Quantitative games with interval objectives

Traditionally quantitative games such as mean-payoff games and discount sum games have two players -- one trying to maximize the payoff, the other trying to minimize it. The associated decision problem, "Can Eve (the maximizer) achieve, for example, a positive payoff?" can be thought of as one player trying to attain a payoff in the interval $(0,\infty)$. In this paper we consider the more general problem of determining if a player can attain a payoff in a finite union of arbitrary intervals for various payoff functions (liminf, mean-payoff, discount sum, total sum). In particular this includes the interesting exact-value problem, "Can Eve achieve a payoff of exactly (e.g.) 0?"Comment: Full version of CONCUR submissio

Vegetation and floristic diversity in Gibraltar Range and part of Washpool National Parks, New South Wales

The vegetation of Gibraltar Range National Park and adjoining parts of eastern Washpool National Park, 65 km east of Glen Innes (29° 31’S 152° 18’E) on the eastern escarpment of New South Wales is described. In total 124, 20m x 50m full vascular plant floristic sites were recorded and information from an additional 53 sites was collated. Thirteen vegetation assemblages are defined based on flexible UPGMA analysis of cover-abundance scores of all vascular plant taxa. Many of the vegetation communities are typical of what is found along the north eastern escarpment of NSW. Three communities are considered to be rare and two vulnerable. A total of 878 vascular plant taxa from 138 families were recorded, of which only 21 (2%) were of introduced origin and 81 (9%) were found to be of conservation significance. Pattern diversity, species density, species accumulation and average geographic range size, along with general measures of richness and diversity, were analysed for all communities. Each of the communities described varied considerably in the diversity attributes measured. Communities with a high number of shrubs had greater constancy between sites compared to those that contained a high number of closed forest species. The community from rock outcrops had the largest average geographical range size

Visual ageing of human faces in three dimensions using morphable models and projection to latent structures

We present an approach to synthesising the effects of ageing on human face images using three-dimensional modelling. We extract a set of three dimensional face models from a set of two-dimensional face images by fitting a Morphable Model. We propose a method to age these face models using Partial Least Squares to extract from the data-set those factors most related to ageing. These ageing related factors are used to train an individually weighted linear model. We show that this is an effective means of producing an aged face image and compare this method to two other linear ageing methods for ageing face models. This is demonstrated both quantitatively and with perceptual evaluation using human raters.Postprin

The New Zealand social studies curriculum struggle 1993-1997: An "insider" analysis.

The development of Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum over the 1993-1997 period was highly contested. The authors were directly involved in the social studies development over this period, and this paper reflects on some of the major events in the development, from our "insiders" viewpoint. The paper argues that the contest was strongly influenced by two major "dominant voice groups with very different views on what a social studies curriculum should be like and by key elements of the political and economic reform agenda of the day. The paper traces the rise and fall in influence of each "dominant voice" group and also examines the way in which the reform agenda changed throughout the development. It argues that in the end the inclusive and liberal-democratic voice was dominant over the neo-liberal and educationally conservative one. It also suggests that a return to a more cooperative, negotiated style of curriculum development, rather than a pure "market-contract model" approach, was needed to bring the development to a satisfactory conclusion

Looking at Mean-Payoff through Foggy Windows

Mean-payoff games (MPGs) are infinite duration two-player zero-sum games played on weighted graphs. Under the hypothesis of perfect information, they admit memoryless optimal strategies for both players and can be solved in NP-intersect-coNP. MPGs are suitable quantitative models for open reactive systems. However, in this context the assumption of perfect information is not always realistic. For the partial-observation case, the problem that asks if the first player has an observation-based winning strategy that enforces a given threshold on the mean-payoff, is undecidable. In this paper, we study the window mean-payoff objectives that were introduced recently as an alternative to the classical mean-payoff objectives. We show that, in sharp contrast to the classical mean-payoff objectives, some of the window mean-payoff objectives are decidable in games with partial-observation

Connecting key competencies and social inquiry in primary social studies pedagogy: initial teacher education students' planning decisions and reflections.

Over 2007-2009 we have worked with the national curriculum's key competencies to establish their place and purpose in the social sciences learning area. As a result, our initial teacher education (ITE) primary social studies programmes involve pedagogy that conceives key competencies as analogous to social inquiry thinking and skills processes. Our team was keen to research ways ITE students identify and embed key competencies in their social inquiry planning decisions. The research also sought student reflection of how engagement with key competencies might influence their future social studies teaching and learning. The article offers a storying of ways the curriculum element of key competencies has been developed, implemented, researched and reflected upon within ITE primary social studies curriculum

Recent changes to electoral registration could see as many as 10 million people slip off the electoral register

Labour faces an enormous struggle to win another general election, with strategic issues combining with the Government’s changes to electoral registration leaving them in a very tricky political situation. Paul Hunter, sharing research from a recent Smith Institute report by Jane Thomas, argues that it is difficult to believe that the government hasn’t played fast and loose with people’s democratic rights for the Conservatives’ political gain