A Structured Approach To Teaching Cardinalities In The AIS Class

Cardinalities specify business rules as part of a conceptual schema. This paper presents a structured approach to teaching cardinalities in the accounting information systems (AIS) class.   First, cardinalities are explained – why they are important, what they are and what notations exist to define them. Next, a three-step approach to teaching cardinalities is presented: syntactic, semantic and heuristic.  Visual and syntactic representations help students understand the cardinality concept and cardinality notation.  During the semantic phase, students learn to define business rules in terms of cardinalities.  Heuristics help students recognize domain-specific stereotypical cardinality patterns.  Such a generalization requires the existence of a semantic framework, and the REA model is used to define cardinality heuristics for enterprise systems. Finally, inter-relationship constraints, which represent participation dependencies across two or more relationships, are discussed

Design And Evaluation Of An Internet Study Tool As A Data Collection Device

This paper describes the design, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of a tool that collects data from subjects through the Internet. The Internet tool was designed for students studying cardinalities, a difficult data modeling topic frequently taught in the accounting information systems course. The Internet tool was able to observe usage and task accomplishments of subjects. We used these observations to learn characteristics about tool usage and to compare computer-recorded and self-reported data. These comparisons allow us to evaluate the Internet tool as a data collection device

Using Blog Technology For Collaborative Learning Of Accounting And Corporate Governance Issues: Design And Implementation Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Blog

The main purpose of this paper is to provide design and implementation guidance to those interested in utilizing blogs as a collaborative learning tool in any given field of study.  We created the Sarbanes-Oxley Blog (SoxBlog), a web-based forum for asynchronous student-instructor-expert collaboration.  Given the recent scandals and publication of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), we increased our emphasis on integrating corporate governance and ethics issues into the financial accounting curriculum.  Students new to financial accounting were asked to research a number of targeted issues related to the accounting environment and corporate governance and to discuss them with their peers, instructor, and experts.  Some of the items to be discussed include: the relationship between task and learning objectives, students’ engagement in the collaboration process, the structuring of the collaboration process, and the technological simplicity of creating and using blogs.  Overall, students perceived the SoxBlog collaboration as a positive learning experience.

Charge Transport Properties of a Metal-free Phthalocyanine Discotic Liquid Crystal

Discotic liquid crystals can self-align to form one-dimensional semiconducting wires, many tens of microns long. In this letter, we describe the preparation of semiconducting films where the stacking direction of the disc-like molecules is perpendicular to the substrate surface. We present measurements of the charge carrier mobility, applying temperature-dependent time-of-flight transient photoconductivity, space-charge limited current measurements, and field-effect mobility measurements. We provide experimental verification of the highly anisotropic nature of semiconducting films of discotic liquid crystals, with charge carrier mobilities of up to 2.8x10$^{-3}$cm$^2$/Vs. These properties make discotics an interesting choice for applications such as organic photovoltaics.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Probabilistic Successor Representations with Kalman Temporal Differences

The effectiveness of Reinforcement Learning (RL) depends on an animal's ability to assign credit for rewards to the appropriate preceding stimuli. One aspect of understanding the neural underpinnings of this process involves understanding what sorts of stimulus representations support generalisation. The Successor Representation (SR), which enforces generalisation over states that predict similar outcomes, has become an increasingly popular model in this space of inquiries. Another dimension of credit assignment involves understanding how animals handle uncertainty about learned associations, using probabilistic methods such as Kalman Temporal Differences (KTD). Combining these approaches, we propose using KTD to estimate a distribution over the SR. KTD-SR captures uncertainty about the estimated SR as well as covariances between different long-term predictions. We show that because of this, KTD-SR exhibits partial transition revaluation as humans do in this experiment without additional replay, unlike the standard TD-SR algorithm. We conclude by discussing future applications of the KTD-SR as a model of the interaction between predictive and probabilistic animal reasoning.Comment: Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscienc

Quality of life of people with severe mental health problems:Testing an interactive model

Improvement of subjective quality of life (QoL) is seen as an important treatment outcome in clinical practice. The aim of this study is to test the theoretical model of Cummins, which includes a homeostatic management system. According to this model, objective variables are almost irrelevant to general well-being, while the feeling of having an influence on one’s circumstances (perceived deficit) is related to subjective QoL. The variables of the Cummins model were operationalised based on the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile, a structured interview to assess the subjective QoL of people with severe mental health problems. The Cummins model was tested using structural equation modelling and a mediator model between Objective QoL, Subjective QoL and Perceived Deficit. Subjective QoL and General Well-Being were significantly related and having a meaningful perspective in life was related to General Well-Being. Contrary to the Cummins model, both Objective QoL and Perceived Deficit had a significant relation to Subjective QoL and Perceived Deficit was a partial mediator between Objective QoL and Subjective QoL. Cummins’ theoretical model was partially confirmed. The current study suggests that meaningful (treatment) evaluation of subjective QoL can only be performed if objective QoL, General Well-Being and subjective evaluation (Perceived Deficit and Framework) are taken into account

A probabilistic successor representation for context-dependent learning

Two of the main impediments to learning complex tasks are that relationships between different stimuli, including rewards, can be uncertain and context-dependent. Reinforcement learning (RL) provides a framework for learning, by predicting total future reward directly (model-free RL), or via predictions of future states (model-based RL). Within this framework, "successor representation" (SR) predicts total future occupancy of all states. A recent theoretical proposal suggests that the hippocampus encodes the SR in order to facilitate prediction of future reward. However, this proposal does not take into account how learning should adapt under uncertainty and switches of context. Here, we introduce a theory of learning SRs using prediction errors which includes optimally balancing uncertainty in new observations versus existing knowledge. We then generalize that approach to a multicontext setting, allowing the model to learn and maintain multiple task-specific SRs and infer which one to use at any moment based on the accuracy of its predictions. Thus, the context used for predictions can be determined by both the contents of the states themselves and the distribution of transitions between them. This probabilistic SR model captures animal behavior in tasks which require contextual memory and generalization, and unifies previous SR theory with hippocampal-dependent contextual decision-making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)