Adaptive learning environments as serious games

In former concepts for programmed instruction (PI), intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), adaptive learning environments (ALE), and pedagogical recommender system (PRE) learning is understood as similar to algorithms - as a clearly describable, logical, and in this respect serious process. With this background it is attempted to create a complete description of teaching and learning for a precise support and control of learning processes in order to replace teachers. In contrast to this concept, learning in pedagogy is usually conceived as a process that cannot be fully described or understood. Teaching and learning require human understanding and thus human communication is necessary to foster learning. From this perspective, the possibilities for PI, ITS, ALE and PRE are restricted. It is assumed that within these restrictions reasonable concepts can be developed. As one approach it is suggested to refer to the pedagogical theory of play and the understanding of pedagogical actions as art. Based on these approaches we understand the design of automatic educational reasoning (AER) systems for learning like the creation of tools for artists. As tools we suggest a pedagogical ontology, a learner model and a reasoning engine. With these tools, teachers can create playground equipment that is played with by students. (DIPF/Orig.

Adaptive learning environments as serious games

In former concepts for programmed instruction (PI), intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), adaptive learning environments (ALE), and pedagogical recommender system (PRE) learning is understood as similar to algorithms - as a clearly describable, logical, and in this respect serious process. With this background it is attempted to create a complete description of teaching and learning for a precise support and control of learning processes in order to replace teachers. In contrast to this concept, learning in pedagogy is usually conceived as a process that cannot be fully described or understood. Teaching and learning require human understanding and thus human communication is necessary to foster learning. From this perspective, the possibilities for PI, ITS, ALE and PRE are restricted. It is assumed that within these restrictions reasonable concepts can be developed. As one approach it is suggested to refer to the pedagogical theory of play and the understanding of pedagogical actions as art. Based on these approaches we understand the design of automatic educational reasoning (AER) systems for learning like the creation of tools for artists. As tools we suggest a pedagogical ontology, a learner model and a reasoning engine. With these tools, teachers can create playground equipment that is played with by students. (DIPF/Orig.

Constructive toposes with countable sums as models of constructive set theory

AbstractWe define a constructive topos to be a locally cartesian closed pretopos. The terminology is supported by the fact that constructive toposes enjoy a relationship with constructive set theory similar to the relationship between elementary toposes and (impredicative) intuitionistic set theory. This paper elaborates upon one aspect of the relationship between constructive toposes and constructive set theory. We show that any constructive topos with countable coproducts provides a model of a standard constructive set theory, CZFExp (that is, the variant of Aczel’s Constructive Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory CZF obtained by weakening Subset Collection to the Exponentiation axiom). The model is constructed as a category of classes, using ideas derived from Joyal and Moerdijk’s programme of algebraic set theory. A curiosity is that our model always validates the axiom V=Vω1 (in an appropriate formulation). It follows that the full Separation schema is always refuted

Social participation of families with children with autism spectrum disorder in a science museum

This article describes a qualitative research study undertaken as a collaboration between museum and occupational therapy (OT) researchers to better understand museum experiences for families with a child or children impacted by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Inclusion for visitors with ASD is an issue that museums are increasingly considering, and the social dimension of inclusion can be particularly relevant for this audience. The construct of social participation, used in OT, provides a promising avenue for museum professionals to think about inclusion. Social participation situates social and community experiences within the context of peoples’ diverse motivations and the strategies they use to navigate environments. This study took these multiple factors into account when observing families’ museum visits—including analysis of their motivations for visiting, environmental features that influenced their visit, family strategies used before and during the visit, and the families’ definitions of a successful visit. Learning more about these factors that are associated with social participation can inform future efforts to improve museum inclusion for families with children with ASD

Personalized web learning: merging Open Educational Resources into adaptive courses for higher education

In this paper, educational and technical challenges for applying learning pathways in Massive(ly) Open Online Courses in higher education are outlined. The authors argue that quality issues and didactical concerns may be overcome by (1) reverting to small Open Educational Resources that are (2) adaptively joined into concise courses by considering (3) predefined learning pathways with proper semantic annotations and (4) the observation of learner behaviour. Such a merger does not only require conceptual work and corresponding support tools, but also a new meta data format and an engine which interprets the semantic annotations as well as the measures of learner’s actions. These factors are then turned into didactically meaningful recommendations for the next learning steps, thereby creating a personalized learning pathway for each learner. The EU FP7 project INTUITEL is introduced, which has already contributed to the conceptual work and is currently developing the software to achieve these tasks. (DIPF/Orig.

Rapid Microsatellite Identification from Illumina Paired-End Genomic Sequencing in Two Birds and a Snake

Identification of microsatellites, or simple sequence repeats (SSRs), can be a time-consuming and costly investment requiring enrichment, cloning, and sequencing of candidate loci. Recently, however, high throughput sequencing (with or without prior enrichment for specific SSR loci) has been utilized to identify SSR loci. The direct “Seq-to-SSR” approach has an advantage over enrichment-based strategies in that it does not require a priori selection of particular motifs, or prior knowledge of genomic SSR content. It has been more expensive per SSR locus recovered, however, particularly for genomes with few SSR loci, such as bird genomes. The longer but relatively more expensive 454 reads have been preferred over less expensive Illumina reads. Here, we use Illumina paired-end sequence data to identify potentially amplifiable SSR loci (PALs) from a snake (the Burmese python, Python molurus bivittatus), and directly compare these results to those from 454 data. We also compare the python results to results from Illumina sequencing of two bird genomes (Gunnison Sage-grouse, Centrocercus minimus, and Clark's Nutcracker, Nucifraga columbiana), which have considerably fewer SSRs than the python. We show that direct Illumina Seq-to-SSR can identify and characterize thousands of potentially amplifiable SSR loci for as little as $10 per sample – a fraction of the cost of 454 sequencing. Given that Illumina Seq-to-SSR is effective, inexpensive, and reliable even for species such as birds that have few SSR loci, it seems that there are now few situations for which prior hybridization is justifiable

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software

Coulomb dissociation of N 20,21

Neutron-rich light nuclei and their reactions play an important role in the creation of chemical elements. Here, data from a Coulomb dissociation experiment on N20,21 are reported. Relativistic N20,21 ions impinged on a lead target and the Coulomb dissociation cross section was determined in a kinematically complete experiment. Using the detailed balance theorem, the N19(n,γ)N20 and N20(n,γ)N21 excitation functions and thermonuclear reaction rates have been determined. The N19(n,γ)N20 rate is up to a factor of 5 higher at