GROK Doc: An Image Display Tool

The image display tool GROK provides a facility for displaying images on the black-and-white screen of a Symbolics 3600 monitor. It allows display of images and their manipulation through a special window it manages. Images become objects in that window, and are handled by a variety of routines accessible by mouse selection from window menus. GROK is an outgrowth of two programs- Keith Nishihara's GREY*, which provided the concept of an image manipulation and display program for black-and-white screens, and Margaret Fleck's GREYCROK, which formed the nucleus from which GROK mutated. Many of the functions in GROK are lifted directly from GREYCROK.MIT Artificial Intelligence Laborator

Board Games: A Perfect Match for Reading Comprehension

Analog board games greatly benefit students’ development and overall well-being. Board games offer opportunities for early learning, help boost language skills, sharpen students’ ability to focus, teach the value of teamwork, and soothe anxiety. Integrating board games with literacy skills allows students to assimilate information and develop into lifelong learners. Without solid literacy skills, the future is bleak for most students. To compound the problem, a trend today is to replace traditional board games as an educational tool with digital alternatives. This trend has seen a downward correlation with students having significant reading deficiencies in their reading comprehension in grades three through five. This thesis will examine how utilizing analog board games in elementary classrooms can improve reading comprehension skills in students. To better understand how analog board games an effective as an instructional tool in the classroom, research will be conducted through a series of research questions: 1. How has the increased use of technology in the classroom affected students’ learning outcomes? 2. What is the difference between an analogy and a digital board game? 3. What are the environmental aspects that aid in employing analog board games in the learning process of the classroom? 4. What effects do board games have on the learning process in the classroom? 5. What are the opposing concerns about using analog board games in the classroom? After completing this research, a literate review was conducted in addition to visual and content analyses. A graphical solution will be created as an analog board game to aid in developing reading comprehension skills in elementary school students, grades three through five. The creation of the deliverable will provide the stakeholders at all levels, individual, institutional, and societal, with a concrete example of a reading comprehension game that can aid in developing literacy skills in students

Interactive Query Language for Code Comprehension

Code comprehension is a fundamental task for software development. Every bug fix, maintenance or new feature development requires the whole understanding of the affectedcode. There exist a number of code comprehension tools but most of them has a limitedfeature set and they are binded with a fixed (usually) graphical user interface. This putlimitations for their use. In this thesis we will define a flexible but safe query language to execute the most fundamental comprehension queries against a large code base. We will investigate how much this language could be language agnostic and how to support specificlanguage features. I will implement a prototype tool to prove the concept using the opensource CodeCompass code comprehension platform. In this prototype i mainly target C and C++ languages

Anti-fragile ICT Systems

This book introduces a novel approach to the design and operation of large ICT systems. It views the technical solutions and their stakeholders as complex adaptive systems and argues that traditional risk analyses cannot predict all future incidents with major impacts. To avoid unacceptable events, it is necessary to establish and operate anti-fragile ICT systems that limit the impact of all incidents, and which learn from small-impact incidents how to function increasingly well in changing environments. The book applies four design principles and one operational principle to achieve anti-fragility for different classes of incidents. It discusses how systems can achieve high availability, prevent malware epidemics, and detect anomalies. Analyses of Netflix’s media streaming solution, Norwegian telecom infrastructures, e-government platforms, and Numenta’s anomaly detection software show that cloud computing is essential to achieving anti-fragility for classes of events with negative impacts

Scanning emitter lifetime imaging microscopy for spontaneous emission control

We report an experimental technique to map and exploit the local density of optical states of arbitrary planar nano-photonic structures. The method relies on positioning a spontaneous emitter attached to a scanning probe deterministically and reversibly with respect to its photonic environment while measuring its lifetime. We demonstrate the method by imaging the enhancement of the local density of optical states around metal nanowires. By nano-positioning, the decay rate of a pointlike source of fluorescence can be reversibly and repeatedly changed by a factor of two by coupling it to the guided plasmonic mode of the wire

Research on the effects of altered gravity and other factors on the growth and development of higher plants

The establishment, maintenance and use of the NASA-UCSC Botanical Centrifuge is discussed. The broad goals of this project were: (1) to establish facilities for conducting experiments under conditions of sustained centrifugation; (2) to pursue research on the gravitational physiology of higher plants; (3) to develop experimental hardware suitable for studies of plant development in the weightless condition; and (4) to accommodate visiting investigators whose researches are of interest to the NASA Biomedical Program and who may require for some limited time, the use of a medium size centrifuge with associated facilities appropriate for plant physiological studies

Shaking Up Traditional Training With Lynda.com

Supporting the diverse technology training needs on campus while resources continue to dwindle is a challenge many of us continue to tackle. Institutions from small liberal arts campuses to large research universities are providing individualized training and application support 24/7 by subscribing to the lynda.com Online Training Library(r) and marketing the service to various combinations of faculty, staff and students. As a supplemental service on most of our campuses, lynda.com has allowed us to extend support to those unable to attend live lab-based training, those who want advanced level training, those who want training on specialized applications, and those who want to learn applications that are not in high demand. The service also provides cost effective professional development opportunities for everyone on campus, from our own trainers and technology staff who are developing new workshops, learning new software versions or picking up new areas of expertise from project management to programming, to administrative and support staff who are trying to improve their skills in an ever-tighter economic environment. On this panel discussion, you will hear about different licensing approaches, ways of raising awareness about lynda.com on our campuses, lessons learned through implementation, reporting capabilities, and advice we would give for other campuses looking to offer this service