We explicitly show that the well-known transmission and reflection amplitudes of planar slabs, obtained via an algebraic summation of Fresnel amplitudes, are completely equivalent to those obtained from transfer matrices in the scattering approach. This equivalence makes the finite periodic systems theory a powerful alternative to the cumbersome…

In this paper I address the issue of collaboration between content lecturers and language lecturers or educational researchers. Whilst such collaboration is a desirable goal for disciplinary learning in monolingual settings, I suggest it takes on extra significance when two or more languages are involved in teaching and learning a discipline.…

Objective: Describe lay food group categories of low-income African American women and assess the overlap of lay food groups and MyPyramid food groups. Design: A convenience sample of African American mothers from a low-income Chicago neighborhood performed a card-sorting task in which they grouped familiar food items into food groups. Setting:…

This paper discusses a talent management and career planning system designed based on the performance and qualifications of a group of interns working for an emerging social media company located in Istanbul. The proposed model is dynamic, comparative, and perceptional in constructing a talent pool for an organization. This system was developed…

The growth of online programs has been substantial over the past decade; such growth has required that an equally substantial number of faculty become proficient in the pedagogy of online learning and the best practices in online course design. At the same time, universities are being called on to provide evidence of student learning and…

Teaching by inquiry is touted for its potential to encourage students to reason scientifically. Yet, even when inquiry teaching is practiced, complexity of students' reasoning may be limited or unbalanced. We describe an analytic tool for recognizing when students are engaged in complex reasoning during inquiry teaching. Using classrooms that…

This paper discusses student difficulties in grasping concepts from Linear Algebra--in particular, the connection of eigenvalues and eigenvectors to other important topics in linear algebra. Based on our prior observations from student interviews, we propose technology-enhanced instructional approaches that might positively impact student…

CEFA 3.02(Browne, Cudeck, Tateneni, & Mels, 2008) is a factor analysis computer program designed to perform exploratory factor analysis. It provides the main properties that are needed for exploratory factor analysis, namely a variety of factoring methods employing eight different discrepancy functions to be minimized to yield initial…

The previous articles on class size and other productivity research paint a complex and confusing picture of the relationship between policy variables and student achievement. Missing is a conceptual scheme capable of combining the seemingly unrelated research and dissimilar estimates of effect size into a unified structure for policy analysis and…

The United States is in a bind. On the one hand, it needs millions of additional citizens with at least one year of successful post-secondary experience to adapt to the knowledge economy. The Gates and Lumina Foundations, as well as President Obama have championed this goal in different ways. On the other hand, it has a post-secondary system that…

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) attempt to uncover latent skills or attributes that examinees must possess in order to answer test items correctly. The DINA (deterministic input, noisy "and") model is a popular CDM that has been widely used. It is shown here that a logistic version of the model can easily be fit with standard software for…

Following an introduction to the diagonalization of matrices, one of the more difficult topics for students to grasp in linear algebra is the concept of Jordan normal form. In this note, we show how the important notions of diagonalization and Jordan normal form can be introduced and developed through the use of the computer algebra package…

We will prove a well-known theorem in Linear Algebra, that is, for any "m x n" matrix the dimension of row space and column space are the same. The proof is based on the subject of "elementary matrices" and "reduced row-echelon" form of a matrix.

The CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) model decomposes a three-way array into a prespecified number of "R" factors and a residual array by minimizing the sum of squares of the latter. It is well known that an optimal solution for CP need not exist. We show that if an optimal CP solution does not exist, then any sequence of CP factors monotonically decreasing…

This thesis investigates and develops a few acceleration techniques for the search engine algorithms used in PageRank and HITS computations. PageRank and HITS methods are two highly successful applications of modern Linear Algebra in computer science and engineering. They constitute the essential technologies accounted for the immense growth and…