Concept attainment by pairs and individuals as a function of vocalization.

A concept attainment task comparing vocalization and nonvocalization by pairs and individuals was conducted using 84 female college student volunteers, who solved 4 3-attribute conjunctive problems. Vocalizing pairs and individuals vocalizing to a peer apparently learning the task were superior to nonvocalizing pairs. Further distinction between 2 problem-solving processes, strategy process (measured by focusing ratio) and monitoring (measured by ratio of untenable hypotheses), was demonstrated. In terms of overall effectiveness, vocalizing pairs were superior; individuals vocalizing to a confederate, individuals vocalizing to the E, and nonvocalizing individuals were intermediate, in that order; and nonvocalizing pairs were consistently inferior. Ss in all conditions improved over problems on all measures. Implications for educational applications are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automating requirements analysis and test case generation

Requirements Engineering - Writing clear and unambiguous requirements that are conflict-free and complete is no easy task. Incorrect requirements lead to errors being introduced early in the design...     

The Use of Multimedia Guidelines versus Designers' Attitudes

In order to maintain a standard design approach to developing computer-based training materials for multimedia development software, a need was identified for a design guide. Initial investigations found that current how-to-do-it guides were not focused enough to suit the specific context of this project. The research reported here has centred on compiling a more focused set of design guidelines from existing sources. This paper presents some of the findings and issues arising from the research project, including the negative attitudes of students who felt their creativity was constrained by working to design guidelines.     

Class of discrete integrating operators

A class of integrating operators is presented which assumes an interpolation which is an nth-order polynomial between the sample points and has n ? 1 continuous derivatives at the sample points. It is shown that several classical numerical integration schemes and zform substitutes are special cases of this class.     

Extraction of phenolics and essential oil from dried sage (Salvia officinalis) using ethanol–water mixtures

Effects of particle size, temperature, contact time, solvent-to-sage ratio and the ethanol–water ratio on the extraction of the active compounds rosmarinic acid, carnosic compounds and essential oil from dried sage (Salvia officinalis) were studied. Optimal extraction conditions giving highest yield of all three active compounds were particle diameter 1 mm, extraction temperature 40 °C, solvent-to-sage ratio of 6:1 and 55–75 wt% ethanol for up to 3 h. This gave an extract equivalent to 14.9% of dry sage, containing 6.9% rosmarinic acid (55% recovery), 10.6% carnosic compounds (75% recovery) and 7.3% essential oil (42% recovery). Scale up of the process by a factor of 100 demonstrated that the optimised laboratory scale process can be carried out without any loss of efficiency at an industrial scale.