Youth Learners: The Authentic Neglected Species Learning for an Unknown Future

This paper reports on a major research project that investigated youth learning. Specific parts of the project have been published in other literature (Choy 2000, Choy and Delahaye 2000 and Choy and Delahaye 2001), and this paper provides an overview of the findings. The Study Process Questionnaire, the Student Orientation Questionnaire and the Learning Preference Assessment were completed by 448 youths (aged 18 to 24 years) from TAFE 59% and university (41%). Fifty three youths participated in five follow-up focus groups. Generally, youths studied in this project were found to be surface learners with low level of readiness for self-directed learning but, surprisingly, they showed a high preference for a combination of structured and unstructured learning. Youth comments on formal learning, the learning institutions and role conflicts are discussed. Finally, the paper suggests that learners progress through a four stage development sequence and that youth learners are at Stage 2

Evidence for thermal activation in the glassy dynamics of insulating granular aluminum conductance

Insulating granular aluminum is one of the proto-typical disordered insulators whose low temperature electrical conductance exhibits ubiquitous non-equilibrium phenomena. These include slow responses to temperature or gate voltage changes, characteristic field effect anomalies and ageing phenomena typical of a glass. In this system the influence of temperature on the glassy dynamics has remained elusive, leading to the belief that the slow relaxations essentially proceed via elastic quantum tunneling. A similar situation was met in insulating indium oxide and it was concluded that in high carrier density Anderson insulators, electrons form a quantum glass phase. In this work we experimentally demonstrate that thermal effects do play a role and that the slow dynamics in granular aluminum is subject to thermal activation. We show how its signatures can be revealed and activation energy distributions can be extracted, providing a promising grasp on the nature of the microscopic mechanism at work in glassy Anderson insulators. We explain why some of the experimental protocols previously used in the literature fail to reveal thermal activation in these systems. Our results and analyses call for a reassessment of the emblematic case of indium oxide, and question the existence of a quantum glass in any of the systems studied so far

Learning to be a Woodturner

National and international Government policies and reports suggest that lifelong learning is a necessity to promote the cultural, social, educational and vocational dimensions of a person’s life. Many community based organisations play a significant role in providing learning opportunities for adults and thus promote a broad lifelong learning agenda. One such organisation is the Woodturners’ Society of Queensland (WSQ). The aim of the WSQ is the dissemination of information to its members (the majority of whom are over 50 years old) pertaining to the craft of woodturning in addition to providing workshops, seminars and training courses that help to develop and enhance their skills of woodturning. Via semi-structured interviews, the research reported in this paper explores the experiences of ten mature aged members of the WSQ with a view to examining not only their motivation to learn woodturning but also, and most importantly, the learning processes and activities they nominated as critical to their growth. Key factors that facilitated and inhibited the learning processes are identified and discussed. The paper concludes with implications that point to the need to support communities of practice

Building Organisational Capability: Your Future, Your Business

Much has been written about the benefits to be derived from maximising organisational capability as a means of increasing competitive advantage, establishing human resource functions as a strategic partner and improving stakeholder satisfaction. However, there is very little in the research on how organisations build their organisational capability. This paper proposes a Model of Organisational Capability based on three domains – the Strategic Intent, Organisational Structures and Individual Knowledge. The Model explores how systems and processes can be aligned to maximize organisational capability. The model can be used by researchers to examine the forces that build organisational capability in organisations, and determine critical success factors. Practitioners wishing to maximize their organisational capability can draw on the Model and suggested steps, to assist them to explore the organisational capability agenda for their busines

Diophantus' 20th Problem and Fermat's Last Theorem for n=4: Formalization of Fermat's Proofs in the Coq Proof Assistant

We present the proof of Diophantus' 20th problem (book VI of Diophantus' Arithmetica), which consists in wondering if there exist right triangles whose sides may be measured as integers and whose surface may be a square. This problem was negatively solved by Fermat in the 17th century, who used the "wonderful" method (ipse dixit Fermat) of infinite descent. This method, which is, historically, the first use of induction, consists in producing smaller and smaller non-negative integer solutions assuming that one exists; this naturally leads to a reductio ad absurdum reasoning because we are bounded by zero. We describe the formalization of this proof which has been carried out in the Coq proof assistant. Moreover, as a direct and no less historical application, we also provide the proof (by Fermat) of Fermat's last theorem for n=4, as well as the corresponding formalization made in Coq.Comment: 16 page

Statistical Model Checking : An Overview

Quantitative properties of stochastic systems are usually specified in logics that allow one to compare the measure of executions satisfying certain temporal properties with thresholds. The model checking problem for stochastic systems with respect to such logics is typically solved by a numerical approach that iteratively computes (or approximates) the exact measure of paths satisfying relevant subformulas; the algorithms themselves depend on the class of systems being analyzed as well as the logic used for specifying the properties. Another approach to solve the model checking problem is to \emph{simulate} the system for finitely many runs, and use \emph{hypothesis testing} to infer whether the samples provide a \emph{statistical} evidence for the satisfaction or violation of the specification. In this short paper, we survey the statistical approach, and outline its main advantages in terms of efficiency, uniformity, and simplicity.Comment: non

Antiproton Limits on Decaying Gravitino Dark Matter

We derive 95% CL lower limits on the lifetime of decaying dark matter in the channels $Z\nu$, $W\ell$ and $h\nu$ using measurements of the cosmic-ray antiproton flux by the PAMELA experiment. Performing a scan over the allowed range of cosmic-ray propagation parameters we find lifetime limits in the range of $8 \times 10^{28}$s to $5 \times 10^{25}$s for dark matter masses from roughly 100 GeV to 10 TeV. We apply these limits to the well-motivated case of gravitino dark matter in scenarios with bilinear violation of R-parity and find a similar range of lifetime limits for the same range of gravitino masses. Converting the lifetime limits to constraints on the size of the R-parity violating coupling we find upper limits in the range of $10^{-8}$ to $8 \times 10^{-13}$.Comment: 46 pages, 23 pdf figures; addition of two plots, extended discussion, no change of results or conclusions, matches published versio

Berlin, New Hampshire: the new Bangalore?

When a one-company town loses its one company, the future can look bleak. Fortunately for Berlin, good communications infrastructure and lower costs are attracting businesses that might once have offshored work.Economic conditions - New Hampshire ; Industries - New Hampshire

The question of intrinsic origin of the metal-insulator transition in i-AlPdRe quasicrystal

The icosahedral (i-) AlPdRe is the most resistive quasicrystalline alloy discovered so far. Resistivities ($\rho$) of $1\Omega cm$ at 4K and correlated resistance ratios ($RRR = \rho_{4K}/\rho_{300K}$) of more than 200 are observed in polycrystalline samples. These values are two orders of magnitude larger than for the isomorphous i-AlPdMn phase. We discuss here the controversial microscopic origin of the i-AlPdRe alloy electrical specificity. It has been proposed that the high resistivity values are due to extrinsic parameters, such as secondary phases or oxygen contamination. From comprehensive measurements and data from the literature including electronic transport correlated with micro structural and micro chemical analysis, we show that on the contrary there is mounting evidence in support of an origin intrinsic to the i-phase. Similarly to the other quasicrystalline alloys, the electrical resistivity of the i-AlPdRe samples depends critically on minute changes in the structural quality and chemical composition. The low resistivity in i-AlPdRe single-grains compared to polycrystaline samples can be explained by difference in chemical composition, heterogeneity and thermal treatment.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figure