The engineering mathematics course described in this report is designed to employ project based learning (PBL), using projects to teach and reinforce both mathematics and engineering concepts and applications in a hands-on format. One project involves building a bridge and allows students to conduct testing using standard procedures and to manufacture components with set cross-sectional areas and lengths in an assembly-like manner using a low cost material such as file folders. The students can use a free computer-aided design (CAD) program to facilitate the design as well as conduct virtual testing with no additional cost. The mathematics concepts covered by this project include: graphing, tables and trend analysis, determining the forces acting on individual joints as well as the overall structure, study of cross-sectional area versus length in determining the best support structure, evaluation of various materials for construction, and using measurement tools and technology to determine the amount of stresses and strains and the amount of deflection. All of these studies should enable the student to produce a scale diagram for the final bridge design and to conduct tests on the bridge structure in order to determine the factor of strength (weight held versus the weight of the bridge). The project addresses the use of portfolios as a means for documenting work and changes that have been undertaken during the design process. The use of a portfolio-based project enables the student to document with artifacts and written composition, how the design was determined, how testing was done, and overall lessons learned during the project. The portfolio then could be evaluated using a Design Process Rubric as a means for transferability of credit. / text

Heuristic algorithms for logical reasoning are increasingly successful on computationally difficult problems such as satisfiability, and these solvers enable applications from circuit verification to software synthesis. Whether a problem instance can be solved, however, often depends in practice on whether the correct solver was selected and its parameters appropriately set. Algorithm portfolios leverage past performance data to automatically select solvers likely to perform well on a given instance. Existing portfolio methods typically select only a single solver for each instance. This dissertation develops and evaluates a more general portfolio method, one that computes complete solver execution schedules, including repeated runs of nondeterministic algorithms, by explicitly incorporating probabilistic reasoning into its operation. This modular architecture for probabilistic portfolios (MAPP) includes novel solutions to three issues central to portfolio operation: first, it estimates solver performance distributions from limited data by constructing a generative model; second, it integrates domain-specific information by predicting instances on which solvers exhibit similar performance; and, third, it computes execution schedules using an efficient and effective dynamic programming approximation. In a series of empirical comparisons designed to replicate past solver competitions, MAPP outperforms the most prominent alternative portfolio methods. Its success validates a principled approach to portfolio operation, offers a tool for tackling difficult problems, and opens a path forward in algorithm portfolio design. / text

Despite the amount of empirical evidence available to validate the claim that language learners have the ability to evaluate their own abilities in a foreign language, many educators feel that self-assessments are unreliable and do not fit into the foreign language classroom. However, the move towards a proficiency-based student-centered classroom over the past two decades has caused many educators to rethink the use of self-assessment measures in the foreign language classroom. At the same time, portfolios have emerged as assessment tools for both educators and learners. Most recently, with the technological advancements in the past decade, Internet-based e-portfolios have become increasingly popular in education. However, there are very few studies on the use and implementation of e-portfolios, specifically in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation examines the role of self-assessment in the foreign language classroom. It utilizes an e-portfolio platform with pre-loaded can-do statements to create an evidence-based self-assessment for an intensive Russian language class. This dissertation presents self-assessment as a teacher-validated process utilizing formative assessment to create a learner-centered environment outside of the classroom. The study correlates results from three separate foreign language assessment tools to determine their relation to one another. The study promotes a holistic approach to language assessment and provides a process for holistic approach in the foreign language classroom. The process outlined in this study is easy to replicate and can be incorporated into foreign language courses with a limited amount of resources. / text

The Quebec Education Program (QEP) provides educators with detailed descriptions of competencies of learning achievement. However, current approaches used by educators to instruct and assess their students do not target the relevant QEP competencies. The goal of this thesis is to document efforts of one teacher to implement digital portfolios in her grade one and two classroom in order to instruct and assess her students according to the relevant QEP competencies. The study documents the kinds of technology and skills that are needed to implement digital portfolios in order to instruct and to assess and communicate student learning to their parents. Interviews with all participants were used to document the process from multiple perspectives. Overall, digital portfolios were found to be a very useful for instructing and assessing student and communicating with parents.

The research on implementation of portfolio assessment as part of continuous assessment (CASS), came about as I noticed the enormous challenges faced by educators as a result of implementation of the new curriculum, the National Curriculum Statement (NCS). As an educator, I have been curious to form an understanding of other educators' level of knowledge of the NCS policy as well as the extent of its implementation at school. During the research process, I have focused on portfolio assessment in order to understand the level of other educators' understanding of this form of assessment of learners, as well as the educators' shortcomings in the implementation of portfolio assessment in the classroom. The main findings of the research indicate a lack of understanding of the assessment policy amongst the educators. This tends to demotivate educators on policy implementation. This is more so as some of the educators interviewed indicated that they are not able to interact with the assessment policy document when planning. Some of the recommendations include the involvement of the department of education to help develop educators at school level. This could be done by employing learning area specialists with the intention to assist in the development of educators at school. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study examined the effect of web-based portfolio assessment strategies on the attitudes and self-perceived growth in music learning of non-music elementary general classroom educators in a basics of music course. The study is based upon research and literature in regards to constructivism, alternative assessment strategies including portfolio assessment, and computer technology.The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research. The study was quasi-experimental and utilized a pretest and posttest survey and a final discussion interview between the student and the researcher. Students participating were enrolled in the Basic Music for Elementary Classroom Teachers course during the Spring 2002 academic semester. There total number of students involved in the study was 88 (n=88). Two classes served as the control group (n=41) and two classes served as the treatment groups (n=47). Students in the control group were evaluated through traditional methods including paper-pencil exams. Students in the treatment group were assessed through alternative assessment strategies including rubrics, reflective thinking, peer review, and the construction of a web-based portfolio. Students in both groups participated in the four main projects of the semester and completed the pre-post survey, Music in My Life.Quantitative data analysis was calculated using SPSS. Information obtained through the data collection from the pre-post survey was analyzed and interpreted with the ANCOVA test at an alpha level of .05. Qualitative data was collected from the individual discussion sessions. These interviews were transcribed and coded.Quantitative analysis found significant differences in two of the questions on the pre-post survey in regards to music as a subject. No significant difference was found regarding the attitudes about music growth between the groups from the pre-post survey. However, qualitative data collected illustrated that students in the treatment groups were better able to use music vocabulary, discuss connections between the projects while viewing the semester as a whole, and discussing their growth over the period of an academic semester. These students were also able to discuss the web-based portfolio in terms of the website showing their growth over the academic semester. / School of Music

An installment option is a European option in which the premium, instead of being paid up-front, is paid in a series of installments. If all installments are paid the holder receives the exercise value, but the holder has the right to terminate payments on any payment date, in which case the option lapses with no further payments on either side. We discuss pricing and risk management for these options, in particular the use of static hedges, and also study a continuous-time limit in which premium is paid at a certain rate per unit time. (author's abstract) / Series: Report Series SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

Background: Investors have several options to choose from when the goal is to achieve the highest yield at the lowest cost and risk. Stocks are a common investment options, but is also associated with risks. Portfolios are usually constructed with several different assets to reduce the unsystematic risk of investment. Funds are similar to composite stock portfolios, the big difference is that they dealt with in their entirety and investors may not affect the fund's content. The problem remains that whether you choose stocks or mutual funds there is still uncertainty as to how the future will unfold. Which stocks will yield a high return, and what will bring losses? This is a problem that all investors have to deal with, and by economic theory seeks to create models and mathematical estimates forecasting the future. Studies indicate that the opposite of such economic models can provide at least the same rate of return, for example by allowing a monkey, baby, dog or other non-analytical choose the shares to the portfolio. Objective: Our aim was to investigate the possibility to provide an equal or higher returns than actively managed funds, but the study would also examine the number of shares a portfolio should contain, then random selection acting factor. Delimitation: The study will not take into consideration commissions, dividends, transaction costs, taxes or other issues than those stated. Method: The study extends between the years 2003 - 2013, and was performed by assembling a total of fifteen portfolios according to three different compositions of shares in the portfolios, ie 10, 15 and 20 shares. Five portfolios were randomly composed for each of the three portfolio categories, which are then compared against ten professionally managed funds, as well as an index for the same measurement period. Both the ten funds and stock composition of the fifteen portfolios were randomly reselected for each one of the total ten measurement periods. Conclusion: The managed funds outperformed the index OMXSPI by 2.8%, but the study found that randomly assembled portfolios delivers a significantly higher return than managed funds provide. The portfolio composition of twenty shares was found to provide the most representative results as the portfolio type had the lowest volatility and hence the lowest spread within the results.

Thesis (Ed. D.) -- University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1999. / Bibliography : leaves 196-203.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2004. / Title from title page screen, viewed Jan. 11, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Maureen E. Angell (chair), Barbara M. Fulk, Mary O'Brian, Kenneth H. Strand, Emily H. Watts. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 132-142) and abstract. Also available in print.