Through (Tracking) Their Eyes: Abstraction and Complexity in Program Comprehension

Previous studies on writing and understanding programs presented evidence that programmers beyond a novice stage utilize plans or plan-like structures. Other studies on code composition showed that learners have difficulties with writing, reading, and debugging code where interacting plans are merged into a short piece of code. In this article, we focus on the question of how different code-composition strategies and the familiarity with code affect program comprehension on a more abstract, i.e., algorithmic level. Using an eye-tracking setup, we explored how advanced students comprehend programs and their underlying algorithms written in either a merged or abutted (sequenced) composition of code blocks of varying familiarity. The effects of familiarity and code composition were studied both isolated and in combination. Our analysis of the quantitative data adds to our understanding of the behavior reported in previous studies and the effects of plans and their composition on the programs’ difficulty. Using this data along with retrospective interviews, we analyze students’ reading patterns and provide support that subjects were able to form mental models of program execution during task performance. Furthermore, our results suggest that subjects are able to retrieve and create schemata when the program is composed of familiar templates, which may improve their performance; we found indicators for a higher element-interactivity for programs with a merged code composition compared to abutted code composition.

Why we need to reimagine the curricula in higher education to make it more culturally sensitive

Persistent racial equality gaps exist in HE. We argue that culturally sensitive curricula can address those racial equality gaps as well as support the development of culturally competent graduates equipped for social change. In this short piece, we briefly describe our conceptualisation of culturally sensitive curricula and the tool we have developed to support curricular enhancement. We report on emerging evidence of the impact of culturally sensitive curricula on students' engagement and suggest how such curricula could lead to impact on educational outcomes.

Murals meet microbes: at the crossroads of microbiology and cultural heritage

expressions and represents a defining feature of our societies that needs to be further inherited to future generations. Even though humankind always fought a daily struggle for survival, at the same time, it seemed to have a spiritual need that went far beyond mere materialistic satisfaction and nowadays manifests in sometimes very ancient, yet brilliant artistic works. This fundamental legacy is endangered by several instances, including biodeterioration. Indeed, microorganisms play a significant role in the decline of all forms of tangible cultural heritage, including movable, immovable and underwater cultural heritage. Microbial colonization, biofilm formation and damaging metabolite production eventually result in critical decay. Thus, efforts to miti-gate the negative impact of damaging microorganisms have been pursued with diverse physical, chemical and biological approaches. Intriguingly, recent advances have unveiled that specific microorganisms and microbi-al-based technologies also have the potential for cultur-al heritage preservation and present unique advantages. This short piece provides a quick overview on the duali-ty of microorganisms in the conservation and restora-tion of cultural heritage.

Is it now time to remove that question mark?

Now, looking back at the title of this short piece, I cannot refrain from laughing at the question mark (?) right after the word “question mark”. It is a question about another 10-year-old question.

“Make What You Can of It If You Are a Philosopher”: An Essay on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Christian Spiritualism”

A number of years ago, renowned English biographer Andrew Lycett wrote a short piece about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that highlighted the seemingly irreconcilable tension between Doyle the creator of the “super-rational” detective Sherlock Holmes, and Doyle the passionate defender of “Christian Spiritualism”. In this essay, I aim to explore this alleged tension, ultimately arguing that these two Doyles need not be in tension—the only true tension being between the two terms in Doyle’s preferred philosophy, “Christian Spiritualism”.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE MODERNIST NOVEL

This book is intended as an introduction to the modernist novel, primarily for the students and scholars of the English language and literature. Four major novelists – Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf – have been chosen to exemplify the stylistic features, aesthetic preoccupations and thematic concerns of the works of fiction written in English in the early decades of the twentieth century. The methodological principle used in this study is multilevel. First, these four authors are analysed by referring to their essays, philosophical treatises, prefaces to their novels and other nonfictional works where they define their poetics and their artistic goals in their own terms. After this, since form is such a major concern of the modernist novel, formal innovations and narrative strategies of each of these authors are discussed at some length. Finally, a single novel is chosen to represent each author, and it is analysed in detail. Heart of Darkness, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Mrs Dalloway are widely recognized within the oeuvre of these novelists as some of their greatest artistic achievements. Lawrence’s novella St Mawr is a lesser-known work; however, I would argue that F. R. Leavis’s praise of this short piece as “an astonishing work of genius” still stands. The same as with the other three novels, its inclusion in the study is justified by the valuable insights it provides about the characteristics of modernist fiction and modernist art in general.

Poland in the Digital Age

Within the three casual mechanisms known so far in relation to the emergence and spread of AI Nationalism, this short piece of research strives to combine recent IR literature involving cyberspace and AI with new insights from the institutional economic perspective and Neoclassical Realism, in order to make an introductory assessment focused on Poland’s geopolitical challenges in the Digital Era. Since the analytical focus of this article concentrates on the case of Poland, the discussion can be perhaps also relevant for other countries pertaining to Central-Eastern Europe.

The Macroevolutionary Consequences of Niche Construction in Microbial Metabolism

Microorganisms display a stunning metabolic diversity. Understanding the origin of this diversity requires understanding how macroevolutionary processes such as innovation and diversification play out in the microbial world. Metabolic networks, which govern microbial resource use, can evolve through different mechanisms, e.g., horizontal gene transfer or de novo evolution of enzymes and pathways. This process is governed by a combination of environmental factors, selective pressures, and the constraints imposed by the genetic architecture of metabolic networks. In addition, many independent results hint that the process of niche construction, by which organisms actively modify their own and each other’s niches and selective pressures, could play a major role in microbial innovation and diversification. Yet, the general principles by which niche construction shapes microbial macroevolutionary patterns remain largely unexplored. Here, we discuss several new hypotheses and directions, and suggest metabolic modeling methods that could allow us to explore large-scale empirical genotype-phenotype-(G-P)-environment spaces in order to study the macroevolutionary effects of niche construction. We hope that this short piece will further stimulate a systematic and quantitative characterization of macroevolutionary patterns and processes in microbial metabolism.

Necessities Laid Bare: An Examination of Possible Justifications for Peter Townsend’s Purely Relative Definition of Poverty

The EU and OECD’s use of poverty lines set at a percentage of national average income is testimony to the widespread acceptance of Peter Townsend’s purely relative poverty definition. It has often been defended, including by Townsend, as a development of Adam Smith’s reference to ‘necessaries’ differing across social contexts. This article contends that Townsend’s definition is clearly inconsistent with Smith’s work but entirely consistent with a passage by Wilhelm Schulz which established the term ‘relative poverty’ and asserted that people’s material needs are proportionate to their nation’s economic output per head; Karl Marx quoted that passage in a short piece that criticised Smith. A recent defence of Townsend’s definition is its supposed international public endorsement in empirical studies of socially perceived necessities. A review of this evidence finds that publics, like Smith and British poverty researchers before Townsend – most notably Seebohm Rowntree – see the extent of material need as affected by social context but not proportionate to national average income. Publishing purely relative and absolute purchasing power poverty statistics together offers a way of portraying hardship levels that is balanced to reflect publics’ more narrowly relative understanding of material needs.

Introduction to the Special Issue “Pro-Sociality and Cooperation”

This short piece presents the contributions of the special issue of Games, “Pro-sociality and Cooperation” [...]