Department of Mathematics and Computing Seminars

As computer and console games become more complex, the manual level creation process also becomes more complex, time-consuming and expensive. In this research thesis, a method for automatically creating indoor levels for action games is presented. The output levels should include everything that is necessary for them to be ready to play, with minimum or no human intervention. This technique could reduce game development costs, reduce level storage requirements, and could offer new opportunities in terms of gameplay.

Sharepoint is being increasingly used in education settings as a mechanism for housing documents and securely managing the changes to documents, and the workflow which these documents support. Sharepoint is already effectively serving an important need of educational institutions and industry, even though the precise nature of the services that it provides would probably be described quite differently depending on the individual situation. This seminar/worshop aims to provide a venue for IT and other staff who are using sharepoint in the educational setting to share ideas. The participants and speakers come from a diverse range of backgrounds: academic, IT support, and administrative support staff will speak about the use of sharepoint from their own experience.

In this informal presentation I will demonstrate what a tablet PC is and how it can be used for on campus and distance teaching and electronic marking of assignments. I will also explain what is needed to record screen movement (this does not require a tablet PC). Anyone interested is welcome - this presentation will be at a very basic level for people who know nothing about this technology. There will be plenty of time for questions.

Moodle is the world's most widely used LMS and USQ now has Australia's largest Moodle install. Being modular and open source, Moodle allows members of the education community to contribute to the system and its development. Moodle is also a great context for students to conduct real development work and learn skills that will be valuable in the education sector. In this seminar we present a student experience of a Moodle development project and report on the potential for more such projects and the benefits that can come from this.

Cellular slime moulds, catalytically oxidating CO on metal surfaces and other systems with active components can be described by diffusion equations with reactions. We uncover and discuss a new route to chaotic dynamics in such systems based on their representation as a chain of coupled nonlinear oscillators.

The importance of problem solving activities is emphasised in the mathematics curriculum all over the world. However, still not enough is known about how people can best be taught problem-solving skills. Moreover, there are many difficulties associated with teaching people how to succeed at problem solving. Answers to these questions are extremely important for developing further the theoretical framework of problem solving, and have practical implications in work with gifted mathematics students. Most high-profile students regularly participate in numerous mathematical competitions and, for them to achieve the best results, their training should be grounded on a comprehensive theoretical base. Why are just few students able to be successful in mathematical competitions, while many others fail with this challenge? Does this mean that just a handful of mathematically gifted students can achieve a high-level of mathematical thinking? Or, is there scope for others to be more successful in problem solving?

I will consider how the development of conceptual understanding may lead to the design and realisation of problem solving activities, which do impact positively on students’ performance in mathematical competitions. In analysing the role of conceptual understanding, I focus in particular on the influence of mathematical reading, carried out by students, and mathematical explanations, provided by teachers. Mathematical reading provides a challenge to understand a text and work up a strategy resolving a given task. Mathematical explanations are used to highlight a more general approach that can be applied and elaborated beyond a given task; they allow the reorganisation of problem solving activities according to explanatory principles. Examples of mathematical reading and explanation will be given and their practical implications discussed. The key practical outcome is the development of the learner’s skill to recognise similarities amongst problems and links between them, which is one of the most influential factors in problem solving.

In recent years it has become common for mathematics lecturers to use computer projection in their lectures and seminar presentations. Often some handwriting on a whiteboard is used for asides: for clarification, for worked examples and sketches. If the handwriting is done electronically, as is necessary over the Access Grid, it is referred to as Digital Ink.

We will give a general overview of e-teaching approaches. This will include using the beamer class in LaTeX to produce pdf slides (with stepped uncovering of a slide) and annotation of any pdf file using PDF Annotator. We will demonstrate using a TabletPC to produce highlighting (note that a laser pointer is not effective in an AGR) and annotations of pdf “notes” or slides. When using a TabletPC, WindowsXP provides a very good (and
fully integrated) Digital Ink with Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Digital Ink within Maple and also with an interactive whiteboard will be demonstrated. We discuss an example of marking remote student work (as a pdf file and using PDF Annotator).

Averaging principle is an important method to extract an effective macroscopic dynamics from complex system with slow modes and fast modes. Here an averaged equation for a class of stochastic partial differential equations are derived without a Lipschitz assumption on slow modes and the rate of convergence in probability is obtained as a byproduct. Moreover the deviation between the original equations and the averaged equations is studied. It is proved by a martingale approach that the deviation is described by an Gaussian process. This gives a much better approximation.

We study convection in a vertical layer of ferro-magnetic fluid heated from a side and subject to the transverse magnetic field. It is found that the fluid motion is caused by interacting thermo-gravitational and thermo-magnetic mechanisms. Our experiments and computations show that the excitation of magneto-convection leads to the formation of vertically aligned stationary rolls, while gravitational convection results in horizontal rolls corresponding to a pair of counter-propagating thermal waves. The interaction of these instability modes leads to a wide spectrum of experimentally observed flow patterns including stationary rolls and standing waves of various spatial orientations. A comprehensive stability map is computed and compared with experimental flow visualisations. Disturbance energy is analysed to achieve a deeper insight into physical mechanisms driving the fluid motion.