Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 1998. / Title from document title page. "December 8, 1998." Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 49 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 32-36).

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This thesis presents two research studies aimed at increasing our knowledge about how games can be used in math education. A number of studies have explored the effects of games in classrooms. However, their effects vary across study contexts and it is not yet clear the best ways to implement them. While prior research shows that numerical linear board games are effective learning activities in preschool classrooms, the first study presented aims to replicate and add to previous research by exploring the effects of numerical linear board games when presented in different formats. Board games are typically studied in a table top version. We introduce a physically active, life-size, walkable version, which is based on an embodied cognition perspective. The second study presented in this thesis is an overview of a professional development workshop where teachers and students played technology-based games and then designed and created their own games. We explore the effects of playing teacher-created games on student learning as well as the implications which creating games can have on their development of computational thinking skills.

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate the effects of the Math to Mastery intervention package in a school setting. The participants in this study were elementary school students who were performing at least one year below grade level in math. A between-series multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of the Math to Mastery intervention. Results revealed that the multi-component intervention was successful in addressing the student’s academic skill deficits on single skill intervention probes. Improvement was also observed on multiple skill grade level, generalization probes. However, the impact was not as strong on these probes as for single skill probes. Implications for implementation in applied settings and future research are provided.

The airline industry is crucial to economic growth and the number of passengers is expected to increase by approximately 250 million from 2017 to 2018. IATA believes it is imperative to increase airline efficiency to maintain sustainability. Passenger boarding is known to constitute 60% of airplane turnaround time, identifying this step as rate determining. In this study, we investigate passenger boarding strategies utilized by airline companies and strategies simulated by existing literature. We propose more efficient passenger boarding methods for the Airbus A320/ Boeing 737 and Airbus A380-800/ Boeing 777-300ER airline classes. We use GNU Octave to construct a cellular automaton model that operates on the interaction of a 2-dimensional matrix, representing passenger attributes, and a 4-dimensional matrix, representing the cells of the airplane in consideration. We consider row interferences, aisle interferences, luggage stow away time, and general passenger delays. We find that boarding strategies which minimize passenger interferences are the most efficient for both airline classes. Interestingly, some boarding strategies for the Airbus A320/ Boeing 737 are more efficient when boarding at 30 passengers/ min instead of 60 passengers/ min. However, the Airbus A380-800/ Boeing 777-300ER shows slower boarding rates for any boarding frequency less than 60 passengers/ min, suggesting the size of the airplane layout determines sensitivity to boarding frequency. With the Airbus A380-800/ Boeing 777-300ER having limited documentation, we define and propose new boarding strategies, OBFOIZ and OBFOISA, that improve on the passenger boarding times in the existing literature for this double-aisled airplane. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The airline industry is crucial to economic growth and the number of passengers is increasing every year, reaching increases of 250 million. In light of this, the International Air Transport Association believes it is imperative to increase airline efficiency. Since airplanes generate revenue while they are in the air, we look to minimize the time they are on the tarmac, also known as airplane turnaround time. Passenger boarding has shown to constitute 60% of airplane turnaround time, identifying this step as a bottleneck. In this study, we investigate passenger boarding strategies utilized by airline companies and documented by existing literature. We then propose more efficient passenger boarding methods for the Airbus A320/ Boeing 737 and Airbus A380-800/ Boeing 777-300ER airline classes. With the Airbus A380-800/ Boeing 777-300ER having limited documentation, we define and propose new boarding strategies that improve the passenger boarding time.

The purpose of the current research was to examine the effects of a sequence of classroom activities that integrated mathematics content with music elements aimed at providing teachers an alternative approach for teaching mathematics. Two classes of third grade students (n=56) from an elementary school in Southern California participated in the research. A random assignment pretest-posttest control group design was used to examine students' changes in mathematics content achievement and the disposition between the two groups. The students in the music group received music-mathematics integrated lessons. A quasi-experiment time series design with multiple pretests, mid-tests and posttests was utilized for investigating the effects of music-mathematics integrated lessons on students' mathematics process ability levels. The results demonstrated that the intervention of a series of music-mathematics integrated lessons had positive effects on the music group students. The findings showed that the music group students had statistically significantly higher scores on mathematics achievement, and mathematics dispositions after the intervention. Moreover, the music group students also showed statistically significant improvement on scores in the mathematics process abilities from pretests to posttests. The study results suggested that music, with its unique features, can be used as a resource for students to make these connections and also as a way for students to represent mathematics in alternative ways. The findings suggest that teachers should take advantage of the opportunities that music offers to help all students learn mathematics in challenging and enjoyable ways developing students' mathematics achievement, mathematical process ability, and mathematics dispositions.

The study of rogue waves is a booming topic mainly in oceanography but also in other fields. In this thesis I construct via Darboux transform a multi-parametric family of smooth quasi-rational solutions of the nonlinear Schödinger equation that present a behavior of rogue waves. For a general choice of parameters the second-order solutions give a model of "three sisters" (three higher than expected waves in a row) while for a particular choice of parameters we obtain the solutions given by Akhmediev et al. in a serie of articles in 2009. Then these solutions allow me to construct rational solutions of the KP-I equation that describe waves in shallow water.

A l'aide de quelques exemples illustratifs, des pistes sont évoquées pour combiner les méthodes polynomiales (algèbre, géométrie algébrique) et l'optimisation convexe (inégalités matricielles linéaires, LMI) dans le but de développer des outils numériques de résolution de problèmes basiques en automatique, et en particulier pour la commande robuste des systèmes linéaires. Dans le chapitre 2, nous évoquons les liens étroits entre ensembles semi-algébriques convexes et LMI,ainsi que la notion sous-jacente de convexité cachée remettant en question la traditionnelle dichomotime entre convexité et non-convexité. Dans le chapitre 3, nous décrivons les méthodes classiques permettant d'approcher les problèmes de commande linéaire robuste à l'aide des polynômes, en insistant sur l'interaction entre algèbre et géométrie. Le chapitre 4 mentionne les différents outils logiciels développés dans ce cadre. Finalement le chapitre 5 contient quelques suggestions d'axes de recherche cohérents avec ces développements.

On appelle diffusion en milieu aléatoire la solution de l'équation différentielle stochastique suivante : dX(t) = dB(t) − 1/2 W'(X(t))dt où B est un mouvement brownien standard et W, le milieu, est un processus càd-làg qui n'est pas nécessairement dérivable (l'EDS précédente n'a alors qu'un sens formel). Schumacher [69] et Brox [17] ont montré que dans le cas où W est un mouvement brownien, la diffusion X a un comportement sous-diffusif et se localise au voisinage de certains points du milieu. Cette thèse est principalement consacrée à l'étude du comportement asymptotique du processus des temps locaux de X. Ce processus LX(t, x) représente le temps passé par X au point x avant le temps t. C'est donc un outil bien adapté pour étudier la localisation de la diffusion. On décrit ici la loi limite du temps local lorsque le milieu est un mouvement brownien standard ou plus généralement un processus de Lévy stable. On s'intéresse également au temps passé par la diffusion au voisinage des points les plus visités et au comportement asymptotique presque sûr du maximum du temps local. Dans la dernière partie de la thèse, on utilise le temps local d'une version discrète du modèle, pour obtenir des informations sur le milieu. Le but étant d'appliquer ce modèle au séquençage de l'ADN.

Elementary math teachers (76) from selected Texas schools that included Grade 5 responded to an online self-report survey with respect to school-level factors that may be associated with student math achievement. Questions on the survey focused on school-level factors related to math, campus leadership, integration of technology in the math classroom, teacher expectations, utilization of student data in decision-making and professional development. The schools included in the study were rated as Acceptable or Exemplary schools by the Texas Education Agency for three-consecutive years (2007-2010). Logistic regression techniques were used to analyze the data and 11 questions out of 45 were analyzed to determine the odds ratio. Factors that were correlated with being an Exemplary campus were teacher certification routes, not benchmarking student progress, implementation of response to intervention (RTI), classroom management focus (equally divided between student and teacher centered) within the classroom, and technology integration. The results indicated that at the .05 level of probability, the only factor that met that level of significance was full implementation of RTI.