A Swiss Pocket Knife for Computability

This research is about operational- and complexity-oriented aspects of classical foundations of computability theory. The approach is to re-examine some classical theorems and constructions, but with new criteria for success that are natural from a programming language perspective. Three cornerstones of computability theory are the S-m-ntheorem; Turing's "universal machine"; and Kleene's second recursion theorem. In today's programming language parlance these are respectively partial evaluation, self-interpretation, and reflection. In retrospect it is fascinating that Kleene's 1938 proof is constructive; and in essence builds a self-reproducing program. Computability theory originated in the 1930s, long before the invention of computers and programs. Its emphasis was on delimiting the boundaries of computability. Some milestones include 1936 (Turing), 1938 (Kleene), 1967 (isomorphism of programming languages), 1985 (partial evaluation), 1989 (theory implementation), 1993 (efficient self-interpretation) and 2006 (term register machines). The "Swiss pocket knife" of the title is a programming language that allows efficient computer implementation of all three computability cornerstones, emphasising the third: Kleene's second recursion theorem. We describe experiments with a tree-based computational model aiming for both fast program generation and fast execution of the generated programs.Comment: In Proceedings Festschrift for Dave Schmidt, arXiv:1309.455

Young adults with acquired brain injury show longitudinal improvements in cognition after intensive cognitive rehabilitation

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to assess the effect of an intensive cognitive and communication rehabilitation (ICCR) program on language and other cognitive performance in young adults with acquired brain injury (ABI). METHOD: Thirty young adults with chronic ABI participated in this study. Treatment participants (n = 22) attended ICCR 6 hours/day, 4 days/week for at least one 12-week semester. Deferred treatment/usual care control participants (n = 14) were evaluated before and after at least one 12-week semester. Pre- and postsemester standardized cognitive assessment items were assigned to subdomains. Between-groups and within-group generalized linear mixed-effects models assessed the effect of time point on overall item accuracy and differences by item subdomain. Subdomain analyses were adjusted for multiple comparisons. RESULTS: Between-groups analyses revealed that treatment participants improved significantly faster over time than deferred treatment/usual care participants in overall item accuracy and specifically on items in the verbal expression subdomain. Investigating the three-way interaction between time point, group, and etiology revealed that the overall effects of the treatment were similar for individuals with nontraumatic and traumatic brain injuries. The treatment group showed an overall effect of treatment and significant gains over time in the verbal expression, written expression, memory, and problem solving subdomains. The control group did not significantly improve over time on overall item accuracy and showed significant subdomain-level gains in auditory comprehension, which did not survive correction. CONCLUSIONS: Sustaining an ABI in young adulthood can significantly disrupt key developmental milestones, such as attending college and launching a career. This study provides strong evidence that integrating impairment-based retraining of language and other cognitive skills with “real-world” application in academically focused activities promotes gains in underlying cognitive processes that are important for academic success as measured by standardized assessment items. These findings may prompt a revision to the current continuum of rehabilitative care for young adults with ABI. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.1932006

International adoption: Symptoms of attachment disorders and their associations with the child’s background and developmental outcome

Many internationally adopted children have lived their first years of life in an environment with limited opportunities for primary caregiving. The lack of consistent care increases the prevalence of attachment disorders among them. Less is known about the influences of attachment disorders on a child’s later course of life. This study is part of the Finnish Adoption Study. Parents of all Finnish children who had been internationally adopted by legal adoption organisations between 1985 and 2007 were sent questionnaires (N=1450). Parental evaluations of the children’s symptoms of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) at the time of adoption, their later learning or language problems using a screening scale, and children’s self-reported school bullying experiences were evaluated. Each child’s attachment-related behavioural problems were requested in a follow-up survey 1.9 and 3.8 years after adoption and compared with a Finnish reference group. This study indicated that Finnish internationally adopted children have at least three-fold prevalence of learning and language problems compared with their age-mates. A child’s symptoms of attachment disorders were associated with learning or language problems at school age as well as with his/her school bullying experiences. The adopted children had more attachment-related behavioural problems two years after adoption than their age-mates, but the difference was no longer evident four years after adoption. In conclusion, this study showed that the symptoms of attachment disorder indicate a risk for an adopted child’s later developmental outcome. The findings demonstrate the need for comprehensive clinical examinations and planning of treatment strategies for children with symptoms of RAD.Monet ulkomailta adoptoidut lapset ovat eläneet ensimmäisen elinvuotensa ympäristössä, jossa ei ole ollut mahdollisuutta muodostaa suhdetta yhteen pääasiallisesti lasta hoivaavaan aikuiseen. Pysyvän hoivaajasuhteen puutteen tiedetään lisäävän kiintymyssuhdehäiriöiden esiintyvyyttä. Vähemmän kuitenkin tiedetään näiden häiriöiden vaikutuksista lapsen myöhempään kehitykseen. Tämä tutkimus on osa suomalaista FinAdo- tutkimusta (Finnish Adoption Study). Tutkimuksessa lähetettiin kyselylomakkeita kaikille vuosina 1985-2007 adoptiojärjestöjen kautta adoptoitujen lasten vanhemmille ja lapsille itselleen (N= 1450). Vanhemmat arvioivat lapsen reaktiivisen kiintymyssuhdehäiriön oireita adoption jälkeen, lapsen senhetkisiä oppimiseen ja kielenkehitykseen liittyviä ongelmia, sekä lapsilta itseltään kysyttiin heidän koulukiusauskokemuksistaan. Tämän lisäksi arvioitiin muutosta osalle lapsista toteutettavassa kiintymyssuhdekäyttäytymisen seurantatutkimuksessa 1,9 ja 3,8 vuotta adoption jälkeen. Tuloksia verrattiin suomalaiseen verrokkiryhmään. Tutkimus osoittaa, että suomalaisilla adoptiolapsilla on vähintään kolme kertaa enemmän oppimisen ja kielenkehityksen ongelmia kuin heidän ikätovereillaan. Oppimisen ja kielenkehityksen ongelmia sekä koulukiusauskokemuksia oli enemmän niillä lapsilla joilla oli tulovaiheessa kiintymyssuhdehäiriön oireita. Adoptoiduilla lapsilla oli enemmän kiintymyssuhdekäytöksen ongelmia kuin verrokkilapsilla kaksi vuotta adoption jälkeen, mutta ero ikätovereihin ei ollut nähtävissä enää neljä vuotta adoptiosta. Tutkimuksen johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että adoption jälkeiset kiintymyssuhdehäiriön oireet ovat merkki riskistä myöhemmille kehityksen ongelmille. Tutkimus osoittaa laaja-alaisen kehityksellisen arvion ja hoitosuunnitelman tarpeellisuuden mikäli lapsella on näitä oireita.Siirretty Doriast

WHICH TECHNIQUE TO USE WHEN ELICITING KNOWLEDGE FROM AN EXPERT

A knowledge elicitation technique selection for a knowledge elicitation from an expert still represents a problem in a KBS development. In this paper is presented an original computer program for technique selection and a changed program that was aimed at improving the selection. Both programs use certain factor values as a starting point, but the first program is based on a technique grading and the second on decision trees. Comparison and testing results for both programs are presented

Becoming Impossible: The Social and Emotional Experiences of Watching and Learning to Perform Magic

This thesis set out to examine the social and emotional experiences of 1) learning to perform magic and 2) watching magic tricks, with a view toward wellbeing applications. To do so, the thesis begins with a comprehensive literature review on magic and wellbeing where I develop a novel hierarchy that acts as a foundation for understanding the wellbeing value of magic (Part I, Chapter 1). Further, I use theories from psychology literature to rationalize how magic could be relevant to wellbeing. Insights from this review informed the approach of the thesis, which begins by studying how learning to perform magic tricks affects 1) social aspects like community and 2) emotional aspects, such asself-esteem (i.e. feelings about one’s self). Thus, in Part II of the thesis I conducted experiments utilizing real-world magic workshops from trained professionals in both child and adult samples (Chapters 2 and 3). I then extracted the portion of the workshop unique to magic to minimize confounding factors and investigated the unique impact of solely learning to perform the magic trick (Chapter 4). As predicted from the magic and wellbeing hierarchy, we observed that watching magic tricks was an important element of the magic learning process. In Part III, we subsequently break down this top-level process of learning magic tricks by examining how enjoyment of watching magic is related to perceived impossibility (Chapter 5), individual differences (Chapters 6 & 7), and the experience of wonder (Chapter 8). In Chapter 6 & 7 I explore how this enjoyment is associated with individual differences in personality, locus of control, and the emotion of curiosity. Then to conclude, I then break down enjoyment more specifically into the experience of wonder in Chapter 8 where I postulate a theory of wonder in magic that may involve the emotion of awe and conduct an experiment to determine which aspects of awe (if any) are most relevant to the experience of magic