Stepping Into Prison: Communication Activism and Pedagogy Beyond Classrooms

Autoethnographic methods are used to examine and reflect on my experiences over seven years as a volunteer participant and co-facilitator of communication-based workshops in prison settings. Framing practice-based discoveries as engaged scholarship, I consider the potential impact of immersive, embodied co-learning processes with inmates and the ways in which scholars, artists, and activists can help bridge divides between prisons, communities, and campuses. Situating this work within the U.S. history of mass incarceration, I argue that Alternatives to Violence Project workshops function as critical communication pedagogies that work to build community and the compassion needed to support activist movements for decarceration and social justice.

Fully Open-Access Passive Dry Electrodes BIOADC: Open-Electroencephalography (EEG) Re-Invented

The Open-electroencephalography (EEG) framework is a popular platform to enable EEG measurements and general purposes Brain Computer Interface experimentations. However, the current platform is limited by the number of available channels and electrode compatibility. In this paper we present a fully configurable platform with up to 32 EEG channels and compatibility with virtually any kind of passive electrodes including textile, rubber and contactless electrodes. Together with the full hardware details, results and performance on a single volunteer participant (limited to alpha wave elicitation), we present the brain computer interface (BCI)2000 EEG source driver together with source code as well as the compiled (.exe). In addition, all the necessary device firmware, gerbers and bill of materials for the full reproducibility of the presented hardware is included. Furthermore, the end user can vary the dry-electrode reference circuitry, circuit bandwidth as well as sample rate to adapt the device to other generalized biopotential measurements. Although, not implemented in the tested prototype, the Biomedical Analogue to Digital Converter BIOADC naturally supports SPI communication for an additional 32 channels including the gain controller. In the appendix we describe the necessary modification to the presented hardware to enable this function.

The organizing practices of a community festival

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a part of a research study, undertaken over three years, in which the author observed the organization of an annual, community-based, arts and crafts festival in rural central Sweden. By examining the participation of a specific village community group in the organization of the festival, this paper sets out to explore links between the practices of organizing and the culture of a community group engaged in them. Design/methodology/approach – The research study was conducted over three annual cycles of the festival, and its methods reflected the author's position as both a tourist visitor to the festival and a volunteer participant. This paper presents a “thick-description” of the work of a single community volunteer group in the annual organization their village's festival contribution, based on observational and informal interview data from the author's position as a member of that group, and some of the photographic data gathered. Findings – The account presented in this paper offers an examination of the annual routines of a small village community group in organizing their contribution to the broader multi-site festival event observed in the research study. The introduction of anthropological concepts linked to ritual practices extends the understanding of organizing in this setting. Originality/value – A contribution to the development of an understanding of organizing in recurring, group-organized event settings through a detailed consideration of a micro-level ethnographic study data.

User-adaptive Reminders for Home-based Medical Tasks

Summary Objectives: We present a prototype adaptive reminder system for home-based medical tasks. The system consists of a mobile device for reminder presentation and ambient sensors to determine opportune moments for reminder delivery. Our objective was to study interaction with the prototype under naturalistic living conditions and gain insight into factors affecting the longterm acceptability of context-sensitive reminder systems for the home setting. Methods: A volunteer participant used the prototype in a residential research facility while adhering to a regimen of simulated medical tasks for ten days. Some reminders were scheduled at fixed times during the day and some were automatically time-shifted based on sensor data. We made a complete video and sensor record of the stay. Finally, the participant commented about his experiences with the system in a debriefing interview. Results: Based on this case study, including direct observation of individual alert-action sequences, we make four recommendations for designers of context-sensitive adaptive reminder systems. Captured metrics suggest that adaptive reminders led to faster reaction times and were perceived by the participant as being more useful. Conclusions: The evaluation of context-sensitive systems that overlap into domestic lives is challenging. We believe that the ideal experiment is to deploy such systems in real homes and assess performance longitudinally. This case study in an instrumented live-in facility is a step toward that long-term goal.