19,054 research outputs found
A Unified Logical Framework for Reasoning about Deontic Properties of Actions and States
This paper studies some normative relations that hold between actions, their preconditions and their effects, with particular attention to connecting what are often called āought to beā norms with āought to doā norms. We use a formal model based on a form of transition system called a ācoloured labelled transition systemā (coloured LTS) introduced in a series of papers by Sergot and Craven. Those works have variously presented a formalism (an āaction languageā) nC+ for defining and computing with a (coloured) LTS, and another, separate formalism, a modal language interpreted on a (coloured) LTS used to express its properties. We consolidate these two strands. Instead of specifying the obligatory and prohibited states and transitions as part of the construction of a coloured LTS as in nC+, we represent norms in the modal language and use those to construct a coloured LTS from a given regular (uncoloured) one. We also show how connections between norms on states and norms on transitions previously treated as fixed constraints of a coloured LTS can instead be defined within the modal language used for representing norms
Overview and Analysis of Practices with Open Educational Resources in Adult Education in Europe
OER4Adults aimed to provide an overview of Open Educational Practices in adult learning in Europe,
identifying enablers and barriers to successful implementation of practices with OER.
The project was conducted in 2012-2013 by a team from the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow
Caledonian University, funded by The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS).
The project drew on data from four main sources:
ā¢ OER4Adults inventory of over 150 OER initiatives relevant to adult learning in Europe
ā¢ Responses from the leaders of 36 OER initiatives to a detailed SWOT survey
ā¢ Responses from 89 lifelong learners and adult educators to a short poll
ā¢ The Vision Papers on Open Education 2030: Lifelong Learning published by IPTS
Interpretation was informed by interviews with OER and adult education experts, discussion at the IPTS Foresight Workshop on Open Education and Lifelong Learning 2030, and evaluation of the UKOER programme.
Analysis revealed 6 tensions that drive developing practices around OER in adult learning as well 6 summary recommendations for the further development of such practices
Relating Strand Spaces and Distributed Temporal Logic for Security Protocol Analysis
In previous work, we introduced a version of distributed temporal logic that is well-suited both for verifying security protocols and as a metalogic for reasoning about, and relating, different security protocol models. In this paper, we formally investigate the relationship between our approach and strand spaces, which is one of the most successful and widespread formalisms for analyzing security protocols. We define translations between models in our logic and strand-space models of security protocols, and we compare the results obtained with respect to the level of abstraction that is inherent in each of the formalisms. This allows us to clarify different aspects of strand spaces that are often left implicit, as well as pave the way to transfer results, techniques and tools across the two approache
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Using assessment data to support the learning of young pupils in four Kent primary schools
This thesis discusses how assessment data are used to support the learning of pupils aged four to seven years in four Kent primary schools. The sample was 451 pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2; the researcher collected and analysed quantitative data from pupil attainment on school entry ā either as Baseline Assessment or the Foundation Stage Profile ā and from results in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of KS1, both as SATs and Teacher Assessment. These data were triangulated with qualitative data collected from a semi-structured questionnaire, classroom observations and interviews with the Reception class practitioners. The author ā a head teacher with many yearsā experience of primary schools and the Early Years ā outlines recent and current government policy and links these to assessment theory and existing practice in the four schools studied. She identifies some possible influences on attainment and looks at how value-added data are currently used as measures of pupil performance. The three research questions look at whether benchmark data can be used to predict future achievement, the educational implications of using value-added data as measures of pupil performance, and whether benchmark data can be used to support learning in the primary classroom. The findings led the researcher to conclude that accurate prediction from prior attainment is not possible at the present time and that contextual value-added data are only useful when other variables are taken into account. However, the findings showed that benchmark data ā when used formatively ā can be useful in supporting pupilsā learning. This study will help head teacher colleagues to look at data in a fresh way, and to identify and target the needs of individual pupils to optimise their performance from the beginning of the Foundation Stage to the end of Key Stage One
A Taxonomy of Self-configuring Service Discovery Systems
We analyze the fundamental concepts and issues in service
discovery. This analysis places service discovery in the context of distributed
systems by describing service discovery as a third generation
naming system. We also describe the essential architectures and the
functionalities in service discovery. We then proceed to show how service
discovery fits into a system, by characterizing operational aspects.
Subsequently, we describe how existing state of the art performs service
discovery, in relation to the operational aspects and functionalities, and
identify areas for improvement
An Automated Framework for the Extraction of Semantic Legal Metadata from Legal Texts
Semantic legal metadata provides information that helps with understanding
and interpreting legal provisions. Such metadata is therefore important for the
systematic analysis of legal requirements. However, manually enhancing a large
legal corpus with semantic metadata is prohibitively expensive. Our work is
motivated by two observations: (1) the existing requirements engineering (RE)
literature does not provide a harmonized view on the semantic metadata types
that are useful for legal requirements analysis; (2) automated support for the
extraction of semantic legal metadata is scarce, and it does not exploit the
full potential of artificial intelligence technologies, notably natural
language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML). Our objective is to take
steps toward overcoming these limitations. To do so, we review and reconcile
the semantic legal metadata types proposed in the RE literature. Subsequently,
we devise an automated extraction approach for the identified metadata types
using NLP and ML. We evaluate our approach through two case studies over the
Luxembourgish legislation. Our results indicate a high accuracy in the
generation of metadata annotations. In particular, in the two case studies, we
were able to obtain precision scores of 97.2% and 82.4% and recall scores of
94.9% and 92.4%
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Spring School on Language, Music, and Cognition: Organizing Events in Time
The interdisciplinary spring school āLanguage, music, and cognition: Organizing events in timeā was held from February 26 to March 2, 2018 at the Institute of Musicology of the University of Cologne. Language, speech, and music as events in time were explored from different perspectives including evolutionary biology, social cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience of speech, language, and communication, as well as computational and biological approaches to language and music. There were 10 lectures, 4 workshops, and 1 student poster session.
Overall, the spring school investigated language and music as neurocognitive systems and focused on a mechanistic approach exploring the neural substrates underlying musical, linguistic, social, and emotional processes and behaviors. In particular, researchers approached questions concerning cognitive processes, computational procedures, and neural mechanisms underlying the temporal organization of language and music, mainly from two perspectives: one was concerned with syntax or structural representations of language and music as neurocognitive systems (i.e., an intrapersonal perspective), while the other emphasized social interaction and emotions in their communicative function (i.e., an interpersonal perspective). The spring school not only acted as a platform for knowledge transfer and exchange but also generated a number of important research questions as challenges for future investigations
The Machine Conception of the Organism in Development and Evolution: A Critical Analysis
This article critically examines one of the most prevalent metaphors in modern biology, namely the machine conception of the organism (MCO). Although the fundamental differences between organisms and machines make the MCO an inadequate metaphor for conceptualizing living systems, many biologists and philosophers continue to draw upon the MCO or tacitly accept it as the standard model of the organism. This paper analyses the specific difficulties that arise when the MCO is invoked in the study of development and evolution. In developmental biology the MCO underlies a logically incoherent model of ontogeny, the genetic program, which serves to legitimate three problematic theses about development: genetic animism, neo-preformationism, and developmental computability. In evolutionary biology the MCO is responsible for grounding unwarranted theoretical appeals to the concept of design as well as to the interpretation of natural selection as an engineer, which promote a distorted understanding of the process and products of evolutionary change. Overall, it is argued that, despite its heuristic value, the MCO today is impeding rather than enabling further progress in our comprehension of living systems
Situated Affectivity and the Corporate Life Hack
In view of the philosophical problems that vex the debate on situated
affectivity, it can seem wise to focus on simple cases. Accordingly, theorists
often single out scenarios in which an individual employs a device in order to
enhance their emotional experience, or to achieve new kinds of experience
altogether, such as playing an instrument, going to the movies, or sporting a
fancy handbag. I argue that this narrow focus on cases that fit a
āuser/resource modelā tends to channel attention away from more complex and
also more problematic instances of situated affectivity. Among these are
scenarios in which a social domain draws individuals into certain modes of
affective interaction, often by way of attunement and habituation to affective
styles and interaction patterns that are normative in the domain in question.
This can lead to a phenomenon that is not so much āmind extensionā than āmind
invasionā: affectivity is dynamically framed and modulated from without, often
contrary to the prior orientations of the individuals in question. As an
example, I discuss affective patterns prevalent in today's corporate
workplace. I claim that workplace affect sometimes contributes to what is
effectively a āhackā of employees' subjectivity
Modeling economic systems as locally-constructive sequential games
Real-world economies are open-ended dynamic systems consisting of heterogeneous interacting participants. Human participants are decision-makers who strategically take into account the past actions and potential future actions of other participants. All participants are forced to be locally constructive, meaning their actions at any given time must be based on their local states; and participant actions at any given time affect future local states. Taken together, these essential properties imply real-world economies are locally-constructive sequential games. This paper discusses a modeling approach, Agent-based Computational Economics, that permits researchers to study economic systems from this point of view. ACE modeling principles and objectives are first concisely presented and explained. The remainder of the paper then highlights challenging issues and edgier explorations that ACE researchers are currently pursuing
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