Towards an interdisciplinary model of practice for participatory building design in education

It is recognised that educational environments influence learning experiences, so it is important to ensure that educational buildings are designed to be fit for purpose. In order to ensure that educational buildings meet the needs of those who use them, all relevant stakeholders should be involved in the design process. However, this is not straightforward and much remains unclear about how involvement in such complex design processes should proceed. This article presents the findings of four small heterogeneous groups of architects, educational designers, teachers and students from the UK and The Netherlands, discussing how they would envision optimal collaboration and involvement of stakeholders in the process of (re)designing educational buildings and instructional methods. Presentations from the four groups were transcribed and analysed. Informed by a review of existing models and frameworks, our findings were synthesised into a new interdisciplinary model of participatory building design in education. This new model focuses on an iterative design process with different stakeholders involved in different ways at different times. We propose that this model can inform policy and practice in educational building design, as well as within co-creation of curricula, learning, teaching and assessment

mattbke63/Auditory-Brainstem-Response-Waveform-Analysis: V 1.5.5 Auditory Brainstem Response Waveform Analysis

<p>Release for after paper is published.</p> <p>Citation: Burke, K., Burke, M., & Lauer, A. (2023). Auditory brainstem response (ABR) waveform analysis program. MethodsX, 102414.</p&gt

Auditory brainstem response (ABR) waveform analysis program

Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) are a high-throughput assessment of auditory function. Many studies determine changes to the threshold at frequencies that span the normal hearing range of their test subjects, but fewer studies evaluate changes in waveform morphology. The goal of developing this program was to make a user-friendly semiautomatic peak-detection algorithm to encourage widespread analysis of the amplitudes and latencies of the ABR, which may yield informative details about the integrity of the auditory system with development, aging, genetic manipulations, or damaging conditions. This method incorporates automated peak detection with manual override and inter-rater validation to calculate the amplitude and latency for waves 1–5, as well as interpeak latencies and amplitude ratios between waves. The output includes raw data and calculations in a format compatible with graphical and statistical software. • The method yields a high-throughput peak-detection algorithm with manual override and inter-rater capabilities to streamline ABR waveform analysis. • Data output includes amplitudes, latencies, amplitude ratios, and interpeak latencies for generation of input-output curves. • While complete automation of peak detection with this tool is dependent on good signal-to-noise ratios, relevant amplitude and latency calculations are fully automated, and manual spot-checking is simplified to significantly reduce the time to analyze waveforms

CBA/CaJ mouse ultrasonic vocalizations depend on prior social experience.

Mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) have variable spectrotemporal features, which researchers use to parse them into different categories. USVs may be important for communication, but it is unclear whether the categories that researchers have developed are relevant to the mice. Instead, other properties such as the number, rate, peak frequency, or bandwidth of the vocalizations may be important cues that the mice are using to interpret the nature of the social interaction. To investigate this, a comprehensive catalog of the USVs that mice are producing across different social contexts must be created. Forty male and female adult CBA/CaJ mice were recorded in isolation for five minutes following either a one-hour period of isolation or an exposure to a same- or opposite-sex mouse. Vocalizations were separated into nine categories based on the frequency composition of each USV. Additionally, USVs were quantified based on the bandwidth, duration, peak frequency, total number, and proportion of vocalizations produced. Results indicate that mice differentially produce their vocalizations across social encounters. There were significant differences in the number of USVs that mice produce across exposure conditions, the proportional probability of producing the different categories of USVs across sex and conditions, and the features of the USVs across conditions. In sum, there are sex-specific differences in production of USVs by laboratory mice, and prior social experiences matter for vocalization production. Furthermore, this study provides critical evidence that female mice probably produce vocalizations in opposite-sex interactions, which is important because this is an often overlooked variable in mouse communication research

Dyslexia on a continuum: A complex network approach.

We investigated the efficacy of graph-theoretic metrics of task-related functional brain connectivity in predicting reading difficulty and explored the hypothesis that task conditions emphasizing audiovisual integration would be especially diagnostic of reading difficulty. An fMRI study was conducted in which 24 children (8 to 14 years old) who were previously diagnosed with dyslexia completed a rhyming judgment task under three presentation modality conditions. Regression analyses found that characteristic connectivity metrics of the reading network showed a presentation modality dependent relationship with reading difficulty: Children with more segregated reading networks and those that used fewer of the available connections were those with the least severe reading difficulty. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that a lack of coordinated processing between the neural regions involved in phonological and orthographic processing contributes towards reading difficulty

Number of vocalizations across exposure conditions.

<p><b>(a)</b> Box plot showing the range of vocalizations produced across exposure conditions, the median (line in the box), and 95% confidence intervals. The black dots represent data points that lie outside the 10^th and 90^th percentiles. The isolate condition is shown in black, the same-sex condition is shown in gray, and the opposite sex condition is shown in white. The * represent significantly different conditions. <b>(b)</b> Box plot showing the range of vocalizations produced across exposure conditions, the median (line in the box), and 95% confidence intervals. The black dots represent data points that lie outside the 10^th and 90^th percentiles. The left half of the figure is females and the right half of the figure is males. The isolated condition is shown in black, the same-sex exposure condition is shown in gray, and the opposite-sex exposure condition is shown in white.</p

The mean proportion of USV types produced by males and females across exposure conditions.

<p>The left column is females and the right column is males. The top row is the isolated condition, the middle row is the same sex exposure condition, and the bottom row is the opposite sex exposure condition. The different colors/shadings represent the mean proportion of each of the nine different categories of ultrasonic vocalizations.</p

Number of vocalizations across the sexes.

<p>Box plot showing the range of vocalizations produced by males and females, the median (line in the box), and 95% confidence intervals. The black dots represent data points that lie outside the 10^th and 90^th percentiles. Males are gray, females are black.</p

Exposure apparatus.

<p>The exposure apparatus was a standard mouse cage lined with wood shavings, divided in half with a metal mesh divider fixed to the cage. Mice were placed in this cage for one hour prior to recordings.</p