Profile of 2006 Grand Old Day Attendees

In 2006, the University of Minnesota Tourism Center (UMTC) and Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) were contracted to profile visitors to Grand Old Day. Visitor demographics, information sources for the festival, experience, and expenditures at Grand Old Day, as well as familiarity with community were of specific interest. The study methods and results are presented below and followed by a discussion.Salk, Raintry J.. (2006). Profile of 2006 Grand Old Day Attendees. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/170308

Fractal-like Distributions over the Rational Numbers in High-throughput Biological and Clinical Data

Recent developments in extracting and processing biological and clinical data are allowing quantitative approaches to studying living systems. High-throughput sequencing, expression profiles, proteomics, and electronic health records are some examples of such technologies. Extracting meaningful information from those technologies requires careful analysis of the large volumes of data they produce. In this note, we present a set of distributions that commonly appear in the analysis of such data. These distributions present some interesting features: they are discontinuous in the rational numbers, but continuous in the irrational numbers, and possess a certain self-similar (fractal-like) structure. The first set of examples which we present here are drawn from a high-throughput sequencing experiment. Here, the self-similar distributions appear as part of the evaluation of the error rate of the sequencing technology and the identification of tumorogenic genomic alterations. The other examples are obtained from risk factor evaluation and analysis of relative disease prevalence and co-mordbidity as these appear in electronic clinical data. The distributions are also relevant to identification of subclonal populations in tumors and the study of the evolution of infectious diseases, and more precisely the study of quasi-species and intrahost diversity of viral populations

Travelers in Southern Minnesota: Profile of Visitors to Four Communities

Statewide data speaks to the magnitude of tourism in Minnesota. However, critical to successful regional tourism planning & development in local communities is region specific data. The University & Explore Minnesota tourism began partnering in 2000 to identify community & region travel data. This project continues that vein and focuses on 4 communities in Southern Minnesota: Blue Earth, Fairmont, Jackson, & Worthington

Study of Current Area Visitors: Otter Tail Country 2007

In Minnesota between 2005 and 2006, 41 million visitors spent $11.786 billion (DavidsonPeterson, 2006). Of course, regional differences likely exist among these visitors and exploring this variation can inform tourism planning and development and subsequently enhance visitor experiences and destination revenue. The University of Minnesota Tourism Center and Explore Minnesota Tourism began partnering in 2000 to identify community and regional level travel data. This project continues those efforts with a focus on Otter Tail Country. Otter Tail Country is located in West Central Minnesota and includes communities of Fergus Falls, Pelican Rapids, and Perha

Study of Current Area Visitors: Detroit Lakes-Mahnomen 2007

In Minnesota between 2005 and 2006, 41 million visitors spent $11.786 billion (DavidsonPeterson, 2006). Of course, regional differences likely exist among these visitors and exploring this variation can inform tourism planning and development and subsequently enhance visitor experiences and destination revenue. The University of Minnesota Tourism Center and Explore Minnesota Tourism began partnering in 2000 to identify community and regional level travel data. This project continues those efforts with a focus on Detroit Lakes-Mahnomen. Detroit Lakes-Mahnomen is located in West Central Minnesota and includes communities beyond Detroit Lakes and Mahnomen and includes White Earth and Frazee

Profile of 2006 Highland Fest Attendees

In 2006, the University of Minnesota Tourism Center (UMTC) and Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) were contracted to profile visitors to Highland Fest, organized by the Highland Business Association (HBA). Several visitor characteristics were of interest beyond demographics, including information sources, spending habits, and experience at Highland Fest. To that end, a visitor questionnaire was developed and administered to Highland Fest visitors

Study of Current Area Visitors: Southern Red River Valley 2007

In Minnesota between 2005 and 2006, 41 million visitors spent $11.786 billion (DavidsonPeterson, 2006). Of course, regional differences likely exist among these visitors and exploring this variation can inform tourism planning and development efforts to subsequently enhance visitor experiences and destination revenue. The University of Minnesota Tourism Center and Explore Minnesota Tourism began partnering in 2000 to identify community and regional level travel data. This project continues those efforts with a focus on the Southern Red River Valley. The Southern Red River Valley consists of communities including Fargo-Moorhead, Breckenridge-Wahpeton, and HawleySalk, Raintry J.; Schneider, Ingrid E.. (2007). Study of Current Area Visitors: Southern Red River Valley 2007. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/169893

T-cell cytotoxicity in the absence of viral protein synthesis in target cells

CYTOTOXIC T cells lyse only those virus infected target cells in vitro which express, in addition to the viral antigen(s), those K or D region products of the major histocompati-bility complex (MHC) which were present during anti-viral sensitisation in vivo. This 'associative recogniton' by cytotoxic T cells could reflect the interaction of two T-cell receptors with specificity for target K or D gene products and independently for the viral antigen, or one receptor with specificity for virally altered K or D region products (see ref. 1 and refs therein). There are various ways that the MHC antigens could be altered, including 'modification from within', where the virus modifies host protein synthesis by interfering with transcription2, translation or post-translational glycosylation; or 'modification from without' where enzymic or chemical alteration of cell membrane proteins are induced by virus activity at the cell surface. In this report we show that inactivated Sendai virus or isolated Sendai virus envelopes can serve to modify a cell and make it a specific target for Sendai-immune T-cell killing, thus excluding the possibility of 'modification from within' in this system

Limitations of Majority Agreement in Crowdsourced Image Interpretation

Crowdsourcing can efficiently complete tasks that are difficult to automate, but the quality of crowdsourced data is tricky to evaluate. Algorithms to grade volunteer work often assume that all tasks are similarly difficult, an assumption that is frequently false. We use a cropland identification game with over 2,600 participants and 165,000 unique tasks to investigate how best to evaluate the difficulty of crowdsourced tasks and to what extent this is possible based on volunteer responses alone. Inter-volunteer agreement exceeded 90% for about 80% of the images and was negatively correlated with volunteer-expressed uncertainty about image classification. A total of 343 relatively difficult images were independently classified as cropland, non-cropland or impossible by two experts. The experts disagreed weakly (one said impossible while the other rated as cropland or non-cropland) on 27% of the images, but disagreed strongly (cropland vs. non-cropland) on only 7%. Inter-volunteer disagreement increased significantly with inter-expert disagreement. While volunteers agreed with expert classifications for most images, over 20% would have been mis-categorized if only the volunteers’ majority vote was used. We end with a series of recommendations for managing the challenges posed by heterogeneous tasks in crowdsourcing campaigns