Exploring heritage through time and space : Supporting community reflection on the highland clearances

On the two hundredth anniversary of the Kildonan clearances, when people were forcibly removed from their homes, the Timespan Heritage centre has created a program of community centred work aimed at challenging pre conceptions and encouraging reflection on this important historical process. This paper explores the innovative ways in which virtual world technology has facilitated community engagement, enhanced visualisation and encouraged reflection as part of this program. An installation where users navigate through a reconstruction of pre clearance Caen township is controlled through natural gestures and presented on a 300 inch six megapixel screen. This environment allows users to experience the past in new ways. The platform has value as an effective way for an educator, artist or hobbyist to create large scale virtual environments using off the shelf hardware and open source software. The result is an exhibit that also serves as a platform for experimentation into innovative ways of community co-creation and co-curation.Postprin

Modeling programming knowledge for mentoring at scale

In large programming classes, MOOCs or online communities, it is challenging to find peers and mentors to help with learning specific programming concepts. In this paper we present first steps towards an automated, scalable system for matching learners with Python programmers who have expertise in different areas. The learner matching system builds a knowledge model for each programmer by analyzing their authored code and extracting features that capture domain knowledge and style. We demonstrate the feasibility of a simple model that counts the references to modules from the standard library and Python Package Index in a programmers' code. We also show that programmers exhibit self-selection using which we can extract the modules a programmer is best at, even though we may not have all of their code. In our future work we aim to extend the model to encapsulate more features, and apply it for skill matching in a programming class as well as personalizing answers on StackOverflow.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Progra

Ariel - Volume 2 Number 8

Editors Richard J. Bonanno Robin A. Edwards Associate Editors Steven Ager Stephen Flynn Shep Dickman Tom Williams Lay-out Editor Eugenia Miller Contributing Editors Michael J. Blecker Milton Packe James J. Nocon Lynne Porter Editors Emeritus Delvyn C. Case, Jr. Paul M. Fernhof

An Arctic ecosystem : the coastal tundra at Barrow, Alaska

From the Foreward: This book is one of a series of volumes reporting results of research by U. S. scientists participating in the International Biological Program (IBP). As one of the 58 nations taking part in the IBP during the period July 1967 to June 1974 , the United States organized a number of large, multidisciplinary studies pertinent to the central IBP theme of "the biological basis of productivity and human welfare."Direct financial support of the Biome-wide program was derived from three major sources: the National Science Foundation, the State of Alaska and the petroleum industry through the University of Alaska. The NSF funding was under the joint sponsorship of the U. S. Arctic Research Program (Division of Polar Programs) and the U. S. International Biological Program (Ecosystem Analysis). The Army Research Office and the Department of Energy (previously AEC and ERDA) both contributed funded projects to the Program. Industry support was provided through unrestricted grants from: Atlantic Richfield Company, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company, BP Alaska, Inc. Cities Service Company, Exxon Company, USA (Humble Oil and Refining Company), Gulf Oil Corporation , Marathon Oil Company, Mobil Oil Company, Prudhoe Bay Environmental Subcommittee of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, Shell Oil Company, Standard Oil Company of California, Standard Oil (Indiana) Foundation Inc., and Sun Oil Company

SkinSafe: Comparing Staphylococcus aureus Growth Across Liner Types in Kenya

The interface between an amputee’s residual limb and prosthetic liner is at risk for high levels of bacterial growth which can lead to infection. Silicone liners have the advantage of patient comfort, but they may have a sealing effect that could exacerbate bacterial growth, which is particularly a concern in places lacking clean water such as Kijabe, Kenya. To investigate this concern, the SkinSafe team has conducted a prosthetic liner study using a bacterial skin model which suspends a liner and a layer of agar above a self-regulating heat and water source to capture the dynamic behavior of the skin–liner interface. Staphylococcus aureus was grown on this model using three different liners: the Ossur Iceross silicone liner, the Namaste silicone liner, and the sock–EVA liner. Final growth concentrations will be compared between the three liner types to determine whether silicone liners require additional hygiene protocols for use in Kenya. Funding for this work provided by The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2022/1015/thumbnail.jp

Wait-learning: Leveraging conversational dead time for second language education

Second-language learners are often unable to find time for language practice due to constraints in their daily lives. In this paper, we examine how brief moments of waiting during a person's existing social conversations can be leveraged for second language practice, even if the conversation is exchanged in the first language. We present an instant messaging (IM) prototype, WaitChatter, that supports the notion of wait-learning by displaying contextually relevant foreign language vocabulary and micro-quizzes while the user awaits a response from her conversant. The foreign translations are displayed just-in-time in the context of the conversation to promote incidental learning. In a preliminary study of WaitChatter, we found that participants were able to integrate second language learning into their existing instant messaging activities, and that a particularly opportune time to embed foreign language elements may be immediately after the learner sends a chat message.Lincoln Laborator