The backstage of urban ambiances: When atmospheres pervade everyday experience

This paper explores a new way of designing and experimenting with the city. How are we to conceptualize the changes in contemporary cities on the basis of their ambiances? What about the sensory and emotional production of urban territories? What is at stake when our aim is no longer to design space but also to install an atmosphere? In order to answer such questions, rather than offering a formal definition of what an ambiance may be, I intend to show from what it proceeds, on what it is based, what it produces and transforms in urban life. The focus is exploring five ambiance operating modes in the province of urban design: establishing the sensory as a field of action, composing with affective tonalities, giving consistency to urban situations, maintaining spaces over time and playing with imperceptible transformations. Each of these operating modes can account for how a physical environment manages to become a lived ambiance, how a world of built forms manages to become a world of sensory atmospheres. Starting with the sensory environment itself, I show how it is increasingly becoming a domain of design and research. Then I emphasize on the role of affect in everyday urban situations and daily social activities. Thirdly I explore the pervasive character of an ambiance and question its capacity to unify an experience. I continue by pointing out the temporal dynamic of an ambiance and the necessity to sustain a sense of continuity of the environment. Finally I emphasize on the importance of micro-phenomena in the quality and immersive power of an ambiance. These five operating modes of ambiance enables us to focus on the very ordinary sensory fabric of urban life and its issues.     

The shared online whiteboard: An assistance tool to synchronous collaborative design

IntroductionThe work presented in this paper comes from an industrial need for the development of new support tools for remote collaborative design. Within this framework, we present a literature review on this concept and propose the development of an online collaborative whiteboard.ObjectiveThis study aims to determine whether or not shared whiteboards can be used for remote design task collaboration, in conjunction with online chat interactions. It additionally seeks to discover if the organization of relationships and interactions within groups alter the structure of task completion.MethodThis tool was evaluated through the remote design task of a data structure diagram with data collected from 42 computer science students. This approach was carried out through students in triads, separated into different rooms who communicated via online chat and/or whiteboard. There were two variables in this experimental design, the presence or absence of a project leader and the sequencing of exchanges (each member asked permission to use the tool). This experiment aimed to determine whether the task requested could be performed and if similarities to a natural situation could be observed. Data was collected from actions performed on the whiteboard and chat interactions. The observations were conducted using a verbal interactions observation grid that was taken from a natural synchronous collaborative design situation. It included different dimensions such as cognitive synchronization, the proposal and evaluation of solutions and non-task oriented interactions.ResultsThe results show that the tool allows students to collaborate. A variety of behaviors can be observed in terms of whiteboard usage and chat interactions that depend on the experimental conditions. This study shows that the tool may be used in a natural situation and that group consciousness and coordination are very important factors in this type of task. It is clear that the nature of the chat interaction depends on the role of the subject within the group. We also observed a high level of non-task oriented communication, which was more than we expected.ConclusionThe shared online whiteboard designed in this study allows for the completion of a collaborative design task with different groups structures.     

THE CHRISTIAN CORE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Intelligent design (ID) theorists assert that ID is a scientific theory that is merely consistent with some religious beliefs. Many critics point to the circumstantial evidence of the apparent development of ID from creation science and the affiliation of ID with mainstream evangelical organizations to assert its religious orientation. This article suggests that the position of ID proponents is a substantial understatement, and that beyond the circumstantial evidence of critics, fundamental Christian doctrine constitutes the essence of ID theory. The bulk of scholarship on ID is polarized into those for and against, as most focus on adjudicating ID truth claims, but this adversarial structure elides some important complexities. This article sets aside the truth claims of ID and focuses more broadly on the discourse in which it is situated to show the Christian core of ID and to examine several hallmarks of religion apparent from this perspective.     

JEAB Research Over Time: Species Used,Experimental Designs,Statistical Analyses,and Sex of Subjects

We examined the species used as subjects in every article published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) from 1958 through 2013. We also determined the sex of subjects in every article with human subjects (N = 524) and in an equal number of randomly selected articles with nonhuman subjects, as well as the general type of experimental designs used. Finally, the percentage of articles reporting an inferential statistic was determined at 5-year intervals. In all, 35,317 subjects were studied in 3,084 articles; pigeons ranked first and humans second in number used. Within-subject experimental designs were more popular than between-subjects designs regardless of whether human or nonhuman subjects were studied but were used in a higher percentage of articles with nonhumans (75.4 %) than in articles with humans (68.2 %). The percentage of articles reporting an inferential statistic has increased over time, and more than half of the articles published in 2005 and 2010 reported one. Researchers who publish in JEAB frequently depart from Skinner’s preferred research strategy, but it is not clear whether such departures are harmful. Finally, the sex of subjects was not reported in a sizable percentage of articles with both human and nonhuman subjects. This is an unfortunate oversight.     

ICT – the new frontier? Pushing the boundaries of careers practice

Much progress has been made in integrating information and communications technology (ICT) into careers practice, but there is still room for improvement. An international lens is adopted to examine some key elements that contribute to the successful integration of ICT into careers practice. We start by exploring the role of policy, using the UK as a case study. Next, the perceptions that Finnish career practitioners have of ICT are reviewed using research findings into the different ways they think about social media and its purpose in career services. Finally, lessons learned from the design and integration of online services within career development programming in Canada are discussed that ensure accessibility both to practitioners and their clients.     

When Birds of a Feather Flock Together: The Role of Core-Self Evaluations and Moral Intensity in the Relationship Between Network Unethicality and Unethical Choice

Leveraging perspectives from social cognitive theory, the attention-based view, and social networks literatures, we tested the relationship between unethical choice and network unethicality, which we define as respondents’ perceptions of their peer advisors’ unethical choices. Although social cognitive theory predicts that perceptions of peer advisor unethical choice are positively associated with unethical choice, we theorize that the nature of this relationship depends on the personality of the actor (core self-evaluation) and the situation (moral intensity). Results from a lagged study suggest that individual and situational variables may act as key buffers to the adverse impact of unethical social influence on ethical choice. Strengths, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.     

Exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy for irritable bowel syndrome. A single-case experimental design across 13 subjects

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a highly prevalent disorder with a significant impact on quality of life. The presence of psychological symptoms in IBS patients such as catastrophic worry and behavioral avoidance suggests the possible efficacy of cognitive behavioral interventions. Exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven to be a promising approach but has only been investigated in a few studies and mainly via the Internet. Therefore, the aims of this study were to extend and replicate previous findings and to evaluate whether an individual, face-to-face, exposure-based CBT leads to improvement in gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, avoidance behavior and quality of life in IBS patients. Thirteen patients with IBS according to Rome III criteria participated in a single-case experimental study using a five-week baseline and a subsequent twelve-session intervention phase focusing on psycho-education, mindfulness and in vivo exposure. Standardized measurement of gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, avoidance behavior and quality of life was conducted weekly during baseline as well as intervention phase and at six-month follow-up. Results showed that over 70% of patients improved significantly on gastrointestinal symptoms, pain catastrophizing, and quality of life. Effects on avoidance behavior were modest. These results strengthen and extend earlier findings and provide further support for the efficacy of exposure-based strategies for IBS.     

First Among Equals: Hybridization of Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment and Evidence-Centered Game Design

The objective of the present article is to explore differences and similarities between cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) and evidence-centered game design (ECgD) in the service of intentional hybridization. Although some testing specialists might argue that both are essentially the same given their origins in principled assessment design and equivalency of measurement models, this view misses differences in their focus and operationalization. Given the strengths of both CDA and ECgD, there is motivation to consider ways in which each can deliberately inform the other. The intentional hybridization of CDA and ECgD has, at least in principle, significant advantages to produce a stronger offspring than either parent alone. The article includes four sections: (1) conceptual differences between CDA and ECgD, (2) conceptual similarities between CDA and ECgD, (3) challenges with CDA and ECgD, including narrowness of cognitive models, fidelity with learning, ocean of data, sensitivity to diverse learners, reliance on multidimensional psychometric models, and how hybridization may help, and (4) implications for educational assessment in the twenty-first century around the globe.     

Pupillometry reveals increased pupil size during indirect request comprehension

Fluctuations in pupil size have been shown to reflect variations in processing demands during lexical and syntactic processing in language comprehension. An issue that has not received attention is whether pupil size also varies due to pragmatic manipulations. In two pupillometry experiments, we investigated whether pupil diameter was sensitive to increased processing demands as a result of comprehending an indirect request versus a direct statement. Adult participants were presented with 120 picture–sentence combinations that could be interpreted either as an indirect request (a picture of a window with the sentence “it's very hot here”) or as a statement (a picture of a window with the sentence “it's very nice here”). Based on the hypothesis that understanding indirect utterances requires additional inferences to be made on the part of the listener, we predicted a larger pupil diameter for indirect requests than statements. The results of both experiments are consistent with this expectation. We suggest that the increase in pupil size reflects additional processing demands for the comprehension of indirect requests as compared to statements. This research demonstrates the usefulness of pupillometry as a tool for experimental research in pragmatics.