The Language of the cybersouls

Debates about technology are mostly staged in a grand setting: presented as the sinister toolkit of authoritarian organisations, or as the progressive fabric of the future. Yet everyone is involved in technology as part of every microscopic action in every humdrum life. How do theories about technology cope with this political spectrum? One option is to treat technology as we treat language and specifically use Wittgenstein’s language games as an analogy. So that technology, like language, becomes inseparable from us and an intimate part of us, and this merging of technology and the human transforms us all into cyborgs

Employment Growth in the Current Economic Expansion

CRS_August_2003_Employment_Growth_in_the_Current_Economic_Expansion.pdf: 619 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Fuzzy modelling using a simplified rule base

Transparency and complexity are two major concerns of fuzzy rule-based systems. To improve accuracy and precision of the outputs, we need to increase the partitioning of the input space. However, this increases the number of rules exponentially, thereby increasing the complexity of the system and decreasing its transparency. The main factor behind these two issues is the conjunctive canonical form of the fuzzy rules. We present a novel method for replacing these rules with their singleton forms, and using aggregation operators to provide the mechanism for combining the crisp outputs

To PB or not PB: making wikis work for your library

Library staff at Leeds Metropolitan University have recently launched a wiki to help them with the organisation of the information they need for their day-to-day enquiry and circulation duties. Here we outline the development of the project and the reasons behind choosing a wiki as the best format for this information

Monitoring nutrient turnover during composting has to be based on a constant reference parameter. Is total ash content really a good choice?

The total ash content is usually considered to be fairly constant during the composting period, apart from addition of minerals by precipitation and losses by seepage. However, our field trials with farmyard manure have shown that the ash fraction insoluble in hydrochloric acid increased much more than the soluble fraction in the same time. If changes are merely caused by composting intensity (e.g. organic matter degradation), both fractions should be accumulated in the same degree. It is hypothesized that the higher rise of the HCl-insoluble fraction indicates a higher amount of soil material in the heaps at the end compared to the beginning of composting, as the insoluble fraction originates mainly in soil-borne silicates while the soluble fraction is derived from (plant and animal) organic matter. Contamination with soil material could occur when turning the heaps by machine as it has been done several times in this trial. This explanation is supported by our results of another composting study carried out for several years without turning the heaps. No such disproportional changes of the soluble and insoluble ash fractions have been observed under these conditions. It is suggested to use the HCl-soluble ash contents as a reference parameter, at least in field trials without absolutely controlled conditions. The aim of this study was to improve the scientific methods for composting organic materials under practical farming conditions

Nasal fibrosis: long-term follow up of four cases of eosinophilic angiocentric fibrosis

Eosinophilic angiocentric fibrosis is a rare, benign cause of submucosal thickening and fibrosis within the upper respiratory tract. It predominantly affects the nose although cases have been reported in the subglottis. We describe four cases of the disease centred around the nasal cavity, with widespread infiltration of the facial soft tissues and orbit in three of the four patients. Each underwent long term follow up. Multiple surgical resections were required with two of our patients and, to date, medical therapy has been of limited help. The disease process, with its clinical and characteristic histopathological findings, is described. We also discuss the management of the disease following a comprehensive review of, and comparison with, the few prior reported cases

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: It's Against the Law, 2001

A two page informational sheet about workplace sexual harassment produced by Iowa Commission on the Status of Wome

A Survey of Illinois Code of Civil Procedure Section 2-619(A), 48 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1009 (2015)

The paper examines the requirements of each section of Illinois Code of Civil Procedure Section 2-619(a) in greater depth by examining appellate and Illinois Supreme Court rulings in cases brought under each section of 2-619(a). It also analyzes the standards of review appellate courts apply under each section of 2-619(a). Finally, because 619(a) motions require affidavits in support of the motion, it is also necessary to consider the nature and sufficiency of affidavit

Teachers' and students' conceptions of the professional world

In the original 'Improving Student Learning' project led by Prof Graham Gibbs in 1991, one of the case studies focused on approaches to learning on a BA(Hons) Graphic Information Design course. The case study, led by Allan Davies, had the modest intention of trying to determine whether a particular curriculum innovation encouraged a deep approach to learning. Our only significant tool then was Bigg's SOLO taxonomy. Eleven years later and the innovators have moved on, the course has disappeared and the research context and methodologies have developed. During this period, research has suggested that both teachers and students describe their understanding of teaching and learning according to their perception of the teaching/ learning environment (Ramsden, 1992; Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). Studies have identified variation in the way that teachers experience teaching (Samuelowicz & Bain, 1992; Prosser, Trigwell & Taylor, 1994 for example) and variation in the way teachers experience student learning (Bruce & Gerber, 1995). More recently, Reid (1997) has widened the context of research by examining the relation between the experience of work and teaching/learning within the music discipline. In further research (Reid 1999), relations were found within the music discipline where teachers' and students' experience of one of three defined dimensions was strongly related to the ways in which they understood teaching and learning music. The musicians (and their students) described their experience of the professional world in three hierarchically related ways. This constitution has become known as the 'Music' Entity. In 1999, following a fortuitous meeting at the ISL conference in York, Davies and Reid conducted a joint enquiry, using a phenomenographic approach, to determine the 'Design' entity (Davies and Reid, 2001). This research focused on discerning the critical differences, or variation, in the way teachers and students experience and understand their subject and its relation to the professional design world. The outcomes of this research has, consequently, begun to impact on student learning through course design and, in particular, assessment. This paper will be a comparative study of the research already carried out by the authors in a number of disciplines in which the same focus and methodology has been used