A second look at Egghe’s universal IR surface and a simple derivation of a complete set of universal IR evaluation points

Egghe’s three papers regarding the universal IR surface (2004, 2007, 2008) clearly represent an original and significant contribution to the IR evaluation literature. However, Egghe’s attempt to find a complete set of universal IR evaluation points (P,R,F,M) fell short of his goal: his universal IR surface equation did not suffice in and of itself, and his continuous extension argument was insufficient to find all the remaining points (quadruples). Egghe found only two extra universal IR evaluation points, (1,1,0,0) and (0,0,1,1), but it turns out that a total of 15 additional, valid, universal IR evaluation points exist. The gap first appeared in Egghe’s earliest paper and was carried into subsequent papers. The mathematical method used here for finding the additional universal IR evaluation points involves defining the relevance metrics P,R,F,M in terms of the Swets variables a,b,c,d. Then the maximum possible number of additional quadruples is deduced, and finally, all the invalid quadruples are eliminated so that only the valid, universal IR points remain. Six of these points may be interpreted as being continuous extensions of the universal IR surface, while the other nine points may be interpreted as being “off the universal IR surface.” This completely solves the problem of finding the maximum range possible of universal IR evaluation points.     

The History of Industrial Research Laboratories as a Resource for Teaching about Science-technology Relationships

The history of industrial research laboratories offers a good opportunity for studying the complex relationships between science and technology. A good insight of these relationships is relevant for shaping a good concept of science and technology in science education and technology education. In the article, three different interaction patterns are derived from the history of industrial research laboratories (in particular the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium), namely (1) science as an enabler for technology, (2) science as a forerunner of technology and (3) science as a knowledge resource for technology. In science education and technology education these insights can be used for historical projects and for a use in design-and-make projects.     

A fine-grained account of Prolog execution for teaching and debugging

A clear and consistent execution model of any programming language can lay the foundations not only for a good leaming experience, but also for a smoother design/edit/run/debug cycle. In this paper, we describe our attempt to construct precisely such a model for the logic programming language Prolog, based upon a notational extension of logic programming's traditional AND/OR trees. Our extension, called the AORTA diagram, is an And/OR Tree, Augmented to include invocation history status boxes at each node. This augmentation makes it possible to present a graphical view of Prolog execution which is very compact, yet which contains complete details of unification and control history, including multiple (backtracking) invocations and extra-logical features such as the cut. The paper describes our fine-grained view of Prolog execution in detail, and argues that this fine-grained view can readily be integrated into a coarse-grained model such as thatrequired for understanding the execution of very large programs. Indeed, our notation is already in use across a range of media, including textbook diagrams, video animations, and a graphical tracing and debugging facility running on modem graphics workstations.     

Brain Processes in Mothers and Nulliparous Women in Response to Cry in Different Situational Contexts: A Default Mode Network Study

SYNOPSIS

Objective: In everyday life, parents must respond to and interact with children while in different situational contexts. How situational contexts influence parents’ responses has not been systematically studied. Here we investigated mothers’ versus nonmothers’ neural responses to infant vocalizations in different situations with different task demands. Design: Using fMRI in 21 women (10 mothers), we explored the effects of being distracted by self-oriented (self-referential decisions about personality adjectives) versus goal-oriented (syllabic counting of personality adjectives) tasks while listening to infant cry in comparison with other emotional sounds (infant laughing, adult crying) on the activity of two medial nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN): the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Results: In the self-oriented task while listening to infant cry, both mothers and nulliparas showed (weak) activation of the DMN; this response likely reflects a shift of attention from the task to the cry. In the goal-oriented task, mothers, not nulliparas, showed (weak) activation of the DMN; this result is compatible with interference of emotional sounds while attending to a goal-oriented task, an activity that deactivates the DMN. Conclusions: Mothers are prone to process infant cry and emotional sounds and are less distracted from doing so by situational contexts, demonstrating their greater sensitivity to emotional sounds such as cry. By contrast, situational context influenced brain responses to infant sounds in nulliparas.     

Self-Cognition and Parental Brain

SYNOPSIS

A key feature of parenting is that it is observable starting from behaviors that are performed daily by adult caregivers during repeated interactions with the child. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research on parental brain should integrate settings that resemble ecologies of situations in which parents typically care for children. However, as our commentators point out, ecological settings in fMRI research are challenging and require a multiperspective approach that systematically considers psychological and behavioral complexities of “mommy brain” to better understand how contingent mental states of mothers articulate with specific multi-tasking situations.     

Subject index

Subject Index

Subject index     

Do Pictures Tell a Different Story? A multimodal frame analysis of the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict

Pictures play an ever-increasing role in the public’s understanding of mediated events. However, many studies show that visuals remain an understudied field, especially when it comes to multimodal approaches. This remains an important issue in today’s media environment, where visuals and their interaction with textual contents are becoming increasingly important carriers of meaning. The following paper presents results from a multimodal quantitative content analysis of the online coverage of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, wherein an innovative comparative approach to visual and textual frames was applied. We examine the existing frames, identify patterns of visual and textual frame co-occurrence and describe changes of the applied multimodal framing. Overall, a sample of 150 texts and 219 pictures was coded. The study shows that the applied visual and textual frames initially correspond with each other thematically. During the course of the conflict, however, the provided textual and visual framing divert increasingly. While the textual mode more or less upholds its original framing of the events, the visual level intensifies the framing strategy it has adopted since the escalation of the conflict began. As a result, textual coverage focuses more on negotiations and solutions, whereas images become increasingly graphic.     

Factitious Disorder by Proxy in Educational Settings: A Review

Factitious disorder by proxy (FDP), historically known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy, is a diagnosis applied to parents and other caregivers who intentionally feign, exaggerate, and/or induce illness or injury in a child to get attention from health professionals and others. A review of the recent literature and our experience as consultants indicate clearly that FDP has emerged in educational settings as well. Variants of educational FDP include parents of children with real or fabricated physical disabilities who request excessive or unneeded school health services and parents who request extensive education-related evaluations for children who do not demonstrate any educational need. If such cases continue to emerge, school districts will be asked to test more students who do not have disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Also, special educational directors will be weighing the cost of providing unneeded testing and educational services against the cost of defending themselves in litigation to prove that the testing and services are unnecessary. A table of guidelines is provided for school and other personnel confronted with repeated requests for unwarranted special education services. Suggestions for future research are included.