FLECS: Planning with a Flexible Commitment Strategy

There has been evidence that least-commitment planners can efficiently handle planning problems that involve difficult goal interactions. This evidence has led to the common belief that delayed-commitment is the "best" possible planning strategy. However, we recently found evidence that eager-commitment planners can handle a variety of planning problems more efficiently, in particular those with difficult operator choices. Resigned to the futility of trying to find a universally successful planning strategy, we devised a planner that can be used to study which domains and problems are best for which planning strategies. In this article we introduce this new planning algorithm, FLECS, which uses a FLExible Commitment Strategy with respect to plan-step orderings. It is able to use any strategy from delayed-commitment to eager-commitment. The combination of delayed and eager operator-ordering commitments allows FLECS to take advantage of the benefits of explicitly using a simulated execution state and reasoning about planning constraints. FLECS can vary its commitment strategy across different problems and domains, and also during the course of a single planning problem. FLECS represents a novel contribution to planning in that it explicitly provides the choice of which commitment strategy to use while planning. FLECS provides a framework to investigate the mapping from planning domains and problems to efficient planning strategies.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this articl

The Skyrme Interaction in finite nuclei and nuclear matter

Self-consistent mean-field models are a powerful tool in the investigation of nuclear structure and low-energy dynamics. They are based on effective energy-density functionals, often formulated in terms of effective density-dependent nucleon-nucleon interactions. The free parameters of the functional are adjusted to empirical data. A proper choice of these parameters requires a comprehensive set of constraints covering experimental data on finite nuclei, concerning static as well as dynamical properties, empirical characteristics of nuclear matter, and observational information on nucleosynthesis, neutron stars and supernovae. This work aims at a comprehensive survey of the performance of one of the most successful non-relativistic self-consistent method, the Skyrme-Hartree-Fock model (SHF), with respect to these constraints. A full description of the Skyrme functional is given and its relation to other effective interactions is discussed. The validity of the application of SHF far from stability and in dense environments beyond the nuclear saturation density is critically assessed. The use of SHF in models extended beyond the mean field approximation by including some correlations is discussed. Finally, future prospects for further development of SHF towards a more consistent application of the existing and promisingly newly developing constraints are outlined.Comment: 71 pages, 22 figures. Accepted for publication in Prog.Part.Nucl.Phy

Design and evaluation of experimental ceramic automobile thermal reactors

The results obtained in an exploratory evaluation of ceramics for automobile thermal reactors are summarized. Candidate ceramic materials were evaluated in several reactor designs by using both engine-dynamometer and vehicle road tests. Silicon carbide contained in a corrugated-metal support structure exhibited the best performance, lasting 1100 hr in engine-dynamometer tests and more than 38,600 km (24000 miles) in vehicle road tests. Although reactors containing glass-ceramic components did not perform as well as those containing silicon carbide, the glass-ceramics still offer good potential for reactor use with improved reactor designs

Luttinger States at the Edge

An effective wavefunction for the edge excitations in the Fractional quantum Hall effect can be found by dimensionally reducing the bulk wavefunction. Treated this way the Laughlin $\nu=1/(2n+1)$ wavefunction yields a Luttinger model ground state. We identify the edge-electron field with a Luttinger hyper-fermion operator, and the edge electron itself with a non-backscattering Bogoliubov quasi-particle. The edge-electron propagator may be calculated directly from the effective wavefunction using the properties of a one-dimensional one-component plasma, provided a prescription is adopted which is sensitive to the extra flux attached to the electrons

Decorrelation control by the cerebellum achieves oculomotor plant compensation in simulated vestibulo-ocular reflex

We introduce decorrelation control as a candidate algorithm for the cerebellar microcircuit and demonstrate its utility for oculomotor plant compensation in a linear model of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). Using an adaptive-filter representation of cerebellar cortex and an anti-Hebbian learning rule, the algorithm learnt to compensate for the oculomotor plant by minimizing correlations between a predictor variable (eye-movement command) and a target variable (retinal slip), without requiring a motor-error signal. Because it also provides an estimate of the unpredicted component of the target variable, decorrelation control can simplify both motor coordination and sensory acquisition. It thus unifies motor and sensory cerebellar functions

Articulated multiple couch assembly Patent

Shock absorbing articulated multiple couch assembl

Professional development leadership: the importance of middle leaders

As initial teacher training and development becomes increasingly school-based, a central piece of knowledge concerning teachers’ professional development is being overlooked. Middle leaders, who play an essential role in the development of other school teachers, are receiving little consideration or credit in the academic discourse. This article looks at how a group of experienced middle leaders working in three mainstream schools in England are making sense of their role in teachers’ professional development. The study reveals that the middle leaders feel their expertise is not being adequately recognised and that they are consequently struggling to take true ownership of their role in teacher development. We argue that for teachers’ professional development to be more meaningful and comprehensive, it is important to acknowledge and cultivate the expertise and potential of middle leaders. Achieving this will involve academics, school leaders, and middle leaders to collectively reimagine the role of middle leadership and its growing significance in teacher development

A study of how middle leaders in a secondary school are making sense of their role in relation to teachers’ professional development

At a time when the provision for initial teacher training and the continuous professional development of new and experienced teaching professionals is increasingly becoming more school-based, it would appear that a central piece of knowledge concerning teachers’ professional development has been overlooked: middle leaders, who are acknowledged as playing an important role in teacher development, have received little consideration in the academic discourse. In response to this lack of attention, this thesis examines how a small group of four experienced middle leaders in a mainstream secondary school are making sense of their role in relation to teachers’ professional development. The data collected within the study was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), which allowed the middle leaders’ perceptions, reasoning and feelings to be revealed in one master theme and five super-ordinate themes. To further strengthen the thematic analysis, the master theme of relationships was considered against Hoyle’s conceptual framework of extended and restricted professionality. Teacher voice is central to this thesis and its findings. The research provides evidence to suggest that due to a lack of recognition of teacher voice, the middle leaders in this study are closing down external professional learning opportunities and are predominately looking inwards towards their departments and colleagues to facilitate teacher development. In doing so, the middle leaders are able to remain true to the relationshipcentred practice that they value, but are failing to perceive teacher development as a holistic process that has the potential to project their professionalism outwards across professional boundaries