Effects of acoustic environments on speech comprehension by native-English-speaking listeners

This study investigates the effects of acoustic conditions on speech comprehension, rather than speech intelligibility as often reported in existing literature. Sets of 15-minute-long listening comprehension tests were developed based on the format of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). Each test set includes four types of tasks: matching aural phrases to photographs, selecting appropriate responses to aural questions, and answering questions after listening to conversations (between two talkers) and talks (single talker). Within the Nebraska acoustics test chamber, native-English-speaking participants are asked to perform these tests under 15 acoustic conditions, from combinations of three background noise levels (RC-30, 40 and 50) and five mid-frequency reverberation times (0.4 to 1.2 seconds). The background noise levels are varied via an Armstrong i-Ceiling system, while the reverberation times are simulated from convolving the anechoic test signals with binaural room impulse responses (BRIR), simulated in ODEON for a typical classroom. A two-channel playback system is used to present the convolved audio signals, with loudspeaker-listener configuration embedded in the BRIR auralization output. Pilot testing of three subjects showed no variation of performance scores on overall tasks among all acoustical conditions. However, participants generally scored lowest in tasks to comprehend conversations in the longest RT scenarios

A need for evidence-based and multidisciplinary research to study the effects of the interaction of school environmental conditions on student achievement

With funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Healthy Schools initiative, a research team from the University of Nebraska– Lincoln (UNL) is currently working on establishing how environmental conditions in K-12 school buildings impact student scholastic achievement. The objectives of the research project are: (1) to study comprehensively the impacts of a wide set of indoor environmental factors (including indoor air quality, thermal, lighting and acoustic conditions) on student achievement; (2) to investigate how these environmental conditions interact with each other to impact student achievement; (3) to rank order the environmental variables in terms of their relative impact on student achievement and (4) to determine how these effects vary with different demographic (e.g. socio-economic) groups

The seductive lure of curiosity: information as a motivationally salient reward

Humans are known to seek non-instrumental information, sometimes expending considerable effort or taking risks to receive it, e.g. “curiosity killed the cat”. This suggests that information is highly motivationally salient. In the current article, we first review recent empirical studies that demonstrated the strong motivational lure of curiosity – people will pay and risk electric shocks for non-instrumental information; and request information that has negative emotional consequences. Then we suggest that this seductive lure of curiosity may reflect a motivational mechanism that has been discussed in the literature of reward learning: incentive salience. We present behavioral and neuroscientific evidence in support of this idea and propose two areas requiring further investigation – how incentive salience for information is instigated; and individual differences in motivational vigor

Brewing up a storm: developing Open Research culture through ReproducibiliTea

ReproducibiliTea Reading is a group of researchers and students who meet regularly to discuss Open Research practice. Our aim is to reduce the perceived costs of adopting open and reproducible practices by increasing Open Research literacy. We have developed our technical skills and promoted open practices that have been taken up in our research. We are also exploring ways in which Open Research objectives can be integrated into student learning activities and researcher incentives

Disk Detective: Discovery of New Circumstellar Disk Candidates through Citizen Science

The Disk Detective citizen science project aims to find new stars with 22 micron excess emission from circumstellar dust using data from NASA's WISE mission. Initial cuts on the AllWISE catalog provide an input catalog of 277,686 sources. Volunteers then view images of each source online in 10 different bands to identify false-positives (galaxies, background stars, interstellar matter, image artifacts, etc.). Sources that survive this online vetting are followed up with spectroscopy on the FLWO Tillinghast telescope. This approach should allow us to unleash the full potential of WISE for finding new debris disks and protoplanetary disks. We announce a first list of 37 new disk candidates discovered by the project, and we describe our vetting and follow-up process. One of these systems appears to contain the first debris disk discovered around a star with a white dwarf companion: HD 74389. We also report four newly discovered classical Be stars (HD 6612, HD 7406, HD 164137, and HD 218546) and a new detection of 22 micron excess around a previously known debris disk host star, HD 22128.Comment: 50 pages, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Calgary Thrives: Data sharing and linkage in the not-for-profit sector.

Introduction Compared to the public sector, not-for-profits are less focused on cross-agency data linkage. Technical capacity is often secondary to addressing caseloads and protecting clients. Clients’ privacy is paramount and can be perceived as a barrier to collaboration between agencies. However, collaboration could streamline referrals and better assist vulnerable populations. Objectives and Approach Six not-for-profit agencies in Calgary, Canada participated in a data sharing project to measure various aspects of poverty and link data to determine cross-agency service usage. With this goal in mind, agencies examined their consent and data sharing practices to assess barriers to data sharing. There was a thorough exploration of client consent and how a client’s context can enable or limit data sharing. Cross-agency program usage was assessed among participating agencies using a privacy-preserving record linkage (PPRL) methodology. Results Amongst the six participating agencies, four were deemed to have adequate technical capacity to share data. A contributing factor to the willingness of agencies to share data was the development of LinkWise: a PPRL software created and developed by PolicyWise. Linkage rates amongst three agencies were compared. Rates ranged from 47.8% to 0.23%. A higher linkage rate between two agencies indicated a small community based agency which provided many referrals to a larger agency, such as a food bank. Lower linkage rates on client intake may indicate an agency with many clients. It may also indicate differing socio-economic brackets for their clients’ catchment area. Conclusion/Implications While capacity, caseloads, and privacy protection restrict data sharing, not-for-profit agencies would benefit from a data sharing strategy. Linking data represent opportunities for collaboration within a significantly resource constrained sector. Moreover, it could more effectively address issues of vulnerable populations, streamline referrals for services, and facilitate quality improvement

Validation of a priori CME arrival predictions made using real-time heliospheric imager observations

Between December 2010 and March 2013, volunteers for the Solar Stormwatch (SSW) Citizen Science project have identified and analyzed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the near real-time Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Heliospheric Imager observations, in order to make “Fearless Forecasts” of CME arrival times and speeds at Earth. Of the 60 predictions of Earth-directed CMEs, 20 resulted in an identifiable Interplanetary CME (ICME) at Earth within 1.5–6 days, with an average error in predicted transit time of 22 h, and average transit time of 82.3 h. The average error in predicting arrival speed is 151 km s−1, with an average arrival speed of 425km s−1. In the same time period, there were 44 CMEs for which there are no corresponding SSW predictions, and there were 600 days on which there was neither a CME predicted nor observed. A number of metrics show that the SSW predictions do have useful forecast skill; however, there is still much room for improvement. We investigate potential improvements by using SSW inputs in three models of ICME propagation: two of constant acceleration and one of aerodynamic drag. We find that taking account of interplanetary acceleration can improve the average errors of transit time to 19 h and arrival speed to 77 km s−1

Attributes of climate resilience in fisheries: from theory to practice

In a changing climate, there is an imperative to build coupled social-ecological systems—including fisheries—that can withstand or adapt to climate stressors. Although resilience theory identifies system attributes that supposedly confer resilience, these attributes have rarely been clearly defined, mechanistically explained, nor tested and applied to inform fisheries governance. Here, we develop and apply a comprehensive resilience framework to examine fishery systems across (a) ecological, (b) socio-economic and (c) governance dimensions using five resilience domains: assets, flexibility, organization, learning and agency. We distil and define 38 attributes that confer climate resilience from a coupled literature- and expert-driven approach, describe how they apply to fisheries and provide illustrative examples of resilience attributes in action. Our synthesis highlights that the directionality and mechanism of these attributes depend on the specific context, capacities, and scale of the focal fishery system and associated stressors, and we find evidence of interdependencies among attributes. Overall, however, we find few studies that test resilience attributes in fisheries across all parts of the system, with most examples focussing on the ecological dimension. As such, meaningful quantification of the attributes’ contributions to resilience remains a challenge. Our synthesis and holistic framework represent a starting point for critical application of resilience concepts to fisheries social-ecological systems