Understanding ACT-R - an Outsider's Perspective

The ACT-R theory of cognition developed by John Anderson and colleagues endeavors to explain how humans recall chunks of information and how they solve problems. ACT-R also serves as a theoretical basis for "cognitive tutors", i.e., automatic tutoring systems that help students learn mathematics, computer programming, and other subjects. The official ACT-R definition is distributed across a large body of literature spanning many articles and monographs, and hence it is difficult for an "outsider" to learn the most important aspects of the theory. This paper aims to provide a tutorial to the core components of the ACT-R theory

Natural Law as Professional Ethics: A Reading of Fuller

In Plato\u27s Laws, the Athenian Stranger claims that the gods will smile only on a city where the law is despot over the rulers and the rulers are slaves of the law. This passage is the origin of the slogan the rule of law not of men, an abbreviation of which forms our phrase the rule of law. From Plato and Aristotle, through John Adams and John Marshall, down to us, no idea has proven more central to Western political and legal culture. Yet the slogan turns on a very dubious metaphor. Laws do not rule, and the rule of law not of men is actually a specific form of rule by men (including, nowadays, a few women). These rulers are not slaves to anything. Furthermore, the construction of the slogan -rule of law and not of men-has unfortunate connotations. It suggests that the personal qualities of the human rulers required to secure the rule of law are nothing more than forbearance and disinterestedness-a resolution to stay out of law\u27s way. What if the rule of law is more demanding than this? What if it turns out to be a particularly elaborate and technically ingenious form of the rule of (let me say) men and women? What if the rule of law establishes a moral relationship between those who govern and those whom they govern? Furthermore, what if sustaining this relationship requires certain moral attitudes and virtues on the part of the governors that are not simply disinterested forbearance, and not simply the moral attitudes and virtues required of everyone

An exploration of the outsider's role in selected works by Joseph Conrad, Malcolm Lowry, V.S. Naipaul.

PhDThis thesis explores ways in which the outsider questions rather than confirms dominant cultural values whilst avoiding the crudity of overt politicisation. I argue that the outsider's preference for an observer's stance is not so much an act which denies responsibility to the world of his day, but rather a means of reassessing its priorities. In Section One, I discuss Conrad's role as an outsider in the age of Empires. I demonstrate the ways in which Conrad employs narrators, frequently using strategies of irony which can be and have been read in very different ways. I argue that Conrad uses irony as a tool for condemnation rather than condonement of imperialist practice, if not its ideology. In Section Two, I discuss Lowry as an emigre from England (so contrasting him with Conrad, the immigrant from Europe), and examine his dissenting voice which opposes bourgeois prejudice against the working class, a totalising ideology like Fascism, and a Western rationalism which sees too rigid a distinction between sanity and madness. I demonstrate how Lowry as an outsider reacts to the age of twentieth century World Wars. In Section Three, I discuss Naipaul's role as an outsider in the age of decolonisation, when bogus liberals and false redeemers fail to rebuild the newly independent post-colonial states. As in Conrad's case, I show how a failure to read Naipaul's ironic tone of voice has given rise to radically divergent views as to what he is about. I also link Conrad and Naipaul through their cultural negotiation between the 'centre' and its peripheries. By looking at these three writers in chronological order and offering a comparative perspective on their work, I highlight the outsider's disturbing, yet illuminating role within a historical context. I also draw attention to creative tensions between artistic concerns and a serious political purpose. I assess the outsider as observer and man of conscience rather than as a` mere onlooker. I conclude that the outsider also fulfils a social obligation by promoting critical awareness on the reader's side by means of his defamiliarising perspective

The local and the global: Gina Nahai and the taking up of serpents and stereotypes

Region, home and transnational migration are explored in terms of the transcultural complexities that reverberate through Iranian American Gina Nahai's Sunday's Silence. Nahai grapples with stereotypes that attach to the Holiness churches in the east Tennessee region of Appalachia. This essay argues that the novel's politics rest on the intersubjectivity of strangers as bound into a metaphysics of desire. It is through this paradigm that Nahai writes against the reductive association of “minority” literature with discrete “national” models and through which she explores the local and the regional in a culturally complex narrative about the crisis of alterity

Restraint practice in the somatic acute care hospital: A participant observation study

Aims and Objectives We aimed to describe daily restraint practices and the factors which influence their use, from an outsider's perspective. Background A reduction in restraint use is recommended in health care. However, somatic acute care hospital settings currently lack effective reduction strategies. Thus far, hospital restraint practice is described in terms of quantitative assessments and the ‘insider’ view of healthcare professionals. However, as factors such as routine or personal beliefs seem to play a relevant role in restraint use, these approaches might be incomplete and biased. Design A qualitative observation study design was employed. Methods Fieldwork with unstructured participant observation was conducted at a department of geriatrics and a department of intensive care in Switzerland between November 2019 and January 2020. Data were recorded as field notes. The analysis was conducted iteratively in two coding cycles using descriptive coding followed by pattern coding. We adhered to the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR). Results A total of 67 hours of observation were conducted. We found that daily restraint practice can be described in three categories: the context in which restraints are used, the decision-making process on the use and continued use of restraints, and the avoidance of restraint use. Most processes and decisions seem to take place unconsciously, and their standardisation is weak. Conclusions The lack of standardisation favours intuitive and unreflective action, which is prompted by what is also known as heuristic decision-making. To transform daily restraint practice, a technical solution that leads restraint management in line with ethical and legal requirements might be useful. Relevance to clinical practice The outsider perspective has allowed daily restraint practice to be described independently of existing routines, departmental cultures and personal attitudes. This is important to comprehensively describe restrictive practices, which is a prerequisite for the development of effective restraint reduction strategies

German studies in the U.S.: history, theory and practice

This paper discusses the profile of German Studies in the context of interdisciplinary intercultural area studies, as it has been developed during the last decades at universities in the United States, particularly at the University of California at Berkeley. In its first part, it deals with the institutional history of German Studies, in the second, with the underlying cultural theory, and in the third, with its hermeneutic practice.Este artigo discute o perfil dos German Studies no contexto de estudos interdisciplinares e interculturais, Corno desenvolvidos, especificamente, nas universidades dos Estados Unidos, em particular na Universidade de Califórnia, em Berkeley, nas últimas décadas. A primeira parte trata da história institucional dos Gennon Studies, a segunda, da teoria cultural que lhe serve de base, e a terceira, da prática hermenêutica

The Position of Insider (Emic) and Outsider (Etic): A Review of Deborah Court and Randa Khair Abbas’ Insider-Outsider Research in Qualitative Inquiry: New Perspectives on Method and Meaning

In their book, Insider-Outsider Research in Qualitative Inquiry: New Perspectives on Method and Meaning by Deborah Court and Randa Khair Abbas, they deconstruct the outdated or puzzling terminology associated with this type of research, examine ethical challenges, and recommend methodological approaches. This book also situates qualitative insider-outsider research, by its very nature, within the larger research ecology. The authors describe in full a researcher partnership—a relationship that is more personal and fruitful than a team and significantly more than the sum of its parts. Through their nearly two-decade-long research collaboration and study of the Israeli Druze, the authors have established mutual trust, which has led to a deeper understanding of cultural norms and the meanings they convey. Examples from their research with Israeli Druze will be used to illustrate this argument and their methodology. This book will be of interest to ethnographers, qualitative researchers, and graduate students of all experience levels

From the native’s point of view – or daddy-knows-best?

This paper discusses how a single approach or attempts to leave the specific socio-cultural setting out of the account can only distort our view of the extremely complex phenomenon 'religion'. The problem of understanding “the Other" arises as soon as we meet this other, but where the other seemed too much unlike ourselves, the demand became imperative, either to reject the other totally, or to find ways to communicate, that is, some form of understanding

An American Perspective on Belgian and British Environmental Law within Europe

It is unusual these days for an American to offer an outsider\u27s view of a comparative topic that does not involve the United States either as one side of the comparison or an interested party. One does not need to look to disagreements over policies regarding NATO, Bosnia, or Iraq to find this tendency. As Europeans know only too well, we Americans are often parochial in our views, if not isolationist. The recent success of the U.S. economy as compared to Europe and Asia has not helped us to lose an unjustified sense of our own primacy. A virtue of the Fulbright program of international exchange of scholars (not to mention the academic innovation called a sabbatical) is to put an American like me into the unfamiliar position of chairing a few sessions of a conference that compares environmental law in Belgium and Britain and trying to offer a useful comment on the subject. In doing so, I hope to provide some relevant points of objective comparison without coloring my comments too strongly with an American point of view. In accordance with my modest knowledge of Belgian and British law, I will also keep this comment brief.

ClimbAR - An Arkansas Rock Climbing Documentary

The goal of this thesis project, ‘ClimbAR’ - a rock climbing documentary - is to tell the story of a fringe sport/outdoor activity in the state of Arkansas. The history of the sport has been passed down primarily by word of mouth and contained within a small, tight knit group of Arkansas rock climbers since its humble beginnings in the 1980s. Though many of the original climbers in the state have since moved on, a new generation of adventurers have taken the reins. This film focuses on the newest generation of Arkansas rock climbers. Like many climbers in the state, this story uses Cole Fennel’s guidebooks, “Rock Climbing Arkansas” Vol. I & II, to more accurately portray the wide variety of rock climbing locations in the Ozarks