A Survey of Automated Programming Hint Generation: The HINTS Framework

Automated tutoring systems offer the flexibility and scalability necessary to facilitate the provision of high-quality and universally accessible programming education. To realise the potential of these systems, recent work has proposed a diverse range of techniques for automatically generating feedback in the form of hints to assist students with programming exercises. This article integrates these apparently disparate approaches into a coherent whole. Specifically, it emphasises that all hint techniques can be understood as a series of simpler components with similar properties. Using this insight, it presents a simple framework for describing such techniques, the Hint Iteration by Narrow-down and Transformation Steps framework, and surveys recent work in the context of this framework. Findings from this survey include that (1) hint techniques share similar properties, which can be used to visualise them together, (2) the individual steps of hint techniques should be considered when designing and evaluating hint systems, (3) more work is required to develop and improve evaluation methods, and (4) interesting relationships, such as the link between automated hints and data-driven evaluation, should be further investigated. Ultimately, this article aims to facilitate the development, extension, and comparison of automated programming hint techniques to maximise their educational potential.

The Lacan–Badiou constellation in L’immanence des vérités: A limit on the infinite?

In Alain Badiou’s most recent work, L’immanence des vérités ( The Immanence of Truths), psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once again figures peripherally but saliently. What is their specific relation in this text, however? We argue that Badiou responds here to the problem raised precisely by the Lacanian subject, situated as it is between the radical subjectivity of the symptom and the possibility of formalization. In L’immanence, he introduces the term ‘absoluteness’ to secure truths against both relativism and transcendental construction. We show that in drawing on Lacan to establish an understanding of the absolute, Badiou highlights the implicit tension between psychoanalysis and philosophy. We treat central cross-currents – truths, knowledge, the event and love – to help reveal the specific character of their confluence in this third book of Badiou’s trilogy. Although he stresses the unity of his and Lacan’s efforts, the impossible Real marking their divisions also invariably emerges the closer one investigates.

Progress in Recommender Systems Research: Crisis? What Crisis?

Scholars in algorithmic recommender systems research have developed a largely standardized scientific method, where progress is claimed by showing that a new algorithm outperforms existing ones on or more accuracy measures. In theory, reproducing and thereby verifying such improvements is easy, as it merely involves the execution of the experiment code on the same data. However, as recent work shows, the reported progress is often only virtual, because of a number of issues related to (i) a lack of reproducibility, (ii) technical and theoretical flaws, and (iii) scholarship practices that are strongly prone to researcher biases. As a result, several recent works could show that the latest published algorithms actually do not outperform existing methods when evaluated independently. Despite these issues, we currently see no signs of a crisis, where researchers re-think their scientific method, but rather a situation of stagnation, where researchers continue to focus on the same topics. In this paper, we discuss these issues, analyze their potential underlying reasons, and outline a set of guidelines to ensure progress in recommender systems research.

Do we still need professional boundaries? The multiple influences of boundaries on interprofessional collaboration

Although a body of research suggests that interprofessional collaboration is hindered by the presence of professional boundaries, more recent work has demonstrated that removing these boundaries also has negative consequences for collaboration. To address these paradoxical findings, we examine two different team-level initiatives that aimed at softening and breaking down professional boundaries, drawing on data gathered from 78 in-depth interviews and two years of observations of four cross-occupational teams in the English National Health Service. Our inductive analysis of this data shows that professionals use boundaries and their manifestations —which become apparent through materialization, articulation, and embodiment— to identify and retrieve professional categories. The conspicuous presence of boundaries allows professionals to anticipate other team members’ expertise and roles, as well as different aspects of team tasks. We theorize our findings by showing how professional boundaries can be positively interlaced with interprofessional collaboration by making visible and grounding naturalized systems of classification.

Robust Working Memory through Short-Term Synaptic Plasticity

Working memory has long been thought to arise from sustained spiking/attractor dynamics. However, recent work has suggested that short-term synaptic plasticity (STSP) may help maintain attractor states over gaps in time with little or no spiking. To determine if STSP endows additional functional advantages, we trained artificial recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with and without STSP to perform an object working memory task. We found that RNNs with and without STSP were both able to maintain memories over distractors presented in the middle of the memory delay. However, RNNs with STSP showed activity that was similar to that seen in the cortex of monkeys performing the same task. By contrast, RNNs without STSP showed activity that was less brain-like. Further, RNNs with STSP were more robust to noise and network degradation than RNNs without STSP. These results show that STSP can not only help maintain working memories, it also makes neural networks more robust.

Modelling Selectional Super-Flexibility

The selectional flexibility of some attitude verbs (e.g. know, realize, report) between declarative and interrogative complements has been the subject of much recent work in formal semantics. However, little attention has been paid to verbs (e.g. see, remember, observe) that embed an even wider variety of complements (incl. subject-controlled gerundive small clauses and concrete object-denoting DPs). Since the familiar types of some of these complements resist an embedding in the type for questions [= sets of propositions], these verbs challenge Theiler, Roelofsen & Aloni’s (2018) uniform interpretation strategy for the complements of responsive verbs. My paper answers this challenge by uniformly interpreting the different complements of selectionally super-flexible verbs like remember in a generalized type for questions, viz. as parametrized centered questions. It shows that the resulting semantics captures the intuitive entailment pattern of these verbs.

Imprecision, personae, and pragmatic reasoning

Recent work at the interface of semantics and sociolinguistics showed that listeners reason about the semantic/pragmatic properties of linguistic utterances to draw social inferences about the speaker (Acton and Potts 2014; Beltrama 2018; Jeong 2021). These findings raise the question of whether reverse effects exist as well, i.e., whether (and how) social meanings can also impact the interpretation of semantic/pragmatic meanings. Using (im)precision as a case study, we provide experimental evidence that (i) numerals receive stricter interpretations when utteredbyNerdy(vs. Chill) speakers; and that (ii) this effect is stronger for comprehenders who don’t (strongly) identify with the speaker, suggesting that pragmatic reasoning is crucially shaped by social information about both the speaker and the comprehender. These findings suggest that different layers of meanings inform one another in a bi-directional fashion – i.e., semantic information can invite social inferences, and Misocial information can guide meaning interpretation.

Solvation, Rational Design, and Interfaces: Development of Divalent Electrolytes

Rechargeable multivalent ion batteries are promising tools to complement current lithium-ion batteries for a future of diverse energy storage needs. Divalent Mg and Ca are attractive candidates for their high crustal abundance, high volumetric anode capacity, and infrequent dendrite formation during electrochemical cycling. Electrolyte research is central to these efforts and continually improves coulombic efficiencies towards the ideal 100%. This mini-review discusses recent work towards fundamental understandings that push these chemistries towards practical use. Piecing together compatible cathode and electrolytes for a complete practical multivalent ion battery lacks a cohesive method for further development and refinement. Understanding liquid solvation, utilizing rational design, and probing interfacial interactions are focal points that govern electrolyte performance. The combination of these areas will be critical for meaningful development.

Modality in the nominal domain: Yalnhej DPs in Chuj

How do modal expressions determine which possibilities they invoke? Do they do it the same way across categories? Recent work proposes that modal auxiliaries project the domain of possibilities that they quantify over from an event variable, which can get different values in different syntactic positions (Hacquard 2006, 2009, 2010, see also Kratzer 2013). Based on the behaviour of the Spanish random choice indefinite uno cualquiera, Alonso-Ovalle & Menéndez-Benito (2018) conclude that the same strategy is available for modal indefinites. This paper brings evidence from Chuj, an understudied Mayan language, which supports this conclusion further. The paper focuses on yalnhej DPs, a type of quantifier that makes a non-upper bound existential claim and that contributes a modal component with a flavour that depends on syntactic position.