Research 2.0 : improving participation in online research communities

Web 2.0 thinking and technologies create a number of new opportunities to conduct research broadly labeled as Research 2.0. Research 2.0 is a growing area of academic and commercial interest, which includes research undertaken in online research communities. This research in progress paper explores the practice of online research communities using a case study example operated by the commercial market research company Virtual Surveys Limited (VSL) in the UK on behalf of their client United Biscuits UK Ltd. The preliminary findings are based on VSL and academics working together to improve the online research community participants’ response rate and the quality of contributions. Data collected for this study is based on meetings, participant observation, and a pilot survey of United Biscuits online research community (snackrs.com) members. Using the responses of 112 snackrs.com community members, a preliminary typology of motivational factors is proposed. This can be used to refine the recruitment and development of activities in an online research community. Also, a model for supporting online research communities to ensure longitudinal engagement based on an adaptation of Salmon’s (2004) 5 Stage Model for e-moderation is proposed, extending the 5 stages to 7 – adding the stages of selection and disengagemen

Learning to Act with RVRL Agents

The use of reinforcement learning to guide action selection of cognitive agents has been shown to be a powerful technique for stochastic environments. Standard Reinforcement learning techniques used to provide decision theoretic policies rely, however, on explicit state-based computations of value for each state-action pair. This requires the computation of a number of values exponential to the number of state variables and actions in the system. This research extends existing work with an acquired probabilistic rule representation of an agent environment by developing an algorithm to apply reinforcement learning to values attached to the rules themselves. Structure captured by the rules is then used to learn a policy directly. The resulting value attached to each rule represents the utility of taking an action if the conditions of the rule are present in the agent’s current set of percepts. This has several advantages for planning purposes: generalization over many states and over unseen states; effective decisions can therefore be made with less training data than state based modelling systems (e.g. Dyna Q-Learning); and the problem of computation in an exponential state-action space is alleviated. The results of application of this algorithm to rules in a specific environment are presented, with comparison to standard reinforcement learning policies developed from related work

Indiana Nonprofits: A Portrait of Religious Nonprofits and Secular Charities

Compares sources of revenue, staffing, volunteers, services, governance, financial management, information technology, and other criteria for Indiana faith-based organizations and secular charities. Includes recommendations for policymakers

The Role Of Perennial Grasses In Sustaining Production In Semi-Arid Areas

A GP article on the role of perennial grasses in sustaining production in semi-arid areas.In much of Africa, including large parts of Zimbabwe, the rainfall is too low and erratic to sustain successful agricultural cropping so that economic production depends upon using herbivores (e.g. cattle) to convert natural vegetation into products which are of value to man (e.g. meat, milk, hides). In Africa, significant and increasing human deprivation is occurring In these semi-arid savanna range-lands. Solutions to these problems are complicated as they involve interactions between socio-political, economic, financial and ecological factors, often operating under very different time scales

The perception of academic staff in traditional universities towards the National Student Survey: views on its role as a tool for enhancement

The National Student Survey (NSS) has been a part of the higher education landscape since 2005. Since it was first mooted the NSS has been a controversial topic within academia, with many people expressing concern about the robustness of the survey and many others seeing it as an important way for students to express views about their programmes. This thesis explores the perceptions of academic staff towards the NSS and seeks to establish the ways in which the NSS is currently used within higher education specifically for the purposes of enhancing learning and teaching. The research questions of this study relate to these issues as well as exploring the differences between disciplinary areas. A wide-ranging literature review was firstly undertaken to set the political scene and determine the extent of the previous work in this area. This in turn led to the development of a mixed methods approach, with both qualitative and quantitative data gathered from over three hundred academic staff via an online questionnaire. The analysis chapters feature both descriptive statistics and a regression analysis in order to respond to the research questions. The conclusions of this study make the argument that the NSS is not necessarily seen as suitable for concurrently performing the three main functions it is seen by policy makers as achieving. Therefore further consideration needs to be given to the way people engage with the data produced by the survey. There were not any major differences between academic staff from different disciplines. However this could be more because of the seemingly generic nature of the NSS, which in turn contributed to a general scepticism about the survey. The implications from this study are explored at several levels: departmental, institutional and national

History of Cass County

In March, 1876, the U. S. Congress passed a joint resolution recommending throughout the republic a general observance of this hundredth anniversary of our national independence, and that, in addition to the usual observances, each county and town cause an historical sketch of said county or town, from its foundation to the present day, to be prepared, and that a copy of it be filed in the clerk\u27s office of the county, as also in the office of the librarian of congress, to the intent that a complete record may thus be obtained of the progress of our institutions during the first centennial of their existence. This resolution was approved by President Grant on March 13, and he issued his proclamation to this effect, further recommending that the governor of each state and territory also issue a like proclamation to the people of said state or territory, that notice might thus be brought directly to the mass of the people

Pectus updates and special considerations in Marfan syndrome.

Congenital chest wall or pectus deformities including pectus excavatum (funnel chest) and pectus carinatum (pigeon chest) affect a significant proportion of the general population and up to 70% of patients with Marfan syndrome. Patients often experience significant morbidity and psychological distress, which can worsen with age. Here we discuss new techniques for both operative and non-operative treatment of pectus deformity, the importance of a welltimed intervention and special considerations in patients with Marfan syndrome