Ariadne: An interface to support collaborative database browsing:Technical Report CSEG/3/1995

This paper outlines issues in the learning of information searching skills. We report on our observations of the learning of browsing skills and the subsequent iterative development and testing of the Ariadne system – intended to investigate and support the collaborative learning of search skills. A key part of this support is a mechanism for recording an interaction history and providing students with a visualisation of that history that they can reflect and comment upon

Smart Tea Project

Conference poster. The lab book is a big block to publication@source, if it’s not digital, it’s difficult to share. Most experimental information is recorded in a lab book in a highly personal way. We have created a new analogy to fully understand the use of the lab book and successfully built and evaluated a working electronic replacement

Demographic and lifestyle correlates of school attendance, English and Maths attainment, and the occurrence of behavioural sanctions in British secondary school children

Aims: Performance in school is known to predict a number of important outcomes in later life (e.g. socioeconomic status). For this reason it is considered useful to identify aspects of demography and lifestyle that are associated with low school attendance, low academic attainment, and high occurrences of problem behaviour. Study Design: The current study utilised a cross-sectional design; analyses were performed twice due to the availability of two cross-sections of data from the same sample. Place and Duration of Study: Data from the current study were collected from three secondary schools in Cornwall, UK. The first cross-section was collected in December, 2012, and the second was collected in June, 2013. Methodology: The School Information Management System was used to obtain data relating to demography (sex, school and year group attended, eligibility/ineligibility to receive free school meals, and presence/absence of a special educational needs status) and school performance (attendance, attainment at Key Stage 3/Key Stage 4 English and maths, and occurrence of behavioural sanctions). Lifestyle factors (number of sleep hours, and frequency of exercise participation) were assessed via pen and paper questionnaire. Chi-square, chi-square tests of linear association, and between-subjects t-tests were used to establish whether the school performance outcomes were associated with the demographic and lifestyle variables. These analyses were then followed-up with binary logistic regression, to determine whether the observed effects were independent of one another. Results: Low school performance was consistently associated with male sex, school and year group attended, special educational needs status, eligibility to receive free school meals, low sleep hours, and infrequent exercise participation. In addition, below average school attendance was itself predictive of low English and maths attainment, and of a high occurrence of behavioural sanctions. The majority of effects observed were significant at both the univariate and multivariate levels. Conclusions: The identification of demographic and lifestyle correlates of school performance may be useful for detecting at-risk individuals who might benefit from interventions. If such interventions were to be effective, the associated reductions in future unemployment and criminality could be beneficial to society as a whole

Energy drinks, caffeine, junk food, breakfast, depression and academic attainment of secondary school students.

BACKGROUND: Energy drinks are widely consumed, and concerns have been raised about possible negative outcomes. AIMS: The aim of the present research was to examine associations between consumption of energy drinks, caffeine and junk food, and academic attainment in a sample of UK secondary school students. METHODS: A total of 3071 students agreed to participate in the study; 2677 completed the survey on one occasion (52.4% female, 47.6% male; approximately 20% of the sample from each school year) and 1660 (49.6% female, 50.4% male) completed the survey a second time, approximately six months later. The academic attainment measure was based on Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 grades for Maths and English. RESULTS: In the cross-sectional analyses, logistic regressions showed that consumption of energy drinks was associated with a greater likelihood of being in the low academic achievement group. This was not found for other sources of caffeine. The effect of energy drinks was still significant when demographic, academic and health/lifestyle variables were covaried. However, inclusion of an unhealthy diet variable (junk food) removed the significant effect of energy drinks. Similar observations were made in the longitudinal study, with the poorer attainment of those who consumed energy drinks reflecting breakfast omission and depression. DISCUSSION: The present findings indicate that consumption of energy drinks is associated with an increased likelihood of poor academic attainment that reflects energy drink consumption being part of an unhealthy diet or being associated with skipping breakfast rather than a more specific effect, such as being a source of caffeine. Although the current study extends previous research by utilising a longitudinal design, intervention studies are now required to better answer questions relating to causality and direction of effect.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The current research was supported by a grant from The Waterloo Foundation (grant number: 503692), and by the School of Psychology, Cardiff University

Local Reasoning about Web Programs

Since 1990, the world wide web has evolved from a static collection of reference pages to a dynamic programming and application-hosting environment. At the core of this evolution is the programming language JavaScript and the XML update library "DOM". Every modern web browser contains a DOM implementation which allows JavaScript programs to read and alter the web page that the user is currently viewing. JavaScript and DOM are extremely successful, and this success may be in part due to their highly dynamic and tightly integrated nature. However, this very nature hinders formal program analysis and tool development. Even the implementation independent specification that defines DOM is largely written in the English language, and not using any formal system. While client-side web programming was once a simple discipline of form validation and interface trickery, it is fast becoming a far more serious business encompassing application development for the emerging ubiquitous "cloud". As this evolution gains pace there is an increasing demand for client-side tool support of the sort commonly enjoyed by "enterprise" programmers, working in more easily analysed languages such as Java. This thesis makes use of recent developments in program reasoning using context logic to provide the first formal, compositional specification for the Fundamental Interfaces of DOM Core Level 1. It presents both a big-step operational semantics for the necessary operations of the library and a context logic for reasoning about programs which use the library. Finally, it presents example programs that use the library and shows how context logic can be used to prove useful properties of those programs

Measuring brand association strength: a consumer based brand equity approach

Purpose: To date, the brand equity literature has been limited by a gap in the measurement of a key driver of consumer based brand equity (CBBE). The authors' aim is to address this gap by developing a new, consumer-based measure of brand association strength, a critical element of CBBE. Design/methodology/approach: This paper, based on cognitive psychology, takes a recently developed brand mapping approach and uses its features, along with network analysis measures designed specifically by the authors for this particular analysis, to produce a novel measure of brand association strength. Findings: Traditional network analysis measures (e.g. number of associations, density) neglect to take into account the underlying structure of consumers' brand associations as reflected in concept maps. The authors use primary research on a well-known brand (McDonald's) to show that both number of associations and a modified density measure taking account of the special structure of concept maps can be used to generate an intuitive and readily understood measure of brand association strength. Originality/value: The paper develops a new measure to analyse brand association strength for any given brand. As such it contributes to the methodological and practical development of the CBBE construct. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Measuring the changes to leader brand associations during the 2010 election campaign

The 2010 UK General Election was unique in that for the first time, televised leaders' debates took place. The impact of these plus paid for advertising and uncontrolled events are considered, and their likely affect on the image of Brown, Cameron, and Clegg, the three main party leaders, discussed. Then, using a brand-mapping approach, we analyse changes to consumer perceptions of the leader brands from just prior to the first debate through to he election day itself, Thursday 6 May. Specifically, we consider whether, over the campaign, the number of leader associations increases, which policies were ssociated with which leader, and the favourability of the leaders associations. We then use a measure of brand-image strength to chart overall changes to the leaders. Finally, we consider how Brown's image was affected by the so-called Duffy' affair. © 2011 Westburn Publishers Ltd