The Scientific Community Game for STEM Innovation and Education (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)

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The Scientific Community Gamefor STEM Innovation
and Education(STEM Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics)

• Karl Lieberherr
• Ahmed Abdelmeged

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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)

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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

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Idea Use Scientific Community Modelto 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.

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Karl Popper
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SCG is a web-based implementation of Karl
Poppers 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
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Comparison

• Karl Popper Conjectures and Refutations
• Scientific Community Game Claims and Refutations
• Our claims are about computational problems.

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Automating the refutations

• There can be bugs in refutations.
• With a computational model of scientific
  communities we can check for many bugs. Fair
  evaluation.

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Designers

• SCG
• Domain
• 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

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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

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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))

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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.
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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.

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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

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Thank you!
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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!

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Both refutations are efficient

• Claim
• Exists F in IS All J fsat(F,J)ltt

• !Claim F has J fsat(F,J)gtt
• All F in IS Exists J fsat(F,J)gtt

• 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!?

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Designers

• SCG
• Domain
• includes designing basic components for avatar
  like standard solvers. Example HSR linear
  search solver
• Protocol
• Playground Goal make playground designers
  configurators.
• Avatar designers

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Example Playground DesignHighest Safe Rung

• Configuration
• domain HSR
• claim 1 instanceSetClass protocolClass
• claim 2 instanceSetClass !protocolClass
• initialReputation 100

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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

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Config

• Config // to configure admin
• ltscgCfggt SCGConfig
• ltdomainConfigWrappergt Wrap(DomainConfigI).
• Example entries
• domain CSP
• claim 1 instanceSetClass protocolClass
• claim 2 instanceSetClass !protocolClass
• initialReputation 100

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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.

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Designers

• SCG
• Domain
• 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

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Example Playground DesignHighest Safe Rung

• Configuration
• domain HSR
• claim 1 instanceSetClass protocolClass
• claim 2 instanceSetClass !protocolClass
• initialReputation 100