Revitalization of "Dead Space" through the use of Ineractive Interventions

This paper is based on research that focuses on the problem of “dead space” within the urban environment. The goal of this project is to come up with an interactive design intervention that will ultimately resolve issues of existing dead space. This paper will help readers obtain a clearer understanding of what “dead space” is and why it is so detrimental to the urban environment as well as define what interactive architecture is and how it can be beneficial to the revitalization of dead space. A multitude of case studies that deal with space revitalization were analyzed and three typologies were derived for determining potential sites. Through these typologies, sites were found which needed intervention and a Design Matrix is developed to aid in the development of an intervention. Scenarios were developed to provide a better understanding of how these interventions will work and be utilized. Finally, this paper discusses the process of this project and future developments

Learning Statistics using Concept Maps: Effects on Anxiety and Performance

The aim of this thesis was to study the use of concept mapping in an undergraduate statistics course in order to examine the effects on statistics anxiety and academic performance by means of a two-group quasi-experimental design. Two undergraduate statistics classes were recruited for this study with one serving as the treatment (concept map) group and one serving as the control (standard instruction) group. It was hypothesized that the use of concept mapping would decrease the statistics anxiety and improve the academic performance of students in the concept map group when compared with the control group. The statistics anxiety of the concept map group decreased more than that of the control group over the course of the semester, but the group differences in anxiety were not found to be statistically significant. The academic performance of both the concept map and control groups remained relatively stable throughout the course of the semester, and the groups did not significantly differ on academic performance measures. Significant differences were found between the concept map and control group on the interpretation anxiety subscale of the statistical anxiety measure used in this study and between the proficient and non-proficient concept map user scores on the computational section of the third academic performance measure. The study hypotheses were not supported. It is suggested that future research include less concept map training, more specific instruction for concept map creation, and investigation of particular student groups

Students Voicing Collegiate Recovery

Young adults increasingly enter college with substance use addiction. Some may achieve recovery before setting their foot on a college campus whereas others during their college years. These students often struggle to maintain sobriety as they act out their daily lives because they find themselves in abstinence-hostile environments (Bugbee et al., 2016; Harris et al., 2008). This presentation will discuss students’ collegiate recovery experiences and will report on a photovoice project documenting students’ recovery experience and recovery management and support needs. Photovoice is a participatory social action method that uses photography to answer research questions (Wang, 2006); a photovoice exhibit, involving a gallery of participants’ photographs and linked narrative text to explicate the photos’ meaning, disseminates the findings. The presentation will focus on the narratives of students in recovery and attendees will obtain an in-depth understanding of recovery students’ experiences of stigma, shame and isolation, and marginalized social positions, which are intimately tied to their addiction histories. Students in recovery represent an invisible student group that struggles to access resources and needed healthcare services. The photovoice method can act as a powerful tool to empower marginalized students to share their recovery experiences and articulate their needs; ultimately providing a vehicle for structural-level and systemic change

The dynamics of forming a technology based start-up : how founders use external advice to improve their firm's chance of succeeding

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2007.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 161-167).External advice can be a valuable resource for founders of high technology startup companies. As with any resource, the pursuit and efficient use of the external advice resource is one of the greatest challenges for founders. This thesis examines how the founders of eleven US venture-backed high-tech companies leveraged external advice to their advantage. By aggregating data extracted from case-based interviews, the characteristics of advice are fully understood. In particular, insights are made into the types of advice these business focused founders received, the types of advisors they selected and considered influential to the development of their company and the way they were connected to these influential advisors. Organizing the data by companies' business characteristics enabled further insights to be drawn. Notably, there was a significant difference in a variety of the advice sought by first time founders compared with that of more experienced founding teams. First time founders received broader and more tactical advice than did experienced founders. Furthermore, first time founder's advisors were much more likely to act as coaches, instilling confidence and expending effort to mentor these first-timers into successful CEOs. Silicon Valley advisors and others affiliated with Silicon Valley companies were much more likely to introduce the founders to their influential network, which illustrates the rich entrepreneurial nature of Silicon Valley. There was no statistically significant difference in advice characteristics based on the size of their founding team or on type of their industry. Since the eleven companies are private and thriving, the selected performance metric was the amount of venture capital raised per year of existence.(cont.) This less than ideal performance data clearly shows a positive correlation between the size and experience of the founding team with company performance. However, no correlation between company performance and industry and geography could be determined. Since the advice characteristics that were correlated with performance were similar to those of large experienced teams, it is reasonable to conclude that none of the advice characteristics are predictors of success. It follows rather that advice characteristics are more a reflection of the companies' business characteristics than itself a predictor of venture success.by Nick Cravalho.S.M

ClassDojo as a Token Economy Method

This proposed study aims to investigate the effectiveness of ClassDojo compared to a paper-pencil token economy method among students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders. Token economies are reinforcement procedures that can be implemented using a variety of modalities; thus, the purpose of this proposed study is to investigate the use of ClassDojo as a token economy, a free online program that is widely used in the classroom setting. An ABAB design will be used to measure the rate of reinforced social and academic behavior, academic engagement, and off-task behavior. In addition, the adherence and quality of administering the token economy (i.e., treatment integrity), and social validity will be measured. It is hypothesized that the use of ClassDojo will produce: higher rates of reinforcement for social and academic behavior, higher rates of academically engaged behavior, lower rates of off-task behavior, and the teacher, staff, and students will rate ClassDojo more favorably compared to the paper-pencil method

Dose-dependent sensorimotor impairment in human ocular tracking after acute low-dose alcohol administration

Key points: Oculomotor behaviours are commonly used to evaluate sensorimotor disruption due to ethanol (EtOH). The current study demonstrates the dose-dependent impairment in oculomotor and ocular behaviours across a range of ultra-low BACs (\u3c0.035%). Processing of target speed and direction, as well as pursuit eye movements, are significantly impaired at 0.015% BAC, suggesting impaired neural activity within brain regions associated with the visual processing of motion. Catch-up saccades during steady visual tracking of the moving target compensate for the reduced vigour of smooth eye movements that occurs with the ingestion of low-dose alcohol. Saccade dynamics start to become ‘sluggish’ at as low as 0.035% BAC. Pupillary light responses appear unaffected at BAC levels up to 0.065%. Abstract: Changes in oculomotor behaviours are often used as metrics of sensorimotor disruption due to ethanol (EtOH); however, previous studies have focused on deficits at blood-alcohol concentrations (BACs) above about 0.04%. We investigated the dose dependence of the impairment in oculomotor and ocular behaviours caused by EtOH administration across a range of ultra-low BACs (≤0.035%). We took repeated measures of oculomotor and ocular performance from sixteen participants, both pre- and post-EtOH administration. To assess the neurological impacts across a wide range of brain areas and pathways, our protocol measured 21 largely independent performance metrics extracted from a range of behavioural responses ranging from ocular tracking of radial step-ramp stimuli, to eccentric gaze holding, to pupillary responses evoked by light flashes. Our results show significant impairment of pursuit and visual motion processing at 0.015% BAC, reflecting degraded neural processing within extrastriate cortical pathways. However, catch-up saccades largely compensate for the tracking displacement shortfall caused by low pursuit gain, although there still is significant residual retinal slip and thus degraded dynamic acuity. Furthermore, although saccades are more frequent, their dynamics are more sluggish (i.e. show lower peak velocities) starting at BAC levels as low as 0.035%. Small effects in eccentric gaze holding and no effect in pupillary response dynamics were observed at levels below 0.07%, showing the higher sensitivity of the pursuit response to very low levels of blood alcohol, under the conditions of our study

Oculomotor Behavior Metrics Change According to Circadian Phase and Time Awake

There is a need for non-invasive, objective measures to forecast performance impairment arising from sleep loss and circadian misalignment, particularly in safety-sensitive occupations. Eye-tracking devices have been used in some operational scenarios, but such devices typically focus on eyelid closures and slow rolling eye movements and are susceptible to the intrusion of head movement artifacts. We hypothesized that an expanded suite of oculomotor behavior metrics, collected during a visual tracking task, would change according to circadian phase and time awake, and could be used as a marker of performance impairment

Low-Dose Caffeine Administration During Acute Sleep Deprivation Eliminates Visual Motion Processing Impairment, but Does Not Improve Saccadic Rate

Oculomotor tracking performance changes according to time awake. A constant routine (CR) study demonstrated that increasing time awake 1) reduces the precision of visual motion processing, 2) decreases steady-state closed-loop pursuit performance and 3) decreases peak saccadic velocity. We aimed to determine the contribution of homeostatic sleep pressure on these oculometric changes by administering low-dose caffeine over one night of sleep deprivation. Participants completed two weeks of at-home 8.5 hours sleep per day, followed by an approximately 24-hour laboratory CR in semi-recumbent posture under less than 4 lux of light. The visual tracking task was performed every two hours after waking and hourly overnight. Low-dose caffeine of 0.3 milligrams per kilogram was administered hourly during the biological night. Nine participants (5F) completed the study. Caffeine dosing: 1) prevented the impairment of visual motion processing, 2) reduced by approximately half the impairment of closed-loop pursuit performance (gain, minus 0.47 percent per hour, significance of slope change: p (probability) less than 0.006; proportion smooth, minus 0.35 percent per hour, p less than 0.005), and 3) had an insignificant (p less than 0.39) effect on the impairment of saccadic peak velocity (slope, minus 1.13 percent per hour; intercept, minus 0.62 percent per hour). These results suggest that visual motion processing and some proportion of closed-loop pursuit performance are impaired due to homeostatic mechanisms during sleep deprivation

Impairment of Human Ocular Tracking with Low-Dose Alcohol

Previous studies have documented adverse effects of alcohol on oculomotor performance. For example, moderate-dose alcohol (yielding a Blood Alcohol Concentration or BAC of 0.04-0.1%) has been shown to decrease steady-state pursuit gain (Fransson et al., 2010, Clin Neurophysiol, 121(12): 2134; Moser et al., 1998, J Neurol, 245(8): 542; Roche & King, 2010, Psychopharmacology, 212(1): 33), to increase saccade latency (Moser et al., 1998, J Neurol, 245(8): 542; Roche & King, 2010, Psychopharmacology, 212(1): 33), to decrease peak saccadic velocity (Fransson et al., 2010, Clin Neurophysiol, 121(12): 2134; Roche & King, 2010, Psychopharmacology, 212(1): 33), and to increase the frequency of catch-up saccades (Moser et al., 1998, J Neurol, 245(8): 542). Here, we administered two doses of ethanol on different days, yielding moderate (0.06%) and low (0.02%) levels of initial BAC, to examine the effects on human ocular tracking over BACs ranging from 0.00 to 0.07%. Twelve subjects (8 females) participated in a 5-day study. Three days of at-home measurements of daily activity and sleep were monitored, followed by two laboratory days where, ~5 hours after awakening, we administered one of the two possible single doses of alcohol. Using a previously published paradigm (Liston & Stone, 2014, J Vis, 14(14): 12), we measured oculomotor performance multiple times throughout the day with three pre-dosing baseline runs and bi-hourly post-dosing test runs until the subject recorded a BAC of 0.00% for two hours. BAC was measured before each run using an Alco-Sensor IV breathalyzer (Intoximeters, Inc., St. Louis, MO). For each of the oculometric measures, for each subject, we computed the within-subject % deviation for each test run from their baseline averaged across their three pre-dosing runs. We then averaged the data across subjects in 0.01% BAC bins. Finally, we used linear regression to compute the slope and x-intercept (threshold) of the mean binned % deviation as a function of BAC. We found that pursuit initiation was impaired at very low BAC levels, with significant (p < 0.002) linear trends in latency (+1.3%/0.01%BAC) and initial acceleration (-4.6%/0.01%BAC) with extrapolated absolute thresholds at or below 0.01% BAC. We also found that steady-state tracking was impaired showing significant (p < 0.002) linear trends in gain (- 3.8%/0.01%BAC) and catch-up saccade amplitude (+9.1%/0.01%BAC), again with extrapolated absolute thresholds around 0.01% BAC. We also found a significant (p < 0.02) increase in pursuit direction noise (+9.8%/0.01%BAC) with an extrapolated absolute threshold below 0.01% BAC. Many aspects of ocular tracking are impaired in a dose-dependent manner beginning at a BAC level around 0.01%, with significant effects at levels lower than previously reported and up to 8-times lower than the legal limit for driving in most states