When countries do not do what they say: Systematic discrepancies between exchange rate regime announcements and de facto policies

We study the apparent disconnect between what countries announce to be their exchange rate regime and what they de facto implement. Even though discrepancies between announcements and de facto polices are frequent, there is a lack of understanding of actual patterns and underlying reasons. We contribute to the literature by identifying a number of robust stylized facts by means of an in-depth analysis of a large cross-country dataset. A key insight is that countries that operate under intermediate de facto regimes tend to announce fixed or flexible exchange rate regimes. The exact nature of deviations is related to country characteristics such as trade structure, financial development, and financial openness. Furthermore, regime discrepancies have followed secular trends, which are most likely related to financial globalization and changes in monetary policy design

Design patterns in level design: common practices in simulated environment construction

The creation of video game levels is an inexact and often intuitive process. Currently, much of level design focuses on the how as opposed to the why. That is to say, level designers know how to build a level, but do not know why they built it the way they did. Before more immersive player experiences can occur, an understanding of what levels are, what common functionality exists between them, and a means of consistently reproducing player behaviors is necessary.;The author advances the premise that by examining the use of design patterns in architecture, computer science, and interaction design, a foundation can be created to better characterize commonly occurring problems and solutions within level design. When multiple patterns are applied, the group becomes a language. This language can then be used as a means for creating novel levels as well as a lexicon for analyzing existing games

One of Us: Multilevel Models Examining the Impact of Descriptive Representation on Civic Engagement

This paper examines the impact of descriptive representation in comparative perspective. The goals are to establish (1) whether descriptive representation mobilizes attitudinal and behavioral indicators of civic engagement; (2) whether the strength of any such relationship differs for women and young people; and (3) whether this relationship is evident cross?nationally. The first section provides an overview of existing research on descriptive representation and the civic engagement of women and young people. The second section presents the research design. The third reports and discusses the findings of the multilevel models and what these suggest about relationships between descriptive representation in national parliaments and patterns in civic engagement among citizens. The paper concludes with a summary of the major findings and reflects upon their implications for understanding and altering long?standing inequalities in civic engagement.

Scoping a vision for formative e-assessment: a project report for JISC

Assessment is an integral part of teaching and learning. If the relationship between teaching and learning were causal, i. e. if students always mastered the intended learning outcomes of a particular sequence of instruction, assessment would be superfluous. Experience and research suggest this is not the case: what is learnt can often be quite different from what is taught. Formative assessment is motivated by a concern with the elicitation of relevant information about student understanding and / or achievement, its interpretation and an exploration of how it can lead to actions that result in better learning. In the context of a policy drive towards technology-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning, the question of the role of digital technologies is key and it is the latter on which this project particularly focuses. The project and its deliverables have been informed by recent and relevant literature, in particular recent work by Black andIn this work, they put forward a framework which suggests that assessment for learning their term for formative assessment can be conceptualised as consisting of a number of aspects and five keystrategies. The key aspects revolve around the where the learner is going, where the learner is right now and how she can get there and examines the role played by the teacher, peers and the learner. Language: English Keywords: assessments, case studies, design patterns, e-assessmen

Play Therapy with Neuro-Diverse Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Multiple-Case Study

The purpose of this exploratory case study is to develop an initial understanding of the phenomenon of various themes and patterns that arise in play therapy sessions while working with neurodiverse preschoolers who have experienced trauma. The focus of this multiple case study design is to provide an insight into working with a complex demographic of children within the context and nature of Child-Centered Play Therapy. The play therapy sessions were conducted with three four-year-old children in a therapeutic preschool setting. The findings show the significance of identifying themes and patterns that emerge in children’s play, while considering the child’s diagnosis and experienced trauma. Lastly, identifying the trends in children’s play helps to provide an initial understanding of what each child is trying to communicate through their external and internal behaviors

Building blocks of metadata: What can we learn from Lego™?

The idea that metadata, particularly Dublin Core, could be usable as a Lego™-like construction kit has been a popular suggestion for over a decade. In this paper, we first explore what this metaphor originally meant – why the idea is so appealing, and what design lessons we might take from the idea. We take a look at how close we are today to that ideal, looking at examples of real-world metadata design projects, and suggest that at present the situation is often more analogous to a game of Tetris – that is, the construction kit is sometimes limited, time concerns are often an issue, and there is limited opportunity for creativity. We explore patterns of collaboration in existing projects, such as the Scholarly Works Application Profile development. Finally, we ask how what we know about the process of building a shared understanding and formalisation about a domain can help us come closer to the ideal of Dublin Core as an approachable puzzle-game or construction kit

The interdisciplinary conceptual design of buildings

The Interdisciplinary Conceptual Design of Buildings Design activity during the conceptual phase of building projects is dynamic, vibrant and as a result, chaotic in appearance. This problem is compounded by the fact that iterative, or cyclic, design progression is often criticised, with the concept of 'going round in circles' being one that is discouraged. However, designbis a learning activity and, owing to the complexity of contemporary building projects,it is often only by moving ahead to improve knowledge, before taking a step back to re-address a problem with improved understanding, that the design process can progress. Today's design professionals are being urged to undertake early design activity in a more programmable, and thus manageable fashion. As such, it is becoming increasingly apparent that designers have little, if any, shared understanding of what conceptual design actually involves, let alone a deeper knowledge of the structure of iterative progression. This can, and is, causing problems for the industry, as the lack of both common understanding and synchronisation in interdisciplinary thinking is resulting in design team fragmentation and adversarial relationships. By modelling design activity it is possible to simplify, and thus ease understanding of, its complexities. The development and trialling of a generic framework of design phases and activities has allowed a simple graphical means of recording and displaying patterns of design progression to be devised. The models produced have been used to study and analyse the patterns of iterative working, the output of which has enabled a clarification of conceptual design practice to be achieved. A web-based design system has been developed from the paper-based framework. This accords well with the richly iterative and often non-linear process which design typically follows and is intended to encourage creativity without imposing a rigid procedure. The tool offers alternative routes through conceptual design, and contains 'Team Thinking Tools' to help designers widen the solution space, set priorities and evaluate options. In addition, it promotes effective teamwork practices to help teams deal with social interactions. Also, at the user's option, the system can be used to capture, store and retrieve decisions made, and the reasoning behind them. This is of key importance in improving the performance of the industry as a whole, for it is only by understanding how the final product is influenced by early design activity, that the design process can be adapted to take account of these issues on future projects

Work with the beat: How dynamic patterns in team processes affect shared understanding

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordShared understanding is central to a design team's performance. While current literature describes general relationships between team interaction and the development of shared understanding, it is not known if or how dynamic patterns in team processes impact this. Using a comparative study, we describe dynamic process patterns that influence the relationship between collaborative design work and shared understanding development. We propose two major patterns that impact shared understanding development: taskwork-teamwork interdependency and inter-action heartbeat, and describe how what we term cross-level pattern alignment moderates their effect. We propose a conceptual model that integrates these insights and provides testable propositions. As such, this work has significant implications for both design researchers and practitioners

Design patterns as an explicit part o/ applications

Design patterns are becoming increasingly popular as mechanisms to describe general solutions to design problems that can be reused in the construction of different applications. Gamma et al. [Garnma95] define design patterns as descriptions of communicating object classes that are customized to solve a general problem in a particular contexto The basic rnotivation behind the pattern idea resides in the fact that similar design problems recur in different context [Cockburn96, Pree94, Riehle96, Buschmann96]. The main goal of patterns is to solve a specific design problem allowing flexibility of evolution. Patterns make possible to talk, as well as to think about designs on a higher level of abstraction. Instead of thinking in terms of individual classes and their behavior, it is possible to start to think in terms of collaborating classes, their relationship and responsibilities. This raises the level in which designers communicate and discuss design decisions. In this sense, one ofthe potential benefits that the use of patterns brings to software development is the understanding and maintenance of designs. Essentially, a design pattern expresses a design intent, suggesting a generic organization of classes and distribution of responsibilities among them, that solve a design problem. If a user has a design problem and knows which pattern intent to solve his problem, and what classes and methods the pattern prescribes. Then, the user can apply this pattern in his design making more reusable ones. Once the design has been finished, a11 methods prescribed by the pattern must be implemented. If a pattern was used more than one time in the same application, its methods must be implemented each time.Eje: Ingeniería del software. Computación gráfica y visualizaciónRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

(Mis)understanding underachievement: a response to Connolly

In British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 29 number 3, 2008, Connolly presented what he termed a 'critical review' of some of our previous work on the relative attainment of male and female students in UK schools. He proposed three general areas for criticism - our use of attainment gaps, our consideration of outcomes other than at specific thresholds, and our querying of the idea of student 'underachievement'. These problems, he claimed, have 'given rise to a number of misleading conclusions that have questionable implications for practice'. However, those of his 'criticisms' with any merit are actually the same as our own conclusions, transmuted by Connolly from our papers that he cites, while his remaining 'criticisms' are based on faulty elementary logic. In case readers have not read our work and were somehow misled by Connolly, we give here a brief reply to each criticism in turn. This matters, because a greater understanding of patterns of attainment and of the nature of underachievement is a precursor to the design of successful initiatives to overcome inequalities in educational opportunity and reward. This is both a practical and an ethical issue