Playful E-textile Sonic Interaction for Socially Engaged and Open-Ended Play Between Autistic Children

Research on the potential benefits of technology for autistic children is an emergent field in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), especially within the Child-Computer Interaction Community. This thesis contributes a design approach grounded in theories of play, cognitive development, and autism to expand the discourse on methodological guidelines for performing empirical studies with non-verbal autistic children and to extend the design space to cater to the socio-emotional and sensory needs of this population. The thesis reveals how sonic e-textile Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) can be used effectively to mediate children’s social participation in playful activities. This is demonstrated through developing three explorative field-studies conducted at a specialist school based in North-East London where two sonic e-textile playful TUIs, namely Mazi and Olly, have been created and tested with three groups of autistic children aged between 5-10. The three studies ran over the period of three years and were designed to investigate the potentials of TUIs as shareable toys during leisure and recreational activities to a) support social and playful interactions among peers and b) provide opportunities for self-regulation. The key contributions of this thesis are the designs of two tangible user interfaces, which offer a set of design approaches to guide researchers through creating shareable and playful tangibles for non-verbal autistic children; a framework for analysis and a thorough evaluation process that other researchers could use to assess the efficacy of playful TUI designs for nonverbal autistic children; and an in-depth discussion about the research process, which offers a new perspective about holistic designs and evaluation of technologies that aim to scaffold play in groups non-verbal autistic children

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 406)

This bibliography lists 346 reports, articles and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System during Oct. 1995. Subject coverage includes: aerospace medicine and physiology, life support systems and man/system technology, protective clothing, exobiology and extraterrestrial life, planetary biology, and flight crew behavior and performance

No Beef, No Filler, Just BALoney: My Approach to Truth in Screenwriting

Essay: No Beef, No Filler, Just BALoney: My Approach to Truth in Screenwriting -- Script 1: Peach Beachy, Thanks for Asking! -- Script 2: Scooby-Doo: “The Wane of Whitney Woods” -- Script 3: Bob’s Burgers: “Bob’s Books, Beach Mice, and Body Scrubs” -- Script 4: LEGO Friends: “When Bricks Are for Boys” -- Script 5: Sea Breeze Academy

Sanctuaries

Sanctuaries navigates the environment of home via interrelated essays and vignettes personal to my upbringing in rural Southwest Indiana. By exploring my own childhood, youth, and family traumas and successes, I have crafted a collection that speaks volumes about seeing the world from a perspective both privileged and underprivileged simultaneously. I uncover my lineage\u27s numerous bouts with physical and mental illness and unrealized dreams, but I also bring to light our traditions of spreading kindness, treading lightly in the world, and preparing inordinate amounts of food and festive cheer to balance out times of hardship. Few writers have attempted to paint the Southern-Midwest\u27s landscape and to characterize its people as more than caricatures caught between the factories of the north and the tobacco fields of the south, so I rose to that challenge. What results is an essay collection rife with excess and squalor, abandon and abandonment, humor and deep sorrow, atheism and fervent belief in the supernatural, and snippets of what it really means, by my home region\u27s estimation, to be part of a family

Breaking Binaries: Transgressing Sexualities in Japanese Animation

As a visual medium that articulates all genres of fiction, from children’s card games to extreme pornography, Japanese animation, better known simply as ‘anime’, is an art form that has gained international recognition among both academics and passionate devotees. The central purpose of this thesis is to closely examine representations of sexuality in mainstream adult anime – in this context, non-pornographic anime primarily aimed at teenagers and adults – and to interrogate the main themes and concepts which are used to engage in discussions of it. Using specific anime titles as literary texts and thereby analysing the symbolism, characterisation, and key scenes being depicted, this thesis investigates the ways in which sexuality is portrayed, and how this portrayal through animation entails radically distinctive forms of representation and narrative. I also employ the current body of anime criticism to illuminate these anime titles, in conjunction with a contextualisation of these sexual representations within a Japanese cultural context. As an aid to analysis, I utilize the aesthetic philosophy of Robin George Collingwood and the gender theories of Judith Butler, whose arguments on the topics of art as artistic expression and on gender as a performative act respectively allow for both an exploration of the aesthetics of anime, as well as a means of navigating the often distinctively complex representations of sex and gender in anime. Both Collingwood and Butler have been chosen for their utility in opening up the highly aestheticized representations of gender and sexuality in anime – a medium well-known for its artistic sensibilities – combined with formalised and, at times, ritualised extremes. These are to be read as closely as possible in terms of the anime-ic art form itself, rather than in terms of psychoanalytic categories or abstract symbolism. The aim of this thesis is not to interpret anime through one or more specific conceptual lenses, as has been done in the past, but instead to critically examine what Collingwood calls the imaginative space, and to make observations based on Butler’s approach to gender and sexuality gender as it appears when no longer defined by biological or binary fact. This thesis is therefore structured around a breakdown of dualistic thought, with the main sections designed to transcend boundaries of dualism, even – or especially when – this requires the viewer to step back from what is considered as being ‘normal’ or ethically acceptable. In studying a form of popular art that has been written about extensively in terms of its history, aesthetic design, and audience consumption, this thesis explores new territory in that it examines a topic which has not previously been the subject of much academic discussion from the perspective of aesthetics that predates post-modern theory and post-World War II psychoanalysis. From harems and sexbots to portrayals of homosexuality and incest, the primary interest of this thesis is to study how representations of sexuality in anime – no matter how unconventional, fantastic, or disturbing – are brought to life on screen as art

What Are Friends For?

As social beings, nearly all of us find that the development of individual identity requires an acceptance of others\u27 influence, whether good or had. The specifics of self-concept, as we typically understand the term, can only exist relative to one\u27s perceptions of outside selves, in all their likeness and, more importantly, dissimilarity to our own. To know what we are is to know what we are not; These eight, highly disparate works of short fiction all seek, in some way, to describe the evolution of individual identity that results when separate paths cross, with a broad emphasis on the by-products of our inevitable, frictional resistance to that evolution: sensations such as fear, love, anger, joy, epiphany and humiliation. It is the author\u27s intent with these stories to provide an imaginary, yet truthful, sampling of such experience with the hope that a reader may empathize

The Cowl - v. 71 - n. 8 - Oct 19, 2006

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 71 - Number 8 - October 19, 2006. 28 pages

Mindful Wandering: Nature and Global Travel through the Eyes of a Farmgirl Scientist

Mindful Wandering is an inspiring blend of memoir, travelogue, and environmental manifesto. As a translational ecologist, Rebecca Romsdahl is trained to ask critical questions about how we can improve our human relationships with the natural world for a sustainable, resilient future. As a farmgirl, she learned how to observe nature and life through the changing seasons. In this collection of essays spanning two decades, Romsdahl weaves these ideas together as she travels our changing world. From a Minnesota farm to the mountains of Peru and the edge of the Sahara Desert, she explores strategies for sustainability and resilience, and advocates that we (especially those of us privileged enough to travel) must expand our mindful considerations to include all the other inhabitants of this beautiful Earth. Romsdahl practices, and preaches, mindful wandering to reduce her impacts on the natural environment, and to encourage us all to be better global citizens. She implores us, through the eyes of a farmgirl scientist, to ask soul-searching questions: How do we reconnect with the local, seasonal rhythms of life, while learning how to care about the whole Earth as our home? Rebecca J. Romsdahl, PhD, is a translational ecologist, educator, writer, and professor in the Department of Earth System Science & Policy at the University of North Dakota. Her research and teaching examine links between social, ecological, and policy factors when scientists, stakeholders, and decision makers work together to solve environmental problems.https://commons.und.edu/press-books/1019/thumbnail.jp