Supporting novel home network management interfaces with Openflow and NOX

The Homework project has examined redesign of existing home network infrastructures to better support the needs and requirements of actual home users. Integrating results from several ethnographic studies, we have designed and built a home networking platform providing detailed per-flow measurement and management capabilities supporting several novel management interfaces. This demo specifically shows these new visualization and control interfaces, and describes the broader benefits of taking an integrated view of the networking infrastructure, realised through our router's augmented measurement and control APIs. Aspects of this work have been published: the Homework Database in Internet Management (IM) 2011 and implications of the ethnographic results are to appear at the SIGCOMM W-MUST workshop 2011. Separate, more detailed expositions of the interface elements and system performance and implications are currently under submission at other venues. A partial code release is already available and we anticipate fuller public beta release by Q4 2011

Digital energy visualisations in the workplace: the e-Genie tool

Building management systems are designed for energy managers; there are few energy feedback systems designed to engage staff. A tool, known as e-Genie, was developed to engage workplace occupants with energy data and support them to take action to reduce energy use. Building on research insights within the field, e-Genie’s novel approach encourages users to make plans to meet energy saving goals, supports discussion, and considers social energy behaviours (e.g. discussing energy issues, taking part in campaigns) as well as individual actions. A field based study of e-Genie indicated that visualisations of energy data were engaging and that the discussion ‘Pinboard’ was particularly popular. Pre- and post survey (N = 77) evaluation of users indicated that people were significantly more concerned about energy issues and reported engaging more in social energy behaviour after ~two weeks of e-Genie being installed. Concurrently, objective measures of electricity use decreased over the same period, and continued decreasing over subsequent weeks. Indications are that occupant facing energy feedback visualisations can be successful in reducing energy use in the workplace; furthermore supporting social energy behaviour in the workplace is likely to be a useful direction for promoting action

Digital energy visualizations in the workplace: the e-Genie tool

Building management systems are designed for energy managers; there are few energy-feedback systems designed to engage staff. A tool, known as e-Genie, was created with the purpose of engaging workplace occupants with energy data and supporting them to take action to reduce energy use. Building on research insights within the field, e-Genie’s novel approach encourages users to make plans to meet energy-saving goals, supports discussion and considers social energy behaviours (e.g. discussing energy issues, taking part in campaigns) as well as individual actions. A field-based study of e-Genie indicated that visualizations of energy data were engaging and that the discussion ‘Pinboard’ was particularly popular. Pre- and post-survey (N = 77) evaluation of users indicated that people were significantly more concerned about energy issues and reported engaging more in social energy behaviour after about two weeks of e-Genie being installed. Concurrently, objective measures of electricity use decreased over the same period, and continued decreasing over subsequent weeks. Indications are that occupant-facing energy-feedback visualizations can be successful in reducing energy use in the workplace; furthermore, supporting social energy behaviour in the workplace is likely to be a useful direction for promoting action

Latent Factor Modeling of Four Schizotypy Dimensions with Theory of Mind and Empathy

Preliminary evidence suggests that theory of mind and empathy relate differentially to factors of schizotypy. The current study assessed 686 undergraduate students and used structural equation modeling to examine links between a four-factor model of schizotypy with performance on measures of theory of mind (Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test [MIE]) and empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index [IRI]). Schizotypy was assessed using three self-report measures which were simultaneously entered into the model. Results revealed that the Negative factor of schizotypy showed a negative relationship with the Empathy factor, which was primarily driven by the Empathic Concern subscale of the IRI and the No Close Friends and Constricted Affect subscales of the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire. These findings are consistent with a growing body of literature suggesting a relatively specific relationship between negative schizotypy and empathy, and are consistent with several previous studies that found no relationship between MIE performance and schizotypy

Supporting novel home network management interfaces with Openflow and NOX

The Homework project has examined redesign of existing home network infrastructures to better support the needs and requirements of actual home users. Integrating results from several ethnographic studies, we have designed and built a home networking platform providing detailed per-flow measurement and management capabilities supporting several novel management interfaces. This demo specifically shows these new visualization and control interfaces, and describes the broader benefits of taking an integrated view of the networking infrastructure, realised through our router's augmented measurement and control APIs. Aspects of this work have been published: the Homework Database in Internet Management (IM) 2011 and implications of the ethnographic results are to appear at the SIGCOMM W-MUST workshop 2011. Separate, more detailed expositions of the interface elements and system performance and implications are currently under submission at other venues. A partial code release is already available and we anticipate fuller public beta release by Q4 2011

An Information Plane Architecture Supporting Home Network Management

Home networks have evolved to become small-scale versions of enterprise networks. The tools for visualizing and managing such networks are primitive and continue to require networked systems expertise on the part of the home user. As a result, non-expert home users must manually manage non-obvious aspects of the network - e.g., MAC address filtering, network masks, and firewall rules, using these primitive tools. The Homework information plane architecture uses stream database concepts to generate derived events from streams of raw events. This supports a variety of visualization and monitoring techniques, and also enables construction of a closed-loop, policy-based management system. This paper describes the information plane architecture and its associated policy-based management infrastructure. Exemplar visualization and closed-loop management applications enabled by the resulting system (tuned to the skills of non-expert home users) are discussed. © 2011 IEEE.Accepted versio

Sharing tasks or sharing actions? Evidence from the joint Simon task.

In a joint Simon task, a pair of co-acting individuals divide labors of performing a choice-reaction task in such a way that each actor responds to one type of stimuli and ignores the other type that is assigned to the co-actor. It has been suggested that the actors share the mental representation of the joint task and perform the co-actor’s trials as if they were their own. However, it remains unclear exactly which aspects of co-actor’s task-set the actors share in the joint Simon task. The present study addressed this issue by manipulating the proportions of compatible and incompatible trials for one actor (inducer actor) and observing its influences on the performance of the other actor (diagnostic actor) for whom there were always an equal proportion of compatible and incompatible trials. The design of the present study disentangled the effect of trial proportion from the confounding effect of compatibility on the preceding trial. The results showed that the trial proportions for the inducer actor had strong influences on the inducer actor’s own performance, but it had little influence on the diagnostic actor’s performance. Thus, the diagnostic actor did not represent aspects of the inducer actor’s task-set beyond stimuli and responses of the inducer actor. We propose a new account of the effect of preceding compatibility on the joint Simon effect.Action Contro

Virginia\u27s Plan for Dual Enrollment

[First paragraph] There is a plan where Virginia pays Average Daily Membership (ADM) monies to a school system for a student attending a community college - and the community college collects the Full Time Equivalency (FTE) from the State. Principals must be aware of this dual enrollment plan for secondary students with community colleges approved in September of 1988. This plan provides options for students which were not available before. Dual enrollment allows high school students to accumulate credits for graduation while simultaneously earning college credit. The courses to be offered are to be mutually agreed upon by the school division and the community college

Do stress and anxiety in early pregnancy affect the progress of labor: Evidence from the Wirral Child Health and Development Study.

INTRODUCTION: Despite widespread belief that anxiety causes longer labor, evidence of association is inconsistent. Data gathered as part of a prospective epidemiological longitudinal study were used to investigate associations between antenatal anxiety and pregnancy-specific stress, and labor progression was assessed by duration and use of augmentation. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Pregnant primiparous women completed measures for anxiety and pregnancy-specific stress at 20 weeks' gestation (n = 1145). Birth outcome data were extracted from medical records. Regression analyses and a path analysis assessed associations between antenatal anxiety and pregnancy-specific stress, and indices of labor progression (labor duration and augmentation). RESULTS: Anxiety/pregnancy-specific stress were not directly associated with duration of stage 1 labor (HIGH/LOW anxiety: mean difference = 13.94 minutes, SD = 20.66, 95% CI -26.60 to 54.49, P < .50)/(HIGH/LOW pregnancy-specific stress: mean difference = 12.05 minutes, SD = 16.09, 95% CI -19.52 to 43.63, P < .45). However, anxiety/pregnancy-specific stress were associated with epidural use (HIGH/LOW anxiety: 39% vs 31%, P < .042; HIGH/LOW pregnancy-specific stress: 38% vs 29%, P < .001), which was itself associated with longer labor (mean difference: 158.79 minutes, SD = 16.76, 95% CI 125.89-191.68, P < .001). Anxiety and pregnancy-specific stress were associated with increased likelihood of augmentation but these associations were nonsignificant after accounting for epidural, which was itself highly associated with augmentation. However, path analysis indicated an indirect effect linking pregnancy-specific stress, but not general anxiety, to labor duration and augmentation: elevated pregnancy-specific stress led to greater use of epidural, which was linked to both increased rates of augmentation, and increased labor duration. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to general belief, general anxiety and specific pregnancy stress were not directly linked to longer duration of stage one labor. However specific pregnancy stress was associated with epidural use, which in turn was significantly associated with risk of augmentation, and longer stage one labor. Identification of pregnancy-specific stress could help to identify women for whom psychological interventions could improve birth experience