Middle-school students’ concept images of geometric translations

This study explored sixth grade students’ concept images of geometric translations and the possible sources of their conceptions in a non-technological environment. The data were gathered through a written instrument, student and teacher interviews and document analyses. Analyses of student responses revealed two major concept images of geometric translations: (a) translation as translational motion, and (b) translation as both translational and rotational motion. Students who held these conceptions showed various levels of understanding, such as conceiving translations as undefined motion, partially-defined motion, and defined-motion of a single geometric figure on the plane. The findings of the study suggested, in general, consistencies between students’ concept images and their concept definitions. However, most of the students’ concept definitions were inconsistent with the formal concept definition of geometric translations.Data analyses also revealed five interpretations of a translation vector: (a) vector as a reference line, (b) vector as a symmetry line, (c) vector as a direction indicator, (d) vector as a parameter, and (e) vector as an abstract tool. Furthermore, classroom instruction, mathematics and science textbooks, real-life examples and everyday language were the major sources of students’ concept images of geometric translations.     

Dynamics of the geometric phase in the adiabatic limit of a quench induced quantum phase transition

The geometric phase associated with a many body ground state exhibits a signature of quantum phase transition. In this context, we have studied the behavior of the geometric phase during a linear quench caused by a gradual turning off of the magnetic field interacting with a spin chain.     

Free Subgroups of Groups with Nontrivial Floyd Boundary

Abstract

We prove that when a countable group admits a nontrivial Floyd-type boundary, then every nonelementary and metrically proper subgroup contains a noncommutative free subgroup. This generalizes the corresponding well-known results for hyperbolic groups and groups with infinitely many ends. It also shows that no finitely generated amenable group admits a nontrivial boundary of this type. This improves on a theorem by Floyd (Floyd, W. J. (1980). Group completions and limit sets of Kleinian groups. Invent. Math. 57: 205–218) as well as giving an elementary proof of a conjecture stated in that same paper. We also show that if the Floyd boundary of a finitely generated group is nontrivial, then it is a boundary in the sense of Furstenberg and the group acts on it as a convergence group.     

Univariate Geometric Stable Laws

The paper summarizes recent advances in the theory of geometric stable (GS) distributions. The results presented include parametrizations, characterizations, mixture representations, properties, asymptotic and convergent series expansions of densities and distribution functions, moments and tail behavior, simulation, and estimation.     

FRACTOP: A Geometric Partitioning Metaheuristic for Global Optimization

We propose a new metaheuristic, FRACTOP, for global optimization. FRACTOP is based on the geometric partitioning of the feasible region so that search metaheuristics such as Simulated Annealing (SA), or Genetic Algorithms (GA) which are activated in smaller subregions, have increased reliability in locating the global optimum. FRACTOP is able to incorporate any search heuristic devised for global optimization. The main contribution of FRACTOP is that it provides an intelligent guidance (through fuzzy measures) in locating the subregion containing the global optimum solution for the search heuristics imbedded in it. By executing the search in nonoverlapping subregions, FRACTOP eliminates the repetitive visits of the search heuristics to the same local area and furthermore, it becomes amenable for parallel processing. As FRACTOP conducts the search deeper into smaller subregions, many unpromising subregions are discarded from the feasible region. Thus, the initial feasible region gains a fractal structure with many space gaps which economizes on computation time. Computational experiments with FRACTOP indicate that the metaheuristic improves significantly the results obtained by random search (RS), SA and GA.