Looking for Whitman: the Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman

This Level 1 Digital Humanities project, " Looking for Whitman: The Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman," will engage faculty and students at four academic institutions--New York City College of Technology; New York University; University of Mary Washington; and Rutgers University, Camden--in a concurrent, connected, semester-long inquiry into the relationship of Whitman's poetry to local geography and history. Each class will explore the interrelationship between a specific locale and a particular phase of the poet's work. Utilizing open-source tools to connect classrooms, the interdisciplinary project will create a collaborative, online space in which students can participate in a dynamic, social, web based learning environment. In its conception and articulation, this project reflects the central themes of Whitman's work: democracy, diversity, and connectedness

Looking For Whitman: The Poetry of Place in the Life and Work of Walt Whitman - Level 2

This project engages faculty and students at four universities--New York City College of Technology (CUNY), New York University, University of Mary Washington, and Rutgers University-Camden--in a concurrent, connected, semester-long inquiry into the relationship of Whitman's poetry to local geography and history. Each class will explore the relationship between its specific locale and a particular phase of the poet's work. Utilizing open-source tools to connect college classes from multiple institutions, the interdisciplinary project breaks down traditional institutional walls as it creates a collaborative online space in which students can participate in a dynamic, social, web-based learning environment. In its conception and in its dissemination, this project expands the traditional bounds of classroom and institutional space. In doing so, it reflects the central themes of Whitman's career: democracy, diversity, openness, and connectedness

Beyond Friending: BuddyPress and the Social, Networked, Open-Source Classroom

Classrooms have always been networks, of a sort, with professors and students forming an interlaced series of nodes that take shape over the course of a semester, but tools like BuddyPress and WordPress can make those networks more open, more porous, and more varied. In very useful ways, the classroom-as-social-network can help create engaging spaces for learning in which students are more connected to one another, to their professors, and to the wider world

From Discovery to Delivery: Public Sector Development of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola Vaccine

The discovery and development of the Ebola rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine challenge the common assumption that the research and development for innovative therapeutic products and vaccines is best carried out by the private sector. Using internal government documents obtained through an access to information request, we analyze the development of rVSV-ZEBOV by researchers at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory beyond its patenting and licensing to a biotech company in the United States in 2010. According to government documentation, the company failed to make any progress toward a phase 1 clinical trial until after the WHO Public Health Emergency of International Concern freed substantial donor and public funds for the vaccine’s further development. The development of rVSV-ZEBOV, from sponsoring early stage research through to carrying out clinical trials during the epidemic, was instead the result of the combined efforts of the Canadian government, its researchers, and other publicly funded institutions. This case study of rVSV-ZEBOV underscores the significant public contribution to the R&D of vaccines even under conditions of precarity, and suggests that an alternative approach to generating knowledge and developing interventions, such as open science, is required in order to fully realize the public sector’s contribution to improved global health. Note: Funding Statement: The research for this paper was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR EOG 123678, CIHR PJT 156256, and CIHR PJT 148908), the PACEOMICS project funded by Genome Canada, Genome Alberta, Genome Quebec, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Alberta Innovates—Health Solutions, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The authors would also like to acknowledge the contributions of several research assistants, including Heather Webster, MarcusMcLeod, Michael Gardener and Alexandra Ghelerter.Declaration of Interests: We have the following interests to declare: MH is a member of Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB). He receives honoraria for his work as a PMPRB member. MH has no other financial relationships with government agencies, non-governmental organizations, or private corporations. RG has no conflict of interests to declare. JG has no conflict of interests to declare

Curating Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities

This is the published introduction to the born-digital, open-access, peer-reviewed *Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities*. More a rationale and scholarly study of both Digital Pedagogy and DPiH in general, this introduces articulates the uses, theory, rationale about digital pedagogy as it has been shaped in U.S. institutions since the explosion of Digital Humanities in 2009. As a separate field now, Digital Pedagogy is built on the generosity of its practitioners, but saving the *stuff* of teaching and pedagogy is difficult. The introduction historicizes this now-published project, its open peer review process, and its development in the early years (starting in 2010) in addition to offering multiple pathways into using DPiH for both experienced practitioners and anyone curious about how to use the 500+ pedagogical artifacts among the 59 keywords. By defining digital pedagogy, articulating the 5 key concepts that surfaced with the creation of this project, and discussing potential obstacles about engaging in Digital Pedagogy (including an enumerated step-by-step process for getting started in using Digital Pedagogy strategies), this introduction invites all levels of engagement. In addition, the introduction provides an analysis of the types of content, contributors, and curators as well as early network analysis about the connections among all of the keywords, curators, and the shared pedagogical artifacts. Finally, the authors assess the project\u27s infrastructure, open access, and open peer review publishing process over the 10 years it took to bring this project to fruition, luckily, right at the moment that all higher education institutions were forced to grapple with a sudden move to online learning during March 2020. The concluding sections discuss the shifting role of published and publisher with this born-digital project and considers the use of new forms of infrastructure for a scholarly work that values pedagogy above all else

Testing team reasoning: group identification is related to coordination in pure coordination games

Games of pure mutual interest require players to coordinate their choices without being able to communicate. One way to achieve this is through team-reasoning, asking ‘what should we choose’, rather than just assessing one’s own options from an individual perspective. It has been suggested that team-reasoning is more likely when individuals are encouraged to think of those they are attempting to coordinate with as members of an in-group. In two studies, we examined the effects of group identity, measured by the ‘Inclusion of Other in Self’ (IOS) scale, on performance in nondescript coordination games, where there are several equilibria but no descriptions that a player can use to distinguish any one strategy from the others apart from the payoff from coordinating on it. In an online experiment, our manipulation of group identity did not have the expected effect, but we found a correlation of .18 between IOS and team-reasoning-consistent choosing. Similarly, in self-reported strategies, those who reported trying to pick an option that stood out (making it easier to coordinate on) also reported higher IOS scores than did those who said they tended to choose the option with the largest potential payoff. In a follow-up study in the lab, participants played either with friends or with strangers. Experiment 2 replicated the relationship between IOS and team-reasoning in strangers but not in friends. Instead, friends’ behavior was related to their expectations of what their partners would do. A hierarchical cluster analysis showed that 46.4% of strangers played a team reasoning strategy, compared to 20.6% of friends. We suggest that the strangers who group identify may have been team reasoning but friends may have tried to use their superior knowledge of their partners to try to predict their strategy

Probability and magnitude evaluation in schizophrenia

Alterations in reinforcement learning and decision making in schizophrenia have been linked with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) dysfunction, a region critical for weighing reward magnitude in the calculation of expected value (EV). However, much of this work has used complex tasks that require combined learning and EV calculation. Here we used a simple “Roulette” task that examined the calculation of EV directly through a combination of text and/or pictorial representation of reward probability and magnitude. Forty-four people with schizophrenia and 30 controls were recruited. Patients were less sensitive to adjustments in a parameter combining probability and magnitude into one EV construct. Breaking down the construct into independent contributions of probability and magnitude, we found that negative symptoms were associated with magnitude sensitivity. This is consistent with the hypothesized role of OFC in actively representing magnitude and the notion that negative symptoms may involve a failure to appropriately estimate and use future reward magnitude to guide decision making

Systematic review and meta-analysis of the pharmacokinetics of benznidazole in the treatment of Chagas disease

Chagas disease is a neglected parasitic illness affecting approximately 8 million people, predominantly in Latin America. Benznidazole is the drug of choice for treatment, although its availability has been limited. A paucity of knowledge of the pharmacokinetic properties of this drug has contributed to its limited availability in several jurisdictions. The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic literature review and a Bayesian meta-analysis of pharmacokinetic studies to improve estimates of the basic pharmacokinetic properties of benznidazole. A systematic search of the Embase, Medline, LILACS, and SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) databases was conducted. Eligible studies reported patient-level data from single-100-mg-dose pharmacokinetic evaluations of benznidazole in adults or otherwise provided data relevant to the estimation of pharmacokinetic parameters which could be derived from such studies. A Bayesian hierarchical model was used for analysis. Secondary data (i.e., data from studies that did not include patient-level, single-100-mg-dose data) were used for the generation of empirical priors for the Bayesian analysis. The systematic search identified nine studies for inclusion. Nine pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated, including the area under the concentration-time curve (AUC), the maximum concentration of drug in plasma (Cmax), the time to Cmax, the elimination rate constant (kel), the absorption rate constant (Ka), the absorption and elimination half-lives, the apparent oral clearance, and the apparent oral volume of distribution. The results showed consistency across studies. AUC and Cmax were 51.31 mg · h/liter (95% credible interval [CrI], 45.01, 60.28 mg · h/liter) and 2.19 mg/liter (95% CrI, 2.06, 2.33 mg/liter), respectively. Ka and kel were 1.16 h-1 (95% CrI, 0.59, 1.76 h-1) and 0.052 h-1 (95% CrI, 0.045, 0.059 h-1), respectively, with the corresponding absorption and elimination half-lives being 0.60 h (95% CrI, 0.38, 1.11 h) and 13.27 h (95% CrI, 11.79, 15.42 h), respectively. The oral clearance and volume of distribution were 2.04 liters/h (95% CrI, 1.77, 2.32 liters/h) and 39.19 liters (95% CrI, 36.58, 42.17 liters), respectively. A Bayesian meta-analysis was used to improve the estimates of the standard pharmacokinetic parameters of benznidazole. These data can inform clinicians and policy makers as access to this drug increases.Fil: Wiens, Matthew O.. University of British Columbia; CanadáFil: Kanters, Steve. Precision Global Health;Fil: Mills, Edward. Mc Master University; CanadáFil: Peregrina Lucano, Alejandro A.. Universidad de Guadalajara; MéxicoFil: Gold, Silvia. Fundación Mundo Sano; ArgentinaFil: Ayers, Dieter. Precision Global Health;Fil: Ferrero, Luis. Fundación Mundo Sano; ArgentinaFil: Krolewiecki, Alejandro Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Salta. Instituto de Patología Experimental. Universidad Nacional de Salta. Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud. Instituto de Patología Experimental; Argentin

The Syllabus as a Shared Negotiation

The process of negotiation can do more than improve the syllabus--it can bring students into a critical relationship with the course itself and acknowledge them as stakeholders in the learning process

Digital Humanities

Published in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media and Textuality, this chapter takes stock of the field of digital humanities as it existed in 2014