Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Peer group similarities in adolescent hostile attribution tendencies

A bias towards attributing hostile intent to others has been linked to aggression. In an adolescent sample, we investigated whether peer group homophily exists in the tendency towards attributing hostile intent. We assessed hostile attribution tendencies and self-reported aggressive behaviours in a normative sample of 910 adolescents, and computed average peer group scores based on nominated friend scores. Results indicated that adolescents showed significant correlations between their own level of hostile attributions and that of their peer group. Further analyses indicated that this effect occurred specifically in reciprocal friendships, and was retained even once own and peer group level of aggression were controlled.

Citation and peer review of data: moving towards formal data publication

This paper discusses many of the issues associated with formally publishing data in academia, focusing primarily on the structures that need to be put in place for peer review and formal citation of datasets. Data publication is becoming increasingly important to the scientific community, as it will provide a mechanism for those who create data to receive academic credit for their work and will allow the conclusions arising from an analysis to be more readily verifiable, thus promoting transparency in the scientific process. Peer review of data will also provide a mechanism for ensuring the quality of datasets, and we provide suggestions on the types of activities one expects to see in the peer review of data. A simple taxonomy of data publication methodologies is presented and evaluated, and the paper concludes with a discussion of dataset granularity, transience and semantics, along with a recommended human-readable citation syntax.

An experimental investigation of peer influences on hostile attributions in adolescents

Aggression in young people has been associated with a bias towards attributing hostile intent to others; however, little is known about the origin of biased social information processing. The current study explored the potential role of peer contagion in the emergence of hostile attribution in adolescents. 134 adolescents were assigned to one of two manipulated ‘chat-room’ conditions, where they believed they were communicating with online peers (e-confederates) who endorsed either hostile or benign intent attributions. Adolescents showed increased hostile attributions following exposure to hostile e-confederates and reduced hostility in the benign condition. Further analyses demonstrated that social anxiety was associated with a reduced tendency to take on hostile peer attitudes. Neither gender nor levels of aggression influenced individual susceptibility to peer influence, but aggressive adolescents reported greater affinity with hostile e-confederates.

Virtual landmarking for locality aware peer IDs

In Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, it is often desirable to assign node IDs which preserve locality relationships in the underlying topology. Node locality can be embedded into node IDs by utilizing a one dimensional mapping by a Hilbert space filling curve on a vector of network distances from each node to a subset of reference landmark nodes within the network. However this approach is fundamentally limited because while robustness and accuracy might be expected to improve with the number of landmarks, the effectiveness of 1 dimensional Hilbert Curve mapping falls for the curse of dimensionality. This work proposes an approach to solve this issue using Landmark Multidimensional Scaling (LMDS) to reduce a large set of landmarks to a smaller set of virtual landmarks. This smaller set of landmarks has been postulated to represent the intrinsic dimensionality of the network space and therefore a space filling curve applied to these virtual landmarks is expected to produce a better mapping of the node ID space. The proposed approach, the Virtual Landmarks Hilbert Curve (VLHC), is particularly suitable for decentralised systems like P2P networks. In the experimental simulations the effectiveness of the methods is measured by means of the locality preservation derived from node IDs in terms of latency to nearest neighbours. A variety of realistic network topologies are simulated and this work provides strong evidence to suggest that VLHC performs better than either Hilbert Curves or LMDS use independently of each other.

Equipped to deal with uncertainty in climate and impacts predictions: lessons from internal peer review

The quantification of uncertainty is an increasingly popular topic, with clear importance for climate change policy. However, uncertainty assessments are open to a range of interpretations, each of which may lead to a different policy recommendation. In the EQUIP project researchers from the UK climate modelling, statistical modelling, and impacts communities worked together on ‘end-to-end’ uncertainty assessments of climate change and its impacts. Here, we use an experiment in peer review amongst project members to assess variation in the assessment of uncertainties between EQUIP researchers. We find overall agreement on key sources of uncertainty but a large variation in the assessment of the methods used for uncertainty assessment. Results show that communication aimed at specialists makes the methods used harder to assess. There is also evidence of individual bias, which is partially attributable to disciplinary backgrounds. However, varying views on the methods used to quantify uncertainty did not preclude consensus on the consequential results produced using those methods. Based on our analysis, we make recommendations for developing and presenting statements on climate and its impacts. These include the use of a common uncertainty reporting format in order to make assumptions clear; presentation of results in terms of processes and trade-offs rather than only numerical ranges; and reporting multiple assessments of uncertainty in order to elucidate a more complete picture of impacts and their uncertainties. This in turn implies research should be done by teams of people with a range of backgrounds and time for interaction and discussion, with fewer but more comprehensive outputs in which the range of opinions is recorded.

Design patterns for promoting peer interaction in discussion forums in MOOCs

Design patterns are a way of sharing evidence-based solutions to educational design problems. The design patterns presented in this paper were produced through a series of workshops, which aimed to identify Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) design principles from workshop participants’ experiences of designing, teaching and learning on these courses. MOOCs present a challenge for the existing pedagogy of online learning, particularly as it relates to promoting peer interaction and discussion. MOOC cohort sizes, participation patterns and diversity of learners mean that discussions can remain superficial, become difficult to navigate, or never develop beyond isolated posts. In addition, MOOC platforms may not provide sufficient tools to support moderation. This paper draws on four case studies of designing and teaching on a range of MOOCs presenting seven design narratives relating to the experience in these MOOCs. Evidence presented in the narratives is abstracted in the form of three design patterns created through a collaborative process using techniques similar to those used in collective autoethnography. The patterns: “Special Interest Discussions”, “Celebrity Touch” and “Look and Engage”, draw together shared lessons and present possible solutions to the problem of creating, managing and facilitating meaningful discussion in MOOCs through the careful use of staged learning activities and facilitation strategies.

Typo-resource: developing T&L support materials through collaboration

This paper reports on a collaborative project between staff and students in the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading The Partnerships in Learning and Teaching (PLanT) project here described is a direct response to student needs for better online support materials. Methodologically, the project embeds user-centred design principles within an iterative process of design development and participant research. This process has underpinned the development of a prototype for an online interface called Typo-Resource. The resulting initial prototype addresses the usability and user experience dimensions of an online learning resource, moving beyond providing tutor-identified sets of resources to a multifaceted, collaborative, and visual platform for peer learning.

Interactional dynamics in on-line and face-to-face peer-tutoring sessions for second language writers

This paper reports the results of a study comparing the interactional dynamics of face-to-face and on-line peer-tutoring in writing by university students in Hong Kong. Transcripts of face-to-face tutoring sessions, as well as logs of on-line sessions conducted by the same peer-tutors, were coded for speech functions using a system based on Halliday's functional-semantic view of dialogue. Results show considerable differences between the interactional dynamics in on-line and face-to-face tutoring sessions. In particular, face-to-face interactions involved more hierarchal encounters in which tutors took control of the discourse, whereas on-line interactions were more egalitarian, with clients controlling the discourse more. Differences were also found in the topics participants chose to focus on in the two modes, with issues of grammar, vocabulary, and style taking precedence in face-to-face sessions and more “global” writing concerns like content and process being discussed more in on-line sessions.

Farmer attitudes and livestock disease: exploring citizenship behaviour and peer monitoring across two BVD control schemes in the UK

The eradication of BVD in the UK is technically possible but appears to be socially untenable. The following study explored farmer attitudes to BVD control schemes in relation to advice networks and information sharing, shared aims and goals, motivation and benefits of membership, notions of BVD as a priority disease and attitudes toward regulation. Two concepts from the organisational management literature framed the study: citizenship behaviour where actions of individuals support the collective good (but are not explicitly recognised as such) and peer to peer monitoring (where individuals evaluate other’s behaviour). Farmers from two BVD control schemes in the UK participated in the study: Orkney Livestock Association BVD Eradication Scheme and Norfolk and Suffolk Cattle Breeders Association BVD Eradication Scheme. In total 162 farmers participated in the research (109 in-scheme and 53 out of scheme). The findings revealed that group helping and information sharing among scheme members was low with a positive BVD status subject to social censure. Peer monitoring in the form of gossip with regard to the animal health status of other farms was high. Interestingly, farmers across both schemes supported greater regulation with regard to animal health, largely due to the mistrust of fellow farmers following voluntary disease control measures. While group cohesiveness varied across the two schemes, without continued financial inducements, longer-term sustainability is questionable

Modeling Information Diffusion in University Libraries: Assessing Peer Interaction Patterns as a Complex Dynamic System

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014.

PERFORMANCE EVOLUTION OF PEER TO PEER NETWORKS

This thesis work concerns about the Performance evolution of peer to peer networks, where we used different distribution technique’s of peer distribution like Weibull, Lognormal and Pareto distribution process. Then we used a network simulator to evaluate the performance of these three distribution techniques.During the last decade the Internet has expanded into a world-wide network connecting millions of hosts and users and providing services for everyone. Many emerging applications are bandwidth-intensive in their nature; the size of downloaded files including music and videos can be huge, from ten megabits to many gigabits. The efficient use of network resources is thus crucial for the survivability of the Internet. Traffic engineering (TE) covers a range of mechanisms for optimizing operational networks from the traffic perspective. The time scale in traffic engineering varies from the short-term network control to network planning over a longer time period.Here in this thesis work we considered the peer distribution technique in-order to minimise the peer arrival and service process with three different techniques, where we calculated the congestion parameters like blocking time for each peer before entering into the service process, waiting time for a peers while the other peer has been served in the service block and the delay time for each peer. Then calculated the average of each process and graphs have been plotted using Matlab to analyse the results

Peer Review

The perils of peer review come home to roost in academe.

Faculty Instructional Quality Assessment Practices Incorporating Teaching Portfolios and Peer Review with Student Course Evaluations

Program directors and department chairs require different means of assessing faculty quality due to the unreliability of student course evaluation data. This report outlines alternative strategies for review committees to assess faculty instructional quality. This report also details incorporation of annual performance reviews for tenure-track faculty into tenure decisions.