Animal-Computer Interaction: Designing Specialised Technology with Canine Workers

This thesis reports on research underpinning the design of a canine-centred dog-to-human communication technology, specifically an emergency alarm system that enables trained assistance dogs to call for help on behalf of their owners. Thousands of vulnerable people worldwide living with conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes or limited mobility, rely on assistance dogs to help them in their daily lives. When, for various reason, the human becomes incapacitated, such as when they are experiencing an epileptic seizure, have fallen, or have gone into a hypoglycaemic coma, it is down to their dog to take action to resolve the situation. Interactive technology can provide an assistance dog with the means to raise the alarm and summon help, but in order to enable them to independently and successfully engage with an alarm, it is critical that they are able to make sense of when and how to use the device to increase their chances of successful interaction. Thus, the research presented here aimed to understand the factors that might influence the dog’s ability to successfully interact with the system we undertook to design. Our initial design was informed by various biological, cognitive, and ergonomic considerations of dogs. We then elicited specific requirements for a canine emergency communication system by observing training practices to learn how trainers communicate with the dogs; interviewing human-dog partnerships to understand their needs; and engaged in rapid prototyping sessions with the dogs to identify their preferences. Using these requirements, we developed several high-fidelity prototypes, which we tested with assistance dog users and their handlers, to identify which design features might best facilitate the dog’s interaction with the device, and in turn enable the design of the training process through which the dogs learn to use the device as independent agents. This led to the practical observation that for many assistance dogs, using an interface that allows them to bite an attachment with their mouth and tug it until it detaches was easy for them to learn to use. We found that when designing technology for assistance dogs, researchers need to consider to what extent the dogs might be expected to drive the interaction and that researchers need to design not only to support the interaction itself but also to facilitate the training process that will eventually lead to the dogs being able to interact with the technology

Amazonian Wetland Domestication: A Spatial Analysis of Pre-Columbian Fish Weirs in Lowland Bolivia

Recent archaeological studies show that pre-Columbian communities began modifying Southwestern Amazonia approximately 3,500 years ago. In lowland Bolivia, a recently mapped network of fish weirs in West Central Llanos de Mojos (WCM) demonstrates how ancient Mojeño groups built artificial earthworks to harness seasonal flooding and catch fish. In the eastern region of Baures, a similar complex of fish weirs has been studied since the 1990s, generating questions about how this system may function in a different hydrological and anthropogenic setting. Similarly, previous research within WCM has focused on the fields and forest islands that pre-Columbian populations built to elevate themselves and their crops from the floodwaters that consume the landscape. However, water is still a necessity for communities, and the dry season beginning in early summer can leave the landscape in a state of drought. This begs the question, were inhabitants also participating in large-scale environmental transformations to domesticate wetlands and increase their duration and scale? This proceeds from the assumption that weirs were not only interacting with water to catch fish but controlling its flow and accumulation to expand wetland habitats and resources more broadly. Using a combination of spatial data and statistical analysis, this study defines potential wetlands within the region, distinguished by two unique patterns of fish weirs, stacks and networks. Results indicate that these wetlands have the capacity to affect water flow and accumulation for over 600 m2 of land but maintain differences in their sizes and relationships to major bodies of water and nearby anthropogenic features

MAPPING QUARTERMAN (8BR223): POSITIONING AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE IN SPACE IN CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA

This document is a student report containing the methods and results of mapping the Quarterman (8BR223) Site and cemeteries. The maps were rendered using a Topcon Total Station, Trimble GPS, and TDS Recon Data Collector

From theory to practice : The National Theatre of Scotland, 1999-2009

The National Theatre of Scotland is a unique, non building-based, commissioning and producing cultural institution, established in the wake of the devolution of the Scottish Parliament. This thesis explores how the NTS responded to its ‘national’ remit within the context of both post devolution Scotland and an increasingly globalized world in which the significance and boundaries of the ‘nation’ are often ambiguous and contested. The public sphere in the United Kingdom has always held a tension between the interweaving national identities of its four constituent nations. However, the constitutional changes since 1999, have allowed the possibility for a more distinctive public sphere to be defined in Scotland. This thesis examines how the NTS, over a relatively short period of time, has played a role in helping to mark out and define the nature of this new national public sphere and argues that the company was particularly well placed to accommodate and reflect heterogeneous imagining’s of identity and respond to contemporary expressions of belonging. However, the thesis also charts changes to the company during these early years and, most significantly, notes the potential effect that the change from arms length to direct government funding might have on the company’s long-term development. The thesis argues that direct funding aligns the arts too closely to political agendas rather than supporting artistic freedom and expression. As such, rather than helping to mark out a democratically representative and critical public sphere in Scotland, the NTS is in danger of becoming entangled by competing conceptions and perceptions of nationhood in Scotland

Preventing Post - Treatment Relapse among African American Adolescents and Young Adult Marijuana Users through Effective Treatment Interventions: A Proposed Intervention for Metro-Atlanta

INTRODUCTION: Marijuana use, although illegal in the majority of states, is increasingly becoming acceptable for use in the United States. There are dangerous public health consequences associated with marijuana use—including: impaired driving, loss of productivity in workplaces and school settings, as well as mental health impacts. In Atlanta, the majority of residents (54.0%) are African American. Emergency room use is double for African American Fulton County residents compared to their Caucasian counterparts and approximately 1/5 of the total population receiving public health treatment identify marijuana as the primary drug of use, with 57% of those being African Americans. Despite these statistics, the availability of treatment and prevention programs targeting African Americans using marijuana is negligible.AIM: The purpose of this study is to synthesize evidence-based approaches to substance use treatment so that effective components of previous research can be incorporated into an innovative marijuana prevention program to increase post-treatment abstinence targeting a segment of the population that has not been a significant focus in intervention research. METHODS: A review of scientific literature was conducted to identify and appraise evidence based approaches to substance use among young adults. First, the student researcher examined programs targeting marijuana use. Second, the search was expanded to substance use in general. The student researcher identified the population, intervention, control arm, and outcomes of various studies focusing on substance use prevention in a variety of settings. With this appraisal, the most effective components are suggested for a marijuana specific program which could be offered to African-American young adults, as no current programs in Georgia were found. RESULTS: Substance abuse intervention approaches targeting young adult populations were identified. Programs are delivered in a variety of settings: family, school, and community. Evidence supports that cognitive behavioral training, motivational enhancement training, and contingency management are the most effective approaches targeting substance use among young adults. A program that integrates components of each approach would be ideal for targeting African American young adults using marijuana in Metro-Atlanta and assisting them to maintain abstinence post-treatment. DISCUSSION: The results from this study emphasize key program elements that can address marijuana addiction among African American young adults in Metro-Atlanta. As marijuana acceptance increases, the need for prevention programs becomes more urgent. This study’s results can assist program planners in understanding the most strategic interventions that would optimize return on investment when addressing a largely silent public health threat: marijuana use among Africa American young adults in Metro-Atlanta

Betaalbaar wonen als ontwikkelingshulp

It was not by coincidence that the UN Economical and Social Council decided in 1948, only a few years after the actual foundation of the United Nations as an organization, to start a division on Housing and Town and Country Planning. This division was a central component in the larger so-called technical assistance programme that the United Nations developed to help countries that were in need – ranging from war-affected countries in Europe to newly independent nation-states in African and Asia. Among the members of the council, there was a clear understanding that affordable housing was a universal human right, as well as a main matter of concern and a prime field of intervention for the new international organization. The Housing and Town and Country Planning (HTCP) division was from its inception until 1966 headed by a former member of the Congress Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), the Yugoslavian Ernest Weismann. The new division was defined first and foremost as a base of expertise: it was meant to gather worldwide knowledge on the matter of affordable housing that was generated in the different member countries. With this in mind, the HTCP managed to unite different professional camps of architects and urban planners, gathering public administrations and avant-garde groups, but also organizations that had previously been keen to establish an ideological distance such as the CIAM and the International Union of Architects (IUA). The knowledge that was gathered was made available to the member countries in different ways: through the publication of manuals and a bulletin, through the installation of a library and by curating a mediatheque with movies on different forms of housing worldwide. Besides this function as a base of expertise, the HTCP section also focussed on more concrete sorts of intervention. It would commission urban and regional planners, architects, engineers and technicians to go on missions to regions, countries or cities that were in need. In the decades after 1948 the HTCP would initiate hundreds of missions, organize trainings, make regional and urban plans and even design buildings for a variety of contexts and places. The numerous urban plans, neighbourhoods and buildings that resulted from these ‘development aid’ initiatives have for a long time been the no-go zones of architectural criticism and historiography. Plans and projects have often been considered as too instrumental and too technical in character to carry any cultural significance.Het was geen toeval dat de Economische en Sociale Raad van de Verenigde Naties (ECOSOC) in 1948, enkele jaren na de oprichting van de Verenigde Naties als organisatie, besloot een afdeling Housing and Town and Country Planning op te zetten. Deze afdeling was een centraal onderdeel van het grotere zogenaamde ‘programma voor technische ondersteuning’ dat de Verenigde Naties had ontwikkeld om landen in nood te helpen – uiteenlopend van Europese landen in de nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog tot nieuwe, onafhankelijke natiestaten in Afrika en Azië. De leden van de Raad waren het erover eens dat betaalbare huisvesting zowel tot de universele rechten van de mens behoorde als een van de belangrijkste punten van zorg was van de nieuwe organisatie. Interventies op dit terrein zouden tot haar fundamentele taken gaan behoren. De afdeling Housing and Town and Country Planning (HTCP) werd vanaf haar oprichting tot 1966 geleid door een voormalig lid van de Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), de Joegoslaaf Ernest Weismann. De nieuwe afdeling werd in de eerste plaats gedefinieerd als een expertiseplatform: overal ter wereld zouden de diverse lidstaten kennis over betaalbare huisvesting verzamelen. Op basis van dit perspectief wist HTCP uiteenlopende professionele kampen van architecten en stedenbouwkundigen te verenigen, en bracht ze overheidsdiensten en avant-gardistische groepen bij elkaar. Ook organisaties die elkaar eerder op ideologische gronden maar al te graag op afstand hadden gehouden, zoals de CIAM en de International Union of Architects (IUA). De verzamelde kennis werd op verschillende manieren beschikbaar gesteld aan de lidstaten: via de publicatie van handboeken en een bulletin, door het openen van een bibliotheek en het beheren van een mediatheek met films over verschillende vormen van huisvesting wereldwijd. Naast haar functie als expertiseplatform richtte HTCP zich ook op concrete interventies. Zij stuurde stedenbouwkundigen, architecten, ingenieurs en technici erop uit om regio’s, landen of steden die in nood zaten te hulp te schieten. In de decennia na 1948 zou de afdeling HTCP honderden missies initiëren, trainingen organiseren, plannen opstellen voor regio’s en steden, en zelfs gebouwen ontwerpen voor allerlei contexten en locaties. De talrijke stedenbouwkundige plannen, wijken en gebouwen die uit deze ‘ontwikkelingshulp’ resulteerden, waren binnen de architectuurkritiek en architectuurgeschiedenis lange tijd onbespreekbaar. Men vond de plannen en projecten vaak te instrumenteel en te technisch om van enig cultureel belang te zijn

Canine-centered interface design: supporting the work of diabetes alert dogs

Many people with Diabetes live with the continuous threat of hypoglycaemic attacks and the danger of going into coma. Diabetic Alert Dogs are trained to detect the onset of an attack before the human handler they are paired with deteriorates, giving them time to take action. We investigated requirements for designing an alert system allowing dogs to remotely call for help when their human falls unconscious before being able to react to an alert. Through a multispecies ethnographic approach we focus on teasing out the requirements for a physical canine user interface, involving both dogs, their handlers and trainers in the design. We discuss tensions between the requirements for the canine and the human users, argue the need for increased sensitivity towards the needs of individual dogs that goes beyond breed specific physical characteristics and reflect on how we can move from designing for dogs to designing with dogs

Can existing associative principles explain occasion setting? Some old ideas and some new data

Since occasion setting was identified as a type of learning independent of 'simple' associative processes, a great deal of research has explored how occasion setters are established and operate. Initial theories suggested that they exert hierarchical control over a target CS→US association, facilitating the ease with which a CS can activate the US representation and elicit the CR. Later approaches proposed that occasion setting arises from an association between a configural cue, formed from the conjunction of the occasion setter and CS, and the US. The former solution requires the associative principles dictating how stimuli interact to be modified, while the latter does not. The history of this theoretical distinction, and evidence relating to it, will be briefly reviewed and some novel data presented. In summary, although the contribution of configural processes to learning phenomena is not in doubt, configural theories must make many assumptions to accommodate the existing data, and there are certain classes of evidence that they are logically unable to explain. Our contention is therefore that some kind of hierarchical process is required to explain occasion-setting effects

Feature Paperwork of Feature G1-G5 from Burns (8BR85)

This document contains the field notes taken during excavation of test unit G, pertaining to feature G1-G5. It is a scan of original paper documents generated in the field