Mediating Power: Distance Learning Interfaces, Classroom Epistemology, and the Gaze

Distance learning's interfaces—from corresponding through the postal service to the televised talking head—have traditionally been designed from the top down, supporting banking models of learning or, in writing instruction, current-traditional rhetoric pedagogies. Due to temporal and spatial constraints, these interface designs often support (or encourage) one-way communication from the instructor to the student. Students mostly interact with the instructor by asking questions or submitting work, and they tend to have little correspondence with other peers. These methods clearly privilege the instructor's knowledge and evaluation. Furthermore, these interface designs empower the instructor to gaze upon the students and assess them—often not as a corporeal body but as a corpus of texts. Thus, each interface adopted for distance learning sets up a power dynamic in which the capability to share the roles of creating knowledge is juxtaposed with the instructor's capability to normalize the students and reify their own authority through their gaze. In this article we examine the traditional classroom interface through the correspondence course interface, the simulated classroom interface, and the synchronous video interface to raise questions about the infrastructures of distance learning and their implications for student learning.     

Variations for the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Q</Emphasis>- and <Emphasis Type="Italic">H</Emphasis>-factors in the polar decomposition

In this paper, the variations of both subunitary polar factors and Hermitian positive semidefinite polar factors in the polar decomposition are studied. New perturbation bounds of both polar factors are given without the restriction that A and its perturbed matrix à have the same rank. These improve recent results.     

New results in 2D optimal control theory

The infinite horizon optimal control problem is solved for 2D systems described by the Fornasini-Marchesini model. An ₂-approach permits us to reduce the optimal control problem to a norm minimization one in Hilbert spaces. Both necessary and sufficient conditions for solvability and the structure of the solution are established. Moreover, a comparison with known results is presented, and the singularities of the 2D Riccati equation are examined in order to characterize suboptimal control laws that apply whenever the solvability conditions are not satisfied.     

Rational wavelet decompositions of transfer functions in hardy-sobolev classes

The model approximation of transfer functions using rational wavelets (or molecular decompositions) is considered. By using techniques from Hardy-Sobolev spaces it is shown that Hilbert space methods such as a modified matching-pursuit algorithm and least-squares technique can be employed to obtain good approximations in bothH ² andH norms. Several theoretical results are given on rates of convergence when the methods are applied to delay systems and fractional filters.The research of the first author was supported by E.P.S.R.C.     

结合l1/2范数与显著性约束的背景减除

传统背景减除模型在背景静止和前景对象移动较快时提取到的前景效果较好,但当背景变化或前景对象移动缓慢时容易将动态背景误判为前景或检测出的前景有较多空洞。针对传统背景减除模型在动态背景和前景对象移动缓慢条件下存在前景检测精度下降的问题,提出一种基于l_1/2范数与显著性约束的背景减除模型。将观测数据分为低秩背景、运动前景和动态干扰3类,利用l_1/2范数约束运动前景加强前景稀疏性,有效抑制动态背景对前景提取造成的干扰,提高运动前景在动态背景中的检测精度。引入视频每一帧的显著性约束,通过对每一帧图像进行低秩稀疏分解来检测移动缓慢的目标。实验结果表明,该模型对于复杂场景具有较强的适应能力,可有效去除动态背景对前景的干扰,快速检测出移动缓慢的前景对象,相比于l_1/1/2-RPCA背景减除模型的平均查全率、查准率和调和平均值分别提升了9、14和10个百分点。     

Computer-assisted techniques to enhance transformative learning in first-year literature courses

When students use computers as learning tools, the whole process of learning, and, indeed, the learners themselves, are transformed. This article illustrates some techniques that foster transformative learning in computer-assisted first-year literature classes: first, a lesson plan on A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning that uses Microsoft Word functions, including format painter, tables, and annotation to explore meaning in context; second, a plan for learners to use subconference options in the Daedalus Interactive Writing Environment to analyze Oedipus Rex; finally, a demonstration of how students engage in a meta-reflection process as they explore Barn Burning with Freelance Graphics.Marguerite Jamieson is an English instructor at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland, and a doctoral student at George Mason University. Her research interests include forming bridges between adult learning theory and contemporary literary theory — especially drawing on transformational learning theory and the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Lev Vygotsky.Rebecca Kajs holds a doctorate in English from Texas Woman's University with a concentration in rhetoric. For ten years, she taught the use of heuristic tools for reading analysis at the University of Texas at Arlington. She is currently an associate professor of English and Philosophy at Anne Arundel Community College.Anne Agee holds a doctorate in rhetoric from The Catholic University of America. A professor of English and formerly director of the Humanities Computer Center at Anne Arundel Community College, she is currently the college's Coordinator of Instructional Technology. Dr. Agee and Professor Jamieson have collaborated in a study of the learning environment in a computer classroom, the results of which were published in the Fall 1995 issue of Teaching/Learning Conversations. Dr. Agee has also published Using [Daedalus] InterChange as a Teachers' Journal in the Fall 1995 issue of Wings.     

t-Norm based cuts of intuitionistic fuzzy sets

We consider the system of intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IF-sets) in a universe X and study the cuts of an IF-set. Suppose a left continuous triangular norm is given. The t-norm based cut (level set) of an IF-set is defined in a way that binds the membership and nonmembership functions via the triangular norm. This is an extension of usual cuts of IF-sets. We show that the system of these cuts fulfils analogical properties as usual systems of cuts. However, it is not possible to reconstruct an IF-set from the system of t-norm based cuts.     

基于最小平方误差逼近的线性阀体的设计

针对线性阀体的内孔筒设计问题,建立了一个以过流面积和其逼近直线之间的平方误差最小为目标的泛函优化模型.     

Energy optimal spacecraft attitude control subject to convergence rate constraints

Attitude control of operational satellites is still predominantly performed by standard controllers such as Proportional plus Derivative (PD) control laws, which are still preferred for implementation to the computationally intensive nonlinear optimal control techniques, representing higher implementation complexity. In this paper, an inverse optimal control approach based on phase space geometry is presented, which is easy to implement and free from numerical and computational issues. The optimal control objective is to minimize a norm of the control torque subject to a rapidity constraint on the convergence rate of a Lyapunov function, under the effect of a benchmark controller. The proposed optimization method is shown to significantly enhance the torque-rapidity trade-off compared to the benchmark controller, chosen to be a PD law then a sliding mode controller. The inverse optimal control scheme is implemented on an air bearing table experimental platform.     

Back to the Future: An Historical Perspective on the Pendulum-Like Changes in Literacy

This article focuses on the pendulum-like change in the way people read and use text, which was triggered by the introduction of new reading and writing technologies in human history. The paper argues that textual features, which characterized the ancient pre-print writing culture, disappeared with the establishment of the modern-day print culture and has been “revived” in the digital post-modern era. This claim is based on the analysis of four cases which demonstrate this textual-pendulum swing: (1) The swing from concrete iconic-graphic representation of letters and words in the ancient alphabet to abstract phonetic representation of text in modern eras, and from written abstract computer commands “back” to the concrete iconic representation in graphic user interfaces of the digital era; (2) The swing from scroll reading in the pre-print era to page or book reading in the print era and “back” to scroll reading in the digital era; (3) The swing from a low level of authorship in the pre-print era to a strong authorship perception in the print era, and “back” to a low degree of authorship in the digital era; (4) The swing from synchronic representation of text in both visual and audio formats during the pre-print era to a visual representation only in print, and “back” to a synchronic representation in many environments of the digital era. We suggest that the print culture, which is usually considered the natural and preferred textual environment, should be regarded as the exception.