Discusses how the radio button and its technological cousins, graying out and "incompletely filled out" check-box forms "not accepted," and the like, compromise ethics in the context of professional autonomy of faculty in the matter of grading. Three case studies are given, based on my personal experience as a professor and instructor. -/- The point generalizes to all contexts, however, and can be read to object to all such radio-button forms, from multiple-choice tests for students, to surveys, etc.

The successful early acquisition of reading literacy represents a crucial learning process determining the further course of academic development (Stanovich, 2009). During this process, interactions between children and their proximal social environment are of utmost importance. Therefore, we introduce a systemic framework for the development of learning potential (e.g., Mudrak et al., 2015, 2019, 2019b; Ziegler & Stoeger, 2017) and explore the interactions between the social and motivational processes associated with reading literacy development in school-age children. We base our analysis (...) on a representative Czech sample of fourth-grade pupils involved in the Progress in International Reading Literacy study (PIRLS, Martin et al., 2016). On the basis of the systemic framework, we hypothesized hierarchical relationships among family socioeconomic status, related developmental resources (including parental support, expectations, and reading resources), children’s reading motivation (including reading engagement and reading confidence), and manifested learning outcomes (including school grades and reading competence). We implemented three structural equation models to test the hypothesized relationships. The first model tested the direct effect of developmental resources on reading competence. The second model included the motivational variables as mediators between resources and competence. The third model included school grades as mediators between resources and motivational variables. Our analyses indicated the good fit of the proposed models. The final model explained 37.8 % of the variance in children’s school grades and 46.5 % of the variance in reading literacy test scores (compared to 34.8 % in the first model). Moreover, parental socioeconomic status was strongly associated with parental expectations, which were associated with reading confidence, partially through the effect of parental expectations on children’s school grades. Reading confidence was the main predictor of reading literacy within the model, followed by the direct effects of parental resources. The results illustrate complex processes through which the family environment affects the development of learning competencies such as reading literacy by providing children with the relevant social and material resources associated with their motivation and school outcomes. We discuss some of the reasons that these relationships may take place and consider their implications for educational practice. (shrink)

A detailed study of graded frame, graded fuzzy topological system and fuzzy topological space with graded inclusion is already done in our earlier paper. The notions of graded fuzzy topological sys...

The German end-of-life vehicle take-back system is described and analyzed in terms of its impact on the environment and the car companies involved. It is concluded that although this system is often cited as an example of a successful take-back scheme, it is not one that maximizes the value recovered from end-of-life vehicles. As a result, corporations do not achieve the potential benefits that can be realized from an alternate value chain based on recovering value from end-of-life products. (...) Neither is society benefiting from the potential reduction in pollution and from making its way of life more sustainable. Without bringing these potential benefits to all stakeholders, the system is not likely to have a future. (shrink)

This paper begins with a description of common grading practices at universities in the U.S., and analyzes the unfairness, injustice, and harm they produce. It then proposes a solution to these problems in the form of an alternative grading system: institutions should adopt a grading system that assesses students’ performance relative to the performance of their peers. That is, institutions should abolish the practice of attempting to assign grades that correspond to an absolute standard of (...) intrinsic merit. Instead, our evaluation should simply communicate how the quality of a student’s work compares to the work submitted by other students in the class. (shrink)

In recent years, much attention has been given to the puzzling relationship between tense and evidence type found in languages where a single morpheme appears to encode both reference to time and to the evidential source for the assertion. In natural language, _tense_ has long been understood as serving to locate the time at which the proposition expressed by the sentence holds. The two main theories of _evidentials_ both agree that these morphemes serve to identify the type of evidence the (...) speaker has for their assertion. In languages with evidential-tense morphology, these two categories of meaning are intertwined in ways that are unexpected given our understanding of both phenomena. Specifically, these evidential-tense morphemes appear to encode reference to a time that is linked to the situation in which the speaker gains evidence for their assertion. Two competing approaches have emerged in the literature as to whether these evidential-tense morphemes make crucial reference to the _time_ evidence was acquired (Lee 2013 ; Smirnova 2013 ) or to the _time and place_ of the speaker with respect to the event (Faller 2004 ; Chung 2007 ). This paper examines the temporal and evidential properties of the Mvskoke (or Creek) _graded_ past tense system and finds novel support for the view in which evidential-tenses encode _Evidence Acquisition Time_ (EAT). Mvskoke is shown to have three evidential-tenses which form part of its graded tense system, comprising recent, middle, and distant past. The main proposal is a formalization of EAT as a moment of belief-state change, i.e., the moment the speaker comes to believe the proposition. It is shown that Mvskoke’s evidential-tenses are compatible with a range of evidence types, and this distribution is explained through interactions with viewpoint aspect. (shrink)

Points-based grading, though now traditional, faces powerful critiques: Such grading creates a low road to passing, it undermines motivation, it wastes time, and it causes stress. It creates an illusion of mathematical precision. It is unfriendly to necessary conditions for satisfactory performance. This paper defends the alternative of specifications grading. Specifications grading grades only on whether work meets a set of expectations for satisfactory performance, with the expectations set at a high but reachable level. With a (...) high bar also comes opportunities to revise unsatisfactory work. I summarize arguments from the literature in support of the system, but I also give account of my two-year experiment in philosophy courses with specifications grading. Compared with points-based grading, specifications grading appears to motivate students better and helps them learn more. I consider objections from both traditionalists and so-called ‘ungraders.’ The former hope to secure the benefits of specifications grading while still keeping points. The latter favor eliminating grading altogether. (shrink)

Coherence is a key concept in many accounts of epistemic justification within ‘traditional’ analytic epistemology. Within formal epistemology, too, there is a substantial body of research on coherence measures. However, there has been surprisingly little interaction between the two bodies of literature. The reason is that the existing formal literature on coherence measure operates with a notion of belief system that is very different from—what we argue is—a natural Bayesian formalisation of the concept of belief system from traditional (...) epistemology. Therefore, formal epistemology has so far only been concerned with one particular—arguably not even very natural—way of formalising coherence of belief systems; it has by no means refuted the viability of coherentism. In contrast to the existing literature, we formalise belief systems as families of assignments of (conditional) degrees of belief (which may be compatible with several subjective probability measures). Within this framework, we propose a Bayesian formalisation of the thrust of BonJour’s coherence concept in The structure of empirical knowledge (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1985), using a combination of Bayesian confirmation theory and basic graph theory. In excursions, we introduce graded notions for both logical and probabilistic consistency of belief systems—the latter being based on certain geometrical structures induced by probabilistic belief systems. For illustration, we reconsider BonJour’s “ravens” challenge (op. cit., p. 95f.). Finally, potential objections to our proposed formal coherence notion are explored. (shrink)

Much recent work in sociobiology can be understood as designed to demonstrate the sufficiency of selection operating at lower levels of organization by the development of models at the level of the gene or the individual. Higher level units are accordingly viewed as artifacts of selection operating at lower levels. The adequacy of this latter form of argument is dependent upon issues of the complexity of the systems under consideration. A taxonomy is proposed elaborating a series of types, or grades, (...) of hierarchically organized systems. These range from aggregative systems, in which there is no organization relevant to systemic properties, through several graded variations reflecting various degrees of functional interdependence of components, to integrated systems, which manifest component specialization and diversification as well as a subordination of component function to systemic function. It is suggested that the most complex form of organization is plausibly treated as indicative of higher level units of selection. (shrink)

We study a modal system ¯T, that extends the classical (prepositional) modal system T and whose language is provided with modal operators M inn (nN) to be interpreted, in the usual kripkean semantics, as there are more than n accessible worlds such that.... We find reasonable axioms for ¯T and we prove for it completeness, compactness and decidability theorems.

Psychophysics and neuroscience demonstrate that different sensory systems interact and influence each other. Perceiving involves extensive cooperation and coordination among systems associated with sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Nonetheless, it remains unclear in what respects conscious perceptual awareness is multisensory. This paper distinguishes six differing varieties of multisensory awareness, explicates their consequences, and thereby elucidates the multisensory nature of perception. It argues on these grounds that perceptual awareness need not be exhausted by that which is associated with each of (...) the respective sensory modalities along with whatever accrues thanks to simple co-consciousness. (shrink)

The paper presents an infinite hierarchy PR m [ m = 1, 2, . . . ] of sound and complete axiomatic systems for modal logic with graded probabilistic modalities , which are to reflect what I have elsewhere called the Bolding-Ekelöf degrees of evidential strength as applied to the establishment of matters of fact in law-courts. Our present approach is seen to differ from earlier work by the author in that it treats the logic of these graded modalities not (...) only from a semantical or model-theoretic viewpoint but from a prooftheoretical and axiomatic stance as well. A paramount feature of the approach is its use of so-called systematic frame constants as labels of diverse grades of probability. Apart from this novel feature our approach can be seen to go back to pioneering work by Lou Goble in 1970. (shrink)

In this paper we consider a claim that in the natural world there is no fact of the matter about the spatio-temporal separation of events. In order to make sense of such a notion and construct useful models of the world, it is proposed to use elements of a non-classical logic. Specifically, we focus here on causality, as a concept tightly related with the assumption of there being distinct, separate events, proposing a model according to which it can be considered (...) to be spatio-temporally graded. It is outlined how this can be described using the formalism of fuzzy sets theory, with the degree of causality varying between 1, that is no separation between causes and effects, and 0, that is perfect separation between causes and their effects as in classical ’billiard balls’ models of physical systems, namely such based on the notion of ideal mathematical point. Our model posits that subjective moments of time are like fuzzy sets, with their extension determined by local degrees of causality, resulting from information integration processes extended gradually in space and time. This, we argue, is how a notion of causality could be, to a certain degree, spared and reconciled with a variant of Bergsonian duration theory as formulated in the theory of continuous change. Relation of the proposed viewpoint to other theories, as well as possible solutions it suggests to various problems, in particular the measurement problem, are also discussed. (shrink)

This book introduces the theory of graded consequence and its mathematical formulation. It also compares the notion of graded consequence with other notions of consequence in fuzzy logics, and discusses possible applications of the theory in approximate reasoning and decision-support systems. One of the main points where this book emphasizes on is that GCT maintains the distinction between the three different levels of languages of a logic, namely object language, metalanguage and metametalanguage, and thus avoids the problem of violation of (...) the principle of use and mention; it also shows, gathering evidences from existing fuzzy logics, that the problem of category mistake may arise as a result of not maintaining distinction between levels. (shrink)

In her book Specifications Grading, Linda B. Nilson advocates for a grading regimen she claims will save faculty time, increase student motivation, and improve the quality and rigor of student work. If she is right, there is a strong case for many faculty to adopt some version of the system she recommends. In this paper, we argue that she is mostly right and recommend that faculty move away from traditional grading. We begin by rehearsing the central (...) features of specifications grading and providing two examples of how to implement it in philosophy classes. In light of the examples, we argue that specifications grading fulfills two of Nilson’s central desiderata but not the third. Since specifications grading generates two benefits that when combined increase student learning, without adding or increasing burdens, we conclude that student learning increases when courses are revised to include aspects of specifications grading. (shrink)

WHO II low grade glioma evolves inevitably to anaplastic transformation. Magnetic resonance imaging is a good non-invasive way to watch it, by hemodynamic and metabolic modifications, thanks to multinuclear spectroscopy 1H/31P. In this work we study a multi-scale minimal model of hemodynamics and metabolism applied to the study of gliomas. This mathematical analysis leads us to a fast-slow system. The control of the position of the stationary point brings to the concept of domain of viability. Starting from this (...) class='Hi'>system, the equations bring to light the parameters that push glioma cells out of their domain of viability. Four fundamental factors are highlighted. The first two are cerebral blood flow and the rate of lactate transport through monocarboxylate transporters, which must be reduced in order to push glioma out of its domain of viability. Another factor is the intra arterial lactate, which must be increased. The last factor is pH, indeed a decrease of intra cellular pH could interfere with glioma growth. These reflections suggest that these four parameters could lead to new therapeutic strategies for the management of low grade gliomas. (shrink)

This article offers arefutation of the corrective justiceinterpretation of tort law – the view that itis essentially a system of corrective justice. It introduces a distinction between primary andsecondary tort duties and claims that tort lawis best understood as the union of its primaryand secondary duties. It then advances twoindependent criticisms of the correctivejustice interpretation. The article firstargues that primary tort duties have nothingfundamentally to do with corrective justice andthat, if one understands what is meant by``primary tort duties,'' one (...) is compelledto regard this fact as a decisive objection tothe corrective justice interpretation. Second,it argues that, whatever relation thereis between secondary tort duties and correctivejustice, that relation also holds betweencorrective justice and secondary duties ofother legal branches. In sum, the concept ofcorrective justice is neither capable ofunifying tort law nor of demarcating it fromother legal branches.The article also offers a general alternativeinterpretation of tort law. Rather thanbeing essentially corrective, tort law isessentially protective. Under this picture, iftort law has a most important point, it is theprotection of legal subjects and valuablesocial interests from harm. This is theoverarching ambition that unifies primary andsecondary tort duties. It does not, however,demarcate tort law from other legal branches. (shrink)

Learning social studies content is important for all students, including those with severe disabilities. However, there is a limited amount of research that specifically examines teaching social studies to this population of students. Therefore, educators must look to research-based practices in other academic areas (e.g., English language arts) to determine new strategies to teach this important content. Using a multiple probe across participants design, three fifth-grade students with severe disabilities were taught to answer comprehension questions during read-alouds of social studies (...) text using a modified system of least prompts and graphic organizer. Findings indicate all students improved on the correct number of comprehension questions answered independently. Implications for practice and ideas for future research to teach social studies to students with severe disabilities are discussed. (shrink)

I propose an account of indicative conditionals that combines features of minimal change semantics and information semantics. As in information semantics, conditionals are interpreted relative to an information state in accordance with the Ramsey test idea: “if p then q” is supported at a state s iff q is supported at the hypothetical state s[p] obtained by restricting s to the p-worlds. However, information states are not modeled as simple sets of worlds, but by means of a Lewisian system (...) of spheres. Worlds in the inner sphere are considered possible; worlds outside of it are ruled out, but to different degrees. In this way, even when a state supports “not p”, it is still possible to suppose p consistently. I argue that this account does better than its predecessors with respect to a set of desiderata concerning inferences with conditionals. In particular, it captures three important facts: that a conditional is logically independent from its antecedent; that a sequence of antecedents behaves like a single conjunctive antecedent ; and that conditionals restrict the quantification domain of epistemic modals. I also discuss two ways to construe the role of a premise, and propose a generalized notion of entailment that keeps the two apart. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak had a profound impact on many facets of society, particularly on the educational system. Therefore, all educational content must be delivered to students online, and it is the student’s responsibility to adjust to this new norm. Hence, this study sought to investigate if there is a significant relationship between self-efficacy and resilience among senior high school students. This study utilized correlational research, with the 150 grade 12 senior high school students enrolled in 2022-2023 as respondents. Thus, (...) the researchers employed General Self-Efficacy and Resilience Scale. Finally, the statistical analysis reveals that the r coefficient of 0.53 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, less than 0.05, leads to rejecting the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between self-efficacy and resilience among senior high school students. (shrink)

This essay juxtaposes the South Asian system of social hierarchies, conceptualized by Babasaheb Ambedkar as “graded inequality” with “serial relations” as conceptualized by Jean-Paul Sartre. Collective action against casteism faces internal problems. The complex psychological dynamics preserved over millennia through caste systems prevent solidarities across castes. The notion of “seriality” helps us to understand the material limitations placed by scripted functional roles on collective action. Internal divisions arising from prioritizing a caste or class perspective can be resolved with a (...) better understanding of how “exigencies of sociality” create an ambiguous unity. A key lesson from Sartre is that it is only through praxis that consciousness remains open to the attractions of solidarity. Cultural otherness disconnected from the materiality of class (or gender) is a distortion. Conceiving of classes as historically determined while ignoring caste-being makes any analysis of revolutionary action incomplete. Reading Ambedkar and Sartre together opens the way for a genuinely historical materialist account of collective action against graded inequality. (shrink)

A computational theory of consciousness should include a quantitative measure of consciousness, or MoC, that (i) would reveal to what extent a given system is conscious, (ii) would make it possible to compare not only different systems, but also the same system at different times, and (iii) would be graded, because so is consciousness. However, unless its design is properly constrained, such an MoC gives rise to what we call the boundary problem: an MoC that labels a (...) class='Hi'>system as conscious will do so for some – perhaps most – of its subsystems, as well as for irrelevantly extended systems (e.g., the original system augmented with physical appendages that contribute nothing to the properties supposedly supporting consciousness), and for aggregates of individually conscious systems (e.g., groups of people). This problem suggests that the properties that are being measured are epiphenomenal to consciousness, or else it implies a bizarre proliferation of minds. We propose that a solution to the boundary problem can be found by identifying properties that are intrinsic or systemic: properties that clearly differentiate between systems whose existence is a matter of fact, as opposed to those whose existence is a matter of interpretation (in the eye of the beholder). We argue that if a putative MoC can be shown to be systemic, this ipso facto resolves any associated boundary issues. As test cases, we analyze two recent theories of consciousness in light of our definitions: the Integrated Information Theory and the Geometric Theory of consciousness. (shrink)

In the decades to come, the authors expect growing pressures to reform current production systems to make them more compatible with the biosphere. A proactive approach to this pressure involves consideration of an alternate value chain based on a comprehensive engineering and marketing approach to recover value from end-of-life products. To estimate the potential advantages of the new value chain, the authors calculate the minimum throughput advantages and environmental advantages that can be realized from a comprehensive strategy of recovering value (...) from end-of-life products. The efforts of corporations and other organizations to make modern ways of life more environmentally sustainable are evaluated against this benchmark in terms of activities in the area of selling services, product take back, life cycle assessment, Responsible Care, voluntary emission reduction initiatives, and engineering and management education. It is concluded that in general, these efforts make only a minor contribution toward achieving. (shrink)

In this work we extend results from [4], [3] and [2] about propositional calculi with graded modalities to the predicative level. Our semantic is based on Kripke models with a single domain of interpretation for all the worlds. Therefore the axiomatic system will need a suitable generalization of the Barcan formula. We haven't considered semantics with world-relative domains because they don't present any new difficulties with respect to classical case. Our language will have, as in [1], constant and function (...) symbols, but they will have a rigid interpretation. In this instance the terms will be considered rigid designators, that is, their interpretations will be the same in all possible worlds (cfr. [5]). Nevertheless we will not consider languages with identity: in this way we avoid the problems of identity in modal contexts. On the other hand, we think that in that context would arise essentially the same problems which occur in classical predicative modal logic. Finally we will consider only denumerable languages because the extension to non denumerable ones isn't conceptually problematic. (shrink)

I assume that voters mark ballots exclusively to express their true preferences among parties, leaving aside any considerations about an election’s possible outcome. The paper then analyzes the resulting voting behavior. In particular, it studies how effective different voting systems such as plurality rule, approval voting, and range voting are in fostering high turnout rates of such expressive voters.

In recent years, our understanding of how tense systems vary across languages has been greatly advanced by formal semantic study of languages exhibiting fewer tense categories than the three commonly found in European languages. However, it has also often been reported that languages can sometimes distinguish more than three tenses. Such languages appear to have ‘graded tense’ systems, where the tense morphology serves to track how far into the past or future a reported event occurs. This paper presents a formal (...) semantic analysis of the tense-aspect system of Gĩkũyũ , a Northeastern Bantu language of Kenya. Like many languages of the Bantu family, Gĩkũyũ appears to exhibit a graded tense system, wherein four grades of past tense and three grades of future tense are distinguished. I argue that the prefixes traditionally labeled as ‘tenses’ in Gĩkũyũ exhibit important differences from tenses in languages like English. Although, like tenses in English, these ‘temporal remoteness prefixes’ in Gĩkũyũ introduce presuppositions regarding a temporal parameter of the clause, in Gĩkũyũ these presuppositions concern the ‘event time’ of the clause directly, rather than the ‘topic time’. Consequently, the key difference between Gĩkũyũ and languages like English lies not in how many tenses are distinguished, but in whether tense-like features are able to modify other, lower verbal functional projections in the clause. (shrink)

Recently, due to the rapid progress of computer technology, researchers develop an effective computer program to enhance the achievement of the student in learning process, which is Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Science is important because it influences most aspects of everyday life, including food, energy, medicine, leisure activities and more. So learning science subject at school is very useful, but the students face some problem in learning it. So we designed an ITS system to help them understand this (...) subject easily and smoothly by analyzing it and explaining it in a systematic way. In this paper, we describe the design of an Intelligent Tutoring System for teaching science for grade seven to help students know the 7 characteristics for living things smoothly. The system provides all topics of living things and generates some questions for each topic and the students should answer these questions correctly to move to the next level. In the result of an evaluation of the ITS, students like the system and they said that it is very useful for them and for their studies. (shrink)

One of the most difficult challenges of mature legal systems is the need to balance the conflicting demands of stability and flexibility. The demand for flexibility is at odds with the principle of impartiality, which is considered a cornerstone of the rule of law. In the present article, I explore the way in which the law copes with this dilemma by developing the idea of tolerance of incoherence. I argue that tolerance of incoherence emerges from the interplay between the inferential (...) and lexical-semantic rules that determine the meaning of legal speech acts. I base this argument on an inferential model of speech acts, which I develop through a discussion of graded speech acts, and on the idea that the use of speech acts is governed by multiple and potentially conflicting conventions. I show how this tolerance allows the law to resolve the tension between dynamism and traditionality, and discuss its sociological and moral implications. (shrink)

This study examined whether scaffolded lesson study might contribute to the emergence of a shared professional teaching knowledge culture among 4th grade social studies teachers. The study reports findings from a three-year lesson study professional development project that sought to develop professional teaching knowledge for problem-based historical inquiry among participating teachers. Participants included six 4th grade State History teachers from three different schools and three different school systems. Using qualitative data collected during three yearlong lesson study cycles, we present evidence (...) that suggests that lesson study can be used to develop a shared professional teaching knowledge culture among 4th grade social studies teachers. We suggest, however, that a combination of factors might contribute to variations in teachers' participation in that shared professional teaching knowledge culture including the degree to which the teachers embraced the public nature of lesson study. These factors include the teachers' idiosyncratic views of teaching and learning, the teachers' individual tolerance for socially constructing curricula, and the degree to which teachers acceded to cultural obstacles within elementary schooling. (shrink)

Ninety-two Japanese elementary school sixth-graders (46 boys and 46 girls; 11–12 years old) learned the quota system as part of gender equality education. We used a group performance implicit association test (Mori, Uchida, and Imada, 2008) to evaluate the lesson's effect by assessing the children's image of “woman” before and after the class. The results showed that the image of “woman” among boys improved significantly from neutral to positive through the lesson. We also found that girls’ implicit image of (...) “woman” was statistically higher than that of boys before learning, and was raised considerably after the class. (shrink)

This article presents a process account of some typicality effects and related similarity-dependent accuracy and response time phenomena that arise in the context of supervised concept acquisition. We describe Symbolic Concept Acquisition (SCA), a computational system that acquires and activates category prediction rules. In contrast to gradient representations, SCA performs by probing for prediction rules in a series of discrete steps. For learning new rules, it acquires general rules but then incrementally learns more specific ones. In describing SCA, we (...) emphasize its functionality in terms of accuracy and efficiency and motivate its design within the set of symbolic mechanisms and memory structures defined by the Soar architecture (Laird, Newell & Rosenbloom, 1987). For replicating human behavior, we first show how SCA exhibits some typicality effects in the course of learning responding faster and more accurately to more typical test examples. Then, using data from human experiments, we evaluate SCA's qualitative predictions on accuracy and response time on individual dataset instances. We show how SCA's predictions correlate with human data across three experimental conditions concerning the effect of instruction on learning strategy. (shrink)

The main aim of this study was to analyze the patterns of changes in Approximate Number Sense precision from grade 1 to grade 9 in a sample of Russian schoolchildren. To fulfill this aim, the data from a longitudinal study of two cohorts of children were used. The first cohort was assessed at grades 1–5, and the second cohort was assessed at grades 5–9. ANS precision was assessed by accuracy and reaction time in a non-symbolic comparison test. The patterns of (...) change were estimated via mixed-effect growth models. The results revealed that in the first cohort, the average accuracy increased from grade 1 to grade 5 following a non-linear pattern and that the rate of growth slowed after grade 3. The non-linear pattern of changes in the second cohort indicated that accuracy started to increase from grade 7 to grade 9, while there were no changes from grade 5 to grade 7. However, the RT in the non-symbolic comparison test decreased evenly from grade 1 to grade 7, and the rate of processing non-symbolic information tended to stabilize from grade 7 to grade 9. Moreover, the changes in the rate of processing non-symbolic information were not explained by the changes in general processing speed. The results also demonstrated that accuracy and RT were positively correlated across all grades. These results indicate that accuracy and the rate of non-symbolic processing reflect two different processes, namely, the maturation and development of a non-symbolic representation system. (shrink)

This paper describes an application of mastery learning to the teaching of philosophical writing—an approach I call “the Levels System.” In this paper, I explain the Levels System, how I integrate it into my course, and the pedagogical research supporting the principles of mastery learning on which it is built. I also compare the Levels System to Maryellen Weimer’s “menu approach,” Linda Nilson’s “specifications grading,” and Fred Keller’s “personalized system of instruction.” I argue that the (...) Levels System has many of the virtues of these other systems and some additional virtues of its own. (shrink)

In this paper a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) for determining the appropriate students major according to his/her preferences for sophomore student enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology in Al-Azhar University of Gaza was developed and tested. A set of predefined criterions that is taken into consideration before a sophomore student can select a major is outlined. Such criterion as high school score, score of subject such as Math I, Math II, Electrical Circuit I, and Electronics I taken (...) during the student freshman year, number of credits passed, student cumulative grade point average of freshman year, among others, were then used as input data to KBS. KBS was designed and developed using Simpler Level Five (SL5) Object expert system language. KBS was tested on three generation of sophomore students from the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology of the Al-Azhar University, Gaza. The results of the evaluation show that the KBS is able to correctly determine the appropriate students major without errors. (shrink)

It is often claimed (1) that levels of nature are related by supervenience, and (2) that processes occurring at particular levels of nature should be studied using dynamical systems theory. However, there has been little consideration of how these claims are related. To address the issue, I show how supervenience relations give rise to ‘supervenience functions’, and use these functions to show how dynamical systems at different levels are related to one another. I then use this analysis to describe a (...) graded approach to non-reductive physicalism, and to critically assess Davidson’s arguments for psychological anomaly. I also show how this approach can inform empirical research in cognitive science. (shrink)

Aldous Huxley’s _Brave New World_ contains and resembles a caste system found in Hindu society. While in Hindu society, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras comprise the caste system, in Huxley’s text, there are Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons. With regard to the stratified Hindu society, in _Annihilation of Caste_, Dr B.R. Ambedkar exposed the viciousness of the caste system and how it stabilized the privilege of those in power to the detriment of the rest. Hence, (...) with Ambedkar’s views regarding caste, the author of this article wishes to understand the caste system in Brave New World and how it is maintained. In other words, the purpose of this article is to investigate how the caste system, as seen in _Brave New World_, undermines individual reason and, with the fear of excommunication, absence of meaningful relationships, and love for one’s social privilege, maintains a system of graded inequality. (shrink)

Ecological Immunology assumes that immunological defenses must be minimized in terms of cost (energy expenditure). To reach this goal, a complex and still largely unexplored strategy has evolved to assure survival. From invertebrates to vertebrates, an integrated immune–neuroendocrine response appears to be crucial for the hierarchical redistribution of resources within the body according to the specific ecological demands. Thus, on the basis of experimental data on the intimate relationship between stress and immune responses that has been maintained during evolution, we (...) argue that a broader perspective based on the integration of immune and neuroendocrine responses should be adopted to describe the comprehensive strategy that the body utilizes to adapt to dynamic environmental conditions. We discuss the hypothesis that a bow‐tie architecture might be suitable to describe the variety of immune–neuroendocrine inputs that continuously target cells and organs while, at the same time, fulfilling the basic requirement of minimizing the cost of immune–neuroendocrine responses. Bow‐tie architectures are able to convert a variety of stimuli (fan in) into a wide range of fine‐tuned responses (fan out) by passing through the integrating activity of a core (knot) constituted by a limited number of elements. Finally, we argue that the ecologically negotiated immune–neuroendocrine strategies may have deleterious effects in the post‐reproductive period of life when, at least in humans, chronic, low‐grade, systemic inflammation develops, in accordance with the antagonistic pleiotropy theory of aging. BioEssays 30:868–874, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

While the study of implicit learning is nothing new, the field as a whole has come to embody — over the last decade or so — ongoing questioning about three of the most fundamental debates in the cognitive sciences: The nature of consciousness, the nature of mental representation (in particular the difficult issue of abstraction), and the role of experience in shaping the cognitive system. Our main goal in this chapter is to offer a framework that attempts to integrate (...) current thinking about these three issues in a way that specifically links consciousness with adaptation and learning. Our assumptions about this relationship are rooted in further assumptions about the nature of processing and of representation in cognitive systems. When considered together, we believe that these assumptions offer a new perspective on the relationships between conscious and unconscious processing and on the function of consciousness in cognitive systems. (shrink)

Based on applied linguistics, this study looked at the decision support system for emphasizing self-assurance in academic writing. From a generic perspective, academic writing has been considered both a process and a product. It has highlighted the planning composite processes, editing, composing, revising, and assessment, which depend upon the familiarity of someone with confidence in their capability for engagement in these activities. As a product, it has focused on the writing results through the product’s characteristics. These contain specific content (...) areas in acceptable depth and well-structured technical vocabulary. Higher education aims to support students in optimizing their potential for achieving satisfactory outcomes. For example, the assessment of grades involves academic writing, contributing to the degree course classification. Students have differences in many respects, such as expectations, background knowledge, and study and learning approaches. There were varying students’ beliefs about what academic writing is for evaluation. Modern-day motivations and theories highlight the significance of students’ confidence in their studies. The role of high confidence can support students to apply more effort toward setting challenging goals. Students may find it more difficult to succeed in higher education if they lack confidence in their academic writing abilities. A DSS has many applications in diverse areas and can play a significant role in the ranking and prioritization process. The current study has considered the DSS for prioritizing self-assurance in academic writing based on applied linguistics. Various criteria were considered for the evaluation of the research. The Super Decision software was used for the experimental process of the proposed research. The results of the study show the effectiveness of the proposed research. (shrink)

There are few examples in the literature of objective measures for the assessment of donor willingness. The author describes the scoring system in use at his own renal transplant unit which has brought objectivity to the process of determining the willingness of living related donors. In this system, a total score to determine the degree of willingness or unwillingness is calculated based on responses to a series of questions. The author believes that with minor modifications this system (...) could be implemented by transplant units in different countries and cultures to screen out donors who are acting under duress. (shrink)