Lecture capture with real‐time rearrangement of visual elements: impact on student performance

The primary goal of this study is to create and test a lecture‐capture system that can rearrange visual elements while recording is still taking place, in such a way that student performance can be positively influenced. The system we have devised is capable of integrating and rearranging multimedia sources, including learning content, the instructor and students' images, into lecture videos that are embedded in a website for students to review after school. The present study employed a two‐group experimental design, with 153 participants (145 females and 8 males) making up an experimental group in which lecture courses were recorded using the new lecture‐capture system, and 149 participants (140 females and 9 males) forming a control group whose lectures were recorded by traditional means. All participants were in the freshman college and studying Introduction to Computer and Information Science in one of six classes, and were randomly assigned to one of the two groups. The participants' midterm examination and final examination scores were collected as indicators of their academic performance, with their mathematics entrance scores used as a pre‐test. The findings obtained from analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) suggest that appropriate rearrangement of visual elements in lecture videos can significantly impact students' learning performance.     

Is the List of Incomplete Open Cubes Complete?

Variations of Incomplete Open Cubes is the major project by the twentieth-century conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. In this paper we interpret the enumerative component of the project as embeddings of graphs. This formulation permits use of an algorithm to check the completeness of the list of the structures produced by the artist. Our conclusion is that the artist found the correct number of structures (that is, 122), but that his list contains a mistake in the presentation of a pair of incomplete cubes, a discovery that appears not to have been noted before.     

Temperature cycling and its effect on mechanical behaviours of highporosity chalks

Temperature history can have a significant effect on the strength of water-saturated chalk.In this study,hydrostatic stress cycles are applied to understand the mechanical response of chalk samples exposed to temperature cycling between each stress cycle,compared to the samples tested at a constant temperature.The total accumulated strain during a stress cycle and the irreversible strain are reported.Chalk samples from Kansas(USA)and Mons(Belgium),with different degrees of induration(i.e.amount of contact cementation),were used.The samples were saturated with equilibrated water(polar)and nonpolar Isopar H oil to quantify water weakening.All samples tested during 10 stress cycles with varying temperature(i.e.temperature cycled in between each stress cycle)accumulated more strain than those tested at constant temperatures.All the stress cycles were performed at 30℃.The two chalk types behaved similarly when saturated with Isopar H oil,but differently when saturated with water.When saturated with water,the stronger Kansas chalk accumulated more total strain and more irreversible strain within each stress cycle than the weaker Mons chalk.