Social Navigation in a Location-Based Information System

Much of contextaware application research has dealt with the technical aspects of context capturing and how to interpret the context of a user. Little effort has been spent on the experience and usage of these systems. This thesis will present the general aspects of social awareness and present an example on how these concepts can be implemented into a location-based information system to help users navigate a potential information overload. This thesis also states that giving the users an experience of not being alone in the system increases the pleasure of using such a system. However this implies a decrease in privacy. To demonstrate these ideas I will describe a locationbased information system, GeoNotes, built by a group of researchers at SICS, the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. I will state a set of interaction requirements for how to extend the GeoNotes system with functionality for social awareness. Furthermore I will set up functional requirements for those interaction requirements to after implementation be able to conclude which interaction requirements I have been able to implement for. I will also give suggestions on how to position users in a WLAN. The deliverable from this project is a locationbased information system with functionality for social awareness. However, it was not within this project to test the system on true users. Therefore the statement that this functionality can help users to navigate a potential information overload is still just a hypothesis. To retrieve the position of a user in a W-LAN a packet is sent to all base stations in the network. In the first returning packet the mac address of contacting base station is extracted. Each base station is therefore a unique position. Triangulation was discarded due to its sensitivity to noise and weather circumstances, although a system that uses triangulation would have offered a much higher granularity

Education and citizenship in the knowledge society - towards the comparative study of national systems of education

This paper is an attempt to propose how education systems can be studied in relation to the welfare state and knowledge society in the global age. It begins by discussing the aims of education and relates these to the core values of social citizenship, arguing that access to the provision of education is a fundamental pillar of citizenship with the purpose of extending and enhancing life chances by general principles of social inclusion and equality of opportunity. It further on reviews a large body of comparative research which studies how the design of education institutions in various countries influences one important aspect of these aims, namely school-leavers’ entrance into the labour market. The third and last section investigates the possibilities and difficulties inherent in comparative studies of national systems of education, particularly with regard to questions concerning validity when constructing conceptual models and comparable indicators. The tentative conclusion of the paper is that further comparative endeavours should set out analyzing primarily input- and process-related features of compulsory education, and the dimensions of stratification and standardization of upper secondary education for an assessment of these institutions’ capacity to equip citizens with knowledge and skills for human flourishing.education systems; social citizenship

Nonlinear Independent Component Analysis for Principled Disentanglement in Unsupervised Deep Learning

A central problem in unsupervised deep learning is how to find useful representations of high-dimensional data, sometimes called "disentanglement". Most approaches are heuristic and lack a proper theoretical foundation. In linear representation learning, independent component analysis (ICA) has been successful in many applications areas, and it is principled, i.e. based on a well-defined probabilistic model. However, extension of ICA to the nonlinear case has been problematic due to the lack of identifiability, i.e. uniqueness of the representation. Recently, nonlinear extensions that utilize temporal structure or some auxiliary information have been proposed. Such models are in fact identifiable, and consequently, an increasing number of algorithms have been developed. In particular, some self-supervised algorithms can be shown to estimate nonlinear ICA, even though they have initially been proposed from heuristic perspectives. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of nonlinear ICA theory and algorithms

Aptitude in the Classroom: an empirical study of the pedagogical functionality of the LLAMA test battery in an upper secondary school

This thesis explores the suitability of using aptitude testing and the LLAMA aptitude tests in a Norwegian upper secondary school class, and the potential pedagogical advantages such testing can have. Aptitude testing entails measuring language learners’ specific talent for learning foreign languages and this is an individual difference that exhibits considerable variation between learners (Dörnyei & Skehan, 2003). An empirical study was conducted on 22 participants of an upper secondary school class to see how the LLAMA, an aptitude test battery developed by Paul Meara (2005) would function. The testing was followed by a student questionnaire and two separate teacher interviews, created to investigate the experience and attitudes the teacher and the pupils showed towards aptitude testing and the LLAMA, as well as the potential pedagogical advantages this testing might have. The results showed that both the teacher and the pupils viewed the LLAMA as a suitable aptitude battery and that the age group was appropriate. The teacher was also positive towards the notion of aptitude testing. Several pedagogical advantages were found and could, with some effort from the teacher, help inform and individually adapt the teaching to each pupil, based on their aptitude profiles. From the findings of this project, I conclude that aptitude testing and using the LLAMA could help Norwegian teachers individually adapt their teaching and that this is something we should strive to use. I also suggest that there are several pedagogical advantages if the results from the testing are used accordingly and if a functional framework for how to use these results are developed.Keywords: LLAMA, Aptitude, Second Language Learning, Testing, Pedagog

Semantically-guided evolutionary knowledge discovery from texts

This thesis proposes a new approach for structured knowledge discovery from texts which considers both the mining process itself, the evaluation of this knowledge by the model, and the human assessment of the quality of the outcome.This is achieved by integrating Natural-Language technology and Genetic Algorithms to produce explanatory novel hypotheses. Natural-Language techniques are specifically used to extract genre-based information from text documents. Additional semantic and rhetorical information for generating training data and for feeding a semistructured Latent Semantic Analysis process is also captured.The discovery process is modeled by a semantically-guided Genetic Algorithm which uses training data to guide the search and optimization process. A number of novel criteria to evaluate the quality of the new knowledge are proposed. Consequently, new genetic operations suitable for text mining are designed, and techniques for Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization are adapted for the model to trade off between different criteria in the hypotheses.Domain experts were used in an experiment to assess the quality of the hypotheses produced by the model so as to establish their effectiveness in terms of novel and interesting knowledge. The assessment showed encouraging results for the discovered knowledge and for the correlation between the model and the human opinions

“Planting Trees is Always Good”

This thesis explores how two Swedish companies and a sample of Swedish consumers describe the role of private actors in climate change mitigation. Carbon offsetting by planting trees in the Global South has become a common approach for Swedish food and beverage companies (among other companies) that seek to reduce their climate impact. Since 2018, the Swedish fast food restaurant Max Burgers AB (MAX) has been offsetting 110% of its greenhouse gas emissions and advertises a ‘climate positive’ menu. The initiative has been prized by the UN Global Climate Action Awards for being an innovative, replicable and scalable climate solution. MAX is also urging other companies and private individuals to implement the ‘climate positive’ model, in order to solve the climate crisis. This thesis draws on Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach for policy analysis to explore how the proposed solution can be understood in terms of problem representations. Two Swedish companies’ websites were analysed and semi-structured interviews with 13 customers at MAX were conducted in order to understand what kinds of problems carbon offsetting by planting trees in countries in the Global South responds to according to these actors. The thesis presents four problem-solution complexes in which the two companies mainly represent climate change as a problem of 1) reduced emissions and carbon dioxide removal, 2) consumption, 3) deforestation and carbon sequestration and 4) where carbon offsetting also is represented as a solution to sustainable development challenges in the Global South. The study concludes that on the two companies’ websites, these four problem representations reinforced each other and created a strong narrative for practicing carbon offsetting by planting trees in countries in the Global South as a solution to climate change and sustainable development challenges. At the same time, the customers’ responses imply that the discourse on how private actors and individuals can mitigate climate change is not homogenous, as they partially contrasted the two companies’ problem representations of climate change. The customers’ responses also illustrated a mental distance to the tree planting project in Uganda that MAX purchases carbon credits from, as well as a lack of awareness regarding local impacts of the project. Moreover, this thesis illustrates how planting trees has enabled MAX to communicate to its customers that they are the ones that will solve climate change, by eating burgers at the Swedish fast food restaurant

Authenticity And The Assessment Of Modern Foreign Language Learning: The Problems Of Designing Authentic Tasks And Devising And Applying Criteria For Moderated Assessment And Evaluation In The Examinations Of The International Baccalaureate for Modern Foreign Languages

Notions of authenticity often determine aims in communicative language teaching and learning. This research describes and develops theories of authenticity in assessing and evaluating such activity. Concepts are defined for mapping and exploring the International Baccalaureate Organisation's Diploma Programme for Group 2 Languages. The empirical focus is Language B, Standard Level, a programme for intermediate foreign-language learners. Attention is paid to formal assessment in listening and speaking, reading and writing in French. It includes the delineation of boundaries, investigation of rubrics, design of tasks and their standardisation, language use in criterion-referenced assessment, with the moderation and evaluation of results by grades. In measuring performance, 'target' language communication is investigated, insofar as definable and assessable through reference to authenticity. Commonly-used theoretical and practical categorisations emerge as subjective, imprecise and contestable. Three methods are employed to identify, describe and understand the programme, together with the language use it entails. They provide complementary perspectives for conceptualising authenticity. First, samples of IBO documentation are analysed for illuminating theory. Understandings are developed and refined through observation of the programme in practice. Alternately, constraints on learner participation in assessed language-production for authentic communication are examined. Influential in any situation, they appear particularised in 'high-stakes' evaluation. Understandings are also derived from analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, sampled from a range of formal assessment sessions and manipulated experimentally. Responses to specific tasks are scrutinised. Through developing criteria for identifying, analysing and evaluating language-based authenticity from this data, the research seeks: • to assess validity in devising standardised tasks for authentic language use within set rubrics; • reliably to correlate qualitative, criterion-referenced assessments with quantitative evaluation; • to determine regularity in grading significant qualities of formally-assessed language; • better to understand authenticity as a concept for guiding these aims; • to identify theory and practice that distinguish the programme researched as a view of pedagogy and learning, through investigation of its products. The research offers description, analysis and critique of programme planning, administration and outcomes. Its conclusions indicate authenticity as conceptually viable for assessing language use. Without decreasing reliability, construct validity may be enhanced. Anomalies previously found 'difficult to assess', are reduced in incidence and the fit improved between programme philosophy and practice. Through measuring task-based language for authenticity in determinate settings, evaluation verdicts may be more consistently and explicitly justified, enhancing the potential credibility of the given programme amongst its users