A Stackelberg Strategy for Routing Flow over Time

Routing games are used to to understand the impact of individual users' decisions on network efficiency. Most prior work on routing games uses a simplified model of network flow where all flow exists simultaneously, and users care about either their maximum delay or their total delay. Both of these measures are surrogates for measuring how long it takes to get all of a user's traffic through the network. We attempt a more direct study of how competition affects network efficiency by examining routing games in a flow over time model. We give an efficiently computable Stackelberg strategy for this model and show that the competitive equilibrium under this strategy is no worse than a small constant times the optimal, for two natural measures of optimality

Implications on the collision dynamics via azimuthal sensitive HBT from UrQMD : the Seventh Workshop on Particle Correlations and Femtoscopy, September 20 - 24 2011, University of Tokyo, Japan

We explore the shape and orientation of the freezeout region of non-central heavy ion collisions. For this we fit the freezeout distribution with a tilted ellipsoid. The resulting tilt angle is compared to the same tilt angle extracted via an azimuthally sensitive HBT analysis. This allows to access the tilt angle experimentally, which is not possible directly from the freezeout distribution. We also show a systematic study on the system decoupling time dependence on dNch/dh, using HBT results from the UrQMD transport model. In this study we found that the decoupling time scales with (dNch/dh)1/3 within each energy, but the scaling is broken across energies

Synchronous Online Tutoring for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students: An Analysis of Observed Functions

Literature on online learning suggests that many faculty members are reluctant to participate in online learning activities. Concerns raised include faculty concerns that the experiences may be impersonal and that technology will stand in the way of the learning experience. Despite this resistance, students are more likely to endorse online learning strategies, especially because they provide more flexibility in managing complex schedules. Previous research from the Deaf STEM Community Alliance project found that students were positive about their experiences—the opportunity to communicate online enabled students to seek out tutoring that they would not have been able to get otherwise due to scheduling conflicts. Furthermore, students felt that the synchronous online experience was not different than an in-person tutoring session (Elliot et al., 2013). A case study analysis of some of these online sessions suggested that synchronous online tutoring is more beneficial than in-person sessions for some courses, and less beneficial in others. Specifically, synchronous tutoring can be helpful in situations in which tutoring materials can be incorporated into the tutoring session to foster active learning. (Gehret, Elliot, MacDonald, 2017). One of the key activities of the Deaf STEM Community Alliance has been the opportunity for students to receive synchronous tutoring from NTID tutors and project staff. Through the project, more than 35 students have received this type of tutoring, and there have been more than 170 tutoring sessions to date. The proposed presentation reports on the synthesis of coding of a subset of these sessions, which lasted between 15-120 minutes, with an average length of 60 minutes. The research question guiding the analysis is, “what is happening during synchronous tutoring?” Using conversational data analysis techniques (Sidnell, 2012), the research team coded more than 500 segments of tutoring sessions that were video recorded. The segments come from 29 videos that represented STEM tutoring sessions in Biochemistry, Mathematics and Physics. The coding was largely conducted by student research assistants associated with the project, including native ASL speakers and those who were fluent in ASL. Preliminary data for this project has been presented at the NTID Student Research symposia (REF; REF) and an earlier NTID Scholarship Symposium (Elliot, 20??) and the Lilly Conference on College Teaching and Learning (Elliot, 20??) Tutoring conversations were analyzed for who was speaking (learner, tutor), communication strategies, the nature of the interaction, the types of materials being used, and issues related to technology. The analyses suggest that a) the majority of the communication used ASL, with some SimComm and text chat also used; b) most of the interactions involved hardcopy, paper documents; and, c) tutoring sessions experienced very few technical problems (less than 1% of codes accounted for technical problems). While a primary barrier of online adoption commonly expressed by faculty relates to concerns about technology and technology breakdown, the data from this study do not support that hypothesis. With adequate training and available technical assistance, it is possible to have successful synchronous tutoring sessions that focus on student learning

Development and Implementation of the C-Print Speech-to-Text Support Service

In this chapter we provide an overview of the growth of this system from an idea to a system that hundreds of deaf and hard of hearing students depend on everyday for communication access and learning. This chapter addresses the following questions regarding the development and implementation of C-Print. Why is there a need for the system? How does C-Print work? What have been the phases in creating the current system? What is the research evidence regarding its effectiveness and limitations? How might the system change in the future as new technologies emerge

Habitat associations and conservation of wetland-obligate birds

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2019. Major: Conservation Biology. Advisors: Douglas Johnson, Gerald Niemi. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 166 pages.A basic understanding of species-specific habitat associations is a prerequisite for the effective management of at-risk species. Many wetland-dependent birds in the Upper Midwest are at-risk due to habitat loss and degradation. To investigate the habitat associations of wetland-dependent birds, I: 1) determine the relative importance of habitat heterogeneity vs. wetland area for biodiversity and species abundance, 2) develop species-specific models of habitat associations for eight declining obligate wetland bird species that use coastal wetland habitat in the Great Lakes basin, and 3) provide general habitat models for these species that are useful across multiple regions. The central hypothesis of this work is that populations of wetland-dependent birds are influenced by a combination of landscape and proximate habitat features, regionally specific hydrologic conditions, and anthropogenic stressors. Findings from the analysis of habitat heterogeneity indicated support for a tradeoff between area and habitat heterogeneity but highlight the importance of wetland area as the primary driver of variation in species richness and abundance. Species-specific combinations of habitat heterogeneity and other wetland characteristics provided additional explanatory power. Findings from hierarchical multi-scale occupancy models for coastal wetland birds in the Great Lakes basin indicated that the eight focal species are eurytopic, with little variation in occupancy despite differences in remotely sensed landscape characteristics, including anthropogenic disturbance. These species use a high proportion of the coastal wetlands in at least some years. Thus, wetland loss is problematic for these species and conservation planning should focus on protecting as many wetlands as possible. Finally, the regional comparison showed that these species have regionally specific habitat associations, but in most cases, associations estimated in one region can be informative when applied to other regions. In conclusion, habitat associations of wetland birds in the Upper Midwest are both species- and region-specific. Conservation of these species will depend primarily on protecting wetlands across a gradient of habitat characteristics at multiple scales and on reversing ongoing trends of wetland loss

User Experiences When Testing a Messaging App for Communication Between Individuals who are Hearing and Deaf or Hard of Hearing

This study investigated user experiences of participants testing a prototype messaging app with automatic speech recognition (ASR). Twelve pairs of participants, where one individual was deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH), and the other one was hearing used the app, with the hearing individual using speech and ASR and the DHH one using typing. Participants completed a standardized decision making task to test the app. Regardless of hearing status of the participants or the type of device used, participants were generally satisfied with the app. These findings indicate that ASR has potential to facilitate communication between DHH and hearing individuals in small groups and that the technology merits further investigation

Deaf STEM Community Alliance: Establishing a model virtual academic community

Abstract - This presentation describes the incremental and iterative development of the Deaf STEM Community Alliance’s virtual academic community, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Virtual Academic Community (DHHVAC). The DHHVAC components address three critical barriers to the success of students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing: student preparation, socialization, and access to media

How To Use C-Print Mobile

This poster shows how to download and use C-Print Mobil

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals\u27 Perceptions of Communication with Hearing Colleagues in Small Groups

This survey-based study investigated the the perception of deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals’ perceived need for technologies that may facilitate communication when meeting in small groups with hearing colleagues. Participants were 108 DHH postsecondary students who participated in co-op (internship) and capstone experiences at workplaces with hearing employees within the past two years. Participants’ responses to a survey indicated that they were generally not satisfied with their current strategies and technologies for communicating with hearing persons in small groups