Crew Earth Observations: Twelve Years of Documenting Earth from the International Space Station

The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) payload was one of the initial experiments aboard the International Space Station, and has been continuously collecting data about the Earth since Expedition 1. The design of the experiment is simple: using state-of-the-art camera equipment, astronauts collect imagery of the Earth's surface over defined regions of scientific interest and also document dynamic events such as storms systems, floods, wild fires and volcanic eruptions. To date, CEO has provided roughly 600,000 images of Earth, capturing views of features and processes on land, the oceans, and the atmosphere. CEO data are less rigorously constrained than other remote sensing data, but the volume of data, and the unique attributes of the imagery provide a rich and understandable view of the Earth that is difficult to achieve from the classic remote sensing platforms. In addition, the length-of-record of the imagery dataset, especially when combined with astronaut photography from other NASA and Russian missions starting in the early 1960s, provides a valuable record of changes on the surface of the Earth over 50 years. This time period coincides with the rapid growth of human settlements and human infrastructure

The Genetic Basis of Creativity and Ideational Fluency The Genetic Basis of Creativity and Ideational Fluency

Reuter, Roth, Holve, & Hennig (2006) described what they called the first candidate gene for creativity. This study replicated and extended their work for a more careful analysis of five candidate genes: Dopamine Transporter (DAT), Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT), Dopamine Receptor D4 (DRD4), D2 Dopamine Receptor (DRD2), and Tryptophane Hydroxylase (TPH1). Participants were 147 college students who received a battery of tests of creative potential. Multivariate analyses of variance indicated that ideational fluency scores were significantly associated with several genes (DAT, COMT, DRD4, and TPH1). This was apparent in both verbal and figural fluency ideation scores, before and after controlling general intelligence. Yet fluency, alone, is not an adequate measure of creativity, and the index that is by far the most important part of creativity (i.e., originality) had a negligible relationship with the genes under investigation. Hence, in contrast to earlier research, the conclusion offered here is that there is a clear genetic basis for ideational fluency, but that fluency, alone, is not sufficient to predict or guarantee creative performance. Hence, at present, the genetic basis of creativity remains uncertain

Engaging Students, Teachers, and the Public with NASA Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Assets

Engaging students, teachers, and the public with NASA Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) assets, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) experts and NASA curation astromaterial samples, provides an extraordinary opportunity to connect citizens with authentic aspects unique to our nation's space program. Effective engagement can occur through both virtual connections such as webcasts and in-person connections at educator workshops and public outreach events. Access to NASA ARES assets combined with adaptable resources and techniques that engage and promote scientific thinking helps translate the science and research being facilitated through NASA exploration, elicits a curiosity that aims to carry over even after a given engagement, and prepares our next generation of scientific explorers

Analysing decision logs to understand decision-making in serious crime investigations

Objective: To study decision-making by detectives when investigating serious crime through the examination of Decision Logs to explore hypothesis generation and evidence selection. Background: Decision logs are used to record and justify decisions made during serious crime investigations. The complexity of investigative decision-making is well documented, as are the errors associated with miscarriages of justice and inquests. The use of decision logs has not been the subject of an empirical investigation, yet they offer an important window into the nature of investigative decision-making in dynamic, time-critical environments. Method: A sample of decision logs from British police forces was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to explore hypothesis generation and evidence selection by police detectives. Results: Analyses revealed diversity in documentation of decisions that did not correlate with case type, and identified significant limitations of the decision log approach to supporting investigative decision-making. Differences emerged between experienced and less experienced officers’ decision log records in exploration of alternative hypotheses, generation of hypotheses, and sources of evidential enquiry opened over phase of investigation. Conclusion: The practical use of decision logs is highly constrained by their format and context of use. Despite this, decision log records suggest that experienced detectives display strategic decision-making to avoid confirmation and satisficing that affect less experienced detectives. Application: Potential applications of this research include both training in case documentation and the development of new decision log media that encourage detectives, irrespective of experience, to generate multiple hypotheses and optimize the timely selection of evidence to test them

A dual process account of creative thinking

This article explicates the potential role played by type 1 thinking (automatic, fast) and type 2 thinking (effortful, logical) in creative thinking. The relevance of Evans's (2007) models of conflict of dual processes in thinking is discussed with regards to creative thinking. The role played by type 1 thinking and type 2 thinking during the different stages of creativity (problem finding and conceptualization, incubation, illumination, verification and dissemination) is discussed. It is proposed that although both types of thinking are active in creativity, the extent to which they are active and the nature of their contribution to creativity will vary between stages of the creative process. Directions for future research to test this proposal are outlined; differing methodologies and the investigation of different stages of creative thinking are discussed. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Older people as equal partners in creative design

Active older people want to be actively engaged by contributing their experiences to design better services and products. This paper demonstrates the importance of older peoples engagement in the creative design process in a small study where older people were engaged together with designers in the design of digital devices. Three creative workshops were conducted: the first with designers, the second with designers and older people, and the third with older people only. During the illumination stage of the creative process flexibility and flow were measured with topics and turns. Results show that when older people were working with designers more topics and a higher total number of turns were developed than by older people or designers working on their own, which indicates that they had the highest flexibility of ideas and possibly also the greatest flow

The future problem solving program international: an intervention to promote creative skills in portuguese adolescents

The Future Problem Solving Program International (FPSPI) is an internationally applied educational program that involves young people. Its theoretical foundation is both the Creative Problem Solving Model and the Futurist Thinking. It aims to promote creative and critical thinking through a futurist approach to problems. This study intended to analyze the effects of the program on creative skills evaluated by the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Figural Version). The participants’ perceptions of the efficacy of the program were also assessed. This intervention was carried out with 131 adolescents over a period of 7 months in an extra-curricular context. The evaluation of the program takes into account periods both before and after interventions, using similar experimental and control groups. The results showed significant statistical differences for the all skills studied and very positive perceptions of the efficacy of FPSPI. Two significant gender differences in creative performance were also found. The results are described and discussed in order to promote awareness for future research concerning this program(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Epistemic insights: Contemplating tensions between policy influences and creativity in school science

Creativity and the way it could be supported in schools is understood differently by policy makers, practitioners and scientists. This article reviews, with a chronological lens, the development of policies that include teaching creativity and teaching for creativity. The epistemic tensions between the intentions of government and the nature of creativity as it emerges in learning or scientific work is introduced and reflected upon. There have been more than nine key educational policies that have been introduced over the last 50 years. Each of these are considered in this article and related to the ways that creativity is understood and expected to be taught, supported or enacted in schools by policy makers. In light of the need to support creativity as a key twenty‐first‐century skill, to ultimately enable current students (who will become the next generation of scientists) to develop the capabilities to address global concerns, this article highlights issues related to this issue. Epistemic insights are offered that relate to the development of aspects of creativity, including questioning, developing alternate ideas, ‘seeing’ things differently, innovation, curiosity, problem solving and evaluating. The ways that policy related to creativity in science appears not to recognise how creativity can be reified in these ways in schools suggests the need for rapid review, especially in light of the upcoming international creativity tests in 2021

A Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems: Computational Creativity Evaluation Based on What it is to be Creative

Computational creativity is a flourishing research area, with a variety of creative systems being produced and developed. Creativity evaluation has not kept pace with system development with an evident lack of systematic evaluation of the creativity of these systems in the literature. This is partially due to difficulties in defining what it means for a computer to be creative; indeed, there is no consensus on this for human creativity, let alone its computational equivalent. This paper proposes a Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems (SPECS). SPECS is a three-step process: stating what it means for a particular computational system to be creative, deriving and performing tests based on these statements. To assist this process, the paper offers a collection of key components of creativity, identified empirically from discussions of human and computational creativity. Using this approach, the SPECS methodology is demonstrated through a comparative case study evaluating computational creativity systems that improvise music