Digital Commons Network^™

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

Introduction: Jewish Gamevironments – Exploring Understanding With Playful Systems, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

The study of Judaism, Jewish civilizationi, and games is currently comprised of projects of a rather small set of game scholars. A sample of our work is included in this issue.

Effect Of Hydrofracking On Aquifers, Abdullah Faruque, Joshua Goldowitz

Articles

Geologists have understood the presence of shale gas and shale oil since the early 20th century, but always considered it unattainable due to shale’s low permeability. The shale gas revolution in the United States, brought about by the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has proven the feasibility of economically accessing this resource and significantly increasing the world’s proven reserve. As we enter the era of application of this technology worldwide, countries will have to weigh the promise of increased energy independence and hydrocarbon revenue against the potential damage to water supplies. Hydrofracking’s voracious thirst for water and potential …

Probability Models And Compounding, David L. Farnsworth, James E. Marengo

Articles

We present the case that the ideas contained in a particular sequence of formulas are important in probability and statistics. The synthesis offered by the concepts in the sequence can be very valuable. Facility with this sequence and its underpinnings should be in the skill set of anyone who uses or studies probability or statistics. For illustrative purposes, we give applications to mixture distributions and Bayesian analyses.

Characterization And Control Of A Multi-Primary Led Light Lab, Michael J. Murdoch

Articles

A new light lab facility has been commissioned at Rochester Institute of Technology with the research goal of studying human visual adaptation under temporally dynamic lighting. The lab uses five-channel LED luminaires with 16 bits of addressable depth per channel, addressed via DMX. Based on spectral measurements, a very accurate multiprimary additive color model has been built that can be used to provide “colorimetric plus” multi-primary channel intensity solutions optimized for spectral accuracy, color fidelity, color gamut, or other attributes. Several spectral tuning and multi-primary solutions are compared, for which accuracy results and IES TM-30-15 color rendition measures are shown.

Whole Genome Sequencing Of Rhodotorula Mucilaginosa Isolated From The Chewing Stick (Distemonanthus Benthamianus): Insights Into Rhodotorula Phylogeny, Mitogenome Dynamics And Carotenoid Biosynthesis, Han Ming Gan, Bolaji N. Thomas, Nicole T. Cavanaugh, Grace H. Morales, Ashley N. Mayers, Michael A. Savka, Andre O. Hudson

Articles

In industry, the yeast Rhodotorula mucilaginosa is commonly used for the production of carotenoids. The production of carotenoids is important because they are used as natural colorants in food and some carotenoids are precursors of retinol (vitamin A). However, the identification and molecular characterization of the carotenoid pathway/s in species belonging to the genus Rhodotorula is scarce due to the lack of genomic information thus potentially impeding effective metabolic engineering of these yeast strains for improved carotenoid production. In this study, we report the isolation, identification, characterization and the whole nuclear genome and mitogenome sequence of the endophyte R. mucilaginosa …

Development Of The Central Dogma Concept Inventory (Cdci) Assessment Tool, Dina L. Newman, Christopher W. Snyder, J. Nick Fisk, Leslie Kate Wright

Articles

Scientific teaching requires scientifically constructed, field-tested instruments to accurately evaluate student thinking and gauge teacher effectiveness. We have developed a 23-question, multiple select–format assessment of student understanding of the essential concepts of the central dogma of molecular biology that is appropriate for all levels of undergraduate biology. Questions for the Central Dogma Concept Inventory (CDCI) tool were developed and iteratively revised based on student language and review by experts. The ability of the CDCI to discriminate between levels of understanding of the central dogma is supported by field testing (N = 54), and large-scale beta testing (N = …

Evasion Of Host Innate Immunity By Emerging Viruses: Antagonizing Host Rig-I Pathways, Maureen Ferran, Gary Skuse

Articles

Viruses confront a seemingly dichotomous relationship with their host cells. They must overcome host defenses in order to complete their infectious cycles and generate new viruses yet the host must remain healthy and hospitable for that to take place. Shortly after infection, the RIGI-like receptors (RLRs) within the cytoplasm of the infected cell recognize foreign motifs present in the pathogen. The host responds by activating a signaling pathway that leads to activation of cellular transcription factors, including the NF-κB and interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF3), that are necessary for induction of the type 1 interferon genes. Many viruses subdue components …

The Value Of Instability: An Investigation Of Intra-Subject Variability In Brain Activity Among Obese Adolescent Girls, Lance O. Bauer, Rebecca J. Houston

Articles

BACKGROUND: The present study investigated the value of intra-subject variability (ISV) as a metric for revealing differences in cognition and brain activation associated with an obese versus lean body mass.

METHODS: Ninety-six adolescents with a lean body mass (BMI %-ile = 5-85), and 92 adolescents with an obese body mass (BMI %-ile >=95), performed two tasks (Stroop and Go/NoGo) challenging response inhibition skills. The standard deviations and averages of their reaction time and P300 electroencephalographic responses to task stimuli were computed across trials.

RESULTS: During the Go/NoGo task, the reaction times of subjects with an obese body mass were more …

Jointly Offered Online Course Between Malmö University And Rochester Institute Of Technology On Industrial And Organizational Psychology, Esa M. Rantanen, Rebecca Johnson, Jonas Lundsten, Jean-Charles Languilaire, Andreas Sjöstedt

Articles

The idea of a jointly offered online course between Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and Malmö University (MU) on Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology was first conceived at the 2nd Annual MU-RIT Symposium on Oct 1-3, 2014, in discussions between faculty members of RIT and MU. The symposium, held in Sweden at MU, provided an opportunity for faculty and administrators from RIT and MU to identify potential collaborative research and teaching partnerships between faculty from the two universities.

Two principal collaborators from each university began to develop a jointly offered course shortly after the symposium, based on an existing online …

A Geometric Derivation Of The Irwin-Hall Distribution, James E. Marengo, Lucas Stefanic, David L. Farnsworth

Articles

The Irwin-Hall distribution is the distribution of the sum of a finite number of independent identically distributed uniform random variables on the unit interval. Many applications arise since round-off errors have a transformed Irwin-Hall distribution and the distribution supplies spline approximations to normal distributions. We review some of the distribution’s history. The present derivation is very transparent, since it is geometric and explicitly uses the inclusion-exclusion principle. In certain special cases, the derivation can be extended to linear combinations of independent uniform random variables on other intervals of finite length.The derivation adds to the literature about methodologies for finding distributions …

Application Of Variational Principle To Form Reduced Fluid-Structure Interaction Models In Bifurcated Networks, Alexander S. Liberson, Yashar Seyed Vahedein, David A. Borkholder

Articles

Reduced fluid-structure interaction models have received a considerable attention in recent years being the key component of hemodynamic modeling. A variety of models applying to specific physiological components such as arterial, venous and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulatory systems have been developed based on different approaches. The purpose of this paper is to apply the general approach based on Hamilton’s variational principle to create a model for a viscous Newtonian Fluid - Structure Interaction (FSI) in a compliant bifurcated network. This approach provides the background for a correct formulation of reduced FSI models with an account for arbitrary nonlinear visco-elastic properties …

Genetic Diversity Of Cd14 Promoter Gene Polymorphism (Rs2569190) Is Associated With Regulation Of Malaria Parasitemia And Susceptibility To Plasmodium Falciparum Infection., Olusola Ojurongbe, Roland I. Funwei, Tara J. Snyder, Najihah Aziz, Yi Li, Catherine O. Falade, Bolaji N. Thomas

Articles

CD14 is a multifunctional receptor expressed on many cell types and has been shown to mediate immune response resulting in the activation of an inflammatory cascade, with polymorphism of its promoter (rs2569190) found to be associated with susceptibility to several diseases. In malaria infection, the CD14 gene demonstrated a pathogenic profile in regulating experimental cerebral malaria, with reports of elevated levels of soluble CD14 in serum of patients but no definitive conclusion. We present a detailed analysis of genetic diversity of CD14 promoter gene (snp −159 C/T; rs2519190) polymorphism between a malaria-infected group and uninfected controls and its association with …

A Unified Cfd Based Approach To A Variety Of Condensation Processes In A Viscous Turbulent Wet Steam Flow, Alexander S. Liberson, Steven H. Hesler

Articles

A family of quasi linear mathematical models is presented and calculations made for viscous turbulent wet steam flow with a variety of condensation phenomena. These models can be applied to the analysis of equilibrium condensation, homogeneous (spontaneous) condensation, heterogeneous condensation on extraneous particles, and condensation of charged dispersed phase moving in an electrostatic field. The unified model is represented by coupled systems of gas dynamic equations for viscous turbulent two-phase flow, kinetic and electro-kinetic equations tracing out combined processes of size and charge growth, and electromagnetic field equations described an electric field with an account of self- induced in-part by …

Student Leadership, Career Development, And Personal Success Profiles, Jasminka Samardzija, Joseph Kevin Walker, Milena Kuznin

Articles

The main goal of this empirical research was to define those predominant leadership characteristics and behaviours found among all four generations of undergraduates at RIT Croatia's Dubrovnik campus. The basic research question was: What is the empirical basis for classifying students into homogeneous groups? The first part of the questionnaire was based on The Big Five Model of Personality characteristics, but the principal research method was the leadership characteristics, career development, and personal success questionnaire created by applying inductive research methodologies to 100 Croatian leaders’ interviews. In order to answer the research question, four cluster analyses were conducted. The null …

Does A Flatter General Gradient Of Visual Attention Explain Peripheral Advantages And Central Deficits In Deaf Adults?, Vincent J. Samar, Lauren Berger

Articles

Individuals deaf from early age often outperform hearing individuals in the visual periphery on attention-dependent dorsal stream tasks (e.g., spatial localization or movement detection), but sometimes show central visual attention deficits, usually on ventral stream object identification tasks. It has been proposed that early deafness adaptively redirects attentional resources from central to peripheral vision to monitor extrapersonal space in the absence of auditory cues, producing a more evenly distributed attention gradient across visual space. However, little direct evidence exists that peripheral advantages are functionally tied to central deficits, rather than determined by independent mechanisms, and previous studies using several attention …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Meiosis: A Play In Three Acts, Starring Dna Sequence, Dina L. Newman, Leslie Kate Wright

Articles

Meiosis is well known for being a sticky topic that appears repeatedly in biology curricula. We observe that a typical undergraduate biology major cannot correctly identify haploid and diploid cells or explain how and why chromosomes pair before segregation. We published an interactive modeling lesson with socks to represent chromosomes and demonstrated that it could improve student understanding of ploidy (1). Here we present an improvement on that lesson, using DNA paper strips in place of socks to better demonstrate how and why crossing over facilitates proper segregation. During the lesson, student volunteers act out the roles of chromosomes while …

Poisson Windowing, David L. Farnsworth

Articles

The statistical quality-control technique of windowing takes advantage of the additive property of the Poisson probability distribution and the geometry of the data. There are abundant applications of windowing to observations that naturally occur in arrays or that are produced in them, such as computer chips, which are manufactured many at a time on wafers. Standard statistical procedures are used.

Variational Approach Of Constructing Reduced Fluid-Structure Interaction Models In Bifurcated Networks, Alexander S. Liberson, Yashar Seyed Vahedein, David A. Borkholder

Articles

Reduced fluid-structure interaction models have received a considerable attention in recent years being the key component of hemodynamic modeling. A variety of models applying to specific physiological components such as arterial, venous and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulatory systems have been developed based on different approaches. The purpose of this paper is to apply the general approach based on Hamilton’s variational principle to create a model for a viscous Newtonian fluid - structure interaction (FSI) in a compliant bifurcated network. This approach provides the background for a correct formulation of reduced FSI models with an account for arbitrary nonlinear visco-elastic properties …

Permeation Fill-Tube Design For Inertial Confinement Fusion Target Capsules, Brian S. Rice, Jeff Ulreich, Chad Fella, Jay Crippen, P. Fitzsimmons, A. Nikroo

Articles

A unique approach for permeation filling of nonpermeable inertial confinement fusion target capsules with deuterium— tritium (DT) is presented. This process uses a permeable capsule coupled into the final target capsule with a 0.03-mm-diameter fill tube. Leak free permeation filling of glow-discharge polymerization (GDP) targets using this method have been successfully demonstrated, as well as ice layering of the target, yielding an inner ice surface roughness of 1-µm rms (root mean square). Finally, the measured DT ice-thickness profile for this experiment was used to validate a thermal model’s prediction of the same thickness profile.

Collaboration With Deaf Communities To Conduct Accessible Health Surveillance, Steven L. Barnett, Kelly A. Mathews, Erika J. Sutter, Lori A. Dewindt, Jacqueline A. Pransky, Amanda M. O'Hearn, Tamala M. David, Robert Q. Pollard, Vincent J. Samar, Thomas A. Pearson

Articles

Introduction Populations of deaf sign language users experience health disparities unmeasured by current public health surveillance. Population-specific health data are necessary to collaboratively identify health priorities and evaluate interventions. Standardized, reproducible, and language-concordant data collection in sign language is impossible via written or telephone surveys. Methods Deaf and hearing researchers, community members, and other stakeholders developed a broad computer-based health survey based on the telephone-administered Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. They translated survey items from English to sign language, evaluated the translations, and filmed the survey items for inclusion in their custom software. They initiated the second Rochester Deaf Health …

The Critical Role Of Point Defects In Improving The Specific Capacitance Of Δ-Mno2 Nanosheets, Peng Gao, Peter Metz, Trevyn Hey, Yuxuan Gong, Dawei Liu, Doreen D. Edwards, Jane Y. Howe, Rong Huang, Scott T. Misture

Articles

3D porous nanostructures built from 2D δ-MnO2 nanosheets are an environmentally friendly and industrially scalable class of supercapacitor electrode material. While both the electrochemistry and defects of this material have been studied, the role of defects in improving the energy storage density of these materials has not been addressed. In this work, δ-MnO2 nanosheet assemblies with 150 m2 g−1 specific surface area are prepared by exfoliation of crystalline KxMnO2 and subsequent reassembly. Equilibration at different pH introduces intentional Mn vacancies into the nanosheets, increasing pseudocapacitance to over 300 F g−1, reducing charge transfer resistance as low as 3 …

Derivation And Validation Of The Stray Light Correction Algorithm For The Thermal Infrared Sensor Onboard Landsat 8, Aaron Gerace, Matthew Montanaro

Articles

It has been known and documented that the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on-board Landsat 8 suffers from a significant stray light problem (Reuter et al., 2015; Montanaro et al., 2014a). The issue appears both as a non-uniform banding artifact across Earth scenes and as a varying absolute radiometric calibration error. A correction algorithm proposed by Montanaro et al. (2015) demonstrated great potential towards removing most of the stray light effects from TIRS image data. It has since been refined and will be implemented operationally into the Landsat Product Generation System in early 2017. The algorithm is trained using near-coincident thermal …

The Conditional Poisson Process And The Erlang And Negative Binomial Distributions, Anurag Agarwal, Peter Bajorski, David L. Farnsworth, James E. Marengo, Wei Qian

Articles

It is a well known fact that for the hierarchical model of a Poisson random variable Y whose mean has an Erlang distribution, the unconditional distribution of Y is negative binomial. However, the proofs in the literature provide no intuitive understanding as to why this result should be true. It is the purpose of this manuscript to give a new proof of this result which provides such an understanding. The memoryless property of the exponential distribution allows one to conclude that the events in two independent Poisson processes may be regarded as Bernoulli trials, and this fact is used to …

Trunk Motion System (Tms) Using Printed Body Worn Sensor (Bws) Via Data Fusion Approach, Mohammad Mokhlespour Esfahani, Omid Zobeiri, Behzad Moshiri, Roya Narimani, Mohammad Mehravar, Ehsan Rashedi, Mohamad Parnianpour

Articles

Human movement analysis is an important part of biomechanics and rehabilitation, for which many measurement systems are introduced. Among these, wearable devices have substantial biomedical applications, primarily since they can be implemented both in indoor and outdoor applications. In this study, a Trunk Motion System (TMS) using printed Body‐Worn Sensors (BWS) is designed and developed. TMS can measure three‐dimensional (3D) trunk motions, is lightweight, and is a portable and non‐invasive system. After the recognition of sensor locations, twelve BWSs were printed on stretchable clothing with the purpose of measuring the 3D trunk movements. To integrate BWSs data, a neural network …

Distributed Detection Of Sensor Worms Using Sequential Analysis And Remote Software Attestations, Jun-Won Ho, Matthew Wright

Articles

Recent work has demonstrated that self-propagating worms are a real threat to sensor networks. Since worms can enable an adversary to quickly compromise an entire sensor network, they must be detected and stopped as quickly as possible. To meet this need, we propose a worm propagation detection scheme for sensor networks. The proposed scheme applies a sequential analysis to detect worm propagation by leveraging the intuition that a worm’s communication pattern is different from benign traffic. In particular, a worm in a sensor network requires a long sequence of packets propagating hop-by-hop to each new infected node in turn. We …

An Application For Screening Gradual-Onset Age-Related Hearing Loss, Wayne M. Garrison, Joe Bochner

Articles

Objective. Less than 15% of adults in the USA over age 70 receive hearing screening; less than 20% of adults with hearing loss receive any form of treatment. Reasons vary, but affordability and accessibility are major barriers to intervention and treatment. This study provides data supporting a new adult hearing screening measure (NSRT®) that is self-administered, easy to use and focused on difficulties experienced in everyday speech communication. Methods. The NSRT® test materials are sentence-length utterances containing phonetic contrasts. The test requires respondents to determine whether sentences printed on a computer monitor are the same/different from sentences delivered as auditory …

Mending Broken Promises In Sustainable Design, Alex Lobos

Articles

Sustainable Product Design is effectively combining solutions that address environmental issues while elevating user experience and achieving success in the marketplace. A closer look at the effectiveness of sustainability strategies in the design process reveals that some of the best efforts in this area do not yield the benefits promised. Examples of these shortcomings include product operation with unnecessary features that push performance beyond environmentally friendly levels, products made out of recyclable materials that still end up in landfills and consumers that do not connect sustainable lifestyles to the products they use.

An effective model for consistent benefits in sustainable …

Ethanol Extract Of Blighia Sapida Stem Bark Show Remarkable Prophylactic Activity In Experimental Plasmodium Berghei-Infected Mice., Olayinka O. Otegbade, Johnson A. Ojo, Dolapo I. Adefokun, Oyindamola O. Abiodun, Bolaji N. Thomas, Olusola Ojurongbe

Articles

This work explores the antiplasmodial potential of ethanol extract of Blighia sapida (Lin. Sapindaceae) in chloroquine (CQ)- resistant Plasmodium berghei (ANKA strain)–infected mice. Chloroquine-resistant (ANKA) strain of P berghei was inoculated intraperitoneally into Swiss albino mice. Mice were treated orally for 4 consecutive days, before and after inoculation (prophylactic, suppressive, and curative models) with graded doses of the plant extracts with Artemether-Lumefantrine (Coartem) as control. Prophylactically, the extract showed a remarkable activity in the chemosuppression of P berghei parasites (P