How to Do Things with Words: Tolkien’s Theory of Fantasy in Practice

After his St Andrews lecture on ‘Fairy Stories’ Tolkien projected his theory of sub-creation into his legendarium. In this projection the theory of what the human sub-creator does with thought and words became a model for what miraculous and magical beings can do with spirit and matter. For example, Fëanor’s making of the Silmarils and Sauron’s forging of the Ring were conceived (or in the first case, re-conceived) as acts analogous to human fantasy. Middle-earth thus became a world in which the magical potential of human words is revealed in the visible being of magical things

Fantasy Incarnate: Of Elves and Men

This essay proposes the idea of incarnation as a key to unlocking Tolkien’s conception of fantasy as set out in the \u27Origins\u27 section of On Fairy Stories. Tolkien\u27s intellectual context is explored and his conception of mythology as a blending of imagination and history examined. The essay also establishes the differences between mortal and Elvish fantasy and argues that Tolkien\u27s Elves engage in a different kind of incarnational art than do mortals. In conclusion it is claimed that in ‘Origins’ Tolkien reworked the speculations of mid-Victorian comparative philology into an aesthetic theory of artistic creation grounded upon the notion of incarnation

Consuming the million-mile electric car

Unlike for many consumer products, there has been no strong environmental case for extending the life of internal combustion engine cars as the majority of their environmental impact is fuel consumed in use and not the energy and materials involved in manufacturing. Indeed, with improving fuel efficiency, product life extension is environmentally undesirable; older, less fuel-efficient cars need to be replaced by newer more fuel-efficient models. Electric vehicles (EVs) are predominantly considered environmentally beneficial by using an increasingly decarbonised fuel – electricity. However, LCA analyses show that EVs have substantial environmental impacts in their materials, manufacturing and disposal. The high ‘embedded’ environmental impacts of EVs fundamentally change the case for product life extension. Thus, product life extension is desirable for EVs and they are suited to it. While petrol and diesel cars have an average lifetime mileage of 124,000 miles (200,000 Kilometres), the case for the million-mile (1.6 million Kilometre) electric car appears strong. Although it may be technically possible to produce a million-mile EV, how will such vehicles be consumed given that the car consumption is complex, involving, for example, extracting use and symbolic value? In this contribution we explore the nature of the relationship between cars and the consumer that moves beyond technical and functional value to understand what form of access consumers require to an EV across its entire 50-year life. If such consumption aspects are overlooked then, even if the million-mile car is technically viable, it is unlikely to be adopted and the environmental benefits they may yield will be lost.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

An M-Learning Application to Enhance Children’s Learning Experience

eXtension.org is an interactive learning environment offers reliable educational and information resources on a variety of topics. For Youth, For Life Learning Network community works with eXtension.org to produce youth oriented content for the base of eXtension.org. However, there is no particular software or application designed for children to gather information from extension.org so far. The target user of eXtension.org is the general public, which means it is not child-friendly. In this project, we developed a child-friendly android version mobile app to draw children’s attention in exploring science knowledge from eXtension.org. The app is an educational tool designed to provide learning opportunities to children. It provides several articles to its users in a systematically categorized and prioritized topic. The application is a joint collaboration from eXtension.org and For Youth, For Life (FYFL)

Visualizing 1D Regression

Regression is the study of the conditional distribution of the response y given the predictors x. In a 1D regression, y is independent of x given a single linear combination βTx of the predictors. Special cases of 1D regression include multiple linear regression, binary regression and generalized linear models. If a good estimate ˆb of some non-zero multiple cβ of β can be constructed, then the 1D regression can be visualized with a scatterplot of ˆbTx versus y. A resistant method for estimating cβ is presented along with applications

Agile Learning and Teaching with Miro Boards

Educators use agile and transparent learning procedures that require students to analyze, assess and critique theoretical perspectives. This paper highlights the use of Miro board technology, allowing students to engage in collaborative team work to create a visual representation of a theory, increasing their proficiency as a theory driven occupational therapist. Students reported that Miro boards decreased feelings of isolation, created a sense of community, encouraged creativity, and promoted a collaborative, meaningful learning experience. Effective teaching during the COVID pandemic provided learners multiple opportunities to track their learning progress with substantive and timely feedback

Improved maximum likelihood estimators in a heteroskedastic errors-in-variables model

This paper develops a bias correction scheme for a multivariate heteroskedastic errors-in-variables model. The applicability of this model is justified in areas such as astrophysics, epidemiology and analytical chemistry, where the variables are subject to measurement errors and the variances vary with the observations. We conduct Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the performance of the corrected estimators. The numerical results show that the bias correction scheme yields nearly unbiased estimates. We also give an application to a real data set.Comment: 12 pages. Statistical Paper

fMRI evidence of ‘mirror’ responses to geometric shapes

Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control