Non-Discriminatory Service Robot Placement Using Geometric Median

Service robots are becoming increasingly common, and businesses are adopting their use at an increasingly rapid rate in order to reduce costs and provide efficiencies in performing mundane tasks. However, very little research has been performed in order to understand and address ethical concerns regarding their deployment and use. One such concern is how one can ensure placement of a service robot such that is does not discriminate either in favor of or against individuals. This research explores techniques that can be used to provide a quantitative methodology to ensure fairness in terms of service robot placement such that discrimination does not occur. These techniques include the development and further enhancement of a heuristic hill climbing algorithm used to approximate the Geometric Median (GM). This algorithm is then benchmarked against Weiszfeld’s Algorithm, a well-known algorithm commonly used to solve the GM problem. iii These two algorithms are then visualized using Dynamics Explorer, an open source software tool, to create 2d maps of the dynamics of their convergence rates along with maps of F(), the “sum of the Euclidean distances” function underlying the calculations used by both GM approximation algorithms. The heuristic hill climbing algorithm is also extended to handle obstacles being introduced into the service robot’s workspace. It is further shown that as the size of ξ approaches ∞+, the Geometric Median converges to the centroid, given certain assumptions, such as the target points being evenly distributed in the plane

Effects of state tests in Ohio on assessment practices in mathematics education.

Classroom tests from nine eighth-grade mathematics teachers were collected from the 2003-04 and 2005-06 school years. These years represent one school year prior to the eighth-grade Ohio Achievement Test (OAT) in mathematics being implemented and the year after the eighth-grade OAT in mathematics was implemented, respectively. In addition, teachers were interviewed to gain insight into their classroom assessment practices. Classroom assessment data were compared between the two years, and interview data were examined, to investigate the impact that the new state test was having on classroom assessment practices. Teachers increased the percentage of their items that assessing content below the eighth-grade to nearly one-third of their items, and an average of 86% of teachers\u27 classroom assessment items were at the lowest depth of knowledge level during both years. The assessment analysis and interview analysis indicate that teachers\u27 reliance on curriculum materials for their tests, along with teachers\u27 inability to accurately interpret the eighth-grade indicators, are partly responsible for these two findings. The presence of a state test did not entice teachers to assess more eighth-grade mathematics content or higher depths of knowledge

Guidelines for Estimating Unmetered Industrial Water Use

The document provides a methodology to estimate unmetered industrial water use for evaporative cooling systems, steam generating boiler systems, batch process applications, and wash systems. For each category standard mathematical relationships are summarized and provided in a single resource to assist Federal agencies in developing an initial estimate of their industrial water use. The approach incorporates industry norms, general rules of thumb, and industry survey information to provide methodologies for each section

A Curriculum for Excellence: a review of approaches to recognising wider achievement

The is the report of work undertaken by the Quality in Education Centre of the University of Strathclyde on behalf of Learning and Teaching Scotland into Recognising WiderAchievements of young people both in and out of school.Desk research and empirical research were undertaken in January and February 2007. This short timescale inevitably limited the extent of the work undertaken. The views ofstakeholders were sought through interviews and questionnaires. Definitions of wider achievement have been emerging in the UK since four key areaswere identified by the DfES (DfES, 1984). These were recognised in 'National Records of Achievement' and included recognition of achievement (exams and other activities), motivation and personal development, curriculum organisation, and a document of recordthat is 'recognised and valued'. Further policy development in the 1990s and into this century raised further issues including the range of activities and variation in types oflearning, equity of access to opportunities, and challenges of assessment

Creating Democratic Classroom Communities with Morning Meeting Humanizing Social Practices. A Response to The Morning Meeting: Fostering a Participatory Democracy Begins with Youth in Public Education

In our response to Tilhou’s article published last issue, “The Morning Meeting: Fostering a Participatory Democracy Begins with Youth in Public Education,” we share and discuss ethnographic data from Morning Meetings in two U.S. elementary classrooms. We detail ways the democratic potential of Morning Meetings is being cultivated in these classroom communities where one teacher has extended the Responsive Classroom model while the other has developed his own structures. We show how classroom democratic norms are established through humanizing community-building social practices as we argue that Morning Meetings must be understood across time and activities that may have an academic function

Family Support : Raising educational achievement and tackling social exclusion

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Plagiarism Pedagogy: Why Teaching Plagiarism Should Be a Fundamental Part of Legal Education

As a practicing lawyer, if you aren’t plagiarizing, you’re committing malpractice. Litigators copy forms and arguments from winning briefs rather than bill their clients for reinventing the wheel. Transactional lawyers copy enforceable agreements to ensure their agreements are enforceable too. Partners routinely present documents prepared by associates (and sometimes even paralegals) as their own work. And judges are the most prolific plagiarists of all, copying briefs, opinions, treatises, and legal and nonlegal scholarship, adopting arguments from lawyers and holdings from other judges as their own and claiming authorship of opinions written primarily by their clerks or the parties to the litigation. Legal writing instruction should include teaching law students how to plagiarize effectively. If practicing lawyers plagiarize, then plagiarism is a skill we should teach our students. At the very least, legal writing professors should explain that plagiarism is an essential part of the practice of law and encourage students to reflect on when and why plagiarism is useful in practice, even though it is prohibited in the academic realm. We owe it to our students to be honest about what the practice of law entails, even if it conflicts with our own academic norms. After all, academic plagiarism norms are just a means to the end of managing the academic gift economy. We should not elevate the interests of our guild over the interests of our students, who plan to join a different one