Measuring Urban Transportation Performance: A Critique of Mobility Measures and a Synthesis

Examines the flaws of current measures of urban transportation performance. Suggests new metrics that include accessibility; land use, travel distance, and mode variations; and better data on speeds and patterns in an open, multidisciplinary process

Reading Interests and Attitudes of the Iowa Governor’s Summer Institute Participants, 1991

Seventy-nine talented and gifted 7th,8th, and 9th grade students were surveyed to identify their reading interests and attitudes. A majority of the students indicated a positive attitude toward reading with a large variety of reading interests. Adventure, romance, comedy, and fantasy were the most popular topics. Favorite formats for this group were magazines, comics, and novels. Students indicated they receive reading guidance from parents, teachers, school librarians, and peers. Peer recommendations were most favored by the majority of students

Moving toward a small-screen culture: examining the relationship between computer and smartphone user characteristics and online participation and creation

This study investigates the relationship between smartphone and desktop or laptop computer users’ characteristics and online content creation and participation. A survey collected demographic information as well as detailed information on which devices were preferred by the participants in various circumstances. Results showed age and income were the two primary demographic factors in determining a user’s degree of comfort with technology as well as their likelihood to participate with or create online content. Employing the Diffusion of Innovations theory, this research found support for the idea that home computers have seen to fruition the diffusion process, and are not factors in participant’s self-reporting of their level of online expertise. Looking at the use of technology through the Technology Acceptance Model lens, this research indicates that the usefulness a generation once saw in the proliferation of the home computer now has been more perceived and adopted in the area of smartphone use. This fairly widespread view of smartphone usefulness, except in the oldest age categories, indicates that like the computer becoming ubiquitous, soon too will the smartphone follow the same path. Interesting findings include the disconnect between a user’s self-concept and their actions; the Content consumers group, who generally consumes rather than creates or interacts with content, seems to rate themselves higher as influencers and experts online than the group who actually creates the content. And interestingly, those that are Smartphone averse will actually use their smartphones more in certain instances than Content consumers. Why participants’ self-concept differed from their self-reported usage patterns, in my view, is attributable to the fact that as the comfort level with technology rises, the awareness of that technology ebbs. This illustrates the power of ubiquity; once a piece of technology becomes commonplace or highly familiar, the user concentrates less on the device because it has become part of his or her daily routine. This, in turn, causes the user’s self-concept about the relationship between him or her and technology to become less based on actual usage patterns and more based on perception

Role of the Subthalamic Nucleus in the Circuitry Mediating Food- and Cocaine-Seeking Behavior

Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, Psychology, 2007The subthalamic nucleus (STN) is part of the basal ganglia, which play a crucial role in motor control and in processing information from motor cortical areas. Although the STN is classically considered a motor structure, recent studies suggest that it may also be involved in the motivation for natural and drug reward. The STN may differentially modulate natural and drug reward via circuitry that includes the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a structure belonging to the mesocorticolimbic circuit which has been identified as the neural substrate of the reinforcing effects of reward. Here, we assess the effects of bilateral STN lesions on the self-administration (SA) and subsequent reinstatement of sucrose- and cocaine-seeking behavior. Bilateral STN lesions block reinstatement of cocaine-seeking behavior, but not the reinstatement of food-seeking behavior. Neuronal correlates in the NAcc are also investigated. NAcc neurons respond to cocaine or sucrose and the conditioned stimulus (CS) during SA and the CS during reinstatement. Moreover, STN lesions have profound effects on these responses. Additionally, we assess the effects of STN lesions on operant responding for reward under a progressive ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement, a schedule thought to measure the reinforcing efficacy of rewards. Bilateral STN lesions enhance responding for sucrose reward, but attenuate responding for cocaine reward. Furthermore, STN lesions differentially modulate NAcc neuronal activity associated with operant responding for either sucrose or cocaine reward under a PR schedule of reinforcement. Collectively, these results provide additional evidence for the role of the STN in food- and cocaine-seeking behavior and further support the NAcc in food- and cocaine-seeking behavior. In conclusion, these experiments demonstrate that the STN, classically considered a motor nucleus, differentially modulates the motivation, or craving, for natural and drug reward

Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man , by Martin Clayton and Ron Philo

No abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83760/1/21156_ftp.pd

Poor Maggot-Sack that I Am : The Human Body in the Theology of Martin Luther

This dissertation represents research into the writings of Martin Luther [1483-1546] reflecting his understanding of the human body in his theology. Chapter one reviews the history of the body in the theology of the western Christian church, 300- 1500. Chapters two through five examine Luther\u27s thinking about various \u3c“\u3ebody topics,\u3c”\u3e such as the body as the good creation of God; sexuality and procreation; and the body in illness, death, and resurrection. Chapter six presents conclusions. Luther\u27s thinking is examined on the basis of consultation of the Weimarer Ausgabe and the \u3c“\u3eAmerican Edition\u3c”\u3e of Luther\u27s works. Special attention is given to Luther\u27s interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, to his writings on marriage and celibacy, and his sermons and letters. Various entries in the Tischreden pertinent to the subject are also examined. In contrast to the kinds of \u3c“\u3ebody topics\u3c”\u3e currently debated and discussed, Luther\u27s concern was with the body that dies and yet will be raised again. In addressing issues concerning the body this research shows that, in general, Luther remained a medieval Catholic thinker about the body. However, he was distinct from many medieval voices in the way he affirmed the goodness of human sexuality as a created capacity and purpose of the male and female body. While he was sharp in his critique of sexual sins, this examination of Luther does not discover in him a \u3c“\u3egrim negativity\u3c”\u3e about sexuality that some have suggested. Luther viewed sexuality-after-the-fall as he did every other aspect of human activity: infected by sin, but redeemed in Christ. Luther\u27s thinking was informed by Scripture, but directed often by experience. Thus this research also traces the impact of his many illnesses, his marriage to Katherina von Bora, and the experience of the deaths of his parents and daughter on his theologizing