FYYSIKA.EE

Suppose that a piston of nonzero mass encloses an ideal gas in a vertical cylinder. The piston and
cylinder are thermally insulated so that no energy is lost by heat transfer to the surroundings. If
the piston is set into motion, it oscillates like a…

The problem of time in quantum mechanics (QM) concerns the fact that in the Schrödinger equation
time is a parameter, not an operator. Pauli’s objection to a time–energy uncertainty relation
analogue to the position–momentum one, conjectured by …

Suppose that a piston of nonzero mass encloses an ideal gas in a vertical cylinder. The piston and
cylinder are thermally insulated so that no energy is lost by heat transfer to the surroundings. If
the piston is set into motion, it oscillates like a…

The problem of time in quantum mechanics (QM) concerns the fact that in the Schrödinger equation
time is a parameter, not an operator. Pauli’s objection to a time–energy uncertainty relation
analogue to the position–momentum one, conjectured by …

Massive Open Online Courses and e-learning represent the future of the teaching-learning processes through the development of Information and Communication Technologies. They are the response to the new education needs of society. However, this future also presents many challenges such as the processing of online forums when a huge number of messages are generated. These forums provide an excellent platform for learning and connecting students of the subject, but the difficulties in following and searching the vast volume of information that they generate may produce the opposite effect. In this paper, we propose a computational method for enabling the educational process in huge online learning communities. This method analyses the forum information through Natural Language Processing techniques and extract the main topics discussed. The results generated improves the management of the forums, increases the effectiveness of the teachers’ explanations and reduces the time spent by students to follow the course. The proposal has been complemented with a real case study that shows promising results.

This paper presents We-Share, a social annotation application that enables educators to publish and retrieve information about educational ICT tools. As a distinctive characteristic, We-Share provides educators data about educational tools already avai…

The quality of Education in Chile is a controversial topic that has been in the public debate in the last several years. To ensure quality in graduate programs, accreditation is compulsory. The current article presents a model to improve the process of self-regulation. The main objective was to design a Model of Quality Assurance for Postgraduate Programs in order to constitute a theoretical, mathematical, and informatics reference that would optimize the processes of self-regulation, self-evaluation, and accreditation of master and doctorate programs from the Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Chile. This descriptive research is based on a mixed methods approach. The proposal was intended through theoretical and empirical references related to the accreditation systems. The analysis process was conducted with key informants, and the informatics instrument was created and validated through expert judgment. After the analysis, the model was optimized considering the expert’s suggestions. As a result of the optimization process, a matrix of eight dimensions was obtained and it is available online in order to be used by the heads of postgraduate programs. Finally, a model with four main stages was achieved in order to install a self-regulation and a self-evaluated culture that leads to accreditation as evidence of the quality of postgraduate programs.

Although educational practitioners have adopted social media to their online or mobile communities, little attention has been paid to investigate the social media messages related to online or mobile learning. The purpose of this research is to identif…

The Color Coded Cards system as a possibly effective class management tool is the focus of this research. The Color Coded Cards system involves each student being given a card with a specific color based on his or her behavior. The main objective of the research is to find out whether this system effectively improves students’ behavior, thus leading to better class management. The research was conducted with 350 students as subjects, and the data were gathered by means of a questionnaire administered over a period of three years. A qualitative method was applied to analyze the results and draw precise conclusions. The results were interesting and promising.

The aim of this paper is to present the learning and teaching styles using the Social Learning Environment (SLE), which was developed based on the computer supported collaborative learning approach. To avoid burdening learners with multiple platforms a…

Social networking potentially offers improved distance learning environments by enabling the exchange of resources between learners. The existence of properly classified content results in an enhanced distance learning experience in which appropriate m…

The tangible and intangible needs of people with disabilities have been neglected in research agendas over the past decades, particularly in China. Bringing more benefits to people with disabilities and combining information delivery with Internet tech…

Teachers participate in social networking sites to share knowledge and collaborate with other teachers to create education-related content. In this study we selected several communities in order to better understand the networks that these participants establish in Twitter and the role that the social network plays in their activity within the community, especially related with peer production. We analyzed the topology of these networks in two ways: a) the indirect relations by counting followers and followed people; and b) the conversational networks by counting mentions in tweets. We also analyzed the communities’ websites in order to elucidate whether their production was lightweight or heavyweight peer production. Results indicate that teacher networks adopt a community clusters archetype in which some teachers act as bridges between several groups. Although these networks do not form a tight crowd, their degree of tightness is superior to that of the general networks established in Twitter. Our results also indicate that the degree of tightness is important for sustaining heavyweight peer production and strong leadership can play a crucial role in establishing long-term commitment to a collective task. 

With its total number of users (around 62 million) throughout the world, it is important to determine the views of academics who use Edmodo (the leading SLN. In this respect in the first part of this two-part research, the purpose was to examine academics’ (n=50) use of technology and social networks. As for the purpose of the second part, it was to determine the views of 12 academics—selected from the academics participating in the first part—who had experience in Edmodo about the basic features of Edmodo and about its use in education. In the study carried out with the mixed method, the qualitative and quantitative data were collected with an online questionnaire. The findings obtained were interpreted within the framework of cooperative learning and the theories of “Diffusion of Innovations” and “Uses and Gratifications,” and the related themes were formed. As a result, the academics with experience in Edmodo reported their views about the benefits of use of the Edmodo in education. Regarding the differences between Edmodo and social networks, the results suggested that the former was used completely for educational purposes and that it did not involve any unnecessary components.

The present work describes an original associative model of pattern classification and its application to align different ontologies containing Learning Objects (LOs), which are in turn related to Open and Distance Learning (ODL) educative content. The problem of aligning ontologies is known as Ontology Matching Problem (OMP), whose solution is modeled in this paper as a binary pattern classification problem. The latter problem is then solved through the application of our new proposed associative model. The solution proposed here allows the alignment of two different ontologies —both in the Learning Objects Metadata (LOM) format— into a single ontology of LOs for ODL in LOM format, without redundant objects and with all inherent advantages for handling ODL LOs. The proposed model of pattern classification was validated through experiments, which were done on data taken from the Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) 2014 campaign, as well as on data taken from two known educative content repositories: ADRIADNE and MERLOT. The obtained results show a high performance when compared against some of the classifier algorithms present in the state of the art.

Academic social-networking sites (ASNS) such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate are becoming very popular among academics. These sites allow uploading academic articles, abstracts, and links to published articles; track demand for published articles, and engage in professional interaction. This study investigates the nature of the use and the perceived utility of the sites for academics. The study employs the Uses and Gratifications theory to analyze the use of ASNS.  A questionnaire was sent to all faculty members at three academic institutions. The findings indicate that researchers use ASNS mainly for consumption of information, slightly less for sharing of information, and very scantily for interaction with others. As for the gratifications that motivate users to visit ASNS, four main ones were found: self-promotion and ego-bolstering, acquisition of professional knowledge, belonging to a peer community, and interaction with peers.

This study aimed to analyze the student’s behaviour in relation to their degree of commitment, participation, and contribution in a MOOC based on a social learning approach. Interaction data was collected on the learning platform and in social networks, both of which were used in the third edition of a social MOOC course. This data was then studied via statistical methods and analysis of social networks. This study assumes that social communities would arise around the course, would remain over time, and that participants would even contribute with new proposals. The findings indicated that social learning communities are built and continue only while the course is open and while the teachers are involved in fostering participation. Although this study is limited, the design criteria of the course, the pedagogical model on which this is supported, and the methods applied for this analysis provide other researchers and educators with clues for better understand the dynamic process of social learning in social MOOCs.

While ubiquitous in everyday use, in reality, social media usage within higher education teaching has expanded quite slowly. Analysis of social media usage of students and instructors for teaching, learning, and research purposes across four countries (Russia, Turkey, Germany, and Switzerland) showed that many higher education instructors actively use social media for private purposes. However, although they understand that their students also use it for learning purposes, and instructors sense the potential of social media in teaching, they mostly refrain from doing so due to various barriers. In response, an openly accessible trilingual Social Media Toolkit was developed which analyzes the teaching scenario with several questions, before suggesting, based on an algorithm, the best matching class of social media, complete with advice on how to use it for teaching purposes. This paper explains the rationale behind the toolkit, its development process, and examines instructors’ perceptions towards it.

In this article we report research into the computer representation and automatic assessment of
expressions which are dimensional numerical quantities. We consider how machines represent and
manipulate dimensional numerical data. Through action resea…

The experiment of a magnet falling through a conductive tube is well-known, and teachers often use
it in their classrooms, not only in high schools, but also in undergraduate courses of physics. This
article describes the measurement of the thermal c…

Ghost imaging in the spatial domain is nowadays a well-known but still a surprising phenomenon. It
was demonstrated originally with entangled photon pairs and later with pseudo-thermal light. Very
recently it was shown that it is also possible to cre…

The working principle of ordinary refractive lenses can be explained in terms of the space-variant
optical phase retardations they introduce, which reshape the optical wavefront curvature and hence
affect the subsequent light propagation. These phase…

The aim of this paper is to encourage the use of orbital integrators in the classroom to discover
and understand the long term dynamical evolution of systems of orbiting bodies. We show how to
perform numerical simulations and how to handle output da…

A key concept in material science is the relationship between the Bravais lattice, the reciprocal
lattice and the resulting Brillouin zones (BZ). These zones are often complicated shapes that are
hard to construct and visualise without the use of sop…

We propose an alternative way to describe the pairing formation and breaking via a quantum
anharmonic oscillator with a delta-function potential model. Unlike BCS theory, which describes the
pairing formation in the momentum space, this model works i…

The present work is aimed at the experimental determination of the heat capacity of a metallic
material following the thermal behaviour of a rotating cylindrical piece associated with a friction
process when a synthetic band is rolled around the cyli…

The present work is aimed at the experimental determination of the heat capacity of a metallic
material following the thermal behaviour of a rotating cylindrical piece associated with a friction
process when a synthetic band is rolled around the cyli…

The present work is aimed at the experimental determination of the heat capacity of a metallic
material following the thermal behaviour of a rotating cylindrical piece associated with a friction
process when a synthetic band is rolled around the cyli…

We propose an alternative way to describe the pairing formation and breaking via a quantum
anharmonic oscillator with a delta-function potential model. Unlike BCS theory, which describes the
pairing formation in the momentum space, this model works i…

We propose an alternative way to describe the pairing formation and breaking via a quantum
anharmonic oscillator with a delta-function potential model. Unlike BCS theory, which describes the
pairing formation in the momentum space, this model works i…

The aim of this paper is to encourage the use of orbital integrators in the classroom to discover
and understand the long term dynamical evolution of systems of orbiting bodies. We show how to
perform numerical simulations and how to handle output da…

The aim of this paper is to encourage the use of orbital integrators in the classroom to discover
and understand the long term dynamical evolution of systems of orbiting bodies. We show how to
perform numerical simulations and how to handle output da…

A key concept in material science is the relationship between the Bravais lattice, the reciprocal
lattice and the resulting Brillouin zones (BZ). These zones are often complicated shapes that are
hard to construct and visualise without the use of sop…

A key concept in material science is the relationship between the Bravais lattice, the reciprocal
lattice and the resulting Brillouin zones (BZ). These zones are often complicated shapes that are
hard to construct and visualise without the use of sop…

The experiment of a magnet falling through a conductive tube is well-known, and teachers often use
it in their classrooms, not only in high schools, but also in undergraduate courses of physics. This
article describes the measurement of the thermal c…

The experiment of a magnet falling through a conductive tube is well-known, and teachers often use
it in their classrooms, not only in high schools, but also in undergraduate courses of physics. This
article describes the measurement of the thermal c…

Ghost imaging in the spatial domain is nowadays a well-known but still a surprising phenomenon. It
was demonstrated originally with entangled photon pairs and later with pseudo-thermal light. Very
recently it was shown that it is also possible to cre…

Ghost imaging in the spatial domain is nowadays a well-known but still a surprising phenomenon. It
was demonstrated originally with entangled photon pairs and later with pseudo-thermal light. Very
recently it was shown that it is also possible to cre…

The working principle of ordinary refractive lenses can be explained in terms of the space-variant
optical phase retardations they introduce, which reshape the optical wavefront curvature and hence
affect the subsequent light propagation. These phase…

The working principle of ordinary refractive lenses can be explained in terms of the space-variant
optical phase retardations they introduce, which reshape the optical wavefront curvature and hence
affect the subsequent light propagation. These phase…

In this article we report research into the computer representation and automatic assessment of
expressions which are dimensional numerical quantities. We consider how machines represent and
manipulate dimensional numerical data. Through action resea…

In this article we report research into the computer representation and automatic assessment of
expressions which are dimensional numerical quantities. We consider how machines represent and
manipulate dimensional numerical data. Through action resea…