Creating a Virtual Method to Examine Parents’ Impact on Spatial Problem-Solving

Virtual data collections have become increasingly popular in recent years because of their benefits to research. The goal of the study was to create a virtual data collection method to examine how parents teach their children to think spatially. Specifically, the long-term goal was to create a virtual method to observe how natural parental interactions can influence a child’s performance on a spatial task. To create the virtual method, we first explored how other researchers use virtual methods. Using already published methods as a starting point, through trial and error, we focused on creating a virtual method that is inclusive for all participants, easy and convenient for parents, and able to capture the essence of an interactive in-person study. The results of the study will be used to conduct virtual data collection in the coming years to enrich the understanding of parents’ influence on their children’s development while expanding the tools available for studying early development

Horsepower in the Civil War: Uses, Suffering, and Personal Relationships

“A dog may be man's best friend...but the horse wrote history. ” “The history of mankind is carried on the back of a horse. ” Both of those sayings are from unknown authors, but the statements embrace the substantial impact that horses have had on America to this day. Horses have been a major part of American history, whether their use was for transportation, companionship, war, recreational riding, or farming. When someone mentions America, the bald eagle and the American flag automatically come mind, but the often unrecognized and overlooked hero in American history is the horse. One of the most beautiful things to behold and experience is a horse running freely through a field. The ground trembling with every magnificent step of a creature so powerful yet so gentle, weighing over a thousand pounds, ever so gracefully puts down. The soft look in their eyes that seem to pierce merrily through the human soul, bringing awareness to every hope, dream, and fear. The horse has truly earned its place in American history and the hearts of people, young and old. People see the horse as an American icon because of the beauty, hope, grace, power, and freedom that they exhibited in war. However, some people believe that history cannot take into account the value of horses in war because of the fact that they could not express their feeling

Pandemic-Induced Mortality Salience and Jury Decision-Making

Terror management theory (TMT) suggests that people adhere more strongly to cultural worldviews to assuage their anxiety and bolster their self-esteem when faced with reminders of their own mortality (mortality salience). These cultural worldviews may include hostility towards outgroups, such as criminals, social transgressors, and racial minority groups. This study investigated whether reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic induced mortality salience (MS) and whether these reminders influenced the severity of punitive judgments suggested for hypothetical offenders. It also investigated whether mortality salience influenced people to suggest harsher punitive sentences for offenders belonging to racial minority groups. After reading a COVID-19 related mortality salience or control passage, participants (N = 210) suggested jail time and bail amount for two hypothetical criminals, one Caucasian and one African American via an online survey. The study found that people experiencing mortality salience were less punitive towards criminals than those not experiencing mortality salience, and they prescribed relatively equal sentences for both the African-American and Caucasian offenders. Participants not experiencing mortality salience prescribed harsher sentences for both criminals and were more punitive towards the Caucasian offender when prescribing bail amounts. These findings ran counter to the assumptions of terror management theory, suggesting that mortality salience may promote prosocial behavior rather than discriminatory ingroup adherence in jurors under specific conditions

Discordant localization of WFA reactivity and brevican/ADAMTS-derived fragment in rodent brain

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Proteoglycan (PG) in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the central nervous system (CNS) may act as a barrier for neurite elongation in a growth tract, and regulate other characteristics collectively defined as structural neural plasticity. Proteolytic cleavage of PGs appears to alter the environment to one favoring plasticity and growth. Brevican belongs to the lectican family of aggregating, chondroitin sulfate (CS)-bearing PGs, and it modulates neurite outgrowth and synaptogenesis. Several ADAMTSs (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs) are glutamyl-endopeptidases that proteolytically cleave brevican. The purpose of this study was to localize regions of adult CNS that contain a proteolytic-derived fragment of brevican which bears the ADAMTS-cleaved neoepitope sequence. These regions were compared to areas of <it>Wisteria floribunda </it>agglutin (WFA) reactivity, a common reagent used to detect "perineuronal nets" (PNNs) of intact matrix and a marker which is thought to label regions of relative neural stability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>WFA reactivity was found primarily as PNNs, whereas brevican and the ADAMTS-cleaved fragment of brevican were more broadly distributed in neuropil, and in particular regions localized to PNNs. One example is hippocampus where the ADAMTS-cleaved brevican fragment is found surrounding pyramidal neurons, in neuropil of stratum oriens/radiatum and the lacunosum moleculare. The fragment was less abundant in the molecular layer of the dentate gyrus. Mostly PNNs of scattered interneurons along the pyramidal layer were identified by WFA. In lateral thalamus, the reticular thalamic nucleus stained abundantly with WFA whereas ventral posterior nuclei were markedly immunopositive for ADAMTS-cleaved brevican. Using Western blotting techniques, no common species were reactive for brevican and WFA.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In general, a marked discordance was observed in the regional localization between WFA and brevican or the ADAMTS-derived N-terminal fragment of brevican. Functionally, this difference may correspond to regions with varied prevalence for neural stability/plasticity.</p

Hand Strength and Dexterity Enhancer

Good Grips created the hand strength and dexterity enhancer project to meet the challenge presented by Bill Phelps. He has Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM), an inflammatory muscle disease characterized by progressive muscle weakness and atrophy. Bill has limited strength in both hands and lost the ability to bend his fingers, making it difficult to grip anything. He needed a device that would help with everyday tasks such as writing, lifting, and holding various objects. Our team consists of four engineering students attending Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. We researched, designed, manufactured, and tested a device that would fulfill the problem requirements for three quarters. Our device consists of two main components: a pair of custom gloves and a fanny pack that houses our electrical control system

Experimental Validation of Contact Dynamics for In-Hand Manipulation

This paper evaluates state-of-the-art contact models at predicting the motions and forces involved in simple in-hand robotic manipulations. In particular it focuses on three primitive actions --linear sliding, pivoting, and rolling-- that involve contacts between a gripper, a rigid object, and their environment. The evaluation is done through thousands of controlled experiments designed to capture the motion of object and gripper, and all contact forces and torques at 250Hz. We demonstrate that a contact modeling approach based on Coulomb's friction law and maximum energy principle is effective at reasoning about interaction to first order, but limited for making accurate predictions. We attribute the major limitations to 1) the non-uniqueness of force resolution inherent to grasps with multiple hard contacts of complex geometries, 2) unmodeled dynamics due to contact compliance, and 3) unmodeled geometries dueto manufacturing defects.Comment: International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, ISER 2016, Tokyo, Japa

Sticking under wet conditions: the remarkable attachment abilities of the torrent frog, staurois guttatus

Tree frogs climb smooth surfaces utilising capillary forces arising from an air-fluid interface around their toe pads, whereas torrent frogs are able to climb in wet environments near waterfalls where the integrity of the meniscus is at risk. This study compares the adhesive capabilities of a torrent frog to a tree frog, investigating possible adaptations for adhesion under wet conditions. We challenged both frog species to cling to a platform which could be tilted from the horizontal to an upside-down orientation, testing the frogs on different levels of roughness and water flow. On dry, smooth surfaces, both frog species stayed attached to overhanging slopes equally well. In contrast, under both low and high flow rate conditions, the torrent frogs performed significantly better, even adhering under conditions where their toe pads were submerged in water, abolishing the meniscus that underlies capillarity. Using a transparent platform where areas of contact are illuminated, we measured the contact area of frogs during platform rotation under dry conditions. Both frog species not only used the contact area of their pads to adhere, but also large parts of their belly and thigh skin. In the tree frogs, the belly and thighs often detached on steeper slopes, whereas the torrent frogs increased the use of these areas as the slope angle increased. Probing small areas of the different skin parts with a force transducer revealed that forces declined significantly in wet conditions, with only minor differences between the frog species. The superior abilities of the torrent frogs were thus due to the large contact area they used on steep, overhanging surfaces. SEM images revealed slightly elongated cells in the periphery of the toe pads in the torrent frogs, with straightened channels in between them which could facilitate drainage of excess fluid underneath the pad

Access and Integration: Perspectives of Disabled Students Living on Campus

Disabled students may face ableist challenges in the campus residential environment. Although campus housing plays a critical role in retention by promoting social integration, little is known about what promotes the engagement of disabled students in campus living environments because the literature about these students focuses on legal topics or accommodations. In this study, we wanted to understand how disabled students experienced living on campus and how the residential experience promoted social integration. We employed a critical constructivist case study approach, framing disability from a social justice perspective. Data for this study come from interviews with 24 students attending four highly residential liberal arts colleges. Students reported that the degree of accessibility, flexibility, use of accommodations, and staff disability awareness and responsiveness influenced their social integration and residential experience. Implications for practice include providing disability-specific staff training, tailoring accommodations to individual students, conceptualizing access broadly, using single rooms creatively, and viewing dining services as part of the housing experience even if the administrative locations are different