30,264 research outputs found
Cartoon planet: Micro-reflection through digital cartoons - a case study on teaching and learning with young people
The young learners of today tend to show little enthusiasm for formal schooling. This does not
necessarily mean pupils are not interested in learning or developing new skills and competences. In
fact, the opposite often happens in the informal settings they belong to. Finding ways of transferring
pupil’s informal learning to the school setting is therefore important. This paper gives a brief overview
on the development of informal learning activities to encourage young people’s active reflection on
their informally acquired competencies through the use of web technologies. The researchers also
explore the role of the teacher, and the need of a participatory learning environment in a less formal
classroom. Reflections on the experiences and recommendations are also provided
Predicting the connectivity of primate cortical networks from topological and spatial node properties
The organization of the connectivity between mammalian cortical areas has
become a major subject of study, because of its important role in scaffolding
the macroscopic aspects of animal behavior and intelligence. In this study we
present a computational reconstruction approach to the problem of network
organization, by considering the topological and spatial features of each area
in the primate cerebral cortex as subsidy for the reconstruction of the global
cortical network connectivity. Starting with all areas being disconnected,
pairs of areas with similar sets of features are linked together, in an attempt
to recover the original network structure. Inferring primate cortical
connectivity from the properties of the nodes, remarkably good reconstructions
of the global network organization could be obtained, with the topological
features allowing slightly superior accuracy to the spatial ones. Analogous
reconstruction attempts for the C. elegans neuronal network resulted in
substantially poorer recovery, indicating that cortical area interconnections
are relatively stronger related to the considered topological and spatial
properties than neuronal projections in the nematode. The close relationship
between area-based features and global connectivity may hint on developmental
rules and constraints for cortical networks. Particularly, differences between
the predictions from topological and spatial properties, together with the
poorer recovery resulting from spatial properties, indicate that the
organization of cortical networks is not entirely determined by spatial
constraints
A Fast and Accurate Nonlinear Spectral Method for Image Recognition and Registration
This article addresses the problem of two- and higher dimensional pattern
matching, i.e. the identification of instances of a template within a larger
signal space, which is a form of registration. Unlike traditional correlation,
we aim at obtaining more selective matchings by considering more strict
comparisons of gray-level intensity. In order to achieve fast matching, a
nonlinear thresholded version of the fast Fourier transform is applied to a
gray-level decomposition of the original 2D image. The potential of the method
is substantiated with respect to real data involving the selective
identification of neuronal cell bodies in gray-level images.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
- …