A review of Australasian investigations into problem solving and the novice programmer

This Australasian focused review compares a number of recent studies that have identified difficulties encountered by novices while learning programming and problem solving. These studies have shown that novices are not performing at expected levels and many novices have only a fragile knowledge of programming, which may prevent them from learning and applying problem solving strategies. The review goes on to explore proposals for explicitly incorporating problem solving strategy instruction into introductory programming curricula and assessment, in an attempt to produce improved learning outcomes for novices. Finally, directions suggested by the reviewed studies are gathered and some unanswered questions are raised

Comparing third party financing of litigation versus legal expenses insurance

C

A summation formula for Macdonald polynomials

We derive an explicit sum formula for symmetric Macdonald polynomials. Our expression contains multiple sums over the symmetric group and uses the action of Hecke generators on the ring of polynomials. In the special cases $t=1$ and $q=0$, we recover known expressions for the monomial symmetric and Hall-Littlewood polynomials, respectively. Other specializations of our formula give new expressions for the Jack and $q$-Whittaker polynomials.Comment: 8 page

Nuclear physics from strong coupling QCD

The strong coupling limit (beta_gauge = 0) of QCD offers a number of remarkable research possibilities, of course at the price of large lattice artifacts. Here, we determine the complete phase diagram as a function of temperature T and baryon chemical potential mu_B, for one flavor of staggered fermions in the chiral limit, with emphasis on the determination of a tricritical point and on the T ~ 0 transition to nuclear matter. The latter is known to happen for mu_B substantially below the baryon mass, indicating strong nuclear interactions in QCD at infinite gauge coupling. This leads us to studying the properties of nuclear matter from first principles. We determine the nucleon-nucleon potential in the strong coupling limit, as well as masses m_A of nuclei as a function of their atomic number A. Finally, we clarify the origin of nuclear interactions at strong coupling, which turns out to be a steric effect.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Presented at the XXVII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 26-31, 2009, Peking University, Beijing, Chin