Rethinking Construction: On Luciano Floridi’s ‘Against Digital Ontology’

In the fourteenth chapter of The Philosophy of Information, Luciano Floridi puts forth a criticism of ‘digital ontology’ as a step toward the articulation of an ‘informational structural realism’. Based on the claims made in the chapter, the present paper seeks to evaluate the distinctly Kantian scope of the chapter from a rather unconventional viewpoint: while in sympathy with the author’s doubts ‘against’ digital philosophy, we follow a different route. We turn our attention to the concept of construction as used in the book with the hope of raising some additional questions that might contribute to a better understanding of what is at stake in Floridi’s experimental epistemological response to digital ontology.     

Quantum Computation: From a Programmer’s Perspective

This paper is the second part of a series of two articles on quantum computation. If the first part was mostly concerned with the mathematical formalism, here we turn to the programmer’s perspective. We analyze the various existing models of quantum computation and the problem of the stability of quantum information. We discuss the needs and challenges for the design of a scalable quantum programming language. We then present two interesting approaches and examine their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we take a step back, and review the state of the research on the semantics of quantum computation, and how this can help in achieving some of the goals.     

Digital natives’ coping with loneliness: Facebook or face-to-face?

This study compares online self-disclosure through Facebook with offline self-disclosure through face-to-face interactions to understand when and why digital natives may prefer to resolve perceived loneliness by turning to the Internet. Survey data from adolescents indicate that digital natives who employ passive coping favor self-disclosure through Facebook, but natives who engage in active coping prefer face-to-face self-disclosures. Both routes, through active and passive coping, appear to mediate the relationship between loneliness and online/offline self-disclosures. Moreover, the relationship between loneliness and self-disclosure exhibits gender differences. This study extends insights into digital natives, sheds light on self-disclosures, and contributes to coping research.     

From Boltzmann to Euler: Hilbert’s 6th problem revisited

This article addresses the hydrodynamic limit of the Boltzmann equation, namely the compressible Euler equations of gas dynamics. An exact summation of the Chapman–Enskog expansion originally given by Gorban and Karlin is the key to the analysis. An appraisal of the role of viscosity and capillarity in the limiting process is then given where the analogy is drawn to the limit of the Korteweg–de Vries–Burgers equations as a small parameter tends to zero.     

The Continued Practice of ‘Ethos’: How Nissan Enables Organizational Knowledge Creation

This article examines knowledge creation in relation to improvements on the production line in the manufacturing department of Nissan Motor Company and aims to clarify embodied knowledge observed in the actions of organisational members who enable knowledge creation will be clarified. For that purpose, this study adopts an approach that adds a first, second, and third-person's viewpoint to the theory of knowledge creation (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995 Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. 1995. The Knowledge-creating Company, New York: Oxford University Press.  [Google Scholar]). Embodied knowledge, observed in the actions of organisational members who enable knowledge creation, is the continued practice of ‘ethos’ (in Greek) founded in Nissan Production Way as an ethical basis. Ethos is knowledge (intangible) assets for knowledge creating companies. Substantiated analysis classifies ethos into three categories: the individual, team and organisation. This indicates the precise actions of the organisational members in each category during the knowledge creation process. This research will be successful in its role of showing the indispensability of ethos—the new concept of knowledge assets, which enables knowledge creation—for future knowledge-based management in the knowledge society.     

From physical to digital: a case study of computer scientists’ behaviour in physical libraries

There has been substantial research on various aspects of peoples usage of physical libraries but relatively little on their interaction with individual library artefacts; that is: books, journals, and papers. We have studied peoples behaviour when working in physical libraries, focusing particularly on how they interact with these artefacts, how they evaluate them, and how they interact with librarians. This study provides a better understanding of how people interact with paper information, from which we can draw implications for some requirements of the design of digital libraries, while recognising that the term library is a metaphor when applied to electronic document collections. In particular, improved communication with other library users and with librarians could facilitate more rapid access to relevant information and support services, and structuring information presentation so that users can make rapid assessments of its relevance would improve the efficiency of many information searches.     

From geometrical figures to definitional Rigour: Teachers’ analysis of teaching units mediated through van Hiele's theory

Abstract:

The present study reports on curriculum design implemented in eight parallel classes of high school, with students aged 14–15, by means of work‐sheets dealing with properties of the principal plane geometric figures. Van Hiele's theory was used to facilitate teachers’ discussion of student performances on work‐sheets in order to enhance their didactical awareness. We hypothesize that van Hiele's theory is a proper means to provide encouragement and support for teachers in rethinking their teaching goals and practices. This environment enables teachers to manage their students’ transition from the perception of a figure to its definition. In this paper, we will recount a teachers’ discussion as it unfolded in a school‐university work group. The analysis of students’ work on work‐sheets interweaves with an analysis of the teaching actions that foster the process of understanding definitions.     

Efficient Parallel Transport of Deformations in Time Series of Images: From Schild’s to Pole Ladder

Group-wise analysis of time series of images requires to compare longitudinal evolutions of images observed on different subjects. In medical imaging, longitudinal anatomical changes can be modeled thanks to non-rigid registration of follow-up images. The comparison of longitudinal trajectories requires the transport (or “normalization”) of longitudinal deformations in a common reference frame. We previously proposed an effective computational scheme based on the Schild’s ladder for the parallel transport of diffeomorphic deformations parameterized by tangent velocity fields, based on the construction of a geodesic parallelogram on a manifold. Schild’s ladder may be however inefficient for transporting longitudinal deformations from image time series of multiple time points, in which the computation of the geodesic diagonals is required several times. We propose here a new algorithm, the pole ladder, in which one diagonal of the parallelogram is the baseline-to-reference frame geodesic. This drastically reduces the number of geodesics to compute. Moreover, differently from the Schild’s ladder, the pole ladder is symmetric with respect to the baseline-to-reference frame geodesic. From the theoretical point of view, we show that the pole ladder is rigorously equivalent to the Schild’s ladder when transporting along geodesics. From the practical point of view, we establish the computational advantages and demonstrate the effectiveness of this very simple method by comparing with standard methods of transport on simulated images with progressing brain atrophy. Finally, we illustrate its application to a clinical problem: the measurement of the longitudinal progression in Alzheimer’s disease. Results suggest that an important gain in sensitivity could be expected in group-wise comparisons.     

From briefing,through scenario,to debriefing: the maritime instructor’s work during simulator-based training

Simulator-based training in maritime education is an illustrative and paradigmatic example of how the introduction of high-end technologies creates new challenges for instructors: using simulators in educational settings for teaching skills that must be transferred to a professional work practice. This study draws on ethnographic fieldwork and video recordings of learning activities in a maritime navigation course to investigate the instructional challenges and opportunities for connecting general learning lessons to practical situations in different phases of simulator-based training. In particular, taking on a situated action approach, the research questions concern how the participants are orienting towards general instructions from the prospective briefing phase in the subsequent scenario and debriefing phases of training, considering how the social and material resources in the simulator environment organize the learning activities. The results show that connecting the general to the specifics of navigational situations is a continuous instructional achievement that is maintained throughout all stages of training, from briefing, through scenario, to debriefing. Hence, the results are stressing the importance for both in-scenario instructions and post-simulation debriefing in order to facilitate learning towards a profession. Moreover, the results emphasize how technologies in the simulator environment offer opportunities for instructors to continuously monitor, correct and assess the students’ activities towards the learning outcomes.     

The Role of Teachers’ Knowledge of Functions in Their Teaching: A Conceptual Approach With Illustrations From Two Cases

Abstract

We investigate whether and how personal mathematical knowledge at an advanced level impacts on teaching at a lower school level. We study this in the context of functions because understanding them permeates secondary and advanced mathematics. Textbook treatment of these can be patchy, implying a need for knowledgeable teachers to rectify weaknesses. A small observational study of two mathematically well-qualified teachers, teaching at a range of levels, leads to a deeper understanding of how their personal mathematical knowledge is manifested in their teaching. Finally, we present a theory of pedagogy combining dual development, intellectual necessity, and repeated experience of reasoning, for which these teachers’ practices provide illustrations.     

Analysis of Factors that Influence Customers’ Willingness to Leave Big Data Digital Footprints on Social Media: A Systematic Review of Literature

Big data has been discussed extensively in existing scholarly works but scant consideration is given to customers’ willingness to generate and leave big data digital footprints on social media, especially in the light of the profusely debated issue of privacy and security. The current paper endeavours to address this gap in the literature by developing a conceptual framework. In doing so, this paper conducts a systematic review of extant literature from 2002 to 2017 to identify and analyse the underlying factors that influence customers’ willingness to leave digital footprints on social media. The findings of this review reveal that personal behaviour (intrinsic psychological dispositions), technological factors (relative advantage and convenience), social influence (social interaction, social ties and social support) and privacy and security (risk, control and trust) are the key factors that influence customers’ willingness to generate and leave big data digital footprints on social media. The conceptual framework presented in this paper advances the scholarship of technology adoption and use and provides useful direction for future empirical research for both academics and practitioners.     

From Berman and Hafner’s teleological context to Baude and Sachs’ interpretive defaults: an ontological challenge for the next decades of AI and Law

This paper revisits the challenge of Berman and Hafner’s “missing link” paper on representing teleological structure in case-based legal reasoning. It is noted that this was mainly an ontological challenge to represent some of what made legal reasoning distinctive, which was given less attention than factual similarity in the dominant AI and Law paradigm, deriving from HYPO. The response to their paper is noted and briefly evaluated. A parallel is drawn to a new challenge to provide deep structure to the legal context of textual meaning, drawing on the forthcoming work of two Constitutional law scholars who appear to place some faith in the ways of thinking that AI and Law has developed.     

From human-centred to human-context centred approach: looking back over ‘the hills’, what has been gained and lost?

The cornerstone of the human-centred tradition lies in two notions: socially useful production and human machine symbiosis. However, only the latter became in focus in the successive user-centred design approaches. The paper makes a critical ‘flash-back’ to various human centred design approaches since the 1970s. In addition, it explores the sustainability challenges facing the current situation and suggests that ‘human-centredness’ should be extended to ‘human-context centred’ approach in order to recognize the challenges of the sustainability. Finally, the paper discuss the possibilities to develop and use narrative and modelling simulation methods including both qualitative and quantitative tools in a combined approach to meet the challenges of sustainable development within such a human-context centred approach.