The Case for Reconfiguration without Consensus: Comparing Algorithms for Atomic Storage

We compare different algorithms for reconfigurable atomic storage in the data-centric model. We present the first experimental evaluation of two recently proposed algorithms for reconfiguration without consensus and compare them to established algorithms for reconfiguration both with and without consensus. Our evaluation reveals that the new algorithms offer a significant improvement in terms of latency and overhead for reconfiguration without consensus. Our evaluation also shows that reconfiguration without consensus, can obtain similar results to that of consensus-based reconfiguration, which relies on a stable leader. Moreover, the new algorithms also substantially reduces the overhead compared to consensus-based reconfiguration without a leader. While our analysis confirms our intuition that batching reconfiguration requests serves to reduce the overhead of reconfigurations, our evaluation also shows that it is equally important to separate reconfigurations from read and write operations. Specifically, we found that using read and write operations to assist in completing concurrent reconfigurations is in fact detrimental to the reconfiguration performance

Pensjonsopptjening for selvstendig næringsdrivende : bør innskuddsgrensen heves?

Denne utredningen tar for seg mulighetene til pensjonsopptjening for selvstendig næringsdrivende i Norge. Selvstendig næringsdrivende har ikke tjenestepensjon gjennom ansettelsesforhold, men har den senere tid fått mulighet til å spare til pensjon gjennom en innskuddspensjonsordning. Sammenlignet med arbeidstakere som har tjenestepensjon i form av en innskuddsordning, gis selvstendig næringsdrivende lavere prosentvise maksgrenser for årlig innskudd til pensjonssparing. Vi undersøker hvilken forskjell det vil utgjøre for oppspart pensjonsbeholdning for selvstendig næringsdrivende dersom de får de samme innskuddsgrensene som gjelder for arbeidstakere. Kan de ulike innskuddsgrensene begrunnes ut fra forskjeller i beskatning eller ulike pensjonssparegrunnlag for selvstendig næringsdrivende og arbeidstakere? Entreprenørskap i form av selvstendig næringsvirksomhet er viktig for utviklingen av samfunnet og kan bidra til økonomisk vekst. Kan ulike rettigheter når det gjelder pensjonsopptjening påvirke valget mellom å være selvstendig næringsdrivende eller å være arbeidstaker? Utredningen undersøker også hvilke muligheter til pensjonsopptjening selvstendig næringsdrivende i våre naboland, Danmark og Sverige, har

A Type-Safe Model of Adaptive Object Groups

Services are autonomous, self-describing, technology-neutral software units that can be described, published, discovered, and composed into software applications at runtime. Designing software services and composing services in order to form applications or composite services requires abstractions beyond those found in typical object-oriented programming languages. This paper explores service-oriented abstractions such as service adaptation, discovery, and querying in an object-oriented setting. We develop a formal model of adaptive object-oriented groups which offer services to their environment. These groups fit directly into the object-oriented paradigm in the sense that they can be dynamically created, they have an identity, and they can receive method calls. In contrast to objects, groups are not used for structuring code. A group exports its services through interfaces and relies on objects to implement these services. Objects may join or leave different groups. Groups may dynamically export new interfaces, they support service discovery, and they can be queried at runtime for the interfaces they support. We define an operational semantics and a static type system for this model of adaptive object groups, and show that well-typed programs do not cause method-not-understood errors at runtime.Comment: In Proceedings FOCLASA 2012, arXiv:1208.432

Instrumentalist theory for the sake of coherence: Norwegian students’ views on campus lectures in social studies teacher education

Norwegian five-year integrated social studies teacher education programmes include comprehensive training in disciplines such as geography, history, sociology and political science. In this article, we report on a study of students’ views on the specific subject of social studies in the teacher education programmes. We conducted focus group interviews with students and asked for their reflections on their preferences for the theoretical campus training in social studies. In our case study comprising 23 student teachers in their third year of training, most of the participants thought their campus training should focus less on core subjects such as geography, history, sociology and political science and more on instrumental skills such as lesson planning in social studies. Many of the participants held the view that the social studies competence they brought with them from secondary school should be considered sufficient and that further training in social studies during campus lectures should be considered redundant. Moreover, some participants suggested that acquiring knowledge in geography, history, sociology and political science, which are the core subjects of social studies, should be the responsibility of the students themselves rather than of the teacher training programme.publishedVersio

QuickFeed on Programming Assignments

In the last decade, programming has become an increasingly important tool for almost all science and engineering disciplines. To this end, programming exercises have become an essential tool for students to learn the craft of programming and apply, model, and evaluate other scientific techniques

Hverken grav eller rydning – rituelle røyser fra yngre bronsealder–førromersk jernalder på Sømme i Rogaland

This article discusses cairns as ritual constructions during the Late Bronze and Pre-Roman Iron Ages in Southwest Norway. The basis for the discussion are two cairns from Sømme in Sola, Rogaland. It is suggested that the cairns are part of rituals related to settlement expansion and a rapid transformation of the landscape during the period

Knowing Groundlessness: An Enactive Approach to a Shift From Cognition to Non-Dual Awareness

The enactive approach has become an influential paradigm in cognitive science. One of its most important claims is that cognition is sense-making: to cognize is to enact a world of meaning. Thus, a world is not pregiven but enacted through sense-making. Most importantly, sense-making is not a fixed process or thing. It does not have substantial existence. Instead, it is groundless: it springs from a dynamic of relations, without substantial ground. Thereby, as all cognition is groundless, this groundlessness is considered the central underlying principle of cognition. This article takes that key concept of the enactive approach and argues that it is not only a theoretical statement. Rather, groundlessness is directly accessible in lived experience. The two guiding questions of this article concern that lived experience of groundlessness: (1) What is it to know groundlessness? (2) How can one know groundlessness? Accordingly, it elaborates (1) how this knowing of groundlessness fits into the theoretical framework of the enactive approach. Also, it describes (2) how it can be directly experienced when certain requirements are met. In an additional reflexive analysis, the context-dependency and observer-relativity of those statements themselves is highlighted. Through those steps, this article exhibits the importance of knowing groundlessness for a cognitive science discourse: this underlying groundlessness is not only the “ground” of cognition, but it also can be investigated empirically through lived experience. However, it requires a methodology that is radically different from classical cognitive science. This article ends with envisioning a future praxis of cognitive science which enables researchers to investigate not only theoretically but empirically the “foundationless foundation” of cognition: groundlessness

Knowing the Knowing. Non-dual Meditative Practice From an Enactive Perspective

Within a variety of contemplative traditions, non-dual-oriented practices were developed to evoke an experiential shift into a mode of experiencing in which the cognitive structures of self-other and subject–object subside. These practices serve to de-reify the enactment of an observing witness which is usually experienced as separate from the objects of awareness. While several contemplative traditions, such as Zen, Mahāmudrā, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta emphasize the importance of such a non-dual insight for the cultivation of genuine wellbeing, only very few attempts in contemplative science have turned toward the study of non-dual-oriented practices. This article starts from a recently developed theoretical cognitive science framework that models the requirements of a temporary experiential shift into a mode of experiencing free from cognitive subject–object structure. This model inspired by the enactive approach contributes theoretically grounded hypotheses for the much-needed rigorous study of non-dual practices and non-dual experiences. To do so, three steps are taken: first, common elements of non-dual-oriented practices are outlined. Second, the main ideas of enactive cognitive science are presented including a principled theoretical model of what is required for a shift to a pure non-dual experience, that is, an experiential mode that is unbound by subject–object duality. Third, this synthesized theoretical model of the requirements for the recognition of the non-dual is then compared with a specific non-dual style of meditation practice, namely, Mahāmudrā practice from Tibetan Buddhism. This third step represents a heuristic for evaluating the external coherence of the presented model. With this, the aim is to point toward a principled enactive view of non-dual meditative practice. In drawing the implications of the presented model, this article ends with an outlook toward next steps for further developing a research agenda that may fully address the concrete elements of non-dual practices