On the Shapley value and its application to the Italian VQR research assessment exercise

Research assessment exercises have now become common evaluation tools in a number of countries. These exercises have the goal of guiding merit-based public funds allocation, stimulating improvement of research productivity through competition and assessing the impact of adopted research support policies. One case in point is Italy's most recent research assessment effort, VQR 2011–2014 (Research Quality Evaluation), which, in addition to research institutions, also evaluated university departments, and individuals in some cases (i.e., recently hired research staff and members of PhD committees). However, the way an institution's score was divided, according to VQR rules, between its constituent departments or its staff members does not enjoy many desirable properties well known from coalitional game theory (e.g., budget balance, fairness, marginality). We propose, instead, an alternative score division rule that is based on the notion of Shapley value, a well known solution concept in coalitional game theory, which enjoys the desirable properties mentioned above. For a significant test case (namely, Sapienza University of Rome, the largest university in Italy), we present a detailed comparison of the scores obtained, for substructures and individuals, by applying the official VQR rules, with those resulting from Shapley value computations. We show that there are significant differences in the resulting scores, making room for improvements in the allocation rules used in research assessment exercises.     

Authorship analysis of specialized vs diversified research output

The present work investigates the relations between amplitude and type of collaboration (intramural, extramural domestic or international) and output of specialized versus diversified research. By specialized or diversified research, we mean within or beyond the author’s dominant research topic. The field of observation is the scientific production over five years from about 23,500 academics. The analyses are conducted at the aggregate and disciplinary level. The results lead to the conclusion that in general, the output of diversified research is no more frequently the fruit of collaboration than is specialized research. At the level of the particular collaboration types, international collaborations weakly underlie the specialized kind of research output; on the contrary, extramural domestic and intramural collaborations are weakly associated with diversified research. While the weakness of association remains, exceptions are observed at the level of the individual disciplines.     

Novel model reference adaptive control laws for improved transient dynamics and guaranteed saturation constraints

In classical model reference adaptive control (MRAC), the adaptive rates must be tuned to meet multiple competing objectives. Large adaptive rates guarantee rapid convergence of the trajectory tracking error to zero. However, large adaptive rates may also induce saturation of the actuators and excessive overshoots of the closed-loop system’s trajectory tracking error. Conversely, low adaptive rates may produce unsatisfactory trajectory tracking performances. To overcome these limitations, in the classical MRAC framework, the adaptive rates must be tuned through an iterative process. Alternative approaches require to modify the plant’s reference model or the reference command input. This paper presents the first MRAC laws for nonlinear dynamical systems affected by matched and parametric uncertainties that constrain both the closed-loop system’s trajectory tracking error and the control input at all times within user-defined bounds, and enforce a user-defined rate of convergence on the trajectory tracking error. By applying the proposed MRAC laws, the adaptive rates can be set arbitrarily large and both the plant’s reference model and the reference command input can be chosen arbitrarily. The user-defined rate of convergence of the closed-loop plant’s trajectory is enforced by introducing a user-defined auxiliary reference model, which converges to the trajectory tracking error obtained by applying the classical MRAC laws before its transient dynamics has decayed, and steering the trajectory tracking error to the auxiliary reference model at a rate of convergence that is higher than the rate of convergence of the plant’s reference model. The ability of the proposed MRAC laws to prescribe the performance of the closed-loop system’s trajectory tracking error and control input is guaranteed by barrier Lyapunov functions. Numerical simulations illustrate both the applicability of our theoretical results and their effectiveness compared to other techniques such as prescribed performance control, which allows to constrain both the rate of convergence and the maximum overshoot on the trajectory tracking error of uncertain systems.     

Chinese Culture Year Celebrated in Australia

During Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang’s official visit to Australia in October 2009, Chinese and Australian leaderships reached a consensus of hosting cultural years in each other’s country. From June 2010 to June 2011, "Experience Australia"—the Year of Australian Culture was successfully held in China. From June 2011 to June 2012, "Experience China"—the Year of Chinese Culture (YCCiA) is celebrated in Australia, featuring nearly 100 cultural events ranging from performing arts projects to visual art exhibitions to film festivals.     

Euro-Asia Economic Forum Highlights Public Cultural Service

Public cultural ser vice has gained increasing attention worldwide in recent years. It has become ever y government’s top priority to build a well-developed public cultural service system, provide diverse cultural products and promote cultural consumption by the public. In one-day disccusions of the Cultural Session, participants shared each other’s experience in public cultural service, in particular, concepts and practices of Xi’an City. Participants reached a consensus of increasing exchanges and cooperation in the sector of public culture in the future.     

新时代背景下的数学类专业新理科人才培养协同系统构建研究

该文在新时代背景下,基于系统论、控制论、协同论的视角,探讨聚焦如何培养数学类专业新理科人才。结合大数据、人工智能、5G等新技术、新业态、新变革,分别从人才培养方案、课程体系、师资队伍建设、实践环节等方面,探寻新时代背景下数学与应用数学、信息与计算科学、金融数学等与数据科学和大数据技术专业人才培养协同机制,努力构建数学类新理科专业人才培养协同系统。     

长沙市民间自办公共阅读空间发展研究——以雨花区“和+共享图书馆”为例

[目的/意义] 针对"和+共享图书馆"的建设现状进行分析,反映长沙市民间自办公共阅读空间的一般性问题,为长沙市民间自办公共阅读空间可持续发展提出优化建议。[方法/过程] 通过现场观察、问卷调查、访谈法等方法对"和+共享图书馆"建设现状和特点进行剖析,认为存在专业人员短缺、空间利用率偏低、营销形式单一等问题。[结果/结论] 提出优化建议包括：构建运营管理机制;加强专业人员培养;增强公共阅读空间服务的可及性和丰富服务营销形式等,以促进长沙市民办公共阅读空间的良性发展。     

A Study on Human-Computer Interaction Mechanism in an Intelligent Tutoring System

Discussion is a common and important learning process. Involvement of a virtual agent can provide adaptive support for the discussion process. Argumentative knowledge construction is beneficial to learners’ acquisition of knowledge,but the effectiveness of argumentative scaffolding in existing studies is not consistent. Based on an intelligent discussion system, a total of 47 undergraduate students took part in the experiment and they were assigned to three different conditions: content-related plus content-independent scaffolding condition, content-related scaffolding condition, and the control condition. Under the content-related and content-independent scaffolding condition, the computer agent provided an idea from semantically different categories (content-related scaffolding) according to the automatic categorization of the current contributions, and further inquired the participants about their attitudes and reasons (content-independent scaffolding). Under the condition of content-related scaffolding condition, the virtual agent only provided semantically different viewpoints. Under the control condition, the subjects expressed their opinion independently without the participation of the virtual agent. Findings revealed that compared with the control group, when the virtual agent provided semantically different ideas (content-related scaffolding), the discussion breadth (number of categories) was improved and the subjects felt that they had a more comprehensive understanding of the problem. Compared with the content-related scaffolding condition, when the virtual agent provided semantically different ideas and further asked about the attitudes and reasons, the subjects expressed more agreement with these views, but mentioned fewer categories during the discussion. This study suggests that the content-related scaffolding can facilitate the cognitive processing effect relevant to the topic of discussion. When the content independent scaffolding is added, it can promote the argumentative processing, but may have a negative effect on the cognitive processing related to the topic discussed.