Facets of metacognition and collaborative complex problem-solving performance

Abstract. Metacognition refers to students’ ability to reflect upon, understand and control their own learning. Previous accounts of metacognition have distinguished between two major facets: metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation, in which each major facet includes several sub-facets. Although many studies on metacognition facets have examined their relationship with problem-solving performance, few studies have investigated their relationship with non-routine, complex problem-solving performance in collaborative context. In light of this, the current study investigated the impact of different facets of metacognition on perceived and objective complex problem-solving (CPS) task performance in collaborative situation. Data was collected from 77 students at the University of Oulu, Finland. The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) self-report was used to measure subjects’ beliefs on the facets of their metacognition before the task. After filling out MAI self-report individually, participants gathered in groups of 3 to carry out the collaborative CPS task. The Tailorshop Microworld simulation was employed as the CPS task and used to measure objective group performance. Perceived individual and group performances were measured with self-report. A generalized estimating equation was used to observe the relationships between individuals’ awareness of metacognition facets and perceived individual CPS performance. Best Linear Unbiased Predictors (BLUP) function was utilized to yield groups’ unbiased MAI scores and unbiased perceived group performance. Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to observe relationships between group MAI scores and objective group CPS performance, as well as perceived group performance and objective group CPS performance. In general, the results showed significant correlations between several regulatory facets of metacognition and perceived individual CPS performance as well as objective group CPS performance. Since the majority of the significant correlations were negative, the results reinforced previous findings on students’ overconfidence in their skills in relation with their perceived and objective performance as well as contribute to the overall understanding of the impact metacognitive facets have on collaborative CPS performance. Further discussions were addressed in this study. Limitations and future research were also outlined

Global analysis of quadrupole shape invariants based on covariant energy density functionals

Coexistence of different geometric shapes at low energies presents a universal structure phenomenon that occurs over the entire chart of nuclides. Studies of the shape coexistence are important for understanding the microscopic origin of collectivity and modifications of shell structure in exotic nuclei far from stability. The aim of this work is to provide a systematic analysis of characteristic signatures of coexisting nuclear shapes in different mass regions, using a global self-consistent theoretical method based on universal energy density functionals and the quadrupole collective model. The low-energy excitation spectrum and quadrupole shape invariants of the two lowest $0^{+}$ states of even-even nuclei are obtained as solutions of a five-dimensional collective Hamiltonian (5DCH) model, with parameters determined by constrained self-consistent mean-field calculations based on the relativistic energy density functional PC-PK1, and a finite-range pairing interaction. The theoretical excitation energies of the states: $2^+_1$, $4^+_1$, $0^+_2$, $2^+_2$, $2^+_3$, as well as the $B(E2; 0^+_1\to 2^+_1)$ values, are in very good agreement with the corresponding experimental values for 621 even-even nuclei. Quadrupole shape invariants have been implemented to investigate shape coexistence, and the distribution of possible shape-coexisting nuclei is consistent with results obtained in recent theoretical studies and available data. The present analysis has shown that, when based on a universal and consistent microscopic framework of nuclear density functionals, shape invariants provide distinct indicators and reliable predictions for the occurrence of low-energy coexisting shapes. This method is particularly useful for studies of shape coexistence in regions far from stability where few data are available.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Geochemistry of the Early Paleozoic Baiyin Volcanic Rocks (NW China): Implications for the Tectonic Evolution of the North Qilian Orogenic Belt

The Qilian Mountains in NW China comprise the North Qilian Orogenic Belt, Central Qilian Block, and South Qilian Orogenic Belt. The North Qilian Orogenic Belt consists of the Northern and Southern terranes separated by a volcanic rock belt. This belt is composed mainly of felsic and mafic volcanic rocks. Volcanic rocks in the Baiyin area of the eastern part of the belt include rhyolites, rhyodacite, andesitic basalts, and basalts. New zircon U-Pb isotopic data yield a crystallization age of ca. 445 Ma for the rhyolite, 30 m.yr. younger than the associated basalts. The mafic volcanic rocks are relatively enriched in Th, Sr, and light rare earth element with (La/Yb) N ratios ranging from 4.2 to 5.6 and LaN ranging from 40 to 49, and depleted in high field strength elements, with high Th/Nb ratios (0.9-1.3). These features together with their εNd(T) values (-1.4 to +3.1) are consistent with a subduction-related origin, most likely in a mature island arc or an arc built on thin continental crust in an active continental margin. The felsic volcanic rocks show a calc-alkaline affinity and a strong suprasubduction zone signature with negative Nb, Sr, and Ti anomalies and relatively high Th/Nb ratios (0.8-1.6). They have significantly high εNd(T) values (+4.4 to +7.7) relative to the mafic volcanic rocks. Such radiogenic Nd isotopic compositions rule out a crustal origin and indicate the derivation from a depleted mantle source in a volcanic arc environment. Therefore, the geochemistry of the mafic and felsic volcanic rocks demonstrates an Ordovician volcanic arc above a northward subduction zone. The northward drifting of the Central Qilian Block eventually resulted in the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern terranes to form the North Qilian Orogenic Belt in the Early Paleozoic. © 2005 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.published_or_final_versio

Facilitated movement of inertial Brownian motors driven by a load under an asymmetric potential

Based on recent work [L. Machura, M. Kostur, P. Talkner, J. Luczka, and P. Hanggi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 040601 (2007)], we extend the study of inertial Brownian motors to the case of an asymmetric potential. It is found that some transport phenomena appear in the presence of an asymmetric potential. Within tailored parameter regimes, there exists two optimal values of the load at which the mean velocity takes its maximum, which means that a load can facilitate the transport in the two parameter regimes. In addition, the phenomenon of multiple current reversals can be observed when the load is increased.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Female pattern hair loss: Current treatment concepts

Fewer than 45% of women go through life with a full head of hair. Female pattern hair loss is the commonest cause of hair loss in women and prevalence increases with advancing age. Affected women may experience psychological distress and impaired social functioning. In most cases the diagnosis can be made clinically and the condition treated medically. While many women using oral antiandrogens and topical minoxidil will regrow some hair, early diagnosis and initiation of treatment is desirable as these treatments are more effective at arresting progression of hair loss than stimulating regrowth. Adjunctive nonpharmacological treatment modalities such as counseling, cosmetic camouflage and hair transplantation are important measures for some patients. The histology of female pattern hair loss is identical to that of male androgenetic alopecia. While the clinical pattern of the hair loss differs between men, the response to oral antiandrogens suggests that female pattern hair loss is an androgen dependant condition, at least in the majority of cases. Female pattern hair loss is a chronic progressive condition. All treatments need to be continued to maintain the effect. An initial therapeutic response often takes 12 or even 24 months. Given this delay, monitoring for treatment effect through clinical photography or standardized clinical severity scales is helpful

A Reduction of the Elastic Net to Support Vector Machines with an Application to GPU Computing

The past years have witnessed many dedicated open-source projects that built and maintain implementations of Support Vector Machines (SVM), parallelized for GPU, multi-core CPUs and distributed systems. Up to this point, no comparable effort has been made to parallelize the Elastic Net, despite its popularity in many high impact applications, including genetics, neuroscience and systems biology. The first contribution in this paper is of theoretical nature. We establish a tight link between two seemingly different algorithms and prove that Elastic Net regression can be reduced to SVM with squared hinge loss classification. Our second contribution is to derive a practical algorithm based on this reduction. The reduction enables us to utilize prior efforts in speeding up and parallelizing SVMs to obtain a highly optimized and parallel solver for the Elastic Net and Lasso. With a simple wrapper, consisting of only 11 lines of MATLAB code, we obtain an Elastic Net implementation that naturally utilizes GPU and multi-core CPUs. We demonstrate on twelve real world data sets, that our algorithm yields identical results as the popular (and highly optimized) glmnet implementation but is one or several orders of magnitude faster.Comment: 10 page

Sustainable Growth and Ethics: a Study of Business Ethics in Vietnam Between Business Students and Working Adults

Sustainable growth is not only the ultimate goal of business corporations but also the primary target of local governments as well as regional and global economies. One of the cornerstones of sustainable growth is ethics. An ethical organizational culture provides support to achieve sustainable growth. Ethical leaders and employees have great potential for positive influence on decisions and behaviors that lead to sustainability. Ethical behavior, therefore, is expected of everyone in the modern workplace. As a result, companies devote many resources and training programs to make sure their employees live according to the high ethical standards. This study provides an analysis of Vietnamese business students’ level of ethical maturity based on gender, education, work experience, and ethics training. The results of data from 260 business students compared with 704 working adults in Vietnam demonstrate that students have a significantly higher level of ethical maturity. Furthermore, gender and work experience are significant factors in ethical maturity. While more educated respondents and those who had completed an ethics course did have a higher level of ethical maturity, the results were not statistically significant. Analysis of the results along with suggestions and implications are provided

Practical stability and controllability for nonlinear discrete time-delay systems

In this paper we study the practical asymptotic stability for a class of discrete-time time-delay systems via Razumikhin-type Theorems. Further estimations of the solution boundary and arrival time of the solution are also investigated based on practical stability. In addition, the proposed theorems are used to analyze the practical controllability of a general class of nonlinear discrete systems with input time delay. Some easy testing criteria for the uniform practical asymptotical stability are derived via Lyapunov function and Razumikhin technique. Finally a numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results

Dissipativity Analysis of Descriptor Systems Using Image Space Characterization

In this paper, we analyze the dissipativity for descriptor systems with impulsive behavior based on image space analysis. First, a new image space is used to characterize state responses for descriptor systems. Based on such characterization and an integral property of delta function, a new necessary and sufficient condition for the dissipativity of descriptor systems is derived using the linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach. Also, some of the earlier related results on dissipativity for linear systems are investigated in the framework proposed in this paper. Finally, two examples are given to show the validity of the derived results

Ground state fidelity in bond-alternative Ising chains with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

A systematic analysis is performed for quantum phase transitions in a bond-alternative one-dimensional Ising model with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction by using the fidelity of ground state wave functions based on the infinite matrix product states algorithm. For an antiferromagnetic phase, the fidelity per lattice site exhibits a bifurcation, which shows spontaneous symmetry breaking in the system. A critical DM interaction is inversely proportional to an alternating exchange coupling strength for a quantum phase transition. Further, a finite-entanglement scaling of von Neumann entropy with respect to truncation dimensions gives a central charge c = 0.5 at the critical point.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure