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This book examines how corporate e-learning is developed, implemented and how effectiveness is determined at IBM. It addresses the following questions: Why e-learning? How is e-learning developed? How is e-learning implemented? How is e-learning effectiveness determined? What are the lessons learned? E-learning is a tool to be used along with other means of learning. It is used when it is the best way to learn for a particular application. It is a way to save costly face-to-face time for optimal use. There is no one size that fits all. IBM is an early adopter in use of e-learning for training its global workforce. IBM, like other corporations, has its own unique e-learning solutions. Strategic vision, clear business objectives, well defined learning organization, strong leadership, corporate support, prudent use of e-learning, quality of content, ease of access, interoperability, accountability of learners and instructors, and a well defined measurement system all matter. Successful integration of these ingredients is essential for effective e-learning. Ignoring any of these key ingredients can lead to failure. IBM has its own rationale and approach to using e-learning. It has its growing pains. Experience in e-learning at IBM provides a unique context for leveraging e-learning to train employees. IBM has been successful in using e-learning in the context of their business objectives and business environments. IBM's experience and lessons learned should serve as an important guide to those who are implementing e-learning.

This book presents a cross-linguistic study of the phenomenon of infixation, typically associated in English with words like nullim-bloody-possiblenull, and found in all the world's major linguistic families. Infixation is a central puzzle in prosodic morphology: the book explores its prosodic, phonological, and morphological characteristics; considers its diverse functions, and formulates a general theory to explain the rules and constraints by which it is governed. The book examines 154 infixation patterns from over a hundred languages, including examples from Asia, Europe, Africa, New Guinea, and South America. It compares the formal properties of different kinds of infix, explores the range of diachronic pathways that lead to them, and considers the processes by which they are acquired in first language learning. A central argument of the book concerns the idea that the typological tendencies of language may be traced back to its origins and to the mechanisms of language transmission. The book thus combines the history of infixation with an exploration of the role diachronic and functional factors play in synchronic argumentation: it is an exemplary instance of the holistic approach to linguistic explanation.

Facing the Music investigates the practices and ideas that have grown from some five decades of cultural diversity in music education, developments in ethnomusicology, and the rise of ‘world music.’ It makes a case for the crucial role of learning music in shaping rich and diverse musical environments for the twenty‐first century, both in practical terms and at a conceptual level: “what we hear is the product of what we believe about music.” Advocating a contemporary, positive and realistic approach to cultural diversity in music education and transmission, the book takes into account and celebrates the natural dynamics of music, regarding every musical act as an expression of its current contexts in terms of cultures, communities, and underlying constructs, and establishing that “most music travels remarkably well.” In seven chapters that each approach the issues from a different angle, the book gradually unfolds the complexities of learning and teaching music ‘out of original context’ in an accessible manner, and presents a coherent model to approach these, as well as lucid suggestions for translating the resulting ideas in practice. While mapping the various factors that determine all acts of music transmission, it also comes to surprising insights into the nature and preconceptions underlying much formal music education settings across the world, including those focusing on western classical music. Based on an insider's view of both the delights and challenges of music in multicultural societies, Facing the music provides a rich resource for reflection and practice for all those involved in teaching and learning music, from policy maker to classroom teacher.

This book describes and analyses the cognitive processes that take place in the perception, performance, and creation of music. It proposes that underlying the various musical skills is the ability to form abstract mental representations of music, which allow it to be apprehended in structural terms. In this respect, the analogy to language is paramount. The book reviews the experimental literature on music-language overlaps, performance, composition and improvization, listening, learning and development, and culture and biology. It assesses this literature and also examines areas where research is lacking, from the perspective of a cognitive psychologist who is also an active performing musician.

For years now, learning has been at the heart of research within cognitive psychology. How do we acquire new knowledge and new skills? Are the principles underlying skill acquisition unique to learning, or similar to those underlying other behaviours? Is the mental system essentially modular, or is the mental system a simple product of experience, a product that, inevitably, reflects the shape of the external world with all of its specialisms and similarities? This book takes the view that learning is a major influence on the nature of the processes and representations that fill our minds. Throughout, the book reviews and considers the areas of skill acquisition and lexical representation to illustrate the effects that practice can have on cognitive processes. It also draws parallels between theories in physical and biological domains to propose not only a new theory of mental function, but also demonstrate that the mind is essentially subject to the same natural laws as the physical world. In so doing, this book presents a new perspective on psychology — one that identifies universal principles underlying all behaviours and one which contrasts markedly from the current focus on highly specific behaviours.

This book presents an exploration of how fundamental signals are to our world. It uses a variety of tools — theories of signaling games, information, evolution, and learning — to investigate how meaning and communication develop. The book shows how signaling games themselves evolve, and introduces a new model of learning with invention. The juxtaposition of atomic signals leads to complex signals, as the natural product of gradual process. Signals operate in networks of senders and receivers at all levels of life. Information is transmitted, but it is also processed in various ways. That is how we think — signals run around a very complicated signaling network. Signaling is a key ingredient in the evolution of teamwork, in the human but also in the animal world, even in micro-organisms. Communication and co-ordination of action are different aspects of the flow of information, and are both effected by signals.

This book is based on the Arne Ryde Lectures in 2002. The book suggests a conceptual framework for studying strategic learning and highlights theoretical developments in the area. It discusses the interactive learning problem; reinforcement and regret; equilibrium; conditional no-regret learning; prediction, postdiction, and calibration; fictitious play and its variants; Bayesian learning; and hypothesis testing. The book’s framework emphasizes the amount of information required to implement different types of learning rules, criteria for evaluating their performance, and alternative notions of equilibrium to which they converge. The book also stresses the limits of what can be achieved: for a given type of game and a given amount of information, there may exist no learning procedure that satisfies certain reasonable criteria of performance and convergence.

This book explores a theory of language evolution as a complex adaptive system that exists as a cultural artifact without any requirement for innate abstract grammatical representations. Language acquisition is seen as an emotionally driven process relying on innately specified “interactional instinct.” This genetically-based tendency provides neural structures that entrain children acquiring their native language to the faces, voices, and body movements of conspecific caregivers. It is essentially an innate attentional and motivational system, which drives children to pay attention to the language interaction in their environment and to acquire that language by general learning mechanisms that subserve declarative and procedural knowledge. This mechanism guarantees the ubiquity of language acquisition for all biologically normal children. Second-language acquisition by older adolescents and adults no longer has recourse to this mechanism, and therefore, success in second-language learning is extremely variable. However, in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved.

One of the most widespread words in medicine is the placebo and placebo effect, although it is not always clear what it means exactly. Recent progress in biomedical research has allowed a better clarification of the placebo effect. This is an active psychobiological phenomenon which takes place in the patient's brain and that is capable of influencing both the course of a disease and the response to a therapy. The psychosocial context around the patient is crucial to placebo effects, for example the doctor's words and attitudes, and this may have a profound impact on the patient's brain which, in turn, may affect several physiological functions of the body. This book emphasizes that there is not a single placebo effect but many. The book critically reviews them in different medical conditions, such as pain, neurological disorders, psychiatric and behavioural disorders, immune and endocrine systems, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, gastrointestinal and genitourinary disorders, as well as some special conditions, such as oncology, surgery, sports medicine, and acupuncture.

Peace operations are the UN's flagship activity. Over the past decade, UN blue helmets have been dispatched to evermore challenging environments from the Congo to Timor to perform an expanding set of tasks. From protecting civilians in the midst of violent conflict to rebuilding state institutions after war, a new range of tasks has transformed the business of the blue helmets into an inherently knowledge-based venture. But all too often, the UN blue helmets, policemen, and other civilian officials have been ‘flying blind’ in their efforts to stabilize countries ravaged by war. The UN realized the need to put knowledge, guidance and doctrine, and reflection on failures and successes at the center of the institution. Building on an innovative multidisciplinary framework, this study provides a first comprehensive account of learning in peacekeeping. Covering the crucial past decade of expansion in peace operations, it zooms into a dozen cases of attempted learning across four crucial domains: police assistance, judicial reform, reintegration of former combatants, and mission integration. Throughout the different cases, the study analyzes the role of key variables as enablers and stumbling blocks for learning: bureaucratic politics, the learning infrastructure, leadership, as well as power and interests of member states. Building on five years of research and access to key documents and decision-makers, the book presents a vivid portrait of an international bureaucracy struggling to turn itself into a learning organization.

The book covers the modern developments in Evolutionary Game Theory, with an emphasis on economic contexts and applications. It begins with the basic ideas as they originated within the field of theoretical biology, focusing on the core notions of Evolutionarily Stable Strategy and Replicator Dynamics. Both the static and dynamic approaches of this biological literature are presented in detail, and the general analysis illustrated with numerous examples. It then proceeds to the formulation of a theoretical framework that is suitable for the study of social and economic phenomena from an evolutionary perspective. After a discussion of strictly deterministic dynamic models, stochastic perturbations are introduced in order to account for the social‐ and individual‐based sources of ‘noise’ (including aggregate shocks, agents’ experimentation, and population renewal), which play an important role in evolutionary processes.

Evolutionary Theory has become one of the leading approaches to understanding bounded rationality, learning, and change in complex social environments. The recent boom experienced by this discipline makes this book's systematic presentation of its fundamental contributions essential reading for any newcomer to the field. In addition, new avenues of research are suggested, and plentiful examples illustrate the theory's potential applications.

Flavour is arguably the most fascinating aspect of eating and drinking. It utilises a complex variety of senses and processes, that incredibly work together to generate a unified, and hopefully pleasurable, experience. The processes involved are not just those involved in tasting at the time of eating, but also memory and learning processes — we obviously shun those foods of which we have a negative memory, and favour those we enjoy. Our understanding of the science of flavour has improved in recent years, benefiting psychology, cuisine, food science, oenology, and dietetics. This book describes what is known about the psychology and biology of flavour. The book is divided into two parts. The first explores what we know about the flavour system; including the role of learning and memory in flavour perception and hedonics; the way in which all the senses that contribute to flavour interact, and our ability to perceive flavour as a whole and as a series of parts. The later chapters examine a range of theoretical issues concerning the flavour system. This includes a look at multisensory processing, and the way in which the mind and brain bind information from discrete sensory systems. It also examines the broader implications of studying flavour for societal problems such as obesity.

Independent learning is not a new concept for language educators, but while teachers, curriculum designers and policy makers have embraced it as underpinning modern notions of education, it remains a dynamic and vibrant field for researchers and academics who aim to broaden its scope and deepen our understanding of how it may be applied most effectively both inside and outside the classroom. The contributors to this book use their experience of applying the concepts related to independent learning in various geographical, cultural and pedagogical tertiary-level learning contexts to present new perspectives on how independent learning can inform and support policy, teaching methodology, curriculum development and the nurturing of successful learners. While the first section of the book provides a view of the field from three broad curriculum development perspectives, the remaining chapters primarily focus on the experience of learners, teachers and curriculum developers in applying principles of learner autonomy, self-regulation and self-direction with various types of learner — each with their own identities, motivations, expectations and goals. These learner and teacher stories provide insights that are important for an understanding of some of the impacts an independent learning approach to language learning have on learners in various educational contexts.