2,773 research outputs found
Threshold concepts and metalearning capacity
This study operationalises the empowering concept of metalearning in the specific context of engagement with a threshold concept. An experience of metalearning was constituted in two parts. First students' awareness of themselves as learners is prompted by, and focuses on, a learning profile that is generated online through the completion of the Reflections on Learning Inventory (RoLI). Second, students are given an opportunity to interpret their respective profiles and write a short and undirected reflective account of their interpretation. The second part of the experience focuses not only on students' awareness but also on their capacity to control their future learning on the basis of their heightened awareness.
Operationalising a Threshold Concept in Economics: A Pilot Study Using Multiple Choice Questions on Opportunity Cost
This paper addresses the emerging educational framework that envisions threshold concepts as mediators of learning outcomes. While the threshold concepts framework is highly appealing on a theoretical level, few researchers have attempted to measure threshold concept acquisition empirically. Achieving this would open a new arena for exploration and debate in the threshold concepts field, and provide potential results to inform teaching practice. We begin the process of operationalising threshold concepts in economics by attempting to measure students' grasp of the threshold concept of opportunity cost in an introductory economics class. We suggest two potential measures and correlate them with an array of ex ante and ex post variables, including students' expectations of success, prior misconceptions about economics and the work of economists, and actual success in the course. Results cast new light onto the factors that influence the acquisition of threshold concepts, the relationship between threshold concept acquisition and final learning outcomes, and the empirical viability of threshold concepts generally.
A Memetic Analysis of a Phrase by Beethoven: Calvinian Perspectives on Similarity and Lexicon-Abstraction
This article discusses some general issues arising from the study of similarity in music, both human-conducted and computer-aided, and then progresses to a consideration of similarity relationships between patterns in a phrase by Beethoven, from the first movement of the Piano Sonata in A flat major op. 110 (1821), and various potential memetic precursors. This analysis is followed by a consideration of how the kinds of similarity identified in the Beethoven phrase might be understood in psychological/conceptual and then neurobiological terms, the latter by means of William Calvin’s Hexagonal Cloning Theory. This theory offers a mechanism for the operation of David Cope’s concept of the lexicon, conceived here as a museme allele-class. I conclude by attempting to correlate and map the various spaces within which memetic replication occurs
Non exponential relaxation in fully frustrated models
We study the dynamical properties of the fully frustrated Ising model. Due to
the absence of disorder the model, contrary to spin glass, does not exhibit any
Griffiths phase, which has been associated to non-exponential relaxation
dynamics. Nevertheless we find numerically that the model exhibits a stretched
exponential behavior below a temperature T_p corresponding to the percolation
transition of the Kasteleyn-Fortuin clusters. We have also found that the
critical behavior of this clusters for a fully frustrated q-state spin model at
the percolation threshold is strongly affected by frustration. In fact while in
absence of frustration the q=1 limit gives random percolation, in presence of
frustration the critical behavior is in the same universality class of the
ferromagnetic q=1/2-state Potts model.Comment: 7 pages, RevTeX, 11 figs, to appear on Physical Review
A posteriori error analysis and adaptive non-intrusive numerical schemes for systems of random conservation laws
In this article we consider one-dimensional random systems of hyperbolic
conservation laws. We first establish existence and uniqueness of random
entropy admissible solutions for initial value problems of conservation laws
which involve random initial data and random flux functions. Based on these
results we present an a posteriori error analysis for a numerical approximation
of the random entropy admissible solution. For the stochastic discretization,
we consider a non-intrusive approach, the Stochastic Collocation method. The
spatio-temporal discretization relies on the Runge--Kutta Discontinuous
Galerkin method. We derive the a posteriori estimator using continuous
reconstructions of the discrete solution. Combined with the relative entropy
stability framework this yields computable error bounds for the entire
space-stochastic discretization error. The estimator admits a splitting into a
stochastic and a deterministic (space-time) part, allowing for a novel
residual-based space-stochastic adaptive mesh refinement algorithm. We conclude
with various numerical examples investigating the scaling properties of the
residuals and illustrating the efficiency of the proposed adaptive algorithm
The Magic Number Problem for Subregular Language Families
We investigate the magic number problem, that is, the question whether there
exists a minimal n-state nondeterministic finite automaton (NFA) whose
equivalent minimal deterministic finite automaton (DFA) has alpha states, for
all n and alpha satisfying n less or equal to alpha less or equal to exp(2,n).
A number alpha not satisfying this condition is called a magic number (for n).
It was shown in [11] that no magic numbers exist for general regular languages,
while in [5] trivial and non-trivial magic numbers for unary regular languages
were identified. We obtain similar results for automata accepting subregular
languages like, for example, combinational languages, star-free, prefix-,
suffix-, and infix-closed languages, and prefix-, suffix-, and infix-free
languages, showing that there are only trivial magic numbers, when they exist.
For finite languages we obtain some partial results showing that certain
numbers are non-magic.Comment: In Proceedings DCFS 2010, arXiv:1008.127
Inhomogeneous d-wave superconducting state of a doped Mott insulator
Recent scanning tunneling microscope (STM) measurements discovered remarkable
electronic inhomogeneity, i.e. nano-scale spatial variations of the local
density of states (LDOS) and the superconducting energy gap, in the high-Tc
superconductor BSCCO. Based on the experimental findings we conjectured that
the inhomogeneity arises from variations in local oxygen doping level and may
be generic of doped Mott insulators which behave rather unconventionally in
screening the dopant ionic potentials at atomic scales comparable to the short
coherence length. Here, we provide theoretical support for this picture. We
study a doped Mott insulator within a generalized t-J model, where doping is
accompanied by ionic Coulomb potentials centered in the BiO plane. We calculate
the LDOS spectrum, the integrated LDOS, and the local superconducting gap, make
detailed comparisons to experiments, and find remarkable agreement with the
experimental data. We emphasize the unconventional screening in a doped Mott
insulator and show that nonlinear screening dominates at nano-meter scales
which is the origin of the electronic inhomogeneity. It leads to strong
inhomogeneous redistribution of the local hole density and promotes the notion
of a local doping concentration. We find that the inhomogeneity structure
manifests itself at all energy scales in the STM tunneling differential
conductance, and elucidate the similarity and the differences between the data
obtained in the constant tunneling current mode and the same data normalized to
reflect constant tip-to-sample distance. We also discuss the underdoped case
where nonlinear screening of the ionic potential turns the spatial electronic
structure into a percolative mixture of patches with smaller pairing gaps
embedded in a background with larger gaps to single particle excitations.Comment: 19 pages, final versio
Record Maximum Oscillation Frequency in C-face Epitaxial Graphene Transistors
The maximum oscillation frequency (fmax) quantifies the practical upper bound
for useful circuit operation. We report here an fmax of 70 GHz in transistors
using epitaxial graphene grown on the C-face of SiC. This is a significant
improvement over Si-face epitaxial graphene used in the prior high frequency
transistor studies, exemplifying the superior electronics potential of C-face
epitaxial graphene. Careful transistor design using a high {\kappa} dielectric
T-gate and self-aligned contacts, further contributed to the record-breaking
fmax
Prediction of Emerging Technologies Based on Analysis of the U.S. Patent Citation Network
The network of patents connected by citations is an evolving graph, which
provides a representation of the innovation process. A patent citing another
implies that the cited patent reflects a piece of previously existing knowledge
that the citing patent builds upon. A methodology presented here (i) identifies
actual clusters of patents: i.e. technological branches, and (ii) gives
predictions about the temporal changes of the structure of the clusters. A
predictor, called the {citation vector}, is defined for characterizing
technological development to show how a patent cited by other patents belongs
to various industrial fields. The clustering technique adopted is able to
detect the new emerging recombinations, and predicts emerging new technology
clusters. The predictive ability of our new method is illustrated on the
example of USPTO subcategory 11, Agriculture, Food, Textiles. A cluster of
patents is determined based on citation data up to 1991, which shows
significant overlap of the class 442 formed at the beginning of 1997. These new
tools of predictive analytics could support policy decision making processes in
science and technology, and help formulate recommendations for action
The Complexity of Computing Minimal Unidirectional Covering Sets
Given a binary dominance relation on a set of alternatives, a common thread
in the social sciences is to identify subsets of alternatives that satisfy
certain notions of stability. Examples can be found in areas as diverse as
voting theory, game theory, and argumentation theory. Brandt and Fischer [BF08]
proved that it is NP-hard to decide whether an alternative is contained in some
inclusion-minimal upward or downward covering set. For both problems, we raise
this lower bound to the Theta_{2}^{p} level of the polynomial hierarchy and
provide a Sigma_{2}^{p} upper bound. Relatedly, we show that a variety of other
natural problems regarding minimal or minimum-size covering sets are hard or
complete for either of NP, coNP, and Theta_{2}^{p}. An important consequence of
our results is that neither minimal upward nor minimal downward covering sets
(even when guaranteed to exist) can be computed in polynomial time unless P=NP.
This sharply contrasts with Brandt and Fischer's result that minimal
bidirectional covering sets (i.e., sets that are both minimal upward and
minimal downward covering sets) are polynomial-time computable.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure
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