Powell 150: Exhibit Panels

In 1869, John Wesley Powell led the first scientific exploration of the Colorado River. The geologic expedition and Powell\u27s influence would help create the United States Geological Survey and the Bureau of American Ethnology. To commemorate the expedition, materials from the Utah State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives and the Government Information Collection were displayed in the Merrill-Cazier Library and the Grand County Public Library. Panels describing these historic events were displayed in the Merrill-Cazier Library and at seminars in Moab throughout Summer 2019

Energy Discrepancies: A Score-Independent Loss for Energy-Based Models

Energy-based models are a simple yet powerful class of probabilistic models, but their widespread adoption has been limited by the computational burden of training them. We propose a novel loss function called Energy Discrepancy (ED) which does not rely on the computation of scores or expensive Markov chain Monte Carlo. We show that ED approaches the explicit score matching and negative log-likelihood loss under different limits, effectively interpolating between both. Consequently, minimum ED estimation overcomes the problem of nearsightedness encountered in score-based estimation methods, while also enjoying theoretical guarantees. Through numerical experiments, we demonstrate that ED learns low-dimensional data distributions faster and more accurately than explicit score matching or contrastive divergence. For high-dimensional image data, we describe how the manifold hypothesis puts limitations on our approach and demonstrate the effectiveness of energy discrepancy by training the energy-based model as a prior of a variational decoder model

The Dewey Organ Project

The Dewey Organ: a problem and public making machine is a ‘co-design’ experiment to prototype ways of making problems and publics. The research directly addresses issues central to the funding call and critical to practice-based researchers, designers and policymakers, namely: what counts as a social ‘problem’ and what publics do problems bring into being? The interdisciplinary team approaches these core concerns by way of two key interrelated practice-based research objectives: Make the Organ with which to render issues tangible, material and debatable in new ways. Play the Organ in a context where members of publics can interact with, add or make their issues, problematize and customize problems and in doing so make their publics known or indicate new publics that arise around new issues. The machine takes its name – ‘The Dewey Organ’ – from John Dewey’s 1927 book ‘The Public and its Problems’ which critically examines civic participation, relationships between citizens and experts and the nature of expertise. The ‘Organ’ is both a device for making noise, both harmonies and discordant sounds, and of bringing people together. It also speaks of the body politic, and an anatomy of publics

AHRC ProtoPublics Project Presentation - "The Dewey Organ"

The Dewey Organ: a problem and public making machine is a ‘co-design’ experiment to prototype ways of making problems and publics. The research directly addresses issues central to the funding call and critical to practice-based researchers, designers and policymakers, namely: what counts as a social ‘problem’ and what publics do problems bring into being? The interdisciplinary team approaches these core concerns by way of two key interrelated practice-based research objectives: Make the Organ with which to render issues tangible, material and debatable in new ways. Play the Organ in a context where members of publics can interact with, add or make their issues, problematize and customize problems and in doing so make their publics known or indicate new publics that arise around new issues. The machine takes its name – ‘The Dewey Organ’ – from John Dewey’s 1927 book ‘The Public and its Problems’ which critically examines civic participation, relationships between citizens and experts and the nature of expertise. The ‘Organ’ is both a device for making noise, both harmonies and discordant sounds, and of bringing people together. It also speaks of the body politic, and an anatomy of publics

Offshore renewables - social impact : two way conversation with the people of Scotland

Findings from a piece of participatory research into the social impacts of offshore wind farms (OWFS) in Scotland. It describes innovative methods used to develop a conceptual framework, based on social values, that enables a better understanding of the social impacts of OWFs

A hard x-ray photoemission study of transparent conducting fluorine-doped tin dioxide

Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) is a commercially successful transparent conducting oxide with very good electrical (resistivities < 1×103 Ω·cm) and optical properties (transmittance > 85%). These properties coupled with cheap and large-scale deposition on float-glass lines means FTO has found commercial use in, for example, low emissivity windows and solar cells. However, despite its widespread application, a detailed understanding is lacking of the doping and defects in FTO. Recent work [1] has suggested that the fluorine interstitial plays a major role in limiting the conductivity of FTO. Here we present synchrotron radiation high energy x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) of the fluorine 1s core level of FTO films without in situ surface preparation. This probes deeper than standard XPS and shows that the fluorine interstitial is present not just at the surface of the films and is not an artefact of argon ion sputtering for surface preparation

Community-centred interventions for improving public mental health among adults from ethnic minority populations in the UK: a scoping review

Objectives: Undertake a scoping review to determine the effectiveness of community-centred interventions designed to improve the mental health and well-being of adults from ethnic minority groups in the UK. Methods: We searched six electronic academic databases for studies published between January 1990 and September 2019: Medline, Embase, PsychINFO, Scopus, CINAHL and Cochrane. For intervention description and data extraction we used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist and Template for Intervention Description and Replication guide. Quality was assessed using Cochrane risk of bias tools. Grey literature results were deemed beyond the scope of this review due to the large number of interventions and lack of available outcomes data. Results: Of 4501 studies, 7 met the eligibility criteria of UK-based community interventions targeting mental health in adults from ethnic minority populations: four randomised controlled trials, one pre/post-pilot study, one cross-sectional study and one ethnographic study. Interventions included therapy-style sessions, peer-support groups, educational materials, gym access and a family services programme. Common components included a focus on tackling social isolation, using lay health workers from within the community, signposting and overcoming structural barriers to access. Four studies reported a statistically significant positive effect on mental health outcomes and six were appraised as having a high risk of bias. Study populations were ethnically heterogeneous and targeted people mainly from South Asia. No studies examined interventions targeting men. Conclusions: There is a paucity of high-quality evidence regarding community-centred interventions focused on improving public mental health among ethnic minority groups. Decision makers need scientific evidence to inform effective approaches to mitigating health disparities. Our next steps are to map promising community activities and interventions that are currently being provided to help identify emerging evidence

The Correlates of Leisure Time Physical Activity among an Adults Population from Southern Taiwan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Assessing the correlates of practicing physical activity during leisure time is important with regard to planning and designing public health strategies to increase beneficial behaviors among adult populations. Although the importance of leisure time physical activity (LTPA) is highlighted in many Western countries, there are not many publications on physical activity patterns, and even less on their correlates, in non-Western societies. The goal of this study was thus to explore the determinants influencing adults' leisure time physical activity (LTPA) in a city in southern Taiwan.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional population-based study was conducted in 2007, using a standardized questionnaire. Energy expenditure was dichotomized into two groups based on the recommended levels of moderate physical activity from LTPA: ≥10 or < 10 MET·hr·wk^-1. Logistic regression analyses were applied to the results.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 762 subjects with valid data took part in the study (mean age 53.8 ± 13.8 years). In multivariate logistic regression analysis, we found the following results: Age was positively associated with LTPA. Adults with stronger perceived convenience of exercise facilities (OR = 2.04; 95%CI = 1.28-3.24) and past exercise experience in school (OR = 1.86; 95%CI= 1.19-2.91) participated in more LTPA. Subjects with more general social support (OR = 1.66;95%CI = 1.13-2.44), greater knowledge about the health benefits of exercise (OR = 1.85;95%CI = 1.25-2.74), more sports media consumption (OR = 1.94;95%CI = 1.26-2.98), and higher self-efficacy (OR = 3.99;95%CI = 2.67-5.97) were more likely to engage in LTPA. Further analysis comparing different sources of social support showed only social support from friends had a significant positive association (OR = 1.73;95%CI = 1.14-2.63) with increased LTPA.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>LTPA in southern city of Taiwan showed some unique associations with age, socioeconomic status and media consumption that are not commonly reported in the Western World and similar associations with regards to psychosocial correlates of LTPA participation. Further studies from developing countries are warranted to highlight culture-specific differences in physical activity participation.</p