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Testing the role of spontaneous activity in visuospatial perception with patterned optogenetics
Get PDFA major debate in the field of consciousness pertains to whether neuronal activity or rather the causal structure of neural circuits underlie the generation of conscious experience. The former position is held by theoretical accounts of consciousness based on the predictive processing framework (such as neurorepresentationalism and active inference), while the latter is posited by the integrated information theory. This protocol describes an experiment, part of a larger adversarial collaboration, that was designed to address this question through a combination of behavioral tests in mice, functional imaging, patterned optogenetics and electrophysiology. The experiment will directly test if optogenetic inactivation of a portion of the visual cortex not responding to behaviorally relevant stimuli will affect the perception of the spatial distribution of these stimuli, even when the neurons being inactivated display no or very low spiking activity, so low that it does not induce a significant effect on other cortical areas. The results of the experiment will be compared against theoretical predictions, and will provide a major contribution towards understanding what the neuronal substrate of consciousness is.</p
Life in transit:the work of hyper-mobile gamete couriers in vital mobility infrastructures
Get PDFReproductive couriers are critical actors within ‘vital mobility infrastructures’ essential to the movement of ‘precious’ gametes that makes assisted reproduction across different places and times possible. Reasons for transporting gametes are varied and range from movements between clinics when patients change clinics through to complex choreographies internationally to bring sperm, oocytes or embryos together for third party assisted reproduction such as in surrogacy. We draw upon interviews with 15 hyper-mobile couriers and courier company managers as well as gamete donor coordinators. Our aim in this paper is to examine the largely invisible ‘mobile work’ undertaken by couriers in shipping gametes and embryos across the world. We examine the dimensions of these vital mobility infrastructures—technologies; companies; regulations; and social dispositions of courier work as part of the complex supply chains of assisted reproductive cycles. External factors and circumstances such as the war in Ukraine or the COVID pandemic may cause disruptions in supply chains which prevent the movement and transfer of the biomaterials. We extend the concept of vital mobilities by drawing attention to the critical infrastructures they depend upon.</p
Transition into teaching:examining the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) development of pre-service STEM career-change teachers
No full textTeachers must draw upon their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to effectively teach their disciplinary content. While there are abundant studies on teachers’ PCK, those focused on career-change teachers are limited. This study examines the PCK development of pre-service STEM career-change teachers, an increasingly prominent group of teachers recruited to fill teacher shortages in STEM-related subjects in many education systems worldwide. Using a self-reflection questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, this study examines the PCK development of seven STEM career-change teachers in Australia in the context of teaching placement. Findings indicate that the work experiences of STEM career-change teachers positively influenced their teaching orientations and shaped their knowledge of the curriculum and instructional strategies. However, their PCK development is impeded by their limited understanding of the learners and assessments. The study also revealed the relationship tensions between pre-service career-change teachers and their mentors, which impacted PCK development. These findings highlighted the need to reconceptualise teacher education programmes for career-change teachers to harness their diverse experiences better and address specific learning needs. It is also critical to re-examine the teaching placement model to address career-change teachers’ unique personal and professional considerations. This study contributes to the limited yet essential research on career-change teachers’ PCK development.</p
EmoReflex:an AI-powered emotion-centric developer insights platform
Get PDFThere has been great interest in better understanding software engineer emotions during development. But how to do this? We built a prototype AI-powered Emotion-centric Developer Insights Platform, EmoReflex, to support developers to report and reflect how they feel when working on various tasks across different metrics. It also assists their managers to get insights into their team’s emotional health, and provides them with recommendations to guide them handle the team’s emotional wellbeing. We present our tool prototype and evaluation results generated by a user study conducted with two user groups consisting of twenty developers and twenty managers. We present some design implications derived from our user study that can be used to inform design decisions in emotion-centric software development tools.</p
Bridging the education gap:A comprehensive analysis of travel distance and education quality based spatial accessibility of early childhood education in Metropolitan Melbourne
Get PDFIn Australia, Melbourne's population is growing rapidly and will soon overtake Sydney, fuelled by a COVID-19 baby boom that has increased demand for early childhood education (ECE). In response, the Victorian Government has announced transformational reforms to improve the accessibility and quality of ECE for the growing urban population. This study aims to addresses the evolution and effectiveness of ECE reforms in Melbourne from 2021 to 2036 by proposing an innovative approach that integrates spatial accessibility and educational quality into ECE evaluations. Using the distance decay function, the Floating Catchment Area (FCA) method and the Huff model, it extends traditional geographical analyses by highlighting the importance of educational quality in parental choice and providing a refined technique for simulating local demand based on educational quality and travel distance. Overall, inequalities in educational resources have been identified, with a concentration of ECE services near the CBD, despite high population density, while peripheral areas have significant service deficits. Furthermore, the projected poor accessibility scores for 2026, 2031 and 2036 highlight the urgent need for educational infrastructure development, even in areas rated as having better accessibility in 2021.</p
<i>Variable Mapper</i>:Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating an Online Tool for Multidimensional Spatial Data Visualization
No full textThis paper presents a user study of Variable Mapper, an interactive web-based geospatial visualization tool that aims to address the gap in multidimensional spatial data analysis. In the era of big data, researchers and policymakers often grapple with complex, multi-faceted concepts situated within ‘wicked problems.’ These problems require the investigation of large numbers of interacting social and environmental variables and consider the data with different lenses. However, tools for visually exploring and representing such data remain inaccessible to researchers and policymakers with limited technical expertise. To address this gap, we describe and evaluate a new interactive tool for visualizing multidimensional geospatial data, which has been built in three stages: (1) development of a prototype through a case study of urban ‘superdiversity’, (2) refinement of the prototype by adding a case study of ‘liveability’, and (3) evaluation of the tool through a systematic user study. The paper explains the process of interdisciplinary collaboration in the development, implementation, and evaluation of the tool and discusses the results of the user study. Using mixed-method analysis, we generated six insights based on the user study: situating the data, locating multiple visualizations, making data apparent, comparing small or missing values, challenges in three dimensions, and managing cognitive load. These insights from the development, implementation, and evaluation of Variable Mapper contribute to the wider ongoing challenge of visualizing multidimensional geospatial data.</p
Modifying AI, Enhancing Essays:How Active Engagement with Generative AI Boosts Writing Quality
Get PDFStudents are increasingly relying on Generative AI (GAI) to support their writing - a key pedagogical practice in education. In GAI-assisted writing, students can delegate core cognitive tasks (e.g., generating ideas and turning them into sentences) to GAI while still producing high-quality essays. This creates new challenges for teachers in assessing and supporting student learning, as they often lack insight into whether students are engaging in meaningful cognitive processes during writing or how much of the essay's quality can be attributed to those processes. This study aimed to help teachers better assess and support student learning in GAI-assisted writing by examining how different writing behaviors, especially those indicative of meaningful learning versus those that are not, impact essay quality. Using a dataset of 1,445 GAI-assisted writing sessions, we applied the cutting-edge method, X-Learner, to quantify the causal impact of three GAI-assisted writing behavioral patterns (i.e., seeking suggestions but not accepting them, seeking suggestions and accepting them as they are, and seeking suggestions and accepting them with modification) on four measures of essay quality (i.e., lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, text cohesion, and linguistic bias). Our analysis showed that writers who frequently modified GAI-generated text - suggesting active engagement in higher-order cognitive processes - consistently improved the quality of their essays in terms of lexical sophistication, syntactic complexity, and text cohesion. In contrast, those who often accepted GAI-generated text without changes, primarily engaging in lower-order processes, saw a decrease in essay quality. Additionally, while human writers tend to introduce linguistic bias when writing independently, incorporating GAI-generated text - even without modification - can help mitigate this bias.</p
Self-regulated Learning Processes in Secondary Education:A Network Analysis of Trace-based Measures
Get PDFWhile the capacity to self-regulate has been found to be crucial for secondary school students, prior studies often rely on self-report surveys and think-aloud protocols that present notable limitations in capturing self-regulated learning (SRL) processes. This study advances the understanding of SRL in secondary education by using trace data to examine SRL processes during multi-source writing tasks, with higher education participants included for comparison. We collected fine-grained trace data from 66 secondary school students and 59 university students working on the same writing tasks within a shared SRL-oriented learning environment. The data were labelled using Bannert's validated SRL coding scheme to reflect specific SRL processes, and we examined the relationship between these processes, essay performance, and educational levels. Using epistemic network analysis (ENA) to model and visualise the interconnected SRL processes in Bannert's coding scheme, we found that: (a) secondary school students predominantly engaged in three SRL processes - Orientation, Re-reading, and Elaboration/Organisation; (b) high-performing secondary students engaged more in Re-reading, while low-performing students showed more Orientation process; and (c) higher education students exhibited more diverse SRL processes such as Monitoring and Evaluation than their secondary education counterparts, who heavily relied on following task instructions and rubrics to guide their writing. These findings highlight the necessity of designing scaffolding tools and developing teacher training programs to enhance awareness and development of SRL skills for secondary school learners.</p
Enhancing Motivation and Learning in Primary School History Classrooms:The Impact of Virtual Reality
No full textConventional classroom instruction often struggles to effectively convey cultural heritage due to constraints in spatial and temporal dimensions, limiting students' ability to fully engage with and appreciate historical content. In contrast, virtual reality (VR) technology offers a human-centered, immersive way to present cultural heritage, creating a dynamic digital experience particularly beneficial when physical access to heritage sites is unavailable. This study investigates whether VR-based learning can enhance students' performance in cultural education compared to traditional teaching methods. A sample of 228 primary school students from Grades 5 and 6 was randomly assigned to one of two groups: a high-visual engagement group (VR with 360° video) or a low-visual engagement group (static video and textbook). The findings revealed that students in the high-visual engagement group achieved higher levels of intrinsic motivation and demonstrated greater learning improvements than their counterparts in the low-visual engagement group. Furthermore, the study identified negative user experiences as a significant factor moderating the connection between intrinsic motivation and learning outcomes. These results highlight the value of integrating VR into conventional teaching practices, showcasing its potential to enhance student engagement and improve educational outcomes in history and cultural studies.</p
A blueprint for large language model-augmented telehealth for HIV mitigation in Indonesia:A scoping review of a novel therapeutic modality
No full textBackground: The HIV epidemic in Indonesia is one of the fastest growing in Southeast Asia and is characterised by a number of geographic and sociocultural challenges. Can large language models (LLMs) be integrated with telehealth (TH) to address cost and quality of care? Methods: A literature review was performed using the PRISMA-ScR (2018) guidelines between Jan 2017 and June 2024 using the PubMed, ArXiv and semantic scholar databases. Results: Of the 694 records identified, 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Although the role of eHealth interventions as well as telehealth in HIV management appears well established, there is a significant literature gap on the integration of telehealth and LLM technology. To address this, we provide a blueprint for the safe and ethical integration of LLM-TH into triage, history taking, patient education highlighting opportunities for reduced consultation time and improved quality of care. Conclusions: Variable access to mobile technology and the need for empirical validation stand out as limitations for LLM-TH. However, we argue that the current evidence base suggests the benefits far outweigh the challenges in applying LLM-TH for HIV care in Indonesia. We also argue this novel therapeutic modality is broadly applicable to the subacute general practice setting.</p