voyeurism

Call for Proposals: Geographies of the here and now: inquiry of the hyperlocal as afforded by Data Science and the Internet of Things

Call for Proposals for a session to be held at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society, London, 29 August to 1 September 2023

 

Geographies of the here and now: inquiry of the hyperlocal as afforded by Data Science and the Internet of Things

 

The Internet of Things (IoT) has afforded the investigation of geographies at scales that have hitherto not been practicable. The relatively low cost of open-source hardware means that localized spaces can potentially be saturated with IoT sensors, with the resulting datasets analysed through modelling in Data Science. Examples include their use in monitoring microclimates in urban farming and to improve energy efficiencies in so-called ‘smart’ homes and workplaces. Vey and Storring (2022) have appropriated the term ‘hyperlocal’ to refer to “place governance in a fragmented world”, by which they describe the distinct geographies of places at the scale of downtowns, waterfronts, and innovation districts. Similarly, in a presentation at the 2020 Geography Teacher Educators’ Conference hosted by the Geographical Association, Witt has described the hyperlocal as referring to “a very small geographical community, such as … a local patch”. Matthews (2020) has reminded us that the pandemic has catalysed renewed interest in the hyperlocal and in personal geographies. This session aims to explore the intersections of such geographies (of the hyperlocal and personal) through the lenses afforded by Data Science and the Internet of Things. Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

 

• Methodological approaches to investigations of the hyperlocal;

• Ethical implications of the use of IoT and Data Science in such investigations;

• Empirical studies of hyperlocal and / or personal geographies;

• Personal geographies of health and well-being, particularly as seen through the lenses of IoT and Data Science; and

• Citizen science and the democratization of geographical investigation of the hyperlocal.

 

Enquiries to Kenneth Y T Lim (kenneth.lim at nie.edu.sg) are welcome.

 

Session organizer:

 

Name: Kenneth Y T Lim

Affiliation: National Institute of Education, Singapore

 

Presenters are kindly invited to submit their proposals to the session organizer by the 10th of March 2023. Proposals should minimally comprise the title of the paper, an abstract (of up to 150 words), and full contact details.

co-hosting students from CHIJ Secondary for their Work Experience Programme

my team and i are happy to be given the opportunity to co-host some students from the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) Secondary School, with a few of my colleagues from the Sustainability Learning Lab, National Institute of Education.

this opportunity comes under the auspices of the school's Work Experience Programme, and our team will be co-hosting on the afternoon of the 1st of November.

the objectives of the programme are:

- to provide an experience in which the students familiarise themselves with a variety of work situations through attachment to a workplace and they learn through direct participation and observation;

- to build life skills for the world of work; and

- to help the students make informed decisions regarding career selection.

we are happy and grateful to be part of this opportunity :-)

The Life2Well Project: new student-initiated investigations under its aegis

for about a year, we have been sharing our work on Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being (The Life2Well Project). 

its mandate is deliberately framed broadly to encompass student-initiated inquiry in to their own health and well-being.

this year, we are excited and happy to share that students whom we mentor are currently working on the next suite of projects; these include:

- Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Sleep Analysis systems;

- An investigation on the effects of different types of fragrance on stress level of junior college students;

- Design and prototyping of an AI-based real-time detector for the calisthenic push up exercise;

- Investigation of the effects of microclimate on concentration levels; and

- Mitigating anxiety and stress: Investigating features of Lo-fi Music as attributed to its calming effects.

Disciplinary Intuitions: welcoming college students to NTU's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) AY 2022 / 2023

further to my post two months’ ago, my team and i are really happy and privileged to welcome four college students (from a total of twenty-three applicants) to our projects offered under NTU’s Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme for the Academic Year 2022 / 2023.

 

three of our students are from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and the fourth is pursuing a Double Major from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the School of Computer Science and Engineering.

 

the opportunity to participate in URECA is extended through invitation only to select second- and third-year undergraduates, who will subsequently be conferred as NTU President Research Scholars.

 

the projects we have offered are:

 

NIE22349 – Investigating local micro-climate and thermal comfort with open-source

 

NIE22355 – Designing a neural network-based approach for generating custom feedback based on stakeholder specifications for novice coders

 

NIE22356 – Designing a tool to analyse and score the readability of source code with a view towards encouraging programmers to improve the readability of their code

 

NIE22357 – Training Natural Language Processing (NLP) models to parse and analyse Python code in order to predict logic errors with the aim of improving the process of debugging code

The Life2Well Project: Investigating the Relationship between Physiological Stress and Environmental Factors through Data Science, the Internet of Things and Do-it-Yourself Wearables

my team and i are very happy to share news of our second publication in the field of the Science of Learning :-) our chapter - The Life2Well Project: Investigating the Relationship between Physiological Stress and Environmental Factors through Data Science, the Internet of Things and Do-it-Yourself Wearables - is published in the book 'Citizen Science - Methods, Approaches and New Perspectives' edited by Alessio Vovlas.

since April 2021, we have been working hard on Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being (the Life2Well Project), in which we aim to afford learners opportunities to learn about their own learning, while they are learning, from a citizen science perspective.

the abstract of our chapter reads:

This chapter reports a study conducted by students as an independent research project under the mentorship of a Research Scientist at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. In the Life2Well Project (Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being) identical units of a wearable device containing environmental sensors (such as ambient temperature, air pressure, infrared radiation and relative humidity) were designed and worn respectively by five adolescents from July to December 2021. Over the same period, data from these sensors was complemented by that obtained from smartwatches (namely blood oxygen saturation, heart rate and its variability, body temperature, respiration rate and sleep score). More than 40,000 data points were eventually collected, and were processed through a random forest regression model, which is a supervised learning algorithm that uses ensemble learning methods for regression. Results showed that the most influential microclimatic factors on biometric indicators were noise, and the concentrations of carbon dioxide and dust. Subsequently, more complex inferences were made from Shapley value interpretation of the regression models. Such findings suggest implications for the design of living conditions with respect to the interaction of microclimate and human health and comfort.

the Life2Well Project at GeekcampSG

i am very happy and humbled to share that our team has been given an opportunity to share our work on Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being (the Life2Well Project) as part of the Headline Track at this year's GeekcampSG.

as the name suggests, GeekcampSG is a community tech conference. this year's event is taking place on the 29th of October.

my team and i are excited to have been given this opportunity, and we hope to see you at this year's event :-)

The Life2Well Project: Investigating the Effects of Microclimate on Physiological Stress and Brain Function with Data Science and Wearables

my team and i are very happy to share news of our very first publication in the field of the Science of Learning, with specific reference to neuroscience :-) our paper is published in a special issue of Sustainability, themed on 'Aspirations within Interdisciplinary STEM/STEAM Education under the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)'.

since April 2021, we have been working hard on Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being (the Life2Well Project), in which we aim to afford learners opportunities to learn about their own learning, while they are learning, from a citizen science perspective.

an important part of our work is the validation of our maker-centric electroencephalographic headsets against industrial grade headsets. 

with the help of Dr Yuvaraj Rajamanickam and Dr Jack Fogarty of the Science of Learning in Education Centre at the National Institute of Education, we report our work in Volume 14 Issue 17 of the journal, as Investigating the Effects of Microclimate on Physiological Stress and Brain Function with Data Science and Wearables.

the abstract of our paper reads:

This paper reports a study conducted by students as an independent research project under the mentorship of a research scientist at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. The aim of the study was to explore the relationships between local environmental stressors and physiological responses from the perspective of citizen science. Starting from July 2021, data from EEG headsets were complemented by those obtained from smartwatches (namely heart rate and its variability and body temperature and stress score). Identical units of a wearable device containing environmental sensors (such as ambient temperature, air pressure, infrared radiation, and relative humidity) were designed and worn, respectively, by five adolescents for the same period. More than 100,000 data points of different types—neurological, physiological, and environmental—were eventually collected and were processed through a random forest regression model and deep learning models. The results showed that the most influential microclimatic factors on the biometric indicators were noise and the concentrations of carbon dioxide and dust. Subsequently, more complex inferences were made from the Shapley value interpretation of the regression models. Such findings suggest implications for the design of living conditions with respect to the interaction of the microclimate and human health and comfort.

the Life2Well Project at the 12th annual symposium of the Mobiles for Education Alliance

today our team received news that we have been invited to share Learning at the intersection of AI, physiology, EEG, our environment and well-being (the Life2Well Project) during the 12th annual symposium of the Mobiles for Education Alliance.

we thank God for His continued grace and provision.

this year, the symposium is being conducted as a series of online events, with the overarching theme of Wondrous Learning is ...!

the particular event which will feature the Life2Well Project is scheduled as a STEM-themed panel moderated by Michael McCabe, who is the Regional Director, Inter-America and Pacific Region, Peace Corps, on the 2nd of November.

The mEducation Alliance was formed by USAID in 2010. It is an international collaborative effort between bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, foundations, private sector partners, and academic researchers. The collective agenda of the alliance is to: highlight and catalyze promising information and communications technology for education (ICT4E) practices and initiatives, particularly in low-resource and developing country context; to reduce duplicative efforts; to promote collective knowledge-sharing, and to identify and support efforts to evaluate and scale promising ICT4E interventions.

:-)

invited to speak by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore

my team and i are thrilled to share that - by God's grace alone - we have been invited to speak as part of the programme Transforming Higher Education Leaders through Effective Policy Reforms, organised by the Executive Education department of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

we will be facilitating an in-person session with about thirty-five leaders, administrators and consultants from higher education institutions from the Philippines, on the topic of Reinventing Education for the Digital Age, within the campus of the school on the 17th of November 2022.

the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy was founded in 2004 with the mission of developing thought leadership, improving standards of governance and transforming lives for a more sustainable world.

we are greatly humbled to be afforded this opportunity, and we thank the leadership and staff of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy for so graciously extending trust to us.

we will do our very best.

Disciplinary Intuitions / Six Learnings / Maker Motes / AI & data science offered as part of NTU's Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme 2022/23

are you an NTU undergraduate eligible for the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) programme 2022/23?

if so, please do consider applying for

NIE22044 Exploring the potential roles that game-based worlds and immersive environments play in learning

NIE22045 Exploring the development of maker dispositions in learning through open-source hardware and software

NIE22254 Exploring the role of coding, data science and machine learning in the Humanities classroom

NIE22255 Exploring the use of AI-augmented tools to provide feedback to novice coders :-)

it would be my privilege to work alongside you :-)