Toward New Ecologies of Cyberphysical Representational Forms, Scales, and Modalities

Research on tangible user interfaces commonly focuses on tangible interfaces acting alone or in comparison with screen-based multi-touch or graphical interfaces. In contrast, hybrid approaches can be seen as the norm for established mainstream interaction paradigms. This dissertation describes interfaces that support complementary information mediations, representational forms, and scales toward an ecology of systems embodying hybrid interaction modalities. I investigate systems combining tangible and multi-touch, as well as systems combining tangible and virtual reality interaction. For each of them, I describe work focusing on design and fabrication aspects, as well as work focusing on reproducibility, engagement, legibility, and perception aspects

Perceptual models in speech quality assessment and coding

The ever-increasing demand for good communications/toll quality speech has created a renewed interest into the perceptual impact of rate compression. Two general areas are investigated in this work, namely speech quality assessment and speech coding. In the field of speech quality assessment, a model is developed which simulates the processing stages of the peripheral auditory system. At the output of the model a "running" auditory spectrum is obtained. This represents the auditory (spectral) equivalent of any acoustic sound such as speech. Auditory spectra from coded speech segments serve as inputs to a second model. This model simulates the information centre in the brain which performs the speech quality assessment. [Continues.

A Multiphase Iterative Mixed-Method Study Of Lay-Equipping Competencies Of Midwestern Adventist Pastors

The purpose of this Multiphase iterative mixed-method study is to determine if the lay equipping competency courses of a School of Divinity\u27s MDiv program influences the church discipleship programs of graduate lead pastors to develop partnership with their parishioners in ministry and commitment for their church\u27s mission. Burggraff (2015) attests that most evangelical churches in North America are in decline (p. 22). He and many other scholars believe that this general membership decline is due to a lack of emphasis on discipleship, by clergy (Burggraff, 2015). At this stage in the research, lay equipping competencies (LEC) will be generally defined as skills obtained by pastors that can help their parishioners grow in Christ, learn, and develop their spiritual gifts, and provide cooperative opportunities to use their gifts in the gospel ministry. The theory guiding this study is that pastors with more robust LECs are more effective at equipping their members for the gospel ministry (Hwang 2008, p. 177). Further, this study deems that the commitment levels of church parishioners and their partnership with their pastors are directly related to the implementation of LECs by their pastors

Identifying a pedagogy of initial teacher education (ITE): issues and ambiguities

The topic of this thesis is initial teacher education (ITE) pedagogy, exploring the nature of teaching and learning about teaching (or ‘meta-teaching’), and how teacher educators in English universities translate this into practice. Its purpose was to gain an appreciation of teacher educators’ pedagogical practice beyond their first three years in the role: not just how, but why they teach student teachers in a particular way, and to observe what this looks like in practice. A collective case study approach was taken, involving four participants working in four geographically distanced universities. The methods consisted of a semi-structured interview, videoed observation of a teaching session, and a stimulated recall interview which was led by the participant whilst co-viewing the video. Analysis of the data revealed that, whilst the meta-pedagogical practice appeared to have individual drivers for each of the participants, there could be potential inhibitors to developing a distinct pedagogy of ITE which are inherent in the teacher educators’ experience and practical wisdom accumulated as school teachers. These may hinder teacher educators’ engagement with a theoretically underpinned knowledge base for their pedagogical practice. The similarities and differences in meta-pedagogical practice were explored using Bourdieusian concepts of developing habitus in the new field, leading to expanding cultural capital. It is argued that distinct drivers for the participants’ respective practices impacted upon the development of first to second order habitus. A continued focus on (curriculum) subject knowledge or on passing on the craft knowledge of (school) teaching was shown to be located in first order practice, whereas a focus on developing meta-pedagogical understandings allowed for an expanding habitus, and thus to the potential for increased cultural capital – both for themselves as individuals, and for the occupational group of teacher educators. Whilst a deep-seated sense of teacher professional identity may help to bridge the two (sub-)fields, it appeared that an accepted body of knowledge based on theoretical underpinnings could distinguish this group and enhance their cultural capital. In light of this, the role of episteme and phronesis were explored as enablers of the development of a shared meta-pedagogy. By illuminating current meta-pedagogical understandings and practice, the study aims to feed into a wider debate on teaching and learning to teach, at a time when ITE in England is in a state of flux and the future of university-based programmes – as well as university involvement in school-based programmes – is under threat. It is argued that, not only would it be possible to accelerate the process of teacher educators developing their meta-pedagogical practice through exploration of the theoretical perspectives, but that this has the potential to underline and reinforce the distinction between university- and school-led ITE in uncertain times

Human Values: How They Affect and Are Affected by an Individual 1s Perceptions of His Work Organization

This study is concerned with the effects of personal values on the perception of an individual's work organization and the resulting organizational identification. Previous research in the area has not utilized a personalistic approach. By emphasizing the individual's contribution as compared with the organization's contribution to the identification process, a much more explicit definition of the emotional relationship between the individual and his organization is developed. The general approach taken in this study is rather eclectic. Research is cited from a variety of disciplines. The major problem with this approach is not the integration of diverse concepts, rather it is the differentiation between the intended meaning and superfluous jargon.Industruial Engineering and Managemen

Graduate catalog, University of Missouri--Columbia, 2001-2003

208 page

Hearing Power, Sounding Freedom: Black Practices Of Listening, Ear-Training, And Music-Making In The British Colonial Caribbean

This dissertation explores how African and African-descended people in the British colonial Caribbean, enslaved and free, engaged with music that had its origins in Europe through listening, performance, theorizing, and composition between the banning of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807 and the granting of unrestricted freedom in 1838. By shifting perspective to how black people heard European music, rather than how white people heard colonized and enslaved black people, this project complicates traditional narratives about race and music in the colonial Caribbean, arguing that black musicians used music and listening as a tool to assert their intellectual and aesthetic capabilities, while simultaneously learning, theorizing, and sometimes subverting the music of their colonizers. I position these modes of performance and listening within a context of increased white anxiety about race in the decades before and after emancipation. Drawing on methodologies from black feminist history, this project focuses on the music lives of the enslaved from scant traces in the archive. Through chapters about enslaved fiddlers, military musicians, Christian converts, and free people of color, this dissertation acknowledges that the multiplicity of ways that enslaved and subjugated Africans and their descendants performed and interacted with European music demonstrate that European music in the colonial Caribbean was not strictly racialized as white

You are welcome and we value you, Guiding the co-design of a revised telepractice delivery model with the disability community: an embedded researcher approach

Telepractice was introduced rapidly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and many organisations struggled to integrate it into clinical practice. This study worked in partnership with Rocky Bay, a disability service provider, to co-design improvements to their telepractice. It aimed to improve the experience of telepractice for both customers and clinicians. This work was co-produced with people with disability and clinicians, to support the development of a fit for purpose research program