241 research outputs found
The construction of Karen Karnak: The multi-author-function
No full textThis thesis is situated within the comparatively recent developments of Web 2.0 and the emergence of interactive WikiMedia, and explores the mode of authorship within a Read/Write culture compared to that of a Read/Only tradition. The hypothesis of this study is that the role of the audience has become merged with the author, and as such, represents new functions and attributes, distinct from a more conventional concept of authorship, in which the roles of audience and author are more separate. Read/Write and participatory culture, as defined by this study, is focused on collaboration, and includes the influences of D.I.Y. culture, Open-Source practices and the production of text by multiple authors. Multi-authorship presents a re-thinking of several concepts which support the notion of the individual author, since the focus of multi-authorship is not on attribution and ownership of a finished text, but on the continued malleability of a text. Modes of multi-authorship, demonstrated in the use of the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and Karen Eliot, represent declarative authors whose names signify multiple origins, whilst concurrently indicating a distinct body of work. The function of these names form an important context to this study, since primary research involves the construction of an experimental mode of multi-authorship utilising WikiMedia technology and the interaction of thirty nine participants, who are invited to create a body of work under the collective pseudonym Karen Karnak. The data generated by this experiment is analysed using aspects of Michel Foucault's author-function to identify and determine power structures inherent in the WikiMedia context. The interplay of power structures, including concepts such as identity, ownership and the body of work, affect the resulting mode of authorship and contribute to the construction of Karen Karnak, suggesting further areas of research into the emerging multi-author
Correction to: Choose and stay on one out of two paths: distinction between clinical versus research genetic testing to identify cancer predisposition syndromes among patients with cancer.
No full textFollowing publication of the original article, the author name D Gareth Evans has been processed incorrectly as DGareth Evans.</p
Academic information management: an open linking approach
No full textThis paper describes a Web based document management system developed as a Lotus Domino application and the continuing research work of providing users with a variety of link services and agents that enhance the basic content of the system. The system is designed for use by administration personnel in an academic environment taking into account the wide variety of systems and methods already in use. Users do not need to know how to author Web pages as the source material for the system are files produced by common word processors. The system features a number of management tools to complement this concept written into the Domino application. The document management system is complemented by the use of an open linking service to dynamically cross-reference the documents
Gradgrinding the Social Sciences: The Politics of Metrics of Political Science
No full textCopyright @ 2009 The AuthorThis article employs an interpretive approach, and in the light of contributions to this symposium by Butler and McAllister, and McLean et al., holds that metrics of research ‘quality’ are socially constructed and hence are as ‘subjective’ as peer review. Thus it rejects the use of stand-alone metrics as an ‘objective’ basis to inform funding allocations. Rather, the optimum method of ‘quality’ assessment is a panel-based exercise with expert judgement informed by a range of discipline-sensitive metrics and peer review of publications. The article maintains that the politics of metrics of political science conceals interests about the foundations of social scientific knowledge, and so the dispute over metrics and peer review is a metaphor for the conflicting epistemological preferences of UK political scientists. It is also argued that metrics-led assessment subjects political science to ‘Gradgrinding’ on two fronts: that political science departments amount to less than the sum of their parts, and the audit culture strips the discipline of its humanism
"Thank me therefore": Social Prestige, Probity and Self-determination of Nymue's character in Malory's "Le Morte Darthur"
No full textCanadian 24-Hour movement guidelines for children and youth: An integration of physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep
No full textLeaders from the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology convened representatives of national organizations, content experts, methodologists, stakeholders, and end-users who followed rigorous and transparent guideline development procedures to create the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for Children and Youth: An Integration of Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Sleep. These novel guidelines for children and youth aged 5–17 years respect the natural and intuitive integration of movement behaviours across the whole day (24-h period). The development process was guided by the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument and systematic reviews of evidence informing the guidelines were assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. Four systematic reviews (physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep, integrated behaviours) examining the relationships between and among movement behaviours and several health indicators were completed and interpreted by expert consensus. Complementary compositional analyses were performed using Canadian Health Measures Survey data to examine the relationships between movement behaviours and health indicators. A stakeholder survey was employed (n = 590) and 28 focus groups/stakeholder interviews (n = 104) were completed to gather feedback on draft guidelines. Following an introductory preamble, the guidelines provide evidence-informed recommendations for a healthy day (24 h), comprising a combination of sleep, sedentary behaviours, light-, moderate-, and vigorous-intensity physical activity. Proactive dissemination, promotion, implementation, and evaluation plans have been prepared in an effort to optimize uptake and activation of the new guidelines. Future research should consider the integrated relationships among movement behaviours, and similar integrated guidelines for other age groups should be developed
High-dimensional scaling limits of piecewise deterministic sampling algorithms
No full textPiecewise deterministic Markov processes are an important new tool in the design of Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms. Two examples of fundamental importance are the bouncy particle sampler (BPS) and the zig–zag process (ZZ). In this paper scaling limits for both algorithms are determined. Here the dimensionality of the space tends towards infinity and the target distribution is the multivariate standard normal distribution. For several quantities of interest (angular momentum, first coordinate and negative log-density) the scaling limits show qualitatively very different and rich behaviour. Based on these scaling limits the performance of the two algorithms in high dimensions can be compared. Although for angular momentum both processes require only a computational effort of O(d) to obtain approximately independent samples, the computational effort for negative log-density and first coordinate differ: for these BPS requires O(d2) computational effort whereas ZZ requires O(d). Finally we provide a criterion for the choice of the refreshment rate of BPS.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Statistic
A self-conscious Kurt Vonnegut: an analysis of Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions
No full textThe works of Kurt Vonnegut stand as seminal in the American literary canon. Looking at three of his most influential novels, namely Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions, this study aims to better understand the mechanisms which inform his fiction. Working chronologically through the novels, the study examines historical context, narrative technique, theoretical underpinnings and the social critique of each novel. Guided by an idea of the postmodern novel the study examines how these elements interact, concluding that by way of what may be considered "simple" yet self-conscious metafiction and prose as well as variations in narrative technique, Vonnegut is able to more accurately convey his opinions on the American situation as well as demonstrate his stance on the role of fiction and the writer in contemporary society. The study also considers closely the role of the reader and the author/reader/text relationship
An Agent Based Approach To Finding Expertise In The Engineering Design Environment
No full textDuring the engineering design process people need to locate colleagues with knowledge to resolve a problem. As identified by discussions with practicing designers the use of computer based systems that assist users with finding such expertise will become increasingly important. In this paper we discuss the development of an agent based Expertise Finder suitable for use within an engineering design environment. A key feature of our approach is that the Expertise Finder returns both recommended contacts and supporting documentation. The Expertise Finder bases its results on information held within the organisation, for example publications, human resource records, and not on personally compiled CVs or user maintained records. The recommendations are presented to the user with due regard to the social context. The technology used in the exemplar application allows the development of distributed, interchangeable agents that use real time data to find expertise
A piecewise deterministic scaling limit of lifted Metropolis-Hastings in the Curie-Weiss model
No full textIn Turitsyn, Chertkov and Vucelja [Phys. D 240 (2011) 410-414] a nonreversible Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method on an augmented state space was introduced, here referred to as Lifted Metropolis-Hastings (LMH). A scaling limit of the magnetization process in the Curie-Weiss model is derived for LMH, as well as for Metropolis-Hastings (MH). The required jump rate in the high (supercritical) temperature regime equals n1/2 for LMH, which should be compared to n for MH. At the critical temperature, the required jump rate equals n3/4 for LMH and n3/2 for MH, in agreement with experimental results of Turitsyn, Chertkov and Vucelja (2011). The scaling limit of LMH turns out to be a nonreversible piecewise deterministic exponentially ergodic "zig-zag" Markov process.Statistic
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