The Utilization of Visual Design Systems to Promote Higher Levels of Learning in Educational Environments

Traditional higher education environments have changed very little in the last hundred and fifty years, while technology has advanced in nearly every other area of society making each more productive and more capable. This study identifies key aspects of a comprehensive and universal visual learning system that incorporates a more holistic approach to design and interactivity in educational environments. The desired effect of this is elevating classroom learning to higher levels as defined by Bloom’s Taxonomy. In this thesis, I have collected and explored empirical and observational data to examine the relationship between effective learning environments and the use of visual aids and interactive experiences. Research in the forms of case studies and personae will present how effective educators are utilizing technology and visuals in and out of the classroom and how individuals associate information through relationships of color, shape, form, hierarchy and other visuals. This research has been applied to a brand identity system designed to facilitate deeper learning and specifically applied to the hypothetical department of Creative Arts at West Coast Baptist College. Visual support of a presentation must include powerful storytelling, the establishment of an emotional connection between speaker and audience, a rigorous and thorough preparation, and content mastery on the part of the presenter. Online learning-based video content should take advantage of bilateral cognitive processing of both visuals and audio, should be limited in length to capitalize on the ideal attention span of the viewer, and should be bundled with interactive, actionable content or questions for the best long-term retention rates. The aim of the research was to establish a set of guidelines for the evolution of education in the adoption of modern visual and interactive design systems to better engage a new generation of learners. The research has been applied to create a flexible, comprehensive, and universal design system that can be packaged for implementation in the classroom environment in nearly any teaching field

Lessons learned about converting from Dewey Decimal Classification to Library of Congress Classification

In 2015, West Coast Baptist College purchased an 80,000 volume library collection from a closing Bible institution. During 2017-2020, both the original 40,000 volume collection and purchased 80,000 volume collection were merged, relocated to a larger facility, thoroughly weeded into a 60,000 volume collection, and converted from Dewey Decimal Classification into the Library of Congress Classification. This article summarizes several factors to consider on switching classifications and our experience from the conversion proces

Blind Spots: Automatically detecting ignored program inputs

A blind spot is any input to a program that can be arbitrarily mutated without affecting the program's output. Blind spots can be used for steganography or to embed malware payloads. If blind spots overlap file format keywords, they indicate parsing bugs that can lead to differentials. This paper formalizes the operational semantics of blind spots, leading to a technique that automatically detects blind spots based on dynamic information flow tracking. An efficient implementation is introduced an evaluated against a corpus of over a thousand diverse PDFs. There are zero false-positive blind spot classifications and the missed detection rate is bounded above by 11%. On average, at least 5% of each PDF file is completely ignored by the parser. Our results show promise that this technique is an efficient automated means to detect parser bugs and differentials. Nothing in the technique is tied to PDF in general, so it can be immediately applied to other notoriously difficult-to-parse formats like ELF, X.509, and XML

Automatic construction, maintenance, and optimization of dynamic agent organizations

The goal of this dissertation is to generate organizational structures that increase the overall performance of a multiagent coalition, subject to the system's complex coordination requirements and maintenance of a certain operating point. To this end, a generalized framework capable of producing distributed approximation algorithms based on the new concept of multidirectional graph search is proposed and applied to a family of connectivity problems. It is shown that a wide variety of seemingly unrelated multiagent organization problems live within this family. Su cient conditions are identi ed in which the approach is guaranteed to discover a solution that is within a constant factor of the cost of the optimal solution. The procedure is guaranteed to require no more than linear|and in some well de ned cases logarithmic|communication rounds. A number of examples are given as to how the framework can be applied to create, maintain, and optimize multiagent organizations in the context of real world problems. Finally, algorithmic extensions are introduced that allow for the framework to handle problems in which the agent topology and/or coordination constraints are dynamic, without signi cant consequences to the general runtime, memory, and quality guarantees.Ph.D., Computer Science -- Drexel University, 201

A Case Study on a Library Classification’s Effect on Library Student Workers’ Perception on Library Work

While there are studies and resources about training and retaining student workers in an academic library, there is little research on whether the library’s collection classification can have an effect on library student workers’ perception on their work and job fulfillment. While employed at the West Coast Baptist College (WCBC) Library, library student workers developed opinions on library work in general as well as their perception on both the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) while the library converted from the former to the latter. The case study found that seventy-five percent of the participating library student workers preferred LCC overDDC which minimally affected their enjoyment of working in the WCBC Library

Religious denomination, religiosity, and self-esteem among Jewish early adolescent girls

This study examined the relationship between religiosity and religious denomination and Jewish early adolescent girls\u27 self-esteem. The sample consisted of Modern Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform middle school aged girls who attend Jewish schools in Bergen County, New Jersey. A total of 133 girls completed the Harter\u27s Self-Perception Profile for Children, Allport and Ross\u27s Religious Orientation Scale, Katz\u27s Student Religiosity Questionnaire, and a student demographic survey. Quantitative results indicated that global self-esteem was unrelated to Jewish denomination, extrinsic, or intrinsic religiosity. This study found that greater adherence to religious practices and principles were not predictive of lower global self-esteem. No significant differences in the levels of global self-esteem among Intrinsic, Indiscriminately Pro-Religious, Extrinsic, or Non-Religious girls were found. Qualitative and quantitative findings indicated trends of high self-esteem among Jewish early adolescent girls independent of religious denomination. This research established a baseline of the self-esteem of Jewish early adolescent girls across varying denominations. The results of this research can assist leaders across formal and informal educational settings to make better informed decisions regarding the necessity of developing and providing prevention programs with additional Judaic components. American Jewish programs need to be more sensitive in developing innovative and “girl-friendly” approaches tackling issues surrounding modesty