Evaluating and improving adaptive educational systems with learning curves

Personalised environments such as adaptive educational systems can be evaluated and compared using performance curves. Such summative studies are useful for determining whether or not new modifications enhance or degrade performance. Performance curves also have the potential to be utilised in formative studies that can shape adaptive model design at a much finer level of granularity. We describe the use of learning curves for evaluating personalised educational systems and outline some of the potential pitfalls and how they may be overcome. We then describe three studies in which we demonstrate how learning curves can be used to drive changes in the user model. First, we show how using learning curves for subsets of the domain model can yield insight into the appropriateness of the model’s structure. In the second study we use this method to experiment with model granularity. Finally, we use learning curves to analyse a large volume of user data to explore the feasibility of using them as a reliable method for fine-tuning a system’s model. The results of these experiments demonstrate the successful use of performance curves in formative studies of adaptive educational systems

Molecular and Transcriptional Regulation of Seed Development in Cereals: Present Status and Future Prospects

Cereals are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils and protein, making them the world’s most important source of nutrition. The influence of rising global population, as well as the emergence and spread of disease, has the major impact on cereal production. To meet the demand, there is a pressing need to increase cereal production. Optimal seed development is a key agronomical trait that contributes to crop yield. The seed development and maturation is a complex process that includes not only embryo and endosperm development, but also accompanied by huge physiological, biochemical, metabolic, molecular and transcriptional changes. This chapter discusses the growth of cereal seed and highlights the novel biological insights, with a focus on transgenic and new molecular breeding, as well as biotechnological intervention strategies that have improved crop yield in two major cereal crops, primarily wheat and rice, over the last 21 years (2000–2021)

Quasi-Elastic Scattering, Random Fields and phonon-coupling effects in PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3

The low-energy part of the vibration spectrum in PbMg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$O$_3$ (PMN) relaxor ferroelectric has been studied by neutron scattering above and below the Burns temperature, T$_d$. The transverse acoustic and the lowest transverse optic phonons are strongly coupled and we have obtained a model for this coupling. We observe that the lowest optic branch is always underdamped. A resolution-limited central peak and quasi-elastic scattering appear in the vicinity of the Burns temperature. It is shown that it is unlikely that the quasi-elastic scattering originates from the combined effects of coupling between TA and TO phonons with an increase of the damping of the TO phonon below T$_d$. The quasi-elastic scattering has a peak as a function of temperature close to the peak in the dielectric constant while the intensity of the central peak scattering increases strongly below this temperature. These results are discussed in terms of a random field model for relaxors

Coexistence of the Critical Slowing Down and Glassy Freezing in Relaxor Ferroelectrics

We have developed a dynamical model for the dielectric response in relaxor ferroelectrics which explicitly takes into account the coexistence of the critical slowing down and glassy freezing. The application of the model to the experiment in PMN allowed for the reconstruction of the nonequilibrium spin glass state order parameter and its comparison with the results of recent NMR experiment (Blinc et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, No. 2 (1999)). It is shown that the degree of the local freezing is rather small even at temperatures where the field-cooled permittivity exceeds the frequency dependent permittivity by an order of magnitude. This observation indicates the significant role of the critical slowing down (accompanying the glass freezing) in the system dynamics. Also the theory predicts an important interrelationship between the frequency dependent permittivity and the zero-field-cooled permittivity, which proved to be consistent with the experiment in PMN (A. Levstik et. al., Phys. Rev. B 57, 11204 (1998))

Strong Influence of the diffuse component on the lattice dynamics in Pb(Mg1/3_{1/3}Nb2/3_{2/3})O3_{3}

The temperature and zone dependence of the lattice dynamics in Pb(Mg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$)O$_{3}$ is characterized using neutron inelastic scattering. A strong correlation between the diffuse and phonon scattering is measured. The lattice dynamics in Brillouin zones where the diffuse scattering is strong is observed to display qualitatively different behavior than those zones where the diffuse scattering is weak. In the (220) and (200) zones, where there is a weak diffuse component, the dynamics are well described by coupled harmonic oscillators. Compared with SrTiO$_{3}$, the coupling is weak and isotropic, resulting in only a small transfer of spectral weight from one mode to another. A comparison of the scattering in these zones to the (110) zone, where a strong diffuse component is present, reveals a strong coupling of the diffuse (or central) component to the acoustic mode. We speculate that the coupling to the central peak is the reason for several recent conflicting interpretations of the lattice dynamics based on data from zones with a strong diffuse component.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure

Elevated synaptic vesicle release probability in synaptophysin/gyrin family quadruple knockouts

Synaptophysins 1 and 2 and synaptogyrins 1 and 3 constitute a major family of synaptic vesicle membrane proteins. Unlike other widely expressed synaptic vesicle proteins such as vSNAREs and synaptotagmins, the primary function has not been resolved. Here, we report robust elevation in the probability of release of readily releasable vesicles with both high and low release probabilities at a variety of synapse types from knockout mice missing all four family members. Neither the number of readily releasable vesicles, nor the timing of recruitment to the readily releasable pool was affected. The results suggest that family members serve as negative regulators of neurotransmission, acting directly at the level of exocytosis to dampen connection strength selectively when presynaptic action potentials fire at low frequency. The widespread expression suggests that chemical synapses may play a frequency filtering role in biological computation that is more elemental than presently envisioned

A Neutron Elastic Diffuse Scattering Study of PMN

We have performed elastic diffuse neutron scattering studies on the relaxor Pb(Mg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$)O$_3$ (PMN). The measured intensity distribution near a (100) Bragg peak in the (hk0) scattering plane assumes the shape of a butterfly with extended intensity in the (110) and (1$\bar{1}$0) directions. The temperature dependence of the diffuse scattering shows that both the size of the polar nanoregions (PNR) and the integrated diffuse intensity increase with cooling even for temperatures below the Curie temperature $T_C \sim 213$ K.Comment: Submitted to PR

The Structural Phase Transition of the Relaxor Ferroelectric 68%PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3-32%PbTiO3

Neutron scattering techniques have been used to study the relaxor ferroelectric 0.68PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3-0.32PbTiO3 denoted in this paper as 0.68PMN-0.32PT. On cooling, these relaxor ferroelectrics have a long-range ordered ferroelectric phase and the composition is close to that at which the ferroelectric structure changes from rhombohedral to tetragonal. It was found that above the Burns temperature of about 600K, the transverse optic mode and the transverse acoustic mode are strongly coupled and a model was used to describe this coupling that gave similar parameters to those obtained for the coupling in PMN. Below the Burns temperature additional quasi-elastic scattering was found which increased in intensity as the sample was cooled down to the ferroelectric transition temperature but then decreased in intensity. This behaviour is similar to that found in PMN. This scattering is associated with the dynamic polar nano-regions that occur below the Burns temperature. In addition to this scattering a strictly elastic resolution limited peak was observed that was much weaker than the corresponding peak in pure PMN and which decreased in intensity on cooling below the ferroelectric phase whereas for PMN, which does not have a long-range ordered ferroelectric phase, the intensity of this component increased monotonically as the sample was cooled. The results of our study are compared with the recent measurements of Stock et al. [PRB 73 064107] who studied 0.4PMN-0.6PT. The results are qualitatively consistent with the random field model developed to describe the scattering from PMN

Competing orders in PZN-xPT and PMN-xPT relaxor ferroelectrics

Neutron and x-ray scattering studies on relaxor ferroelectric systems Pb(Zn$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$)O$_3$ (PZN), Pb(Mg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$)O$_3$ (PMN), and their solid solutions with PbTiO$_3$ (PT) have shown that inhomogeneities and disorder play important roles in the materials properties. Although a long-range polar order can be established at low temperature - sometimes with the help of an external electric field; short-range local structures called the ``polar nano-regions'' (PNR) still persist. Both the bulk structure and the PNR have been studied in details. The coexistence and competition of long- and short-range polar orders and how they affect the structural and dynamical properties of relaxor materials are discussed.Comment: Article submitted for JPSJ Special Topics (Novel States of Matter Induced by Frustration

Proteomics of Human Dendritic Cell Subsets Reveals Subset-Specific Surface Markers and Differential Inflammasome Function.

Dendritic cells (DCs) play a key role in orchestrating adaptive immune responses. In human blood, three distinct subsets exist: plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) and BDCA3+ and CD1c+ myeloid DCs. In addition, a DC-like CD16+ monocyte has been reported. Although RNA-expression profiles have been previously compared, protein expression data may provide a different picture. Here, we exploited label-free quantitative mass spectrometry to compare and identify differences in primary human DC subset proteins. Moreover, we integrated these proteomic data with existing mRNA data to derive robust cell-specific expression signatures with more than 400 differentially expressed proteins between subsets, forming a solid basis for investigation of subset-specific functions. We illustrated this by extracting subset identification markers and by demonstrating that pDCs lack caspase-1 and only express low levels of other inflammasome-related proteins. In accordance, pDCs were incapable of interleukin (IL)-1β secretion in response to ATP