The Invisible Foot By Steve Taylor

The Invisible Foot is wonderful! Very smart, dialogue I can hear in my mind’s ear, great ideas clearly and poetically presented. Growth as an addictive drug: outstanding. It is not, strictly speaking, a script to make into a play. It’s a Platonic Dialogue. And a damned good one

Amplification for People with Aphasia

Deficits in auditory processing and comprehension can have negative impacts on everyday conversation in people with aphasia (PWA). Comprehension deficits observed in people with aphasia have been compared to individuals with auditory processing disorder (APD). Koohi and colleagues (2017) found that individuals with auditory processing disorder (APD) post-stroke benefitted from use of amplification as it related to their deficits in auditory processing. This preliminary study aims to determine if PWA will benefit from amplification on measures of comprehension and in a broader sense, use of amplification in everyday life. Nine adults with expressive aphasia and 5 neurologically normal controls were administered listening tasks with and without amplification in a structured environment. Results indicated that amplification had a small positive effect on PWA and a moderate-large positive effect on control participants, as it relates to their overall comprehension of discourse. Amplification may help to lessen the demand on processing auditory information and be a potential tool in facilitating discourse comprehension for particular PWA. Further research is needed to determine potential benefits of amplification use by PWA

Design of Composite Double-Slab Radar Absorbing Structures Using Forward, Inverse, and Tandem Neural Networks

The survivability and mission of a military aircraft is often designed with minimum radar cross section (RCS) to ensure its long-term operation and maintainability. To reduce aircraft’s RCS, a specially formulated Radar Absorbing Structures (RAS) is primarily applied to its external skins. A Ni-coated glass/epoxy composite is a recent RAS material system designed for decreasing the RCS for the X-band (8.2 – 12.4 GHz), while maintaining efficient and reliable structural performance to function as the skin of an aircraft. Experimentally measured and computationally predicted radar responses (i.e., return loss responses in specific frequency ranges) of multi-layered RASs are expensive and labor-intensive. Solving their inverse problems for optimal RAS design is also challenging due to their complex configuration and physical phenomena. An artificial neural network (ANN) is a machine learning method that uses existing data from experimental results and validated models (i.e., transfer learning) to predict complex behavior. Training an ANN can be computationally expensive; however, training is a one-time cost. In this work, three different Three ANN models are presented for designing dual slab Ni-coated glass/epoxy composite RASs: (1) the feedforward neural network (FNN) model, (2) the inverse neural network (INN) model – an inverse network, which maintains a parallel structure to the FNN model, and (3) the tandem neural network (TNN) model – an alternative to the INN model which uses a pre-trained FNN in the training process. The FNN model takes the thicknesses of dual slab RASs to predict their returns loss in the X-band range. The INN model solves the inverse problem for the FNN model. The TNN model is established with a pre-trained FNN to train an INN that exactly reverses the operation done in the FNN rather than solving the inverse problem independently. These ANN models will assist in reducing the time and cost for designing dual slab (and further extension to multi-layered) RASs

Supporting the Success of Service Learning Initiatives in Higher Education

<div>The work presented here stems from a four-year, National Science Foundation-funded project, designed to investigate the use of humanitarian service learning in education including a specific focus on international service learning and the work of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB). As part of this work, our research team has conducted interviews or focus groups with a total of 42 students, 12 faculty, and 12 professional volunteers or mentors involved in EWB. One of the recurring themes that has emerged from these interviews is that, in most cases, the work that goes into creating and maintaining service learning opportunities receives little institutional support, both from a faculty and student perspective.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Presented at the Polytechnic Summit, 6 June 2018 in Lima, Peru.</i><br></div

Dispositional Greed, Dark Trait, and Problem Gambling

Abstract Dispositional Greed refers to a person\u27s innate traits and capacity for greed. Researchers can separate the influence of personality from that of the environment on greedy behavior using the Dispositional Greed Scale. Prior research has not yet explored dispositional greed in relation to problem gambling, and whether it is predictive of problem gambling above and beyond the dark traits (i.e., psychopathy [callousness and cynicism], Machiavellianism [strategic exploitation and deception], and narcissism [inflated sense of one’s own importance]). Thus, the present study aims at investigating dispositional greed with the scope of the dark traits to yield an application that sufficiently forecasts expectancy and risk of problem gambling. An online survey was given to gamblers (N = 709; 59.2% male; M = 40.4 years; SD = 12.8) recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Using the multiple regression analysis, the results showed that greed and two sinister characteristics—psychopathy and Machiavellianism—significantly influenced the degree of problem gambling. Indicating that a person\u27s problem gambling severity increases when they have a stronger dispositional trait for psychopathy or greed, however the opposite is true for the Machiavellianism trait, in that the problem gambling scores declined as Machiavellianism grew. The present study is one of the few exploratory research projects that probe into the inclusion of dispositional greed in the dark triads\u27 list of factors that increase the probability of problem gambling. Findings add to our understanding of risky gambling behaviors and suggest that further study on the part of dispositional greed is necessary. Additionally, it identifies a potential point of intervention and prevention for harmful gambling behavior

Engineered thermostable fungal cellulases exhibit efficient synergistic cellulose hydrolysis at elevated temperatures

A major obstacle to using widely available and low-cost lignocellulosic feedstocks to produce renewable fuels and chemicals is the high cost and low efficiency of the enzyme mixtures used to hydrolyze cellulose to fermentable sugars. One possible solution entails engineering current cellulases to function efficiently at elevated temperatures in order to boost reaction rates and exploit several other advantages of a higher temperature process. Here we describe the creation of the most stable reported fungal endoglucanase, a derivative of Hypocrea jecorina (anamorph Trichoderma reesei) Cel5A, by combining stabilizing mutations identified using consensus design, chimera studies, and structure-based computational methods. The engineered endoglucanase has an optimal temperature that is 17 °C higher than wild type H. jecorina Cel5A, and hydrolyzes 1.5 times as much cellulose over 60 h at its optimum temperature compared to the wild type enzyme at its optimal temperature.This enzyme complements previously-engineered highly-active, thermostable variants of the fungal cellobiohydrolases Cel6A and Cel7A in a thermostable cellulase mixture that hydrolyzes cellulose synergistically at an optimum temperature of 70 °C over 60 h.The thermostable mixture produces three times as much total sugar as the best mixture of the wild type enzymes operating at its optimum temperature of 60 °C, clearly demonstrating the advantage of higher-temperature cellulose hydrolysis

Exploring psychological characteristic of problem financial trading: The effect of self-control and dispositional greed

Abstract While an increasing body of literature has noted the preponderance of gambling within various financial markets, limited research has been done on the psychological characteristics of traders, such as levels of self-control (i.e., ability to regulate behaviors and emotions) and dispositional greed (i.e., a strong desire to acquire more). Such characteristics may place traders at a disproportionate risk for trading financial assets more problematically. The proposed study explores the association between self-control and problem financial trading and the role of dispositional greed in mediating their association. Participants who identified as having engaged in financial trading during the past year (N = 504; 67.1% male; M = 39.4 years, SD = 12.6) were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to complete an online survey. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that self-control is partially negatively related to problematic financial trading behaviors (B = -.21, p \u3c .001; 95%CI[-.28, -.14]). Furthermore, self-control is related to less problem financial trading behaviors through a decrease in dispositional greed (B = -.05, p = .004; 95%CI[-.08, -.02]). These findings are the among the first to explore the interplay between self-control and dispositional greed. The implications of these findings will be discussed. Implication The present study is the first to explore self-control and dispositional greed in relation to problematic financial trading. Findings speak to the unique interplay between self-control and dispositional greed among financial traders, and provide a foundation for further research in this area