What Is a Fraction? Developing Fraction Understanding in Prospective Elementary Teachers

Classroom teachers need a well‐developed deep understanding of fractions and pedagogic practices so they can provide meaningful experiences for students to explore and construct ideas about fractions. This study sought to examine prospective elementary teachers' understandings of fraction by focusing specifically on their use of fractions meanings and interpretations. Results indicated that prospective elementary teachers bring with them to their final methods course a limited understanding of fractions and that experiences in methods courses resulted only in minor improvement of those limited understandings. The limited part‐whole understanding of fractions that prospective elementary teachers entered the course with was resilient. The implications of this study suggest a need for prospective elementary teachers to continue to develop their conceptual understanding of fractions and for changes to the content and instructional strategies of mathematics content courses designed for prospective elementary teachers.     

Self-complementary magic squares of doubly even orders

A magic square $M$ in which the entries consist of consecutive integers from $1,2,\dots ,n^2$ is said to be self-complementary of order$n$ if the resulting square obtained from $M$ by replacing each entry $i$ by $n^2+1?i$ is equivalent to $M$ (under rotation or reflection). We present a new construction for self-complementary magic squares of order $n$ for each $n\ge 4$, where $n$ is a multiple of $4$.     

Matrix Continued Fraction for the Resolvent Function of the Band Operator

The aim of this paper is the expansion of a matrix function in terms of a matrix-continued fraction as defined by Sorokin and Van Iseghem. The function under study is the Weyl function or resolvent function of an operator, given in the standard basis by a bi-infinite band matrix, with p subdiagonals and q superdiagonals, where the p + q – 1 intermediate diagonals are zero. The main goal of this paper is to find, for the moments, an explicit form in terms of the coefficients of the continued fraction, called genetic sums, which lead to a generalization of the notion of a Stieltjes continued fraction. These results are extension of some results already found for the vector case (p = 1) and are a step in the direction towards the solution of the direct and inverse spectral problem. The actual computation of the approximants of the given function as the convergents of the continued fraction is shown to be effective. Some possible extensions are considered.     

基于Samelson逆的向量值连分式的收敛准则

The aim of this work is to give some criteria on the convergence of vector valued continued fractions defined by Samelson inverse. We give a new approach to prove the convergence theory of continued fractions. First, by means of the modified classical backward recurrence relation, we obtain a formula between the m-th and n-th convergence of vector valued continued fractions. Second, using this formula, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence of vector valued continued fractions.     

Numerical analysis of a quadratic matrix equation

The quadratic matrix equation AX²+ BX + C = 0in n x nmatricesarises in applications and is of intrinsic interest as oneof the simplest nonlinear matrix equations. We give a completecharacterization of solutions in terms of the generalized Schurdecomposition and describe and compare various numerical solutiontechniques. In particular, we give a thorough treatment offunctional iteration methods based on Bernoulli’s method.Other methods considered include Newton’s method with exact line searches, symbolic solution and continued fractions.We show that functional iteration applied to the quadraticmatrix equation can provide an efficient way to solve the associated quadratic eigenvalue problem (²A + B + C)x = 0.     

The Genetic Sums' Representation for the Moments of a System of Stieltjes Functions and its Application

This paper deals with the spectral problems for high-order nonsymmetric difference operators. The method of investigation is based on the analysis of the genetic sums formulas for the moments of the operator. The parameters of these sums are shown to be connected with coefficients of the introduced vector Stieltjes continued fraction. The connections with vector orthogonality, Hermite—Padé approximation, and Hankel determinants are investigated. This gives a tool for the analysis of the solution of the direct and inverse spectral problem of the operator. It is applied to the integration of hierarchy of the discrete KdV equations. The existence of a global solution is proved. July 13, 1998. Date revised: July 12, 1999. Date accepted: July 26, 1999.     

Rook numbers and the normal ordering problem

For an element w in the Weyl algebra generated by D and U with relation DU=UD+1, the normally ordered form is w=∑c_i,jUⁱD^j. We demonstrate that the normal order coefficients c_i,j of a word w are rook numbers on a Ferrers board. We use this interpretation to give a new proof of the rook factorization theorem, which we use to provide an explicit formula for the coefficients c_i,j. We calculate the Weyl binomial coefficients: normal order coefficients of the element (D+U)ⁿ in the Weyl algebra. We extend these results to the q-analogue of the Weyl algebra. We discuss further generalizations using i-rook numbers.     

Hyperbolic Geometry and the Hillam–Thron Theorem

Every open ball within has an associated hyperbolic metric and Möbius transformations act as hyperbolic isometries from one ball to another. The Hillam–Thron Theorem is concerned with images of balls under Möbius transformation, yet existing proofs of the theorem do not make use of hyperbolic geometry. We exploit hyperbolic geometry in proving a generalisation of the Hillam–Thron Theorem and examine the precise configurations of points and balls that arise in that theorem.This work was supported by Science Foundation Ireland grant 05/RFP/MAT0003