2727371
Constructivist learning systems: a new paradigm
The educational enterprise is in the midst of a philosophical shift from a behaviorist to a constructivist paradigm. If constructivism is to be taken seriously as a new educational paradigm in the information age, learning technology R&D must pay more attention to learners instead of teachers. A constructivist learning environment (CLE) is a technology-rich, open place where a learner can use a variety of tools and information resources in his pursuit of learning goals and problem-solving activities. Wherein the learner can draw upon information resources and tools to actively construct knowledge, generate a diverse array of ideas, develop multiple modes of representation, engage in social interaction, and solve authentic problems. Four major elements are bound together by their roles in the establishment of a CLE: public knowledge system; distributed instructional system; learning community; constructivist learning system.
13091278
Dynamics of local search heuristics for the traveling salesman problem
This paper experimentally investigates the dynamical behavior of a search process in a local heuristic search system for a combinatorial optimization problem. Or-opt heuristic algorithm is chosen as the study subject, and the well-known traveling salesman problem (TSP) serves as a problem testbed. This study constructs the search trajectory by using the time-delay method, evaluates the dynamics of the local search system by estimating the correlation dimension for the search trajectory, and illustrates the transition of the local search process from high-dimensional stochastic to low dimensional chaotic behavior.
14663700
A scan BIST generation method using a markov source and partial bit-fixing
Recently, Markov sources were shown to be effective in designing pseudo-random test pattern generators with low area overhead for built-in self-test of scan designs. This paper presents a new test pattern generation scheme based on a Markov source and a partial bit-fixing technique. A new method is proposed for the computation of the state transition probabilities of the Markov source based on the statistics of a deterministic test set. This is enhanced by partial bit-fixing logic, which fixes a group of consecutive inputs to all-0 or all-1. Experimental results show that the proposed BIST scheme can achieve 100% fault coverage for large benchmark circuits with reduced hardware overhead and reduced pattern counts compared to the earlier method using Markov sources.
6624035
Weakly Supervised Learning for Cross-document Person Name Disambiguation Supported by Information Extraction
It is fairly common that different people are associated with the same name. In tracking person entities in a large document pool, it is important to determine whether multiple mentions of the same name across documents refer to the same entity or not. Previous approach to this problem involves measuring context similarity only based on co-occurring words. This paper presents a new algorithm using information extraction support in addition to co-occurring words. A learning scheme with minimal supervision is developed within the Bayesian framework. Maximum entropy modeling is then used to represent the probability distribution of context similarities based on heterogeneous features. Statistical annealing is applied to derive the final entity coreference chains by globally fitting the pairwise context similarities. Benchmarking shows that our new approach significantly outperforms the existing algorithm by 25 percentage points in overall F-measure.
19300
Iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator Design for Nonlinear Biological Movement Systems
This paper presents an Iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (ILQR) method for locally-optimal feedback control of nonlinear dynamical systems. The method is applied to a musculo-skeletal arm model with 10 state dimensions and 6 controls, and is used to compute energy-optimal reaching movements. Numerical comparisons with three existing methods demonstrate that the new method converges substantially faster and finds slightly better solutions.
17270817
Grid Computing in China
Abstract
Grid computing presents a new trend to distributed computation and Internet applications, which can construct a virtual single image of heterogeneous resources, provide uniform application interface and integrate widespread computational resources into super, ubiquitous and transparent aggregation. In the adoption of Grid computing, China, who is facing more resource heterogeneity and other specific demands, has put much effort on both research and practical utilization. In this paper, we introduce the major China Grid research projects and their perspective applications. First we give the overview of the four government-sponsored programs in Grid, namely the China National Grid, ChinaGrid, NSFC Grid, and ShanghaiGrid. Then we present six representative ongoing Grid systems in details, which are categorized into Grid middleware and Grid application. This paper provides the general picture of Grid computing in China, and shows the great efforts, devotion and confidence in China to use Grid technology to boost the society, economics and scientific research.

12034739
An Algorithm for Determining the Controllers of Supervised Entities at the First and Second Levels: A Case Study with the Brazilian Central Bank
An algorithm was developed and implemented to find controllers from the stock shares for some financial institutions for the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB). The original problem is similar to a typical Sum of Subset problem that is suggested to be solved by a backtracking algorithm and the problem complexity is NP-complete. Usually BCB solves this problem manually which is time consuming and prone to errors. The heuristical approximation algorithm presented in this paper has polynomial complexity O(n3) and is based on subroutines for determining controllers at the first two levels. The paper describes the basic concepts and business rules currently employed in BCB, our algorithm and its major subroutines, it gives a brief complexity analysis and an example illustration at level 2. Our experimental results indicate the feasibility of an automation of the process of finding controllers. Though developed for BCB, our algorithm works equally well for other financial institutions.