Releasing Authority Chairs: A Comparative Snapshot Across Three Decades

This report provides a comparative analysis of releasing authority chairs' views of the issues and challenges confronting them at two points in time: 1988 and 2015. Drawing from two surveys, one conducted during the tenure of an ACA Parole Task Force that functioned from 1986-1988, and the other a survey published in 2016 by the Robina Institute called The Continuing Leverage of Releasing Authorities: Findings from a National Survey, this new publication highlights both change and constancy relative to a wide range of comparative markers including, but not limited to, structured decision tools, prison crowding and risk aversion, and the myriad factors considered in granting or denying parole

Position Paper: Lack of Keyboard Support Cripples Block-Based Programming

Block-based programming is very popular with beginners, but it has failed to gain traction among intermediate and expert programmers. The mouse-centric interfaces typically found in block-based programming environments make edit interactions (especially in large programs) tedious and awkward. We propose that adding keyboard support is a key step to extending the applicability of block-based programming ideas and would allow their use by intermediate and expert programmers, extending some of their benefits to new user groups. We describe an implementation of this idea, `frame-based programming', which leads to a number of benefits in error avoidance and edit efficiency

On Object-Orientation

Although object-orientation has been around for several decades, its key concept abstraction has not been exploited for proper application of object-orientation in other phases of software development than the implementation phase. We mention some issues that lead to a lot of confusion and obscurity with object-orientation and its application in software development. We describe object-orientation as abstract as possible such that it can be applied to all phases of software development

A Village Comes to Life: The Interpretation of Henry Ford\u27s Greenfield Village

Of all American living history sites, Greenfield Village, in Dearborn, Michigan, is one of the most interesting. Founded by Henry Ford and opened in 1929, Greenfield Village consists of 90 acres of nearly 100 historic buildings, all moved to the site from around the country and reassembled in a vague village formation. Unlike Colonial Williamsburg, the site is not historically significant and represents no one geographic location or time period. While in keeping with Ford’s vision of celebrating small-town life and the humble origins of many great thinkers and innovators, this structure has presented challenges for both the staff and the public to settle on a particular interpretive theme. When combined with the more universal criticisms regarding training, equipment, and messaging, these challenges make Greenfield Village a veritable microcosm of the strengths and weaknesses of living history interpretation. The history of interpretive programming at Greenfield Village demonstrates that weaknesses commonly criticized by academic historians are not inherent in living history programming. In fact, well-educated and trained park staffers saw living history as the solution to these problems and to finally find a way to unify Greenfield Village’s unique structure under a cohesive and effective interpretive theme. The 1982 implementation of the Edison/Saltbox project was a direct response to the most current scholarship on museum education and represented a continued dialogue with other open-air history museums. More recent attempts to improve the interpretation of African American history at Greenfield Village echo similar strategies at Colonial Williamsburg and respond directly to calls within the academy to address the prevalence of nostalgia in presentations of the past. While Greenfield Village’s programming continues to face the funding and staffing problems that plague living history programs nationwide, its story should remind scholars that nostalgia and antiquarianism are not problems inherent to living history

The modern programming languages

В статье описываются наиболее известные языки программирования, рассматриваются их особенности и сферы применения. Такая профессия как программист сегодня является весьма востребованной: навыки программирования пользуются высоким спросом, а должность программиста хорошо оплачивается. Из данной научной статьи читатели смогут выделить достоинства и недостатки представленных языков и, возможно, выбрать самый подходящий для изучения

Action semantics in retrospect

This paper is a themed account of the action semantics project, which Peter Mosses has led since the 1980s. It explains his motivations for developing action semantics, the inspirations behind its design, and the foundations of action semantics based on unified algebras. It goes on to outline some applications of action semantics to describe real programming languages, and some efforts to implement programming languages using action semantics directed compiler generation. It concludes by outlining more recent developments and reflecting on the success of the action semantics project

Logo in mainstream schools: the struggle over the soul of an educational innovation

Technologies do not follow some predetermined and inevitable course from their context of production to their context of use, and technologies used in schools are no exception. Rather, technologies and their use in the classroom are socially contextualised. They are often appropriated in ways unanticipated by their developers, locking into institutional arrangements and reflecting elements of the prevailing social relations in and around the particular context(s) of application. Through the discussion of a particular technology (the Logo programming language) as a case study in educational innovation, this article demonstrates how the use of technologies in schools is socially shaped. The paper looks into the place that Logo occupied within the institutional and organisational cultures of US and UK mainstream schools after its introduction in the early 1980s. It discusses the ways in which Logo was received in the educational arena and was implicated in the politics of educational innovation at a time of conservative restoration