This paper discusses experimental studios within an incremental collaboration framework to better understand the opportunities of peer‐to‐peer learning and student collaboration. Using qualitative methods including observation, interviews, peer-evaluations, and descriptive assessments of student work, the study revealed that collaboration can lead to both progression and regression in overall learning processes depending on the approach (mandatory/self-directed), group composition, and how students arrive at common decisions. The findings suggest that a strategically designed studio structure combined with multiple, diversified collaboration strategies are essential to give students successful learning experiences in both explicit and tacit forms.

Various efforts are used to preserve American history including relying on formal education, distributing information (text, video or visual aids) on social channels, displaying artifacts in historical centers or more recently, virtual reality applications posted on a shared medium. However, many of the newly developed applications are designed specifically for dedicated hardware rather than for a broad audience, thus creating a barrier for disseminating cultural values. In this paper, we propose a web-based Augmented Reality (AR) application, namely PalmitoAR, which provides an intuitive way of observing one of the most significant historical Civil War battlefields, Palmito Ranch Battlefield located in Cameron County, Texas. The proposed AR application is designed to resurrect a series of events through (i) a printed map of Palmito Ranch with embedded markers that enables viewers to experience the battle without being present at the site, (ii) a mobile device with a WebGL supported browser that allows 3D contents to be rendered, and (iii) an AR library (A-Frame.io) that enables enthusiasts to recreate similar work. Our methodology strongly relies on the benefits of a simple, robust algorithm for AR marker recognition to position 3D models in a specific context and time. As a result, the proposed AR application is complementary to existing work and provides a seamless experience for a wide range of viewers. We evaluated and improved the application with the help of twenty-six users to gather perspectives on the specific benefits of employing AR in learning about battlefields and reenactment. The technology acceptance model was adapted to access an individual’s acceptance of information technology.

Vacant land in shrinking cities has long been associated with high crime rates and economic decline. While some efforts have been made to repurpose vacant land for tax revenue generation and temporary environmental restoration, a comprehensive framework for city-scale assessment and reprogramming remains lacking. To address this gap, our study introduced the Vacant Land Assessment System (VLAS), a multi-scale spatial analysis and planning tool that assesses the distribution and characteristics of vacant lots using publicly available spatial data. Taking Hartford, Connecticut as a case study, we assessed and categorized the characteristics of vacant lots into four typologies: Row House, Street Corner, Commercial/Industrial, and Main Street. Responding reuse programs for those typologies were generated and one design example of vacant lot greening was also provided based on identified sustainable goals and techniques. The VLAS serves as an effective planning support tool, enabling efficient assessment, classification, and planning for urban vacancy management across city, district, neighborhood, and site scales. This multi-scale planning and design approach to repurpose vacant lots with diverse physical characteristics offers valuable insights for transforming vacant land in other shrinking legacy cities for sustainability and neighborhood revitalization.

This study provides a novel approach to understand human perception changes in their experiences of and interactions with public greenspaces during the early months of COVID-19. Using social media data and machine learning techniques, the study delivers new understandings of how people began to feel differently about their experiences compared to pre-COVID times. The study illuminates a renewed appreciation of nature as well as an emerging but prominent pattern of emotional and spiritual experiences expressed through a social media platform. Given that most park and recreational studies have almost exclusively examined whether park use increased or decreased during the pandemic, this research provides meaningful implications beyond the simple extensional visit pattern and lends weight to the growing evidences on changing perceptions over and the positive psychological impacts of nature. The study highlights the preeminent roles parks and greenspaces play during the pandemic and guides a new direction in future park development to support more natural elements and nature-oriented experiences from which emotional and spiritual well-being outcomes can be drawn.

Energy-momentum conservation requires the associated gravitational fluxes on an asymptotically flat spacetime to scale as $1/r^2$, as $r\to \infty$, where $r$ is the distance between the observer and the source of the gravitational waves. We expand the equations of motion for the Deser-Woodard nonlocal gravity model up to quadratic order in metric perturbations, to compute its gravitational energy-momentum flux due to an isolated system. The contributions from the nonlocal sector contains $1/r$ terms proportional to the acceleration of the Newtonian energy of the system, indicating such nonlocal gravity models may not yield well-defined energy fluxes at infinity. In the case of the Deser-Woodard model, this divergent flux can be avoided by requiring the first and second derivatives of the nonlocal distortion function $f[X]$ at $X=0$ to be zero, i.e., $f^{\prime }[0]=0=f^{\prime \prime }[0]$. It would be interesting to investigate whether other classes of nonlocal models not involving such an arbitrary function can avoid divergent fluxes.