Importance and implementation of explanation in expert systems

Explanation is crucial in persuading others of the correctness of our beliefs to gain acceptance of our conclusion. Early research into expert systems focused on methods for reasoning. However it became apparent that the ultimate success lay in the ability to gain user acceptance by explaining the reasoning behind the conclusion. This study examines explanation from a social and an implementation standpoint. The social aspects of explanation provide insight into the role of naturally occurring explanations and listener expectations. Examination of research expert systems with explanation facilities and modifications of a simple Prolog expert system shell demonstrate the techniques required to simulate naturally occurring text. The modified shell produces improved explanations over the original shell, clearly indicating the desirability of natural appearance for gaining user acceptance

Valuing initial teacher education at Master's level

The future of Master’s-level work in initial teacher education (ITE) in England seems uncertain. Whilst the coalition government has expressed support for Master’s-level work, its recent White Paper focuses on teaching skills as the dominant form of professional development. This training discourse is in tension with the view of professional learning advocated by ITE courses that offer Master’s credits. Following a survey of the changing perceptions of Master’s-level study during a Post Graduate Certificate in Education course by student teachers in four subject groups, this paper highlights how the process of professional learning can have the most impact on how they value studying at a higher level during their early professional development

Decolonizing the curriculum:Philosophical perspectives - an introduction

This Special Issue is focused on supporting the transformation of education called for in the decolonizing the curriculum movement by advancing discourse on the diverse philosophical ideas, concepts, and theories that can undergird practical efforts to decolonize curricula across education sectors. The special issue brings together voices from a range of backgrounds, who draw from a variety of theoretical positions within and beyond philosophies of education. The authors offer diverse forms of scholarly contributions, including philosophical articles, practice-focused reflections, and a reflection on ‘education’ in the public sphere. In this introduction, we consider the relevance of educational-philosophical thinking to the pressing issue of decolonizing the curriculum. The volume is divided into two parts, with the first covering issues of university and postcompulsory education, and the second discussing issues related to schools. We discuss three interconnected themes that permeate both sections: (i) whose knowledge and whose narratives are embodied in curricula? (ii) who is the curriculum for? Who is the learner? What does it mean to be human? (iii) what implications does decolonizing the curriculum have for pedagogy? With these themes, we indicate some of the ways that the articles contribute to a critical extension of the meaning of education itself

Wigs, disguises and child's play : solidarity in teacher education

It is generally acknowledged that much contemporary education takes place within a dominant audit culture, in which accountability becomes a powerful driver of educational practices. In this culture both pupils and teachers risk being configured as a means to an assessment and target-driven end: pupils are schooled within a particular paradigm of education. The article discusses some ethical issues raised by such schooling, particularly the tensions arising for teachers, and by implication, teacher educators who prepare and support teachers for work in situations where vocational aims and beliefs may be in in conflict with instrumentalist aims. The article offers De Certeau’s concept of ‘la perruque’ to suggest an opening to playful engagement for human ends in education, as a way of contending with and managing the tensions generated. I use the concept to recover a concept of solidarity for teacher educators and teachers to enable ethical teaching in difficult times

The size of Selmer groups for the congruent number problem, II

The oldest problem in the theory of elliptic curves is to determine which positive integers D can be the common difference of a three term arithmetic progres-sion of squares of rational numbers. Such integers D are known as congruent numbers. Equivalently one may ask which elliptic curve

Ethics education in initial teacher education: pre-service provision in England

Ethics education exists in most professions internationally, yet is less prevalent in teacher education. This article reports on research exploring how ethics education is provided in university courses of initial teacher education (ITE) in England that was conducted as the second phase of an international survey study which considered the prevalence of ethics education in teacher education in five countries. Participants from the initial survey, all involved in the delivery of ITE programmes in English universities, were interviewed for this second phase of the research. Our key findings are that ethics is not offered as a stand-alone course in any institution, but is embedded in various ways within the curriculum. Ethics education is diffused among different areas of the curriculum and the activities used to develop ethical understanding are diverse. Barriers to providing ethical education include student resistance, lack of time, the complex nature of the provision and external demands

Loss of mglur5 in d1 receptor-expressing neurons improves stress coping

The metabotropic glutamate receptor type 5 (mGluR5) has been proposed to play a crucial role in the selection and regulation of cognitive, affective, and emotional behaviors. However, the mechanisms by which these receptors mediate these effects remain largely unexplored. Here, we studied the role of mGluR5 located in D1 receptor-expressing (D1) neurons in the manifestation of different behavioral expressions. Mice with conditional knockout (cKO) of mGluR5 in D1 neurons (mGluR5D1 cKO) and littermate controls displayed similar phenotypical profiles in relation to memory expression, anxiety, and social behaviors. However, mGluR5D1 cKO mice presented different coping mechanisms in response to acute escapable or inescapable stress. mGluR5D1 cKO mice adopted an enhanced active stress coping strategy upon exposure to escapable stress in the two-way active avoidance (TWA) task and a greater passive strategy upon exposure to inescapable stress in the forced swim test (FST). In summary, this work provides evidence for a functional integration of the dopaminergic and glutamatergic system to mediate control over internal states upon stress exposure and directly implicates D1 neurons and mGluR5 as crucial mediators of behavioral stress responses

Fragmentation of 14-N, 16-O, 20-Ne, and 24-Mg Nuclei at 290 to 1000 MeV/nucleon

We report fragmentation cross sections measured at 0 deg for beams of 14-N, 16-O, 20-Ne, and 24-Mg ions, at energies ranging from 290 MeV/nucleon to 1000 MeV/nucleon. Beams were incident on targets of C, CH2, Al, Cu, Sn, and Pb, with the C and CH2 target data used to obtain hydrogen-target cross sections. Using methods established in earlier work, cross sections obtained with both large-acceptance and small-acceptance detectors are extracted from the data and when necessary corrected for acceptance effects. The large-acceptance data yield cross sections for fragments with charges approximately half of the beam charge and above, with minimal corrections. Cross sections for lighter fragments are obtained from small-acceptance spectra, with more significant, model-dependent corrections that account for the fragment angular distributions. Results for both charge-changing and fragment production cross sections are compared to the predictions of the Los Alamos version of the Quark Gluon String Model (LAQGSM) as well as the NUCFRG2 and PHITS models. For all beams and targets, cross sections for fragments as light as He are compared to the models. Estimates of multiplicity-weighted helium production cross sections are obtained from the data and compared to PHITS and LAQGSM predictions. Summary statistics show that the level of agreement between data and predictions is slightly better for PHITS than for either NUCFRG2 or LAQGSM.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures, 13 tables, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Neutrons from multiplicity-selected La-La and Nb-Nb collisions at 400A MeV and La-La collisions at 250A MeV

Triple-differential cross sections for neutrons from high-multiplicity La-La collisions at 250 and 400 MeV per nucleon and Nb-Nb collisions at 400 MeV per nucleon were measured at several polar angles as a function of the azimuthal angle with respect to the reaction plane of the collision. The reaction plane was determined by a transverse-velocity method with the capability of identifying charged-particles with Z=1, Z=2, and Z > 2. The flow of neutrons was extracted from the slope at mid-rapidity of the curve of the average in-plane momentum vs the center-of-mass rapidity. The squeeze-out of the participant neutrons was observed in a direction normal to the reaction plane in the normalized momentum coordinates in the center-of-mass system. Experimental results of the neutron squeeze-out were compared with BUU calculations. The polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $r(\theta)$ was found to be insensitive to the mass of the colliding nuclei and the beam energy. Comparison of the observed polar-angle dependence of the maximum azimuthal anisotropy ratio $r(\theta)$ with BUU calculations for free neutrons revealed that $r(\theta)$ is insensitive also to the incompressibility modulus in the nuclear equation of state.Comment: ReVTeX, 16 pages, 17 figures. To be published in Physical Review