Open educational resources: Education for the world?

Education is widely seen as an important means of addressing both national and international problems, such as political or religious extremism, poverty, and hunger. However, if developing countries are to become societies that can compete properly with Western industrialized countries, not only is a fundamental shift in thinking with regard to the value of education and more/better provision of teaching required, but strong support from other countries is needed as well. This article explores questions such as whether Western policymakers can avoid a repetition of some of the failures of the past few decades in terms of providing foreign aid; how educators and providers of educational scenarios and learning contents can foster and manage the creation of a worldwide knowledge society; and in particular, if the provision of open educational resources (OER) can realistically overcome the educational gap and foster educational justice

Coulomb dissociation reactions on proton-rich Ar isotopes

5 pags., 3 figs., 1 tab. -- 11th Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos, 19-23 July 2010, Heidelberg, GermanyA Coulomb dissociation experiment on the proton-rich 32Ar and 34Ar isotopes was performed at the ALADIN-LAND setup at GSI in Darmstadt. Recent RQRPA calculations show a low-lying E1 soft-vibrational mode at an excitation energy Ex ≈ 9 MeV for proton-rich argon isotopes at the dripline. In a macroscopic picture, this can be understood as an out-of-phase oscillation of a thin proton skin against the isospin-saturated core, similar to the neutron pygmy resonance at the neutron dripline. On the other hand, the measured (γ, p) reactions are interesting for the calculation of reaction cross-sections and radiative proton capture rates for the rp-process. In this hydrogen burning process a lot of nuclear structure inputs are still missing. Especially in the argon region a bottleneck for the reaction flow is assumed at 30S and 34Ar. The impact of the predicted proton pygmy resonance on the reaction flow is not yet clear. The experimental motivation and the experiment itself are described. Identification plots for incoming and outgoing particles are shown and a tracking algorithm is applied and shows to work succesfully.This project is supported by the HGF Young Investigators Project VH-NG-327.Peer reviewe

Reasoning in Attempto Controlled English

Attempto Controlled English (ACE) – a subset of English that can be unambiguously translated into first-order logic – is a knowledge representation language. To support automatic reasoning in ACE we have developed the Attempto Reasoner RACE (Reasoning in ACE). RACE proves that one ACE text is the logical consequence of another one, and gives a justification for the proof in ACE. Variations of the basic proof procedure permit query answering and consistency checking. Reasoning in RACE is supported by auxiliary first-order axioms and by evaluable functions. The current implementation of RACE is based on the model generator Satchmo

Plural semantics for natural language understanding — a computational proof-theoretic approach

The semantics of natural language plurals poses a number of intricate problems – both from a formal and a computational perspective. In this thesis I investigate problems of representing, disambiguating and reasoning with plurals from a computational perspective. The work defines a computationally suitable representation for important plural constructions, proposes a tractable resolution algorithm for semantic plural ambiguities, and integrates an automatic reasoning component for plurals. My solution combines insights from formal semantics, computational linguistics and automated theorem proving and is based on the following main ideas. Whereas many existing approaches to plural semantics work on a model-theoretic basis using higher-order representation languages I propose a proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics based on a flat first-order semantic representation language thus showing that a trade-off between expressive power and logical tractability can be found. The problem of automatic disambiguation of plurals is tackled by a deliberate decision to drastically reduce recourse to contextual knowledge for disambiguation but rely instead on structurally available and thus computationally manageable information. A further central aspect of the solution lies in carefully drawing the borderline between real ambiguity and mere indeterminacy in the interpretation of plural noun phrases. As a practical result of my computational proof-theoretic approach to plural semantics I can use my methods to perform automated reasoning with plurals by applying advanced first-order theorem provers and model-generators available off-the shelf. The results are prototypically implemented within the two logic-oriented natural language understanding applications DRoPs and Attempto. DRoPs provides an automatic plural disambiguation component for uncontrolled natural language whereas Attempto works with a constructive disambiguation strategy for controlled natural language. Both systems provide tools for the automated analysis of technical texts allowing users for example to automatically detect inconsistencies, to perform question answering, to check whether a conjecture follows from a text or to find equivalences and redundancies

Extended discourse representation structures in attempto controlled English

This technical report describes the extended discourse representation structures (DRS) derived from texts written in version 4 of Attempto Controlled English (ACE 4). The need to extend the standard DRS representation arose from the two requirements to adequately represent plural nouns introduced into ACE 4, and to perform logical deductions on ACE texts. An extended representation structure contains both the original ACE 4 text and its translation into a discourse representation structure – a closed logical formula using a syntactical variant of the language of first-order logic. The discourse representation structure itself uses a reified, or ‘flat’ notation, meaning that its atomic conditions are built from a small number of predefined predicates that take constants standing for words of the ACE text as their arguments. Furthermore, each logical atom gets an index relating it to the sentence of the ACE text from which it was derived

Extended discourse representation structures in attempto controlled English

This technical report describes the extended discourse representation structures (DRS) derived from texts written in version 4 of Attempto Controlled English (ACE 4). The need to extend the standard DRS representation arose from the two requirements to adequately represent plural nouns introduced into ACE 4, and to perform logical deductions on ACE texts. The discourse representation structure itself uses a reified, or ‘flat’ notation, meaning that its atomic conditions are built from a small number of predefined predicates that take constants standing for words of the ACE text as their arguments. Furthermore, each logical atom gets an index relating it to the sentence of the ACE text from which it was derived

Discourse representation structures for ACE 5

This technical report describes the discourse representation structures (DRS) derived from texts written in version 5 of Attempto Controlled English (ACE 5). Among other things, ACE 5 supports modal statements, negation as failure, and sentence subordination. These features require an extended form of discourse representation structures. The discourse representation structure itself uses a reified, or ‘flat’ notation, meaning that its atomic conditions are built from a small number of predefined predicates that take constants standing for words of the ACE text as their arguments. Furthermore, each logical atom gets an index relating it to the sentence of the ACE text from which it was derived

A novel approach towards skill-based search and services of open educational resources

Open educational resources (OER) have a high potential to address the growing need for training materials in management education and training. Today, a high number of OER in management are already available in a large number of repositories. However, users face barriers as they have to search repository by repository with different interfaces to retrieve the appropriate learning content. In addition, the use of search criteria related to skills, such as learning objectives and skill-levels is not generally supported. The European co-funded project OpenScout addresses these barriers by intelligently connecting leading European OER repositories and providing federated, skill-based search and retrieval web services. On top of this content federation the project supports users with easy-to-apply tools that will accelerate the (re-) use of open content

Online information and support for carers of people with young-onset dementia: A multi-site randomised controlled pilot study

NoThe European RHAPSODY project sought to develop and test an online information and support programme for caregivers of individuals diagnosed with young onset dementia. The objectives were to assess user acceptability and satisfaction with the programme and to test outcome measures for a larger effectiveness study. DESIGN: A pilot randomised controlled trial in England, France, and Germany was conducted with 61 caregivers for adults with young onset Alzheimer's disease or frontotemporal degeneration. Evaluations at baseline, week 6, and week 12 assessed user acceptability and satisfaction. Use of the programme was measured from online back-end data. Qualitative feedback on user experiences was collected via semi-structured interviews. Measures of caregiver well-being (self-efficacy, stress, burden, frequency of patient symptoms, and caregiver reactions) were explored for use in a subsequent trial. RESULTS: Participants logged in online on average once a week over a 6-week period, consulting approximately 31% of programme content. Seventy percent of participants described the programme as useful and easy to use. Eighty-five percent expressed intent to use the resource in the future. Reductions in reported levels of stress and caregivers' negative reactions to memory symptoms were observed following use of the programme. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicated that the RHAPSODY programme was acceptable and useful to caregivers. The programme may be complementary to existing services in responding to the specific needs of families affected by young onset dementia. Distribution of the programme is underway in England, France, Germany, and Portugal

Automated reasoning on the web

Automated reasoning is becoming an essential issue in many Web systems and applications, especially in emerging Semantic Web applications. This article first discusses reasons for this evolution. Then, it presents research issues currently investigated towards automated reasoning on the Web and it introduces into selected applications demonstrating the practical impact of the approach. Finally, it introduces a research endeavor called REWERSE (cf