SIDEKICK: Genomic data driven analysis and decision-making framework

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Scientists striving to unlock mysteries within complex biological systems face myriad barriers in effectively integrating available information to enhance their understanding. While experimental techniques and available data sources are rapidly evolving, useful information is dispersed across a variety of sources, and sources of the same information often do not use the same format or nomenclature. To harness these expanding resources, scientists need tools that bridge nomenclature differences and allow them to integrate, organize, and evaluate the quality of information without extensive computation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Sidekick, a genomic data driven analysis and decision making framework, is a web-based tool that provides a user-friendly intuitive solution to the problem of information inaccessibility. Sidekick enables scientists without training in computation and data management to pursue answers to research questions like "What are the mechanisms for disease X" or "Does the set of genes associated with disease X also influence other diseases." Sidekick enables the process of combining heterogeneous data, finding and maintaining the most up-to-date data, evaluating data sources, quantifying confidence in results based on evidence, and managing the multi-step research tasks needed to answer these questions. We demonstrate Sidekick's effectiveness by showing how to accomplish a complex published analysis in a fraction of the original time with no computational effort using Sidekick.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Sidekick is an easy-to-use web-based tool that organizes and facilitates complex genomic research, allowing scientists to explore genomic relationships and formulate hypotheses without computational effort. Possible analysis steps include gene list discovery, gene-pair list discovery, various enrichments for both types of lists, and convenient list manipulation. Further, Sidekick's ability to characterize pairs of genes offers new ways to approach genomic analysis that traditional single gene lists do not, particularly in areas such as interaction discovery.</p

Building Machines That Learn and Think Like People

Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has renewed interest in building systems that learn and think like people. Many advances have come from using deep neural networks trained end-to-end in tasks such as object recognition, video games, and board games, achieving performance that equals or even beats humans in some respects. Despite their biological inspiration and performance achievements, these systems differ from human intelligence in crucial ways. We review progress in cognitive science suggesting that truly human-like learning and thinking machines will have to reach beyond current engineering trends in both what they learn, and how they learn it. Specifically, we argue that these machines should (a) build causal models of the world that support explanation and understanding, rather than merely solving pattern recognition problems; (b) ground learning in intuitive theories of physics and psychology, to support and enrich the knowledge that is learned; and (c) harness compositionality and learning-to-learn to rapidly acquire and generalize knowledge to new tasks and situations. We suggest concrete challenges and promising routes towards these goals that can combine the strengths of recent neural network advances with more structured cognitive models.Comment: In press at Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Open call for commentary proposals (until Nov. 22, 2016). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/information/calls-for-commentary/open-calls-for-commentar

No Strings Attached? Challenges and Successes in Creating a Flexible, Wire-free Active Learning Classroom

The purpose of this case study is to share the challenges and successes of a library’s attempt to create a library electronic classroom that both utilizes the principles of active learning and is entirely flexible wire-free. This paper highlights the challenges and successes of using these principles as goals as well as the survey results and experiences of the librarians that use this classroom. Design/methodology/approach: This case study included how other active learning electronic classrooms were evaluated in order to redesign an electronic classroom for the library and how we surveyed its users over the time since the classroom was created. Findings: There are still major challenges in having a truly wirefree classroom including authentication policies, wireless display technology, and instructor’s station mobility and student laptop control. Successes include the use of flexible furniture s, battery-power management solutions, and using multiple wireless devices in a single room. Practical implications of this paper include recommendation and priorities for planning this type of upgrade for your library electronic classroom. Originality/value: Very little has been written—in professional literature or information available from vendors--about the issues involved with wirelessly displaying a computer screen to multiple devices in a classroom

Community-engaged dramaturgy : the role of young audiences in New Work development

textTheatre for young audiences (TYA) is a field defined by its intergenerational audiences, and TYA artists have the responsibility to engage this target audience as active participants at all stages of the creative process. While young people have opportunities to act as artistic agents in the related areas of youth theatre and theatre education, where their participation is the focus of the work, TYA needs to further explore the role of young people in professional theatre-making spaces. Building on emerging scholarship and practices of involving young people in new play development, this thesis documents significant current practices and examines the collaboration between first grade students and theatre artists at UT Austin in depth. The findings in this thesis invite TYA artists and scholars to consider how intergenerational collaboration affects new work development process and product and create space for youth to influence the theatre adult artists create with and for them in TYA.Theatre and Danc