The Irregular Variable Ku Her: The Light And Period Variations

We present CCD photometric observations of the slow irregular type variable KU Her. We have also used observations from the ASAS Database and the AAVSO International Database. The V-band observations span eight years from August of 2002 to September of 2010. The length and density of the data enable us to look for variations on time scales ranging from days to years. The V-band observations of KU Her are analysed to derive periodicity. This analysis was an approach to find the fundamental periods of the variability of KU Her. Analysis of the KU Her light variation indicates a complex combination of different periods. Five main and three harmonic periods are identified. In addition to the period analysis, we present the colour variations of the star.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Universality for mathematical and physical systems

All physical systems in equilibrium obey the laws of thermodynamics. In other words, whatever the precise nature of the interaction between the atoms and molecules at the microscopic level, at the macroscopic level, physical systems exhibit universal behavior in the sense that they are all governed by the same laws and formulae of thermodynamics. In this paper we describe some recent history of universality ideas in physics starting with Wigner's model for the scattering of neutrons off large nuclei and show how these ideas have led mathematicians to investigate universal behavior for a variety of mathematical systems. This is true not only for systems which have a physical origin, but also for systems which arise in a purely mathematical context such as the Riemann hypothesis, and a version of the card game solitaire called patience sorting.Comment: New version contains some additional explication of the problems considered in the text and additional reference

Lambda Dependency-Based Compositional Semantics

This short note presents a new formal language, lambda dependency-based compositional semantics (lambda DCS) for representing logical forms in semantic parsing. By eliminating variables and making existential quantification implicit, lambda DCS logical forms are generally more compact than those in lambda calculus

Application of computational fluid dynamics and laminar flow technology for improved performance and sonic boom reduction

A discussion is given of the many factors that affect sonic booms with particular emphasis on the application and development of improved computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes. The benefits that accrue from interference (induced) lift, distributing lift using canard configurations, the use of wings with dihedral or anhedral and hybrid laminar flow control for drag reduction are detailed. The application of the most advanced codes to a wider variety of configurations along with improved ray-tracing codes to arrive at more accurate and, hopefully, lower sonic booms is advocated. Finally, it is speculated that when all of the latest technology is applied to the design of a supersonic transport it will be found environmentally acceptable

Moments of clarity : a study of higher education teachers' professional learning experiences and the transformational process of change in self-efficacy development : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

This qualitative longitudinal study sought to understand ‘aha’ moments experienced by a group of early career higher education teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand and the role those moments played in the transformational process of change in teacher self-efficacy development. Self-efficacy theory was foregrounded throughout the study, transformation theory provided an established framework to understand the process of transformation, and the notion of threshold concepts was used to conceptualise the ‘aha’ moment and name potential teaching threshold concepts. Aotearoa New Zealand specific teacher self-efficacy studies are important because studies in other contexts have shown self-efficacy is a predictor of teacher motivation, resilience and persistence in the face of difficulties and self-efficacy is linked to successful student achievement. In understanding the relationship between ‘aha’ moments and how these contribute to teacher self-efficacy development, there is the potential for professional learning opportunities that support self-efficacy promotion. Eleven early career teachers shared their experiences of ‘aha’ moments and their interpretation of the role these played in their teacher self-efficacy development. This research found that ‘aha’ moments were personal learning realisations that contributed to change in teacher self-efficacy and that the transformational development of teacher self-efficacy can be understood as a process containing four distinct phases. Furthermore, the transformative ‘aha’ moments, and in particular those that constituted a teaching specific potential threshold concept, provided teachers with an enhanced awareness of teaching capability. Finally, mastery experiences (successful and unsuccessful) were the most commonly described source of efficacy information related to the teachers’ ‘aha’ moments

Compositional Semantic Parsing on Semi-Structured Tables

Two important aspects of semantic parsing for question answering are the breadth of the knowledge source and the depth of logical compositionality. While existing work trades off one aspect for another, this paper simultaneously makes progress on both fronts through a new task: answering complex questions on semi-structured tables using question-answer pairs as supervision. The central challenge arises from two compounding factors: the broader domain results in an open-ended set of relations, and the deeper compositionality results in a combinatorial explosion in the space of logical forms. We propose a logical-form driven parsing algorithm guided by strong typing constraints and show that it obtains significant improvements over natural baselines. For evaluation, we created a new dataset of 22,033 complex questions on Wikipedia tables, which is made publicly available

An unusually rapid Claisen rearrangement involving ring expansion

A Claisen rearrangement of a partially-fluorinated system involving ring expansion occurred at an unusually low temperature, 100 degreesC lower than a comparable system from the literature