Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Vision Learning

Visionlearning is a new educational resource for faculty and students. Funded by the National Science Foundation, Visionlearning provides high-quality science learning modules that have been shown to be more effective than traditional textbooks in teaching science.  
Ref.: http://www.visionlearning.com/  
Research Methods: The Practice of Science  by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D.

"Scientific research methods are part of the practice through which questions can be addressed scientifically. These methods all produce data that are subject to analysis and interpretation and lead to ideas in science such as hypotheses, theories, and laws. Scientific ideas are developed and disseminated through the literature where individuals and groups may debate the interpretations and significance of the results. Eventually, as multiple lines of evidence add weight to an idea it becomes an integral part of the body of knowledge that exists in science and feeds back into the research process."

 Ref.: Anthony Carpi, Ph.D., Anne E. Egger, Ph.D. "Research Methods: The Practice of Science," Visionlearning Vol. POS-2 (1), 2008.
http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=148

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Software Engineering

Guidelines Based Software Engineering for Developing Software Components by Muthu Ramachandran (Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2012, 5, 1-6)

The term Software Engineering was coined by F. L. Bauer the chairman of 1968 NATO Software Engineer- ing conference held in Garmisch, Germany to promote a disciplined approach to developing software. The term Software is meant a list of machine instructions where as the Engineering is meant the use of disciplined appro- aches and laws when building software systems.
Software guidelines have been with us in many forms within Software Engineering community such as knowledge, ex-periences, domain expertise, laws, software design principles, rules, design heuristics, hypothesis, experimental results, programming rules, best practices, observations, skills, algorithms have played major role in software development.
In Software Design we use guidelines that help us to identify a suitable design criterion when faced with design decisions. Therefore software guidelines summarises expert knowledge as a collection of design judgements, rationales, and principles. This can be used by students/ engineers when learning about new principles with ex-amples and experts alike.

Source: http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jsea

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

List of SOC Occupations (USA)

2010 SOC System: Contains links to major groups, the complete hierarchical structure, broad occupational definitions, and detailed occupational definitions.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
http://www.bls.gov/soc/classification.htm

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Profesor vs. Studenti

Inspiratia profesorului sau inspiratia studentului?

Zilele acestea m-am documentat despre un subiect privind teoria fractalilor, si mi-am amintit de un episod din anul 1992 cand am publicat o carte in 2 volume. In prefata cartii "Grafica pe calculator in limbajele PASCAL si C. Implementare si aplicatii", aparuta la Editura Tehnica in anul 1992, am indicat numele a doi studenti din anul IV de la Facultatea de Matematica ce au colaborat la elaborarea capitolului "Teoria fractalilor" (vol. II). Este vorba de studentii Silviu Brînzei si Marian Gîdea, primul de la Informatica, celalalt de la Matematica (cred Matematica-Mecanica).
Mi-am amintit ca prin anul '89 sau 1990 cand am condus laboratoare de informatica la anul II, la un astfel de laborator am ramas surprins sa vad o imagine fractala pe ecranul terminalului unui student (laboratoarele erau la parter conectate la un minicalculator Coral - de tip PDP/11M) . Cred ca este vorba de Silviu. L-am intrebat de unde stie de algoritmul de generare a structurilor fractale si daca a inteles ceva despre aceste structuri. Mi-a raspuns foarte convingator ca a elaborat programul dupa ce a colaborat si a discutat cu un coleg de la matematica, fiind vorba de Marian Gîdea. Din curiozitate am insistat si am aflat ca s-a inspirat din doua postere ce erau prezentate pe un panou din holul amf. Spiru Haret (Facultatea de Matematica) ce isi pastreaza aceeasi denumire si in prezent. Intr-adevar, erau afisate aceste postere si prezentau imagini fractale impreuna cu formule si ecuatii. I-am spus ca eu am prezentat acele postere cu gandul ca poate atrage atentia unor profesori sau unor studenti.  Posterele (cred ca erau doua!) le aveam de la profesorul Ion Vaduva pe care le-am rugat sa mi le imprumute cateva saptamani cu gandul sa le afisez. Posterele faceau parte dintr-un calendar al Societatii de Matematica din Germania.
Dupa acest episod, timp de cateva luni m-am documentat si am studiat tema "Teoria fractalilor". Ca rezultat al acestor studii si cercetari am dedicat un capitol intreg in cartea amintita mai sus (in acea vreme in Romania nu aparuse multe articole sau carti despre aceasta tema).
In prezent, Marian Gîdea este Professor of Mathematics Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago in domeniile: Dynamical Systems, Chaos Theory, Celestial Mechanics, and applications to mathematical physics, astrodynamics, mathematical biology, and financial mathematics, iar Silviu Brînzei este dezvoltator software in aceasta lume mare.