Songs From Wilhelm Tell

The following selections are translated from the German of the first three songs from Wilhelm Tell, by Friedrich Schiller

PeerPigeon: A Web Application to Support Generalised Peer Review

Peer Review (also known as Peer Assessment) is an important technique in learning, but can be difficult to support through e-learning due to the complexity and variety of peer review processes. In this paper we present PeerPigeon, a Web 2.0 style application that supports generalised Peer Review by using a canonical model of Peer Review based on a Peer Review Pattern consisting of Peer Review Cycles, each defined in terms of Peer Review Transforms. We also demonstrate how PeerPigeon makes use of a Domain Specific Language based on Ruby to define these plans, and thus cope with the irreducible complexity of the flow of documents around a peer network

Diphotons, New Vacuum Angles, and Strong CP

The Standard Model contains a well-understood, natural, spin-0 diphoton resonance: the $\pi^0$. Numerous studies have pointed out that the hint of a new diphoton resonance at 750 GeV could be a pion analog, identified with the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of a chiral symmetry spontaneously broken by new strong dynamics at the TeV scale. These "hypercolor" models are generically expected to violate parity through a topological angle $\tilde\theta$. We discuss the physics of $\tilde\theta$ and its impact on the phenomenology of the new sector. We also describe some of the theoretical implications of a nonzero $\tilde\theta$. In particular, $\tilde\theta$ can generate an ${\cal O}(1)$ threshold correction to the QCD vacuum angle $\theta$ near the TeV scale, sharply constraining ultraviolet solutions to the strong CP problem. Alternatively, finding that $\tilde\theta$ is small may be interpreted as evidence in favor of UV solutions to strong CP, particularly those based on spontaneously broken P or CP symmetries.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. v2: references added, fig 1 update

Improving games AI performance using grouped hierarchical level of detail

Computer games are increasingly making use of large environments; however, these are often only sparsely populated with autonomous agents. This is, in part, due to the computational cost of implementing behaviour functions for large numbers of agents. In this paper we present an optimisation based on level of detail which reduces the overhead of modelling group behaviours, and facilitates the population of an expansive game world. We consider an environment which is inhabited by many distinct groups of agents. Each group itself comprises individual agents, which are organised using a hierarchical tree structure. Expanding and collapsing nodes within each tree allows the efficient dynamic abstraction of individuals, depending on their proximity to the player. Each branching level represents a different level of detail, and the system is designed to trade off computational performance against behavioural fidelity in a way which is both efficient and seamless to the player. We have developed an implementation of this technique, and used it to evaluate the associated performance benefits. Our experiments indicate a significant potential reduction in processing time, with the update for the entire AI system taking less than 1% of the time required for the same number of agents without optimisation

Guest Editorial: One Size Does Not Fit All, One Critique Does Not Fit All Schools of Education

Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King reminded us that skin tone should never be a factor to judge an individual, but rather the content of the individual’s character is the issue to be considered. Just a few years ago the sociologists Lawrence Harrington and Samuel Huntington (2000) completed a study which addresses Max Weber’s premise that culture does matter when looking at the differing levels of societal effectiveness. As we read Dr. Arthur Levine’s Educating School Leaders, we question if Dr. Levine has operated from the understanding that the differences in schools of education are numerous and that each must be evaluated based on the content and outputs of their programs

Odious Debts or Odious Regimes

Odious regimes have always been there. That there is no silver-bullet solution that will prevent odious regimes from arising, or stymie them once they do, is evident from the plethora of responses employed by the international community once a regime\u27s odiousness becomes clear. Current odious debt doctrine dates back to a 1927 treatise by a wandering Russian academic named Alexander Sack. The Sack definition contemplates a debt-by-debt approach to questionable borrowing. If a loan is used to benefit the population--to build a highway or water-treatment plant, for instance--the obligation would be fully enforceable, no matter how pernicious the borrower regime. Here, Bolton and Skeel attempt to fill the vacuum: a regime is odious if it engages in either systematic suppression or systematic looting