Emotional and Attentional Regulation: Impact of Trauma and Journal Writing?

Traumatic experiences are very common and have a high lifetime prevalence rate, which a large body of research indicates negatively impact the ability to self-regulate, including emotional and attentional regulation. This study focused on traumatic experiences caused by peer victimization and aimed to examine the effects on self-regulation after exposure to artificial trauma and journaling in graduate students. A convenient sample of 9 graduate students were randomly assigned to the control or intervention group. All participants were asked to engage in a journaling activity after watching the assigned video. Three emotional Stroop tasks were administered to participants: before watching the assigned video, after watching the assigned video, and after journaling. The results suggest that after the exposure to artificial trauma, participants in the intervention group had quicker average response time (ART) across negative and neutral word types with 100% accuracy for negative words and lower average accuracy rate (AAR) for neutral and positive words. The control group had quicker ART and slightly lower AAR for negative words, slower ART, and slightly lower AAR to neutral words, and remained the same on positive words with increased AAR. The results also suggest that, after journaling, all participants had slower ART for negative words, and quicker ART for neutral and positive words; there were increases in AAR across all word types. These findings suggest that both trauma and journaling have short-term effects on attentional processing in the context of emotion and point to the potential promise of journaling in interventions to support self-regulation

An Algorithm for Group Formation and Maximal Independent Set in an Amorphous Computer

Amorphous computing is the study of programming ultra-scale computing environments of smart sensors and actuators cite{white-paper}. The individual elements are identical, asynchronous, randomly placed, embedded and communicate locally via wireless broadcast. Aggregating the processors into groups is a useful paradigm for programming an amorphous computer because groups can be used for specialization, increased robustness, and efficient resource allocation. This paper presents a new algorithm, called the clubs algorithm, for efficiently aggregating processors into groups in an amorphous computer, in time proportional to the local density of processors. The clubs algorithm is well-suited to the unique characteristics of an amorphous computer. In addition, the algorithm derives two properties from the physical embedding of the amorphous computer: an upper bound on the number of groups formed and a constant upper bound on the density of groups. The clubs algorithm can also be extended to find the maximal independent set (MIS) and $Delta + 1$ vertex coloring in an amorphous computer in $O(log N)$ rounds, where $N$ is the total number of elements and $Delta$ is the maximum degree

Paradigms for Structure in an Amorphous Computer

Recent developments in microfabrication and nanotechnology will enable the inexpensive manufacturing of massive numbers of tiny computing elements with sensors and actuators. New programming paradigms are required for obtaining organized and coherent behavior from the cooperation of large numbers of unreliable processing elements that are interconnected in unknown, irregular, and possibly time-varying ways. Amorphous computing is the study of developing and programming such ultrascale computing environments. This paper presents an approach to programming an amorphous computer by spontaneously organizing an unstructured collection of processing elements into cooperative groups and hierarchies. This paper introduces a structure called an AC Hierarchy, which logically organizes processors into groups at different levels of granularity. The AC hierarchy simplifies programming of an amorphous computer through new language abstractions, facilitates the design of efficient and robust algorithms, and simplifies the analysis of their performance. Several example applications are presented that greatly benefit from the AC hierarchy. This paper introduces three algorithms for constructing multiple levels of the hierarchy from an unstructured collection of processors

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Community Engagement Strategies for Shifting Attitudinal Behaviour Towards Green Stormwater Infrastructure

Climate change will cause increased frequency extreme weather events with more frequent stormwater runoff and flooding. Therefore it is increasingly critical to understand how to address the increased runoff as well as mitigate and protect against the effects of climate change. Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) refers to features that can help absorb, collect and redirect increased stormwater runoff. However, GSI and stormwater management (SWM) are alien or overlooked concepts to much of the public. This study aimed to understand how education in the form of a design charrette and brochures impacts residents’ views, beliefs, values and actions towards GSI in a flood prone community in Cambridge, Ontario. Pre and post surveys, site visits, interviews, and observation at the charrette and facilitator notes were used to understand the effect of education on changing perceptions and actions among residents. Educational methods were largely not effective at changing residents’ attitudes and behaviors towards GSI, except on a few questions related to SWM action and the impact on water bodies. Being impacted by extreme weather, experiencing extreme weather and household income, were significant covariates that influenced residents’ responses. The lack of enthusiasm towards installing GSI was driven by cost concerns, perception of higher level of government responsibility, need for government leadership on GSI, and value of current property uses among residents. However, residents appreciated receiving education and desired more education on GSI. More research is needed to understand how to engage and motivate the public to install GSI. While education did not prompt most participants to install GSI, it created awareness for GSI and SWM, which was not previously considered by many residents. Upon education in GSI, participants were generally supportive of these endeavors. As climate change worsens, it will be increasingly critical to find ways to build the support and engagement needed to install GSI in communities. Researchers and land use practitioners must find ways to fund GSI, galvanize the public to implement it in their properties, show leadership by implementing GSI throughout the community, provide incentives, financial and non-financial, to spur residential implementation, and use risk mapping to prioritize and encourage GSI installation among residents. Practitioners should also encourage smaller non-GSI actions residents can take to improve SWM on their property as these are easier, cheaper and likelier to be done by residents. Practitioners should build on the momentum and support generated by public engagement events to implement GSI and SWM in their neighbourhoods and communities

Automatic profiler-driven probabilistic compiler optimization

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1994.Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-81).by Daniel Coore.M.S

Botanical computing : a developmental approach to generating interconnect topologies on an amorphous computer

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1999.Includes bibliographical references (p. 292-295).by Daniel N. Coore.Ph.D

Investigations into blood and tissue contamination of carcasses with brain material following the use of pre-slaughter stunning methods in cattle and sheep

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