Measuring pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy in tutoring children in primary mathematics: an instrument

This article reports on the use of Rasch modelling to develop and validate an instrument measuring self-efficacy in tutoring children in primary mathematics (SETcPM). In response to the literature on teacher efficacy, the 20-item instrument aims to inform teacher educators, and is designed for novice pre-service teachers (nPSTs) preparing to teach mathematics in primary school (grades 1–7, ages 6–13). To ensure that the tasks of teaching are imaginable for nPSTs, the instrument targets the core activity of teaching mathematics: helping a generic child with mathematics tasks. We propose that SETcPM is measurable for the intended population and represents a central part of self-efficacy in teaching mathematics (SETM). Understanding the initial SETcPM of novices and mapping its development over the course of their training programme can contribute to a better understanding of SETM, and allow teacher educators to tailor their support.     

Globally generated vector bundles on the Segre threefold with Picard number two

We classify globally generated vector bundles on with small first Chern class, i.e. , . Our main method is to investigate the associated smooth curves to globally generated vector bundles via the Hartshorne–Serre correspondence.     

Finite element Galerkin approximations to a class of nonlinear and nonlocal parabolic problems

In this article, a finite element Galerkin method is applied to a general class of nonlinear and nonlocal parabolic problems. Based on an exponential weight function, new a priori bounds which are valid for uniform in time are derived. As a result, existence of an attractor is proved for the problem with nonhomogeneous right hand side which is independent of time. In particular, when the forcing function is zero or decays exponentially, it is shown that solution has exponential decay property which improves even earlier results in one dimensional problems. For the semidiscrete method, global existence of a unique discrete solution is derived and it is shown that the discrete problem has an attractor. Moreover, optimal error estimates are derived in both and ‐norms with later estimate is a new result in this context. For completely discrete scheme, backward Euler method with its linearized version is discussed and existence of a unique discrete solution is established. Further, optimal estimates in ‐norm are proved for fully discrete schemes. Finally, several numerical experiments are conducted to confirm our theoretical findings. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 32: 1232–1264, 2016     

二层随机规划逼近解的收敛性

对二层随机规划的逼近解的收敛性作了探讨,证明了当随机向量序列{ζ(k)(w)}依分布收敛于ζ(w)时,相应于ζ(k)(w)的二层随机规划问题的任何最优解序列将收敛到原问题的最优解.     

Turbulent vortex rings in weakly turbulent and in turbulent ambient flow

Turbulent vortex rings were investigated in weakly turbulent flow and in three different grid generated turbulent flows to clarify the reciprocal action of the vortex ring with defined external turbulence. Assuming self-similarity and turbulent viscosity as proportional to V₀D₀ the equations for the ring diameter D(t) and the velocity of propagation V(t) were derived. The time difference Δt between the virtual origins of 1/V(t) respectively D²(t) led to an invariant term. The equation of momentum is fulfilled. – Position and diameter of the vortex rings were determined till their decay by means of an optical system, which did not disturb the vortex rings. The experimental results in weakly turbulent ambient flow obtained by the author and by others confirm the theory very well. The ambient turbulence was nearly constant in the measuring region; its effect could be described by simply adding its viscosity to the vortex ring’s internal turbulent viscosity. The results could be represented in unified non-dimensional diagrams. Moreover, an explanation was found as to why the mean internal turbulent viscosity is constant.     

Fast tensor method for summation of long‐range potentials on 3D lattices with defects

In this paper, we present a method for fast summation of long‐range potentials on 3D lattices with multiple defects and having non‐rectangular geometries, based on rank‐structured tensor representations. This is a significant generalization of our recent technique for the grid‐based summation of electrostatic potentials on the rectangular L × L × L lattices by using the canonical tensor decompositions and yielding the O(L) computational complexity instead of O(L³) by traditional approaches. The resulting lattice sum is calculated as a Tucker or canonical representation whose directional vectors are assembled by the 1D summation of the generating vectors for the shifted reference tensor, once precomputed on large N × N × N representation grid in a 3D bounding box. The tensor numerical treatment of defects is performed in an algebraic way by simple summation of tensors in the canonical or Tucker formats. To diminish the considerable increase in the tensor rank of the resulting potential sum, the ?‐rank reduction procedure is applied based on the generalized reduced higher‐order SVD scheme. For the reduced higher‐order SVD approximation to a sum of canonical/Tucker tensors, we prove the stable error bounds in the relative norm in terms of discarded singular values of the side matrices. The required storage scales linearly in the 1D grid‐size, O(N), while the numerical cost is estimated by O(NL). The approach applies to a general class of kernel functions including those for the Newton, Slater, Yukawa, Lennard‐Jones, and dipole‐dipole interactions. Numerical tests confirm the efficiency of the presented tensor summation method; we demonstrate that a sum of millions of Newton kernels on a 3D lattice with defects/impurities can be computed in seconds in Matlab implementation. The tensor approach is advantageous in further functional calculus with the lattice potential sums represented on a 3D grid, like integration or differentiation, using tensor arithmetics of 1D complexity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The threshold for combs in random graphs

For let denote the tree consisting of an ‐vertex path with disjoint ‐vertex paths beginning at each of its vertices. An old conjecture says that for any the threshold for the random graph to contain is at . Here we verify this for with any fixed . In a companion paper, using very different methods, we treat the complementary range, proving the conjecture for (with ). © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 48, 794–802, 2016     

Weak and strong stationarity in generalized bilevel programming and bilevel optimal control

In this article, we consider a general bilevel programming problem in reflexive Banach spaces with a convex lower level problem. In order to derive necessary optimality conditions for the bilevel problem, it is transferred to a mathematical program with complementarity constraints (MPCC). We introduce a notion of weak stationarity and exploit the concept of strong stationarity for MPCCs in reflexive Banach spaces, recently developed by the second author, and we apply these concepts to the reformulated bilevel programming problem. Constraint qualifications are presented, which ensure that local optimal solutions satisfy the weak and strong stationarity conditions. Finally, we discuss a certain bilevel optimal control problem by means of the developed theory. Its weak and strong stationarity conditions of Pontryagin-type and some controllability assumptions ensuring strong stationarity of any local optimal solution are presented.     

Fluctuations in the homogenization of semilinear equations with random potentials

We study the stochastic homogenization and obtain a random fluctuation theory for semilinear elliptic equations with a rapidly varying random potential. To first order, the effective potential is the average potential and the nonlinearity is not affected by the randomness. We then study the limiting distribution of the properly scaled homogenization error (random fluctuations) in the space of square integrable functions, and prove that the limit is a Gaussian distribution characterized by homogenized solution, the Green’s function of the linearized equation around the homogenized solution, and by the integral of the correlation function of the random potential. These results enlarge the scope of the framework that we have developed for linear equations to the class of semilinear equations.