Human Computation and Convergence

Humans are the most effective integrators and producers of information, directly and through the use of information-processing inventions. As these inventions become increasingly sophisticated, the substantive role of humans in processing information will tend toward capabilities that derive from our most complex cognitive processes, e.g., abstraction, creativity, and applied world knowledge. Through the advancement of human computation - methods that leverage the respective strengths of humans and machines in distributed information-processing systems - formerly discrete processes will combine synergistically into increasingly integrated and complex information processing systems. These new, collective systems will exhibit an unprecedented degree of predictive accuracy in modeling physical and techno-social processes, and may ultimately coalesce into a single unified predictive organism, with the capacity to address societies most wicked problems and achieve planetary homeostasis.Comment: Pre-publication draft of chapter. 24 pages, 3 figures; added references to page 1 and 3, and corrected typ

Peanut‐induced anaphylaxis in children and adolescents: Data from the European Anaphylaxis Registry

Background Peanut allergy has a rising prevalence in high-income countries, affecting 0.5%-1.4% of children. This study aimed to better understand peanut anaphylaxis in comparison to anaphylaxis to other food triggers in European children and adolescents. Methods Data was sourced from the European Anaphylaxis Registry via an online questionnaire, after in-depth review of food-induced anaphylaxis cases in a tertiary paediatric allergy centre. Results 3514 cases of food anaphylaxis were reported between July 2007 - March 2018, 56% in patients younger than 18 years. Peanut anaphylaxis was recorded in 459 children and adolescents (85% of all peanut anaphylaxis cases). Previous reactions (42% vs. 38%; p = .001), asthma comorbidity (47% vs. 35%; p < .001), relevant cofactors (29% vs. 22%; p = .004) and biphasic reactions (10% vs. 4%; p = .001) were more commonly reported in peanut anaphylaxis. Most cases were labelled as severe anaphylaxis (Ring&Messmer grade III 65% vs. 56% and grade IV 1.1% vs. 0.9%; p = .001). Self-administration of intramuscular adrenaline was low (17% vs. 15%), professional adrenaline administration was higher in non-peanut food anaphylaxis (34% vs. 26%; p = .003). Hospitalization was higher for peanut anaphylaxis (67% vs. 54%; p = .004). Conclusions The European Anaphylaxis Registry data confirmed peanut as one of the major causes of severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reactions in European children, with some characteristic features e.g., presence of asthma comorbidity and increased rate of biphasic reactions. Usage of intramuscular adrenaline as first-line treatment is low and needs to be improved. The Registry, designed as the largest database on anaphylaxis, allows continuous assessment of this condition

Crowdsourcing, Open Innovation and Collective Intelligence in the scientific method: a research agenda and operational framework

The lonely researcher trying to crack a problem in her office still plays an important role in fundamental research. However, a vast exchange, often with participants from different fields is taking place in modern research activities and projects. In the "Research Value Chain" (a simplified depiction of the Scientific Method as a process used for the analyses in this paper), interactions between researchers and other individuals (intentional or not) within or outside their respective institutions can be regarded as occurrences of Collective Intelligence. "Crowdsourcing" (Howe 2006) is a special case of such Collective Intelligence. It leverages the wisdom of crowds (Surowiecki 2004) and is already changing the way groups of people produce knowledge, generate ideas and make them actionable. A very famous example of a Crowdsourcing outcome is the distributed encyclopedia "Wikipedia". Published research agendas are asking how techniques addressing "the crowd" can be applied to non-profit environments, namely universities, and fundamental research in general. This paper discusses how the non-profit "Research Value Chain" can potentially benefit from Crowdsourcing. Further, a research agenda is proposed that investigates a) the applicability of Crowdsourcing to fundamental science and b) the impact of distributed agent principles from Artificial Intelligence research on the robustness of Crowdsourcing. Insights and methods from different research fields will be combined, such as complex networks, spatially embedded interacting agents or swarms and dynamic networks. Although the ideas in this paper essentially outline a research agenda, preliminary data from two pilot studies show that nonscientists can support scientific projects with high quality contributions. Intrinsic motivators (such as "fun") are present, which suggests individuals are not (only) contributing to such projects with a view to large monetary rewards