Transforming Health: Emerging technology, the built environment and health behaviors

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Creating an authentic aural experience in the digital songlines game engine: Part of a contextualised cultural heritage knowledge toolkit

Digital Songlines is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. The project explores the areas of effective recording, content management and virtual reality delivery capabilities that are culturally sensitive and involve the indigenous custodians, leaders and communities in remote areas of the Australian ‘outback’. It investigates how players in a serious gaming sense can experience Indigenous virtual heritage in a high fidelity fashion with culturally appropriate interface tools. This paper describes a 3D ambient audio quilt designed and implemented specifically for the Digital Songlines software, which is built using the Torque Game Engine. The audio quilt developed provides dynamic ambient fauna and flora sound effects to represent the varying audio environment of the landscape. This provides an authentic contextualised interesting aural experience that can be different each time a location is entered. This paper reports on completed and ongoing research in this area.

Superstring: A scalable service discovery protocol for the wide-area pervasive environment

Arguably, the world has become one large pervasive computing environment. Our planet is growing a digital skin of a wide array of sensors, hand-held computers, mobile phones, laptops, web services and publicly accessible web-cams. Often, these devices and services are deployed in groups, forming small communities of interacting devices. Service discovery protocols allow processes executing on each device to discover services offered by other devices within the community. These communities can be linked together to form a wide-area pervasive environment, allowing processes in one p u p tu interact with services in another. However, the costs of communication and the protocols by which this communication is mediated in the wide-area differ from those of intra-group, or local-area, communication. Communication is an expensive operation for small, battery powered devices, but it is less expensive for servem and workstations, which have a constant power supply and 81'e connected to high bandwidth networks. This paper introduces Superstring, a peer to-peer service discovery protocol optimised fur use in the wide-area. Its goals are to minimise computation and memory overhead in the face of large numbers of resources. It achieves this memory and computation scalability by distributing the storage cost of service descriptions and the computation cost of queries over multiple resolvers.

Digital video transmission over wireless networks

The advent of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) led to the standardisation of the first video codecs for interpersonal video communications, followed closely by the development of standards for the compression, storage and distribution of digital video in the PC environment, mainly targeted at CD-ROM storage. At the same time the second-generation digital wireless networks, and the third-generation networks being developed, have enough bandwidth to support digital video services. The radio propagation medium is a difficult environment in which to deploy low bit error rate, real time services such as video. The video coding standards designed for ISDN and storage applications, were targeted at low bit error rate levels, orders of magnitude lower than the typical bit error rates experienced on wireless networks. This thesis is concerned with the transmission of digital, compressed video over wireless networks. It investigates the behaviour of motion compensated, hybrid interframe DPCM/DCT video coding algorithms, which form the basis of current coding algorithms, in the presence of high bit error rates commonly found on digital wireless networks. A group of video codecs, based on the ITU-T H.261 standard, are developed which are robust to the burst errors experienced on radio channels. The radio link is simulated at low level, to generate typical error files that closely model real world situations, in a Rayleigh fading environment perturbed by co-channel interference, and on frequency selective channels which introduce inter symbol interference. Typical anti-multipath techniques, such as antenna diversity, are deployed to mitigate the effects of the channel. Link layer error control techniques are also investigated.

CONNECT challenges: towards emergent connectors for eternal networked systems

The CONNECT European project that started in February 2009 aims at dropping the interoperability barrier faced by today’s distributed systems. It does so by adopting a revolutionary approach to the seamless networking of digital systems, that is, synthesizing on the fly the connectors via which networked systems communicate.

Authors Support in the TM4L Environment

The TM4L environment enables the development and use of ontology-aware courseware based on the Semantic Web technology Topic Maps. In this paper we discuss its features in the light of authoring support, giving illustrative examples to highlight its use.

The governance of online expression in a networked world:free-speech, surveillance and censorship

In recent years, we have witnessed the mushrooming of pro- democracy and protest movements not only in the Arab world, but also within Europe and the Americas. Such movements have ranged from popular upheavals, like in Tunisia and Egypt, to the organization of large- scale demonstrations against unpopular policies, as in Spain, Greece and Poland. What connects these different events are not only their democratic aspirations, but also their innovative forms of communication and organization through online means, which are sometimes considered to be outside of the State’s control. At the same time, however, it has become more and more apparent that countries are attempting to increase their understanding of, and control over, their citizens’ actions in the digital sphere. This involves striving to develop surveillance instruments, control mechanisms and processes engineered to dominate the digital public sphere, which necessitates the assistance and support of private actors such as Internet intermediaries. Examples include the growing use of Internet surveillance technology with which online data traffic is analysed, and the extensive monitoring of social networks. Despite increased media attention, academic debate on the ambivalence of these technologies, mechanisms and techniques remains relatively limited, as is discussion of the involvement of corporate actors. The purpose of this edited volume is to reflect on how Internet-related technologies, mechanisms and techniques may be used as a means to enable expression, but also to restrict speech, manipulate public debate and govern global populaces.

A sphere of resonance for networked learning in the ‘non-places’ of our universities

The logic of ‘time’ in modern capitalist society appears to be a fixed concept. Time dictates human activity with a regularity, which as long ago as 1944, George Woodcock referred to as The Tyranny of the Clock. Seventy years on, Hartmut Rosa suggests humans no longer maintain speed to achieve something new, but simply to preserve the status quo, in a ‘social acceleration’ that is lethal to democracy. Political engagement takes time we no longer have, as we rush between our virtual spaces and ‘non-places’ of higher education. I suggest it’s time to confront the conspirators that, in partnership with the clock, accelerate our social engagements with technology in the context of learning. Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) I reveal an alarming situation if we don’t. With reference to Bauman’s Liquid Modernity, I observe a ‘lightness’ in policy texts where humans have been ‘liquified’ Separating people from their own labour with technology in policy maintains the flow of speed a neoliberal economy demands. I suggest a new ‘solidity’ of human presence is required as we write about networked learning. ‘Writing ourselves back in’ requires a commitment to ‘be there’ in policy and provide arguments that decelerate the tyranny of time. I am though ever-mindful that social acceleration is also of our own making, and there is every possibility that we actually enjoy it.

Virtual Environments as an Education Tool for Digital Natives

Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013

Digital Collections in Regional Public Library “P. R. Slaveikov” – Veliko Tarnovo in the Context of the National Program for Preservation and Promotion of Literary Heritage

Nowadays the great public libraries in Bulgaria are gaining the appearance of digital centers which provide new informational resources and services in the digital space. The digital conversion as a way of preservation is one of the important priorities of Regional Public Library in Veliko Tarnovo. In the last few years we persistently search for possible ways of financing by national and foreign programs in this direction. In the beginning the strategy was oriented to digitalization of the funds with most urgent conversion – these of the local studies periodicals from 1878 till 1944 year. The digitalization of funds will create conditions of laying the basement of full text database of Bulgarian periodical publications. The technology that is offered gives opportunities for including other libraries in the Unified index, which can develop it into a National Unified index of periodical publications. The integrated informational environment that is created is an attractive, comfortable and useful place for work in home or at work for researchers, historians, art experts, bibliographers. The library readers use very actively all informational services of the library internet page and work competently with the on-line indexes provided there, they find the necessary title, which can be demanded later for usage in home or in the library, using electronic means again.

Modelling the Functionality of the Multimedia Digital Library for Fashion Objects

This paper describes a project of a multimedia digital library for fashion objects. The presented work aims to provide an environment for the National Art Academy students works, showing in front a professional and nonprofessional public the significant values of the fashion domain.

3D Environment for Virtual Collections

This paper describes a framework for building virtual collections of several digital objects and presenting them in an interactive 3D environment, rendered in a web browser. Using that environment, the website visitor can examine a given collection from a first-person perspective by walking around and inspecting each object in detail by viewing it from any angle. The rendering and visualization of the models is done solely by the web browser with the use of HTML5 and the Three.js JavaScript library, without any additional requirements.

Integrated Dimensional Variation Management in the Digital Factory

This paper describes how dimensional variation management could be integrated throughout design, manufacture and verification, to improve quality while reducing cycle times and manufacturing cost in the Digital Factory environment. Initially variation analysis is used to optimize tolerances during product and tooling design and also results in the creation of a simplified representation of product key characteristics. This simplified representation can then be used to carry out measurability analysis and process simulation. The link established between the variation analysis model and measurement processes can subsequently be used throughout the production process to automatically update the variation analysis model in real time with measurement data. This ‘live’ simulation of variation during manufacture will allow early detection of quality issues and facilitate autonomous measurement assisted processes such as predictive shimming. A study is described showing how these principles can be demonstrated using commercially available software combined with a number of prototype applications operating as discrete modules. The commercially available modules include Catia/Delmia for product and process design, 3DCS for variation analysis and Spatial Analyzer for measurement simulation. Prototype modules are used to carry out measurability analysis and instrument selection. Realizing the full potential of Metrology in the Digital Factory will require that these modules are integrated and software architecture to facilitate this is described. Crucially this integration must facilitate the use of realtime metrology data describing the emerging assembly to update the digital model.

A longitudinal study of Project Trio: A dropout prevention program in a large urban environment

The subject of dropout prevention/reduction is deservedly receiving attention as a problem that, if not resolved, could threaten our national future.^ This study investigates a small segment of the overall dropout problem, which has apparently unique features of program design and population selection. The evidence presented here should add to the knowledge bank of this complicated problem.^ Project Trio was one of a number of dropout prevention programs and activities which were conducted in Dade County school years 1984-85 and 1985-86, and it is here investigated longitudinally through the end of the 1987-88 school year. It involved 17 junior and senior high schools, and 27 programs, 10 the first year and 17 the second, with over 1,000 total students, who had been selected by the schools from a list of the "at risk" students provided by the district, and were divided approximately evenly into the classical research design of an experimental group and the control group, which following standard procedure was to take the regular school curriculum. No school had more than 25 students in either group.^ Each school modified the basic design of the project to accommodate the individual school characteristics and the perceived needs of their students; however all schools projects were to include some form of academic enhancement, counseling and career awareness study.^ The conclusion of this study was that the control group had a significantly lower dropout rate than the experimental group. Though impossible to make a certain determination of the reasons for this unexpected result, it appears from evidence presented that one cause may have been inadequate administration at the local level.^ This study was also a longitudinal investigation of the "at risk" population as a whole for the three and four year period, to determine if academic factors were present in records may be used to identify dropout proneness.^ A significant correlation was found between dropping out and various measures including scores on the Quality of School Life Instrument, attendance, grade point averages, mathematics grades, and overage in grade, important identifiers in selection for dropout prevention programs. ^

The development and analysis of a field project model curriculum and its impact on achievement and attitude toward science and the environment with at-risk eleventh and twelfth grade students

This study was an evaluation of a Field Project Model Curriculum and its impact on achievement, attitude toward science, attitude toward the environment, self-concept, and academic self-concept with at-risk eleventh and twelfth grade students. One hundred eight students were pretested and posttested on the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, PHCSC (1985); the Self-Concept as a Learner Scale, SCAL (1978); the Marine Science Test, MST (1987); the Science Attitude Inventory, SAI (1970); and the Environmental Attitude Scale, EAS (1972). Using a stratified random design, three groups of students were randomly assigned according to sex and stanine level, to three treatment groups. Group one received the field project method, group two received the field study method, and group three received the field trip method. All three groups followed the marine biology course content as specified by Florida Student Performance Objectives and Frameworks. The intervention occurred for ten months with each group participating in outside-of-classroom activities on a trimonthly basis. Analysis of covariance procedures were used to determine treatment effects. F-ratios, p-levels and t-tests at p $<$.0062 (.05/8) indicated that a significant difference existed among the three treatment groups. Findings indicated that groups one and two were significantly different from group three with group one displaying significantly higher results than group two. There were no significant differences between males and females in performance on the five dependent variables. The tenets underlying environmental education are congruent with the recommendations toward the reform of science education. These include a value analysis approach, inquiry methods, and critical thinking strategies that are applied to environmental issues. ^