6,322 research outputs found
Overview of Polkadot and its Design Considerations
In this paper we describe the design components of the heterogenous
multi-chain protocol Polkadot and explain how these components help Polkadot
address some of the existing shortcomings of blockchain technologies. At
present, a vast number of blockchain projects have been introduced and employed
with various features that are not necessarily designed to work with each
other. This makes it difficult for users to utilise a large number of
applications on different blockchain projects. Moreover, with the increase in
number of projects the security that each one is providing individually becomes
weaker. Polkadot aims to provide a scalable and interoperable framework for
multiple chains with pooled security that is achieved by the collection of
components described in this paper
Reversing Single Sessions
Session-based communication has gained a widespread acceptance in practice as
a means for developing safe communicating systems via structured interactions.
In this paper, we investigate how these structured interactions are affected by
reversibility, which provides a computational model allowing executed
interactions to be undone. In particular, we provide a systematic study of the
integration of different notions of reversibility in both binary and multiparty
single sessions. The considered forms of reversibility are: one for completely
reversing a given session with one backward step, and another for also
restoring any intermediate state of the session with either one backward step
or multiple ones. We analyse the costs of reversing a session in all these
different settings. Our results show that extending binary single sessions to
multiparty ones does not affect the reversibility machinery and its costs
The Civil Rights Hydra
A Review of The Civil Rights Era by Hugh Davis Graha
The Politics of Moral Authority
What is at stake, politically, in abandoning claims that one's actions are legitimized by some form of transcendent authority? Analysing this question moves us beyond human rights debates about foundationalism, and asks whether the efficacy of claims made by human rights advocates is undermined by their inability, conceptually and politically, to make the case that human rights are moral truths rather than a more temporal and secular doctrine. Through an analysis of Amnesty International and its ambivalent grounding in Kantian notions of morality, and by considering competing religious and national claims to authority, I assess whether or not human rights activism suffers from an inescapable political ineptitude that must eventually see it decline in the face of more ardent and politically effective authority claims
Developing mathematical thinking in the primary classroom: liberating students and teachers as learners of mathematics
This paper reports on a research study conducted with a group of practising primary school teachers (n = 24) in North East Scotland during 2011–2012. The teachers were all participants in a newly developed Masters course that had been designed with the aim of promoting the development of mathematical thinking in the primary classroom as part of project supported by the Scottish Government. The paper presents the background for this initiative within the context of the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence reform. Particular attention is given to the epistemological positioning of the researchers as this influenced both the curriculum design process and also the theoretical framing of the research study which are both described. The project was set up within a design research framework, which aimed to promote classroom-based action research on the part of participants through the course and also research by the university researchers into the process of curriculum development. The research questions focused on the teachers’ confidence, competence, attitudes and beliefs in relation to mathematics and their expectations and experiences of the impact on pupil learning arising from this course. Empirical data were drawn from pre- and post-course surveys, interviews and observations of the discussion forums in the online environment. Findings from this study highlight the way the course had a transformational and emancipatory impact on these teachers. They also highlight ways in which the ‘framing’ of particular aspects of the curriculum had an oppressive impact on learners in the ways that suppressed creativity and limited the exercise of learner autonomy. Furthermore, they highlight the ways in which a number of these teachers had experienced mathematics as a school subject in very negative ways, involving high levels of ‘symbolic violence’ and of being ‘labelled’
The Mechanics of Embodiment: A Dialogue on Embodiment and Computational Modeling
Embodied theories are increasingly challenging traditional views of cognition by arguing that conceptual representations that constitute our knowledge are grounded in sensory and motor experiences, and processed at this sensorimotor level, rather than being represented and processed abstractly in an amodal conceptual system. Given the established empirical foundation, and the relatively underspecified theories to date, many researchers are extremely interested in embodied cognition but are clamouring for more mechanistic implementations. What is needed at this stage is a push toward explicit computational models that implement sensory-motor grounding as intrinsic to cognitive processes. In this article, six authors from varying backgrounds and approaches address issues concerning the construction of embodied computational models, and illustrate what they view as the critical current and next steps toward mechanistic theories of embodiment. The first part has the form of a dialogue between two fictional characters: Ernest, the �experimenter�, and Mary, the �computational modeller�. The dialogue consists of an interactive sequence of questions, requests for clarification, challenges, and (tentative) answers, and touches the most important aspects of grounded theories that should inform computational modeling and, conversely, the impact that computational modeling could have on embodied theories. The second part of the article discusses the most important open challenges for embodied computational modelling
Blockchain for Business Process Enactment: A Taxonomy and Systematic Literature Review
Blockchain has been proposed to facilitate the enactment of
interorganisational business processes. For such processes, blockchain can
guarantee the enforcement of rules and the integrity of execution traces -
without the need for a centralised trusted party. However, the enactment of
interorganisational processes pose manifold challenges. In this work, we ask
what answers the research field offers in response to those challenges. To do
so, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR). As our guiding question,
we investigate the guarantees and capabilities of blockchain-based enactment
approaches. Based on resulting empirical evidence, we develop a taxonomy for
blockchain-based enactment. We find that a wide range of approaches support
traceability and correctness; however, research focusing on flexibility and
scalability remains nascent. For all challenges, we point towards future
research opportunities.Comment: Preprint, Accepted at BPM 2022, Blockchain Foru
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