From Endings Come Beginnings: Facilitating the Transition from Ending Student to Beginning Practitioner

This presentation was part of the session : Pedagogy: Theories, Approaches24th National Conference on the Beginning Design StudentThe receipt of a degree is momentous; it is at once the end of an academic career and the beginning of practice life. Terminal coursework thus becomes a critical component in successfully preparing students for the classroom-to-office transition. Essential to student preparedness is the ability to critically analyze, synthesize and apply myriad skills and knowledge. Critical thinking and problem solving require an understanding of the intimate relationship between various aspects of theory, research, applied design, and construction methods, materials, and documentation technologies. Equally as important is the development of student confidence and ownership. The lessons offered within a final studio should therefore integrate these elements into a comprehensive process promoting independent exploration, discovery, and application. This approach allows students to make their own connections between design skills and, in turn, transform abstract knowledge into applied understanding. Armed with a holistic comprehension of core fundamentals, emerging practitioners can effectively, efficiently and creatively address the innumerable challenges of professional practice. This paper discusses the application of these ideals into a graduate level, terminal design studio. The exploration of meaning is used to organize the studio around a variety of in-depth urban design projects. Student work is augmented with a reading and discussion seminar that highlights the need for reading, writing and verbal skills in the design process, as well as promotes the continued use of theory and research within professional practice. In total, student design explorations represent successful theory-to-practice applications related to urban landscapes at scales ranging from 1"=40'-0" to 1/8"=1'-0"

Semi-algebraic colorings of complete graphs

We consider $m$-colorings of the edges of a complete graph, where each color class is defined semi-algebraically with bounded complexity. The case $m = 2$ was first studied by Alon et al., who applied this framework to obtain surprisingly strong Ramsey-type results for intersection graphs of geometric objects and for other graphs arising in computational geometry. Considering larger values of $m$ is relevant, e.g., to problems concerning the number of distinct distances determined by a point set. For $p\ge 3$ and $m\ge 2$, the classical Ramsey number $R(p;m)$ is the smallest positive integer $n$ such that any $m$-coloring of the edges of $K_n$, the complete graph on $n$ vertices, contains a monochromatic $K_p$. It is a longstanding open problem that goes back to Schur (1916) to decide whether $R(p;m)=2^{O(m)}$, for a fixed $p$. We prove that this is true if each color class is defined semi-algebraically with bounded complexity. The order of magnitude of this bound is tight. Our proof is based on the Cutting Lemma of Chazelle {\em et al.}, and on a Szemer\'edi-type regularity lemma for multicolored semi-algebraic graphs, which is of independent interest. The same technique is used to address the semi-algebraic variant of a more general Ramsey-type problem of Erd\H{o}s and Shelah

The power of place in disaster recovery: Heritage-based practice in the post-Matthew landscape of Princeville, North Carolina

This article examines shortcomings and possible improvements to standard post-disaster recovery processes through the lens of recovery in Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest black town in the United States. Princeville has faced existential challenges since it was settled in the Tar River floodplain in 1865, most recently in 2016 with flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew. The article describes the power of place attachment and the trauma caused by place-based disaster. It points out that significant rebuilding typically begins a full three years into a standard recovery timeline. And it argues that in the midst of that recovery process, our identification of significant landscapes—i.e., landscapes worth protecting and restoring—is too heavily driven by the object-oriented standards of traditional historic preservation. This article describes work coordinated by North Carolina State University design faculty in partnership with the town of Princeville to supplement abstract, top-down recovery processes with practice that is landscape-based and interactive, that marks histories and establishes concrete symbols of ongoing life, and that promises to help displaced communities to build social-ecological resilience and to heal. This type of work will only become more vital as more communities face climate-induced disasters and the need to rebuild. By describing the impetus and possible impact of NC State’s post-disaster work with Princeville, this article seeks to start a conversation about how our recovery processes can better recognize the power of place and the role of the land as a vehicle for resilience and healing

A polynomial regularity lemma for semi-algebraic hypergraphs and its applications in geometry and property testing

Fox, Gromov, Lafforgue, Naor, and Pach proved a regularity lemma for semi-algebraic $k$-uniform hypergraphs of bounded complexity, showing that for each $\epsilon>0$ the vertex set can be equitably partitioned into a bounded number of parts (in terms of $\epsilon$ and the complexity) so that all but an $\epsilon$-fraction of the $k$-tuples of parts are homogeneous. We prove that the number of parts can be taken to be polynomial in $1/\epsilon$. Our improved regularity lemma can be applied to geometric problems and to the following general question on property testing: is it possible to decide, with query complexity polynomial in the reciprocal of the approximation parameter, whether a hypergraph has a given hereditary property? We give an affirmative answer for testing typical hereditary properties for semi-algebraic hypergraphs of bounded complexity

Concordance groups of links

We define a notion of concordance based on Euler characteristic, and show that it gives rise to a concordance group of links in the 3-sphere, which has the concordance group of knots as a direct summand with infinitely generated complement. We consider variants of this using oriented and nonoriented surfaces as well as smooth and locally flat embeddings

The interaction between gaze and facial expression in the amygdala and extended amygdala is modulated by anxiety

Behavioral evidence indicates that angry faces are seen as more threatening, and elicit greater anxiety, when directed at the observer, whereas the influence of gaze on the processing of fearful faces is less consistent. Recent research has also found inconsistent effects of expression and gaze direction on the amygdala response to facial signals of threat. However, such studies have failed to consider the important influence of anxiety on the response to signals of threat; an influence that is well established in behavioral research and recent neuroimaging studies. Here, we investigated the way in which individual differences in anxiety would influence the interactive effect of gaze and expression on the response to angry and fearful faces in the human extended amygdala. Participants viewed images of fearful, angry and neutral faces, either displaying an averted or direct gaze. We found that state anxiety predicted an increased response in the dorsal amygdala/substantia innominata (SI) to angry faces when gazing at, relative to away from the observer. By contrast, high state anxious individuals showed an increased amygdala response to fearful faces that was less dependent on gaze. In addition, the relationship between state anxiety and gaze on emotional intensity ratings mirrored the relationship between anxiety and the amygdala/SI response. These results have implications for understanding the functional role of the amygdala and extended amygdala in processing signals of threat, and are consistent with the proposed role of this region in coding the relevance or significance of a stimulus to the observer

Erdos-Szekeres-type theorems for monotone paths and convex bodies

For any sequence of positive integers j_1 < j_2 < ... < j_n, the k-tuples (j_i,j_{i + 1},...,j_{i + k-1}), i=1, 2,..., n - k+1, are said to form a monotone path of length n. Given any integers n\ge k\ge 2 and q\ge 2, what is the smallest integer N with the property that no matter how we color all k-element subsets of [N]=\{1,2,..., N\} with q colors, we can always find a monochromatic monotone path of length n? Denoting this minimum by N_k(q,n), it follows from the seminal 1935 paper of Erd\H os and Szekeres that N_2(q,n)=(n-1)^q+1 and N_3(2,n) = {2n -4\choose n-2} + 1. Determining the other values of these functions appears to be a difficult task. Here we show that 2^{(n/q)^{q-1}} \leq N_3(q,n) \leq 2^{n^{q-1}\log n}, for q \geq 2 and n \geq q+2. Using a stepping-up approach that goes back to Erdos and Hajnal, we prove analogous bounds on N_k(q,n) for larger values of k, which are towers of height k-1 in n^{q-1}. As a geometric application, we prove the following extension of the Happy Ending Theorem. Every family of at least M(n)=2^{n^2 \log n} plane convex bodies in general position, any pair of which share at most two boundary points, has n members in convex position, that is, it has n members such that each of them contributes a point to the boundary of the convex hull of their union.Comment: 32 page