George Berkeley

Tradução para o português do verbete "George Berkeley, de Michael Ayers, retirado de "A Companion to Epistemology", ed. Jonathan Dancy e Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 261–264. Criticanarede. ISSN 1749-845

Skill set profile clustering based on student capability vectors computed from online tutoring data

In educational research, a fundamental goal is identifying which skills students have mastered, which skills they have not, and which skills they are in the process of mastering. As the number of examinees, items, and skills increases, the estimation of even simple cognitive diagnosis models becomes difficult. To address this, we introduce a capability matrix showing for each skill the proportion correct on all items tried by each student involving that skill. We apply variations of common clustering methods to this matrix and discuss conditioning on sparse subspaces. We demonstrate the feasibility and scalability of our method on several simulated datasets and illustrate the difficulties inherent in real data using a subset of online mathematics tutor data. We also comment on the interpretability and application of the results for teachers

Skill set profile clustering: the empty K-means algorithm with automatic specification of starting cluster centers

While students’ skill set profiles can be estimated with formal cognitive diagnosis models [8], their computational complexity makes simpler proxy skill estimates attractive [1, 4, 6]. These estimates can be clustered to generate groups of similar students. Often hierarchical agglomerative clustering or k-means clustering is utilized, requiring, for K skills, the specification of 2^K clusters. The number of skill set profiles/clusters can quickly become computationally intractable. Moreover, not all profiles may be present in the population. We present a flexible version of k-means that allows for empty clusters. We also specify a method to determine efficient starting centers based on the Q-matrix. Combining the two substantially improves the clustering results and allows for analysis of data sets previously thought impossible

Postnatal debriefing: Have we thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Postnatal debriefing is offered by 78% of maternity services in the UK despite little evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that it is effective. RCTs in this area have applied debriefing as a prophylactic to all or high risk women, rather than as a treatment for women who request it. This pragmatic trial therefore evaluated existing postnatal debriefing services that provide debriefing as a treatment for women who request it. Forty-six women who met criterion A for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and requested debriefing 1.3 to 72.2 months (median 16 weeks) postpartum completed measures of depression, PTSD, support and negative appraisals of the birth before and one month after debriefing. Women were compared with others who gave birth in the same hospitals during the same time period (n=34), who met criterion A for PTSD but had not requested debriefing. Results showed PTSD symptoms reduced over time in both groups but greater decreases were observed in women who attended debriefing. Debriefing also led to reduction in negative appraisals but did not affect symptoms of depression. Therefore, results suggest providing debriefing as a treatment to women who request or are referred to it may help to reduce symptoms of PTSD

A single-board preprocessor and pulse generator

The Aeronomy Lab. of NOAA has designed and built a single board, programmable radar controller for use with VHF ST (stratosphere troposphere) radars. The controller consists of a coherent integrator preprocessor and a radar pulse generator, both of which are described, as well as interfaces to an antenna beam switch and a receiver bandwidth switch. The controller occupies a single slot in a Data General Nova of Eclipse computer. The integrator and pulse generator take advantage of high density, dual port FIFO chips such as the 512 x 9 Mostek MK 4501. These FIFOs have separate input and output ports and independent read and write cycles with cycle times of less than 200 ns, making them very fast and easy to interface. A simple block diagram of the coherent integrator is shown. The integrator is designed to handle inputs from one receiver (2 channels) with 1 sec sample spacing. The pulse generator is based on controllers designed by R. F. Woodman for the Arecibo and SOUSY radars us a recirculating memory scheme

Founding Freemasons: “Ancient” and “Modern” Masons in the Founding Era of America with Particular Emphasis on Masons Benjamin Franklin and George Washington

Abstract From its inception in 1733, American freemasonry represented a fair portion of American society. However, though there would be groups of freemasons during this time whose ideals and morals could be traced to a Christian belief system, not all American freemasons considered themselves Christians. Though his book is full of excellent research, David Barton, founder of the Christian heritage research group Wallbuilders, generalized American freemasonry as being entirely Christian in his recent publication The Question of Freemasonry and the Founding Fathers. Though there were undoubtedly Christian groups of freemasons during this time period, the assertion that all masons were Christians is not entirely true and needs to be corrected. The non- Christian masons during this time period, known as “Modern” masons, never claimed a Christian heritage but instead had set up lodges that promoted values other than those espoused in Christianity. In order to correct Barton’s partially incorrect analysis of American masons during this era, evidence will be given to convince the reader of both the reality of anti-Christian freemasons and their feud with their Christian counterparts. The definition of both “Ancient” and “Modern” American freemasonry will be documented, the formation of and struggle between the two groups will be detailed, and the Enlightenment ideals that represented many of the beliefs of American “Modern” freemasons will be explained. Further, as examples of men who did not adhere to Christian values in the Craft, short biographies of Masons Benjamin Franklin and George Washington’s involvement with secular freemasonry will also be given

Overlapping gestural zones and modulation on the fifteen-tone guitar

With its unconventional tuning, notation, and performance requirements, Easley Blackwoodʼs Suite for Guitar in 15- Note Equal Tuning serves as a reappraisal of both tonality (through its application of a microtonal equal temperament) and guitar performance practice (with a modified fretboard and note layout). Using concepts from the fields of transformational theory and gestural music theory, this study considers modulatory and sequential passages in two movements from Blackwoodʼs Suite. This paper demonstrates how the fifteen-tone tuning and fretboard provide a unique opportunity to recontextualize the diatonic scale and its generative interval cycles in a consistent transformational space that allows the performer to conceptualize the novel guitar fretboard in three overlapping gestural zones. By considering the perspective of the performer, this paper illustrates Blackwoodʼs multilayered compositional approach for the fifteen-tone guitar and his attention to the gestural potential of this new instrument

Vernacular Posthumanism: Visual Culture and Material Imagination

Vernacular Posthumanism: Visual Culture and Material Imagination uses a theory of image vernaculars in order to explore the ways in which contemporary visual culture both reflects on and constructs 21st century cultural attitudes toward the human and the nonhuman. This project argues that visual culture manifests a vernacular posthumanism that expresses a fundamental contradiction: the desire to transcend the human while at the same time reasserting the importance of the flesh and the materiality of lived experience. This contradiction is based in a biodeterminist desire, one that fantasizes about reducing all actants, both human and nonhuman, to functions of code. Within this framework, actants become fundamentally exchangeable, able to be combined, manipulated, and understood as variations of digital code. Visual culture – and its expression of vernacular posthumanism – thus functions as a reflection on contemporary conceptualizations of the human, a rehearsal of the posthuman, and a staging ground for encounters between the human and the nonhuman. Each chapter of this project begins in the field of film studies and then moves out toward a broader analysis of visual culture and nonhumanist theory. This project relies on the theories and methodologies of phenomenology, materialism, posthumanism, object-oriented ontology, actor-network theory, film and media studies, and visual culture studies. Visual objects analyzed include: the films of Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, and Krzysztof Kieślowski; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997); the film 300 (2006); the TV series Planet Earth (2006); DNA portraits, the art of Damien Hirst; Body Worlds; human migration maps; and remote surgical machinery