Enterprising Academics:Heterarchical Policy Networks for Artificial Intelligence in British Higher Education

Purpose:There is limited scholarship on artificial intelligence(AI)in higher education governance,despite the growing prevalence of AI-powered technologies in many fields,including education.However,as the technology is still nascent and has yet to reach its full potential,ideas and arguments abound,championing or cautioning against the use of these technologies.Design/Approach/Methods:To fill this gap in research on policy networks and AI in British higher education,this article employs network ethnography and discourse analysis to study how ideas about AI-powered technologies in higher education circulate in policy networks in the United Kingdom.Findings:The findings evidence a policy network showing signs of a heterarchy permeated by neoliberal rationales and populated by policy actors actively promoting artificial intelligence technologies to be used in education.Originality/Value:This paper builds on existing research by looking at the university and notfor-profit sectors,in addition to the governmental and educational technology sectors.Using network ethnography,this article expands our understanding of the policy actors involved and critically analyzes ideas regarding the use of AI in education.

Deep Reinforcement Learning Solves Job-shop Scheduling Problems

To solve the sparse reward problem of job-shop scheduling by deep reinforcement learning,a deep reinforcement learning framework considering sparse reward problem is proposed.The job shop scheduling problem is transformed into Markov decision process,and six state features are designed to improve the state feature representation by using two-way scheduling method,including four state features that distinguish the optimal action and two state features that are related to the learning goal.An extended variant of graph isomorphic network GIN++is used to encode disjunction graphs to improve the performance and generalization ability of the model.Through iterative greedy algorithm,random strategy is generated as the initial strategy,and the action with the maximum information gain is selected to expand it to optimize the exploration ability of Actor-Critic algorithm.Through validation of the trained policy model on multiple public test data sets and comparison with other advanced DRL methods and scheduling rules,the proposed method reduces the minimum average gap by 3.49%,5.31%and 4.16%,respectively,compared with the priority rule-based method,and 5.34%compared with the learning-based method.11.97%and 5.02%,effectively improving the accuracy of DRL to solve the approximate solution of JSSP minimum completion time.

Experimenting With International Curricula in Shanghai:Policies,Practice,and a Network Ethnography Analysis

Purpose:Drawing on a study of international schools in Shanghai,this study explores how external experiences and curricula are mobilized as policy tools to inspire local educational innovations and how these experiences are enacted differently by schools.Design/Approach/Methods:Based on a review of policy documents and interviews with school principals,senior management stakeholders,and teachers,this study identifies and compares the typologies of international schools in policy design and practice.Then,by deploying the network ethnography method following three key nodes,this study offers some explanations for the gaps between policy design and enactments.Findings:This study demonstrates the complex relations,interests,and struggles involved in constructing and shaping the meanings of international curricula within local education.The findings show the autonomy of policy networks and the difficulties of‘steering’them in a clear-cut way.Originality/Value:This study is one of the earliest attempts,if not the first,to experiment with the method of network ethnography in the context of China.These findings offer a nuanced account of the complex relations and ad hocery involved in policy learning.

Following New Philanthropy by Network Ethnography:How Did the Varkey Foundation Land and Expand in Latin America?

Purpose:New philanthropy develops new forms of policy“problem-solving”through the influx of private actors’money and ideas.It adopts singular configurations across different policy spaces,with implications for education governance.We address this phenomenon by analyzing the Varkey Foundation’s(VF)“landing”and“expansion”in Latin America.VF is a global philanthropic organization registered in the United Kingdom in 2011 with a main hub in Argentina,where it landed in 2017.Design/Approach/Methods:We use network ethnography to examine the influence of new philanthropy on education governance as this phenomenon demands new methods to grasp the“realities”of governing beyond conventional ways and understanding policy mobilities.Findings:Results indicate how VF“landed”in a little pro-market space via productive uses of policy networks.The second phase of data collection and analysis presents further consolidation of VF in Argentina,its expansion into Latin America,and its establishment as a legitimate education policy actor.Originality/Value:This study provides new evidence and insights into how policy networks enable new philanthropy to land and consolidate within national boundaries and,later,across the region as a legitimate actor in education.

Research on Practice Subjects Construction of Public Cultural Service in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

The construction of the public culture in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area requires the establishment of effective mechanism on multiple practice subjects.Policy networks theory,with its characteristics of governance attribute,multiple subjects coordination and optimization efficiency,provides a beneficial analytical framework for the construction of multiple practice subjects in the public culture area.This paper analyzes the application of the policy networks in the development of the public culture.

ON OPTIMAL LOCAL BUFFER ALLOCATION IN FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS

An optimal design problem of local buffer allocation in the FMS is discussed in order to maximize a reward earned from processed jobs at all workstations. Structural properties of the optimal design problem are analyzed for the model with two job routing policies. Based on these properties, approaches to optimal solutions are given.

Research and Practice of Dynamic Network Security Architecture for IaaS Platforms

Network security requirements based on virtual network technologies in laaS platforms and corresponding solutions were reviewed. A dynamic network security architecture was proposed, which was built on the technologies of software defined networking, Virtual Machine （VM） traffic redirection, network policy unified management, software defined isolation networks, vulnerability scanning, and software updates. The proposed architecture was able to obtain the capacity for detection and access control for VM traffic by redirecting it to configurable security appliances, and ensured the effectiveness of network policies in the total life cycle of the VM by configuring the policies to the right place at the appropriate time, according to the impacts of VM state transitions. The virtual isolation domains for tenants＇ VMs could be built flexibly based on VLAN policies or Netfilter/Iptables firewall appliances, and vulnerability scanning as a service and software update as a service were both provided as security supports. Through cooperation with IDS appliances and automatic alarm mechanisms, the proposed architecture could dynamically mitigate a wide range of network-based attacks. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed architecture.

Philanthrocapitalism and the State:Mapping the Rise of Venture Philanthropy in Public Education in Australia

Purpose:This article maps the rise of venture philanthropy in public education in Australia,exploring how policy networks mobilize high-level systemic reform and governance technologies.This is philanthrocapitalism,a fundamental shift for policy mobility and modes of redistribution.Design/Approach/Methods:Drawing upon network ethnography,I focus on a node called Social Ventures Australia(SVA),an organization committed to revolutionizing venture philanthropy in Australian education reform.SVA,the brainchild of McKinsey&Company and multinational corporations,is a useful example to map how venture philanthropy leverages resources and,in the process,fundamentally changes the shape,functionality,and form of traditional government.Findings:SVA has successfully advocated for several intermediaries,such as an evidence broker(Evidence for Learning),a national charity(Schools Plus),and a national education research institute(Australian Education Research Organisation).Overlapping philanthropy and state,the intermediaries stand as a critical assemblage and technology of governance.Originality/Value:Venture philanthropy and the way in which these networks achieve high-level systemic reform is under-researched in Australia.It stands as a critical lever of policy reform in public education.This article will scrutinize and map the way these networks mobilize reform and function as an identifiable form of economic exchange.