4242 research outputs found
Sort by
Crossing Boundaries: VET, the Labour Market and Social Justice
Get PDFPurpose: The paper explores the relationship between vocational education and training (VET), the labour market and social justice in the current conjuncture. Approach: The paper adopts an approach rooted in critical policy analysis. It consequently sets the discussion within the wider socio-economic and political context. Such an approach enables an exploration of the changing nature of waged labour in current conditions. Results: A critical policy analysis facilitates a discussion of the labour process, waged labour and its intensification. At the same time these processes are allied to the effective expulsion and marginalisation of particular groups of workers from employment. Importantly, such processes need to be placed in their localised and spatial context within particular social formations. Conclusion: Equity models of social justice that emphasise equal opportunities, are restrictive and can be contrasted with equality models which have a more expansive and philosophically rooted understanding of justice. The paper through its examination of the salience of VET in the current conjuncture as well as its significance for a post austerity democratic and radical politics, argues for a relational analysis that seeks to interrupt the patterns of inequality precipitated by neo-liberalism
Regularity of Aperiodic Subshifts and Connections to Intermediate beta-Transformations
Get PDFAt the turn of this century Durand, Lagarias and Pleasants established that key features of minimal subshifts to be studied are linearly repetitive, repulsive and power free. In this thesis, we introduce generalisations and extensions of these features and establish a basic theory. Further, we study these new notions in the context of Sturmian subshifts and a family of aperiodic minimal subshifts stemming from Grigorchuk's infinite 2-group. In the second part, we study sequences of intermediate beta-transformations. Especially, we answer the question of how a sequence of corresponding normalised Parry measures converges as beta goes to one and we connect this convergence to Sturmian subshifts and the famous Thue-Morse sequence
Staying in the Loop: Formal Feedback Mechanisms Connecting Vocational Training to the World of Work in Europe
Get PDFContext: Vocational education and training (VET) is expected to be designed for creating learning outcomes which meet the needs for skills and competences in the labour market. Hence, identifying current and upcoming skill requirements and ensuring that these requirements are incorporated into education has long been the subject of academic and policy discussion. Governance processes keeping VET systems up-to-date have been more recently addressed as feedback mechanisms'. The term broadly summarizes the interplay of institutions, actors and processes which allows the continuous renewal of VET provision (i.e. by creating new qualifications or updating curricula). The aim of the paper is to enhance the understanding of cross-national variations in formally institutionalised feedback mechanisms' between VET and the labour market. Method: The research builds on a comparative analysis of case studies in 15 European countries. The paper presents examples for four different formal feedback mechanisms' in Germany, France, England, and Austria. Results: Four main types of formal mechanism have been identified: 1) The liberal model explained by VET in England and Higher VET in Austria; 2) The statist model explained by school-based VET in Austria; 3) the participatory model explained by VET in France and 4) the coordinated model explained by apprenticeship training in Germany and Austria. Conclusions: Existing approaches in the economic sociology of labour markets, the varieties of capitalism approach as well as comparative research on welfare states are useful in predicting whether particular VET systems are likely to be predominant. However, they do not provide an alternative in describing differences in VET systems which the concept of formal feedback mechanism does. Moreover, by analysing formal feedback mechanisms, it is possible to demarcate where a VET sub-system ends and another VET sub-systems begins. In this sense research presented here also asks for new standards for comparative VET research as it suggests that entities to be compared are not countries' overall VET systems, but their potential sub-systems
An Ethnoludography of the Game Design Industry in Kathmandu, Nepal
No full textWhat counts as the field site when researching Nepali video game developers? Concentrating on the company Arcube Games and Animation, in the summer of 2017 I used the ethnoludographic method to research game development in the Kathmandu Valley. I recorded my findings in field notes, photographs, written documents and other material culture. My usual ethnographic method developed in two ways. First, I engaged in ludography, a humanistic qualitative method for interpreting gaming. Second, Nepal proved not to be an isolated location, but rather a vortex of global flows. I found that in the Kathmandu valley these flows are often focused on a fantasy of Shangri-La that poses Nepal as an underdeveloped traditional nation, full of picturesque poverty, and over-determined with religious culture, but blessed with beautiful Himalayan landscapes
Bericht über die erste Phase der wissenschaftlichen Begleitforschung 2014-2017 im PRIMUS-Schulversuch zum längeren gemeinsamen Lernen in Primar- und Sekundarstufe
No full textDer Schulversuch PRIMUS ist ein ambitioniertes bildungspolitisches und schulpädagogisches Vorhaben. Er kann eine Sonderstellung für sich in der gegenwärtigen bundesrepublikanischen Schullandschaft beanspruchen. Denn im Schulversuch PRIMUS werden wie in kaum einer anderen staatlichen Maßnahme auf konsequente Weise äußere schulstrukturelle Veränderungen mit solchen einer weitreichenden inneren Schulreform verbunden. Damit unterscheidet sich PRIMUS von anderen bildungspolitischen Reformvorhaben zur Veränderung der Schulstruktur in verschiedenen Bundesländern. In den meisten Bundesländern werden neue Schulformen zur Förderung des längeren gemeinsamen Lernens in der Regel nur für die Sekundarstufe eingerichtet (Idel et al. 2016; Liegmann 2016; Wittek 2014; Zymek 2013; Tillmann 2012). Schulen vom Typus der Langform existieren im Bereich staatlicher Schulen in Hamburg und Berlin sowie in Baden-Württemberg. Diese Schulformen sind aber nicht in der Konsequenz einer äußeren und inneren Integration von Primar- und Sekundarstufe zu einer organisatorischen und pädagogisch-konzeptionellen Einheit angelegt, wie sie in den PrimusSchulen realisiert wird. Der vorliegende Bericht über die erste Phase . der wissenschaftlichen Begleitforschung des Schulversuchs ist als qualitative Prozessanalyse angelegt. Er bezieht sich auf einen Beobachtungszeitraum, der von den - durch retrospektive Datenerhebungen erfassten - Vorgeschichten um die Initialisierung und Errichtung des Schulversuchs an den fünf Standorten ( ca. 2011- 2013) bis zum.Beginn des Schuljahres 2017/18 reicht
New Concepts for Virtual Testbeds : Data Mining Algorithms for Blackbox Optimization based on Wait-Free Concurrency and Generative Simulation
Get PDFVirtual testbeds have emerged as a key technology for improving and streamlining complex engineering processes by delivering long-term simulation and assessment of complex designs in virtual environments. In contrast to existing simulation technology, virtual testbeds focus on long-term physically-based simulation of the overall design in its (virtual) environment instead of only focussing on isolated, specific parts for short periods of time. This technology has the major advantage that costly testing, prototyping, and assessment in real-life environments are replaced by a cost-efficient simulation in virtual worlds for comprehensive and long-term analysis of designs. For this purpose, engineering models and their requirements are abstracted into software simulation models and objectives which are executed in virtual assessments. Simulation models are used to predict complex, real systems which can be further a subject to random influences. These predictions are used to examine the effects of individual configuration alternatives without actually realizing them and causing possible negative effects on the real system. Virtual testbeds further offer engineers the opportunity to immersively and naturally interact with their simulation model in these virtual assessments. This enables a greater and comprehensive understanding of possible design flaws early-on in the design process for engineers because they can directly assess their design in the virtual environment, based on the simulation objectives. The fact that virtual testbeds enable these realtime interactive virtual assessments, makes their underlying software infrastructure very complex. One major challenge is to minimize the development time of virtual testbeds in order to efficiently integrate them into the overall engineering process. Usually, this can be achieved by minimizing the underlying concurrency of the testbed and by simplifying its software architecture. However, this may result in a degradation of their very concurrent and asynchronous behavior, which is usually required for immersive and natural virtual interaction. A major goal of virtual testbeds in the engineering process is to find a set of optimal configurations of the simulation model which maximizes all simulation objectives for the specified virtual assessments. Once such a set has been computed, engineers can interactively explore it in the virtual environment. The main challenge is that sophisticated simulation models and their configuration are subject to a multiobjective optimization problem, which usually can not be solved manually by engineers or simulation analysts in feasible time. This is further aggravated because the relationships between simulation model configurations and simulation objectives are mostly unknown, leading to what is known as blackbox simulations. In this thesis, I propose novel data mining algorithms for computing Pareto optimal simulation model configurations, based on an approximation of the feasible design space, for deterministic and stochastic blackbox simulations in virtual testbeds for achieving above stated goal. These novel data mining algorithms lead to an automatic knowledge discovery process that does not need any supervision for its data analysis and assessment for multiobjective optimization problems of simulation model configurations. This achieves the previously stated goal of computing optimal configurations of simulation models for long-term simulations and assessments. Furthermore, I propose two complementary solutions for efficiently integrating massively-parallel virtual testbeds into engineering processes. First, I propose a novel multiversion wait-free data and concurrency management based on hash maps. These wait-free hash maps do not require any standard locking mechanisms and enable low-latency data generation, management and distribution for massively-parallel applications. Second, I propose novel concepts for efficiently code generating above wait-free data and concurrency management for arbitrary massively-parallel simulation applications of virtual testbeds. My generative simulation concept combines a state-of-the-art realtime interactive system design pattern for high maintainability with template code generation based on domain specific modelling. This concept is able to generate massively-parallel simulations and, at the same time, model checks its internal dataflow for possible interface errors. These generative concept overcomes the challenge of efficiently integrating virtual testbeds into engineering processes. These contributions enable for the first time a powerful collaboration between simulation, optimization, visualization and data analysis for novel virtual testbed applications but also overcome and achieve the presented challenges and goals
Werkzeuge zur Unterstützung des Betriebs von Offshore-Windparks : Einzelbericht - Entscheidungshilfe zur strategischen Planung der Instandhaltung
No full textZiel des Projektvorhabens KrOW! - Kosten- und risikogesteuerter Betrieb von Offshore-Windparks ist es, die Prozessorganisation der strategischen und operativen Betriebsführung von Offshore-Windparks durch Entscheidungsunterstützungen zu verbessern. Hierfür wurden verschiedene Werkzeuge zur Unterstützung des Betriebspersonals und der strategischen Ausrichtung des Betriebsführungskonzeptes entwickelt, die in Einzelberichten oder als Gesamtbericht (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-00107084-14) abgerufen werden können. Entscheidungshilfe zur strategischen Planung der Instandhaltung - Entwicklung und Implementierung eines Software Tools zur datengestützten Evaluierung von Instandhaltungsstrategiealternativen bezüglich der Kenngrößen Verfügbarkeit , Fehlerhäufigkeit und Kostenrate . Hierbei wurden folgende Alternativen untersucht: Die rein korrektive Erneuerung (Run To Fail), die prophylaktische Erneuerung bei Erreichen eines bestimmten Alters respektive kalendarischen Zeitpunktes sowie die zustandsabhängige Erneuerung
Werkzeuge zur Unterstützung des Betriebs von Offshore-Windparks : Einzelbericht - Risikoanalyse zur Aufdeckung von Prozessschwachstellen
No full textZiel des Projektvorhabens KrOW! - Kosten- und risikogesteuerter Betrieb von Offshore-Windparks ist es, die Prozessorganisation der strategischen und operativen Betriebsführung von Offshore-Windparks durch Entscheidungsunterstützungen zu verbessern. Hierfür wurden verschiedene Werkzeuge zur Unterstützung des Betriebspersonals und der strategischen Ausrichtung des Betriebsführungskonzeptes entwickelt, die in Einzelberichten oder als Gesamtbericht (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-00107084-14) abgerufen werden können. Risikoanalyse zur Aufdeckung von Prozessschwachstellen - Beschreibung des Funktionsmusters (Auswertemöglichkeiten, Eingaben) - Zu Grunde liegende Datenban
Evolution and physiology of the Paracatenula symbiosis
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on the symbiosis between the marine flatworm host Paracatenula, which lacks mouth and digestive system, and the alphaproteobacterial symbiont Candidatus Riegeria. Both host and symbiont are unique partners across all known symbioses - no other flatworm besides Paracatenula hosts chemosynthetic symbionts, and Ca. Riegeria is the only known chemosynthetic symbiont within the Alphaproteobacteria. Contained in specialized cells within the trophosome of Paracatenula, the Ca. Riegeria symbionts can comprise up to a half of the total host volume, representing the highest ratio of symbiont-to-host biomass among animal-bacteria symbioses. Ca. Riegeria have been transmitted vertically between host generations for at least 500 million years, leading to the presumption that their genomes contain signatures of reductive genome evolution. Yet only little is known about the genetic repertoire of Ca. Riegeria, their ecophysiology and how reductive genome evolution progressed over their evolutionary history. I have characterized key aspects of the Paracatenula symbiosis emphasizing the physiology of Ca. Riegeria and how it compares to typical gammaproteobacterial chemoautotrophs (I). I described the consequences of reductive genome evolution on retained functions and the underlying processes (II). I investigated the role of the symbionts in tissue regeneration as Paracatenula have an enormous regenerative capacity (III). Overall, I demonstrate that Paracatenula and Ca. Riegeria share an intimate biological connection that has been shaped over their long evolutionary history
Longterm Generalized Actions for Smart, Autonomous Robot Agents
Get PDFCreating intelligent artificial systems, and in particular robots, that improve themselves just like humans do is one of the most ambitious goals in robotics and machine learning. The concept of robot experience exists for some time now, but has up to now not fully found its way into autonomous robots. This thesis is devoted to both, analyzing the underlying requirements for enabling robot learning from experience and actually implementing it on real robot hardware. For effective robot learning from experience I present and discuss three main requirements: (a ) Clearly expressing what a robot should do, on a vague, abstract level I introduce Generalized Plans as a means to express the intention rather than the actual action sequence of a task, removing as much task specific knowledge as possible. (a ) Defining, collecting, and analyzing robot experiences to enable robots to improve I present Episodic Memories as a container for all collected robot experiences for any arbitrary task and create sophisticated action (effect) prediction models from them, allowing robots to make better decisions. (a ) Properly abstracting from reality and dealing with failures in the domain they occurred in I propose failure handling strategies, a failure taxonomy extensible through experience, and discuss the relationship between symbolic/discrete and subsymbolic/continuous systems in terms of robot plans interacting with real world sensors and actuators. I concentrate on the domain of human-scale robot activities, specifically on doing household chores. Tasks in this domain offer many repeating patterns and are ideal candidates for abstracting, encapsulating, and modularizing robot plans into a more general form. This way, very similar plan structures are transformed into parameters that change the behavior of the robot while performing the task, making the plans more flexible. While performing tasks, robots encounter the same or similar situations over and over again. Albeit humans are able to benefit from this and improve at what they do, robots in general lack this ability. This thesis presents techniques for collecting and making robot experiences accessible to robots and outside observers alike, answering high level questions such as What are good spots to stand at for grasping objects from the fridge? or Which objects are especially difficult to grasp with two hands while they are in the oven? . By structuring and tapping into a robot's memory, it can make more informed decisions that are not based on manually encoded information, but self-improved behavior. To this end, I present several experience-based approaches to improve a robot's autonomous decisions, such as parameter choices, during execution time. Robots that interact with the real world are bound to deal with unexpected events and must properly react to failures of any kind of action. I present an extensible failure model that suits the structure of Generalized Plans and Episodic Memories and make clear how each module should deal with their own failures rather than directly handing them up to a governing cognitive architecture. In addition, I make a distinction between discrete parametrizations of Generalized Plans and continuous low level components, and how to translate between the two