The effect of sleep deprivation on objective and subjective measures of facial appearance

This study was funded by the Swedish Research Council, FORTE (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare), and The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.The faces of people who are sleep deprived are perceived by others as looking paler, less healthy and less attractive compared to when well rested. However, there is little research using objective measures to investigate sleep‐loss‐related changes in facial appearance. We aimed to assess the effects of sleep deprivation on skin colour, eye openness, mouth curvature and periorbital darkness using objective measures, as well as to replicate previous findings for subjective ratings. We also investigated the extent to which these facial features predicted ratings of fatigue by others and could be used to classify the sleep condition of the person. Subjects (n = 181) were randomised to one night of total sleep deprivation or a night of normal sleep (8–9 hr in bed). The following day facial photographs were taken and, in a subset (n = 141), skin colour was measured using spectrophotometry. A separate set of participants (n = 63) later rated the photographs in terms of health, paleness and fatigue. The photographs were also digitally analysed with respect to eye openness, mouth curvature and periorbital darkness. The results showed that neither sleep deprivation nor the subjects’ sleepiness was related to differences in any facial variable. Similarly, there was no difference in subjective ratings between the groups. Decreased skin yellowness, less eye openness, downward mouth curvature and periorbital darkness all predicted increased fatigue ratings by others. However, the combination of appearance variables could not be accurately used to classify sleep condition. These findings have implications for both face‐to‐face and computerised visual assessment of sleep loss and fatigue.PostprintPeer reviewe

Age-related changes in matching novel objects across viewpoints

Peer reviewedPreprin

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Mill Building Repurposing Pilot Project (Twist Mill - Athol, MA)

The purpose of the UMass Amherst Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning’s participation in this project is to establish a redevelopment action plan that incorporates the ownership’s clear vision for reuse of the site, proposes solutions to various obstacles that have hindered progress, and serves as a guiding model in terms of improving the feasibility of similar projects throughout the state. The project team gathered information from a variety of resources, and conducted three distinct phases of analysis in order to complete this redevelopment action plan. The Phase I: Inventory examines the physical, regulatory, and financial context surrounding the current site in order to gauge its condition as a viable location to foster desired economic development for the region. The Phase II: Assessment utilizes these inventory findings to identify clear challenges that impact the redevelopment potential of the site in an effort to reduce overall project roadblocks. The Phase III: Implementation provides strategies to alleviate these challenges moving forward, in the form of clear recommendations for local, regional, and state level regulatory improvements. Phases I and II were conducted in the fall of 2013, and Phase III was conducted in the spring of 2014. Particular thanks for guidance on this project are extended to L.P. Athol Corporation ownership, Dr. John Mullin of the UMass Amherst Center for Economic Development, State Representative Denise Andrews of the Franklin County Second District, State Senator Stephen Brewer, State Senator Stanley Rosenberg, Congressman James McGovern, and the Town of Athol

Reconnecting Downtown to the Riverfront. Springfield, MA. Senior Urban Design Studio,

The work of this urban design studio illustrates visions for the revitalization of Springfield’s downtown riverfront through landscape architecture facing the challenges of a dissecting I-91 highway corridor. Re-Connecting people to the riverfront capi­talizes on the great Connecticut River and will revitalize the city to attract and engage residents and visitors alike. The proposals foster creating spaces in Riverfront Park for multiple activities such as recreation, places for arts and culture, education and enhancement of the River’s ecology. They further promote pedestrian/bicycle arteries to and along the riverfront that are embedded in a livable, mixed-use, diverse neighborhood. The work explores a community service learning strategy within the framework of an urban design studio with the goal of revitalizing the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, through sustainable design, planning, and engagement with the community. This studio produced six tangible visions and are based on three scenarios; 1) Scenario 1keeps the highway I-91 on an elevated level above ground; 2) Scenario 2 lowers I-91 down to an on-ground level; 3) Scenario 3 lowers I-91 underground as a completely or partially covered corridor. All six design visions share the following recommendations and principles to create a livable and sustainable city that engages the riverfront as a place for people and as a landscape that will be crucial for a great future of Springfield’s downtown: Creating spaces in Riverfront Park that are more centered and generous for multiple activities; add floodplains to improve the ecology of the River and educate the public. Creating pedestrian/bicycle arteries from Main Street to the riverfront. Elimination of on- and off- ramps within the core of downtown to prioritize pedestrian movement to the Connecticut River and reduce noise. Eliminate parking structures underneath the highway for visibility of the River. Redesigning East and West Columbus Avenue as pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly corridors through a road diet and speed reduction. Foster mixed-use development along East Columbus Avenue at the edge of the South End Neighborhood. Connect the Connecticut River Walk and Bikeway to Forest Park in the south

Green Infrastructure for Framingham, Massachusetts: Greenway Planning and Cultural Landscape Design

The senior undergraduate, Bachelors of Landscape Architecture studio at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst developed a town-wide greenway plan for the Town of Framingham’s Department of Community and Economic Development. This conceptual plan connects the town’s natural, cultural, and recreational resources through a network of pedestrian and bike trails. This plan also seeks to connect the diverse neighborhoods within the Town to these resources and provide alternative means of local residents to access jobs, schools, and retail centers. The greenway plan builds on Framingham’s Open Space and Recreation Plan (2013), which identified the need for a regional greenway system to link the town to the many local and regional recreational, cultural, ecological, and economic resources. This capstone planning and design studio began with an analysis and assessment of the Town of Framingham’s natural, recreational, cultural, and transportation/land use resources. Teams of students developed alternative greenway plans for the town and region, respectively. These plans were synthesized halfway through the class to produce the composite greenway plan shown in this report. For the second half of the class, individual students developed neighborhood and site specific greenway and park designs for key linkages within the greenway network in the rural northeast section of Framingham, industrial village of Saxonville, historic Framingham Center, the Tech Park, and downtown Framingham. These detailed designs form the body of this report

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Stan and BART for Causal Inference: Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Using the Power of Stan and the Flexibility of Machine Learning

A wide range of machine-learning-based approaches have been developed in the past decade, increasing our ability to accurately model nonlinear and nonadditive response surfaces. This has improved performance for inferential tasks such as estimating average treatment effects in situations where standard parametric models may not fit the data well. These methods have also shown promise for the related task of identifying heterogeneous treatment effects. However, the estimation of both overall and heterogeneous treatment effects can be hampered when data are structured within groups if we fail to correctly model the dependence between observations. Most machine learning methods do not readily accommodate such structure. This paper introduces a new algorithm, stan4bart, that combines the flexibility of Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART) for fitting nonlinear response surfaces with the computational and statistical efficiencies of using Stan for the parametric components of the model. We demonstrate how stan4bart can be used to estimate average, subgroup, and individual-level treatment effects with stronger performance than other flexible approaches that ignore the multilevel structure of the data as well as multilevel approaches that have strict parametric forms