Analysis of Software Design Patterns in Human Cognitive Performance Experiments

As Air Force operations continue to move toward the use of more autonomous systems and more human-machine teaming in general, there is a corresponding need to swiftly evaluate systems with these capabilities. We support this development through software design improvements of the execution of human cognitive performance experiments. This thesis sought to answer the following two research questions addressing the core functionality that these experiments rely on for execution and analysis: 1) What data infrastructure software requirements are necessary to execute the experimental design of human cognitive performance experiments? 2) How effectively does a central data mediator design pattern meet the time-alignment requirements of human cognitive performance studies? To answer these questions, this research contributes an exploration of establishing design patterns to reduce the cost of conducting human cognitive performance studies. The activities included in this exploration were a method for requirements gathering, a meta-study of recent experiments, and a design pattern evaluation all focused on the experimental design domain

A struggle for framing and interpretation:The impact of the ‘Basic Income Experiments’ on social policy eform in the Netherlands

In the period from 1st October 2017 to 31st December 2019, the Dutch government allowed several municipalities to carry out so-called ‘basic income experiments’, ‘trust’ experiments, or ‘experiments low in regulation’. These experiments focused on giving exemptions on obligations attached to social benefits, allowing people to keep extra earnings on top of their social assistance benefits, and providing more guidance in finding work. In this paper, I critically evaluate the extent to which these experiments have had an effect on social policy in the Netherlands in both the short and long run. For municipalities, the main goal of these experiments was to examine whether an approach focused on trust and intrinsic motivation would lead to increased labour market participation and higher wellbeing. The national government approved the experiments; but in its evaluation, it focused solely on the outflow to work in line with the existing workfare approach. In the short run, the effects of the experiments appeared disappointing for those with the ambition of fundamentally reforming the social security system. However, in the struggle for framing and interpretation, advocates of a different social policy approach obtained success in the long run. Although the Participation Act was not initially amended, the recent coalition agreement of the new Government does propose a change related to the outcomes of the experiment; and in recent party manifestos, there are more far-reaching proposals to change social policy in the direction of a universal basic income

Interleague Play And The Big Mac Attack: Estimating The Within-Season Demand For Major League Baseball

Estimation of game-by-game attendance allows the testing of special attendance factors.  In this study the attendance factors of interest are the drawing power of star players (especially homerun hitter Mark McGuire) and particular scheduling circumstances.  The scheduling of interleague games (between the separate National and American League teams) is still a league experiment and deserves close scrutiny with respect to its attendance impact.  Claims by league officials that interleague play increases attendance have not been subject to standard statistical controls.  The opportunity cost of an interleague game was examined by economists before baseball adopted this experiment to increase attendance.

Random search conformational analysis of piperazine and piperadine analogs of GBR12909 : implicit aqueous solvation effects

The object of this work was to study the effect of solvent on the conformational potential energy surface (PES) of GBR12909 analogs. Local minima on the PES\u27s were found by the Random Search algorithm using the Sybyl molecular modeling package from Tripos, Inc., and an implicit solvent model. Two force-field/charge models were employed in the analysis: the Tripos force field with Gasteiger-Huckel charges and the MMFF94 force field with MMFF94 charges. The effect of solvent on the location of minima in multi-dimensional torsional angle space was studied by comparison to the vacuum phase results. Minima were plotted in torsional angle space using successive pairs of torsional angles. The results showed that, at least for the simple implicit solvent model used here, solvation does not significantly affect the location of the conformational minima for either of the two analogs investigated. With the MMIFF94 model, some of the conformational energy minima were found in a narrower range of torsional angle space in the solvent compared to the vacuum phase, while there were no consistent differences with the Tripos model. One notable exception was the Tripos solvent phase results for the piperadine analog where a cluster of minima was found in a region of torsional angle space where no minima were present in the original vacuum phase results. This is believed to be an anomaly arising from incomplete searching of the conformational PES of the molecule. This was supported by the results of a second vacuum phase random search, which were similar to those of the solvation case. Further study remains to be performed employing other more sophisticated solvation models and conformational search techniques

The Impact of Racial Trauma: A Crucial Conversation in Rural Education

Coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global health crisis, George Floyd\u27s murder was broadcast on social media and popular news (The Marshall Project, 2021). While COVID-19 reports demonstrated the ways Communities of Color and rural communities were disproportionately disadvantaged in the U.S. healthcare system (Artiga et al., 2020; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021; Dandachi et al., 2021; Fortuna et al., 2020), marches and rallies for Black Lives Matter became emblematic of social discord and civic demand for social justice to upend a racist law enforcement and judicial system (Rickford, 2016). These recent examples of systemic racism are obvious and painful examples of national level issues; however, for many People of Color, everyday microaggressions and racial injustices in their communities, neighborhoods, and schools compound these national level incidents. Take, for instance, the students and families at Aledo High School in Texas where Students of Color were recently “traded” by White students in an online slave auction (Harvey, 2021). In this example, students’ first-hand experience of racial trauma in their educational experience compounds the racial trauma witnessed vicariously through the media