The Partial Evaluation Approach to Information Personalization

Information personalization refers to the automatic adjustment of information content, structure, and presentation tailored to an individual user. By reducing information overload and customizing information access, personalization systems have emerged as an important segment of the Internet economy. This paper presents a systematic modeling methodology - PIPE (`Personalization is Partial Evaluation') - for personalization. Personalization systems are designed and implemented in PIPE by modeling an information-seeking interaction in a programmatic representation. The representation supports the description of information-seeking activities as partial information and their subsequent realization by partial evaluation, a technique for specializing programs. We describe the modeling methodology at a conceptual level and outline representational choices. We present two application case studies that use PIPE for personalizing web sites and describe how PIPE suggests a novel evaluation criterion for information system designs. Finally, we mention several fundamental implications of adopting the PIPE model for personalization and when it is (and is not) applicable.Comment: Comprehensive overview of the PIPE model for personalizatio

Personalizing the GAMS Cross-Index

The NIST Guide to Available Mathematical Software (GAMS)system at http://gams.nist.gov serves as the gateway to thousands of scientific codes and modules for numerical com-putation.We describe the PIPE personalization facility for GAMS,whereby content from the cross-index is specialized for a user desiring software recommendations for a specific problem instance.The key idea is to (i)mine structure,and (ii)exploit it in a programmatic manner to generate personalized web pages.Our approach supports both content based and collaborative personalization and enables information integration from multiple (and complementary)web resources.We present case studies for the domain of linear,second-order,elliptic partial differential equations that indicate strong empirical evidence for the usefulness of our semi-automatic approach

Collaborative stewardship in multifunctional landscapes: Toward relational, pluralistic approaches

Landscape stewardship offers a means to put social-ecological approaches to stewardship into practice. The growing interest in landscape stewardship has led to a focus on multistakeholder collaboration. Although there is a significant body of literature on collaborative management and governance of natural resources, the particular challenges posed by multifunctional landscapes, in which there are often contested interests, require closer attention. We present a case study from South Africa to investigate how collaborative stewardship can be fostered in contested multifunctional landscapes. We conducted this research through an engaged transdisciplinary research partnership in which we integrated social-ecological practitioner and academic knowledge to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges of fostering collaboration. We identified five overarching factors that influence collaboration: contextual, institutional, social-relational, individual, and political-historical. Collaborative stewardship approaches focused on the development of formal governance institutions appear to be most successful if enabling individual and social-relational conditions are in place. Our case study, characterized by high social diversity, inequity, and contestation, suggests that consensus-driven approaches to collaboration are unlikely to result in equitable and sustainable landscape stewardship in such contexts. We therefore suggest an approach that focuses on enhancing individual and social-relational enablers. Moreover, we propose a bottom-up patchwork approach to collaborative stewardship premised on the notion of pluralism. This would focus on building new interpersonal relationships and collaborative capacity through small collective actions. Taking a relational, pluralistic approach to fostering collaborative stewardship is particularly important in contested, socially heterogeneous landscapes. Drawing on our study and the literature, we propose guiding principles for implementing relational, pluralistic approaches to collaborative stewardship and suggest future research directions for supporting such approaches

Research on Personalized Recommender System for Tourism Information Service

Since the development in the 1990s, Recommender system has been widely applied in various fields. The conflict between the expansion of tourism information and difficulty of tourists obtaining tourism information allows Tourism Information Recommender System to have a practical significance. Based on the existing online tourism information service and the mature recommendation algorithms, Personal Recommender System can be used to solve present problems of the key recommendation algorithms. In the first place, this research presents an overview of researches on this issue both at home and abroad, and analyzes the applications of main stream recommendation algorithms. Secondly, a comparative study of domestic and international tourism information service websites is conducted. Drawbacks in their applications are defined and advantages are adopted in the settings of Recommender System. Finally, this research provides the framework of Recommender System, which combines the design and test of algorithms and the existing tourism information recommendation websites. This system allows customers to broaden experience of tourism information service and make tourism decisions more accurately and rapidly. Keywords: Tourism information service, Personalized recommendation, Intelligence recommendation module, Apriori algorith

A Case Study on Elementary Teachers’ Experiences Teaching Computer Science

Computer science is an academic discipline that provides a new foundational skill for all students. The discipline helps students develop critical thinking skills and teaches students how to move beyond merely using technology to becoming creators. The importance of computer science has been recognized across the country as states are working to train staff, adopt standards, and create implementation plans. As the demand for computer science learning opportunities increase, elementary teachers need the necessary supports to help ensure equitable access for all students. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain an understanding elementary teachers’ experiences teaching computer science. Two research questions guided this study: What barriers do elementary teachers experience in teaching computer science to students? What strategies do elementary teachers develop in their experience teaching computer science to students? The data collection instruments were primary semistructured interviews, secondary semistructured interviews, and documents. The inductive analysis model was used to analyze the collected data from the semistructured interviews. The typological analysis model was used to analyze the documents. The key findings of this study revealed that elementary teachers experience internal and external barriers in teaching computer science. Participants understood the importance of teaching computer science to their students, prompting them to persevere and develop new strategies in their pedagogical approaches. Interviewees also developed strategies to limit the impact of the barriers they experienced teaching elementary computer science

Understanding frailty:a qualitative study of European healthcare policy-makers' approaches to frailty screening and management

OBJECTIVE: To elicit European healthcare policy-makers' views, understanding and attitudes about the implementation of frailty screening and management strategies and responses to stakeholders' views. DESIGN: Thematic analysis of semistructured qualitative interviews. SETTING: European healthcare policy departments. PARTICIPANTS: Seven European healthcare policy-makers representing the European Union (n=2), UK (n=2), Italy (n=1), Spain (n=1) and Poland (n=1). Participants were sourced through professional networks and the European Commission Authentication Service website and were required to be in an active healthcare policy or decision-making role. RESULTS: Seven themes were identified. Our findings reveal a 'knowledge gap', around frailty and awareness of the malleability of frailty, which has resulted in restricted ownership of frailty by specialists. Policy-makers emphasised the need to recognise frailty as a clinical syndrome but stressed that it should be managed via an integrated and interdisciplinary response to chronicity and ageing. That is, through social co-production. This would require a culture shift in care with redeployment of existing resources to deliver frailty management and intervention services. Policy-makers proposed barriers to a culture shift, indicating a need to be innovative with solutions to empower older adults to optimise their health and well-being, while still fully engaging in the social environment. The cultural acceptance of an integrated care system theme described the complexities of institutional change management, as well as cultural issues relating to working democratically, while in signposting adult care, the need for a personal navigator to help older adults to access appropriate services was proposed. Policy-makers also believed that screening for frailty could be an effective tool for frailty management. CONCLUSIONS: There is potential for frailty to be managed in a more integrated and person-centred manner, overcoming the challenges associated with niche ownership within the healthcare system. There is also a need to raise its profile and develop a common understanding of its malleability among stakeholders, as well as consistency in how and when it is measured

INVESTIGATING AN ONLINE PROJECT BASED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE FOR TEACHERS IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS

The purpose of this descriptive case study using a convergent mixed methods design was to analyze teachers’ perceptions of an online science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) PD course. The following three research questions helped guide the study: (a) what are teachers’ perceptions of an online STEM professional development course, (b) how do teachers describe their confidence in implementing a STEM curriculum after an online professional development course, and (c) what components of an online professional development course are perceived as supports and barriers for teachers’ in acquiring pedagogical and content knowledge. Study participants included both PD facilitators and participating teachers who work in schools that have adopted the new STEM curriculum. Data for the study included the organization’s archival records (course satisfaction survey responses), and transcripts from semistructured interviews. Online classroom observations and a researcher’s journal supplemented the main data. Descriptive quantitative analyses were conducted of data from satisfaction surveys and observations. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes within all open-ended response survey questions, interview responses, classroom observations and researcher’s journal entries. Analyses indicated that participants were satisfied overall with the course and their level of satisfaction was dependent on the quality of instruction of their facilitators. Participants identified supports in aquiring pedagogical and content knowledge as facilitators’ availability, shared resources and hands-on demonstrations by the facilitator, and experiencing curricular activities as students; they identified barriers as course technology issues, irrelevant additions to the course, and disorganized breakout rooms. Overall, participants felt more confident returning to their classroom when they had the necessary resources to teach new skills. The dissertation concludes with several recommendations for improving PD participants’ experience in the online course