12,718 research outputs found
UKC ANSAware Survival Guide (for Modula-3)
The ANSAware platform is a suite of libraries and tools which facilitate the building of distributed applications. The documentation with the release forms little more that a reference manual to the language and does not aid the first time user. This document provides a simple introduction to distributed systems concepts and, through the use of an example, demonstrates how to build applications with ANSAware
Empiricism without Magic: Transformational Abstraction in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
In artificial intelligence, recent research has demonstrated the remarkable potential of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs), which seem to exceed state-of-the-art performance in new domains weekly, especially on the sorts of very difficult perceptual discrimination tasks that skeptics thought would remain beyond the reach of artificial intelligence. However, it has proven difficult to explain why DCNNs perform so well. In philosophy of mind, empiricists have long suggested that complex cognition is based on information derived from sensory experience, often appealing to a faculty of abstraction. Rationalists have frequently complained, however, that empiricists never adequately explained how this faculty of abstraction actually works. In this paper, I tie these two questions together, to the mutual benefit of both disciplines. I argue that the architectural features that distinguish DCNNs from earlier neural networks allow them to implement a form of hierarchical processing that I call âtransformational abstractionâ. Transformational abstraction iteratively converts sensory-based representations of category exemplars into new formats that are increasingly tolerant to ânuisance variationâ in input. Reflecting upon the way that DCNNs leverage a combination of linear and non-linear processing to efficiently accomplish this feat allows us to understand how the brain is capable of bi-directional travel between exemplars and abstractions, addressing longstanding problems in empiricist philosophy of mind. I end by considering the prospects for future research on DCNNs, arguing that rather than simply implementing 80s connectionism with more brute-force computation, transformational abstraction counts as a qualitatively distinct form of processing ripe with philosophical and psychological significance, because it is significantly better suited to depict the generic mechanism responsible for this important kind of psychological processing in the brain
The importance of task appropriateness in computerâsupported collaborative learning
Collaborative learning activities can be beneficial for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, and developing shared understanding. It is our view that the task given to the student is central to the success or otherwise of the learning experience. In this paper, we discuss the need for the adaptation of traditional faceâtoâface tasks when these are incorporated in computerâsupported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments. We focus on critical issues in relation to the implementation of CSCL tasks including: the appropriateness of the medium for the task, the role of individuals, the volume of work involved, the time allocated for tasks or subâtasks, and, the assessment procedures
UKC Orbix Survival Guide
Orbix is a faithfull implementation of the CORBA standard developed by Iona of Ireland. This documents is a tutorial to using Orbix to produce distibuted applications. An example program is developed one step at a time and each of the stages is explained. The appendix contains a checklist to help when developing your own applications
Properties of star clusters - I. Automatic distance and extinction estimates
Determining star cluster distances is essential to analyse their properties and distribution in the Galaxy. In particular, it is desirable to have a reliable, purely photometric distance estimation method for large samples of newly discovered cluster candidates e.g. from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, the UK Infrared Deep Sky Survey Galactic Plane Survey and VVV. Here, we establish an automatic method to estimate distances and reddening from nearinfrared photometry alone, without the use of isochrone fitting.We employ a decontamination procedure of JHK photometry to determine the density of stars foreground to clusters and a galactic model to estimate distances. We then calibrate the method using clusters with known properties. This allows us to establish distance estimates with better than 40 per cent accuracy. We apply our method to determine the extinction and distance values to 378 known open clusters and 397 cluster candidates from the list of Froebrich, Scholz & Raftery. We find that the sample is biased towards clusters of a distance of approximately 3 kpc, with typical distances between 2 and 6 kpc. Using the cluster distances and extinction values, we investigate how the average extinction per kiloparsec distance changes as a function of the Galactic longitude. We find a systematic dependence that can be approximated by AH(Ăą??)[mag kpc-1] = 0.10 + 0.001 Ă? |Ăą?? - 180Ă°|/Ă° for regions more than 60Ă° from the Galactic Centre. Ă© 2013 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
An ethnography of a neighbourhood café: informality, table arrangements and background noise
CafĂ© society is something that many of us as customers and/or social theorists take for granted. CafĂ©s are places where we are not simply served hot beverages but are also in some way partaking of a specific form of public life. It is this latter aspect that has attracted the attention of social theorists, especially JĂŒrgen Habermas, and leads them to locate the cafĂ© as a key place in the development of modernity. Our approach to cafĂ©s is to âturn the tablesâ on theories of the public sphere and return to just what the life of a particular cafĂ© consists of, and in so doing re-specify a selection of topics related to public spaces. The particular topics we deal with in a âworldly mannerâ are the socio-material organisation of space, informality and rule following. In as much as we are able we have drawn on an ethnomethodological way of doing and analysing our ethnographic studies
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