Computing Private International Law

This paper develops a new comprehensive computational framework for reasoning about private international law that encompasses the reasoning patterns modeled by previous works [3,8,9]. The framework is a multi-modal extension of [10] preserving some nice properties of the original system, including some efficient algorithms to compute the extensions of normative theories representing legal systems.

The use of scaffolding to promote preschool children’s competencies of evidence-based reasoning

Scientific reasoning encompasses individuals‘ evaluation of evidence with regard to a given hypothesis. In this study, we investigated whether preschool children are able to reason with empirical evidence in the science context of elasticity. N = 63 preschoolers were presented with tasks following the deductive reasoning paradigm and were asked to evaluate the relevance of given events (objects) with regard to a hypothesis. In a repeated measures experimental design with three groups, we tested whether different forms of scaffolding (adaptive prompts with/without modeling of advanced reasoning) would promote children’s reasoning compared to a control group without intervention. We found that adaptive prompts with modeling significantly improved children’s evaluation of irrelevant events in the posttest. Further, these children’s reasoning patterns scored significantly higher than those of the control group. Our results suggest that preschool children are able to reason with evidence if they are given adequate support. Specifically, the modeling of advanced reasoning functioned as a scaffold beyond the use of adaptive prompts in irrelevant event evaluations.

Investigating Turkish Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Environmental Moral Reasoning Patterns on Environmental Dilemmas

This chapter explored preservice primary teachers' moral reasoning patterns on local and non-local environmental dilemmas. Forty-seven preservice primary teachers enrolling in an environmental education course voluntarily participated in the study. The data were collected via preservice teachers' written reports about local and non-local environmental dilemmas and analyzed by means of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results revealed that preservice teachers mostly focused on ecocentric and anthropocentric moral reasoning on sea pollution case while using ecocentric and non-environmental reasoning in the deforestation case. The t-test results also revealed that preservice teachers used more anthropocentric reasoning patterns in the sea pollution case when compared to the deforestation case. The inclusion of local and non-local dilemmas into the environmental education courses in undergraduate teacher education programs can facilitate preservice teachers' moral reasoning.

Computational modeling of human reasoning processes for interpretable visual knowledge: a case study with radiographers

Visual reasoning is critical in many complex visual tasks in medicine such as radiology or pathology. It is challenging to explicitly explain reasoning processes due to the dynamic nature of real-time human cognition. A deeper understanding of such reasoning processes is necessary for improving diagnostic accuracy and computational tools. Most computational analysis methods for visual attention utilize black-box algorithms which lack explainability and are therefore limited in understanding the visual reasoning processes. In this paper, we propose a computational method to quantify and dissect visual reasoning. The method characterizes spatial and temporal features and identifies common and contrast visual reasoning patterns to extract significant gaze activities. The visual reasoning patterns are explainable and can be compared among different groups to discover strategy differences. Experiments with radiographers of varied levels of expertise on 10 levels of visual tasks were conducted. Our empirical observations show that the method can capture the temporal and spatial features of human visual attention and distinguish expertise level. The extracted patterns are further examined and interpreted to showcase key differences between expertise levels in the visual reasoning processes. By revealing task-related reasoning processes, this method demonstrates potential for explaining human visual understanding.

Mediating Moroccan Muslims

Chapter five brings morality, literate listening, and sonic reading together to explore the semiotics of the “Moroccan model of Islam,” a state-sponsored effort to shape religious discourse and practices via media in the wake of “extremism.” In May 2003, Morocco experienced a major religiously motivated attack, in which thirty-seven Moroccans were killed. Extremist Islam, learned through foreign media, was blamed. In particular, people claimed satellite television and small portable media (like audio cassette and VCR tapes, as well as VCD and DVD disks, and more recently internet videos) had corrupted and confused Moroccans about proper Islam. One of the Moroccan state responses was to re-cultivate what they called the Moroccan model or pattern of Islam نموذج المغربي‎, namūdhaj almaghribī, a historically “moderate” Islam, which they would spread via modern radio and television stations, training institutes, and global dissemination of training materials. The Moroccan pattern of Islam included a bundle of semiotic forms promoted as uniquely Moroccan: clothing, Qur’anic recitation styles, writing scripts, textual reasoning patterns, and television/radio communicative channels for connecting Moroccans to Islam. This chapter examines critical Fassi responses to the state media efforts at semiotically shaping Islam in Morocco and the social non-movements precipitated from those responses.