2,373 research outputs found
Reconceptualising Personas Across Cultures: Archetypes, Stereotypes & Collective Personas in Pastoral Namibia
The paucity of projects where persona is the research foci and a lack of consensus on this artefact keep many reticent about its purpose and value. Besides crafting personas is expected to differ across cultures, which contrasts the advancements in Western theory with studies and progress in other sites. We postulate User-Created Personas reveal specific characteristics of situated contexts by allowing laypeople to design persona artefacts in their own terms. Hence analysing four persona sessions with an ethnic group in pastoral Namibia –ovaHerero– brought up a set of fundamental questions around the persona artefact regarding stereotypes, archetypes, and collective persona representations: (1) to what extent user depictions are stereotypical or archetypal? If stereotypes prime (2) to what degree are current personas a useful method to represent end-users in technology design? And, (3) how can we ultimately read accounts not conforming to mainstream individual persona descriptions but to collectives
Persuasive Technology for Learning and Teaching – The EuroPLOT Project
The concept of persuasive design has demonstrated its benefits by changing human behavior in certain situations, but in the area of education and learning, this approach has rarely been used. To change this and to study the feasibility of persuasive technology in teaching and learning, the EuroPLOT project (PLOT = Persuasive Learning Objects and Technologies) has been funded 2010-2013 by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in the Life-long Learning (LLL) programme. In this program two tools have been developed (PLOTMaker and PLOTLearner) which allow to create learning objects with inherently persuasive concepts embedded. These tools and the learning objects have been evaluated in four case studies: language learning (Ancient Hebrew), museum learning (Kaj Munk Museum, Denmark), chemical handling, and academic Business Computing. These case studies cover a wide range of different learning styles and learning groups, and the results obtained through the evaluation of these case studies show the wide range of success of persuasive learning. They also indicate the limitations and areas where improvements are required
Demonstration of PLOTs from the EuroPLOT project
The EuroPLOT project (2010-2013) has been funded to explore the concept of persuasive design for learning and teaching. It has developed Persuasive Learn-ing Objects and Technologies (PLOTs), manifested in two tools and a set of learning objects that have been tested and evaluated in four different case studies. These PLOTs will be shown in this demonstration, and the participants can try them out and experience for themselves the impact of persuasive technology that is embedded in these PLOTs. This will be one authoring tool (PLOTMaker) and one delivery tool (PLOTLearner). Furthermore, there will be learning objects shown which have been developed for those four different case studies. All of these PLOTs have already been tested and evaluated during case studies with real learners
The Restricted Stochastic User Equilibrium with Threshold model: Large-scale application and parameter testing
This paper presents the application and calibration of the recently proposed Restricted Stochastic User Equilibrium with Threshold model (RSUET) to a large-scale case-study. The RSUET model avoids the limitations of the well-known Stochastic User Equilibrium model (SUE) and the Deterministic User Equilibrium model (DUE), by combining the strengths of the Boundedly Rational User Equilibrium model and the Restricted Stochastic User Equilibrium model (RSUE). Thereby, the RSUET model reaches an equilibrated solution in which the flow is distributed according to Random Utility Theory among a consistently equilibrated set of paths which all are within a threshold relative to the cost on the cheapest path and which do not leave any attractive paths unused. Several variants of a generic RSUET solution algorithm are tested and calibrated on a large-scale case network with 18,708 arcs and about 20 million OD-pairs, and comparisons are performed with respect to a previously proposed RSUE model as well as an existing link-based mixed Multinomial Probit (MNP) SUE model. The results show that the RSUET has very attractive computation times for large-scale applications and demonstrate that the threshold addition to the RSUE model improves the behavioural realism, especially for high congestion cases. Also, fast and well-behaved convergence to equilibrated solutions among non-universal choice sets is observed across different congestion levels, choice model scale parameters, and algorithm step sizes. Clearly, the results highlight that the RSUET outperforms the MNP SUE in terms of convergence, calculation time and behavioural realism. The choice set composition is validated by using 16,618 observed route choices collected by GPS devices in the same network and observing their reproduction within the equilibrated choice sets generated by the RSUET model. Relevantly, the RSUET model is very successful in reproducing observed link
Embryonic chirality and the evolution of spiralian left-right asymmetries
This work has been funded by the Sars core budget to A.H
Stochastic User Equilibrium with a Bounded Choice Model
Stochastic User Equilibrium (SUE) models allow the representation of the perceptual and preferential differences that exist when drivers compare alternative routes through a transportation network. However, as an effect of the used choice models, conventional applications of SUE are based on the assumption that all available routes have a positive probability of being chosen, however unattractive. In this paper, a novel choice model, the Bounded Choice Model (BCM), is presented along with network conditions for a corresponding Bounded SUE. The model integrates an exogenously-defined bound on the random utility of the set of paths that are used at equilibrium, within a Random Utility Theory (RUT) framework. The model predicts which routes are used and unused (the choice sets are equilibrated), while still ensuring that the distribution of flows on used routes accords to a Discrete Choice Model. Importantly, conditions to guarantee existence and uniqueness of the Bounded SUE are shown. Also, a corresponding solution algorithm is proposed and numerical results are reported by applying this to the Sioux Falls network
On the Trace Anomaly and the Anomaly Puzzle in N=1 Pure Yang-Mills
The trace anomaly of the energy-momentum tensor is usually quoted in the form
which is proportional to the beta function of the theory. However, there are in
general many definitions of gauge couplings depending on renormalization
schemes, and hence many beta functions. In particular, N=1 supersymmetric pure
Yang-Mills has the holomorphic gauge coupling whose beta function is one-loop
exact, and the canonical gauge coupling whose beta function is given by the
Novikov-Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov beta function. In this paper, we study
which beta function should appear in the trace anomaly in N=1 pure Yang-Mills.
We calculate the trace anomaly by employing the N=4 regularization of N=1 pure
Yang-Mills. It is shown that the trace anomaly is given by one-loop exact form
if the composite operator appearing in the trace anomaly is renormalized in a
preferred way. This result gives the simplest resolution to the anomaly puzzle
in N=1 pure Yang-Mills. The most important point is to examine in which scheme
the quantum action principle is valid, which is crucial in the derivation of
the trace anomaly.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure; v2:slight correction in sec.5, minor addition in
appendi
Renormalisation of heavy-light light ray operators
We calculate the renormalisation of different light ray operators with one
light degree of freedom and a static heavy quark. Both - and
-kernels are considered. A comparison with the light-light case suggests
that the mixing with three-particle operators is solely governed by the light
degrees of freedom. Additionally we show that conformal symmetry is already
broken at the level of the one loop counterterms due to the additional
UV-renormalisation of a cusp in the two contributing Wilson-lines. This general
feature can be used to fix the -renormalisation kernels up to a
constant. Some examples for applications of our results are given.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures; v2: changed some wording, added a few references
and one appendix concerning some subtleties related to gauge fixing and ghost
terms; v3: clarified calculation in section 3.2., added an explicit
calculation in section 5.2, corrected a few typos and one figure, added a few
comments, results unchanged, except for typesetting matches version to appear
in JHE
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