Transportation Research Record Nn1470

"This CD-ROM contains abstracts and text (including graphics) of the 832 papers published in Volumes 1901-1941 and CD 11-S of the 2005 series of the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. Papers were selected for publication from those presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and at the 6th International Bridge Engineering Conference. The papers, related to research, practice, and policy in all modes and subject areas of transportation, are maintained in their complete form as published and are displayed as Adobe® Acrobat® files."--Title screen.

This book presents the first detailed and comprehensive study of information highlighting in advanced learner language, echoing the increasing interest in questions of near-native competence in SLA research and contributing to the description of advanced interlanguages. It examines the production and comprehension of specific means of information highlighting in English by native speakers and German learners of English as a foreign language, presenting triangulated experimental and learner corpus data as corroborating evidence. The study focuses on learners' use of discourse-pragmatically motivated variations of the basic word order such as inversion, preposing, and it- and wh-clefts, an underexplored field in SLA research to date.The book also provides a critical re-assessment of the study of pragmatics within SLA. It has largely been neglected to date that L2 pragmatic knowledge includes more than the sociopragmatic and pragmalinguistic abilities for understanding and performing speech acts. Thus, the book argues for an extension of the scope of inquiry in interlanguage pragmatics beyond the cross-cultural investigation of speech acts. It also discusses pedagogical implications for foreign language teaching and will be of interest to applied linguists and SLA researchers, language teachers and curriculum designers.

Most practical applications of artificial neural networks are based on a computational model involving the propagation of continuous variables from one processing unit to the next. In recent years, data from neurobiological experiments have made it increasingly clear that biological neural networks, which communicate through pulses, use the timing of the pulses to transmit information and perform computation. This realization has stimulated significant research on pulsed neural networks, including theoretical analyses and model development, neurobiological modeling, and hardware implementation. This book presents the complete spectrum of current research in pulsed neural networks and includes the most important work from many of the key scientists in the field. Terrence J. Sejnowski's foreword, "Neural Pulse Coding," presents an overview of the topic. The first half of the book consists of longer tutorial articles spanning neurobiology, theory, algorithms, and hardware. The second half contains a larger number of shorter research chapters that present more advanced concepts. The contributors use consistent notation and terminology throughout the book. Contributors Peter S. Burge, Stephen R. Deiss, Rodney J. Douglas, John G. Elias, Wulfram Gerstner, Alister Hamilton, David Horn, Axel Jahnke, Richard Kempter, Wolfgang Maass, Alessandro Mortara, Alan F. Murray, David P. M. Northmore, Irit Opher, Kostas A. Papathanasiou, Michael Recce, Barry J. P. Rising, Ulrich Roth, Tim Schönauer, Terrence J. Sejnowski, John Shawe-Taylor, Max R. van Daalen, J. Leo van Hemmen, Philippe Venier, Hermann Wagner, Adrian M. Whatley, Anthony M. Zador

Neural Networks in Robotics is the first book to present an integrated view of both the application of artificial neural networks to robot control and the neuromuscular models from which robots were created. The behavior of biological systems provides both the inspiration and the challenge for robotics. The goal is to build robots which can emulate the ability of living organisms to integrate perceptual inputs smoothly with motor responses, even in the presence of novel stimuli and changes in the environment. The ability of living systems to learn and to adapt provides the standard against which robotic systems are judged. In order to emulate these abilities, a number of investigators have attempted to create robot controllers which are modelled on known processes in the brain and musculo-skeletal system. Several of these models are described in this book. On the other hand, connectionist (artificial neural network) formulations are attractive for the computation of inverse kinematics and dynamics of robots, because they can be trained for this purpose without explicit programming. Some of the computational advantages and problems of this approach are also presented. For any serious student of robotics, Neural Networks in Robotics provides an indispensable reference to the work of major researchers in the field. Similarly, since robotics is an outstanding application area for artificial neural networks, Neural Networks in Robotics is equally important to workers in connectionism and to students for sensormonitor control in living systems.

This volume contains a collection of papers presented at the 3rd Interna tional Symposium on Autonomous Minirobots for Research and Edutainment (AMiRE 2005) that is held at Awara-Spa, Fukui, Japan, September 20-22, 2005. This is a biennial symposium, which started as AMiRE 2001 at the Heinz Nixdorf Institute of the University of Paderborn, Germany, in 2001, and was followed by AMiRE 2003 at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, in 2003. After these successful symposia, AMiRE 2005 is held under the sponsorship of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Fukui and under the co-sponsorship of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. It is funded by the Fukui Convention Bureau and the University of Fukui. Each full-length paper submitted to the symposium was independently reviewed by 3 referees from the world's front-line researchers, and 55 papers were accepted for oral presentation. We acknowledge generous support for those who gave excellent reviews in order to maintain the high standards of the symposium despite a very tight schedule.

Teachers and Educational Quality: Monitoring Global Needs for 2015 provides global and regional assessments on the state of teachers and education quality. By highlighting trends in the numbers and quality of teachers, especially in developing countries, it explores the policy implications that come into play when attempts are made to bridge any gaps between the two. It also compares the strengths and shortcomings of recruitment and deployment policies, as well as looking at working conditions around the world. Data on less-developed countries, in particular, are presented from a wide range of sources. These include administrative data, student assessment studies and special data collection on primary and secondary teachers in 25 countries. Aiming to inform policy-making, the report employs international benchmarks for monitoring change. This publication also features a unique methodology for simulating teacher demand by 2015. It not merely projects demand, but defines fixed targets described in terms of indicators, also applying a model to quantify the minimum required to reach stated goals.