Can You See Me Now?: A Critical Examination of the Progression, Reception, and Impact of Performances of the Body as a Mechanism for Critiquing & Transcending Social Constructs in the West

Beginning with Adolf Loos’s famous “Ornament and Crime” essay, I examine the progression, reception and impact of performances of the body using Amelia Jones’ framework for distinguishing body art from performance art. As Primitivist Modernism became popular in the West, racialized bodies garnered new attention as subjects of both inspiration and criticism. Through a critical exploration of Black artists, I determine that the use of bodily performances aided in the subversion of the gender, sexual, and racial discrimination perpetuated by Primitivist Modernism and continued into the 21st century. Starting with French icon Josephine Baker and concluding with American legend Janet Jackson, it is made apparent that we have simultaneously progressed and regressed in our perception of Black liberation, Black sexuality and the bodily autonomy of Black women

A dynamic neural field model of temporal order judgments

Temporal ordering of events is biased, or influenced, by perceptual organization—figure–ground organization—and by spatial attention. For example, within a region assigned figural status or at an attended location, onset events are processed earlier (Lester, Hecht, & Vecera, 2009; Shore, Spence, & Klein, 2001), and offset events are processed for longer durations (Hecht & Vecera, 2011; Rolke, Ulrich, & Bausenhart, 2006). Here, we present an extension of a dynamic field model of change detection (Johnson, Spencer, Luck, & Schöner, 2009; Johnson, Spencer, & Schöner, 2009) that accounts for both the onset and offset performance for figural and attended regions. The model posits that neural populations processing the figure are more active, resulting in a peak of activation that quickly builds toward a detection threshold when the onset of a target is presented. This same enhanced activation for some neural populations is maintained when a present target is removed, creating delays in the perception of the target’s offset. We discuss the broader implications of this model, including insights regarding how neural activation can be generated in response to the disappearance of information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved

An Examination Of Student Mobility In U.s. Public Schools

Student mobility—the event of students moving into and out of schools—is prevalent and has established negative relationships with both academic and non-cognitive outcomes for mobile students and the classrooms and schools that serve them. Despite this, there is a dearth of research examining student mobility, and, in particular, only a sparse literature that allows for causal interpretations of the causes and consequences of student mobility. The research presented in this dissertation aims to address some of the gaps in the literature on student mobility. Chapter one of the dissertation presents a framework that defines student mobility and outlines the relationships between causes and consequences of mobility within different contexts. Chapter two uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort to explore student- and school-level correlates of mobility, as well as relationships between mobility and academic achievement. In chapters three and four, I empirically examine student mobility in the context of charter schools. In chapter three I use data from the Evaluation of Charter School Impacts to estimate the effect of charter school admissions and attendance on student mobility. Chapter four uses statewide data from Colorado to explore student mobility within the traditional and charter school sectors. Together I find that: 1) rates of mobility vary based on student background characteristics and indicators of school quality, 2) students who won admissions to charter middle schools were less likely to experience mobility than their peers who lost admissions lotteries, 3) mobility rates in Colorado’s charter schools are higher than in TPSs in the state, both descriptively and after controlling for school characteristics, and 4) the motivation for student mobility and the relative quality of students’ sending and receiving schools are important moderators of mobility’s relationship with student achievement

The Effect of Evaluator Reputation on Feedback Acceptance

This experiment examined whether acceptance of feedback is affected by evaluator reputation, defined as the feedback recipient\u27s perception of the source as a generally easy versus hard evaluator. It was hypothesized that when feedback valence was inconsistent with the evaluator\u27s reputation concerning feedback, feedback would have a greater effect on the recipient\u27s self-perceptions, and secondarily, that feedback acceptance would depend on self-esteem level. Participants received false feedback on their levels of social awareness after completing a task and being told that the experimenter was either a hard or easy evaluator. Participants then provided post-feedback ratings of self-perceived social awareness. Results did not support the hypotheses, but instead suggested that feedback from an easy evaluator had a greater effect on participant self-perceptions than feedback from a hard evaluator. These findings add to our understanding of self-concept change, and may have implications in the fields of organizational psychology, academics, and sports psychology

The Co-creation design framework

Co-creation is a valuable activity for organisations, but it can be costly if there is limited understanding of when co-creation is appropriate and for what purpose. Frow et al. (2015) developed the Co-Creation Design Framework as a strategic management and reflection tool for co-creative activity, with the view of helping firms to plan for and seek out co-creative innovation opportunities. However, there are notable limitations: the framework is firm centric, expert reliant and product development focused. By analysing case studies of Masters Student projects which encompass the contexts of social innovation and service design, the current study expands the framework scope. A Developed Co-Creation Design Framework is presented with adaptations and additions to the original, creating a strategic management tool which can be used in product, service and social innovation within an education setting. Directions for future research are given to help expand and refine the framework further

Decreased temperature variance associated with biotic composition enhances coastal shrub encroachment

Regime shift from grasslands to shrub-dominated landscapes occur worldwide driven by altered land-use and climate change, affecting landscape function, biodiversity, and productivity. Warming winter temperatures are a main driver of expansion of the native, evergreen shrub, Morella cerifera, in coastal landscapes. Shrub establishment in these habitats alters microclimate, but little is known about seasonal differences and microclimate variance. We assessed influence of shrubs on microclimate variance, community composition, and community physiological functioning across three vegetation zones: grass, transitional, and shrub in a coastal grassland. Using a novel application of a time-series analysis, we interpret microclimatic variance modification and elucidate mechanisms of shrub encroachment at the Virginia Coast Reserve, Long-Term Ecological Research site. As shrub thickets form, diversity is reduced with little grass/forb cover, while transpiration and annual productivity increase. Shrub thickets significantly reduced temperature variance with a positive influence of one day on the next in maximum air, minimum air, and maximum ground temperature. We also show that microclimatic temperature moderation reduces summer extreme temperatures in transition areas, even before coalescence into full thickets. Encroachment of Morella cerifera on the Virginia barrier islands is driven by reduced local exposure to cold temperatures and enhanced by abiotic microclimatic modification and biotic physiological functioning. This shift in plant community composition from grassland to shrub thicket alters the role of barrier islands in productivity and can have impacts on the natural resilience of the islands

Effect of Feedback Frequency on Motor Learning in Individuals with Apraxia of Speech and Healthy Adults

It is well documented in limb motor learning literature that providing the optimal practice and feedback conditions is critical for the learning of new movements in healthy adults. However, it remains unclear if the conditions used for training limb movements can be directly applied to the speech motor system of healthy adults and individuals with acquired motor speech disorders. Collectively, these practice and feedback conditions are known as the Principles of Motor Learning (PML; Schmidt, 1988). These principles can be used to guide the structure of practice as well as the nature of feedback, and can have considerable implications for an individual’s ability to learn, recall, and maintain skilled movements

Cost-effectiveness of cerebrospinal biomarkers for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease

Background: Accurate and timely diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is important for prompt initiation of treatment in patients with AD and to avoid inappropriate treatment of patients with false-positive diagnoses. Methods: Using a Markov model, we estimated the lifetime costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) of cerebrospinal fluid biomarker analysis in a cohort of patients referred to a neurologist or memory clinic with suspected AD who remained without a definitive diagnosis of AD or another condition after neuroimaging. Parametric values were estimated from previous health economic models and the medical literature. Extensive deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to evaluate the robustness of the results. Results: At a 12.7% pretest probability of AD, biomarker analysis after normal neuroimaging findings has an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $11,032 per QALY gained. Results were sensitive to the pretest prevalence of AD, and the ICER increased to over$50,000 per QALY when the prevalence of AD fell below 9%. Results were also sensitive to patient age (biomarkers are less cost-effective in older cohorts), treatment uptake and adherence, biomarker test characteristics, and the degree to which patients with suspected AD who do not have AD benefit from AD treatment when they are falsely diagnosed. Conclusions: The cost-effectiveness of biomarker analysis depends critically on the prevalence of AD in the tested population. In general practice, where the prevalence of AD after clinical assessment and normal neuroimaging findings may be low, biomarker analysis is unlikely to be cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of $50,000 per QALY gained. However, when at least 1 in 11 patients has AD after normal neuroimaging findings, biomarker analysis is likely cost-effective. Specifically, for patients referred to memory clinics with memory impairment who do not present neuroimaging evidence of medial temporal lobe atrophy, pretest prevalence of AD may exceed 15%. Biomarker analysis is a potentially cost-saving diagnostic method and should be considered for adoption in high-prevalence centers