3,114 research outputs found
The Development of Instruments for Assessment of Instructional Practices in Standards-Based Teaching
We provide a description and rationale for the development of two instruments: 1) a classroom observation protocol; and, 2) a teacher interview protocol—designed to document the impact of reform-based professional development with undergraduate mathematics and science faculty, and its impact on the resultant preparation of teachers. Constructed upon review of the research on teaching and standards documents in mathematics and science, these instruments form the basis for data collection in a three-year longitudinal study of teaching practice among early career teachers as well as undergraduate college faculty. In addition, we suggest further applications of the observation protocol beyond the original purpose of our research study
Adapting structuration theory to understand the role of reflexivity: Problematization, clinical audit and information systems
This paper is an exploratory account of the further development and application of a hybrid framework,
StructurANTion, that is based on Structuration Theory and Actor Network Theory (ANT). The use of social
theories in general and their use in information systems (IS) research in particular is explored leading to
the use of the framework to examine the concept of what are termed humanchine networks in the context
of clinical audit, within a healthcare Primary Care Trust (PCT). A particular focus is on the manner in which
information systems-based reflexivity contributes to both entrenching a networks’ structurated order as
well as contributing to its emancipatory change. The case study compares clinic-centric and patientcentric
audit and seeks to further extend the understanding of the role of information and information
systems within structurated humanchine activity systems. Conclusions indicate that the use of more
socially informed IS methods and approaches can incorporate more emancipatory ideals and lead to
greater adoption and usage of more relevant and useful clinical information systems and practices
Measurements of the short-term stability of quartz crystal resonators: A window on future developments in crystal oscillators
Recent measurements of the inherent short-term stability of quartz crystal resonators are presented. These measurements show that quartz resonators are much more stable for times less than 1s than the best available commercial quartz oscillators. A simple model appears to explain the noise mechanism in crystal controlled oscillators and points the way to design changes which should permit more than 2 orders of magnitude improvement in their short-term stability. Calculations show that a reference signal at 1 THz, derived from frequency multiplying a 5 MHz source with the above measured crystal stability, should have an instantaneous or fast linewidth of order 1 Hz. These calculations explicitly include the noise contribution of our present multiplier chains and are briefly outlined
Asymptotic silence-breaking singularities
We discuss three complementary aspects of scalar curvature singularities:
asymptotic causal properties, asymptotic Ricci and Weyl curvature, and
asymptotic spatial properties. We divide scalar curvature singularities into
two classes: so-called asymptotically silent singularities and non-generic
singularities that break asymptotic silence. The emphasis in this paper is on
the latter class which have not been previously discussed. We illustrate the
above aspects and concepts by describing the singularities of a number of
representative explicit perfect fluid solutions.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figure
Randomized Smoothing for Stochastic Optimization
We analyze convergence rates of stochastic optimization procedures for
non-smooth convex optimization problems. By combining randomized smoothing
techniques with accelerated gradient methods, we obtain convergence rates of
stochastic optimization procedures, both in expectation and with high
probability, that have optimal dependence on the variance of the gradient
estimates. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first variance-based
rates for non-smooth optimization. We give several applications of our results
to statistical estimation problems, and provide experimental results that
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. We also describe how
a combination of our algorithm with recent work on decentralized optimization
yields a distributed stochastic optimization algorithm that is order-optimal.Comment: 39 pages, 3 figure
Cosmological Phase Transitions and their Properties in the NMSSM
We study cosmological phase transitions in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric
Standard Model (NMSSM) in light of the Higgs discovery. We use an effective
field theory approach to calculate the finite temperature effective potential,
focusing on regions with significant tree-level contributions to the Higgs
mass, a viable neutralino dark matter candidate, 1-2 TeV stops, and with the
remaining particle spectrum compatible with current LHC searches and results.
The phase transition structure in viable regions of parameter space exhibits a
rich phenomenology, potentially giving rise to one- or two-step first-order
phase transitions in the singlet and/or directions. We compute several
parameters pertaining to the bubble wall profile, including the bubble wall
width and (the variation of the ratio in Higgs vacuum expectation
values across the wall). These quantities can vary significantly across small
regions of parameter space and can be promising for successful electroweak
baryogenesis. We estimate the wall velocity microphysically, taking into
account the various sources of friction acting on the expanding bubble wall.
Ultra-relativistic solutions to the bubble wall equations of motion typically
exist when the electroweak phase transition features substantial supercooling.
For somewhat weaker transitions, the bubble wall instead tends to be
sub-luminal and, in fact, likely sub-sonic, suggesting that successful
electroweak baryogenesis may indeed occur in regions of the NMSSM compatible
with the Higgs discovery.Comment: 49 pages + 2 appendices, 6 figures. v2: Minor corrections; matches
version published in JHE
- …