3D Interactive virtual environments for E-learning, teaching and technical support: Multiplayer teaching and learning games for the School of Art, Design & Architecture.

This paper outlines the key stages of a University funded teaching and learning project, the main objective of the project is to build an online 3D virtual Ramsden workshop (RW) game learning environment. Using 3D modeling software and interactive 3D game programming technologies the project team have accurately modeled and simulated the Ramsden workshop (RW) building; The 3D virtual RW workshop has been accurately built to scale and is fitted with virtual furniture, virtual computers, virtual engineering machinery. These components have been developed as an initial range of interactive game based learning tools. In this project the team has also begun to simulate Health and Safety procedures, created software CAD/CAM tutorials and are developing and testing innovative learning support tools for all levels of learners. The 3D Virtual Ramsden workshop (RW) game is part of ongoing research work that applies the use of 3D virtual software for developing appropriate interactive 3D spaces, avatars, objects and simulations for learning, teaching, training, exhibitions, experimental art and practice in virtual environments. Additionally within this project the research team also modelled a virtual Creative Arts Building and a University of Huddersfield virtual campus

Do lemurs know when they could be wrong? An investigation of information seeking in three species of lemur (<i>Lemur catta, Eulemur rubriventer, </i>and<i> Varecia variegata</i>)

Sixteen lemurs, including representatives from three species (Lemur catta, Eulemur rubriventer, Varecia variegata), were presented with a food seeking task where information about the rewards location, in one of two plastic tubes, was either known or not known. We evaluated whether lemurs would first look into the tube prior to making a choice. This information-seeking task aimed to assess whether subjects would display memory awareness, seeking additional information when they became aware they lacked knowledge of the rewards location. We predicted lemurs would be more likely to look into the tube when they had insufficient knowledge about the rewards position. Lemurs successfully gained the reward on most trials. However, they looked on the majority of trials regardless of whether they had all the necessary information to make a correct choice. The minimal cost to looking may have resulted in checking behaviour both to confirm what they already knew and to gain knowledge they did not have. When the cost of looking increased (elevating end of tube requiring additional energy expenditure to look inside - Experiment 2), lemurs still looked into tubes on both seen and unseen trials; however, the frequency of looking increased when opaque tubes were used (where they could not see the rewards location after baiting). This could suggest they checked more when they were less sure of their knowledge state

“Persuading the Secret”: In Search of Maine’s Hermits

I have been working on this project for nearly three years now. The journey feels like a long one—with various roads, some yet to be traveled, detours, and dead ends. Largely, it has been a process of trial and error, as I learned to navigate the boundless, at times overwhelming, depths of research—within archives, old newspapers, photographs, poems, fiction, informal conversations and formal interviews—hoping to make some sense of what hermit characters mean to the state of Maine. I found almost immediately that inconsistencies and gaps plagued—as I’m sure they do in any sort of oral history project—my attempts at concrete analysis. After quite a bit of research I still held what felt like a random collection of tales—some only half-told, others clearly fantastical, still more that couldn’t seem to pin down a single place or date, or even find consensus on what the term, “hermit” actually means. Moreover, as Dr. Edward (“Sandy”) Ives observed, “[the mythologist] is interested in the past not for its own sake but for how it lives in the human mind,” and finds expression in our daily decisions and actions.1 This means that my job is to understand how these stories are carried in the minds of others, but for practical reasons of time and access (not to mention the porous nature of cultural boundaries), I cannot definitively claim an understanding of the “Maine” folk mind and its conception of hermits as folk characters. In short, the task of writing this thesis brought with it many obstacles, and I arrived at it unsure of how to go about writing honestly, in a way that expressed what I found and heard, rather than what perhaps I wanted such a collection of stories to be able to say. In the opening pages of George Magoon and the Down East Game Wars, Sandy Ives addresses this all-too-familiar source of anxiety among social scientists. He asks of his own project, “To what extent was I creating the legend...by the very act of looking for it?”2 Had Ives, over the course of several years of collecting material on an infamous Maine poacher created George Magoon, the folk hero, in his own image? Was this essentially, perhaps inescapably, a self-referential project? This is a question that I’ve asked myself repeatedly while rooting around for hermit stories. Do I alone assign them significance? This is a particularly difficult question to address for two reasons. The first is that I have not found a comparative study that surveys hermit characters in a region and so there are no pre-prepared pathways here for me to work with. Secondly, the subject matter to some extent requires and inspires a great deal of self-reflection. In terms of traditional interactions between hermits and hermit-seekers, any sort of pilgrimage to reach the hermit is simultaneously (and possibly fundamentally), a journey into the interior depths of the self. So, while looking outward, past my own experience, I find myself continually turning inward. I therefore have chosen to highlight two landscapes, which I believe, are neither clearly distinct nor independent of one another. The first, represented by nonfiction pieces, is an identifiably real space of concrete detail (though, of course by “real” I do not mean objectively true). This is where my actual experiences and findings, along with critical analysis of those materials takes place. The other is an imaginary realm—the activity of my own mind as well as what I could glean from the collective folk mind. This parallel landscape is represented by a fictive story world that sits between and (marginally) within the nonfiction pieces. By placing nonfiction and fictional work side- by-side, I aim to make explicit the ways in which these realms are continually interacting and co-creating one another. The marginalia, which includes real story material from my research yet places that material within fictional frames, works to accomplish a similar goal. I found seemingly endless permutations of the hermit character in Maine over the course of my research, but was analytically drawn to patterns and taxonomies, and so found it necessary to give those various examples some sense of order, imposed limits and distinctions, from which I could begin to locate continuity and meaning. However, I chose to put many of those hermit groupings in the margins of the main text and in overtly fictive spaces—made-up books and chapter titles—which are altogether arbitrary except in my own mind. This textual marginalia is placed intentionally in spaces along the main text—amending and challenging it—in order to offer further complexity and dimension. I see the marginal text boxes throughout much of the thesis acting as characters with voices and competing narratives of their own. This attempts to mimic what I think of as the active borderlands of any writing project, and particularly this one, filled as it is with so many individual storytellers and idiosyncrasies. I hope that this chosen form offers an enhanced experience of the content. Creative play and even humor, I think, is important in a project such as this and I certainly had quite a bit of fun designing it

Benefits of an Intergenerational Program on the Health and Wellbeing of Older Adults in a Day Treatment Program

The purpose of this study is to describe how a 5-week shared-site intergenerational program increases wellbeing in older adults. Implementation of the research took place once a week at Generations Crossing in Harrisonburg, VA. Generations Crossing is a combined adult day center and a preschool. For five weeks, participants were presented with an activity that had the main goal of promoting social interactions between the older adults and the children. Data collectors used the Intergenerational Observation Scale (IOS) to record five older adults. The IOS determined how well intergenerational programming supported social interaction and positive affects between the two generations. Each week, the adult staff members were given a survey inquiring if they noticed any differences in their assigned adult\u27s behavior or affect. Two additional questions were given at the end of the program to record any long-term changes

Preregistration house officers in general practice: review of evidence

OBJECTIVES: To examine the strengths and weaknesses of the national and local schemes for preregistration house officers to spend four months in general practice, to identify any added value from such placements, and to examine the impact on career choices. DESIGN: Review of all studies that reported on placements of preregistration house officers in general practice. SETTING: 19 accounts of preregistration house officers’ experience in general practice, ranging from single case reports to a national evaluation study, in a variety of locations in Scotland and England. PARTICIPANTS: Views of 180 preregistration house officers, 45 general practitioner trainers, and 105 consultant trainers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Main findings or themes weighted according to number of studies reporting them and weighted for sample size. RESULTS: The studies were unanimous about the educational benefits of the placements. The additional learning included communication skills, social and psychological factors in illness, patient centred consultations, broadening of knowledge base, and dealing with uncertainty about diagnosis and referral. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the reported benefits and recommendations of the scheme, it is not expanding. General practitioner trainers reported additional supervision that was unremunerated. The reforms of the senior house officer grade may resolve this problem by offering the placements to senior house officers, who require less supervision

Bostonia

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

Blogging to Develop Honors Students’ Writing

After an exciting class discussion, you might want students to write conventional papers directed at you and focused ultimately on a grade, or you might prefer that they bring their further insights to their classmates, continuing and enriching the ongoing class collaboration. Blogging is an excellent way to implement the second option, continuing an exchange of ideas and providing students with another tool to improve their writing skills. Student class blogging offers many benefits—for student and instructor alike—compared to assigning conventional papers directed only at the instructor. The collaborative writing and peer editing inherent in blogging offer challenges as well as benefits, so guidance in facilitating a meaningful exchange as well as navigating the nuts-and-bolts technicalities may be useful to honors faculty who are establishing a class blog. Ideas for class exercises, assignments, and evaluative expectations co-designed by an instructor and a team of honors students may also help bring out maximum creativity and collegiality in the honors blog

Nonfamily knowledge during family business succession: a cultural understanding.

Purpose: Knowledge transfer plays a key role in the succession process. While much attention has been given to the passing of business knowledge form incumbent to successor, less is known about the use of nonfamily knowledge during this most crucial of family business events. The purpose of this paper is to look how knowledge from nonfamily employees is treated at times of succession. Importantly, it considers how the controlling family's cultural background may influence nonfamily knowledge use, and subsequent implications for the succession process. Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory comparative case study design is adopted in order to uncover the complex social and cultural dynamics around knowledge use. Four case studies are presented from family businesses of different, and contrasting, cultural origins. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, observations and formal secondary data from the organisations, all of whom operate in the UK. Findings: Findings reveal a complex picture, part influenced by the cultural dynamics of the family and part by business necessity. Specifically, power-distance appears as an informative cultural dimension, influencing how knowledge is used and nonfamily are perceived. While some family businesses privilege the knowledge from family, others see the need to build knowledge relationships more broadly. Originality/value: This paper provides further evidence to the heterogeneity of family businesses. It moves beyond a processual explanation of succession to develop a more contextually aware understanding of the dynamics and sensitivities involved