Assessment of the co-creative process

Co-creation in Design is a multi-disciplinary process where co-designers are not only trained professionals from different disciplines, but also members from the community with whom the co-design project is focused. Handling such multi-disciplinary, multi-personality and multi-cultural situations requires personal and professional development through reflective practice to understand one’s own experience. This technique has been traditionally called ‘the act of becoming aware’ (Schön, 1983). Experts in psychology, systems thinking, western and eastern medicine and design education were invited to share knowledge during workshops and a consequent review of inter-disciplinary literature resulted in a list of ‘inner values’, where the anticipation was that, when these inner values exist in a co-design team, they can lead to harmonious working and co-owned decisions during the co-design process (Vyas et.al., 2012) The inner values were then clearly defined using the inter- disciplinary literature and literature from positive psychology was used to convert the conceptual inner values into a practical research framework. This paper describes the application of the framework for research to generate empirical evidence that justifies the role and utility of the ‘inner values’ in the co-design process

The Convergence of Online Teaching and Problem Based Learning Modules amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

There is a convergence unfolding between two formerly unique and separate areas of teaching research methodology: distance education and problem-based learning (PBL) environments. Much has been published on each field independently, however, in the modern-era of online, distance, and hybrid educational programs there is a need for more case and experiential-based learning activities which can effectively measure stated learning objectives. Trends in education have led to the development of various methods to instruct courses and conduct research online. Teaching research methodology and pedagogy have evolved to include video capture, remote conferencing, and other real-time communications techniques allowing faculty and students to collaborate across great distances. Meanwhile, PBL environments have been used extensively in teaching medicine, clinical practice, law, business/management, and many other disciplines to improve student learning. This has been further accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic through the use of technologies like Zoom, WebEx, GoToMeeting, Google Hangout Meet, etc. and the availability of PBL-ready environments in breakout rooms and asynchronous simulated projects. Student preference data from 2020 are reported as part of this study. One example of this merger between online delivery and PBLs was the development of a PBL statistical process control (PBL-SPC) module. A cross-functional academic team was created across both a college of business and college of education in which a PBL-SPC module was developed based on a real-life situation in which students immerse themselves in a potato chip factory environment. The motivation for the PBL-SPC was that this is a challenging topic to cover which students often find difficult to relate to and/or boring. Three different scenarios were developed and students, as individuals or in teams, must traverse the simulated factory to assess the situation. Learning outcomes are measured by the course instructors and the PBL environment is being used by faculty around the world. Additionally, the PBL-SPC module has now been scaled to other applications such as six-sigma simulated project training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Pedagogical methods should be interactive, stimulate learning, improve the learning outcomes / critical thinking, and enhance student experience. This paper proposes that merging the effective and tech-friendly pedagogical methods of PBLSPC, with the right modalities and model of online delivery, can help achieve these aforesaid goals. Even more, it can deliver a great opportunity to educators and institutions worldwide for advancing the reach of education

RANS Modeling of Benchmark Shockwave / Boundary Layer Interaction Experiments

This presentation summarizes the computations of a set of shock wave / turbulent boundary layer interaction (SWTBLI) test cases using the Wind-US code, as part of the 2010 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) shock / boundary layer interaction workshop. The experiments involve supersonic flows in wind tunnels with a shock generator that directs an oblique shock wave toward the boundary layer along one of the walls of the wind tunnel. The Wind-US calculations utilized structured grid computations performed in Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes mode. Three turbulence models were investigated: the Spalart-Allmaras one-equation model, the Menter Shear Stress Transport wavenumber-angular frequency two-equation model, and an explicit algebraic stress wavenumber-angular frequency formulation. Effects of grid resolution and upwinding scheme were also considered. The results from the CFD calculations are compared to particle image velocimetry (PIV) data from the experiments. As expected, turbulence model effects dominated the accuracy of the solutions with upwinding scheme selection indicating minimal effects.

CSF1R inhibitor JNJ-40346527 attenuates microglial proliferation and neurodegeneration in P301S mice

Neuroinflammation and microglial activation are significant processes in Alzheimer’s disease pathology. Recent genome-wide association studies have highlighted multiple immune-related genes in association with Alzheimer’s disease, and experimental data have demonstrated microglial proliferation as a significant component of the neuropathology. In this study, we tested the efficacy of the selective CSF1R inhibitor JNJ-40346527 (JNJ-527) in the P301S mouse tauopathy model. We first demonstrated the anti-proliferative effects of JNJ-527 on microglia in the ME7 prion model, and its impact on the inflammatory profile, and provided potential CNS biomarkers for clinical investigation with the compound, including pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamics and efficacy assessment by TSPO autoradiography and CSF proteomics. Then, we showed for the first time that blockade of microglial proliferation and modification of microglial phenotype leads to an attenuation of tau-induced neurodegeneration and results in functional improvement in P301S mice. Overall, this work strongly supports the potential for inhibition of CSF1R as a target for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other tau-mediated neurodegenerative diseases

Inflammatory biomarkers in Alzheimer's disease plasma

Introduction:Plasma biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) diagnosis/stratification are a“Holy Grail” of AD research and intensively sought; however, there are no well-established plasmamarkers.Methods:A hypothesis-led plasma biomarker search was conducted in the context of internationalmulticenter studies. The discovery phase measured 53 inflammatory proteins in elderly control (CTL;259), mild cognitive impairment (MCI; 199), and AD (262) subjects from AddNeuroMed.Results:Ten analytes showed significant intergroup differences. Logistic regression identified five(FB, FH, sCR1, MCP-1, eotaxin-1) that, age/APOε4 adjusted, optimally differentiated AD andCTL (AUC: 0.79), and three (sCR1, MCP-1, eotaxin-1) that optimally differentiated AD and MCI(AUC: 0.74). These models replicated in an independent cohort (EMIF; AUC 0.81 and 0.67). Twoanalytes (FB, FH) plus age predicted MCI progression to AD (AUC: 0.71).Discussion:Plasma markers of inflammation and complement dysregulation support diagnosis andoutcome prediction in AD and MCI. Further replication is needed before clinical translatio

Retrospective evaluation of whole exome and genome mutation calls in 746 cancer samples

Funder: NCI U24CA211006Abstract: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) curated consensus somatic mutation calls using whole exome sequencing (WES) and whole genome sequencing (WGS), respectively. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, which aggregated whole genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancers across 38 tumour types, we compare WES and WGS side-by-side from 746 TCGA samples, finding that ~80% of mutations overlap in covered exonic regions. We estimate that low variant allele fraction (VAF < 15%) and clonal heterogeneity contribute up to 68% of private WGS mutations and 71% of private WES mutations. We observe that ~30% of private WGS mutations trace to mutations identified by a single variant caller in WES consensus efforts. WGS captures both ~50% more variation in exonic regions and un-observed mutations in loci with variable GC-content. Together, our analysis highlights technological divergences between two reproducible somatic variant detection efforts

Can awareness-based practices benefit co-creation in community social innovation?

Multi-disciplinarity requires team members to justify and competitively defend their disciplinary perspective, which creates a risk of them becoming ego-centric (Fisher & Smith, 2011). Whiteley (1993; 2010) examined the problem of multiple intentions affecting social development projects and recognised that to design responsibly, the designer must facilitate a co-creative process. Service Designers have been seen to accommodate co-creative design activities in recent projects. In the UK, different studies to develop collaborative practices utilise diet, exercise, meditation and different group working strategies and are objective and empirical, conducted in clinical settings. However, design-based social innovation projects occur in real life (live) community contexts and mostly produce case-studies as outcomes, which are subjective and biographical. Therefore, this research looks to create a mixed-method. The research process is also multidisciplinary, whilst based in design it has a complexity science, holistic perspective, incorporating physiological and psychological methods. The derived methodology described in this paper utilises social interactions, physiological information and psychological data to build a holistic set of methods to triangulate the effects that meditative practice can have on co-creating individuals and teams. The corresponding analysis requires a three step process; firstly, generating themes or hypothesis(es), secondly, coding data based on the hypothesis and thirdly, categorizing the themes based on their relevance and importance within a multidisciplinary social innovation context by reducing the instance of ego-centricity in its team members. The contribution of the paper is that it demonstrates that a hybrid methodology can be derived to create evidence-based research to support the development of more open, collaborative and human centred approaches to innovation

Blockchain and the supply chain : concepts, strategies and practical applications

xix, 297 p. ; 25 cm

LADS: Large-scale Automated DDoS Detection System

Many Denial of Service attacks use brute-force bandwidth flooding of intended victims. Such volume-based attacks aggregate at a target’s access router, suggesting that (i) detection and mitigation are best done by providers in their networks; and (ii) attacks are most readily detectable at access routers, where their impact is strongest. In-network detection presents a tension between scalability and accuracy. Specifically, accuracy of detection dictates fine grained traffic monitoring, but performing such monitoring for the tens or hundreds of thousands of access interfaces in a large provider network presents serious scalability issues. We investigate the design space for in-network DDoS detection and propose a triggered, multi-stage approach that addresses both scalability and accuracy. Our contribution is the design and implementation of LADS (Large-scale Automated DDoS detection System). The attractiveness of this system lies in the fact that it makes use of data that is readily available to an ISP, namely, SNMP and Netflow feeds from routers, without dependence on proprietary hardware solutions. We report our experiences using LADS to detect DDoS attacks in a tier-1 ISP