Should teachers have complete autonomy over teaching methods and practices, or should some aspects of their practice be determined by school government policy? We address this question using repeated (value-added) maths test scores linked to rich survey data from the TALIS video study. With possible exception inexperienced teachers, we generally find no relationship between teacher pupil outcom...

High-dimensional data sets are often embedded in two-dimensional spaces so as to visualize neighborhood relationships. When the map is effective (i.e. when short distances are preserved) it is a powerful way to help an analyst to understand the data set. But, mappings most often show defaults and the user is then led astray. According to this notion, a mapping should not be considered when its ...

The finite-state based dialogue management approaches are powerful for simple tasks with strict and reliable dialogue control, while the plan-based dialogue management approaches are feasible for tasks with several topics or one complex topic. However, neither one is good enough for the dialogue control throughout in a dialogue task providing flight information inquiry and ticket reservation se...

The software architecture community has advocated design rationale in the last decade. However, there is little knowledge of how much reasoning is performed when software design judgments are made. In this study, we investigated the amount of design reasoning performed before making a decision. We recruited 32 students and 40 professionals to participate in this software architecture design stu...

Is being responsible good enough? Stone (1975) argued that we need corporate moral responsibility because neither law nor market is adequate to forestall harmful effects of business activities. However, it is not possible for businesses to become responsible for all forms of foreseeable, preventable harm that they produce. This is illustrated here by cases from insurance, television programming...

February 2011 saw the emergence of Silk Road, the first successful online anonymous marketplace, in which buyers and sellers could transact with anonymity properties far superior to those available in alternative online or offline means of commerce. Business on Silk Road, primarily involving narcotics trafficking, rapidly boomed, and competitors emerged. At the same time, law enforcement did no...