Carnap: an Open Framework for Formal Reasoning in the Browser

This paper presents an overview of Carnap, a free and open framework for the development of formal reasoning applications. Carnap’s design emphasizes flexibility, extensibility, and rapid prototyping. Carnap-based applications are written in Haskell, but can be compiled to JavaScript to run in standard web browsers. This combination of features makes Carnap ideally suited for educational applications, where ease-of-use is crucial for students and adaptability to different teaching strategies and classroom needs is crucial for instructors. The paper describes Carnap’s implementation, along with its current and projected pedagogical applications

Reinventing discovery learning: a field-wide research program

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature. Whereas some educational designers believe that students should learn new concepts through explorative problem solving within dedicated environments that constrain key parameters of their search and then support their progressive appropriation of empowering disciplinary forms, others are critical of the ultimate efficacy of this discovery-based pedagogical philosophy, citing an inherent structural challenge of students constructing historically achieved conceptual structures from their ingenuous notions. This special issue presents six educational research projects that, while adhering to principles of discovery-based learning, are motivated by complementary philosophical stances and theoretical constructs. The editorial introduction frames the set of projects as collectively exemplifying the viability and breadth of discovery-based learning, even as these projects: (a) put to work a span of design heuristics, such as productive failure, surfacing implicit know-how, playing epistemic games, problem posing, or participatory simulation activities; (b) vary in their target content and skills, including building electric circuits, solving algebra problems, driving safely in traffic jams, and performing martial-arts maneuvers; and (c) employ different media, such as interactive computer-based modules for constructing models of scientific phenomena or mathematical problem situations, networked classroom collective “video games,” and intercorporeal master–student training practices. The authors of these papers consider the potential generativity of their design heuristics across domains and contexts

Synthesis maps: Systemic design pedagogy, narrative, and intervention

This paper presents a framework and process for a visual language that is developing as a systemic visual method, and to integrate and outline aspects of this synthetic map formulation as the “synthesis map” both with reference to contributing authors, but also as a comparison to design principles and the method of visual design language. In this way the technique’s purpose as an emergent and creative tool ‐ method can be illustrated, in contrast to the approaches of infographics, and other visual map making associated with design ideation, and design schema representation. Synthesis maps integrate evidence and expertise in a visual narrative for knowledge translation and communicatio

Towards general spatial intelligence

The goal of General Spatial Intelligence is to present a unified theory to support the various aspects of spatial experience, whether physical or cognitive. We acknowledge the fact that GIScience has to assume a particular worldview, resulting from specific positions regarding metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, mind, language, cognition and representation. Implicit positions regarding these domains may allow solutions to isolated problems but often hamper a more encompassing approach. We argue that explicitly defining a worldview allows the grounding and derivation of multi-modal models, establishing precise problems, allowing falsifiability. We present an example of such a theory founded on process metaphysics, where the ontological elements are called differences. We show that a worldview has implications regarding the nature of space and, in the case of the chosen metaphysical layer, favours a model of space as true spacetime, i.e. four-dimensionality. Finally we illustrate the approach using a scenario from psychology and AI based planning

Chemical formalisms : Toward a Semiotic Typology

Chemistry is a highly technical field that relies heavily on a range of symbolic and imagic formalisms. These formalisms conceptualize specific chemical knowledge into semiotic resources that are rarely used elsewhere in most other academic fields or contexts. To develop an understanding of semiosis in highly technical fields such as chemistry, key questions include what this range of formalisms do and why they occur. These are key questions not only for our understanding of semiosis, but also if we wish to develop integrated literacy programs that can support students to marshal the multimodal discourse of chemistry. This paper explores these questions by examining how three key chemical formalisms organize their meaning: symbolic formalisms known as chemical formulas and chemical equations, and an imagic formalism known as structural formulas. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics and using a corpus of formalisms from secondary school chemistry, these formalisms are explored in terms of their overarching grammatical organization and the content meanings they realize through the concept of “field.” This is used to compare and contrast each formalism in terms of a semiotic typology so as to understand how they work and what meanings they realize. By exploring chemical formalisms in this way, this paper establishes a means of seeing the similarities and differences in meaning-making across formalisms and explaining why different formalisms occur. This then begins to provide a base upon which applied programs can interpret the literacy needs of chemistry

User-centered visual analysis using a hybrid reasoning architecture for intensive care units

One problem pertaining to Intensive Care Unit information systems is that, in some cases, a very dense display of data can result. To ensure the overview and readability of the increasing volumes of data, some special features are required (e.g., data prioritization, clustering, and selection mechanisms) with the application of analytical methods (e.g., temporal data abstraction, principal component analysis, and detection of events). This paper addresses the problem of improving the integration of the visual and analytical methods applied to medical monitoring systems. We present a knowledge- and machine learning-based approach to support the knowledge discovery process with appropriate analytical and visual methods. Its potential benefit to the development of user interfaces for intelligent monitors that can assist with the detection and explanation of new, potentially threatening medical events. The proposed hybrid reasoning architecture provides an interactive graphical user interface to adjust the parameters of the analytical methods based on the users' task at hand. The action sequences performed on the graphical user interface by the user are consolidated in a dynamic knowledge base with specific hybrid reasoning that integrates symbolic and connectionist approaches. These sequences of expert knowledge acquisition can be very efficient for making easier knowledge emergence during a similar experience and positively impact the monitoring of critical situations. The provided graphical user interface incorporating a user-centered visual analysis is exploited to facilitate the natural and effective representation of clinical information for patient care

A Boxology of Design Patterns for Hybrid Learning and Reasoning Systems

We propose a set of compositional design patterns to describe a large variety of systems that combine statistical techniques from machine learning with symbolic techniques from knowledge representation. As in other areas of computer science (knowledge engineering, software engineering, ontology engineering, process mining and others), such design patterns help to systematize the literature, clarify which combinations of techniques serve which purposes, and encourage re-use of software components. We have validated our set of compositional design patterns against a large body of recent literature.Comment: 12 pages,55 reference