As close as it gets: developing professional identity through the potential of scenario-based learning

Scenario-based learning (SBL) predicated on situated learning theory and the valuing of contextual knowledge, may provide one stratagem for getting students , as would-be professionals, nearer to the realities of their chosen profession via the construction and deconstruction of scenarios. Within SBL processes, students have opportunities to engage with realistic sets of circumstances, experience true-to-life tasks, accept authentic challenges and assume work-oriented roles - all mediated through the language and communication styles found in real-life settings. This chapter focuses on the potential of scenario-based learning to supplement/enrich work placements, internships and field work in the professions - so contributing to shaping and sustaining of professional identity and enhancing employability skills. A survey of the literature suggests four main scenario approaches are used by tertiary educators to foster professional identity: each approach is designed to supplement rather than substitute lived work experience. Errington (2003) has labelled these approaches: skills-based; problem-based; issues-based; and, speculative-based scenarios respectively. Each approach may be used singularly or in combination to facilitate/reveal understandings of workplace identity at specific stages of the would-be professional’s journey. The chapter is in two parts: The first locates attributes of scenario-based learning that lend themselves to the (de)construction of students’ professional identity. The second part discusses specific scenario approaches that may be employed singularly, or in combination, to target particular aspects of professionalism including identity. The chapter concludes by noting the importance of teacher knowledge in determining the likely success of SBL in advancing students’ notions of professional identity

High energy processes in the vicinity of the Kerr's black hole horizon

Two particle collisions close to the horizon of the rotating nonextremal black hole are analyzed. It is shown that high energy of the order of the Grand Unification scale in the centre of mass of colliding particles can be obtained when there is a multiple collision - the particle from the accretion disc gets the critical momentum in first collision with the other particle close to the horizon and then there is a second collision of the critical particle with the ordinary one. High energy occurs due to a great relative velocity of two particles and a large Lorentz factor. The dependence of the relative velocity on the distance to horizon is analyzed, the time of movement from the point in the accretion disc to the point of scattering with large energy as well as the time of back movement to the Earth are calculated. It is shown that they have reasonable order.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, added some formulas and one referenc

The Convergent Conceptions of Being in Mainstream Analytic and Postmodern Continental Philosophy

There is ultimately a very close convergence between the conceptions of being in widely recurrent elements of both mainstream Anglo-American philosophy and mainstream postmodern Continental philosophy. One characteristic idea often drawn upon in Anglo-American or analytic philosophy is that we establish what has meaning (at all or as such) and so what we can say about what is, by making evident the limits of sense or what simply cannot be meant. A characteristic idea in Continental philosophy of being is that being emerges through contrast and interplay with what it is not, with what has no being at all and so is beyond sense. The two traditions consequently approach and conceive being in significantly related ways, either through the lack of meaning that establishes the defining boundaries of what is, or through what is without being and beyond sense. As a result, what the Continental tradition gets at with “the meaning of being as such and in general,” and how it gets at it, has much in common with what the Anglo-American tradition gets at, and how it gets at it, by establishing “what can be meaningfully said.

Anderson localization casts clouds over adiabatic quantum optimization

Understanding NP-complete problems is a central topic in computer science. This is why adiabatic quantum optimization has attracted so much attention, as it provided a new approach to tackle NP-complete problems using a quantum computer. The efficiency of this approach is limited by small spectral gaps between the ground and excited states of the quantum computer's Hamiltonian. We show that the statistics of the gaps can be analyzed in a novel way, borrowed from the study of quantum disordered systems in statistical mechanics. It turns out that due to a phenomenon similar to Anderson localization, exponentially small gaps appear close to the end of the adiabatic algorithm for large random instances of NP-complete problems. This implies that unfortunately, adiabatic quantum optimization fails: the system gets trapped in one of the numerous local minima.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

A Cognitive Mind-map Framework to Foster Trust

The explorative mind-map is a dynamic framework, that emerges automatically from the input, it gets. It is unlike a verificative modeling system where existing (human) thoughts are placed and connected together. In this regard, explorative mind-maps change their size continuously, being adaptive with connectionist cells inside; mind-maps process data input incrementally and offer lots of possibilities to interact with the user through an appropriate communication interface. With respect to a cognitive motivated situation like a conversation between partners, mind-maps become interesting as they are able to process stimulating signals whenever they occur. If these signals are close to an own understanding of the world, then the conversational partner becomes automatically more trustful than if the signals do not or less match the own knowledge scheme. In this (position) paper, we therefore motivate explorative mind-maps as a cognitive engine and propose these as a decision support engine to foster trust.Comment: 5 pages, 4 Figures, Extended Version, presented at the 5th International Conference on Natural Computation, 200

Diffusion mechanisms of localised knots along a polymer

We consider the diffusive motion of a localized knot along a linear polymer chain. In particular, we derive the mean diffusion time of the knot before it escapes from the chain once it gets close to one of the chain ends. Self-reptation of the entire chain between either end and the knot position, during which the knot is provided with free volume, leads to an L^3 scaling of diffusion time; for sufficiently long chains, subdiffusion will enhance this time even more. Conversely, we propose local ``breathing'', i.e., local conformational rearrangement inside the knot region (KR) and its immediate neighbourhood, as additional mechanism. The contribution of KR-breathing to the diffusion time scales only quadratically, L^2, speeding up the knot escape considerably and guaranteeing finite knot mobility even for very long chains.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted to Europhys. Let

Good rotations

Numerical integrations in celestial mechanics often involve the repeated computation of a rotation with a constant angle. A direct evaluation of these rotations yields a linear drift of the distance to the origin. This is due to roundoff in the representation of the sine s and cosine c of the angle theta. In a computer, one generally gets c^2 + s^2 1, resulting in a mapping that is slightly contracting or expanding. In the present paper we present a method to find pairs of representable real numbers s and c such that c^2 + s^2 is as close to 1 as possible. We show that this results in a drastic decrease of the systematic error, making it negligible compared to the random error of other operations. We also verify that this approach gives good results in a realistic celestial mechanics integration.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure