Fractional commensurate, composition, and adding schemes: Learning trajectories of Jason and Laura: Grade 5

A case study of two 5th-Grade children, Jason and Laura, is presented who participated in the teaching experiment, Children’s Construction of the Rational Numbers of Arithmetic. The case study begins on the 29th of November of their 5th-Grade in school and ends on the 5th of April of the same school year. Two basic problems were of interest in the case study. The first was to provide an analysis of the concepts and operations that are involved in the construction of three fractional schemes: a commensurate fractional scheme, a fractional composition scheme, and a fractional adding scheme. The second was to provide an analysis of the contribution of interactive mathematical activity in the construction of these schemes. The phrase, “commensurate factional scheme” refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in transforming a given fraction into another fraction that are both measures of an identical quantity. Likewise, “fractional composition scheme” refers to the concepts and operations that are involved in finding how much, say, 1/3 of 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity, and “fractional adding scheme” refers to the concepts and operations involved in finding how much, say, 1/3 of a quantity joined to 1/4 of a quantity is of the whole quantity. Critical protocols were abstracted from the teaching episodes with the two children that illustrate what is meant by the schemes, changes in the children’s concepts and operations, and the interactive mathematical activity that was involved. The body of the case study consists of an on-going analysis of the children’s interactive mathematical activity and changes in that activity. The last section of the case study consists of an analysis of the constitutive aspects of the children’s constructive activity, including the role of social interaction and nonverbal interactions of the children with each other and with the computer software we used in teaching the children.     

Nonstandard Finite Difference Schemes for Differential Equations

This paper gives an introduction to nonstandard finite difference methods useful for the construction of discrete models of differential equations when numerical solutions are required. While the general rules for such schemes are not precisely known at the present time, several important criterion have been found. We provide an explanation of their significance and apply them to several model ordinary and partial differential equations. The paper ends with a discussion of several outstanding problems in this area and other related issues.     

A critical evaluation of seven discretization schemes for convection–diffusion equations

A comparative study of seven discretization schemes for the equations describing convection-diffusion transport phenomena is presented. The (differencing) schemes considered are the conventional central- and upwind-difference schemes, together with the Leonard,¹ Leonard upwind¹ and Leonard super upwind difference¹ schemes. Also tested are the so called locally exact difference scheme² and the quadratic-upstream difference scheme.^3,4 In multidimensional problems errors arise from ‘false-diffusion’ and function approximations. It is asserted that false diffusion is essentially a multidimensional source of error. No mesh constraints are associated with errors in function approximation and discretization. Hence errors associated with discretization only may be investigated via one-dimensional problems. Thus, although the above schemes have been tested for one- and two-dimensional flows with sources, only the former are presented here. For 1D flows, the Leonard super upwind difference scheme and the locally exact scheme are shown to be far superior in accuracy to the others at all Peclet numbers and for most source distributions, for the test cases considered. Furthermore, the latter is shown to be considerably cheaper in computational terms than the former. The stability of the schemes and their CPU time requirements are also discussed.     

An accurate semi-analytic finite difference scheme for two-dimensional elliptic problems with singularities

A high-order semi-analytic finite difference scheme is presented to overcome degradation of numerical performance when applied to two-dimensional elliptic problems containing singular points. The scheme, called Least-Square Singular Finite Difference Scheme (L-S SFDS), applies an explicit functional representation of the exact solution in the vicinity of the singularities, and a conventional finite difference scheme on the remaining domain. It is shown that the L-S SFDS is “pollution” free, i.e., no degradation in the convergence rate occurs because of the singularities, and the coefficients of the asymptotic solution in the vicinity of the singularities are computed as a by-product with a very high accuracy. Numerical examples for the Laplace and Poisson equations over domains containing re-entrant corners or abrupt changes in the boundary conditions are presented. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 14: 281–296, 1998     

National External Quality Assessment Schemes for microbiology, parasitology, and virology in Europe

Quality assurance is an important aspect of laboratory management. One of the activities involved is the participation in external quality assessment (EQA) schemes by the clinical laboratory. These EQA schemes should be organised according to well-defined guidelines, such as the ESO/IEC Guide 43. The present work provides an inventory of the EQA schemes organised in Europe. The schemes are related to the fields of bacteriology, parasitology and virology. For each field various surveys have been organised. Data such as the number of participants, frequency of survey and number of samples in a survey are presented. The nature and way of manufacturing the control material is specified.     

The Lagrangian approach of advective term treatment and its application to the solution of Navier—Stokes equations

A one-dimensional transport test applied to some conventional advective Eulerian schemes shows that linear stability analyses do not guarantee the actual performances of these schemes. When adopting the Lagrangian approach, the main problem raised in the numerical treatment of advective terms is a problem of interpolation or restitution of the transported function shape from discrete data. Several interpolation methods are tested. Some of them give excellent results and these methods are then extended to multi-dimensional cases. The Lagrangian formulation of the advection term permits an easy solution to the Navier-Stokes equations in primitive variables V, p, by a finite difference scheme, explicit in advection and implicit in diffusion. As an illustration steady state laminar flow behind a sudden enlargement is analysed using an upwind differencing scheme and a Lagrangian scheme. The importance of the choice of the advective scheme in computer programs for industrial application is clearly apparent in this example.     

A survey of some second-order difference schemes for the steady-state convection–diffusion equation

This paper presents a survey of several finite difference schemes for the steady-state convection–diffusion equation in one and two dimensions. Most difference schemes have O(h2) truncation error. The behaviour of these schemes on a one-dimensional model problem is analysed in detail, especially for the case when convection dominates diffusion. It is concluded that none of these schemes is universally second order. One recently proposed scheme is found to yield highly inaccurate solutions for the case of practical interest, i.e. when convection dominates diffusion. Extensions to two and threedimensions are also discussed.     

Students’ coordination of lower and higher dimensional units in the context of constructing and evaluating sums of consecutive whole numbers

This paper examines how three eighth grade students coordinated lower and higher dimensional units (e.g., composite units and pairs) in the context of constructing a formula for evaluating sums of consecutive whole numbers while solving combinatorics problems (e.g., 1 + 2 + ⋯ + 15 = (16 × 15)/2). The data is drawn from the beginning of an 8-month teaching experiment. The findings from the study include: (1) a framework for understanding how students coordinate lower and higher dimensional units; (2) identification of key learning that occurred as students made the transition between solving two kinds of combinatorics problems; and (3) identification of the links between the way students’ coordinated lower and higher dimensional units and their evaluation of sums of consecutive whole numbers. Implications for research and teaching are considered.     

Application of an explicit TVD scheme for unsteady,axisymmetric, muzzle brake flow

Operator splitting in the presence of source terms is necessary in order to apply Harten's second-order accurate, total-variation-diminishing (TVD), shock-capturing scheme to higher-dimensional problems. By employing Godunov boundary treatment at the muzzle brake, such splitting is applied to the problem of muzzle brake flow simulation for the case of blasts which are impeded, by vertical and slanted baffles, respectively. Results from numerical studies of various types of wall boundary condition treatment which are consistent with Harten's TVD scheme are indicated.