Related papers: Interpretation as a factor in understanding flawed…
We intend to demonstrate the innate problems with existing spreadsheet products and to show how to tackle these issues using a new type of spreadsheet program called Resolver. It addresses the issues head-on and thereby moves the 1980's…
Legal interpretation is a linguistic venture. In judicial opinions, for example, courts are often asked to interpret the text of statutes and legislation. As time has shown, this is not always as easy as it sounds. Matters can hinge on…
This paper explores the impacts of spreadsheets on business operations in a water utility parastatal in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation is a typical example of a semi-government body operating in a technologically…
Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and…
Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have become ubiquitous. Although they offer a wide range of benefits, their adoption in decision-critical fields is limited by their lack of interpretability, particularly with textual…
Statistics experiences a storm around the perceived misuse and possible abuse of its methods in the context of the so-called reproducibility crisis. The methods and styles of quantification practiced in mathematical modelling rarely make it…
In previous work we have studied how an explicit representation of background knowledge associated with a specific spreadsheet can be exploited to alleviate usability problems with spreadsheet-based applications. We have implemented this…
This note presents reflections drawn from my recent experiences in teaching a course on mathematics and sustainability, with a particular emphasis on raising awareness of the topic and its broader implications. The lectures were structured…
Understanding program code is a complicated endeavor. As such, myriad different factors can influence the outcome. Investigations of program comprehension, and in particular those using controlled experiments, have to take these factors…
While functional programming is an efficient way to express complex software, functional programming languages have a steep learning curve. Haskell can be challenging to learn for students who were only introduced to imperative programming.…
This paper presents the findings of a case study of spreadsheet use in a higher education institution in the UK. The paper considers the use of spreadsheets in two units of the organisation, academic registry and finance. Spreadsheet use is…
There is overwhelming evidence that the continued and widespread use of untested spreadsheets in business gives rise to regular, significant and unexpected financial losses. Whilst this is worrying, it is perhaps a relatively minor concern…
Contribution: We demonstrate that it is feasible to include field specific problems in introductory mathematics courses to motivate engineering students. This is done in a way that still allows large parts of the course to be common to all…
Mathematical knowledge is a central component in science, engineering, and technology (documentation). Most of it is represented informally, and -- in contrast to published research mathematics -- subject to continual change. Unfortunately,…
Modern ERP systems contain flexible report generators but the tendency exists for users to export data to spreadsheets for manipulation, reporting and decision making. A purported reason for this is that some users are more familiar with…
Microsoft Excel is the most ubiquitous analytical tool ever built. Companies around the world leverage it for its power, flexibility and ease of use. However, spreadsheets are manually intensive and prone to error, making it difficult for…
We report on a large-scale study of student learning of quantum tunneling in 4 traditional and 4 transformed modern physics courses. In the transformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research,…
Physics makes powerful use of mathematics, yet the way this use is made is often poorly understood. Professionals closely integrate their mathematical symbology with physical meaning, resulting in a powerful and productive structure. But…
It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But how exactly can we characterize such discrepancies in interpretation? For example, are there any specific features of an image that makes person A regard an image as beautiful while…
Even if students can make the blend, interpret physics correctly in mathematical symbology and graphs, they still need to be able to apply that knowledge in productive and coherent ways. As instructors, we can show our solutions to complex…