scholarly journals How Understandable Are Pattern-based Behavioral Constraints for Novice Software Designers?

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Czepa ◽  
Uwe Zdun
Keyword(s):  
Software Designers ◽  
Behavioral Constraints

Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet

Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kelly Garrett ◽  
Paul Resnick
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
The Face ◽  
Desirable Behavior ◽  
Partisan News

Must the Internet promote political fragmentation? Although this is a possible outcome of personalized online news, we argue that other futures are possible and that thoughtful design could promote more socially desirable behavior. Research has shown that individuals crave opinion reinforcement more than they avoid exposure to diverse viewpoints and that, in many situations, hearing the other side is desirable. We suggest that, equipped with this knowledge, software designers ought to create tools that encourage and facilitate consumption of diverse news streams, making users, and society, better off. We propose several techniques to help achieve this goal. One approach focuses on making useful or intriguing opinion-challenges more accessible. The other centers on nudging people toward diversity by creating environments that accentuate its benefits. Advancing research in this area is critical in the face of increasingly partisan news media, and we believe these strategies can help.

Interstitial Nucleus of Cajal Encodes Three-Dimensional Head Orientations in Fick-Like Coordinates

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 604-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliana M. Klier ◽  
Hongying Wang ◽  
J. Douglas Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Coordinate System ◽  
Degrees Of Freedom ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Semicircular Canals ◽  
Head Rotation ◽  
Head Orientation ◽  
Interstitial Nucleus Of Cajal ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Behavioral Constraints ◽  
The Right

Two central, related questions in motor control are 1) how the brain represents movement directions of various effectors like the eyes and head and 2) how it constrains their redundant degrees of freedom. The interstitial nucleus of Cajal (INC) integrates velocity commands from the gaze control system into position signals for three-dimensional eye and head posture. It has been shown that the right INC encodes clockwise (CW)-up and CW-down eye and head components, whereas the left INC encodes counterclockwise (CCW)-up and CCW-down components, similar to the sensitivity directions of the vertical semicircular canals. For the eyes, these canal-like coordinates align with Listing’s plane (a behavioral strategy limiting torsion about the gaze axis). By analogy, we predicted that the INC also encodes head orientation in canal-like coordinates, but instead, aligned with the coordinate axes for the Fick strategy (which constrains head torsion). Unilateral stimulation (50 μA, 300 Hz, 200 ms) evoked CW head rotations from the right INC and CCW rotations from the left INC, with variable vertical components. The observed axes of head rotation were consistent with a canal-like coordinate system. Moreover, as predicted, these axes remained fixed in the head, rotating with initial head orientation like the horizontal and torsional axes of a Fick coordinate system. This suggests that the head is ordinarily constrained to zero torsion in Fick coordinates by equally activating CW/CCW populations of neurons in the right/left INC. These data support a simple mechanism for controlling head orientation through the alignment of brain stem neural coordinates with natural behavioral constraints.

scholarly journals Estimating kinetic mechanisms with prior knowledge II: Behavioral constraints and numerical tests

2018 ◽  
Vol 150 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco A. Navarro ◽  
Autoosa Salari ◽  
Mirela Milescu ◽  
Lorin S. Milescu
Keyword(s):  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Estimation Procedure ◽  
Kinetic Mechanism ◽  
Arbitrary Parameter ◽  
Linear Parameter ◽  
Open Probability ◽  
Behavioral Constraints ◽  
Kinetic Mechanisms ◽  
Mathematical Relationships ◽  
Optimization Mechanism

Kinetic mechanisms predict how ion channels and other proteins function at the molecular and cellular levels. Ideally, a kinetic model should explain new data but also be consistent with existing knowledge. In this two-part study, we present a mathematical and computational formalism that can be used to enforce prior knowledge into kinetic models using constraints. Here, we focus on constraints that quantify the behavior of the model under certain conditions, and on constraints that enforce arbitrary parameter relationships. The penalty-based optimization mechanism described here can be used to enforce virtually any model property or behavior, including those that cannot be easily expressed through mathematical relationships. Examples include maximum open probability, use-dependent availability, and nonlinear parameter relationships. We use a simple kinetic mechanism to test multiple sets of constraints that implement linear parameter relationships and arbitrary model properties and behaviors, and we provide numerical examples. This work complements and extends the companion article, where we show how to enforce explicit linear parameter relationships. By incorporating more knowledge into the parameter estimation procedure, it is possible to obtain more realistic and robust models with greater predictive power.

Factors Influencing Virtual Learning System Usage in Higher Education

2020 ◽  
pp. 296-321
Author(s):  
Indira Padayachee
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Higher Education Institutions ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Instructional Designers ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
System Usage ◽  
Actual Usage ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
Factors Influencing

Virtual learning systems (VLSs), commonly referred to as learning or course management systems, have been formally adopted at many higher education institutions. However, knowledge of the actual usage of VLSs is limited in terms of what specific functional and non-functional characteristics are deemed useful and how this influences system usage. Furthermore, little is known about the role of other non-system-related factors related to VLS usage, such as pedagogic, organisational, and individual difference factors. This chapter proposes and describes the virtual learning system usage model (VLSUM), which represents the factors influencing VLS usage in higher education institutions. The VLSUM is based on a conceptual framework integrating multiple dimensions and is confirmed by the results of an empirical study. A mixed-methods research design was adopted in the development of the VSLUM. This model is valuable to educational technologists, instructional designers, and software designers for VLS implementation in higher education.

Gender in Distance Education Technology

2009 ◽  
pp. 2278-2286
Author(s):  
Colette Wanless-Sobel
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Education Technology ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Study Guides ◽  
Audio Technology ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
Face To Face Instruction ◽  
Technology Users ◽  
Education Courses ◽  
Distance Education Technology

Distance education is defined by six pedagogical elements: (1) physical separation of teacher and learner; (2) regulatory function or influence of an educational organization; (3) media to connect teacher and learner; (4) two-way communication exchange between teacher and learner; (5) individualized pedagogy instead of group focus; and (6) “industrialized” facilitators, entailing less individuated instructors (Keegan, 1980). Distance education technologies include video (videotape, satellite delivery, microwave delivery, broadcast video, and desktop video), computers (e-mail, Web-based courses, video conferences, DVD, and CD-ROM), collaborative activity software (chat, discussion rooms, and white boards), voice /audio technology (telephone, voice mail, audio conferences, audiotapes, and radio), supplemental print material (books, study guides, workbooks, and FAX), mobile technology (laptop computers, PDAs, tablet PCs, and cell phones), and blended-learning combining one or more of these delivery methods together, including face-to face instruction. Distance education technologies as tools are situated in the larger context of technological and scientific knowledge, economic institutions, including the property and market institutions of capitalism, and social institutions, such as education, which historically has been unequal and exclusionary due to class structure and the system of gender and racial power relationships (Carroll & Noble, 2001). People barred or deterred from regular access to education in various ways have always been users of distance education technologies, starting with its inception as correspondence course education in the 19t h century and continuing today in high tech distance education classes with women comprising the majority of enrolled students (Hansen, 2001; Ossian, Christensen, & Rigby, 1968). The promise of distance education technologies in the 21s t century is for empowerment of students through democratization of knowledge, personalized pedagogy, and convenient access. Despite the promise and the current high enrollments in distance education courses, attrition rate is high in North America and Europe (Carr & Ledwith, 2000; Serwatka, 2005), and this is a concern to educators and social policy makers, who search for reasons to account for the discrepancy between promise and practice. While recognizing men students have high attrition in distance education courses, too, the fact is women comprise the majority of distance technology users. If educators and policy makers hope to use distance education technology to reach female students (and garner the interest of more male students as well), then issues of gender in distance education technology need to be addressed. A female gendered perspective on distance education technology reveals a number of variables that explain women’s disengagement and dissatisfaction with online educational delivery systems. Educators, secondary education institutions, and instructional software designers are some of the groups working to create and implement inclusive, constructivist, and rich multi-media instructional design (McLoughlin, 2001) that will accommodate a wide range of learner needs.

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