Drawing ability and its determinants: A conceptual model

There is a common agreement about the critical importance of drawing ability in design education. Discussions around the topic have mostly focused on two major arguments: 1) the effects of drawing ability on learning outcomes, as critical reflections on the relationship between students’ design performances and the real-world work; 2) the cognitive determinants that influence the ability to draw, as clarifications of complex mental processes and explanations for the statement “I can’t draw.” Despite the extraordinary contribution that the cognitive perspective has given to the topic, drawing ability requires much more that simply understanding the mental processes for given graphic tasks. It demands an integrated approach through which the interaction of different domains - cognitive, psychomotor, psychologic, contextual - discloses other realities of drawing ability, those strictly connected to motor capabilities, motivational drives, emotional responses and socio-cultural influences. The present model represents the conceptual foundation of the research ‘Exploring cognition, motivation and emotion in student’s drawing experience’, which aims to investigate the factors that inhibit the ability to draw for students in design related programmes at East Midlands universities. The model will be assessed through three batteries of visual and graphical tests concurrently with group interviews and observations, to evaluate the typologies of influence of cognitive labour, as well as the emotional and motivational states on the ability to draw. The communication of the findings will engage students and educators in a constructive dialogue such to comprehend the relevance of each factor to the ability to draw, and to derive from those a set of pedagogical strategies as prevention of negative learning outcomes from the drawing experience. However, this first engagement phase does not exclude further developments, such as consultations with overseas universities for enhancing the external validity of the model and extending its applicability to other academic abilities

A proposed conceptual framework of drawing ability: implication for research in design education

Drawing ability and drawing knowledge are historically regarded as the fundamental competences to be developed in design education. Contemporary debates about the topic mostly focus on two major issues: 1) the effects of drawing ability on learning outcomes as critical reflections on the relationship between students’ design performances and design industry; 2) the cognitive determinants that influence the ability to draw as clarifications of complex mental processes for given graphic tasks. Despite the extraordinary contribution that the cognitive perspective has given to the topic, students’ perception about their ability to draw discloses other realities rarely investigated within the field of drawing. These realities need, therefore, to be framed in a unique model in order to find explanations to the statement “I can’t draw.” This article proposes the conceptual framework of a research project that aims to explore the factors that inhibit the ability to draw and compromise the drawing experience for undergraduate students in design related programmes at universities of East Midlands, UK. Based on the contribution of the current literature on drawing ability and supported by the theoretical constructs of Human Cognition, Mindset and Human Agency, the framework defines four core domains of drawing ability: cognitive, psychomotor, psychologic, contextual. Within each domain it is possible to identify a set of factors that potentially influence the ability to draw: cognitive and psychomotor capabilities, motivational drives, emotional states, socio-cultural beliefs. Taken together, these factors provide a more nuanced and comprehensive view of internal and external conditions influencing the ability to draw. The most prominent implication is that the proposed conceptual framework represents a valuable tool for students and educators to consider all the dynamics determining the drawing experience. It also serves to foster constructive dialogues and pedagogical plans as prevention of negative learning outcomes from the design experience

Robust Unconditionally Secure Quantum Key Distribution with Two Nonorthogonal and Uninformative States

We introduce a novel form of decoy-state technique to make the single-photon Bennett 1992 protocol robust against losses and noise of a communication channel. Two uninformative states are prepared by the transmitter in order to prevent the unambiguous state discrimination attack and improve the phase-error rate estimation. The presented method does not require strong reference pulses, additional electronics or extra detectors for its implementation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Compensating the Noise of a Communication Channel via Asymmetric Encoding of Quantum Information

An asymmetric preparation of the quantum states sent through a noisy channel can enable a new way to monitor and actively compensate the channel noise. The paradigm of such an asymmetric treatment of quantum information is the Bennett 1992 protocol, in which the ratio between conclusive and inconclusive counts is in direct connection with the channel noise. Using this protocol as a guiding example, we show how to correct the phase drift of a communication channel without using reference pulses, interruptions of the quantum transmission or public data exchanges.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Towards Drift Correction in Chemical Sensors Using an Evolutionary Strategy

Gas chemical sensors are strongly affected by the so-called drift, i.e., changes in sensors' response caused by poisoning and aging that may significantly spoil the measures gathered. The paper presents a mechanism able to correct drift, that is: delivering a correct unbiased fingerprint to the end user. The proposed system exploits a state-of-the-art evolutionary strategy to iteratively tweak the coefficients of a linear transformation. The system operates continuously. The optimal correction strategy is learnt without a-priori models or other hypothesis on the behavior of physical-chemical sensors. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the approach on a real problem

Viscous corrections to the resistance of nano-junctions: a dispersion relation approach

It is well known that the viscosity of a homogeneous electron liquid diverges in the limits of zero frequency and zero temperature. A nanojunction breaks translational invariance and necessarily cuts off this divergence. However, the estimate of the ensuing viscosity is far from trivial. Here, we propose an approach based on a Kramers-Kr\"onig dispersion relation, which connects the zero-frequency viscosity, $\eta(0)$, to the high-frequency shear modulus, $\mu_{\infty}$, of the electron liquid via $\eta(0) =\mu_{\infty} \tau$, with $\tau$ the junction-specific momentum relaxation time. By making use of a simple formula derived from time-dependent current-density functional theory we then estimate the many-body contributions to the resistance for an integrable junction potential and find that these viscous effects may be much larger than previously suggested for junctions of low conductance.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Revised versio

cis-Regulatory sequences driving the expression of the Hbox12 homeobox-containing gene in the presumptive aboral ectoderm territory of the Paracentrotus lividus sea urchin embryo.

Embryonic development is coordinated by networks of evolutionary conserved regulatory genes encoding transcription factors and components of cell signalling pathways. In the sea urchin embryo, a number of genes encoding transcription factors display territorial restricted expression. Among these, the zygotic Hbox12 homeobox gene is transiently transcribed in a limited number of cells of the animal-lateral half of the early Paracentrotus lividus embryo, whose descendants will constitute part of the ectoderm territory. To obtain insights on the regulation of Hbox12 expression, we have explored the cis-regulatory apparatus of the gene. In this paper, we show that the intergenic region of the tandem Hbox12 repeats drives GFP expression in the presumptive aboral ectoderm and that a 234 bp fragment, defined aboral ectoderm (AE) module, accounts for the restricted expression of the transgene. Within this module, a consensus sequence for a Sox factor and the binding of the Otx activator are both required for correct Hbox12 gene expression. Spatial restriction to the aboral ectoderm is achieved by a combination of different repressive sequence elements. Negative sequence elements necessary for repression in the endomesoderm map within the most upstream 60 bp region and nearby the Sox binding site. Strikingly, a Myb-like consensus is necessary for repression in the oral ectoderm, while down-regulation at the gastrula stage depends on a GA-rich region. These results suggest a role for Hbox12 in aboral ectoderm specification and represent our first attempt in the identification of the gene regulatory circuits involved in this process

The Mass-Lumped Midpoint Scheme for Computational Micromagnetics: Newton Linearization and Application to Magnetic Skyrmion Dynamics

We discuss a mass-lumped midpoint scheme for the numerical approximation of the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation, which models the dynamics of the magnetization in ferromagnetic materials. In addition to the classical micromagnetic field contributions, our setting covers the non-standard Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, which is the essential ingredient for the enucleation and stabilization of magnetic skyrmions. Our analysis also includes the inexact solution of the arising nonlinear systems, for which we discuss both a constraint-preserving fixed-point solver from the literature and a novel approach based on the Newton method. We numerically compare the two linearization techniques and show that the Newton solver leads to a considerably lower number of nonlinear iterations. Moreover, in a numerical study on magnetic skyrmions, we demonstrate that, for magnetization dynamics that are very sensitive to energy perturbations, the midpoint scheme, due to its conservation properties, is superior to the dissipative tangent plane schemes from the literature

Size/Age Models for Monitoring of the Pink Sea Fan Eunicella verrucosa (Cnidaria: Alcyonacea) and a Case Study Application

The pink sea fan Eunicella verrucosa is a habitat-forming octocoral living in the East Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea where, under proper circumstances, it can form large populations known as coral forests. Although these coral forests represent vulnerable marine ecosystems of great importance, these habitats are still poorly known, and their monitoring is almost non-existent to date. For this reason, we compared two dierent models to infer the age of E. verrucosa based on nondestructive measurements of the colonies’ size, in order to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the existing tools for a potential application in long-term monitoring. We also applied the two models on a case-study population recently found in the northwest Mediterranean Sea. Our results showed which model was more reliable from a biological point of view, considering both its structure and the results obtained on the case study. However, this model uses solely the height of the colonies as proxy to infer the age, while the total branch fan surface area could represent a more appropriate biometric parameter to monitor the size and the growth of E. verrucosa