Advancing Expert Human-Computer Interaction Through Music

One of the most important challenges for computing over the next decade is discovering ways to augment and extend human control over ever more powerful, complex, and numerous devices and software systems. New high-dimensional input devices and control systems provide these affordances, but require extensive practice and learning on the part of the user. This paper describes a system created to leverage existing human expertise with a complex, highly dimensional interface, in the form of a trained violinist and violin. A machine listening model is employed to provide the musician and user with direct control over a complex simulation running on a high-performance computing system

Interactive High Performance Computing for Music

The origins of computer music are closely tied to the development of the first high-performance computers associated with major academic and research institutions. These institutions have continued to build extremely powerful computers, now containing thousands of CPUs with incredible processing power. Their precursors were typically designed to operate in non-real time, “batch” mode, and that tradition has remained a dominant paradigm for high performance computing. We describe experimental research in developing the interactive use of a modern high- performance machine, the Abe supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus, for real-time musical and artistic purposes. We describe the requirements, development, problems, and observations from this project.National Science Foundation, TG-DDM09000

The Potential of Erin Brokovitch to Introduce Organizaitonal Behavior Topics

Real organizational behavior is rich, and messy, and emotional, and at times painful, but at other times immensely rewarding. The movie, Erin Brockovich, captures this richness and provides an exciting means to introduce a variety of individual or micro- organizational behavior concepts (such as perception, personality, and motivation) typically covered at the beginning of the Organizational Behavior course. In this paper, we describe the use of the film, including a takehome viewing assignment, an in-class assignment, a description of clips and comments for in-class use, and suggestions for the types of issues to discuss in relation to the major topics and in relation to other potentially relevant areas. The richness of this film and the issues raised also provide the potential for more critical analyses of management and organizational practices

Patellofemoral pain: challenging current practice – a case report

Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is a common problem in young people, with 1 in 6 suffering at any one time. It is unclear which management approach is the optimal method for treating PFP in the long term, with traditional physiotherapy examination focusing on assessing for specific structural dysfunction. A rationale for a different assessment and treatment approach, one that moves the focus away from a biomedical/tissue pathology model towards one directed at the neurophysiology of pain, has been suggested. The patient was a 21 year old male with a 6 year history of PFP with previous failed physiotherapeutic treatment. He reported previous multiple healthcare practitioners' advice to avoid activities that were painful as reasons for being unable to participate in sporting activities. No specific structural testing was performed, such as specific muscle strength, length, foot position, patella movement and position, or movement patterns. Descriptions of tissue based pathology models of pain, e.g. patella mal-tracking, were actively discouraged and challenged. The patient was taught to perform one uncomfortable/painful exercise as part of his rehabilitation programme twice a day. The patient achieved 80% improvement in his symptoms over 7 appointments and a return to physical activity following a 5 month rehabilitation programme purposively designed to elicit pain by means of gradually exercising and loading the tissues. This case report highlights the need for further research into exercise protocols for patients suffering with PFP based upon neurophysiology models of pain

Web-Based Training for an Evidence-Supported Treatment: Training Completion and Knowledge Acquisition in a Global Sample of Learners

The purpose of this investigation is to describe the characteristics of professional and preprofessional learners who registered for and completed TF-CBTWeb, a modular, web-based training program designed to promote the dissemination of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and to demonstrate the feasibility of this method of dissemination. Between October 1, 2005, and October 1, 2012, a total of 123,848 learners registered for TF-CBTWeb, of whom 98,646 (79.7%) initiated the learning activities by beginning the first module pretest. Of those, 67,201 (68.1%) completed the full training. Registrants hailed from 130 countries worldwide, and they had varied educational backgrounds, professional identities (both professional and preprofessional), and a range of experience working with child trauma victims. Learners who were from the United States, students, those with master’s degrees, and those with fewer years of experience working with child trauma victims tended to have the highest course completion rates. Learners displayed significant increases in knowledge about each component of TF-CBT, based on module pretest and posttest scores. The advantages and limitations of this web-based training program evaluation are discussed, while important implications for the use of web-based trainings are reviewed

Type IV Pili Can Mediate Bacterial Motility within Epithelial Cells.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is among bacterial pathogens capable of twitching motility, a form of surface-associated movement dependent on type IV pili (T4P). Previously, we showed that T4P and twitching were required for P. aeruginosa to cause disease in a murine model of corneal infection, to traverse human corneal epithelial multilayers, and to efficiently exit invaded epithelial cells. Here, we used live wide-field fluorescent imaging combined with quantitative image analysis to explore how twitching contributes to epithelial cell egress. Results using time-lapse imaging of cells infected with wild-type PAO1 showed that cytoplasmic bacteria slowly disseminated throughout the cytosol at a median speed of >0.05 μm s-1 while dividing intracellularly. Similar results were obtained with flagellin (fliC) and flagellum assembly (flhA) mutants, thereby excluding swimming, swarming, and sliding as mechanisms. In contrast, pilA mutants (lacking T4P) and pilT mutants (twitching motility defective) appeared stationary and accumulated in expanding aggregates during intracellular division. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed that these mutants were not trapped within membrane-bound cytosolic compartments. For the wild type, dissemination in the cytosol was not prevented by the depolymerization of actin filaments using latrunculin A and/or the disruption of microtubules using nocodazole. Together, these findings illustrate a novel form of intracellular bacterial motility differing from previously described mechanisms in being directly driven by bacterial motility appendages (T4P) and not depending on polymerized host actin or microtubules.IMPORTANCE Host cell invasion can contribute to disease pathogenesis by the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa Previously, we showed that the type III secretion system (T3SS) of invasive P. aeruginosa strains modulates cell entry and subsequent escape from vacuolar trafficking to host lysosomes. However, we also showed that mutants lacking either type IV pili (T4P) or T4P-dependent twitching motility (i) were defective in traversing cell multilayers, (ii) caused less pathology in vivo, and (iii) had a reduced capacity to exit invaded cells. Here, we report that after vacuolar escape, intracellular P. aeruginosa can use T4P-dependent twitching motility to disseminate throughout the host cell cytoplasm. We further show that this strategy for intracellular dissemination does not depend on flagellin and resists both host actin and host microtubule disruption. This differs from mechanisms used by previously studied pathogens that utilize either host actin or microtubules for intracellular dissemination independently of microbe motility appendages

TEACH Kitchen: a Chronological Review of Accomplishments

Background: The Eating and Cooking Healthy (TEACH) Kitchen was founded at the Medical College of Georgia in 2015 as a nutrition-based intervention to combat the high prevalence of obesity and obesity-related chronic diseases in the area of Augusta, Georgia. Despite the importance of diet in the management of chronic diseases, inadequate nutrition education among patients and healthcare providers presents a barrier. The purpose of TEACH Kitchen is to address this gap. Methods: TEACH Kitchen is as a student-led initiative that promotes healthy cooking among medical students and patients with chronic diseases. Healthy nutrition and cooking classes are held during the academic year. Participants spend four weeks on each of four modules: obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus. Data collection, which began in January 2017, is currently on going. TEACH Kitchen has collaborated with Augusta University, Sodexo, and Kohl’s. Results: Currently, TEACH Kitchen has enrolled 14 patients and 6 children. Anticipated results include measurements of preand post-intervention changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and competence in nutrition, as well as differences in clinical indicators, including body mass index, blood pressure, lipid profile, and HbA1c. Conclusions: TEACH Kitchen is the first medical school-based nutrition/cooking education initiative in Augusta, Georgia. It provides patients and medical students with hands-on healthy nutrition/cooking experience with the goal of decreasing the prevalence and improving the outcome of obesity-related diseases

Influence of SNAP Participation and Food Environment on Nutritional Quality of Food at Home Purchases

A growing body of research describes how individuals make food shopping decisions in both time and space. The FoodAPS dataset provides a unique opportunity for understanding these patterns among a large sample across income, SNAP status, and settings. We addressed three questions in our research: (1) Where do participants shop for food at home (FAH) and how do individual characteristics interact with store characteristics and distance? (2) How does the nutritional content of foods purchased change as time from SNAP distribution increases? and (3) How does store choice influence the nutritional quality of FAH purchases? We used a conditional logit model to answer the first question, determining that overall, participants choose full-service supermarkets, larger stores, and stores closer to home but that store choice is influences by SNAP status, ethnicity, race, sex, car ownership and the level of urbanization of the county of residence. For the second question, we used general linear modeling to determine changes over time in dietary quality of FAH purchases, as measured by composite Health Eating Index (HEI) score. We found an increase in HEI-2010 score in the days immediately following SNAP distribution followed by a decrease until 20 days after distribution and then a moderate increase to the end of the SNAP-cycle. For the final question, we used a generalized estimating equation (GEE) model for repeated-measures to analyze the impact of store type on composite HEI score of FAH events. We found that purchases made at limited assortment stores had significantly higher HEI scores while dollar stores had significantly lower HEI scores than purchases at conventional supermarkets. Participating in SNAP had significant positive impact on composite HEI scores, relative to households income-eligible for SNAP but not participating. These results require closer consideration but have important implications for policies relating to what types of foods stores should be subsidized, through healthy food financing initiatives and SNAP and WIC authorization, and the way SNAP benefits are distributed over the course of the month

Modeling Factions for \u27Effects Based Operations\u27: Part II Behavioral Game Theory

Military, diplomatic, and intelligence analysts are increasingly interested in having a valid system of models that span the social sciences and interoperate so that one can determine the effects that may arise from alternative operations (courses of action) in different lands. Part I of this article concentrated on internal validity of the components of such a synthetic framework – a world diplomacy game as well as the agent architecture for modeling leaders and followers in different conflicts. But how valid are such model collections once they are integrated together and used out-of-sample (see Section 1)? Section 2 compares these realistic, descriptive agents to normative rational actor theory and offers equilibria insights for conflict games. Sections 3 and 4 offer two real world cases (Iraq and SE Asia) where the agent models are subjected to validity tests and an EBO experiment is then run for each case. We conclude by arguing that substantial effort on game realism, best-of-breed social science models, and agent validation efforts is essential if analytic experiments are to effectively explore conflicts and alternative ways to influence outcomes. Such efforts are likely to improve behavioral game theory as well