Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 30 of 330

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Extreme Ungrading: Rewilding The Classroom Through Human-Centered Design, Johanna Brewer Jan 2024

Extreme Ungrading: Rewilding The Classroom Through Human-Centered Design, Johanna Brewer

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Assessment in computer science education has grown reliant on rigid rubrics and intensive exams, a practice that yields capable yet compliant coders. In this article, I explore how we might use human-centered design to reexamine contemporary pedagogy and redesign our classrooms to cultivate a different type of programmer, one with a more critically engaged eye. Inspired by the ethos of agile development, I offer an alternative evaluation paradigm: Extreme Ungrading. Exploring results of a two-year case study applying this method to a software engineering class, this article distills actionable guidelines for enhancing learning outcomes through inclusive course development, and seeks …


Humans Against Large Language Models On Hard Paraphrase Detection Tasks, Jamie C. Macbeth, Ella Chang, Jingyu Gin Chen, Yining Hua, Sandra Grandic, Winnie X. Zheng Jul 2023

Humans Against Large Language Models On Hard Paraphrase Detection Tasks, Jamie C. Macbeth, Ella Chang, Jingyu Gin Chen, Yining Hua, Sandra Grandic, Winnie X. Zheng

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

The ability to recognize that pairs or sets of language expressions “mean the same thing” is a cognitive task for which meaning representation is clearly a central issue. This paper uses the task of paraphrasing to study meaning representation in a cognitive system. The main claim is that a consequential part of the meaning representation for a natural language expression is a set of language-free structures that are not part of the expression in question. To support this claim, we construct a corpus of paraphrase pairs using a system that has a non-linguistic meaning represen- tation decoupled from the linguistic …


Preliminary Perspectives On Information Passing In The Intelligence Community, Jeremy E. Block, Ilana Bookner, Sharon Lynn Chu, R. Jordan Crouser, Donald R. Honeycutt, Rebecca M. Jonas, Abhishek Kulkarni, Yancy Vance Paredes, Eric D. Ragan Jun 2023

Preliminary Perspectives On Information Passing In The Intelligence Community, Jeremy E. Block, Ilana Bookner, Sharon Lynn Chu, R. Jordan Crouser, Donald R. Honeycutt, Rebecca M. Jonas, Abhishek Kulkarni, Yancy Vance Paredes, Eric D. Ragan

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Analyst sensemaking research typically focuses on individual or small groups conducting intelligence tasks. This has helped understand information retrieval tasks and how people communicate information. As a part of the grand challenge of the Summer Conference on Applied Data Science (SCADS) to build a system that can generate tailored daily reports (TLDR) for intelligence analysts, we conducted a qualitative interview study with analysts to increase understanding of information passing in the intelligence community. While our results are preliminary, we expect that this work will contribute to a better understanding of the information ecosystem of the intelligence community, how institutional dynamics …


Repytah: An Open-Source Python Package For Building Aligned Hierarchies For Sequential Data, Chenhui Jia, Lizette Carpenter, Thu Tran, Amanda Y. Liu, Sasha Yeutseyva, Mariun Tapal, Yingke Wang, Zoie Kexin Zhou, Jordan Moody, Denise Nava, Eleanor Donaher, Lillian Yusha Jiang, Ben Bruncati, Katherine M. Kinnaird May 2023

Repytah: An Open-Source Python Package For Building Aligned Hierarchies For Sequential Data, Chenhui Jia, Lizette Carpenter, Thu Tran, Amanda Y. Liu, Sasha Yeutseyva, Mariun Tapal, Yingke Wang, Zoie Kexin Zhou, Jordan Moody, Denise Nava, Eleanor Donaher, Lillian Yusha Jiang, Ben Bruncati, Katherine M. Kinnaird

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We introduce repytah, a Python package that constructs the aligned hierarchies representation that contains all possible structure-based hierarchical decompositions for a finite length piece of sequential data aligned on a common time axis. In particular, this representation–introduced by Kinnaird (2016) with music-based data (like musical recordings or scores) as the primary motivation–is intended for sequential data where repetitions have particular meaning (such as a verse, chorus, motif, or theme). Although the original motivation for the aligned hierarchies representation was finding structure for music-based data streams, there is nothing inherent in the construction of these representations that limits repytah to only …


Metric Ensembles Aid In Explainability: A Case Study With Wikipedia Data, Grant Forbes, R. Jordan Crouser Apr 2023

Metric Ensembles Aid In Explainability: A Case Study With Wikipedia Data, Grant Forbes, R. Jordan Crouser

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

In recent years, as machine learning models have become larger and more complex, it has become both more difficult and more important to be able to explain and interpret the results of those models, both to prevent model errors and to inspire confidence for end users of the model. As such, there has been a significant and growing interest in explainability in recent years as a highly desirable trait for a model to have. Similarly, there has been much recent attention on ensemble methods, which aim to aggregate results from multiple (often simple) models or metrics in order to outperform …


Visualizations For User-Supported State Space Exploration Of Requirements Models, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2023

Visualizations For User-Supported State Space Exploration Of Requirements Models, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Automated analysis has been used in goal-oriented requirements engineering (GORE) to evaluate scenarios and make trade-off decisions. For higher complexity problems (e.g., backwards analysis), using a search-based solver may be more efficient than custom algorithms. When these black-box solvers produce a single solution, users may be suspicious about whether the given answer is ideal or believable. Users would like to explore the potential solutions but are prevented from doing so because these inquiries often suffer from a state explosion problem. In this RE@Next! paper, we introduce the use of valuation-based filtering and coloring to assist users in understanding a solution …


An Experiment On The Effects Of Using Color To Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks: Supplemental Material, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2023

An Experiment On The Effects Of Using Color To Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks: Supplemental Material, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Supplemental material for the paper: "An Experiment on the Effects of using Color to Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks".
This paper is a scientific evaluation of the effectiveness and usability of EVO. We conduct an experiment to measure any effect of using colors to represent evidence pairs.


Visualizations For User-Supported State Space Exploration Of Goal Models: Supplemental Material, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2023

Visualizations For User-Supported State Space Exploration Of Goal Models: Supplemental Material, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Supplemental material for the research paper entitled, "Visualizations for User-supported State Space Exploration of Goal Models". This paper presents a technique for valuation-based filtering and coloring to assist users in understanding a solution space and selecting custom states from it. This supplement contains the data from our initial evaluation and associated models.


An Experiment On The Effects Of Using Color To Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2023

An Experiment On The Effects Of Using Color To Visualize Requirements Analysis Tasks, Yesugen Baatartogtokh, Irene Foster, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Recent approaches have investigated assisting users in making early trade-off decisions when the future evolution of project elements is uncertain. These approaches have demon-strated promise in their analytical capabilities; yet, stakeholders have expressed concerns about the readability of the models and resulting analysis, which builds upon Tropos. Tropos is based on formal semantics enabling automated analysis; however, this creates a problem of interpreting evidence pairs. The aim of our broader research project is to improve the process of model comprehension and decision making by improving how analysts interpret and make decisions. We extend and evaluate a prior approach, called EVO, …


Coming Out While Going Fast: Queer Conviviality In Speedrunning Live Streams, Johanna Brewer Jan 2023

Coming Out While Going Fast: Queer Conviviality In Speedrunning Live Streams, Johanna Brewer

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Drawing on ethnographic research of LGBTQIA+ live streaming speedrunners, this article demonstrates how by centering queer perspectives, we can catalyze meaningful social changes for all. Though for most people, beating the original Super Mario Bros. in under five minutes would seem unfathomably difficult, LGBTQIA+ speedrunning live streamers regularly accomplish this superhuman feat, while coming out to an audience of thousands at the same time. For queer and trans folks, broadcasting such a transgressive, transformational form of play is defiant demonstration of vulnerability; one that creates a comfortable space for a community to thrive, by cultivating a culture of queer conviviality. …


Image Schema Decompositions Of The Conceptual Dependency Ingest Primitive: A Study Of Paraphrases, Jamie C. Macbeth, Alexis Kilayko, Zoie Zhao, Sophie Song, Winniw X. Zheng Jan 2023

Image Schema Decompositions Of The Conceptual Dependency Ingest Primitive: A Study Of Paraphrases, Jamie C. Macbeth, Alexis Kilayko, Zoie Zhao, Sophie Song, Winniw X. Zheng

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

One of the hallmarks of the Schank-Minsky Conceptual Dependency Trans-Frames meaning representation system is that it attempts to express complex meanings by building large and complex conceptual structures using a relatively small number of primitives. Recently comparisons of image schemas with Conceptual Dependency primitives revealed ways of possibly reducing the number of primitives while maintaining the expressiveness of the set—an important research goal because it increases the flexibility and richness of the primitive-decomposed structures in a way that better approximates human cognition. Inspired by this prior work, we employ a paraphrase generation system to explore the replacement of the Conceptual …


A Proposal For Primitive Decomposition Of Spatial Orientation Relationships, Jamie C. Macbeth, Mackie Zhou, Zoie Zhao Jan 2023

A Proposal For Primitive Decomposition Of Spatial Orientation Relationships, Jamie C. Macbeth, Mackie Zhou, Zoie Zhao

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

This short paper continues work on primitive decomposition systems for meaning representation which combine image schemas and conceptual dependency primitive systems. An important thread of this research seeks small abstract sets of conceptual primitives so that decompositions of imagery evoked by language give rise to rich sets of mappings between language and the language-free representations, reflecting the linguistic variation of human language behavior. In this brief paper, we present a proposal for novel primitive decompositions of positions, spatial relationships, and orientations of objects in space in a conceptual representation framework. As an abstract first approximation, we introduce a spatial primitive …


More Human Than Human: Llm-Generated Narratives Outperform Human-Llm Interleaved Narratives, Zoie Zhao, Sophie Song, Bridget Duah, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Monica Van, Nayeli Bravo, Matthew Klenk, Katherine Sieck, Alexandre Filipowicz Jan 2023

More Human Than Human: Llm-Generated Narratives Outperform Human-Llm Interleaved Narratives, Zoie Zhao, Sophie Song, Bridget Duah, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Monica Van, Nayeli Bravo, Matthew Klenk, Katherine Sieck, Alexandre Filipowicz

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Narrative story generation has gained emerging interest in the field of large language models. The present paper aims to compare stories generated by an LLM only (non-interleaved) with those generated by interleaving human-generated and LLM-generated text (interleaved). The study’s hypothesis is that interleaved stories would perform better than non-interleaved stories. To verify this hypothesis, we conducted two tests with roughly 500 participants each. Participants were asked to rate stories of each type, including an overall score or preference and four facets—logical soundness, plausibility, understandability, and novelty. Our findings indicate that interleaved stories were in fact less preferred than non-interleaved stories. …


Playing Unbound: Towards A Radically Intersectional Hci, Johanna Brewer Nov 2022

Playing Unbound: Towards A Radically Intersectional Hci, Johanna Brewer

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

This short essay is a call to action for digital games researchers to positively transform the future of HCI by meaningfully adopting an explicitly intersectional approach to our work as a scholarly community.


Proceedings Of The Tenth Annual Conference On Advances In Cognitive Systems, Jamie C. Macbeth, Leilani Gilpin, Michael T. Cox Nov 2022

Proceedings Of The Tenth Annual Conference On Advances In Cognitive Systems, Jamie C. Macbeth, Leilani Gilpin, Michael T. Cox

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We hope you will enjoy these proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems (ACS). The event was the first hybrid meeting of ACS in is history. It took place virtually via Zoom and physically at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, from Saturday, November 19, to Tuesday, November 22, 2022. We are so delighted to be part of continuing this important venue that focuses on the original long-standing goals and challenges of artificial intelligence research. The conference program consisted of 37 papers consisting of ten 30-minute long talks, fifteen 20-minute short talks, twelve posters, three invited …


Digital Intimacy In Real Time: Live Streaming Gender And Sexuality, Bo Ruberg, Johanna Brewer Jul 2022

Digital Intimacy In Real Time: Live Streaming Gender And Sexuality, Bo Ruberg, Johanna Brewer

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

This article serves as the guest editors’ introduction to the Television and New Media special issue dedicated to gender and sexuality in live streaming. Live streaming is a key part of the contemporary digital media landscape; it sits at the center of wide-reaching shifts in how culture, entertainment, and labor are expressed and experienced online today. Gender and sexuality are crucial elements of live streaming. Across live streaming’s many forms, these elements manifest in myriad ways: from gendered performances to gender-based harassment, from LGBTQ community building to real-time sex work. This special issue models an interdisciplinary approach to studying gender …


A Systematic Literature Review Of Requirements Engineering Education, Marian Daun, Alicia M. Grubb, Viktoria Stenkova, Bastian Tenbergen May 2022

A Systematic Literature Review Of Requirements Engineering Education, Marian Daun, Alicia M. Grubb, Viktoria Stenkova, Bastian Tenbergen

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Requirements engineering (RE) has established itself as a core software engineering discipline. It is well acknowledged that good RE leads to higher quality software and considerably reduces the risk of failure or budget-overspending of software development projects. It is of vital importance to train future software engineers in RE and educate future requirements engineers to adequately manage requirements in various projects. To this date, there exists no central concept of what RE education shall comprise. To lay a foundation, we report on a systematic literature review of the feld and provide a systematic map describing the current state of RE …


Auxetic Interval Determination And Experimental Validation For A Three-Dimensional Periodic Framework, Ciprian S. Borcea, Freek G.J. Broeren, Just L. Herder, Ileana Streinu, Volkert Van Der Wijk May 2022

Auxetic Interval Determination And Experimental Validation For A Three-Dimensional Periodic Framework, Ciprian S. Borcea, Freek G.J. Broeren, Just L. Herder, Ileana Streinu, Volkert Van Der Wijk

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Auxetic behavior refers to lateral widening upon stretching or, in reverse, lateral shrinking upon compression. When an initially auxetic structure is actuated by compression or extension, it will not necessarily remain auxetic for larger deformations. In this paper, we investigate the auxetic range in the deformation of a periodic framework with one degree of freedom. We use geometric criteria to identify the interval where the deformation is auxetic and validate these theoretical findings with compression experiments on sample structures with (Formula presented.) unit cells.


Three Major Instructional Approaches For Requirements Engineering, Marian Daun, Alicia M. Grubb, Bastian Tenbergen Jan 2022

Three Major Instructional Approaches For Requirements Engineering, Marian Daun, Alicia M. Grubb, Bastian Tenbergen

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

In this talk, we report on our findings from the paper A Survey of Instructional Approaches in the Requirements Engineering Education Literature [DGT21], which has been accepted at and published in the proceedings of the 2021 IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering. The paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review to define and investigate the current state of research on requirements engineering education.


Novel Primitive Decompositions For Real-World Physical Reasoning, Mackie Zhoou, Bridget Duah, Jamie C. Macbeth Jan 2022

Novel Primitive Decompositions For Real-World Physical Reasoning, Mackie Zhoou, Bridget Duah, Jamie C. Macbeth

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

In this work, we are concerned with developing cognitive representations that may en- hance the ability for self-supervised learning systems to learn language as part of their world explorations. We apply insights from in-depth language understanding systems to the problem, specifically representations which decompose language inputs into language-free structures that are complex combinations of primitives representing cognitive abstractions such as object permanence, movement, and spatial relationships. These decompositions, performed by a system traditionally called a conceptual analyzer, link words with complex non-linguistic structures that engender the rich relations between language expressions and world exploration that are a familiar aspect of …


Interleaving A Symbolic Story Generator With A Neural Network-Based Large Language Model, Jingwen Xiang, Zoie Zhao, Mackie Zhou, Megan Mckenzie, Alexis Kilayko, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Katharine Sieck, Matthew Klenk Jan 2022

Interleaving A Symbolic Story Generator With A Neural Network-Based Large Language Model, Jingwen Xiang, Zoie Zhao, Mackie Zhou, Megan Mckenzie, Alexis Kilayko, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Katharine Sieck, Matthew Klenk

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Research in deep learning has recently produced models of natural language that are capable of generating natural language output which, at a glance, has strong similarities to that written by intelligent humans. However, the texts produced by deep learning-based large language models (LLMs), upon deeper examination, reveal the challenges that they have in producing outputs that maintain logical coherence. One specific application area of interest for LLMs is in fictional narrative generation, a mode of operation in which stories are generated by the model in response to a prompt text that indicates the start of a story or the desired …


Script Combination For Enhanced Story Understanding And Story Generation Systems, Megan Mckenzie, Alexis Kilayko, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Katharine Sieck, Matthew Klenk Jan 2022

Script Combination For Enhanced Story Understanding And Story Generation Systems, Megan Mckenzie, Alexis Kilayko, Jamie C. Macbeth, Scott Carter, Katharine Sieck, Matthew Klenk

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Scripts, knowledge structures defining sequences of events in stereotypical social situations, were traditionally used to simulate the ways in which people can infer unstated details in understanding a story. In this paper, we describe the MUltiple SCRipt AcTivator (MUSCRAT), and the Script Combination Applier Mechanism (SCAM), significant enhancements of Cullingford’s Script Applier Mechanism which accomplish two novel aims. One system, MUSCRAT, is able to activate more than one script and use them during a story understanding process. The second system, SCAM, uses scripts for story generation, using script variables as “terminals” for combining two or more scripts together to create …


A Divide & Concur Approach To Collaborative Goal Modeling With Merge In Early-Re: Supplemental Material, Kathleen R. Hablutzel, Anisha Jain, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2022

A Divide & Concur Approach To Collaborative Goal Modeling With Merge In Early-Re: Supplemental Material, Kathleen R. Hablutzel, Anisha Jain, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Supplemental material for the paper:
"A Divide & Concur Approach to Collaborative Goal Modeling with Merge in Early-RE"
This paper proposes a formal approach to the problem of merging the attributes of intentions and actors, once these elements have been matched.


Infinitesimal Periodic Deformations And Quadrics, Ciprian S. Borcea, Ileana Streinu Sep 2021

Infinitesimal Periodic Deformations And Quadrics, Ciprian S. Borcea, Ileana Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We describe a correspondence between the infinitesimal deformations of a periodic bar-and-joint framework and periodic arrangements of quadrics. This intrinsic correlation provides useful geometric characteristics. A direct consequence is a method for detecting auxetic deformations, identified by a pattern consisting of homothetic ellipsoids. Examples include frameworks with higher crystallographic symmetry.


Combinatorial Resultants In The Algebraic Rigidity Matroid, Goran Malić, Ileana Streinu Jun 2021

Combinatorial Resultants In The Algebraic Rigidity Matroid, Goran Malić, Ileana Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Motivated by a rigidity-theoretic perspective on the Localization Problem in 2D, we develop an algorithm for computing circuit polynomials in the algebraic rigidity matroid CMn associated to the Cayley-Menger ideal for n points in 2D. We introduce combinatorial resultants, a new operation on graphs that captures properties of the Sylvester resultant of two polynomials in the algebraic rigidity matroid. We show that every rigidity circuit has a construction tree from K4 graphs based on this operation. Our algorithm performs an algebraic elimination guided by the construction tree, and uses classical resultants, factorization and ideal membership. To demonstrate its effectiveness, we …


Periodic Tilings And Auxetic Deployments, Ciprian S. Borcea, Ileana Streinu Feb 2021

Periodic Tilings And Auxetic Deployments, Ciprian S. Borcea, Ileana Streinu

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We investigate geometric characteristics of a specific planar periodic framework with three degrees of freedom. While several avatars of this structural design have been considered in materials science under the name of chiral or missing rib models, all previous studies have addressed only local properties and limited deployment scenarios. We describe the global configuration space of the framework and emphasize the geometric underpinnings of auxetic deformations. Analogous structures may be considered in arbitrary dimension.


Four Opportunities For Se Ethics Education, Alicia M. Grubb Jan 2021

Four Opportunities For Se Ethics Education, Alicia M. Grubb

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Many software engineers direct their talents to- wards software systems which do not fall into traditional definitions of safety critical systems, but are integral to society (e.g., social media, expert advisor systems). While codes of ethics can be a useful starting point for ethical discussions, codes are often limited in scope to professional ethics and may not offer answers to individuals weighing competing ethical priorities. In this paper, we present our vision for improving ethics education in software engineering. To do this, we consider current and past curricular recommendations, as well as recent efforts within the broader computer science community. …


Towards A Generic Method For Articulating Design Uncertainty, Mouna Dhaouadi, Kate M. B. Spencer, Megan H. Varnum, Alicia M. Grubb, Michalis Famelis Jan 2021

Towards A Generic Method For Articulating Design Uncertainty, Mouna Dhaouadi, Kate M. B. Spencer, Megan H. Varnum, Alicia M. Grubb, Michalis Famelis

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Modelers encounter different kinds of uncertainty in their designs and models of software systems. One such type concerns uncertainty about how to build a model. This is called design-time uncertainty, and existing research has studied how modelers can work in its presence. However, the process by which they come to elicit and express their uncertainties remains unclear. In this paper, we take steps towards addressing this gap by introducing DRUIDE (Design and Requirements Uncertainty Integrated Development Environment), a language and workflow for articulating design time uncertainty. We present and illustrate our proposal on a software design example. Additionally, we conduct …


Formal Reasoning For Analyzing Goal Models That Evolve Over Time, Alicia M. Grubb, Marsha Chechik Jan 2021

Formal Reasoning For Analyzing Goal Models That Evolve Over Time, Alicia M. Grubb, Marsha Chechik

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


An Open-Publishing Response To The Covid-19 Infodemic, Halie M. Rando, Simina M. Boca, Lucy D.Agostino Mcgowan, Daniel S. Himmelstein, Michael P. Robson, Vincent Rubinetti, Ryan Velazquez, Casey S. Greene, Anthony Gitter Jan 2021

An Open-Publishing Response To The Covid-19 Infodemic, Halie M. Rando, Simina M. Boca, Lucy D.Agostino Mcgowan, Daniel S. Himmelstein, Michael P. Robson, Vincent Rubinetti, Ryan Velazquez, Casey S. Greene, Anthony Gitter

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the rapid dissemination of papers and preprints investigating the disease and its associated virus, SARS-CoV-2. The multifaceted nature of COVID-19 demands a multidisciplinary approach, but the urgency of the crisis combined with the need for social distancing measures present unique challenges to collaborative science. We applied a massive online open publishing approach to this problem using Manubot. Through GitHub, collaborators summarized and critiqued COVID-19 literature, creating a review manuscript. Manubot automatically compiled citation information for referenced preprints, journal publications, websites, and clinical trials. Continuous integration workflows retrieved up-to-date data from online sources nightly, regenerating some of …