10,835 research outputs found
Video Games: The Path to Positive Collective Engagement
No full textGames, dev-jams, streams, and the culture surrounding them allow people to connect through formative and compelling shared experiences. In fact, over the past two years of unprecedented isolation, video games and the gaming community have helped millions around the world to stave off loneliness and improve their mental health through collaboration, cooperation, and competition. Of course, facilitating dialogue, the exchange of ideas, and interpersonal relationships despite great distances or obstacles, has been an integral aspect of gaming culture since its inception; yet only recently has there been greater widespread recognition that computationally mediated collective engagement can be as transformative and embodied as the purely physical. In this talk, Clark University professors and Higgins Faculty Fellows Amanda Theinert and Terrasa Ulm will explore how these connections continue to shape and support gamers around the world.
About the Speakers
Amanda Theinert, MFA is an Interactive Media Artist and Game Designer who has worked in the fields of digital art and higher education for 12 years. Theinert teaches in the areas of game design and development, the psychology of games, traditional and digital art, as well as production and team management. Her research interests center around how interactive experiences bring individuals and groups together for collective engagement and how emergent behavior facilitated from this engagement can alter the experience itself. Her artwork focuses on creating interactive installations and games that investigate new ways of combining digital and physical media blurring the lines between the tangible and virtual. Theinert is currently the MFA Program Director and an Assistant Teaching Professor at Clark University. She holds a BA in Interactive Media from Becker College and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts.
Terrasa Ulm, MFA is Interactive Media Program Director and Professor of Practice for the Becker School of Technology at Clark University. They have been an emergent media artist, game developer, and professor of interactive media for over 15 years. Their work and practice focus on games for change, the impact of artificial intelligence on new media, and XR development. They have developed a number of game titles, working as both designer and software developer, in the ‘serious’ and experimental games space for pc, mobile, and virtual reality. Their most recent personal art centers on interactive, fictive, live-action installations and intimate AI avatar moments. As a computer science major at Smith College, Ulm began developing their first electronic experiences and upon completing graduate studies in interactive programming at Parsons, the New School, helped launch one of the first undergraduate degrees in game development. Ulm received their MFA from Lesley University and maintains a studio at a local makerspace [and in the cloud], believing that practice and purpose intersect at the community level
Bayesian multi-object filtering with amplitude feature likelihood for unknown object snr
No full textIn many tracking scenarios, the amplitude of target returns are stronger than those coming from false alarms. This information can be used to improve the multiple-target state estimation by obtaining more accurate target and false-alarm likelihoods. Target amplitude feature is well known to improve data association in conventional tracking filters, such as probabilistic data association and multiple hypothesis tracking, and results in better tracking performance of low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) targets. The advantage of using the target amplitude approach is that targets can be identified earlier through the enhanced discrimination between target and false alarms. One of the limitations of this approach is that it is usually assumed that the SNR of the target is known. We show that the reliable estimation of the SNR requires a significant number of measurements, and so we propose an alternative approach for situations where the SNR is unknown. We illustrate this approach in the context of multiple targets for different SNRs in the framework of finite set statistics (FISST). Furthermore, we illustrate how this can be incorporated into approximate multiple-object filters derived from FISST, including probability hypothesis density (PHD) and cardinalized PHD (CPHD) filters. We present simulation results for Gaussian mixture implementations of the filters that demonstrate a significant improvement in performance over just using location measurements. © 2009 IEEE.</p
Biography of Ceerno Ndiaye Ba
No full textThis manuscript is a biography of Ceerno Ndiaye Ba Bababe, in Mauritania. It is one of a series of biographies that the author has written about Islamic leaders in West Africa.Ce manuscrit est une biographie de Ceerno Ndiaye Ba Bababe, en Mauritanie. Elle fait partie d'une série de biographies que l'auteur a écrites sur les dirigeants islamiques en Afrique de l'Ouest
Poems of Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghaly Ba
No full textThis volume contains seven poems handwritten by Muhammad al-Ghāli Ba. According to the author's son, Mountaga Ba, the poems were probably composed in the mid-1970s a time when the author lived in Mauritania, while working at the country's national radio station and serving as a special counsel to then president Moktar Ould Daddah (1924–2003). The poems adress various issues. The first is a call to action addressed to the Mauritianian youth, urging them to join in the collective work for the development of the country. The second poem is a hagiography on Ceerno Ahmad Nene Ba of Kaedi (Mauritania). The poem eulogizes the virtues of the patron. The third describes the event of Sharif Muhammad al-Habib's visit to the region of Fuuta region (Senegal), namely the village of Pate Galo. The fourth poem contains greetings and expresions of love addressed to the author's friends in the town of Kaedi. The fifth poem is a remembrance about good times. The author reminisces and praises the qualities of a woman named Jaari.The sixth poem describes one afternoon journey of the author. The seventh poem is a mournful praisesong in which the author laments the loss of a cherished person.Ce volume contient sept poèmes manuscrits de Muhammad al-Ghāli Ba. Selon le fils de l'auteur, Mountaga Ba, les poèmes ont probablement été composés au milieu des années 1970, à une époque où l'auteur vivait en Mauritanie, alors qu'il travaillait à la radio nationale du pays et était conseiller spécial du président de l'époque, Moktar Ould Daddah (1924). –2003). Les poèmes abordent diverses questions. Le premier est un appel à l'action adressé aux jeunes mauriciens, les exhortant à s'associer au travail collectif pour le développement du pays. Le deuxième poème est une hagiographie sur Ceerno Ahmad Nene Ba de Kaedi (Mauritanie). Le poème fait l'éloge des vertus du mécène. Le troisième décrit l'événement de la visite de Sharif Muhammad al-Habib dans la région de la région de Fuuta (Sénégal), à savoir le village de Pate Galo. Le quatrième poème contient des salutations et des expressions d'amour adressées aux amis de l'auteur dans la ville de Kaedi. Le cinquième poème est un souvenir des bons moments. L'auteur rappelle et loue les qualités d'une femme nommée Jaari. Le sixième poème décrit un après-midi de voyage de l'auteur. Le septième poème est une louange mélancolique dans laquelle l'auteur déplore la perte d'une personne chérie
Interview with J. Kent Clark
No full textAn interview in three sessions, January-February 1989, with J. Kent Clark, emeritus professor of literature. Professor Clark, a specialist in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English politics and literature, received his BA at Brigham Young University in 1939 and his PhD at Stanford. In this interview, he discusses his Mormon background in Utah and his early interest in musical comedy. Graduate school at Stanford was interrupted by World War II; he eventually finished his dissertation (on Jonathan Swift) and received his PhD in 1950, by which time he had already joined Caltech's Humanities Division (1947) as an English instructor. He recalls the intellectual character of the division in the late forties under the chairmanship of Clinton Judy and the high caliber of the literature and history courses. Recollections of colleagues Harvey Eagleson, Roger Stanton, George McMinn, Beach Langston, William Huse, Hallett Smith. He talks about the extremely popular musical comedies he wrote and produced with Elliot Davis on campus for many years, beginning in 1954. Recollections of Caltech president Lee DuBridge and of the changes in the late 1960s as the division became the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences; greater emphasis on research and specialization, as opposed to teaching and survey courses. Professor Clark also recalls his stint as Caltech's "culture czar" and the fate of the arts program instituted in the late sixties. He discusses the admission of women (1970) and the Jenijoy La Belle tenure case, and he concludes with a discussion of his work on biographies of the late-seventeenth-century figures (and brothers) Goodwin and Thomas Wharton
Reasons for depression and the process and outcome of cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies
No full textThis study examined the relationships between clients\u27 reasons for depression and the process and outcome of a cognitive therapy (CT) and a behavioral activation (BA) treatment for major depression. Reason giving was conceptualized as the tendency to offer multiple explanations for a problem. Different reasons for depression were also thought to match or mismatch the theoretical model underlying each treatment. Reasons for depression were assessed pretreatment with a previously developed questionnaire. Process variables including homework compliance and perceived treatment helpfulness were measured early in treatment. Results demonstrated that perceived helpfulness of the treatment was associated with positive outcomes in BA. Reason giving was associated with worse outcomes in BA. Specific reasons also predicted differential outcome in the 2 treatments. Clients who endorsed existential reasons for depression had better outcomes in CT and worse outcomes in BA. Relationship-oriented reasons were consistently associated with negative process and outcome in CT. Results are discussed in terms of the function of reason giving and the role of specific explanations for depression in treatment process and outcome
A component analysis of cognitive-behavioral treatment for depression
No full textThe purpose of this study was to provide an experimental test of the theory of change put forth by A. T. Beck, A. J. Rush, B. F. Shaw, and G. Emery (1979) to explain the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CT) for depression. The comparison involved randomly assigning 150 outpatients with major depression to a treatment focused exclusively on the behavioral activation (BA) component of CT, a treatment that included both BA and the teaching of skills to modify automatic thoughts (AT), but excluding the components of CT focused on core schema, or the full CT treatment. Four experienced cognitive therapists conducted all treatments. Despite excellent adherence to treatment protocols by the therapists, a clear bias favoring CT, and the competent performance of CX there was no evidence that the complete treatment produced better outcomes, at either the termination of acute treatment or the 6-month follow-up, than either component treatment. Furthermore, both BA and AT treatments were just as effective as CT at altering negative thinking as well as dysfunctional attributional styles. Finally, attributional style was highly predictive of both short- and long-term outcomes in the BA condition, but not in the CT condition
Longitudinal analysis of serum neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5 in patients receiving monoclonal antibodies
No full textThe emergence of Omicron sublineages impacts the therapeutic efficacy of anti-severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Here, we evaluate neutralization and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) activities of 6 therapeutic mAbs against Delta, BA.2, BA.4, and BA.5. The Omicron subvariants escape most antibodies but remain sensitive to bebtelovimab and cilgavimab. Consistent with their shared spike sequence, BA.4 and BA.5 display identical neutralization profiles. Sotrovimab is the most efficient at eliciting ADCC. We also analyze 121 sera from 40 immunocompromised individuals up to 6 months after infusion of Ronapreve (imdevimab + casirivimab) or Evusheld (cilgavimab + tixagevimab). Sera from Ronapreve-treated individuals do not neutralize Omicron subvariants. Evusheld-treated individuals neutralize BA.2 and BA.5, but titers are reduced. A longitudinal evaluation of sera from Evusheld-treated patients reveals a slow decay of mAb levels and neutralization, which is faster against BA.5. Our data shed light on antiviral activities of therapeutic mAbs and the duration of effectiveness of Evusheld pre-exposure prophylaxis
Worcester Community Indicators Database
No full textThis data base allows users to profile social data for neighborhoods and the city and to compare them over time and to the metro region, and the state.
It was first generated by a BA/MA course in Sociology and CDP; the programming was done by interns at ITS; it was updated in 2012 by Amy Donin under Ross’s supervision. It is used by students in the Cities and Suburbs class and others.
Boundary Algebra: A Simpler Approach to Boolean Algebra and the Sentential Connectives
No full textBoundary algebra [BA] is a algebra of type , and a simplified notation for Spencer-Brown’s (1969) primary algebra. The syntax of the primary arithmetic [PA] consists of two atoms, () and the blank page, concatenation, and enclosure between ‘(‘ and ‘)’, denoting the primitive notion of distinction. Inserting letters denoting, indifferently, the presence or absence of () into a PA formula yields a BA formula. The BA axioms are A1: ()()= (), and A2: “(()) [abbreviated ‘⊥’] may be written or erased at will,” implying (⊥)=(). The repeated application of A1 and A2 simplifies any PA formula to either () or ⊥. The basis for BA is B1: abc=bca (concatenation commutes & associates); B2, ⊥a=a (BA has a lower bound, ⊥); B3, (a)a=() (BA is a complemented lattice); and B4, (ba)a=(b)a (implies that BA is a distributive lattice). BA has two intended models: (1) the Boolean algebra 2 with base set B={(),⊥}, such that () ⇔ 1 [dually 0], (a) ⇔ a′, and ab ⇔ a∪b [a∩b]; and (2) sentential logic, such that () ⇔ true [false], (a) ⇔ ~a, and ab ⇔ a∨b [a∧b]. BA is a self-dual notation, facilitates a calculational style of proof, and simplifies clausal reasoning and Quine’s truth value analysis. BA resembles C.S. Peirce’s graphical logic, the symbolic logics of Leibniz and W.E. Johnson, the 2 notation of Byrne (1946), and the Boolean term schemata of Quine (1982).Boundary algebra; boundary logic; primary algebra; primary arithmetic; Boolean algebra; calculation proof; G. Spencer-Brown; C.S. Peirce; existential graphs
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