Understanding the ways in which design features of educational websites impact upon student learning outcomes in blended learning environments

This study investigated the effectiveness, in terms of the attainment of relevant learning outcomes, of the types of learning promoted by educational features commonly incorporated in course management systems. Twenty-one courses with significant use of the Internet, but with face-to-face teaching as the predominant instructional mode, were investigated. Five hundred and ninety-five students taking these 21 courses completed a questionnaire which gave feedback on the extent of use of and quality of implementation of internet features, as well as their perception of the attainment of outcomes relating to approaches to learning, communication skills and understanding of content. A confirmatory factor analysis of scales pertinent to information presentation and constructive dialogue features showed a very poor fit to the data, indicating that the two types of function did not act in concert. Structural equation modelling was used to test instructional models in presage–process–product format for ‘information’ and ‘dialogue’ features. The information one showed a marginal fit to the data, but the dialogue one a very good fit. This shows that using the Internet for presenting information in a blended environment does not seem to effectively help students achieve learning outcomes. Using features which promote constructive dialogue and interactive learning activities encourages a deep approach to learning, the development of communication skills and enhanced understanding of content.     

On the surface area of the -star graph

We present an explicit formula for the surface area of the (n,k)-star graph, i.e., the number of nodes at a certain distance from the identity node in the graph, by identifying the unique cycle structures associated with the nodes in the graph, deriving a distance expression in terms of such structures between the identity node of the graph and any other node, and enumerating those cycle structures satisfying the distance restriction.The above surface area derivation process can also be applied to some of the other node symmetric interconnection structures defined on the symmetric group, when the aforementioned distance expression is available.     

Robust admissibility and admissibilisation of uncertain discrete singular time-delay systems

This paper is concerned with the characterisation of robust admissibility and admissibilisation for uncertain discrete-time singular system with interval time-varying delay. Considering the norm-bounded uncertainty and the interval time-varying delay, a new comparison model is introduced to transform the original singular system into two connected subsystems. After this transformation, a singular system without uncertainty and delay can be handled by the Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional method. By virtue of the scaled small gain theorem, an admissibility condition of the original singular system is proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Moreover, the problem of robust admissibilisation of uncertain discrete singular time-varying system is also studied by iterative linear matrix inequality algorithm with initial condition optimisation. Several numerical examples are used to illustrate that the results are less conservative than existing ones.     

Containment control of multi-agent systems with unbounded communication delays

In this paper, we address the containment control problem for multi-agent systems under heterogeneous unbounded communication delays with emphasis on the convergence rate analysis. Different from most works on multi-agent systems, we resort to a viewpoint from the area of positive delay systems. We first cast the containment control problem into the stability analysis of an associated error system. In order to capture the convergence rate, we introduce a nondecreasing positive function whose reciprocal represents the decay rate of the associated error system. Under the assumption that each follower has access to at least one leader and some mild hypotheses on the communication delays, an explicit condition is given to characterise the decay rate of the associated error system in terms of linear programming. In addition, we provide several special cases when the communication delays are restricted by linear, sublinear and logarithmic growth rates, respectively. Finally, through numerical examples, it is shown that the convergence rate is dominated by the delays being the highest order infinitely large quantity.     

An Internet-based negotiation server for e-commerce

This paper describes the design and implementation of a replicable, Internet-based negotiation server for conducting bargaining-type negotiations between enterprises involved in e-commerce and e-business. Enterprises can be buyers and sellers of products/services or participants of a complex supply chain engaged in purchasing, planning, and scheduling. Multiple copies of our server can be installed to complement the services of Web servers. Each enterprise can install or select a trusted negotiation server to represent his/her interests. Web-based GUI tools are used during the build-time registration process to specify the requirements, constraints, and rules that represent negotiation policies and strategies, preference scoring of different data conditions, and aggregation methods for deriving a global cost-benefit score for the item(s) under negotiation. The registration information is used by the negotiation servers to automatically conduct bargaining type negotiations on behalf of their clients. In this paper, we present the architecture of our implementation as well as a framework for automated negotiations, and describe a number of communication primitives which are used in the underlying negotiation protocol. A constraint satisfaction processor (CSP) is used to evaluate a negotiation proposal or counterproposal against the registered requirements and constraints of a client company. In case of a constraint violation, an event is posted to trigger the execution of negotiation strategic rules, which either automatically relax the violated constraint, ask for human intervention, invoke an application, or perform other remedial operations. An Event-Trigger-Rule (ETR) server is used to manage events, triggers, and rules. Negotiation strategic rules can be added or modified at run-time. A cost-benefit analysis component is used to perform quantitative analysis of alternatives. The use of negotiation servers to conduct automated negotiation has been demonstrated in the context of an integrated supply chain scenario. Received: 30 October 2000 / Accepted: 12 January 2001 Published online: 2 August 2001     

A new criterion of delay-dependent asymptotic stability for Hopfield neural networks with time delay.

In this brief, the problem of global asymptotic stability for delayed Hopfield neural networks (HNNs) is investigated. A new criterion of asymptotic stability is derived by introducing a new kind of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and is formulated in terms of a linear matrix inequality (LMI), which can be readily solved via standard software. This new criterion based on a delay fractioning approach proves to be much less conservative and the conservatism could be notably reduced by thinning the delay fractioning. An example is provided to show the effectiveness and the advantage of the proposed result.     

A framework of interaction costs in information visualization

Interaction cost is an important but poorly understood factor in visualization design. We propose a framework of interaction costs inspired by Norman’s Seven Stages of Action to facilitate study. From 484 papers, we collected 61 interaction-related usability problems reported in 32 user studies and placed them into our framework of seven costs: (1) Decision costs to form goals; (2) System-power costs to form system operations; (3) Multiple input mode costs to form physical sequences; (4) Physical-motion costs to execute sequences; (5) Visual-cluttering costs to perceive state; (6) View-change costs to interpret perception; (7) State-change costs to evaluate interpretation. We also suggested ways to narrow the gulfs of execution (2–4) and evaluation (5–7) based on collected reports. Our framework suggests a need to consider decision costs (1) as the gulf of goal formation.     

A Reusable Multi-Agent Architecture for Active Intelligent Websites

In this paper a reusable multi-agent architecture for intelligent Websites is presented and illustrated for an electronic department store. The architecture has been designed and implemented using the compositional design method for multi-agent systems DESIRE. The agents within this architecture are based on a generic information broker agent model. It is shown how the architecture can be exploited to design an intelligent Website for insurance, developed in co-operation with the software company Ordina Utopics and an insurance company.