QCD Phase Diagram: Phase Transition, Critical Point and Fluctuations

A summary of discussions on selected topics related to QCD phase diagram, phase transition, critical point, fluctuation and correlations at the Quark Matter 2009 conference are presented.Comment: Summary of the discussions on QCD Phase Diagram at 21st International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2009), March 30 - 4 April, 2009, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. New references adde

Photon 2003: a theorist's summary and outlook

In this talk I present a summary of some of the discussions at the conference on various topics in Photon physics, selected with a view to give a theorist's perspective, of the current status and future prospects, of the developments in the field. After discussing some of the recent theoretical developments in the subject of Photon Structure function, I will focus on what the photon has helped us learn about the spin structure of a proton, aspects of perturbative and nonperturbative QCD as well as forward and diffractive physics. I will discuss the challenges that the data on heavy flavour production in the two photon reactions and in photo production, seem to have presented to the theorists. Then I discuss the direction in which photon physics is likely to go in future and what we {\em need} the photons to still tell us. I will end by talking about the newer developments in prospects for photon studies at future colliders and opportunities that these will provide us to learn about the physics beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 17 pages, LaTeX, uses espcrc2.sty, 12 figures, Summary talk presented by R.M. Godbole at PHOTON-2003, International Meeting on Structure and Interactions of the Photon, Frascati, Italy, April 7-11, 200

Generating Abstractive Summaries from Meeting Transcripts

Summaries of meetings are very important as they convey the essential content of discussions in a concise form. Generally, it is time consuming to read and understand the whole documents. Therefore, summaries play an important role as the readers are interested in only the important context of discussions. In this work, we address the task of meeting document summarization. Automatic summarization systems on meeting conversations developed so far have been primarily extractive, resulting in unacceptable summaries that are hard to read. The extracted utterances contain disfluencies that affect the quality of the extractive summaries. To make summaries much more readable, we propose an approach to generating abstractive summaries by fusing important content from several utterances. We first separate meeting transcripts into various topic segments, and then identify the important utterances in each segment using a supervised learning approach. The important utterances are then combined together to generate a one-sentence summary. In the text generation step, the dependency parses of the utterances in each segment are combined together to create a directed graph. The most informative and well-formed sub-graph obtained by integer linear programming (ILP) is selected to generate a one-sentence summary for each topic segment. The ILP formulation reduces disfluencies by leveraging grammatical relations that are more prominent in non-conversational style of text, and therefore generates summaries that is comparable to human-written abstractive summaries. Experimental results show that our method can generate more informative summaries than the baselines. In addition, readability assessments by human judges as well as log-likelihood estimates obtained from the dependency parser show that our generated summaries are significantly readable and well-formed.Comment: 10 pages, Proceedings of the 2015 ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, DocEng' 201

Highlights of Findings - San Diego: Aesthetic Development and Creative and Critical Thinking Skills Study

This summary will share some of the highlights from the study conducted from Winter 2000 through Spring 2002 by Visual Understanding in Education with the support of the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), Artpace, and the San Antonio Museum of Art. The study was designed to measure the impact of the multi-year Visual Thinking Strategies(VTS) program on students in gradesthreethrough five.VTS is a student-centered curriculum in which students examine and discuss worksof art, prompted by questions selected to support careful, evidentiary looking. The three basic VTS questions are: "What's going on in this picture?" "What do you see that makes you say that?" when an interpretative comment is made, and "What more can we find?" Classroom teachers facilitate the discussions by asking the questions, pointing, paraphrasing and linking responses. There are ten lessons each year, the last of which is a museum visit.Data was collected twice a year for three years, before the first yearly VTS lesson and after the last VTS lesson of the year, to follow the growth of aesthetic and more general critical thinking skills of an initialsample of 25 experimental and 25 control students. Pre- and post-VTS aesthetic development interviews(ADIs), demographic questionnaires, museum biographies, material object interviews(MOIs), and writing samples were collected from experimental and control groups

Experiences and Attitudes of Young People and Seniors in Relation to to People with Intellectual Disabilities

The contribution represents the selected summary of the results of research carried out through a questionnaire-based survey and a structured interview, the goal of which was to ascertain the experiences and attitudes of young people and seniorsin relation to mentally impaired individuals and define the spheres to which increased attention should be paid in the future. The examined group comprised 160 respondents. The contribution is introduced by information on the given issue and the definition of the basic terminology in relation to the examined sphere. Subsequently, it presents the methodological outcomes of the research and deals with specific results of the research and discussions. At the end, it summarizes the research conclusions in the context of various points of view of the current state of knowledge in theory and its application in practise

The 26th Space Cryogenic Workshop: Overview, Description of Presentations, and List of Abstracts

This is a summary of the 2015 Space Cryogenics Workshop that was held in Phoenix, Arizona, June 24 to 26, 2015. The workshop was organized by David Plachta and Jason Hartwig of the Cryogenics and Fluid Systems Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center, and continued the tradition of bringing together specialists in the field of space cryogenics to discuss upcoming and potential space missions, and the development of technologies that support or-more often-are enabling for the science and exploration goals of the world's space agencies. The workshop consisted of two days of talks and poster sessions, and provided ample opportunity for more informal discussions that foster collaborations and cooperation in the space cryogenics community. Selected papers from the workshop are published in a special issue of Cryogenics, which is expected to be published by the end of 2015

Math in the Cabin - Shape Analysis Workshop in Bad Gastein

The workshop “Math in the cabin” took place in Bad Gastein, in the period July 16 – July 22, 2014. The aim of the week was to bring together a group of researchers with diverse backgrounds — ranging from differential geometry to applied medical image analysis — to discuss questions of common interest, that can be vaguely summarized under the heading “shape analysis”. These proceedings contain a summary of selected discussions, that were held during this week

Culture and disaster risk management - stakeholder attitudes during Stakeholder Assembly in Rome, Italy

This report provides a summary of the topics discussed and the results of the CARISMAND Second Stakeholder Assembly conducted in Rome, Italy on 27-28 February 2017. In order to promote cross-sectional knowledge transfer, as in the CARISMAND First Stakeholder Assembly held in Romania in the previous year, the audience consisted of a wide range of practitioners that are typically involved in disaster management, e.g., civil protection, the emergency services, paramedics, nurses, environmental protection, Red Cross, fire-fighters, military, the police, and other non-governmental organisations. Further, these practitioners were from several regions in Italy, e.g., Rome and Lazio, Toscana, Emilia-Romagna, and Valle D’Aosta. The participants, who varied between 40 and 60, were recruited via invitations sent to various Italian organisations and institutions (at the national, regional and local levels), and via direct contacts of the Protezione Civile Comune di Firenze who are one of the Italian partners in the CARISMAND Consortium. The event consisted of a mix of presentations, working groups, and panel discussions for these participating practitioners, in order to combine dissemination with information gathering (for the detailed schedule/programme please see Appendix 1). After an initial general assembly where the CARISMAND project and its main goals were presented, the participants of the Stakeholder Assembly were split into small groups in separate breakout rooms, where over the course of the two days they discussed the following topics: 1) Working Group 1. “Culture & Risk”: Practical Experience of Cultural Aspects Disaster Communication between Practitioners and Citizens; 2) Working Group 2. “Media Culture & Disasters”: The Use of Social Media and Mobile Phone Applications in Disasters; 3) Working Groups 3. “Social Cohesion & Social Corrosion”: Cultures, Communities, and Trust. After each working group session, panel discussions allowed the participants to present the results of their working group to the rest of the audience. After each panel discussion, keynote speakers gave presentations related to the respective working group’s topic. This time schedule was designed to ensure that participants are provided with detailed information about recent developments in disaster management, e.g. related to the use of mobile phone apps and social media, but without influencing their attitudes and perceptions expressed in the working groups. The main focus of the working groups was the relationships between culture and risk/disaster communication, the role of social media and smartphone apps, and trust between citizens and disaster managers and/or authorities. These topics, and the questions discussed within each working group, were chosen: following the findings of the CARISMAND First Stakeholder Assembly held in Bucharest, in particular regarding the disconnection between citizens’ risk perception and cultural factors in disasters; 1) the results of the CARISMAND First and Second Citizen Summits held in Bucharest and Malta respectively, specifically taking up the participants’ suggestions regarding vulnerable groups and groups that are seen to be potentially helpful in disaster situations; 2) the results of Work Package 3 ‘Cultural Factors and Technologies’, in particular regarding the increasing interest in mobile phone apps compared to social media usage; 3) the literature review provided in Work Package 4 ‘Risk Perception and Risk Cultures’, particularly regarding the ambivalent of role of trust in disaster preparedness, response and recovery; 4) the preliminary findings of Work Package 7 ‘Citizens Empowerment’, in respect to community cohesion and specific opportunities for citizen empowerment; and 5) topics highlighted in Work Package 8 ‘Risk Communication and the Role of the Media in Risk Communication’ regarding disaster communication practices (particularly in connection with social media/apps usage as identified in Work Package 3 ‘Cultural Factors and Technologies’). These topics were also chosen in order to provide a sound basis for the next round of CARISMAND events (Third and Fourth CARISMAND Citizen Summits held, later, in Rome and Frankfurt in June 2017), i.e. exploring issues of risk perception and culture in the context of disasters at the very point, where practitioners and citizens interact. The location of the Second Stakeholder Assembly was selected to make use of the extensive local professional network of the Protezione Civile, but also due to Italy being a location where various “types” of hazards are prevalent, and disasters were occurred in the very recent past. All documents related to the Working Groups, i.e. discussion guidelines and consent forms, were translated into Italian. Accordingly, all presentations as well as the group discussions were held in Italian, aiming to avoid any language/education-related access restrictions, and allowing participating practitioners to respond intuitively and discuss freely in their native language. For this purpose, researchers from the Laboratory of Sciences Citizenship in Rome, one of the CARISMAND Consortium members, were used as Working Group moderators, alongside simultaneous interpreters and professional local moderators contracted via a local market research agency (RFR International), who also provided the transcripts and translations into English for all Working Group discussions. It is important to note that the discussions within these working groups reflect the participants’ perceptions and may or may not reflect the realities of how communication actually occurs in disaster situations.The project was co-funded by the European Commission within the Horizon2020 Programme (2014-2020).peer-reviewe

ePortfolios: models and implementation

This paper explores the use of ePortfolio tools to support teaching, learning and the personal and professional development of postgraduate students at the Institute of Education, University of London (IOE). The needs of tutors and students are considered alongside the affordances and limitations of specific tools in relation to these needs. The study involved five areas of postgraduate study at the IOE, one at PhD level, two at Masters level (MA in ICT in Education and MTeach) and two PGCE courses (PGCE in ICT and Post-Compulsory PGCE). Preliminary discussions with IOE staff revealed five common themes relating to the perceived purpose of an ePortfolio: model, ownership, collaboration, accessibility and support. The first theme relates to the definition of the ePortfolio, whilst the remaining themes address questions relating to ownership, control, use and user needs/development. In this paper, each of the themes and the questions raised within those areas are addressed in detail and a cross-comparative table of responses across each of five teaching scenarios is provided with levels of importance measured on a scale of 1 (low) to 4 (high)

A study of humanism in selected poems of Robert Frost, 1977

The purpose of this thesis is to show that humanism exists in the poetry of Robert Frost. First, a brief summary of the poet's life will be given. The study includes a working definition of the term humanism. It also includes selected poems that illustrate humanistic elements. The thesis also treats Frost's reputation as a humanist. In the past, many critics and scholars have written biographical studies and have also written widely, either directly or indirectly, on the major themes of Robert Frost. However, very few studies include specific discussions of his humanism and how it is treated in his major poetry. Thus, this study aims to broaden our view of humanism as it exists in a vital group of Frost's poems. The main sources of information have been the actual poetical works of Robert Frost, but I have, of course, consulted articles and books written by other critics that were pertinent to the study I have attempted to present