On the relation of abstract and concrete in scientists’ graph interpretations: A case study

The notions of abstract and concrete are central to the conceptualization of mathematical knowing and learning. Much of the literature takes a dualist approach, leading to the privileging of the former term at the expense of the latter. In this article, we provide a concrete analysis of a scientist interpreting an unfamiliar graph to show how engagement with some object leads to the working out of existing, concrete practical understanding and the articulation of categorical statements (“generalizations”); because the scientist knew something at the end of his interpretive work that he did not prior to it, the event is understood to constitute an episode of learning. The analysis shows that rather than being a movement from concrete to abstract or from abstract to concrete, development occurs in a movement that appears to be simultaneously from concrete to abstract and from abstract to concrete.     

Learning to Ignore Online Help Requests

Email discussion groups provide a useful way of organizing email communities with a common interest in a certain topic. Emails submitted to the discussion group are sent automatically to each individual member, thereby eliminating the need to send multiple emails. This method may present unexpected difficulties however, when it comes to cooperation between members. An experimental study shows that email requests for help sent through discussion groups received less responses than emails sent individually to members of a group. Furthermore, subscribers to large discussion groups responded less often to help requests, whether they were sent to the group as a whole or to individuals. These results are discussed in terms of the separate roles of social cues and experience on the diffusion of responsibility effect.     

A study of leveraged ETF based on geometric return

Leveraged (inverse) exchange-traded funds (LETFs) seek to deliver multiples (opposite) of the performance of the index or benchmark they track. LETFs typically are designed to achieve their stated performance objectives on a daily basis. Many real-life and hypothetical examples have been given to show that the performance of these ETFs over a period longer than one day can differ from their stated daily performance objectives. Formulae have been found using both continuous method and discrete method. A discrete method was used to find a formula linking the return of a leveraged fund with the corresponding multiple of the return of the unleveraged fund and its realized variance but the method needs to use some assumptions and statistical properties to create the volatility term. A CME report finds a very simple way to include volatility in their formula but fails to link to the return of the corresponding unleveraged product. In this paper, we find a natural way to link a leveraged fund with its corresponding unleveraged product and its realized variance in a discrete manner. Our derivation process is similar to that in the CME report, so we do not need to use assumptions and statistical properties to create the volatility term. Unlike the CME method, we use geometric return as opposed to arithmetic return. So, we are able to connect with the return of the corresponding unleveraged product.     

Stability study and control of helicopter blade flapping vibrations

The response of a two-degree-of-freedom, controlled, autoparametric system to harmonic excitations is studied and solved. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of linear absorber on the vibrating system and the saturation control of a linear absorber to reduce vibrations due to rotor blade flapping motion. The method of multiple scale perturbation technique is applied to obtain the periodic response equation near the primary resonance in the presence of internal resonance of the system. The stability of the obtained numerical solution is investigated using both phase plane methods and frequency response equations. Variation of some parameters leads to the bending of the frequency response curves and hence to the jump phenomenon occurrence. The reported results are compared to the available published work.     

Topology Optimization of Trusses—Random Cost Method Versus Evolutionary Algorithms

The recently proposed random cost method is applied to the topology optimization of trusses. Its performance is compared to previous genetic algorithm and evolution strategy simulations. Random cost turns out to be an optimization method with attractive features. In comparison to the genetic algorithm approach of Hajela, Lee and Lin, random cost turns out to be simpler and more efficient. Furthermore it is found that in contrast to evolution strategy, the random cost strategy's ability to find optima, is independent of the initial structure. This characteristic is related to the important capacity of escaping from local optima.     

Partial splitting of longevity and financial risks: The longevity nominal choosing swaptions

The previous attempts to launch liquid and standardized longevity derivatives in the market failed because banks do not seem to be ready to take longevity risk. Therefore, instead of trying to transfer longevity risk to investors, it could be interesting for financial institutions to propose interest rate hedges adapted to longevity portfolios, in the spirit of liability driven investments. In this paper, we introduce a new structured financial product: the so-called Longevity Nominal Chooser Swaption. Thanks to such a contract, insurers could keep pure longevity risk and transfer to financial markets a great part of interest rate risk underlying annuity portfolios.We use a population dynamics longevity model and a classical two-factor interest rate model to price this product. Numerical results show that the option offered to the insurer (in terms of choice of nominal) is not too expensive in many real-world cases. We also discuss the pros and the cons of the product and of our methodology.     

出租车司机社会贡献评价方法研究

出租车司机的社会贡献对于促进城市经济发展和社会进步具有重要的作用,评价出租车司机的社会贡献是激励出租车司机多做社会贡献的重要手段。为了评价出租车司机的社会贡献,本文提出了一种基于实际出租车运营数据的评价方法。本文设计了运营特性、重点区域、恶劣天气、大事件四个体现司机社会贡献的指标,以此构建了出租车司机社会贡献评价指标体系,进而选用了主观赋权法G1法和客观赋权法拉开档次法相结合的赋权方式对指标赋权,并选择四种评价信息集结方法建立了出租车司机社会贡献评价模型。最后,通过实际的出租车运营数据验证了本方法的可行性。本文为评价出租车司机社会贡献提供了一种研究思路和方法,并对政府政策的制定和企业策略的实施具有一定的启示。     

Modeling for optical ray tracing and error analysis

One of the most popular mathematical tools in fields of robotics, mechanisms, and computer graphics is the 4×4 homogeneous transformation matrix. We extend the use of that matrix to the optical domain of:

(1) skew ray tracing to determine the paths of skew rays; and

(2) error analysis to investigate the various deviations of imagines due to imperfect placement of optical elements.

In order to trace a skew ray, the reflection and refraction laws of optics are formulated in the language of homogeneous transformation matrices. Then an error matrix to describe the position errors and orientation errors of optical elements is introduced in order to analyze their effects on rays' path. This ray tracing procedure can result in very powerful and fast optical design programs. The error analysis can provide the sensitivity of each error component of elements to a system's accuracy and is crucial to upgrade the precision of optical systems in design stage.     

Perturbation theory for mathematical programming problems

Mathematical programming (MP) problems depending on a small parameter are investigated. Attention is paid to the cases where the solutions to the reduced program and/or the solutions to the dual reduced program are not unique. Conditions are given for the convergence of perturbed solutions to a point of the reduced problem solution set, if the small parameter tends to zero. It is shown how to find this point and how to construct an approximate solution to the perturbed program. A singular situation may appear if the dual solution set is unbounded. In this case, a gap between perturbed and reduced solutions may arise. However, it is shown that the perturbed solutions are close to the solutions of some modified reduced problem. The practical usefulness of perturbation theory is demonstrated by considering the two LP problems. Decomposition and aggregation procedures are constructed on the base of general results to find suboptimal solutions of these problems.