Structuring institutions to exploit learning technologies: A cybernetic model

The adoption of learning technologies has not fulfilled expectation in any sector of education. Arguably, it is the structure of educational institutions which is the main obstacle. Schools, colleges and universities were designed to allow the delivery of education by the few to the many at a time when the key technology was the printed page, and many of the organizational instruments that facilitated this are still with us today: timetables, classrooms, syllabuses and so on. These permit a particular style of education to take place, but result in a system where the complexity of learning needs is ignored New technologies can provide new organizational devices that recognize this complexity. These require careful design and imply a significant restructuring of institutional organization. This paper addresses how the tools provided by management cybernetics, in particular Stafford Beer's Viable System Model, allow the analysis of structural mechanisms and how they impact on organizational complexity. It describes how these tools can be used to redesign educational organizations, including identifying key points where technologies can be used to create structures that permit a more flexible exploitation of the opportunities offered by learning technologies. The current JTAP project Toolkit for the Management of Learning is offered as an example of a set of software tools that emerge from such a cybernetic analysis

LIBER's involvement in supporting digital preservation in member libraries

Digital curation and preservation represent new challenges for universities. LIBER has invested considerable effort to engage with the new agendas of digital preservation and digital curation. Through two successful phases of the LIFE project, LIBER is breaking new ground in identifying innovative models for costing digital curation and preservation. Through LIFE’s input into the US-UK Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access, LIBER is aligned with major international work in the economics of digital preservation. In its emerging new strategy and structures, LIBER will continue to make substantial contributions in this area, mindful of the needs of European research libraries

The EU-funded EuropeanaTravel project

EuropeanaTravel is a targeted project for cultural content in the target area digital libraries of the eContentplus 2008 Work Programme funded by the European Commission.1 Its overall objective is to digitise content on the theme of travel and tourism for use in Europeana2 as requested by the EDL Foundation.3 The themed content will come from the wonderful collections of major university libraries and national libraries. The project is supported by CENL4 and LIBER,5 two founder members of the EDL Foundation, and by the Foundation itself. A secondary objective of the project is further to strengthen collaboration between CENL and LIBER by extending their experience of joint working, thus increasing human interoperability in support of Europeana. Other objectives include creating a LIBER closed access aggregation service to aggregate material from LIBER members for Europeana, continuing to mobilise support for Europeana amongst university libraries in a systematic way, and supporting the spread of best practice in digitisation by libraries. The consortium’s 19 members include 17 library members providing content from 16 countries drawn roughly equally from the membership of CENL and LIBER and from all European regions. The project will run for two years and work closely and flexibly with the Europeana team. The EuropeanaTravel project was launched in Tallinn on 11 May 2009 and this article has been compiled to celebrate that event

Mechanisms for establishing transcriptional competence of tissue-specific genes in pluripotent stem cells

Tissue-specific genes have been found to be epigenetically marked in embryonic stem cells by different combination of histone modifications. These marks are believed to prime genes for activation at later stages of development. Previous work has revealed the presence of one such signature on one enhancer of the mouse λ5-VpreB1 locus, which is expressed at the pro- and pre-B cell stage of B lymphocyte development. This element, which has been called Early- Transcriptional Competence Mark (ETCM), is characterised by the presence of tightly localised peaks of histone H3K4 methylation and H3K9 acetylation. However, the ETCM lacks the trimethylation of H3K27 that defines bivalent domains at many tissue-specific genes in ES cells. The results described in this thesis show that that two ES cell transcription factors, Sox2 and Foxd3, bind to the λ5-VpreB1 ETCM in ES cells. Analysis of factor binding to the λ5-VpreB1 locus at the proB cell stage of B-cell development showed that the same sequences are occupied by the B-cell specific factors Sox4 and Foxp1. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and microarray analysis (ChIP-on-Chip) showed that Sox2 and Foxd3 are bound to a number of ETCM-like elements in ES cells, as well as bivalent domains, suggesting that they are involved in the establishment and maintenance of these epigenetic marks in ES cells. Knockdown of Sox2 by siRNA confirmed its involvement in the methylation of H3K4 on these DNA regions. Based on these data, I propose a factor-relay model in which embryonic stem cell transcription factors generate epigenetic signatures at key regulatory elements of tissue-specific genes. During differentiation these proteins are replaced by related factors, which share their DNA-binding profile, and play an important role in activating tissue-specific transcription

Wave propagation in fiber composite laminates, part 2

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the wave propagation characteristics, transient strains and residual properties in unidirectional and angle-ply boron/epoxy and graphite/epoxy laminates impacted with silicone rubber projectiles at velocities up to 250 MS-1. The predominant wave is flexural, propagating at different velocities in different directions. In general, measured wave velocities were higher than theoretically predicted values. The amplitude of the in-plane wave is less than ten percent of that of the flexural wave. Peak strains and strain rates in the transverse to the (outer) fiber direction are much higher than those in the direction of the fibers. The dynamics of impact were also studied with high speed photography

Lamination residual stresses in fiber composites

An experimental investigation was conducted to determine the magnitude of lamination residual stresses in angle-ply composites and to evaluate their effects on composite structural integrity. The materials investigated were boron/epoxy, boron/polyimide, graphite/low modulus epoxy, graphite/high modulus epoxy, graphite/polyimide and s-glass/epoxy. These materials were fully characterized. Static properties of laminates were also determined. Experimental techniques using embedded strain gages were developed and used to measure residual strains during curing. The extent of relaxation of lamination residual stresses was investigated. It was concluded that the degree of such relaxation is low. The behavior of angle-ply laminates subjected to thermal cycling, tensile load cycling, and combined thermal cycling with tensile load was investigated. In most cases these cycling programs did not have any measurable influence on residual strength and stiffness of the laminates. In the tensile load cycling tests, the graphite/polyimide shows the highest endurance with 10 million cycle runouts at loads up to 90 percent of the static strength

Lamination residual stresses in hybrid composites, part 1

An experimental investigation was conducted to study lamination residual stresses for various material and loading parameters. The effects of hybridization on residual stresses and residual properties after thermal cycling under load were determined in angle-ply graphite/Kevlar/epoxy and graphite/S-glass/epoxy laminates. Residual strains in the graphite plies are not appreciably affected by the type and number of hybridizing plies. Computed residual stresses at room temperature in the S-glass plies reach values up to seventy-five percent of the transverse strength of the material. Computed residual stresses in the graphite plies exceed the static strength by approximately ten percent. In the case of Kevlar plies, computed residual stresses far exceed the static strength indicating possible early failure of these plies. Static testing of the hybrids above indicates that failure is governed by the ultimate strain of the graphite plies. In thermally cycled hybrids, in general, residual moduli were somewhat lower and residual strengths were higher than initial values

LIBER 41st Annual Conference : Mobilising the Knowledge Economy for Europe

Conference Programme. 27–30 June 2012, Tart

Algebraic aspects and coherence conditions for conjunctions among conditional events

We deepen the study of a notion of conjunction among conditional events, introduced in previous papers in theframework of coherence. This notion of conjunction, differently from other approaches, is given in the setting ofconditional random quantities. We show that some well known properties which are satisfied by conjunctionsof unconditional events are also satisfied by conjunctions of conditional events. In particular we examine anadditive property and a decomposition formula, by also obtaining a generalized inclusion-exclusion formula. Then,by exploiting the notion of conjunction, we introduce the set of constituents generated bynconditional events.Moreover, under logical independence, we give a necessary and sufficient condition of coherence for the previsionassessments on a familyFconstituted bynconditional events and all possible conjunctions among some of them.This condition of coherence has a simple geometrical characterization in terms of a suitable convex hull. Such acharacterization amounts to the solvability of a linear system as in the case of unconditional events. Then, weillustrate the set of all coherent assessments on the familyFby a list of linear inequalities on the componentsof the prevision assessment. Finally, given a coherent assessmentMonF, we show that every possible value ofthe random vector associated withFis itself a particular coherent assessment onF

Expertise as social institution : internalising third parties into the contract

Deutsche Fassung: Expertise als soziale Institution: Die Internalisierung Dritter in den Vertrag. In: Gert Brüggemeier (Hg.) Liber Amicorum Eike Schmidt. Müller, Heidelberg, 2005, 303-334