Swapping documents and terms

Experiments were conducted to explore the impact of combining various components of eight leading information retrieval systems. Each system demonstrated improved effectiveness through the use of blind feedback, also known as pseudo-relevance feedback, a form of query expansion. Blind feedback uses the results of a preliminary retrieval step to augment the efficacy of a secondary retrieval step. The hybrid combination of primary and secondary retrieval steps from different systems in a number of cases yielded better effectiveness than either of the constituent systems alone. This positive combining effect was observed when entire documents were passed between the two retrieval steps, but not when only the expansion terms were passed. Several combinations of primary and secondary retrieval steps were fused using the CombMNZ algorithm; all yielded significant effectiveness improvement over the individual systems, with the best yielding an improvement of 13% (p = 10⁻⁶) over the best individual system and an improvement of 4% (p = 10⁻⁵) over a simple fusion of the eight systems.     

‘The learning sticks’: reflections on a case study of role-playing for sustainability

Use of role-plays to develop deep student-learning has many advocates. Role-play is a powerful approach for learning that develops relevant skills in a range of disciplines and situations. In Higher Education, sustainability programmes role-play pedagogy appears to have great relevance for developing the competencies that these graduates will need. The ability of role-play pedagogy to develop these competencies was assessed through a case study of students in a first-year subject/course at an Australian university. Analysis of the students’ written comments indicate that the students were involved in significant learning, and had made substantial progress in developing five key skills for sustainability. The enjoyment and engagement they demonstrated was an added benefit of their experience and potentially of the role-play approach. While it is acknowledged that a role-play requires careful planning and support, and may be considered resource intensive, it can be argued that the student learning achieved is worth the effort.     

A Theory of Practice: Hermeneutical Understanding

Arguments about learning commonly toss the buck back and forth between theory and practice, the pure and applied, the objective and subjective. Most such arguments have tried to find a reliable technical method to explain how we learn. Hermeneutics, with its roots both in sixteenth century theory of linguistic interpretation and modem phenomenological approaches to meaning, denies the claims of method ‐ rationalist or empiricist. It proposes instead to clarify the conditions in which practical understanding can take place. Unlike other approaches to learning, hermeneutics makes human language the core. It is in language that what I call in this paper the four major quadrants of understanding are realised. First, understanding is structured historically in the traditions, prejudices and institutional practices that come down to us. Secondly, understanding depends upon trying to find the unity in all the conditions that pertain to learning, in reconciling the whole with its parts. Third, hermeneutics reconceptualises the nature of practical application to emphasise the constitutive part played by individuals in modifying what is learned, such that to understand is to change as a person. Finally, understanding arises not from a solipsistic encounter between learner and material; it takes the form of a dialogue between a student and all those “others” who constitute the world of learning. In sum, both “cognitive” and “student‐centred” approaches to learning are transcended and fused in a wider horizon of understanding.     

Genetic influence on tonic immobility in chickens

Production Red chickens were selectively bred on the basis of having shown prolonged or brief immobility reactions at 21 days of age. After only one generation, there was sufficient separation between offspring to conclude that tonic immobility has an unusually large heritability component. Results were discussed in terms of their implications for an evolutionary model of animal hypnosis.     

Women in Art: The Last Taboo

The intention of this paper is to explore traditions and current trends in art with particular reference to the depiction of female experiences such as pregnancy, abortion, birth and motherhood. The inclusion and exclusion of such images in art history over time and across societies reflects prevailing attitudes, whilst affirming various stereotypical and gendered constructions developed and sustained within those societies. These constructions in turn relate to criteria defined by class, access to education and notions of femininity. Work by artists which feature aspects of these experiences (particularly childbirth), is considered taboo by many in a Western society which continues to render the essentially female experience as private, invisible and stigmitised and confuses the natural with the sexual. The work of undergraduate art students, inspired by the artwork of women artists who make explicit or are influenced by essentially female experiences, is discussed and attempts made to connect their work to the issues outlined.