Will virtual education initiatives succeed?

The use of information technology to enhance teaching and learning processes has been practiced for a number of years now. However, the rapid growth in the use of the Internet has led to a new dimension in interactive and collaborative learning anytime and anyplace dynamically. With the explosion of “virtual education initiatives”, the question of the feasibility and success criteria for such projects quickly arises. To address the question in an organized way, we propose a project assessment based on critical success factors. Hence, in this article, we draw on a widely recognized critical success factor framework. We (slightly) adjust the framework to fit the special characteristics of virtual education initiatives, and apply to one case study, namely the virtual education initiative at the Faculty of Business at the City University of Hong Kong. The results suggest that the past success of the case is due to the adherence to the large majority of critical success factors. However, it also outlines some areas of concern. The paper concludes with a discussion on the strength and limitations of virtual learning environment as well as future directions. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On restricted one-counter machines

Let be the class of real-time nondeterministic one-counter machines whose counters make at mostone reversal. Let ₁ (respectively, ₂) be the subclass consisting of machines whose only nondeterministic move is in the choice of when to reverse the counter (respectively, when to start using the counter). ₁ and ₂ are among the simplest known classes of machines for which the universe problem has been shown undecidable. (The universe problem for a class of machines is the problem of deciding if an arbitrary machine in the class accepts all its inputs.) Here, we show that the classes of languages accepted by machines in ₁ and ₂ are incomparable. Moreover, the union of the language classes is properly contained in the class defined by . We also, briefly, look at the closure properties of these machines.This research was supported in part by NSF Grant MCS78-01736.     

Impairment in long-term retention but not short-term performance on a water maze reversal task following hippocampal or mediodorsal striatal n-methyl-d-aspartate receptor blockade.

Male Long-Evans rats were injected with 32 ng/μl of the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist 3-(2-carboxypiperazin-4-yl) propyl-1-phosphonic acid (CPP) or vehicle and trained to locate a hidden platform in a different location (reversal training) than used on the initial 4 days of training. Rats treated with vehicle or CPP into the dorsal hippocampus, basolateral amygdala, or mediodorsal striatum had similar latencies to locate the platform on the reversal day. Rats infused with CPP into the dorsal hippocampus or mediodorsal striatum failed to search preferentially in the novel location during a 24-hr, drug-free retention test, whereas all other groups searched preferentially in this location. Therefore, blocking dorsal hippocampal or mediodorsal striatal NMDA receptors selectively blocked long-term spatial retention without producing short-term performance deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Piecewise H infinity: controller design of discrete time fuzzy systems.

This paper presents a new H infinity controller design method for the discrete time fuzzy systems based on the piecewise Lyapunov functions. The basic idea of the proposed approach is to construct the controller for the fuzzy systems in such a way that a discrete time piecewise Lyapunov function can be used to establish the global stability with H infinity-disturbance attenuation performance of the resulting close loop fuzzy control systems. It is shown that the control laws can be obtained by solving a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) that is numerically tractable with commercially available software. Numerical example is given to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed method.     

噪声对贝叶斯频谱估计精度的影响

研究了贝叶斯频谱估计的基本理论和基本方法 ,分别对无噪声和有噪声的简谐正弦信号进行了频谱估计。计算结果显示 :无噪声信号频率估计偏倚为零 ;当信号噪声系数S/N =1时 ,贝叶斯频率估计的偏倚与Jaynes的理论值一致     

Personality Organizations, Psychiatric Severity, and Self and Object Representations.

This study examined the hypothesis that psychotic, borderline, and neurotic personality organizations (POs) present a progressive differentiation between self and object representations and an increasing integration of their bad and good aspects. Fifty patients participated in the study. Measures included scales of self and object representations (S. J. Blatt, S. A. Bers, & C. E. Schaffer, 1993; S. J. Blatt, H. Wiseman, E. Prince-Gibson, & C. Gatt, 1991), as well as the Personality Organization Diagnostic Form (L. Diguer & L. Normandin, 1997) and estimations of psychiatric severity. Results showed that PO groups differed in terms of the integration of the object and its valence. It was also observed that although object and self representations were closely intertwined, the latter showed more discrimination between POs than the former. Psychiatric severity was shown to correlate more with object representations than self representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discriminative Stimulus, Reinforcing, Physical Dependence, and Antinociceptive Effects of Oxycodone in Mice, Rats, and Rhesus Monkeys.

Despite oxycodone's (4,5-epoxy-14-hydroxy-3-methoxy-17-methylmorphinan-6-one) history of clinical use and the attention it has received as a drug of abuse, few reports have documented its pharmacology's relevance to its abuse or its mechanism of action. The purposes of the present study were to further characterize the analgesic effects of oxycodone, its mechanism of action, and its effects in terms of its relevance to its abuse liability. The results indicate that oxycodone had potent antinociceptive effects in the mouse paraphenylquinone writhing, hot-plate, and tail-flick assays, in which it appeared to be acting as a μ-opioid receptor agonist. It generalized to the heroin discriminative stimulus and served as a positive reinforcer in rats and completely suppressed withdrawal signs in morphinedependent rhesus monkeys. These results suggest that the analgesic and abuse liability effects of oxycodone are likely mediated through μ-opioid receptors and provide the first laboratory report of its discriminative stimulus, reinforcing, and morphine cross-dependency effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

一种基于高斯混合模型的轨迹预测算法

在智能交通控制系统、军事数字化战场、辅助驾驶系统中,实时、精确、可靠的移动对象不确定性轨迹预测具有极高的应用价值.智能轨迹预测不仅可以提供精准的基于位置的服务,而且可以提前监测和预判交通状况,进而推荐最佳路线,已经成为移动对象数据库研究的热点,亟需设计准确而高效的位置预测方法.针对现有方法的不足,提出了基于高斯混合模型的轨迹预测方法GMTP,主要步骤包括:(1) 针对复杂运动模式利用高斯混合模型建模;(2) 利用高斯混合模型计算不同运动模式的概率分布,进而将轨迹数据划分为不同分量;(3) 利用高斯过程回归预测移动对象最可能的运动轨迹.GMTP是高斯非线性概率统计模型,其优势在于:计算结果不仅是位置预测值,更是关于移动对象未来所有可能运动轨迹的概率分布,可以利用概率统计分布特性获得某种运动模式(如匀加速运动)下的位置预测.大量真实轨迹数据集上的实验结果表明:与相同参数设置下的高斯回归预测和卡尔曼滤波预测法相比,GMTP的预测准确性平均提高了22.2%和23.8%,预测时间平均缩减了92.7%和95.9%.     

King oil: a speculative opinion

This speculative opinion is based on an apparent dream caused by Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. The account includes a comparison between arguments against the abolition of slavery and those against ending a fossil-fuel based economy in favor of sustainability through a green approach. Recent social disturbance in France shows that a carbon tax has not been persuasively advocated. But it should be clear that unchanged laissez-faire economics will produce disaster in light of the facts about global heating and climate change. This account is based on historical and contemporary quotations from American political figures from both the XIX and XXI centuries. The parallels raise fundamental issues of human rights.