Utilising Flash Meeting software in collaborative design-learning

In this paper, we describe a case study of computer-supported collaborative learning in design using FM (FlashMeeting), a Web-based video-conferencing tool offered freely on OpenLearn. This 6-week experiment, involving Open University students and staff, aimed to explore the capabilities of FM software to support several phases of the design process including formulating a design brief, discovering user requirements, setting design specifications, concept generation, design embodiment and implementation of proposed concepts. We conclude this paper with lessons learned from using FM in a design e-learning project

Utilizing FM software in collaborative design-learning

In this paper, we describe a case study of computer-supported collaborative learning in design using OpenLearn FlashMeeting software, a video conferencing tool. This 6-week experiment, involving Open University students and staff, aimed at exploring the capabilities of FlashMeeting software to support several phases of the design process including formulating a design brief, discovering user requirements, setting design specifications, concept generation, design embodiment and implementation of proposed concepts. We conclude this paper with lessons learned from using FlashMeeting in a design e-learning project

The front in flux : examining the relationship between African American population and front-page news depictions

This study attempts to determine whether newspapers reflect African American communities in areas where the minority group makes up half or more than half of the regional population by examining 462 stories and 327 images in 130 front-pages of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The research examined how African Americans in a metropolitan area with large populations are represented and depicted in front-page news spots. While African Americans appeared in total content at rates similar to that of their regional population, representations were commonly still stereotypical, depicting the group most as violent, untrustworthy or plagued with social issues. New frames for Blacks, such as being community involved, are emerging, but historically stereotypical depictions continue to appear regularly. Additionally, front-page coverage of African Americans was typically reserved for Black sources outside of the region, suggesting that "common Black people" are overlooked for those in the group with social prominence

Cooperation between the Quincy Child Guidance Clinic and the Braintree School System, 1950-53

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

The Impact of Concussion Information on Parents' Decision Regarding Child's Participation in Contact Sports

This study aimed to assess the impact of information about concussions on parents’ decision to allow or not allow their child to participate in American (tackle) football and soccer (two of the most popular contact sports in America). The high rates of youth concussions have both medical personnel as well as sport managers concerned about concussions and how they impact health, participation levels at various stages, and parenting decisions. Following the Rational Choice Theory (RCT) parents are expected to make decisions for their child that will result in the greatest benefit to the child’s overall health and well-being. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of information on participant decisions regarding their child’s involvement in contact sports. Seventy (70) parents of youth ages five (5) and under were randomly assigned to a control group and an experimental group. The control group was only given the survey and the experimental group was given the concussion fact sheet and the survey. Parents in the experimental group were significantly more likely to report intentions to delay their child’s participation in soccer until after the age of six (6), and parents who had a female child were more likely to not allow their daughter to play American (tackle) football in comparison to parents who had a male child. The results from this study indicate that even when presented with concussion awareness information, parents are not always making decisions that result in the greatest benefit to their child’s health and well-being. From a sport management perspective, this study makes it difficult for sport managers to justify spending money on concussion awareness for parents or coaches

Relationship among Motivation, Emotion Regulation, and Psychological Well-being of Sophomore and Senior Level Nursing Students

Nursing education and professional work involve stressful circumstances that may lead to attrition, which can further contribute to the projected nursing shortage. This study examines the relationships between motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being and academic performance in baccalaureate sophomore and senior level nursing students at a Midwest urban university in the United States. The non-experimental, correlational study is guided by Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory and uses an online survey data collection and convenience sampling. Measures include: motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being (burnout; inauthenticity), and academic performance (GPA), and will be measured using Deci and Ryan’s scale, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Burnout and Inauthenticity in the Student Role scale. Pearson correlation analysis will be used to determine relationships between types of motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being, and academic performance

Maximum one-shot dissipated work from Renyi divergences

Thermodynamics describes large-scale, slowly evolving systems. Two modern approaches generalize thermodynamics: fluctuation theorems, which concern finite-time nonequilibrium processes, and one-shot statistical mechanics, which concerns small scales and finite numbers of trials. Combining these approaches, we calculate a one-shot analog of the average dissipated work defined in fluctuation contexts: the cost of performing a protocol in finite time instead of quasistatically. The average dissipated work has been shown to be proportional to a relative entropy between phase-space densities, to a relative entropy between quantum states, and to a relative entropy between probability distributions over possible values of work. We derive one-shot analogs of all three equations, demonstrating that the order-infinity Renyi divergence is proportional to the maximum possible dissipated work in each case. These one-shot analogs of fluctuation-theorem results contribute to the unification of these two toolkits for small-scale, nonequilibrium statistical physics.Comment: 8 pages. Close to published versio

Introducing one-shot work into fluctuation relations

Two approaches to small-scale and quantum thermodynamics are fluctuation relations and one-shot statistical mechanics. Fluctuation relations (such as Crooks' Theorem and Jarzynski's Equality) relate nonequilibrium behaviors to equilibrium quantities such as free energy. One-shot statistical mechanics involves statements about every run of an experiment, not just about averages over trials. We investigate the relation between the two approaches. We show that both approaches feature the same notions of work and the same notions of probability distributions over possible work values. The two approaches are alternative toolkits with which to analyze these distributions. To combine the toolkits, we show how one-shot work quantities can be defined and bounded in contexts governed by Crooks' Theorem. These bounds provide a new bridge from one-shot theory to experiments originally designed for testing fluctuation theorems.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figure

Relationship among Motivation, Emotion Regulation, and Psychological Well-being of Sophomore and Senior Level Baccalaureate Nursing Students

Nursing education and professional work involve stressful circumstances that may indirectly lead to attrition, which can further contribute to the projected nursing shortage. This study examines the relationships between motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being and academic performance in baccalaureate sophomore and senior level nursing students at a Midwest urban university in the United States. The non-experimental, correlational study is guided by the self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) and uses online survey data collection and convenience sampling. Motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being (burnout; inauthenticity), and academic performance (GPA) are measured respectively with Deci and Ryan’s scale, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Burnout and Inauthenticity in the Student Role scale. Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine relationships between types of motivation, emotional regulation, psychological well-being, and academic performance. Findings support that students who were extrinsically motivated were more likely to suppress their emotions, experience feelings of inauthenticity, and have lower GPAs. Furthermore, students who regulated their emotions using expressive suppression were also more likely to experience feelings of inauthenticity and have lower GPAs. Intrinsic motivation was positively associated with cognitive reappraisal; however, neither of these two variables was correlated with burnout, inauthenticity, or GPA. There was no significant relationship between pro-social motivation and burnout, inauthenticity, or GPA

Entropic equality for worst-case work at any protocol speed

We derive an equality for non-equilibrium statistical mechanics in finite-dimensional quantum systems. The equality concerns the worst-case work output of a time-dependent Hamiltonian protocol in the presence of a Markovian heat bath. It has has the form "worst-case work = penalty - optimum". The equality holds for all rates of changing the Hamiltonian and can be used to derive the optimum by setting the penalty to 0. The optimum term contains the max entropy of the initial state, rather than the von Neumann entropy, thus recovering recent results from single-shot statistical mechanics. Energy coherences can arise during the protocol but are assumed not to be present initially. We apply the equality to an electron box.Comment: 4 page + 14 page appendix; 8 figures; AA