13251 research outputs found
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Intention or request: The impact of message structures
No full textThis paper investigates how different message structures impact communication strategy as well as sender and receiver behavior. Specifically, we focus on comparing communication games with messages stating an intention versus a request. Our experimental results show that when a game includes self-signaling or self-committing messages, the two message structures yield negligibly different results. However, when the messages of the game are neither self-signaling nor selfcommitting, we find that more subjects send messages suggesting cooperation with request than intention. Interestingly, subjects also deviate from their suggested actions more frequently with request than intention. We surmise lying aversion plays a prominent role in contributing to the differences in games where messages lack the self-committing property
Human Malleability and Liberalism in Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education
No full textLocke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education plays an important yet underappreciated role in resolving a classic debate in Locke scholarship. In An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke rejects essentialism, arguing that natural species, including “man,” do not exist. This position rests uneasily with the liberal conception of man that informs his political thought, and scholars have long debated whether and, if so, how Locke’s anti-essentialism and liberalism are related. While several proposals have been made, all must grapple with the fact that Locke’s principal discussions of politics and anti-essentialism occur in different texts. The Thoughts helps to address this difficulty, for under one cover Locke shows how a proxy for anti-essentialism—human malleability—is related to liberal ideas. There, he describes how to transform rather malleable children into modern English gentlemen, but he also indicates that nature does not mandate a liberal approach to the development of human nature. The Thoughts thus favors the view that Locke was a conventionalist about his political liberalism
Beyond the Light Effect: How Hydrologic and Geomorphologic Stream Features Control Microbial Distribution across Pool Sequences in a Temperate Headwater Stream
No full textMicrobial community composition varies across stream habitats. However, there is little understanding of how varying hydraulic and geomorphic factors influence microbial distribution along a succession of pools. This study examines how substrate, geomorphological and hydraulic habitat variables may drive bacterial community composition within different stream pool habitats of a temperate headwater stream. Microbial community structures from rock biofilm and sediment samples within each of the 10 selected stream pools of White Clay Creek, PA, were determined by high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The grain size distribution, organic matter content, streamflow velocity, temperature regime and morphology of each pool were quantified to characterize the pool habitats\u27 variability. Multivariate statistical analysis revealed significant differences in the microbial community composition linked to the substrate\u27s stability within the pool units. Indeed, soft and more mobile sediments were dominated by heterotrophic bacteria, while photosynthetic microorganisms (e.g., microalgae and cyanobacteria) were mainly found on rock biofilm. The difference in the distribution of bacterial communities can be explained by variations in the local hydraulic (i.e., depth and velocity) and the thermal conditions (daily fluctuation, min and max). These results highlight the geomorphological and hydrologic drivers for small-scale diversity in bacterial communities and provide a better understanding of how maintaining and promoting variability in streambed physical properties may enhance microbial diversity. Better integration of these drivers into stream restoration practices will allow the inclusion of microorganisms, the trophic levels that are usually overlooked but still play critical roles in stream ecology
Leveraging the power of Google Apps to support active learning in a synchronous online environment
No full textA significant challenge of pandemic teaching was creating active small group learning experiences in a synchronous online learning environment. Efforts to address this challenge led to an instructional process, using multiple Google Apps, that was not only effective in an online setting, but has the potential to improve seated small group learning, as well. In this article, a complete implementation of this process will be shared describing how multiple Google Apps (i.e. Forms, Sheets, Slides, Jamboard) were utilized to gather information about the current level of students’ understanding, engage groups in a learning activity to advance this understanding, provide immediate feedback as students worked through the activity, and equip the instructor and groups with tools to interact without disrupting small group dynamics
Do Your Students Know What They Don’t Know? An Accounting Competencies Strategy
No full textThis experiential learning strategy engages students to increase awareness of professional core competencies recommended by professional organizations. This activity allows students across the accounting curriculum to explore competencies to bridge the professional skills gap and develop a plan to acquire these necessary skills. The strategy activities include (1) initial class discussion; (2) personal SWOT analysis; (3) research of a professional competency framework; (4) personal assessment of competencies, including demonstrative examples, analysis of personal skill development experiences and self-rating of skills; (5) reflective group discussion to identify gaps in individual student\u27s skills assessment; (6) individual competency development plan for underrated skills; and (7) summary discussion of strategies for how to acquire/improve skills for career success. The result of this activity is that students are introduced to a process they can use throughout their academic and professional careers to facilitate the acquisition of necessary skills for success as an accounting professional
Embodying Black Feminist Epistemology to Make Green Grass Grow: The Transition From Administrator to Academic for a Black Woman in Student Affairs
No full textThis Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) builds on McCluskey-Titus and Cawthon’s (2004) use of the \u27grass is always greener on the other side of the fence\u27 metaphor to explore the experiences of a Black American woman faculty member transitioning from her role as a student affairs administrator to a full-time, tenure-earning faculty member. Specifically, I recount how my positionality as a Black feminist scholar-pracademic was essential in successfully navigating the administrator-to-academic transition from one predominantly white institution (PWI) to another. Derived from a deductive thematic analysis grounded in Collins’ (2000) Black feminist epistemology and relying on metaphors related to greener grass, I present several narratives that illuminate my experiences transitioning from administrator to academic and offer strategies that may be useful to Black women considering or in the midst similar transitions
Learning How to Learn from Digital Textbooks: Evidence-Informed Recommendations for Instructors and Students
No full textDigital textbooks have increased in popularity and are becoming a standard part of higher education. The digital textbooks of today are qualitatively different from the early days of converting print texts to pdfs for students to read. Currently, many digital textbooks are designed and developed in a digital environment allowing for the inclusion of interactive features to promote engagement and learning. Digital textbooks have the unique advantage of using technology to capitalize on evidence-informed principles from learning science to create a product that can improve learning outcomes. In this article, I draw on my experience as an author of a digital-first textbook, long-time instructor, and scholarship of teaching and learning researcher to discuss how students can successfully learn from digital textbooks. I explain how learning science is used to develop engaging, evidence-based textbooks and how students can take advantage of these features. Finally, I provide a set of guidelines for instructors with respect to the implementation and use of digital textbooks. When instructors and students use a digital textbook in a way consistent with how it was developed, the textbook can become an integral part of a successful cours
MAIDRL: Semi-centralized Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning using Agent Influence
No full textIn recent years, reinforcement learning algorithms, a subset of machine learning that focuses on solving problems through trial-and-error learning, have been used in the field of multi-agent systems to help the agents with interactions and cooperation on a variety of tasks. Given the enormous success of reinforcement learning in single-agent systems like Chess, Shogi, and Go, it is natural for the next step to be the expansion into multi-agent systems. However, controlling multiple agents simultaneously is extremely challenging, as the complexity increases tremendously with the number of agents in the system. Existing approaches in this regard use a wide range of centralized, decentralized, semi-centralized, and even hybrid centralized-decentralized state representation methodologies. In this thesis, I propose a novel semi-centralized deep reinforcement learning algorithm, MAIDRL, for multi-agent interaction in mixed cooperative and competitive multi-agent environments. Specifically, I design a robust DenseNet-style actor-critic structured deep neural network for controlling multiple agents based upon the combination of local observations and abstracted global information to compete with opponent agents. I extract common knowledge through influence maps considering both enemy and friendly agents for fine-grained unit positioning and decision-making in combat. Compared to the centralized method, my design promotes a thorough understanding of the potential influence that a unit has without the need for a complete view of the global state. In addition, this design enables multi-agent understanding of a subset of the global information relative to common goals, unlike fully decentralized methods. The proposed method has been evaluated on StarCraft Multi-Agent Challenge scenarios in a real-time strategy game, StarCraft II, and the results show that, statistically, the agents controlled by MAIDRL perform better than or as competitive as those controlled by centralized and decentralized methods
Elliptic curves and their Practical Applications
No full textFinding rational points that satisfy functions known as elliptic curves induces a finitely-generated abelian group. Such functions are powerful tools that were used to solve Fermat\u27s Last Theorem and are used in cryptography to send private keys over public systems. Elliptic curves are also useful in factoring and determining primality