Relatively little scholarly work addresses parental experiences with bullying in the United States. This lack of understanding about parental perceptions of bullying is a gap in both the scholarly research and the development of effective bullying prevention programming. This paper presents data from responses to a series of open-ended questions about perceptions of and experiences with bullying from 50 parents in a southeastern state. Parents self-reported their level of concern about bullying, their perceptions of why bullying occurs and the extent of bullying at their school, and their communication strategies with their children about bullying. Findings demonstrate that most parents 1) view bullying as problematic and are somewhat fearful of bullying affecting their child, 2) are confident their child is not telling them about all bullying situations they experience, and 3) are more than willing to approach school administrators when their children are victims of bullying. The findings suggest that parents remain concerned about bullying and its problematic nature, and efforts to encourage children to report bullying to adults are not entirely effective. Consequently, bullying prevention training will benefit from greater parental involvement with (and reinforcement of) bullying prevention strategies learned by children at school. Implications for policy and research are also discussed.

Brain injuries can create life-altering challenges and have the potential to leave people with permanent disabilities. Art therapy is a popular method used for treating many of the disabilities that can accompany a brain injury. In a systematic review, an assessment of how art is being used in virtual reality (VR) was conducted, and the feasibility of brain injury patients to participate in virtual art therapy was investigated. Studies included in this review highlight the importance of artistic subject matter, sensory stimulation, and measurable performance outcomes for assessing the effect art therapy has on motor impairment in VR. Although there are limitations to using art therapy in a virtual environment, studies show that it can feasibly be used in virtual reality for neurorehabilitation purposes.

Software-reliability models (SRMs) are used for the assessment and improvement of reliability in software systems. These models are normally based on stochastic processes, with the nonhomogeneous Poisson process being one of the most prominent model forms. An underlying assumption of these models is that software failures occur randomly in time. This assumption has never been quantitatively tested. Our contribution in this paper is to conduct an experimental investigation that contrasts random processes with nonlinear deterministic processes as a model for software failures. We study two sets of real-world software-reliability data using the techniques of chaotic time-series analysis. We have found that both appear to arise from a deterministic process, rather than a stochastic process, and that both show some evidence of chaotic dynamics. In addition, we have conducted a series of k-steps-ahead forecasting experiments in the datasets, pitting a number of well-known stochastic SRMs against radial basis function networks (RBFNs), which are deterministic in nature. The out-of-sample prediction results from the RBFNs showed an improvement of roughly 25% over the best of the stochastic models, for both of our datasets. Finally, we propose a causal model to explain these results, which hypothesizes that faults in a program are distributed over a fractal subset of the program's input space

This paper describes the development of a specialized application for voice command recognition for the Jaguar V4 robot in conjunction with the Starkville, MS, USA Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team during training. This training took place at The Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS), which provides a specialized environment for police SWAT training. This reconfigurable space, setup during this study as a two bedroom apartment, includes video monitoring of the space, sound playback and capturing, reconfigurable lighting, etc. This training environment is used for testing different kinds of human-robot interfaces in SWAT training operations. The results of the voice integration evaluation indicated that voice commands could be successfully used for controlling additional functions of the robot after a short introductory training session with a few of the police officers. These preliminary observations were encouraging and provides support for further investigation into the usefulness of this technology.

Ten questions to guide reflection and assessment of the “good” in robotics projects are suggested.