1. Karl Lieberherr Ahmed Abdelmeged
The Scientific Community Game for STEM Innovation and Education (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
Karl Lieberherr
Ahmed Abdelmeged
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

2. Why Scientific Community Game (SCG)
… motives in academic publishing:
desire for recognition and respect from the people one regards as peers,
desire to have impact (on conclusions being reached, on the development of the discipline, etc.), and
desire to participate in significant knowledge-building discourse.
e.g., Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994)
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

3. Why do we model Scientific Communities?
Scientific Communities create and disseminate new knowledge to help society.
A computational model of scientific communities supports the same efforts for computational problems:
focused collaboration and competition
checking of the rules of a scientific community
knowledge maintenance and evaluation
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

4. Idea: Use Scientific Community Model to focus scientific discourse
Scholars propose and oppose (refute or strengthen) or agree on claims.
Claims predict the outcome of a refutation protocol.
Parameterized by two structures: Domain and Protocol.
Claim Example: Alice claims that she can solve problem instances in instance set I with quality at least q using resources at most r.
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

5. Karl Popper
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

6. SCG is a web-based implementation of Karl Popper’s science ideas
One of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century.
Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion could be shown false by a particular observation or physical experiment.
Error elimination (refutation), performs a similar function for science that natural selection performs for biological evolution.
from Wikipedia
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

7. Comparison Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations
Scientific Community Game: Claims and Refutations
Our claims are about computational problems.
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

8. Automating the refutations
There can be “bugs” in refutations.
With a computational model of scientific communities we can check for many “bugs”. Fair evaluation.
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

9. Designers SCG Domain Protocol: using protocol language
Instance, Solution, InstanceSet, valid, quality
basic domain functionality, like
standard solvers and solvers for niches.
providing instances with “interesting” solutions
Protocol: using protocol language
standard protocols: ForAllExists, PositiveSecret, etc.
Playground: Configurate
Research/Development Managers (Innovation)
Professors (Teaching)
Avatar
researchers, developers
students
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

10. Domain Instance (language) Solution (language)
boolean valid(Instance)
[0,1] quality(Instance)
InstanceSet (language, subset of Instance)
boolean valid()
boolean belongsTo(Instance)
Response = Instance union Solution
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

11. SCG(Domain) Protocol (fixed language) Claim(Domain)
boolean strengthen(Claim other) // other strengthens this
Domain.InstanceSet getInstanceSet()
Protocol getProtocol()
[0,1] getQuality()
[-1..1] getResult(List(Domain.Response))
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

12. Claim involving Experiment
Claim ExperimentalTechnique(X,Y,q,r)
I claim, given raw materials x in X,
I can produce product y in Y of quality q
and using resources at most r.
Bionetics 2010

13. Our vision
Researchers and Professors come to the SCG website and configure a new playground X in which tournaments will take place.
Participating teams get baby avatars generated for X that participate in daily competitions.
Competition generates a wealth of information: educated employees/students, good (undefeated) software, good algorithms, good potential employees. Reward is given to the winner.
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

14. Conclusions
Computational Modeling of Scientific Communities is a good idea:
foster Innovation
improve education
STEM domains: use the web effectively
Current use:
Algorithms class
Software development class
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

15. Thank you!
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

16. Both refutations are efficient
Claim: F unsatisfiable
!Claim
if refuted: Bob finds satisfying J; proof of !Claim.
If defended: baby step towards proof of Claim.
if refuted: Alice does not find satisfying J; baby step towards proof of Claim.
If defended: proof of !Claim.
Alice should never have made the claim!
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

17. Both refutations are efficient
Claim:
Exists F in IS All J: fsat(F,J)<=t
!Claim: F has J: fsat(F,J)>=t
All F in IS Exists J: fsat(F,J)>=t
if refuted: Bob finds J; proof of !Claim assuming Alice is perfect.
If defended: baby step towards proof of Claim.
if refuted: Alice does not find J; baby step towards proof of !Claim.
If defended: proof of Claim if Bob is perfect.
Alice should never have made the claim!?
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

18. 3/16/2011
Open House 2011

19. Designers SCG Domain Protocol
includes designing basic components for avatar like standard solvers. Example: HSR: linear search solver
Protocol
Playground: Goal: make playground designers configurators.
Avatar designers
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

20. Example Playground Design Highest Safe Rung
Configuration:
domain HSR
claim 1: instanceSetClass protocolClass
claim 2: instanceSetClass !protocolClass
initialReputation = 100 …
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

21. Designers: what they produce
SCG /scg
scg.cd, scg.beh
/protocol
Java classes: Singleton Pattern
Domain /domain
/hsr: hsr.cd, hsr.beh
/avatar (components for avatar)
Playground
config file: location of configuration file is given as argument to admin
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

22. Config Config = // to configure admin Example entries:
<scgCfg> SCGConfig
<domainConfigWrapper> Wrap(DomainConfigI).
Example entries:
domain CSP
claim 1: instanceSetClass protocolClass
claim 2: instanceSetClass !protocolClass
initialReputation = 100 …
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

23. Where can we find configuration settings
If there is a configuration file location given to the admin
in the configuration file
If not: the default value given in the code.
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

24. 3/16/2011
Open House 2011

25. Designers SCG Domain Protocol: using protocol language
Instance, Solution, InstanceSet, valid, quality
basic domain functionality, like
standard solvers and solvers for niches.
providing instances with “interesting” solutions
Protocol: using protocol language
standard protocols: ForAllExists, PositiveSecret, etc.
Playground: Configurate
Research/Development Managers (Innovation)
Professors (Teaching)
Avatar
researchers, developers
students
3/16/2011
Open House 2011

26. Example Playground Design Highest Safe Rung
Configuration:
domain HSR
claim 1: instanceSetClass protocolClass
claim 2: instanceSetClass !protocolClass
initialReputation = 100 …
3/16/2011
Open House 2011