Sociality and Skill Sharing in the Garden

Gardening is an activity that involves a number of dimensions of increasing interest to HCI and CSCW researchers, including recreation, sustainability, and engagement with nature. This paper considers the garden setting in order to understand the role that collaborative and social computing technologies might play for practitioners engaging in outdoor skilled activities. We conducted participant observations with nine experienced gardeners aged 22-71 years. Through this process, we find that gardeners continuously configure their environments to accommodate their preferences for sociality. They share embodied skills and help others attune to sensory information in person, but also influence learning through the features in their garden that are observed by others. This paper provides an understanding of sociality in the garden, highlights skill sharing as a key domain for design in this space, and contributes design considerations for collaborative technologies in outdoor settings.Comment: 13 page

Understanding Context to Capture when Reconstructing Meaningful Spaces for Remote Instruction and Connecting in XR

Recent technological advances are enabling HCI researchers to explore interaction possibilities for remote XR collaboration using high-fidelity reconstructions of physical activity spaces. However, creating these reconstructions often lacks user involvement with an overt focus on capturing sensory context that does not necessarily augment an informal social experience. This work seeks to understand social context that can be important for reconstruction to enable XR applications for informal instructional scenarios. Our study involved the evaluation of an XR remote guidance prototype by 8 intergenerational groups of closely related gardeners using reconstructions of personally meaningful spaces in their gardens. Our findings contextualize physical objects and areas with various motivations related to gardening and detail perceptions of XR that might affect the use of reconstructions for remote interaction. We discuss implications for user involvement to create reconstructions that better translate real-world experience, encourage reflection, incorporate privacy considerations, and preserve shared experiences with XR as a medium for informal intergenerational activities.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, 4 table

Exploring Future Personalization Opportunities in Technologies used by Older Adults with Mild to Moderate Dementia

Technologies for aging are a growing market. These technologies have significant potential to support individuals whose cognitive changes can make everyday activities challenging. However, the adoption and use of these technologies by people with dementia (PwD) remain poor, indicating potential accessibility and usability issues. Such barriers limit PwD’s ability to contribute to the digital economy and fully engage with society. Personalization, which aligns technology with someone’s unique needs and preferences, may address these issues. We used mixed methods with ten people with mild to moderate dementia to explore how previous ways to personalize (i.e., Windows OS built-in features and settings) and newer personalization applications (i.e., Morphic) might reveal future opportunities for personalization features in technology for aging. This study contributes fifteen design considerations, which, if implemented, may increase the involvement of PwD in the digital economy and society

Investigating the Potential of Artificial Intelligence Powered Interfaces to Support Different Types of Memory for People with Dementia

There has been a growing interest in HCI to understand the specific technological needs of people with dementia and supporting them in self-managing daily activities. One of the most difficult challenges to address is supporting the fluctuating accessibility needs of people with dementia, which vary with the specific type of dementia and the progression of the condition. Researchers have identified auto-personalized interfaces, and more recently, Artificial Intelligence or AI-driven personalization as a potential solution to making commercial technology accessible in a scalable manner for users with fluctuating ability. However, there is a lack of understanding on the perceptions of people with dementia around AI as an aid to their everyday technology use and its role in their overall self-management systems, which include other non-AI technology, and human assistance. In this paper, we present future directions for the design of AI-based systems to personalize an interface for dementia-related changes in different types of memory, along with expectations for AI interactions with the user with dementia.Comment: 7 page

An avian dominance hierarchy at a supplemental water source in the Patagonian steppe

Birds often compete and engage in interspecific agonistic interactions for access to resources such as food and breeding territories. Based on the observed outcomes from such interactions (i.e., patterns of displacements) dominance hierarchies can be established. Knowing which species can outcompete others for essential resources allows researchers to make predictions about the broader ecological impacts of interspecific interactions. We constructed an interspecific dominance hierarchy of twelve avian species which visited an artificial water source in an arid region of coastal Patagonia, Argentina. Displacements were categorized into four types, based on the behaviors involved in the interaction, and we tested if they could predict the difference in dominance between the interacting species (the difference between calculated dominance coefficients for the two focal species). Indirect displacements, involving only the arrival of the dominant species to the water source without direct aggression toward the subordinate bird, occurred more frequently between species with a large difference in dominance. The most dominant bird observed was the kelp gull (Larus dominicanus), which, due to an increasing population and expanding range, in part due to food supplementation from fisheries waste, is likely to outcompete terrestrial and marine avian species for other scarce resources.Fil: Rabinowicz, Sophie. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: García, Natalia Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; ArgentinaFil: Herwood, Tristan. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Lazar, Amanda. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Hein, Benjamin. Cornell University; Estados UnidosFil: Miller, Eliot. Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Estados UnidosFil: Campagna, Leonardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"; Argentina. Cornell University; Estados Unido

Prevalence of surgical procedures at symptomatic onset of prion disease

This case-control study examines the frequency of invasive procedures at the onset of prion disease symptoms to determine the scope of the risk of contamination to future patients

Exploring an informed decision-making framework using in-home sensors: older adults’ perceptions

Background Sensor technologies are designed to assist independent living of older adults. However, it is often difficult for older adults to make an informed decision about adopting sensor technologies.Objective To explore Bruce’s framework of informed decision making (IDM) for in-home use of sensor technologies in community-dwelling elders.Method The IDM framework guided development of a semi-structured interview. A theory-driven coding approach was used for analysis.Results Participants supported most of the elements of the framework, but not all aspects of each element were addressed. Perceived usefulness of technologies was identified as an area for framework extension.Conclusion This paper provides useful information for health care professionals to consider how to enhance IDM of older adults regarding the use of sensor technologies. The results also illuminate elements of the IDM framework that may be critical to facilitating independent living for older adults

Taking Stock of the Present and Future of Smart Technologies for Older Adults and Caregivers

Technology has the opportunity to assist older adults as they age in place, coordinate caregiving resources, and meet unmet needs through access to resources. Currently, older adults use consumer technologies to support everyday life, however these technologies are not always accessible or as useful as they can be. Indeed, industry has attempted to create smart home technologies with older adults as a target user group, however these solutions are often more focused on the technical aspects and are short lived. In this paper, we advocate for older adults being involved in the design process - from initial ideation to product development to deployment. We encourage federally funded researchers and industry to create compensated, diverse older adult advisory boards to address stereotypes about aging while ensuring their needs are considered. We envision artificial intelligence systems that augment resources instead of replacing them - especially in under-resourced communities. Older adults rely on their caregiver networks and community organizations for social, emotional, and physical support; thus, AI should be used to coordinate resources better and lower the burden of connecting with these resources. Although sociotechnical smart systems can help identify needs of older adults, the lack of affordable research infrastructure and translation of findings into consumer technology perpetuates inequities in designing for diverse older adults. In addition, there is a disconnect between the creation of smart sensing systems and creating understandable, actionable data for older adults and caregivers to utilize. We ultimately advocate for a well-coordinated research effort across the United States that connects older adults, caregivers, community organizations, and researchers together to catalyze innovative and practical research for all stakeholders.Comment: A Computing Community Consortium (CCC) white paper, 6 page

The harm in conflating aging with accessibility

Including older adults as full stakeholders in digital society. </p

Debugging and consolidating multiple synthetic chromosomes reveals combinatorial genetic interactions

The Sc2.0 project is building a eukaryotic synthetic genome from scratch. A major milestone has been achieved with all individual Sc2.0 chromosomes assembled. Here, we describe the consolidation of multiple synthetic chromosomes using advanced endoreduplication intercrossing with tRNA expression cassettes to generate a strain with 6.5 synthetic chromosomes. The 3D chromosome organization and transcript isoform profiles were evaluated using Hi-C and long-read direct RNA sequencing. We developed CRISPR Directed Biallelic URA3-assisted Genome Scan, or ‘‘CRISPR D-BUGS,’’ to map phenotypic variants caused by specific designer modifications, known as ‘‘bugs.’’ We first fine-mapped a bug in synthetic chromosome II (synII) and then discovered a combinatorial interaction associated with synIII and synX, revealing an unexpected genetic interaction that links transcriptional regulation, inositol metabolism, and tRNASer CGA abundance. Finally, to expedite consolidation, we employed chromosome substitution to incorporate the largest chromosome (synIV), thereby consolidating &gt;50% of the Sc2.0 genome in one strain </p