Natural Language Generation for Nature Conservation : Automating Feedback to help Volunteers identify Bumblebee Species

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Data Mining for Shopping Centres – Customer Knowledge-Management Framework

Shopping centers are an important part of the UK economy and have been the subject of considerable research. Relying on complex interdependencies between shoppers, retailers and owners, shopping centers are ideal for knowledge management study. Nevertheless, although retailers have been in the forefront of data mining, little has been written on Customer Knowledge Management for shopping centers. In this chapter, the authors aim to demonstrate the possibilities and draw attention to the possible implications of improving customer satisfaction. Aspects of customer knowledge management for shopping centers are considered using analogies drawn from an exploratory questionnaire survey. The objectives of a Customer Knowledge Management system could include increasing rental incomes and bringing new life back into shopping centers and towns

Understanding Coordination in the Information Systems Domain: Conceptualization and Implications

In this paper, we suggest a new conceptualization of coordination in the information systems (IS) domain. The conceptualization builds on neurobiological predispositions for coordinating actions. We assume that human evolution has led to the development of a neurobiological substrate that enables individuals to coordinate everyday actions. At heart, we discuss six activity modalities: contextualization, objectivation, spatialization, temporalization, stabilization, and transition. Specifically, we discuss that these modalities need to collectively function for successful coordination. To illustrate as much, we apply our conceptualization to important IS research areas, including project management and interface design. Generally, our new conceptualization holds value for coordination research on all four levels of analysis that we identified based on reviewing the IS literature (i.e., group, intra-organization, inter-organization, and IT artifact). In this way, our new approach, grounded in neurobiological findings, provides a high-level theory to explain coordination success or coordination failure and, hence, is independent from a specific level of analysis. From a practitioner’s perspective, the conceptualization provides a guideline for designing organizational interventions and IT artifacts. Because social initiatives are essential in multiple IS domains (e.g., software development, implementation of enterprise systems) and because the design of collaborative software tools is an important IS topic, this paper contributes to a fundamental phenomenon in the IS domain and does so from a new conceptual perspective

ICS Materials. Towards a re-Interpretation of material qualities through interactive, connected, and smart materials.

The domain of materials for design is changing under the influence of an increased technological advancement, miniaturization and democratization. Materials are becoming connected, augmented, computational, interactive, active, responsive, and dynamic. These are ICS Materials, an acronym that stands for Interactive, Connected and Smart. While labs around the world are experimenting with these new materials, there is the need to reflect on their potentials and impact on design. This paper is a first step in this direction: to interpret and describe the qualities of ICS materials, considering their experiential pattern, their expressive sensorial dimension, and their aesthetic of interaction. Through case studies, we analyse and classify these emerging ICS Materials and identified common characteristics, and challenges, e.g. the ability to change over time or their programmability by the designers and users. On that basis, we argue there is the need to reframe and redesign existing models to describe ICS materials, making their qualities emerge

The Case for Dynamic Models of Learners' Ontologies in Physics

In a series of well-known papers, Chi and Slotta (Chi, 1992; Chi & Slotta, 1993; Chi, Slotta & de Leeuw, 1994; Slotta, Chi & Joram, 1995; Chi, 2005; Slotta & Chi, 2006) have contended that a reason for students' difficulties in learning physics is that they think about concepts as things rather than as processes, and that there is a significant barrier between these two ontological categories. We contest this view, arguing that expert and novice reasoning often and productively traverses ontological categories. We cite examples from everyday, classroom, and professional contexts to illustrate this. We agree with Chi and Slotta that instruction should attend to learners' ontologies; but we find these ontologies are better understood as dynamic and context-dependent, rather than as static constraints. To promote one ontological description in physics instruction, as suggested by Slotta and Chi, could undermine novices' access to productive cognitive resources they bring to their studies and inhibit their transition to the dynamic ontological flexibility required of experts.Comment: The Journal of the Learning Sciences (In Press

The Impact Of Math Talks On Student Achievement In Kindergarten

The core goal of this study was to answer the question, How do daily math talks impact student achievement in kindergarten? Math talks were implemented daily in a Title I kindergarten classroom over a period of six weeks. The findings suggest that the use of math talks as an integral part of instruction positively impact student achievement. The average growth in the experimental group was an increase of 42% in the composite scores by the end of the study, compared to a 31% increase in the control group. The experimental group in this study started as a more emergent group than the control group, yet showed accelerated growth at a higher rate than their counterparts in classrooms without daily math talks as well as the other kindergarten classrooms across the school district regardless of socio-economic variances

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

UAS Answers: Everybody's got one... -- Finding True North: Selected Readings from Kij Johnson's "At the Mouth of the River of Bees" -- Correction to the article "How to boil a frog?" -- Alaska to Germany: Oktober in Deutschland! -- They seen me rollin' -- The challenge of getting around campus -- Suddenly, College: Plenty of fish on campus -- Balancing a busy schedule with hobbies -- Spoken word poetry at Lemon Creek Correctional Facility -- Bake some delicious finger food this Halloween -- Casino Night at the Housing Lodge -- This is Halloween -- Addressing student concerns with the Mourant Cafeteria -- Campus Calenda

Bi-directional and shared epigenomic signatures following proton and 56Fe irradiation.

The brain's response to radiation exposure is an important concern for patients undergoing cancer therapy and astronauts on long missions in deep space. We assessed whether this response is specific and prolonged and is linked to epigenetic mechanisms. We focused on the response of the hippocampus at early (2-weeks) and late (20-week) time points following whole body proton irradiation. We examined two forms of DNA methylation, cytosine methylation (5mC) and hydroxymethylation (5hmC). Impairments in object recognition, spatial memory retention, and network stability following proton irradiation were observed at the two-week time point and correlated with altered gene expression and 5hmC profiles that mapped to specific gene ontology pathways. Significant overlap was observed between DNA methylation changes at the 2 and 20-week time points demonstrating specificity and retention of changes in response to radiation. Moreover, a novel class of DNA methylation change was observed following an environmental challenge (i.e. space irradiation), characterized by both increased and decreased 5hmC levels along the entire gene body. These changes were mapped to genes encoding neuronal functions including postsynaptic gene ontology categories. Thus, the brain's response to proton irradiation is both specific and prolonged and involves novel remodeling of non-random regions of the epigenome

Engineering affect: emotion regulation, the internet, and the techno-social niche

Philosophical work exploring the relation between cognition and the Internet is now an active area of research. Some adopt an externalist framework, arguing that the Internet should be seen as environmental scaffolding that drives and shapes cognition. However, despite growing interest in this topic, little attention has been paid to how the Internet influences our affective life — our moods, emotions, and our ability to regulate these and other feeling states. We argue that the Internet scaffolds not only cognition but also affect. Using various case studies, we consider some ways that we are increasingly dependent on our Internet-enabled “techno-social niches” to regulate the contours of our own affective life and participate in the affective lives of others. We argue further that, unlike many of the other environmental resources we use to regulate affect, the Internet has distinct properties that introduce new dimensions of complexity to these regulative processes. First, it is radically social in a way many of these other resources are not. Second, it is a radically distributed and decentralized resource; no one individual or agent is responsible for the Internet’s content or its affective impact on users. Accordingly, while the Internet can profoundly augment and enrich our affective life and deepen our connection with others, there is also a distinctive kind of affective precarity built into our online endeavors as well

Natural Sciences Newsletter - Fall 2018

In this semester\u27s Parkland College Natural Sciences Newsletter, you\u27ll find a letter from Department Chair Scott Siechen, updates from the Natural Science Commons, the Planetarium, the Professional Development Committee, and Astronomy and Science Clubs. Also, we say hello and good bye to incoming and outgoing faculty, and learn about conference happenings