Faculty Scholarship
Showing 1 - 10 of 733 Items
The Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and the cognitive assessment of prefrontal executive functions: A critical update
Date: 2009-12-01
Creator: Erika Nyhus, Francisco Barceló
Access: Open access
- For over four decades the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) has been one of the most distinctive tests of prefrontal function. Clinical research and recent brain imaging have brought into question the validity and specificity of this test as a marker of frontal dysfunction. Clinical studies with neurological patients have confirmed that, in its traditional form, the WCST fails to discriminate between frontal and non-frontal lesions. In addition, functional brain imaging studies show rapid and widespread activation across frontal and non-frontal brain regions during WCST performance. These studies suggest that the concept of an anatomically pure test of prefrontal function is not only empirically unattainable, but also theoretically inaccurate. The aim of the present review is to examine the causes of these criticisms and to resolve them by incorporating new methodological and conceptual advances in order to improve the construct validity of WCST scores and their relationship to prefrontal executive functions. We conclude that these objectives can be achieved by drawing on theory-guided experimental design, and on precise spatial and temporal sampling of brain activity, and then exemplify this using an integrative model of prefrontal function [i.e., Miller, E. K. (2000). The prefrontal cortex and cognitive control. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 1, 59-65.] combined with the formal information theoretical approach to cognitive control [Koechlin, E., & Summerfield, C. (2007). An information theoretical approach to prefrontal executive function. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 229-235.]. © 2009 Elsevier Inc.
Differential gene expression during compensatory sprouting of dendrites in the auditory system of the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus
Date: 2009-08-01
Creator: H. W. Horch, S. S. McCarthy, S. L. Johansen, J. M. Harris
Access: Open access
- Neurones that lose their presynaptic partners because of injury usually retract or die. However, when the auditory interneurones of the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus are denervated, dendrites respond by growing across the midline and forming novel synapses with the opposite auditory afferents. Suppression subtractive hybridization was used to detect transcriptional changes 3 days after denervation. This is a stage at which we demonstrate robust compensatory dendritic sprouting. Whereas 49 unique candidates were down-regulated, no sufficiently up-regulated candidates were identified at this time point. Several candidates identified in this study are known to influence the translation and degradation of proteins in other systems. The potential role of these factors in the compensatory sprouting of cricket auditory interneurones in response to denervation is discussed. © 2009 The Royal Entomological Society.
The draw-a-computational-creativity-researcher test (DACCRT): Exploring stereotypic images and descriptions of computational creativity
Date: 2019-01-01
Creator: Sarah Harmon, Katie McDonough
Access: Open access
- Prior work investigating student perceptions of scientists has revealed commonly-held beliefs, stereotypes, and even connections to career choices. We adapt the “Draw-A-Scientist” instrument to examine how undergraduates depict computational creativity researchers and the field of computational creativity as a whole. Our results indicate that there are significant differences when students are asked to draw or describe a computer scientist versus a computational creativity researcher. Whether the student is an upper-level or introductory computer science student appears to also influence responses.
“I Never Saw as Good a Nature Show Before”: Walt Disney, Environmental Education, and the True-Life Adventures
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Charles Dorn
Access: Open access
- Alongside Walt Disney’s animated movies, television programming, and theme parks, scholars have examined The Walt Disney Studios’ True-Life Adventures series of live-action nature documentary films for their impact on popular culture. Historians, however, have mostly overlooked the significance of the True-Life Adventures for student learning about the natural world. Amending this historiographical shortcoming, this essay examines Disney’s innovative approach to wildlife filmmaking, describes viewers’ reactions to the True-Life Adventures’ educational qualities, and investigates the Studios’ efforts to use the films to enter the education market. The study breaks new ground by analyzing seldom accessed documents preserved in theWalt Disney Archives both to reveal how students, teachers, and college and university faculty responded to the films and to examine the extension of the nature documentaries through related media.
Swarm-based path creation in dynamic environments for search and rescue
Date: 2012-01-01
Creator: William K. Richard, Stephen M. Majercik
Access: Open access
Digital Humanities and Italian Studies: Intersections and Oppositions
Date: 2019-07-03
Creator: Crystal Hall
Access: Open access
- This article examines the relationship between two fields of study, Italian Studies and Digital Humanities (DH), by documenting projects that employ digital or computational methods in the study of Italian language, literature, history, and the arts. In a complementary fashion, the author outlines the analytical questions of Italian scholars that have potential to advance inquiry in DH. A final section is devoted to contextualizing DH within the practice of Italian Studies at the institutional, program, and department levels by drawing on research of course offerings and a survey circulated in August 2017. The overall finding is that the area of overlap between DH and Italian Studies is intellectually rich, with increasing (yet still sparse) opportunities to develop specialization in this area.
Promoting the "Public Welfare" in Wartime: Stanford University during World War II
Date: 2005-11-01
Creator: Charles Dorn
Access: Open access
- As with many U.S. colleges and universities during World War II, Stanford University responded to the demands of mobilization by increasing its commitment to technical training and adopting a defense research agenda. In a striking departure from this national trend, however, Stanford also established its School of Humanities in 1942. By examining such seemingly disparate pursuits, this study reveals the complexity of the challenges that confronted institutions of higher education throughout the war era. Stanford University's simultaneous embrace of these programs illuminates broad concerns regarding the role of higher education in fostering civic-mindedness in a society denned by rapid technological advance and the perception of an ever-increasing threat to national security. © 2005 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
Voluntary sustainability standards could significantly reduce detrimental impacts of global agriculture
Date: 2019-02-05
Creator: W. K. Smith, E. Nelson, J. A. Johnson, S. Polasky, J. C., Milder, J. S. Gerber, P. C. West, S. Siebert, K. A. Brauman
Access: Open access
- Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) are stakeholder-derived principles with measurable and enforceable criteria to promote sustainable production outcomes. While institutional commitments to use VSS to meet sustainable procurement policies have grown rapidly over the past decade, we still have relatively little understanding of the (i) direct environmental benefits of large-scale VSS adoption; (ii) potential perverse indirect impacts of adoption; and (iii) implementation pathways. Here, we illustrate and address these knowledge gaps using an ecosystem service modeling and scenario analysis of Bonsucro, the leading VSS for sugarcane. We find that global compliance with the Bonsucro environmental standards would reduce current sugarcane production area (−24%), net tonnage (−11%), irrigation water use (−65%), nutrient loading (−34%), and greenhouse gas emissions from cultivation (−51%). Under a scenario of doubled global sugarcane production, Bonsucro adoption would further limit water use and greenhouse gas emissions by preventing sugarcane expansion into water-stressed and high-carbon stock ecosystems. This outcome was achieved via expansion largely on existing agricultural lands. However, displacement of other crops could drive detrimental impacts from indirect land use. We find that over half of the potential direct environmental benefits of Bonsucro standards under the doubling scenario could be achieved by targeting adoption in just 10% of global sugarcane production areas. However, designing policy that generates the most environmentally beneficial Bonsucro adoption pathway requires a better understanding of the economic and social costs of VSS adoption. Finally, we suggest research directions to advance sustainable consumption and production.
Evaluating democracy: The 1946 U.S. education mission to Germany
Date: 2005-06-01
Creator: Charles Dorn
Access: Open access
- Following World War II, a group of American educators was assigned the task of evaluating the U.S. military government's program for reconstructing Germany's educational system. Although issuing a generally positive report, this education mission identified a number of persistent tensions that ultimately undermined America's efforts to rehabilitate and reform German schooling. As with the American occupation of Germany during the postwar era, current U.S. foreign policy directives include establishing educational institutions in the "broader Middle East" as a primary mechanism for inculcating democratic values and ideals. Determining America's success with these efforts, especially in ideologically conservative nations, poses a significant challenge to evaluators. Through an analysis of the 1946 Report of the United States Education Mission to Germany, this article presents a historical case study of the stumbling blocks, failings, and successes of one attempt to evaluate efforts in infusing democratic values into educational institutions in a fallen totalitarian state. © 2005 American Evaluation Association.
DC-SSAT: A divide-and-conquer approach to solving stochastic satisfiability problems efficiently
Date: 2005-12-01
Creator: Stephen M. Majercik, Byron Boots
Access: Open access
- We present DC-SSAT, a sound and complete divide-and-conquer algorithm for solving stochastic satisfiability (SSAT) problems that outperforms the best existing algorithm for solving such problems (ZANDER) by several orders of magnitude with respect to both time and space. DC-SSAT achieves this performance by dividing the SSAT problem into subproblems based on the structure of the original instance, caching the viable partial assignments (VPAs) generated by solving these subproblems, and using these VPAs to construct the solution to the original problem. DC-SSAT does not save redundant VPAs and each VPA saved is necessary to construct the solution. Furthermore, DC-SSAT builds a solution that is already human-comprehensible, allowing it to avoid the costly solution rebuilding phase in ZANDER. As a result, DC-SSAT is able to solve problems using, typically, 1-2 orders of magnitude less space than ZANDER, allowing DC-SSAT to solve problems ZANDER cannot solve due to space constraints. And, in spite of its more parsimonious use of space, DC-SSAT is typically 1-2 orders of magnitude faster than ZANDER. We describe the DC-SSAT algorithm and present empirical results comparing its performance to that of ZANDER on a set of SSAT problems. Copyright © 2005, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.