Semantic web technology for web-based teaching and learning: A roadmap

The World-Wide Web has become the predominant platform for computer-aided instruction. Contentorientation, access and interactive features have made the Web a successful technology. The Web, however, is still evolving. We expect in particular Semantic Web technology to substantially impact Web-based teaching and learning. In this paper, we examine the potential of this technology and how we expect it to influence content representation and the work of the instructor and the learner

Ontology technology for the development and deployment of learning technology systems - a survey

The World-Wide Web is undergoing dramatic changes at the moment. The Semantic Web is an initiative to bring meaning to the Web. The Semantic Web is based on ontology technology – a knowledge representation framework – at its core. We illustrate the importance of this evolutionary development. We survey five scenarios demonstrating different forms of applications of ontology technologies in the development and deployment of learning technology systems. Ontology technologies are highly useful to organise, personalise, and publish learning content and to discover, generate, and compose learning objects

Inverse problems in 2-norm and infinity-norm controller synthesis

This paper studies certain inverse problems in the optimal frequency-domain synthesis of robust controllers, in both the 2-norm and the infinity-norm. These inverse problems identify the class of controllers which are optimal for some choice of weights. Their implications for loopshaping are discussed. \u

The generation of e-learning exercise problems from subject ontologies

The teaching/ learning of cognitive skills, such as problem-solving, is an important goal in most forms of education. In well-structured subject areas certain exercise problem types may be precisely described by means of machine-processable knowledge structures or ontologies. These ontologies can readily be used to generate individual problem examples for the student, where each problem consists of a question and its solution. An example is given from the subject domain of computer databases

Differential Privacy in Metric Spaces: Numerical, Categorical and Functional Data Under the One Roof

We study Differential Privacy in the abstract setting of Probability on metric spaces. Numerical, categorical and functional data can be handled in a uniform manner in this setting. We demonstrate how mechanisms based on data sanitisation and those that rely on adding noise to query responses fit within this framework. We prove that once the sanitisation is differentially private, then so is the query response for any query. We show how to construct sanitisations for high-dimensional databases using simple 1-dimensional mechanisms. We also provide lower bounds on the expected error for differentially private sanitisations in the general metric space setting. Finally, we consider the question of sufficient sets for differential privacy and show that for relaxed differential privacy, any algebra generating the Borel $\sigma$-algebra is a sufficient set for relaxed differential privacy.Comment: 18 Page

Robust shape control in a sendzimir cold-rolling steel mill

The shape control problem for a Sendzimir 20-roll cold rolling steel mill is characterised by operation over a wide range of conditions arising from roll changes, changes in rolling schedules and changes in material gauge, width and hardness. Previous approaches to the problem suggest storing a large number of precompensator matrices to cater for the full range of operating conditions. This paper, on the other hand, attempts to synthesise a controller which is optimally robust to changes in the conditions associated with the rolling cluster, resulting in a reduced storage requirement for the controlling computer. The performance of the robust controller is evaluated via nonlinear simulation

Applications of semantic web technology to support learning content development

The Semantic Web is based on ontology technology – a knowledge representation framework – at its core to make meaning explicit and more accessible to automatic processing. We discuss the potential of this technology for the development of content for learning technology systems. We survey seven application types demonstrating different forms of applications of ontologies and the Semantic Web in the development of learning technology systems. Ontology technologies can assist developers, instructors, and learners to organise, personalise, and publish learning content and to discover, generate, and compose learning content. A conceptual content development and deployment architecture allows us to distinguish and locate the different applications and to dis-cuss and assess the potential of the underlying technologies

Issues arising from the HASTE experiments

[FIRST PARAGRAPH] The HASTE project work discussed in the foregoing papers can be depicted as being aimed at answering two questions: “Does greater secondary task load from an In-Vehicle Information System (IVIS) lead to an identifiably worse performance in the primary task of driving?” and “How much distraction is too much?”. There is, of course, a huge amount of literature examining the effect of distraction on driving. Some of this concerns visual distraction (e.g. Holohan, Culler & Wilcox, 1978; Dingus, Antin, Hulse & Wierwille, 1989; Wierwille & Tijerina, 1996; Wallace, 2003), while other parts cover distraction from cognitive (auditory) tasks such as mobile phone use (e.g. Stevens & Paulo, 1999; Svenson & Patten, 2003). But, in spite of this large background of research, it can be argued that the HASTE work was pioneering in the sense that it attempted to differentiate between the effects of visual and cognitive distraction and at the same time it attempted to carefully control the “dose” of distraction administered at any one time. These dose-response studies were carried out in three common but quite different experimental settings, a laboratory set-up, advanced driving simulators, and in instrumented vehicles in the field. The project also examined the reliability of the evaluation, with for example six replications of the rural road studies across a variety of driving simulators in five different countries

Discourses of the War on Terror: Constructions of the Islamic Other in the wake of 7/7

It is widely agreed that the events which took place on 11 September 2001 have played a large part in reshaping global imaginings about contemporary acts of terrorism and their Islamic perpetrators. Given this transformation in the understanding of terrorism and terrorists, our objective in this article is threefold. First we want to present a discussion of the roots of the kind of neo-liberal politics that has grown up alongside acts of terrorism and its global media coverage which has, we argue, resulted in a politics of fear that acts to legitimate ever-increasing legislative controls. In an attempt to reveal how discourse works to support such regulation, in the second part of this article we offer a qualitative analysis of newspaper articles from the UK about acts of terrorism that have taken place since the suicide bombings on the London transport system on 7 July 2005. Together with an analysis of the political speeches of Bush and Blair, we examine how far these discourses can be said to have reframed notions of inclusion/exclusion for Muslim populations. Finally we present a discussion of the consequences of such terrorist acts and their varied representations for the future of the British multicultural imaginary