Seeking Resonances for Remote Communal Chanting Practices

We take a Research Through Design (RtD) approach to explore Buddhist communal chanting practices, seeking to develop tangible design research products that support meaningful techno-spiritual remote connections. This work is informed by an autoethnography in a Buddhist community in the UK. We focus on the experiential and multi-sensory aspects of these practices, presenting three experiments that expose the sound environment as a design material for our future work. In doing so, our attention is drawn to the resonances we encounter in the chanted vocalisations, the interplay with sonic ritual equipment, and the soundscapes of the rooms in which they are practiced

Post-mortem information management: exploring contextual factors in appropriate personal data access after death

\ua9 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.With the increasing size and complexity of personal information and data landscapes, there is a need for guidance and support in the appropriate management of a deceased person’s postmortem privacy and digital legacy. However, most people engage poorly with existing mechanisms for specifying and planning for access and suitable usage of their own data. We report on two studies exploring the ways in which contextual factors such as the accessor and the data type may affect the appropriateness of personal data flows differently during life and after death. Our findings indicate that suitable data access after death is highly individual and contextual, with differences in appropriateness between during-life and after-death data flows significantly affected by the accessor and the data type in question. We identify that ambiguous accessor motivation, failure to communicate intent, changing temporal context and latent data values further complicate the act of digital legacy planning. Our findings also provide further evidence for the existence of a postmortem privacy paradox in which reported user behaviors do not reflect intent. With this in mind, we offer design recommendations for the integration of digital legacy planning functionality within Personal Information Management (PIM) and Group Information Management (GIM) systems

Healthcare professionals\u27 perspectives on working with patient-generated data for supporting person-centred HIV care

BACKGROUND We report on a UK study with Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) providing routine adult HIV care, to understand their experiences of working with Patient-generated Data (PGData) including Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), with the aim to inform the design of tools (e.g. electronic patient questionnaires) for supporting Person-centred Care. METHOD Semi-structured (individual and group) interviews were conducted (March 2020 to October 2022) with 15 HCPs (5 men, 10 women) from multi-disciplinary teams at: a large London HIV outpatient clinic (A); an Infectious Diseases service in Northern England (B). Due to COVID-19, all but one interview took place online. 90-minute interviews were supported by persona-based scenarios and infographics, prompting participants\u27 engagement with individual lived experiences. Transcribed audio-recordings were coded using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Participants included: seven physicians; three psychologists; two nurses; health advisor; pharmacist; peer support worker. Two physicians, one nurse, and one psychologist at Clinic B participated in follow-up interviews focussing on PROMs. RESULTS Physicians needed to balance patient agendas with clinician agendas, highlighting the practical reality of time constraints for achieving this balance. Nurses and psychologists highlighted wider patient circumstances impacting personal information sharing, plus health inequities shaping access to internet-mediated tools. Post-pandemic, preference for in-person consultation was emphasised for good communication. The value of PROMs in HIV care was perceived in: facilitating face-to-face conversation with patients who struggle to articulate problems or discuss difficult topics; co-defining an agenda; helping both parties ask the right questions and acquire contextual information; tracking progress; helping meet BHIVA standards; capturing and evaluating experience of attending services; tailoring services. Differing use of PROMs at each clinic reflected geographical diversity and type of specialist providing the service. Perceived challenges of using PROMs for HIV care include: patients’ confidentiality concerns; questioning validity of PGData - honesty in self-reports, context of capture; time constraints for interpreting data; system interoperability for data processing and access by HCPs and patients. Design considerations include: visual presentation, for readability, discretion, accessibility; language formats; value of capturing information between consultations. CONCLUSION Interview findings evidence UK HIV Healthcare Professionals\u27 perspectives on how PGData including PROMs may support Person-centred Care, plus considerations for designing supportive data collection tools

Speculative devices for photo display

In this paper, we describe three purposefully provocative, digital photo display technologies designed for home settings. The three devices have been built to provoke questions around how digital photographs might be seen and interacted with in novel ways. They are also intended for speculation about the expressive resources afforded by digital technologies for displaying photos. It is hoped interactions with the devices will help researchers and designers reflect on new design possibilities. The devices are also being deployed as part of ongoing home-oriented field research

‘Chugging along, plugging in and out of it’: Understanding a place-based approach for community-based support of mental health recovery

Community-based Mental Health (MH) organisations in the United Kingdom (UK) are facing challenges for sustaining in-person service delivery. Without empirical evidence that demonstrates the value of a place-based approach for MH recovery, and the types of resources needed to build nurturing spaces for peer support, community-based MH organisations will struggle to maintain their physical spaces. We present empirical insights from a case study involving interviews with 20 students accessing peer support services at the Recovery College Collective, a community-based MH organisation located in the North East of England. The interview study aims to evidence how a place-based approach can afford MH recovery. We draw from discourses on place-making and interpret our interview findings through an established framework that highlights four mechanisms through which place impacts recovery: place for doing, being, becoming and belonging. We use this framework to structure our findings and highlight key qualities of place for establishing and maintaining MH recovery. Our contribution is two-fold: we address a gap in the literature by providing empirical understandings of how place influences MH recovery, whilst extending previous research by considering the role that place plays in community-based organisations. This is timely because of the challenges faced in securing in-person service delivery post-pandemic, and a shift towards remote service provision models. We highlight key implications: (i) Accessing a physical place dedicated to MH support is vital for people who do not have anywhere else to go and are socially isolated due to their health conditions; (ii) Connecting through peer-to-peer interaction is an integral part of the recovery process, and learning from people with lived experience can inform a place-based approach that best suit their needs; and (iii) Recognising the value of place for MH support, and the resources needed for peer support delivery in the community, will help secure places that our research participants described as lifesaving

Trust, Identity, Privacy, and Security Considerations for Designing a Peer Data Sharing Platform Between People Living With HIV

Resulting from treatment advances, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is now a long-term condition, and digital solutions are being developed to support people living with HIV in self-management. Sharing their health data with their peers may support self-management, but the trust, identity, privacy and security (TIPS) considerations of people living with HIV remain underexplored. Working with a peer researcher who is expert in the lived experience of HIV, we interviewed 26 people living with HIV in the United Kingdom (UK) to investigate how to design a peer data sharing platform. We also conducted rating activities with participants to capture their attitudes towards sharing personal data. Our mixed methods study showed that participants were highly sophisticated in their understanding of trust and in their requirements for robust privacy and security. They indicated willingness to share digital identity attributes, including gender, age, medical history, health and well-being data, but not details that could reveal their personal identity. Participants called for TIPS measures to foster and to sustain responsible data sharing within their community. These findings can inform the development of trustworthy and secure digital platforms that enable people living with HIV to share data with their peers and provide insights for researchers who wish to facilitate data sharing in other communities with stigmatised health conditions

SAG101 Forms a Ternary Complex with EDS1 and PAD4 and Is Required for Resistance Signaling against Turnip Crinkle Virus

EDS1, PAD4, and SAG101 are common regulators of plant immunity against many pathogens. EDS1 interacts with both PAD4 and SAG101 but direct interaction between PAD4 and SAG101 has not been detected, leading to the suggestion that the EDS1-PAD4 and EDS1-SAG101 complexes are distinct. We show that EDS1, PAD4, and SAG101 are present in a single complex in planta. While this complex is preferentially nuclear localized, it can be redirected to the cytoplasm in the presence of an extranuclear form of EDS1. PAD4 and SAG101 can in turn, regulate the subcellular localization of EDS1. We also show that the Arabidopsis genome encodes two functionally redundant isoforms of EDS1, either of which can form ternary complexes with PAD4 and SAG101. Simultaneous mutations in both EDS1 isoforms are essential to abrogate resistance (R) protein-mediated defense against turnip crinkle virus (TCV) as well as avrRps4 expressing Pseudomonas syringae. Interestingly, unlike its function as a PAD4 substitute in bacterial resistance, SAG101 is required for R-mediated resistance to TCV, thus implicating a role for the ternary complex in this defense response. However, only EDS1 is required for HRT-mediated HR to TCV, while only PAD4 is required for SA-dependent induction of HRT. Together, these results suggest that EDS1, PAD4 and SAG101 also perform independent functions in HRT-mediated resistance

Immunophenotyping of Circulating T Helper Cells Argues for Multiple Functions and Plasticity of T Cells In Vivo in Humans - Possible Role in Asthma

BACKGROUND: The immune process driving eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic asthma is likely driven by different subsets of T helper (Th) cells. Recently, in vitro studies and animal studies suggest that Th cell subsets displays plasticity by changing their transcription factor or by expressing multiple transcription factors. Our aim was to determine whether individuals with asthma and elevated circulating eosinophils express signs of different regulatory immune mechanisms compared with asthmatics with low blood eosinophils and non-asthmatic control subjects. In addition, determine the relationship between eosinophilia and circulating Th cell subsets. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Participants were selected from a random epidemiological cohort, the West Sweden Asthma Study. Immunophenotypes of fresh peripheral blood cells obtained from stable asthmatics, with and without elevated eosinophilic inflammation (EOS high and EOS low respectively) and control subjects, were determined by flow cytometry. No differences in the number of Th1 (T-bet), Th2 (GATA-3), Th17 (RORγt) or Treg (FOXP3) cells were observed between the groups when analysing each subset separately. However, in all groups, each of the Th subsets showed expression of additional canonical transcription factors T-bet, GATA-3, RORγt and FOXP3. Furthermore, by in vitro stimulation with anti-CD3/anti-CD28 there was a significant increase of single expressing GATA-3(+) and co-expressing T-bet(+)GATA-3(+) cells in the EOS high asthmatics in comparison with control subjects. In addition, T-bet(-)GATA-3(+)RORγt(+)FOXP3(+) were decreased in comparison to the EOS low asthmatics. Finally, in a group of control subjects we found that the majority of proliferating Th cells (CD4(+)CD25(+)Ki67(+)) expressed three or four transcription factors. CONCLUSIONS: The ability of human Th cells to express several regulatory transcription factors suggests that these cells may display plasticity in vivo