Worcester Polytechnic Institute

About: Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a education organization based out in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Population. The organization has 6270 authors who have published 12704 publications receiving 332081 citations. The organization is also known as: WPI.

City-Regions and Social Reproduction: A ‘Place’ for Sustainable Development?

Abstract: Recent studies have suggested a city-region’s competitiveness is based not only on production, but social reproduction. These issues as well as the policy measures adopted by many city-regions are frequently couched in a discourse of ‘sustainable development’. But as an analytical framework how well does the concept of sustainable development account for the dynamics of social reproduction and the sustainability of a city-region? This article examines the possible relationship between city-regions and sustainable development at a conceptual level. We argue that despite some excellent work on the concept of ‘just sustainability’, current constructions of sustainable development are inadequate to capture the broad array of social and economic issues found in the city-region. As a way forward we initiate a discussion between the sustainability literature and labor geography, and provide a case study of a hospital privatization process in Boston, USA, which has been framed by a politics of city-regionalism.

Accounting for Beneficial Effects of Worked Examples in Tutored Problem Solving

Abstract: Recent studies have tested the addition of worked examples to tutored problem solving, a more effective instructional approach than the untutored problem solving used in prior worked example research. These studies involved Cognitive Tutors, software designed to support problem solving while minimizing extraneous cognitive load by providing prompts for problem sub-goals, step-based immediate feedback, and context-sensitive hints. Results across eight studies in three different domains indicate that adding examples to Cognitive Tutors is beneficial, particularly for decreasing the instructional time needed and perhaps also for achieving more robust learning outcomes. These studies bolster the practical importance of examples in learning, but are also of theoretical interest. By using a stronger control condition than previous studies, these studies provide a basis for refining Cognitive Load Theory explanations of the benefits of examples. Perhaps, in addition to other reasons, examples may help simply because they more quickly provide novices with information needed to induce generalized knowledge.

Hybrid Localization of Microrobotic Endoscopic Capsule Inside Small Intestine by Data Fusion of Vision and RF Sensors

Abstract: Wireless capsule endoscope (WCE) offers a noninvasive investigation of the entire small intestine, which other conventional wired endoscopic instruments can barely reach. As a critical component of the capsule endoscopic examination, physicians need to keep track of the 3D trajectory that the capsule has traveled inside the lower abdomen to identify the positions of the intestinal abnormalities after they are found by the video source. However, existing commercially available radio frequency (RF)-based localization systems can only provide inaccurate and discontinuous position estimation of the WCE due to nonhomogeneity of body tissues and highly complicated distribution of the intestinal tube. In this paper, we present a hybrid localization technique, which takes advantage of data fusion of multiple sensors inside the WCE, to enhance the positioning accuracy and construct the 3-D trajectory of the WCE. The proposed hybrid technique extracts motion information of the WCE from the image sequences captured by the capsule's embedded visual sensor and combines it with the RF signal emitted by the wireless capsule, to simultaneously localize the WCE and mapping the path traveled by the WCE. Experimental results show that the proposed hybrid algorithm is able to reduce the average localization error from 6.8 cm to <;2.3 cm of the existing RF localization systems and a 3-D map can be precisely constructed to represent the position of the WCE inside small intestine.