In searching for hidden objects, infants younger than 12 months frequently commit the classic “A-not-B error,” in which they successfully search for an object in one location (A) and then fail to search for it when it is conspicuously hidden in a new location (B). The question is why they fail to make the switch and perseverate at the first location. While these errors have often been attribute...

We study sequential decision making in environments where rewards are only partially observed, but can be modeled as a function of observed contexts and the chosen action by the decision maker. This setting, known as contextual bandits, encompasses a wide variety of applications such as health care, content recommendation and Internet advertising. A central task is evaluation of a new policy gi...

BACKGROUND: To explore contextual effects and to test for interactions, this study examined how breast cancer stage at diagnosis among U.S. women related to individual- and county-level (contextual) variables associated with access to health care and socioeconomic status. METHODS: Individual-level incidence data were obtained from the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) and the Surveil...

BACKGROUND Research has shown that there is a co-occurrence between bullying and cyberbullying in relation to certain variables that describe and explain them. The present study aims to examine the differential influence of individual and contextual variables on perception of the role played in the involvement in both phenomena. METHOD Participants were 1278 schoolchildren (47.7 % girls) of p...

This study addressed geographical uniqueness in relation to elite coaching. The study explores the complexities associated to coaching in northern Canadian communities, and how unique geographical surroundings can affect coaching success. The views of fourteen National and International elite coaches from different northern Canadian communities are included within the study. The respondents wer...

Universities have a responsibility to equip graduates with the knowledge and skills to be productive in their work environment. Recently, the discipline of IT Service Management (ITSM) has become globally recognized as critical to organizations. Academia appears to be lagging industry in providing education in this field. This paper describes the motivation, implementation, outcomes and challen...

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Most agronomic research seeks to limit the variability of productivity, offering universal ‘recipe knowledge’ that attempts to overwhelm contextual differences. Based on participatory research with a group of eight graziers in Wisconsin, we present the counter hypothesis that the productivity of variability is a key principle of agroecology. Contextual variability across space and time presents...

In this paper we present an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) model able to display rich verbal and non-verbal behaviors. The selection of these behaviors should depend not only on factors related to her individuality such as her culture, her social and professional role, her personality, but also on a set of contextual variables (such as her interlocutor, the social conversation setting), an...