An Investigation of Primary Mathematics Teachers’ Questioning Skills

This study aims to investigate the primary school mathematics teachers’ questioning skills in class. It also includes observation of the questioning skills of two primary school mathematics teachers. This mixed-methods research study follows an explanatory sequential design. Initially, quantitative data were collected from 265 primary school mathematics teachers through a questioning survey developed by the researchers. On the other hand, qualitative data were obtained by observing two teachers who answered this survey and were easily accessible to the researchers for six weeks. One of the researchers was in the role of participant-observer in this observation process, and both teachers were observed for six weeks. Findings from the survey show that mathematics teachers’ in-class questioning skills are at a good level. However, the observation results yielded findings that contradicted the survey results. The survey findings indicate that the item on teachers’ use of open questions had a higher mean value than the item on closed-ended questions; however, the observations showed that teachers used closed questions more than open questions. While teachers’ use of rhetorical and managerial questions in the survey data was moderate, it was quite high in the observational data

Increasing chances of survival for malware using theory of natural selection and the selfish gene

Malware, short for malicious software, is used as a general term for computer viruses, Trojan horses, worms, and other harmful software or code. Malware authors try to obfuscate their code in order to evade antiviral programs. Different analysis techniques are used by antiviral programs in order to detect different encryption and obfuscation methods. Survivability of malware becomes the main concern for an attacker since the malware should usually be able to spread to other computers; use resources of victim's computer; and create new copies of itself. In this thesis, inspired by Darwin's theory of natural selection and the selfish gene concept explained by Richard Dawkins, we propose novel methods which increase the chance of survivability for malware. We implement selfishness, altruistic behavior, mimicry, group selection, and similar behavior models into our experimental malware and we also test our techniques against existing solutions. We develop tools in order to enhance existing malware with features presented in this thesis. Effectiveness of proposed techniques are presented and an experimental test is carried out with a dataset containing more than 300.000 malware samples. Group behavior models are also introduced and methods proposed for enhancing botnets to have better stability (Evolutionarily stable botnet)

Third party positioning services: novel challenges for location privacy in LBS

Acommon assumption in the research community working on location privacy in locationbased services (LBS) is that the location sources are trusted. In this paper we present a different perspective. We argue that, because of the deployment of wifi-based/hybrid positioning techniques and web-based LBSs, the user\u2019s location is increasingly computed by third-party location providers which may be not fully trusted. This change of perspective challenges the effectiveness of current location privacy-preserving techniques. To support this thesis we present an empirical investigation of the privacy issues raised by web-based LBSs. Moreover, following a holistic approach, we present the problem from three different and complementary angles, i.e., technical, user-based, and legal. The overall picture suggests a novel direction of research

Depth optimized efficient homomorphic sorting

We introduce a sorting scheme which is capable of efficiently sorting encrypted data without the secret key. The technique is obtained by focusing on the multiplicative depth of the sorting circuit alongside the more traditional metrics such as number of comparisons and number of iterations. The reduced depth allows much reduced noise growth and thereby makes it possible to select smaller parameter sizes in somewhat homomorphic encryption instantiations resulting in greater efficiency savings. We first consider a number of well known comparison based sorting algorithms as well as some sorting networks, and analyze their circuit implementations with respect to multiplicative depth. In what follows, we introduce a new ranking based sorting scheme and rigorously analyze the multiplicative depth complexity as O(log(N) + log(l)), where N is the size of the array to be sorted and l is the bit size of the array elements. Finally, we simulate our sorting scheme using a leveled/batched instantiation of a SWHE library. Our sorting scheme performs favorably over the analyzed classical sorting algorithms

Classroom Assessment Practices and Student Goal Orientations in Mathematics Classes

The present study aimed to explore classroom assessment practices (7th grade) in mathematics course and how these practices are perceived by students who had different goal orientations. In addition, the study also investigated how other classroom practices (i.e. comparisons, competition, and learning experiences), which allowed for a deeper description of classroom assessment practices, were perceived by students who had different goal orientations. In line with this aim, a mathematics teacher and one of his seventh grade mathematics classes were observed for a period of eight weeks. The study followed a mixed method methodology. The first part of the study was quantitative and aimed to collect and analyse quantitative data from students to identify their goal orientations. The qualitative part included two steps which focused on; a) teachers and b) students. The teacher dimension focused on the observation of teachers' classroom assessment practices which were related to other classroom practices that could be associated with students' goal orientations. The student dimension focused on the observation of three students' behaviours during teaching/learning processes. Those students were interviewed following observations. According to the results, classroom assessment practices and other classroom practices which could be associated with students' goal orientations are perceived differently based on students' goal orientations