S.57392

The idea of creating and writing a thesis loomed before me as an awesome task I would never be able to bring to fruition. However, the time came when I had to sit down and seriously ask myself how I would like to spend the remainder of my time here at RIT. Regretfully, I cannot say that there was a burning passion within me. I began to approach the thesis topic and asked myself, What is out there that has yet to be fully explored? Looking through several articles and speaking with a diverse group of people, I became involved with ongoing discussions regarding Virtual Reality. Although I knew almost nothing about the topic, I realized that it was unexplored territory that may or may not develop into something beyond our highest expectations. The decision had been made, my thesis topic would be Virtual Reality . I would begin research and explore the possibilities of creating a visual essay on the topic of Virtual Reality

Secondary non-art teachers\u27 perceptions of characteristics of an effective art teacher

Since 1986, the offering of art in secondary schools as a Tertiary Entrance Examination subject has secured its position as a school subject. However, there is increasing pressure on art and on other subjects offered in secondary schools in Western Australia, to demonstrate a contribution to Australia\u27s social, economic and cultural priorities. In an increasingly competitive educational environment, all subjects need to negotiate viable positions as courses of study. As a result of the implementation of the Better Schools Report 1987, school-based decision-making groups have been established to assume responsibility for matters which had previously been the concern of a centralised decision-making body. These school-based decision-making groups will be responsible for the determination of school policies for the whole curriculum and for each subject. Decisions made in favour of or against offerings in the area of art/ craft may be influenced by the decision makers\u27 perceptions of the effectiveness of the art teacher. These perceptions may be a primary source of information about the subject and the way in which it is taught. Due to the likely impact of perceptions of value on the decision making process, it is important to investigate non-art teachers\u27 perceptions of an effective art teacher. It is likely that membership of the school based decision-making group may not always include representatives from every subject area, and if this is the case, then it becomes necessary to ensure that all such decision-makers are properly informed of subject specific needs and concerns. A qua1itative approach has been selected as a method of data collection and analysis as the study aims to construct a wen-grounded and descriptive picture of what non-art teachers perceive to be the characteristics of an effective art teacher. The study is bounded by both site and sample to include, ten non-art teachers selected from five metropolitan secondary schools. To avoid an overload of information, the principal research instrument used was a structured interview schedule, consisting of open-ended questions and a set of statements to be ranked on a scale of one to twelve. The data was analysed by allocating responses to pre-determined categories of effective teacher characteristics, tabulating this data using matrices, and finally, drawing and verifying conclusions. Outcomes from the study have also been compared to a theoretical framework, developed from the literature, for teacher effectiveness. Although the size of the sample precludes the possibility of making generalisations from the data, the tentative conclusions drawn and the feedback given to secondary art teachers will lend significance to the study. Individual art teachers may respond to the research findings and make decisions to pursue an active role in either changing, or reinforcing the perceptions of effectiveness held by non-art teachers. The findings may also form a basis for subject advocacy if art teachers consider the possible consequences of their behaviour and interaction within the school community. The relationship between perceptions of teaching effectiveness and the perceived status of a subject within the school may become a focus for further research

Detection of REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder by Automated Polysomnography Analysis

Evidence suggests Rapid-Eye-Movement (REM) Sleep Behaviour Disorder (RBD) is an early predictor of Parkinson's disease. This study proposes a fully-automated framework for RBD detection consisting of automated sleep staging followed by RBD identification. Analysis was assessed using a limited polysomnography montage from 53 participants with RBD and 53 age-matched healthy controls. Sleep stage classification was achieved using a Random Forest (RF) classifier and 156 features extracted from electroencephalogram (EEG), electrooculogram (EOG) and electromyogram (EMG) channels. For RBD detection, a RF classifier was trained combining established techniques to quantify muscle atonia with additional features that incorporate sleep architecture and the EMG fractal exponent. Automated multi-state sleep staging achieved a 0.62 Cohen's Kappa score. RBD detection accuracy improved by 10% to 96% (compared to individual established metrics) when using manually annotated sleep staging. Accuracy remained high (92%) when using automated sleep staging. This study outperforms established metrics and demonstrates that incorporating sleep architecture and sleep stage transitions can benefit RBD detection. This study also achieved automated sleep staging with a level of accuracy comparable to manual annotation. This study validates a tractable, fully-automated, and sensitive pipeline for RBD identification that could be translated to wearable take-home technology.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

SAFEGUARDING AGAINST IMPROPER CONFIGURATIONS FOR LORAWAN GATEWAYS

Presented herein are safeguard features for Long Range wide-area network (LoRaWAN) deployments on a LoRa gateway. The techniques presented herein provide a solution to prevent end users from wrongly or accidentally deploying LoRa gateways in unlawful Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio bands. The techniques presented herein require little computational and storage resources to be integrated into any LoRa gateway embedded system, operate automatically based on the standard LNS protocol, and are sufficiently flexible to suit different use cases

Quantum Hacking: Experimental demonstration of time-shift attack against practical quantum key distribution systems

Quantum key distribution (QKD) systems can send signals over more than 100 km standard optical fiber and are widely believed to be secure. Here, we show experimentally for the first time a technologically feasible attack, namely the time-shift attack, against a commercial QKD system. Our result shows that, contrary to popular belief, an eavesdropper, Eve, has a non-negligible probability (~4%) to break the security of the system. Eve's success is due to the well-known detection efficiency loophole in the experimental testing of Bell inequalities. Therefore, the detection efficiency loophole plays a key role not only in fundamental physics, but also in technological applications such as QKD.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Substantially revised versio

Hours spent and energy expended in physical activity domains: Results from The Tomorrow Project cohort in Alberta, Canada

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Knowledge of adult activity patterns across domains of physical activity is essential for the planning of population-based strategies that will increase overall energy expenditure and reduce the risk of obesity and related chronic diseases. We describe domain-specific hours of activity and energy expended among participants in a prospective cohort in Alberta, Canada.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The <it>Past Year Total Physical Activity Questionnaire </it>was completed by 15,591 <it>Tomorrow Project</it>^®participants, between 2001 and 2005 detailing physical activity type, duration, frequency and intensity. Domain-specific hours of activity and activity-related energy expenditure, expressed as a percent of total energy expenditure (TEE) (Mean (SD); Median (IQR)) are reported across <it>inactive </it>(<1.4), <it>low active </it>(1.4 to 1.59), <it>active </it>(1.6 to 1.89) and <it>very active </it>(≥ 1.9) Physical Activity Level (PAL = TEE:REE) categories.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In <it>very active </it>women and amongst all men except those classified as <it>inactive</it>, activity-related energy expenditure comprised primarily occupational activity. Amongst <it>inactive </it>men and women in <it>active, low active </it>and <it>inactive </it>groups, activity-related energy expenditure from household activity was comparable to, or exceeded that for occupational activity. Leisure-time activity-related energy expenditure decreased with decreasing PAL categories; however, even amongst the most active men and women it accounted for less than 10 percent of TEE. When stratified by employment status, leisure-time activity-related energy expenditure was greatest for retired men [mean (SD): 10.8 (8.5) percent of TEE], compared with those who were fully employed, employed part-time or not employed. Transportation-related activity was negligible across all categories of PAL and employment status.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>For the <it>inactive </it>portion of this population, active non-leisure activities, specifically in the transportation and occupational domains, need to be considered for inclusion in daily routines as a means of increasing population-wide activity levels. Environmental and policy changes to promote active transport and workplace initiatives could increase overall daily energy expenditure through reducing prolonged sitting time.</p

Quantitative Measurement from Vascular Casts

A review of quantitative measurements show casting materials shrink from 0.2 - 20% and have viscosities ranging from 1.4 - 100,000 centipoise. Blood vessels have highly variable mechanical properties. Some microvessels are very stiff having little change in dimensions with pressure. Larger vessels generally change diameter significantly but show highly variable changes in length with pressure. Perfusion fixation does not fix the dimensions of blood vessels. Dog carotid arteries well fixed with glutaraldehyde at physiologic dimensions retain ≈20% of their elastic recoil circumferentially and ≈30% longitudinally. We recommend vascular casting as a method of accurately measuring the vasculature if care is taken to use low shrinkage casting resins and maintain physiologic transmural pressures for the duration of any casting procedure, even if prefixation is used. We measured a ≈10% error in our method of measuring both the size and location of periorificial atherosclerotic lesions from aortic casts. Little is known about how vascular smooth muscle tone changes during casting