challenges many students who are not linear or analytic thinkers confront when using many of the web pages and online instructional tools now available. They will also have had the opportunity to think more broadly about ways to modify pages by bringing in multimedia tools or by creating mash-ups to assist all learners to be able to actively and independently engage in the sites

Generating loop graphs via Hopf algebra in quantum field theory

We use the Hopf algebra structure of the time-ordered algebra of field operators to generate all connected weighted Feynman graphs in a recursive and efficient manner. The algebraic representation of the graphs is such that they can be evaluated directly as contributions to the connected n-point functions. The recursion proceeds by loop order and vertex number.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX + AMS + eepic; new section with alternative recursion formula added, further minor changes and correction

Excuse Me. Is That a Video Studio in Your Library?

Do you get questions from users who have the need to check out cameras or equipment to create a video for a project? Have you wondered what it would involve to create or convert a space that patrons could use for video or audio creation and editing? Does this all seem too daunting or expensive? It is doable and this presentation will give you examples of ways to create a program on limited funds. Although many faculty and teachers now require student projects to be presented in a multimodal format, it is rarely feasible for each department or school to acquire all of the technology needed to support those efforts, the employees knowledgeable in both technology support and media creation, or conversely to require that each student purchase the equipment. This presentation will provide details of the Media Commons at the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois, which serves as a centralized service space that houses a robust loanable technology program and a collaborative laboratory that facilitates the creation of video and audio projects. It is an environment that helps to foster discussion and collaboration from students and faculty to help create solutions through technology. The Media Commons is a service space that offers users the ability to create, disseminate, use, and curate digital media. It meets a need for broad access to media creation tools, video and audio training, and instruction in media literacy. Highlighted will be the three separate video production spaces that were created with limited funds; each focusing on different patron types. Through video clips and examples of case uses, the audience will view the range of possibilities available to provide students and faculty opportunities to create quality videos and to learn of best practices in video and audio creation. The spaces include low cost transformations of a conference room to a video production studio, transformation of two study rooms to Do-IT-Yourself video studios, and the collaboration with campus partners to bring in portable studios. The speakers will provide strategies for developing resources and support for video and audio production and implementation suggestions

Noise-induced Brownian motion of spiral waves

We study the erratic displacement of spiral waves forced to move in a medium with random spatiotemporal excitability. Analytical work and numerical simulations are performed in relation to a kinematic scheme, assumed to describe the autowave dynamics for weakly excitable systems. Under such an approach, the Brownian character of this motion is proved and the corresponding dispersion coefficient is evaluated. This quantity shows a nontrivial dependence on the temporal and spatial correlation parameters of the external fluctuations. In particular, a resonantlike behavior is neatly evidenced in terms of the noise correlation time for the particular situation of spatially uniform fluctuations. Actually, this case turns out to be, to a large extent, exactly solvable, whereas a pair of dispersion mechanisms are discussed qualitatively and quantitatively to explain the results for the more general scenario of spatiotemporal disorder

Nanoporous Carbon Synthesis: An Old Story with Exciting New Chapters

Activated carbons are key materials in technological applications of multidisciplinary fields (e.g. adsorption, separation, and catalytic processes). The extensive use of these materials results from the combination of a well-developed pore network (micropores or micro + mesopores) along with the presence of heteroatoms (e.g. oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur). The large scale production of nanoporous carbons is a well-established process since the first patents date from the beginning of the twentieth century. Conventional activation methodologies are divided between physical, using steam or CO2, and chemical, being KOH, ZnCl2, and H3PO4 the most commonly reported oxidizing agents. Due to the panoply of operational parameters that can be changed or added in the production of activated carbons, there is still room for R&D. In this chapter, both conventional and innovative synthetic processes are reviewed to offer an up-to-date picture regarding raw materials, carbonization step, activation process, and other approaches. Conventional activation of gels and chars obtained by novel approaches (i.e. sol-gel method, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), and acid-mediated carbonization) and more innovative strategies (i.e. variations of HTC process, carbonization of organic salts and ionothermal approaches) are addressed. Textural, surface chemistry and morphological properties of the derived porous carbons were reviewed and critically rationalized

Elliptic curves of large rank and small conductor

For r=6,7,...,11 we find an elliptic curve E/Q of rank at least r and the smallest conductor known, improving on the previous records by factors ranging from 1.0136 (for r=6) to over 100 (for r=10 and r=11). We describe our search methods, and tabulate, for each r=5,6,...,11, the five curves of lowest conductor, and (except for r=11) also the five of lowest absolute discriminant, that we found.Comment: 16 pages, including tables and one .eps figure; to appear in the Proceedings of ANTS-6 (June 2004, Burlington, VT). Revised somewhat after comments by J.Silverman on the previous draft, and again to get the correct page break

Analysis of Round Off Errors with Reversibility Test as a Dynamical Indicator

We compare the divergence of orbits and the reversibility error for discrete time dynamical systems. These two quantities are used to explore the behavior of the global error induced by round off in the computation of orbits. The similarity of results found for any system we have analysed suggests the use of the reversibility error, whose computation is straightforward since it does not require the knowledge of the exact orbit, as a dynamical indicator. The statistics of fluctuations induced by round off for an ensemble of initial conditions has been compared with the results obtained in the case of random perturbations. Significant differences are observed in the case of regular orbits due to the correlations of round off error, whereas the results obtained for the chaotic case are nearly the same. Both the reversibility error and the orbit divergence computed for the same number of iterations on the whole phase space provide an insight on the local dynamical properties with a detail comparable with other dynamical indicators based on variational methods such as the finite time maximum Lyapunov characteristic exponent, the mean exponential growth factor of nearby orbits and the smaller alignment index. For 2D symplectic maps the differentiation between regular and chaotic regions is well full-filled. For 4D symplectic maps the structure of the resonance web as well as the nearby weakly chaotic regions are accurately described.Comment: International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 201

Developing an index for forest productivity mapping - A case study for maritime pine production regulation in Portugal

Productivity is very dependent on the environmental and biotic factors present at the site where the forest species of interest is present. Forest site productivity is usually assessed using empirical models applied to inventory data providing discrete predictions. While the use of GIS-based models enables building a site productivity distribution map. Therefore, the aim of this study was to derive a productivity index using multivariate statistics and coupled GIS-geostatistics to obtain a forest productivity map. To that end, a study area vastly covered by naturally regenerated forests of maritime pine in central Portugal was used. First, a productivity index (PI) was built based on Factorial Correspondence Analysis (FCA) by incorporating a classical site index for the species and region (Sh25 - height index model) and GIS-derived environmental variables (slope and aspect). After, the PI map was obtained by multi-Gaussian kriging and used as a GIS layer to evaluate maritime pine areas by productivity class (e.g., low, intermediate and high). In the end, the area control method was applied to assess the size and the number of compartments to establish by productivity class. The management compartments of equal productivity were digitized as GIS layer and organized in a temporal progression of stands’ age regularly available for cutting each year during a 50-year schedule. The methodological approach developed in this study proved that can be used to build forest productivity maps which are crucial tools to support forest production regulation.A produtividade florestal depende dos fatores ambientais e bióticos da estação onde a espécie florestal se encontra. A produtividade da estação florestal é geralmente avaliada com modelos empíricos aplicados a dados de inventário fornecendo previsões discretas. Enquanto o uso de modelos num SIG permite a construção de mapas de distribuição de produtividade da estação. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo foi desenvolver um índice de produtividade utilizando estatística multivariada e geoestatística acopladas ao SIG para obter um mapa de produtividade florestal. Para o efeito, selecionou-se uma área de estudo com floresta de regeneração natural de pinheiro bravo no centro de Portugal. Primeiramente, o índice de produtividade (PI) foi construído usando a Análise Fatorial das Correspondências (FCA) com um índice de qualidade de estação para a espécie e região (Sh25- modelo de índice de altura) e variáveis ambientais (declive e exposição). Depois, o mapa PI foi obtido por Krigagem multi-Gaussiana e usado como camada SIG para avaliar as áreas da espécie por classe de produtividade (p.e., baixa, intermedia e alta). No final, o método de controle da área foi aplicado para determinar o tamanho e o número de parcelas a serem estabelecidas por classe de produtividade. As parcelas de igual produtividade foram digitalizadas em SIG e organizadas segundo uma progressão de idades disponíveis regularmente para abate anual ao longo de 50 anos. A abordagem metodológica desenvolvida neste estudo provou ser útil na construção de mapas de produtividade florestal que são instrumentos fundamentais para apoiar a regulação da produção florestal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Topological insight into the non-Arrhenius mode hopping of semiconductor ring lasers

We investigate both theoretically and experimentally the stochastic switching between two counter-propagating lasing modes of a semiconductor ring laser. Experimentally, the residence time distribution cannot be described by a simple one parameter Arrhenius exponential law and reveals the presence of two different mode-hop scenarios with distinct time scales. In order to elucidate the origin of these two time scales, we propose a topological approach based on a two-dimensional dynamical system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Aplicação das tecnologias de Web-Mapping

"Os Sistemas de Informação Geográfica (SIG), podem ser considerados, sob o ponto de vista da sua funcionalidade, como um conjunto de ferramentas, para a recolha, armazenamento, organização e selecção, transformação e representação da informação de natureza espacial do 'mundo real', para um determinado conjunto de circunstâncias" (Burrough, 1986). A informação geográfica é fundamentalmente produzida e utilizada em ambiente desktop fechado, ou seja, confinado a apenas alguns utilizadores. No entanto, existem vantagens em tornar estes sistemas mais abertos, ou seja, para evitar a repetição de tarefas já efectuadas, é possível publicar “on-line” cartografia para que outros a possam utilizar como base para outros estudos. A disponibilização de informação geográfica nem sempre é pacífica porque a sua produção envolveu custos e também têm direitos de propriedade. A Internet surge como um importante meio, para que dados geográficos possam ser visualizados em qualquer computador, desde que este tenha ligação àWEB. Desta forma, surge o termo WebSIG. Os WebSIG (ou Web-Mapping) não são simples modos de representar cartografia temática na Internet. Estes permitem, também, a disponibilização de ferramentas de consulta, edição e análise da informação geográfica. O estudo desenvolvido tem os seguintes objectivos: • Indicar os procedimentos para instalação e utilização do software ArcIMS; • Criar serviços de visualização, extracção de informação e edição on-line; • Planeamento e criação de um WEB site (Regadio da Cova da Beira – Bloco C42) para disponibilização dos serviços criados; • Planeamento e criação de um WEB site (Faixa de combustíveis – Idanha-a-Nova)