Managing the evolution of dataflows with VisTrails

Journal ArticleScientists are now faced with an incredible volume of data to analyze. To successfully analyze and validate various hypotheses, it is necessary to pose several queries, correlate disparate data, and create insightful visualizations of both the simulated processes and observed phenomena. Data exploration through visualization requires scientists to go through several steps. In essence, they need to assemble complex workflows that consist of dataset selection, specification of series of operations that need to be applied to the data, and the creation of appropriate visual representations, before they can finally view and analyze the results. Often, insight comes from comparing the results of multiple visualizations that are created during the data exploration process. For example, by applying a given visualization process to multiple datasets; by varying the values of simulation parameters; or by applying different variations of a given process (e.g., which use different visualization algorithms) to a given dataset. Unfortunately, today this exploratory process is far from interactive and contains many error-prone and time-consuming tasks

Provenance for visualizations: reproducibility and beyond

Journal ArticleThe demand for the construction of complex visualizations is growing in many disciplines of science, as users are faced with ever increasing volumes of data to analyze. The authors present VisTrails, an open source provenance-management system that provides infrastructure for data exploration and visualization

The use of music in Mutual Recovery: a qualitative pilot study

Mutual Recovery involves caregivers and their clients mutually participating in artistic endeavours to foster resilience in both parties. A qualitative enquiry into the use of group music making (referred to as a ‘Music Jam’) between both the caregivers and clients at a residential treatment facility for adults with developmental disabilities and Schizophrenia was conducted. The purpose of this study was to examine whether shared musical endeavours enjoyed therapeutic and resilience building utility for both the caregivers and clients. A focus group was conducted in which comments were collected and transcribed for qualitative analysis. Themes of enhanced respect and equality among clients for the caregivers, and intrapersonal connectedness and enhanced feelings of community emerged during analysis. Both parties expressed recurrent themes of humility, mutual respect and overall enjoyment. Mutual Recovery practices where caregivers and their clients play music outside of therapeutic settings are an effective means by which resiliency and connectedness can be enhanced in all participants. To this end, other forms of Mutual Recovery deserve greater investigation in order to better examine whether these practices are worth implementing in larger and more varied formats

Defining the Domain of Geriatric Medicine in an Urban Public Health System Affiliated with an Academic Medical Center

The American Geriatrics Society has recommended a reexamination of the roles and deployment of providers with expertise in geriatric medicine. Healthcare systems use a variety of strategies to maximize their geriatric expertise. In general, these health systems tend to focus geriatric medicine resources on a group of older adults that are locally defined as the most in need. This article describes a model of care within an academic urban public health system and describes how local characteristics interact to define the domain of geriatric medicine. This domain is defined using 4 years of data from an electronic medical record combined with data collected from clinical trials. From January 2002 to December 2005, 31,443 adults aged 65 and older were seen at any clinical site within this healthcare system. The mean age was 75 (range 65–105); 61% were women; 35% African American, and 2% Hispanic. The payer mix was 80% Medicare and 17% Medicaid. The local geriatric medicine program includes sites of care in inpatient, ambulatory, nursing home, and home-based settings. By design, this geriatric medicine clinical practice complements the care provided to older adults by the primary care practice. Primary care physicians tend to cede care to geriatric medicine for older adults with advanced disability or geriatric syndromes. This is most apparent for older adults in nursing facilities or those requiring home-based care. There is a dynamic interplay between design features, reputation, and capacity that modulates volume, location, and type of patients seen by geriatrics