138,664 research outputs found
Reductionism and the Universal Calculus
In the seminal essay, "On the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in
the physical sciences," physicist Eugene Wigner poses a fundamental
philosophical question concerning the relationship between a physical system
and our capacity to model its behavior with the symbolic language of
mathematics. In this essay, I examine an ambitious 16th and 17th-century
intellectual agenda from the perspective of Wigner's question, namely, what
historian Paolo Rossi calls "the quest to create a universal language." While
many elite thinkers pursued related ideas, the most inspiring and forceful was
Gottfried Leibniz's effort to create a "universal calculus," a pictorial
language which would transparently represent the entirety of human knowledge,
as well as an associated symbolic calculus with which to model the behavior of
physical systems and derive new truths. I suggest that a deeper understanding
of why the efforts of Leibniz and others failed could shed light on Wigner's
original question. I argue that the notion of reductionism is crucial to
characterizing the failure of Leibniz's agenda, but that a decisive argument
for the why the promises of this effort did not materialize is still lacking.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
The natural history of bugs: using formal methods to analyse software related failures in space missions
Space missions force engineers to make complex trade-offs between many different constraints including cost, mass, power, functionality and reliability. These constraints create a continual need to innovate. Many advances rely upon software, for instance to control and monitor the next generation âelectron cyclotron resonanceâ ion-drives for deep space missions.Programmers face numerous challenges. It is extremely difficult to conduct valid ground-based tests for the code used in space missions. Abstract models and simulations of satellites can be misleading. These issues are compounded by the use of âband-aidâ software to fix design mistakes and compromises in other aspects of space systems engineering. Programmers must often re-code missions in flight. This introduces considerable risks. It should, therefore, not be a surprise that so many space missions fail to achieve their objectives. The costs of failure are considerable. Small launch vehicles, such as the U.S. Pegasus system, cost around 4 million up to 73 million from the failure of a single uninsured satellite. It is clearly important that we learn as much as possible from those failures that do occur. The following pages examine the roles that formal methods might play in the analysis of software failures in space missions
Learning and Games
Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning In this chapter, I argue that good video games recruit good learning and that a game's design is inherently connected to designing good learning for players. I start with a perspective on learning now common in the Learning Sciences that argues that people primarily think and learn through experiences they have had, not through abstract calculations and generalizations. People store these experiences in memory -- and human long-term memory is now viewed as nearly limitless -- and use them to run simulations in their minds to prepare for problem solving in new situations. These simulations help them to form hypotheses about how to proceed in the new situation based on past experiences. The chapter also discusses the conditions experience must meet if it is to be optimal for learning and shows how good video games can deliver such optimal learning experiences. Some of the issues covered include: identity and learning; models and model-based thinking; the control of avatars and "empathy for a complex system"; distributed intelligence and cross-functional teams for learning; motivation, and ownership; emotion in learning; and situated meaning, that is, the ways in which games represent verbal meaning through images, actions, and dialogue, not just other words and definitions
Usable Security: Why Do We Need It? How Do We Get It?
Security experts frequently refer to people as âthe weakest link in the chainâ of system
security. Famed hacker Kevin Mitnick revealed that he hardly ever cracked a password,
because it âwas easier to dupe people into revealing itâ by employing a range of social
engineering techniques. Often, such failures are attributed to usersâ carelessness and
ignorance. However, more enlightened researchers have pointed out that current security
tools are simply too complex for many users, and they have made efforts to improve
user interfaces to security tools. In this chapter, we aim to broaden the current perspective,
focusing on the usability of security tools (or products) and the process of designing
secure systems for the real-world context (the panorama) in which they have to operate.
Here we demonstrate how current human factors knowledge and user-centered design
principles can help security designers produce security solutions that are effective in practice
Investigating Differences between Graphical and Textual Declarative Process Models
Declarative approaches to business process modeling are regarded as well
suited for highly volatile environments, as they enable a high degree of
flexibility. However, problems in understanding declarative process models
often impede their adoption. Particularly, a study revealed that aspects that
are present in both imperative and declarative process modeling languages at a
graphical level-while having different semantics-cause considerable troubles.
In this work we investigate whether a notation that does not contain graphical
lookalikes, i.e., a textual notation, can help to avoid this problem. Even
though a textual representation does not suffer from lookalikes, in our
empirical study it performed worse in terms of error rate, duration and mental
effort, as the textual representation forces the reader to mentally merge the
textual information. Likewise, subjects themselves expressed that the graphical
representation is easier to understand
AAPOR Report on Big Data
In recent years we have seen an increase in the amount of statistics in society describing different phenomena based on so called Big Data. The term Big Data is used for a variety of data as explained in the report, many of them characterized not just by their large volume, but also by their variety and velocity, the organic way in which they are created, and the new types of processes needed to analyze them and make inference from them. The change in the nature of the new types of data, their availability, the way in which they are collected, and disseminated are fundamental. The change constitutes a paradigm shift for survey research.There is a great potential in Big Data but there are some fundamental challenges that have to be resolved before its full potential can be realized. In this report we give examples of different types of Big Data and their potential for survey research. We also describe the Big Data process and discuss its main challenges
"Making Safety Happen" Through Probabilistic Risk Assessment at NASA
NASA is using Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) as one of the tools in its Safety & Mission Assurance (S&MA) tool belt to identify and quantify risks associated with human spaceflight. This paper discusses some of the challenges and benefits associated with developing and using PRA for NASA human space programs. Some programs have entered operation prior to developing a PRA, while some have implemented PRA from the start of the program. It has been observed that the earlier a design change is made in the concept or design phase, the less impact it has on cost and schedule. Not finding risks until the operation phase yields much costlier design changes and major delays, which can result in discussions of just accepting the risk. Risk contributors identified by PRA are not just associated with hardware failures. They include but are not limited to crew fatality due to medical causes, the environment the vehicle and crew are exposed to, the software being used, and the reliability of the crew performing required actions. Some programs have entered operation prior to developing a PRA, and while PRA can still provide a benefit for operations and future design trades, the benefit of implementing PRA from the start of the program provides the added benefit of informing design and reducing risk early in program development. Currently, NASAs International Space Station (ISS) program is in its 20th year of on-orbit operations around the Earth and has several new programs in the design phase preparing to enter the operation phase all of which have active (or living) PRAs. These programs incorporate PRA as part of their Risk-Informed, Decision-Making (RIDM) process. For new NASA human spaceflight programs discussion begins with mission concept, establishing requirements, forming the PRA team, and continues through the design cycles into the operational phase. Several examples of PRA related applications and observed lessons are included
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