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We introduce a number of contraction operations that allow us to preserve more information in the process of belief contraction and revision of our epistemic states. One of them, choice contraction, will be argued to characterise basic (in)dependence relations among propositions belonging to the epistemic state.

In their seminal work, Chattopadhyay and Zuckerman (STOC'16) constructed a two-source extractor with error epsilon for n-bit sources having min-entropy {polylog}(n/epsilon). Unfortunately, the construction's running-time is {poly}(n/epsilon), which means that with polynomial-time constructions, only polynomially-small errors are possible. Our main result is a {poly}(n,log(1/epsilon))-time computable two-source condenser. For any k >= {polylog}(n/epsilon), our condenser transforms two independent (n,k)-sources to a distribution over m = k-O(log(1/epsilon)) bits that is epsilon-close to having min-entropy m - o(log(1/epsilon)). Hence, achieving entropy gap of o(log(1/epsilon)). The bottleneck for obtaining low error in recent constructions of two-source extractors lies in the use of resilient functions. Informally, this is a function that receives input bits from r players with the property that the function's output has small bias even if a bounded number of corrupted players feed adversarial inputs after seeing the inputs of the other players. The drawback of using resilient functions is that the error cannot be smaller than ln r/r. This, in return, forces the running time of the construction to be polynomial in 1/epsilon. A key component in our construction is a variant of resilient functions which we call entropy-resilient functions. This variant can be seen as playing the above game for several rounds, each round outputting one bit. The goal of the corrupted players is to reduce, with as high probability as they can, the min-entropy accumulated throughout the rounds. We show that while the bias decreases only polynomially with the number of players in a one-round game, their success probability decreases exponentially in the entropy gap they are attempting to incur in a repeated game.

This project aimed to develop new theoretical understanding of the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in primary education. From a sociocultural perspective, having the capacity to exercise learner agency is essential for meaning-making and therefore deep and effective learning. Existing international research suggests that children attending schools with significant intakes of children from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds may develop ‘passive’ and disengaged orientations to learning in response to the strong pressure on many of these schools to raise attainment. Learner agency can be defined as volitional activity which has an effect on learners’ peers and teachers, for example in terms of their understanding of a concept or phenomena. Learner agency is both constrained and enabled by sociocultural practices, including, as in this research, the modes of pedagogy used by teachers. A multiple case study design (Yin 2009) was selected to enable collection of rich data using multiple methods within and compare across different schools. Four case study schools with above national average (26.7% in 2013) proportion of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (as a proxy for ‘disadvantage’) and located in urban settings in Greater London. Data was collected in the four schools through semi-structured interviews with Year Five teachers and children and Year Five lessons were observed by the researcher as a non-participant observer, across the curriculum. All four classrooms were characterised by a mixture of competence-based and performative pedagogy, although the dominant mode varied across schools. The higher the proportion of disadvantaged children at the school, the more performative the pedagogy was.The project provides new empirical evidence about the nature and extent of children’s learner agency in disadvantaged urban primary schools; it has led to the development of theoretical understandings of learner agency in such contexts. The data suggests that learner agency is constrained and enabled in complex ways, which depend on teachers’ pedagogical practices. This extends existing research in such contexts, which has mainly focussed on children’s agency in constructing their social and learner identities and positioning as learners (e.g. Youdell 2006; Reay 2006). The study took a new theoretical approach to researching agency in disadvantaged schools, drawing on sociocultural theory to develop understandings of learner agency. The project also contributes significantly to developing sociocultural understandings of learner agency by identifying how it is constrained and enabled in relation to Bernstein’s (2000) modes of pedagogy.

Bioethics education on deliberation - a view of a novel: Blue Gold, by Clive Cussler (Article presented at the conference Bioethics Education: Contents, Methods, Trends, Zefat, Israel, May 2-5, 2010) Authors: Susana Magalhães* (researcher), Joana Araújo (researcher), Ana Sofia Carvalho (Head of the Institute of Bioethics) Research Centre of Bioethics, Institute of Bioethics, Portuguese Catholic University Bioethics education on deliberation - a view of a novel: Blue Gold, by Clive Cussler Since the focus of Bioethics is the bridge between Humanities and the Life Sciences and bearing in mind that this bridge is often difficult to build, those who believe that this dialogue is important in our days should promote it through Education. By educating in Bioethics it is possible to improve the participation of the citizens in debates on the ethical issues raised by new technologies and scientific research. It is our conviction that literary texts are laboratories of ethical judgment, where the ethical questions concerning specific scientific/technological issues are addressed in an imaginary world. Therefore our purpose is to present a framework for ethical deliberation through the use of literature. Fiction allows us to “practise” ethical decision making, by focusing on the particular cases of the characters of the story and by checking how the principles / theories working at the background apply to the narrated cases.

The isotopic compositions of oxygen and hydrogen in ice cores are invaluable tools for the reconstruction of past climate variations. Used alone, they give insights into the variations of the local temperature, whereas taken together they can provide information on the climatic conditions at the point of origin of the moisture. However, recent analyses of snow from shallow pits indicate that the climatic signal can become erased in very low accumulation regions, due to local processes of snow reworking. The signal-to-noise ratio decreases and the climatic signal can then only be retrieved using stacks of several snow pits. Obviously, the signal is not completely lost at this stage, otherwise it would be impossible to extract valuable climate information from ice cores as has been done, for instance, for the last glaciation. To better understand how the climatic signal is passed from the precipitation to the snow, we present here results from varied snow samples from East Antarctica. First, we look at the relationship between isotopes and temperature from a geographical point of view, using results from three traverses across Antarctica, to see how the relationship is built up through the distillation process. We also take advantage of these measures to see how second-order parameters (d-excess and 17O-excess) are related to δ18O and how they are controlled. d-excess increases in the interior of the continent (i.e., when δ18O decreases), due to the distillation process, whereas 17O-excess decreases in remote areas, due to kinetic fractionation at low temperature. In both cases, these changes are associated with the loss of original information regarding the source. Then, we look at the same relationships in precipitation samples collected over 1 year at Dome C and Vostok, as well as in surface snow at Dome C. We note that the slope of the δ18O vs. temperature (T) relationship decreases in these samples compared to those from the traverses, and thus caution is advocated when using spatial slopes for past climate reconstruction. The second-order parameters behave in the same way in the precipitation as in the surface snow from traverses, indicating that similar processes are active and that their interpretation in terms of source climatic parameters is strongly complicated by local temperature effects in East Antarctica. Finally we check if the same relationships between δ18O and second-order parameters are also found in the snow from four snow pits. While the d-excess remains opposed to δ18O in most snow pits, the 17O-excess is no longer positively correlated to δ18O and even shows anti-correlation to δ18O at Vostok. This may be due to a stratospheric influence at this site and/or to post-deposition processes.

This summary focuses on how the English courts appear to have shifted towards an increased preoccupation for settlement, particularly during the past 20 years. The focus is mainly on ordinary civil (nonCfamily) courts, which hear cases in first instance (rather than appeals) (Part A), although similar practices can be found in criminal cases (Part B). For civil cases, the most relevant English courts are local county courts, as well as the High Court (including the Commercial Court and the Technology and Construction Court within the Queen’s Bench Division). For criminal cases, the focus is on first instance cases in Magistrates’ Courts and the Crown Court. The last section summarises the main reasons that are typically used by English scholars and policymakers in supporting settlement in civil and criminal cases.

https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/17623/Jun28-1899.pdf?sequence=2

Hsp70 chaperone systems are very versatile machines present in nearly all living organisms and in nearly all intracellular compartments. They function in many fundamental processes through their facilitation of protein (re)folding, trafficking, remodeling, disaggregation, and degradation. Hsp70 machines are regulated by co-chaperones. J-domain containing proteins (JDPs) are the largest family of Hsp70 co-chaperones and play a determining role functionally specifying and directing Hsp70 functions. Many features of JDPs are not understood; however, a number of JDP experts gathered at a recent CSSI-sponsored workshop in Gdansk (Poland) to discuss various aspects of J-domain protein function, evolution, and structure. In this report, we present the main findings and the consensus reached to help direct future developments in the field of Hsp70 research.

The Open University's Centre for Higher Education Research and Information was commissioned in June 2007 to undertake a formative evaluation of Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs). Research to inform the interim evaluation has been two-fold: \ud \ud desk research of LLN documentation and \ud visits to and interviews with personnel involved in eight LLNs.\ud \ud The report's main conclusion was that LLNs are making progress in terms of encouraging institutions to offer curricula and put in place procedures that, in the fullness of time, could make a significant difference to the coherence, clarity and certainty of progression opportunities for vocational learners. However, it went on to say that it is too soon to be able to make substantive and well-evidenced statements about LLNs' overall progress on meeting this overarching objective of the LLN initiative.

https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/21527/May05-1891.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y