Preconstruction Services for the Modular House

The Modular House , originally named for its composition of 8x8x8 foot steel framed modules, has experienced a rich history of tenants, additions, and tourism. This structure was one of the first to be erected in California Polytechnic’s Poly Canyon. After many great years as a residence and iconic structure the house was ultimately abandoned in 2010. Since then, the building and the canyon have seen increased vandalism and weathering backed by minimal maintenance, resulting in unsafe conditions for the general public. Our mission was to allow this structure to be enjoyed by the public while highlighting its initial architectural features. Our remodel included a removal of all non-structural components and the addition of a new flooring structure and guardrail system that incorporated the iconic road sign exterior siding. This report will walk through the timeline of the building, the proposed new design, building materials, project costs, construction process and the tough logistics of working on a remote site location in Poly Canyon

Fostering Multi-Agent Cooperation through Implicit Responsibility

For integration in real-world environments, it is critical that autonomousagents are capable of behaving responsibly while working alongside humans andother agents. Existing frameworks of responsibility for multi-agent systems typically model responsibilities in terms of adherence to explicit standards. Suchframeworks do not reflect the often unstated, or implicit, way in which responsibilities can operate in the real world. We introduce the notion of implicit responsibilities: self-imposed standards of responsible behaviour that emerge and guideindividual decision-making without any formal or explicit agreement.We propose that incorporating implicit responsibilities into multi-agent learningand decision-making is a novel approach for fostering mutually beneficial cooperative behaviours. As a preliminary investigation, we present a proof-of-conceptapproach for integrating implicit responsibility into independent reinforcementlearning agents through reward shaping. We evaluate our approach through simulation experiments in an environment characterised by conflicting individual andgroup incentives. Our findings suggest that societies of agents modelling implicitresponsibilities can learn to cooperate more quickly, and achieve greater returnscompared to baseline

On the Universality of Mesoscience: Science of 'the in-between'

The universality of mesoscales, ranging between elemental particles and the universe, is discussed here by reviewing widely disparate fields and presenting four cases, at differing hierarchical levels, from chemistry, chemical engineering, meteorology, through to astronomy. An underpinning concept, "Compromise in competition", is highlighted between various dominant, but competing mechanisms, and is identified here to be the universal origin of complexity and diversity in such examples. We therefore advance this as a key underlying principle of an emerging science -- Mesoscience.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Transplant recipients’ motivational orientation towards sport participation and physical activity enjoyment at the 2019 World Transplant Games in Newcastle-Gateshead UK

This study adopted a descriptive correlational design to identify organ transplant athletes’ motivational behaviour and level of physical activity enjoyment during the 2019 World Transplant Games. The causal relationship between motivational behaviour and enjoyment was also determined. Data was collected through questionnaires during the event that tapped participants’ demographic information and responses to the Task and Ego Orientation Questionnaire, Sport Motivation Scale-2 and Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale. Descriptive statistics revealed that transplant athletes (n = 119; Mage = 52.92 years, SD = 13.51) find sport mostly enjoyable whilst holding a strong task-oriented approach towards sport participation with high approximations of intrinsic, integrated and identified motivation. Male and female athletes also shared a relatively similar motivational profile with male athletes reporting significantly higher levels of sport enjoyment compared to their female counterparts. Inferential statistics further revealed significant associations between most dimensions of motivation and level of enjoyment, of which gender and certain aspects of motivation were exposed as significant predictors of athletes’ reported enjoyment in sport. It is advised that autonomous regulatory behaviours be garnered in transplant recipients looking to start/continue sport participation as it proved to be prime correlates and determinants of enjoyment in sport

STL Energy Project, Spring 2020

STL Multifamily Housing Building Energy Efficiency Through Building Communication. A collaboration between Washington University in St. Louis Sustainability Exchange and the City of St. Louis to promote Building Energy Awareness that will reduce GHG Emissions and combat Climate Change. Mentors & Client: Ray Ehrhard and Rajiv Ravulapati. Community Partners: Rachel Pressley (Lindell Park Apartments) and Stephanie Blockton (House at Westminister

A influência da aprendizagem musical no desempenho na MBEA

O entendimento de certas capacidades musicais como universais e determinadas por processos biológicos provém da existência de constantes transculturais em relação à música, teorias evolutivas sobre a sua origem, estudos genéticos, e estudos que demonstram empiricamente uma apetência musical implícita em todos os seres humanos, na ausência de perturbações do desenvolvimento ou lesões adquiridas. Sendo a música um fenómeno cerebral, vários estudos sugerem a existência de modularidade na cognição musical, a qual é independente de outras funções como a linguagem, e recorre a substratos neurais fixos, corroborando as teorias biológicas da música. A Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) foi concebida para avaliar as capacidades de perceção e memória musical universais e inatas, e para o diagnóstico de amusia. Músicos profissionais treinam minuciosamente o seu ofício, e apresentam alterações estruturais e funcionais no processamento da música. Neste trabalho, que faz parte do estudo de normalização da MBEA para a população portuguesa, averiguámos se a aprendizagem musical influencia o desempenho na bateria. Comparámos as pontuações obtidas por músicos e estudantes de escolas de música em Lisboa (n = 40; média de anos de instrução = 11,4) com as pontuações de sujeitos sem formação musical (n = 40) nos testes de escala, contorno, intervalo, ritmo, métrica, e memória musical, e no índice global. Os músicos conseguiram pontuações significativamente superiores em todos os testes e índices, havendo no entanto sobreposição entre grupos. Verificámos ainda uma correlação (r = 0,357) entre os anos de instrução musical dos músicos e o índice global. Estes resultados contestam a validade de constructo da MBEA, pois sugerem que a bateria não avalia somente as competências musicais inatas, mas também habilidades passíveis de serem aprendidas formalmente e treinadas. Assim, como ferramenta para o diagnóstico de amusia, a MBEA deve ter em conta nas suas normas a instrução musical.The understanding that certain musical abilities are universal and determined by biological processes is based on the evidence concerning transcultural musical constants, evolutionary theories about their origin, genetic studies, and empirical studies showing an implicit musical tendency in all humans without developmental disorders or brain damage. Various studies have suggested the existence of modularity in musical cognition, which is independent of other functions such as language, and is supported by fixed neural correlates, in accordance with biological theories of music. The Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) was conceived to assess universal and innate capacities of musical perception and memory, and to provide a tool for the diagnosis of amusia. Professional musicians practice their trade comprehensively, and present structural and functional brain differences in musical processing relative to nonmusicians. In our work, which is part of a larger study intended to establish norms for use of the MBEA on the Portuguese population, we inquired whether musical learning influences performance on the battery. We compared scores obtained by musicians and students in music schools in Lisbon (n = 40; mean years of practice = 11,4) with those of subjects with no musical training whatsoever (n = 40), on the scale, contour, interval, rhythm, meter and memory tests, as well as the global index. Musicians achieved significantly higher scores on all tests and indices than non-musicians, although there was some overlap between groups. Furthermore, the global index scores of musicians correlated with years of practice (r = 0,375). These results put into question the construct validity of the MBEA, since they suggest the battery does not merely assess innate musical abilities, but also those which can be formally learnt and practiced. Therefore, we suggest the years of musical practice be taken into account in the MBEA norms

Strongly correlated fermions with nonlinear energy dispersion and spontaneous generation of anisotropic phases

Using the bosonization approach we study fermionic systems with a nonlinear dispersion relation in dimension d>2. We explicitly show how the band curvature gives rise to interaction terms in the bosonic version of the model. Although these terms are perturbatively irrelevant in relation to the Landau Fermi liquid fixed point, they become relevant perturbations when instabilities take place. Using a coherent state path integral technique we built up the effective action that governs the dynamics of the Fermi surface fluctuations. We consider the combined effect of fermionic interactions and band curvature on possible anisotropic phases triggered by negative Landau parameters. In particular we study in some detail the phase diagram for the isotropic/nematic/hexatic quantum phase transition.Comment: RevTeX4, 9 pages, 2 eps figures, Final version as appeared in Phys.Rev.

Special Issue of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities

CRESSI Deliverable 8.

It’s Alive! Animate Sources Produce Mnemonic Benefits

The mnemonic benefits of animate (e.g., Tiger) over inanimate (e.g., Table) stimuli have been demonstrated across several different memory paradigms. Given the ubiquity of inanimate, computer-generated voices we investigated if the animacy of a presentation source confers mnemonic benefits. We asked: is information delivered by a human voice better remembered than information presented by a computer-generated voice? Word-lists were presented auditorily by either a human or a computer-generated voice and memory was measured using a free recall assessment. In Experiment 1, words presented in a human voice were better remembered than words presented in a computer voice. Experiment 2 demonstrated that beliefs about the animacy of a computer-generated voice were not sufficient for any benefits to accrue, suggesting a possible boundary condition for the effect. Both experiments replicated the mnemonic benefits of animate words and demonstrated further extensions of the effect to spoken word presentation

A Survey of Methods for Data Inclusion in System Dynamics Models

In 1980, Jay Forrester enumerated three types of data needed to develop the structure and decision rules in models: numerical, written and mental data, in increasing order of importance. While this prioritization is appropriate, it is numerical data that has experienced the most development in the 25 years since Forester made his enumeration. In this paper, we’ll focus on how numerical data can be incorporated into models when written and mental data are known, and survey the techniques for doing so