This project focuses on the importance of community, health, and self-discipline for students in the K-12 school system. The proposed system will incorporate a self defense system to be used by children in K-12 educational environments.. Utilizing mobile interfaces, the YALLA program is designed to provide a hybrid course in exercise and self-defense. The goal is to promote community building, healthy lifestyles, and self-discipline among students, faculty, staff, and parents. Krav Maga, Israel’s national martial arts program, was the target defense style researched when developing the YALLA program. Skills needed for basic threat neutralization can be achieved with careful implementation of basic maneuvers in a controlled and non-hostile environment. Secondary research was collected on Krav Maga to ascertain the importance of this national martial arts program in the Israeli culture. The student team collected various articles and video demonstrations. Once resources were gathered, the principles of Krav Maga were used as the foundation to build the model of an interactive mobile interface, Yallo. This system promotes gaming as a strategy for learning the basics of threat neutralization and self defense. Through the use of the proposed application and in-class interaction with teachers, students are awarded for high performance and skill improvement. Awards and features are unlocked through level completion verification of by teachers. Ideally, student progression would begin in Kindergarten and continue through high school. This system gives students the skills needed for the changing world around them while providing community building, promoting healthy lifestyles, and encouraging self-discipline.

Italian culture is widely popular and despite great complexity between regions, it is often stereotyped, particularly by Americans. My own travels to several major Italian cities shifted my perspective on Italy as a unified, homogenous nation to one that might be defined by fragmented micro-cultures with stronger regional ties than national ones. In order to account for this phenomenon, I have undertaken my own cultural study of Italy through Trieste, a city on the northeastern border. Initially exposed to Trieste through my research on the Triestine author Italo Svevo and his novel La Coscienza di Zeno, I visited the city in November to gain an insider perspective on the culture. With the help of a local Triestine, I discovered that the city hardly fits into the neat classification of an Italian city due to its conflicted history and highly heterogeneous cultural makeup as well as linguistic distinctions. Taking my own personal experiences in Trieste and fleshing them out with research in both English and Italian, I am now examining Trieste within the larger context of Italy using historical, linguistic and cultural anthropological investigative techniques to shift how we view Italy and rethink the criteria for how we classify cultures, Italian or otherwise, as Trieste cannot be tied to one place or culture with certainty. My research will potentially be augmented by a return trip to Trieste in May of 2015 to gain further insights on Trieste that will serve as the context for my research on Italo Svevo’s works.

Kent State’s National Student Exchange (NSE) is a study away program available for any undergraduate student enrolled at the university who has sophomore status or higher. NSE gives students the ability to study away for a semester or one academic year at any of the program’s schools.

Primary and secondary research revealed NSE faces a lack of awareness, excitement and participation among the Kent State student and faculty population. During interviews with freshman psychology, biology and business management students, these key audiences expressed interest in the program. However, the students said certain obstacles would keep them from participating.

We created a two year plan that includes objectives, strategies and tactics filled with print and digital media, along with small and large scale face-to-face tactics. Through print and digital media, we planned to encourage these students to participate and create awareness of the program. We advised a partnership with groups associated with specific majors to help promote NSE events and build a relationship with each key audience. Finally, to include the entire campus and show any student is a good fit for the program, we drafted larger scale events that will encourage students to participate in fun activities and inform them about NSE. If implemented, the two year plan will increase the annual average of Kent State NSE participants to 30 by February 2016, and to 55 by February 2017.

Purpose: Research has examined what is called a “Singer’s Ring” in the voices of professional singers. Acoustically, a clustering of formants is seen from 3 kHz to 4 kHz on vowels. Similar formants in speaking voice have been reported for professional speakers actors but has not been studied extensively. Voice therapy by speech-language pathologists may incorporate resonant voice therapy of various types to improve the quality and power of speaking voice. I have long been interested in “Singer’s Ring” and wanted to know more. As a speech-language pathology undergraduate student, Dr. Schmidt suggested that I could investigate this clustering of formants in speakers’ voices to compare normal and resonant voice using acoustic and physiological methods.

Method: Two participants were recorded repeating vowels in carrier phrases with normal voice and again with resonant voice. In addition, vocal structures for each participant will be examined using nasendoscopy (fiberoptic viewing of the vocal folds) producing the same materials.

Summary Findings: It is expected that a clustering of formants will be evident in resonant voice but not evident in normal voice. Also, a lowered larynx will result in an additional resonator in resonant voice creating an extra formant frequency. This resonator should not be present in normal voice.

Conclusion: It is expected that evidence will be found to support the existence of resonant voice that is similar to evidence found for “Singer’s Ring”.

På isen iPhone Application

Students: Amanda Calvin, Gabe Schut, Kerry Butler, Ruby Kelly

Faculty Advisor: Associate Professor Gretchen Caldwell Rinnert

Problem:

As part of a senior level design course on interaction our design team developed an iPhone application concept for Bandy fans in Sweden. Our challenge was to build community involvement and participation for a subculture not our own. The application supports and enhances the experience of attending and watching Bandy through a reward system based on checking in when attending a game. Based on how many points a user acquires, he or she is able to engage in a secondary viewing experience. This view is through the helmet camera of a player; the user’s access to stream different player cams is based on the statistics of the player. Therefore, as the individual acquires additional points, he or she is able to view a higher ranked player’s helmet cam feed. The individual is then able to record this secondary viewing experience and share it on social media channels as well as with other På isen users at the stadium. This connects each individual user to the greater community of people attending the game — a completely unique interaction for fans.

Our user testing was limited to wireframe prototypes of the interface. Secondary research was compiled on the culture, the sport and the fan base.