Choice responding following multiple schedule training

Pigeons’ choice responding on 10-sec interpolated probes was studied after baseline training on multiple variable-interval variable-interval schedules of food reinforcement. Unreinforced choice following training with three different relative reinforcement rates (Experiment 1), with a 3-ply multiple schedule (Experiment 2), and with three different relative reinforcement durations (Experiment 3) was examined. Least squares lines were fit to choice relative response rate and schedule relative response rate as functions of training relative reinforcement rate; choice slope was significantly greater than schedule slope in all three experiments. This result is counter to the prediction of Herrnstein’s (1970) theory that these slopes should not differ. Luce’s (1959) theory also failed to account for the data. It was concluded that choice responding was controlled by both approach to the stimulus associated with the smaller mean interreinforcer interval or the longer duration, and avoidance of the other stimulus.     

Imagination and the Cognitive Tools of Place-Making

In environmental and ecological education, a rich literature builds on the premise that place, the local natural context in which one lives, can be an emotionally engaging context for learning and the source of life-long concern for nature. A theory of imaginative education can help uncover new tools and strategies for place-based educators. Conversely, a focus on the imaginative dimensions of place-making sheds new light on the nature of imaginative development, with important implications for educational theory and practice.     

Among the contributors

Historical Sketch of the Salem Lyceum. With a List of the Officers and Lecturers Since its Formation in 1830 and an extract from the Address of Gen. Henry K. Oliver. Salem, Mass., 1879; 74 pp.

The Well‐Bred Scholar, or Practical Essays on the Best Methods of Improving The Taste, and Assisting The Exertions of Youth in Their Literary Pursuits. William Milns. London, 1794; 559 pp.

Literary Essays. By William G. T. Shedd. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878; pp. 365.

The Art of Reading. By A. Crocker. Bath, 1782.

The Groundwork of Science. By St. George Mivart, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898; pp. 328.     

Confronting Physical Activity Programming Barriers for People with Disabilities: The Empowerment Model

Community-based physical activity programs for people with disabilities have barriers that are unique to their program leader qualifications and the population they serve. Moran and Block (2010) argued that there is a need for practical strategies that are easy for communities to implement, maximize resources, and minimize the impact of barriers on each individual. The purpose of this article was to build upon the work of Moran and Block by identifying and systematically addressing barriers to physical activity for people with disabilities in ways that target their sources of self-efficacy. The Empowerment Model is introduced, along with its multi-tiered empowerment continuum of training, support, and programming strands. The goal of the tiered empowerment continuum is to progressively move populations to more independent levels of training, support, and programming.     

Finding similar questions in collaborative question answering archives: toward bootstrapping-based equivalent pattern learning

Many questions submitted to Collaborative Question Answering (CQA) sites have similar questions answered before. We propose a precise approach of automatically finding an answer to such questions by automatically identifying “equivalent” questions submitted and answered, in the past. Our method is based on automatically generating equivalent question patterns by grouping together questions that have previously obtained the same answers. The generated patterns are used as seed patterns to match more questions to extract large number of equivalent patterns by a new bootstrapping-based learning method. The resulting patterns can be applied to match a new question to an equivalent one that has already been answered, and thus suggest potential answers automatically. We experimented with this approach over a large collection of more than 200,000 real questions drawn from the Yahoo! Answers archive, automatically acquiring over 16,991 groups of equivalent question patterns. These patterns allow our method to obtain over 57% recall and over 54% precision on suggesting an answer automatically to new questions, significantly improving over baseline methods.     

Science and mathematics Advanced Placement exams: Growth and achievement over time

Rapid growth of Advanced Placement (AP) exams in the last 2 decades has been paralleled by national enthusiasm to promote availability and rigor of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Trends were examined in STEM AP to evaluate and compare growth and achievement. Analysis included individual STEM subjects and disaggregation by ethnicity. Analysis indicates growth in STEM AP was extraordinary but was slightly outmatched by non-AP subjects. Moreover, growth in STEM AP has been most pronounced among underrepresented minorities, even though their achievement has slightly declined. Interestingly, the proportion of students scoring at the lowest level grew steadily for all students from 1997 to 2010, yet this proportion was substantially less for Asian and White students compared to underrepresented minorities. Finally, it was found that achievement in most high-participation STEM subjects slightly decreased from 1998 to 2013, while achievement held steady or slightly increased in lower participation STEM AP subjects.     

Coordinating a Large,Amalgamated REU Program with Multiple Funding Sources

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the challenges of organizing a large REU program amalgamated from multiple funding sources, including diverse participants, mentors, and research projects. We detail the program’s structure, activities, and recruitment, and we hope to demonstrate that the organization of this REU is not only beneficial to its participants, but that these ideas can be adapted to the benefit of participants at other REU sites, regardless of the size or structure of the site.     

Acute short-term sleep deprivation does not affect metacognitive monitoring captured by confidence ratings: a systematic literature review

This article presents the results of a systematic review of the literature surrounding the effects that acute sleep deprivation has on metacognitive monitoring. Metacognitive monitoring refers to the ability to accurately assess one’s own performance and state of knowledge. The mechanism behind this assessment is captured by subjective feelings of confidence concerning the accuracy of our judgments or performance. These judgments influence decision behavior. How well these subjective feelings fit with reality is critical for good decision making. For example, a driver who is overconfident in their ability to remain vigilant after a night without sleep is at risk of having an accident. A learner who is overconfident in their ability to perform well on an exam without sleep is at risk of failing. A break down in metacognitive monitoring might be responsible for the increase in poor decision making observed when people are sleep deprived. Using defined search terms and exclusion criteria, electronic database searches identified ten empirical studies suitable for review. Participants in these studies completed performance-based tasks, typically cognitive, while remaining awake for 28–63 hours. In all studies, metacognitive monitoring was assessed via confidence ratings either pre-, on-, or post-task. Extended wakefulness had a significant negative effect on performance in most studies. Evidencing good monitoring, however, the monitoring estimates such as confidence also tended to decline. Moreover, two critical variables that assess the fit of these estimates to actual performance (bias and discrimination) were mostly unaffected by the number of hours awake. Still, some results indicated that these variables may be affected by substances intended to fight sleep deprivation, such as modafinil. Within the limitations of extant literature (e.g., a sampling bias towards young adult male participants), empirical observations to date converge to suggest that metacognitive monitoring remains largely unaffected by the examined quantities of acute sleep deprivation (up to 63 hours).     

Word Spotting in Bitmapped Fax Documents

Images and signals may be represented by forms invariant to time shifts, spatial shifts, frequency shifts, and scale changes. Advances in time-frequency analysis and scale transform techniques have made this possible. However, factors such as noise contamination and style differences complicate this. An example is found in text, where letters and words may vary in size and position. Examples of complicating variations include the font used, corruption during facsimile (fax) transmission, and printer characteristics. The solution advanced in this paper is to cast the desired invariants into separate subspaces for each extraneous factor or group of factors. The first goal is to have minimal overlap between these subspaces and the second goal is to be able to identify each subspace accurately. Concepts borrowed from high-resolution spectral analysis, but adapted uniquely to this problem have been found to be useful in this context. Once the pertinent subspace is identified, the recognition of a particular invariant form within this subspace is relatively simple using well-known singular value decomposition (SVD) techniques. The basic elements of the approach can be applied to a variety of pattern recognition problems. The specific application covered in this paper is word spotting in bitmapped fax documents.