Brain activity linked to the filtering of visual information under uncertain conditions

Abstract onl

Millennial Alumni Perceptions of Communications: A Look at One Land Grant University’s Media Use

An important aspect of higher education is alumni relationship cultivation, because it keeps alma maters connected to graduates. To assess this relationship, researchers sought to describe Millennial alumni perceptions of media distributed by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences (Bumpers College) from 2012 through 2014. Assessed media included alumni magazines, an e-newsletter, key event invitations, College website, and social media presences. Active and inactive alumni responses were gathered via telephone interviews and qualitatively analyzed for emergent themes. Researchers identified Building the Professional and Interest in Giving Back as themes related to respondents’ connection to Bumpers College. Five additional themes emerged related to assessed media and included Message Relationship, Specialized Content, Communications Medium, Message Barriers, and Need for Promotion. No alumni were dissatisfied with their collegiate experience and favored monetary donations for its convenience. Alumni sought a personable-angle communications media and were drawn by updates about the College’s research and global impacts. Respondents consumed print and digital media differently with engagement based on personal preference and flexibility. Subthemes emerged related to Message Barriers and included time, distance, vague messages, too much information, non-relatable subject matter, technical errors, and outdated information. Finally, there was little brand recognition between Bumpers College and University messaging, and most alumni were unaware of the College’s social media presences

Millennial Alumni Perceptions of Communications: A Look at One Land Grant University’s Media Use

An important aspect of higher education is alumni relationship cultivation, because it keeps alma maters connected to graduates. To assess this relationship, researchers sought to describe Millennial alumni perceptions of media distributed by the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences (Bumpers College) from 2012 through 2014. Assessed media included alumni magazines, an e-newsletter, key event invitations, College website, and social media presences. Active and inactive alumni responses were gathered via telephone interviews and qualitatively analyzed for emergent themes. Researchers identified Building the Professional and Interest in Giving Back as themes related to respondents’ connection to Bumpers College. Five additional themes emerged related to assessed media and included Message Relationship, Specialized Content, Communications Medium, Message Barriers, and Need for Promotion. No alumni were dissatisfied with their collegiate experience and favored monetary donations for its convenience. Alumni sought a personable-angle communications media and were drawn by updates about the College’s research and global impacts. Respondents consumed print and digital media differently with engagement based on personal preference and flexibility. Subthemes emerged related to Message Barriers and included time, distance, vague messages, too much information, non-relatable subject matter, technical errors, and outdated information. Finally, there was little brand recognition between Bumpers College and University messaging, and most alumni were unaware of the College’s social media presences

"I always know what's going on." Assessing the Relationship between Perceived and Actual Situation Awareness across Different Scenarios

Effective performance in a situation relies on having a good awareness of that situation or at least, if SA is poor, being aware that this is the case. This study examined the bias (tendency to accept or reject available information) and actual and perceived SA of firefighters across two different situations The data suggested that, although actual SA and bia varied across the situations, perceived SA remained relatively constant. This raises the possibility that individuals may have a ‘resting level’ of perceived SA and that the tasks used in this study were effective in manipulating actual SA while perceived SA remained at the resting level

"I always know what's going on." Assessing the Relationship between Perceived and Actual Situation Awareness across Different Scenarios

Effective performance in a situation relies on having a good awareness of that situation or at least, if SA is poor, being aware that this is the case. This study examined the bias (tendency to accept or reject available information) and actual and perceived SA of firefighters across two different situations The data suggested that, although actual SA and bia varied across the situations, perceived SA remained relatively constant. This raises the possibility that individuals may have a ‘resting level’ of perceived SA and that the tasks used in this study were effective in manipulating actual SA while perceived SA remained at the resting level

The human brain in fireground decision-making: trustworthy firefighting equipment?

The research programme to date has involved studies of the response of Fire and Rescue (FRS) crew and commanders in fireground training situations and simulations (tabletop, BA and incident command exercises). The studies have revealed patterns and tendencies with potentially serious consequences for real FRS situations. The main conclusion from these studies is that the fire personnel involved were well-trained professionals with good “Situation Awareness” (SA) or knowledge of the incident under study, but there was also evidence of “bias” in decision-making leading to either a tunneling or broadening of focus that may respectively produce “miss” or “false alarm” errors. This tendency is linked to the limits of the human brain under pressure and could explain tragic errors of decision-making such as may have occurred in real-life fire incidents

Dimension Theory of Graphs and Networks

Starting from the working hypothesis that both physics and the corresponding mathematics have to be described by means of discrete concepts on the Planck-scale, one of the many problems one has to face in this enterprise is to find the discrete protoforms of the building blocks of continuum physics and mathematics. A core concept is the notion of dimension. In the following we develop such a notion for irregular structures like (large) graphs and networks and derive a number of its properties. Among other things we show its stability under a wide class of perturbations which is important if one has 'dimensional phase transitions' in mind. Furthermore we systematically construct graphs with almost arbitrary 'fractal dimension' which may be of some use in the context of 'dimensional renormalization' or statistical mechanics on irregular sets.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, LaTex2e, uses amsmath, amsfonts, amssymb, latexsym, epsfi

How does physical demand affect cognitive performance? Interference between outdoor running and narrative memory

Dual-tasking situations are common in military, firefighting, search and rescue, and other high risk operations. Cognitive and physical demands can occur at the same time, but little is known about the specific demands of real world tasks or how they might interfere with one another. It is well known that attempting simultaneous tasks will divide and divert attention, but to what extent? In this experiment, a narrative memory task was paired with an outdoor running task, and as expected, memory task performance declined when participants were asked to run at the same time. It is suggested that more cognitively demanding physical tasks be used within this dual-task paradigm for a better understanding of the human cognitive resource structure, i.e., how and why certain tasks interfere

Memory impairment during a climbing traverse: implications for search and rescue climbing

Cognitive resource limitations can impair one’s ability to multitask. Previous research has shown that climbing is a particu-larly demanding task, and does not neatly fit into existing cognitive resource models. Climbing is a task relevant to firefight-ing and search and rescue, and operators often must also handle communication and navigation tasks in tandem. We present the results of a study where a naturalistic narrative memory task was paired with a climbing traverse. As hypothesized, both climbing and memory performance significantly declined in the dual-compared to each single-task condition. The specific cognitive demands of climbing should be explored further using non-verbal secondary tasks, to determine whether an execu-tive resource bottleneck, verbal resource demand, or something else entirely can better explain the dual-task interference. A more thorough understanding of the mental demand in concurrent operational tasks can be used to tailor the modality and timing or diversion of certain tasks for minimal interference

Chapter 5 Impacts and Environmental Risks of Oil Spills on Marine Invertebrates, Algae and Seagrass

Marine invertebrates and macrophytes are sensitive to the toxic effects of oil. Depending on the intensity, duration and circumstances of the exposure, they can suffer high levels of initial mortality together with prolonged sublethal effects that can act at individual, population and community levels. Under some circumstances, recovery from these impacts can take years to decades. However, effects are variable because some taxa are less sensitive than others, and many factors can mitigate the degree of exposure, meaning that impacts are moderate in many cases, and recovery occurs within a few years. Exposure is affected by a myriad of factors including: type and amount of oil, extent of weathering, persistence of exposure, application of dispersants or other clean-up measures, habitat type, temperature and depth, species present and their stage of development or maturity, and processes of recolonisation, particularly recruitment. Almost every oil spill is unique in terms of its impact because of differing levels of exposure and the type of habitats, communities and species assemblages in the receiving environment. Between 1970 and February 2017, there were 51 significant oil spills in Australia. Five occurred offshore with negligible likely or expected impacts. Of the others, only 24 of the spills were studied in detail, while 19 had only cursory or no assessment despite the potential for oil spills to impact the marine environment. The majority were limited to temperate waters, although 10 of the 14 spills since 2000 were in tropical coastal or offshore areas, seven were in north Queensland in areas close to the Great Barrier Reef. All four spills that have occurred from offshore petroleum industry infrastructure have occurred since 2009. In Australia, as elsewhere, a prespill need exists to assess the risk of a spill, establish environmental baselines, determine the likely exposure of the receiving environment, and test the toxicity of the oil against key animal and plant species in the area of potential impact. Subsequent to any spill, the baseline provides a reference for targeted impact monitoring