Model specification and the reliability of fMRI results: Implications for longitudinal neuroimaging studies in psychiatry

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagine (fMRI) is an important assessment tool in longitudinal studies of mental illness and its treatment. Understanding the psychometric properties of fMRI-based metrics, and the factors that influence them, will be critical for properly interpreting the results of these efforts. The current study examined whether the choice among alternative model specifications affects estimates of test-retest reliability in key emotion processing regions across a 6-month interval. Subjects (N = 46) performed an emotional-faces paradigm during fMRI in which neutral faces dynamically morphed into one of four emotional faces. Median voxelwise intraclass correlation coefficients (mvICCs) were calculated to examine stability over time in regions showing task-related activity as well as in bilateral amygdala. Four modeling choices were evaluated: a default model that used the canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF), a flexible HRF model that included additional basis functions, a modified CompCor (mCompCor) model that added corrections for physiological noise in the global signal, and a final model that combined the flexible HRF and mCompCor models. Model residuals were examined to determine the degree to which each pipeline met modeling assumptions. Results indicated that the choice of modeling approaches impacts both the degree to which model assumptions are met and estimates of test-retest reliability. ICC estimates in the visual cortex increased from poor (mvICC = 0.31) in the default pipeline to fair (mvICC = 0.45) in the full alternative pipeline - an increase of 45%. In nearly all tests, the models with the fewest assumption violations generated the highest ICC estimates. Implications for longitudinal treatment studies that utilize fMRI are discussed. © 2014 Fournier et al

Evolutionary Operating Systems

Spanish ISBN says: ISBN: 978-84-7822-661-0 Más allá de Darwin : la senda coevolutiva del arte, la tecnología y la consciencia.“Evolutionary Operating Systems” (http://www.op-sy.com/) explores the evolution of human perception through the emergence of senses more finely attuned to data. Data generates a dynamic mirror image of our world, reflecting, in sharp contrast and high resolution, our biological, ecological and social activities. As our biological senses have reached their evolutionary limits we increasingly delegate our perception of the world to instruments and processes that define new resolutions and complexities. In delegating these processes we also delegate responsibilities to things that do our seeing for us

For Dust Thou Art

This essay will explore the use of atomic force microscopy for uncovering lost tales and histories through subtle audience interaction. Its focus is a portfolio of data-driven work and ‘nanoart’ developed by the author and collaborators. The works described below include: A Mote it is…, ˈspɛktə/spectre, and Exposure. These projects explore the ubiquity of data streamed from an instrumentalized world and its totality potentialed as material for manifesting things that lie outside of normal frames of reference—things so far away, so close, so massive, so small, and so ad-infinitum

Liber Legis – AIWASS v2.0.

Interactive art work. Art work exhibited at Cairotronica (Cairo International Electronic and New Media Arts Symposium), Ministry of Culture, Palace of Arts, Cairo, Egypt. http://www.cairotronica.com/#exhibition 03-10/05/2016

There is no dome?

Title: FullDome Special Edition (2012): Digital Creativity, 23:1. Lambert, N., Phillips, M. Guest Editors, FullDome Special Edition (2012): Digital Creativity, 23:1. ISSN 1462-6268 (Print), 1744-3806 (Online) Output type: Guest editor for Journal and two papers/ Output venue/publication: Digital Creativity, 23:1 Date and year: 2012 In collaboration with Nick Lambert from Birkbeck, University of London, Mike Phillips guest edited the 23:1 issue and submitted a joint introduction paper (Lambert, N., Phillips, M. (2012): http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ndcr20/23/1 Introduction: Fulldome, Digital Creativity, 23:1, 1-4). DOI:10.1080/14626268.2012.666980 Phillips, M. (2012): There is no dome?, Digital Creativity, 23:1, 48-57. DOI:10.1080/14626268.2012.666252 Description: The 23:1 issue frames the international research initiative around the liberation of FullDome environments from the hegemony of the Planetarium. The research has been coordinated through a collaboration across four international FullDome festivals: Jena, Germany (http://www.fulldome-festival.de/), Domefest in Albuquerque, New Mexico (http://www.domefest.org/), the Immersive Film Festival in Espinho, Portugal (http://iff.multimeios.pt/), and FULLDOMEUK (http://www.fulldome.org.uk/), co-organised by Phillips. Now in its 3rd year the FullDomeUK brings together key international developers, commisioners and researchers around FullDome technologies and content. The FullDome issue consolidates the innovations in this domain and maps a future development path for real-time data visualisation and media content. With the advent of powerful single and multi-projector digital systems for new builds or planetarium conversions, the focus is shifting from the stars to a multitude of content. Along with the shift in the technologies of projection, production and playback there is a steady increase in the amount of ‘independent’ productions. Although still dominated by the ‘science’ productions for large planetariums, the cracks are forming in the production and licensing models. This particular paradigm shift is also opening up a new transdisciplinary dialogue between creative practitioners with the skills to handle the production tools and the plethora of disciplines eager to immerse new audience in their data.Fulldome is slowly emerging from its planetarium shaped incubator into a brave new world of digital projectors, real-time visualisation software, independent content producers and transdisciplinary collaborations. This article takes a slow zoom through the evolution of fulldome. It reflects on the technologies and institutions that have shaped the fulldome orthodoxy and the recent emergence of a digital framework where all the different kinds of technologies, disciplines and media forms fit together. The fulldome may no longer be full of stars, but the emptiness that lies beyond its domed surface offers new imaginings of a ‘future in space’

Ventral striatum activity in response to reward: differences between bipolar I and II disorders.

addresses: MRC Center for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University, UK. [email protected]: PMCID: PMC3640293types: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tThis is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode.Copyright © 2013 by the American Psychiatric AssociationThe official published article is available online at http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=1676088Little is known about the neurobiology of bipolar II disorder. While bipolar I disorder is associated with abnormally elevated activity in response to reward in the ventral striatum, a key component of reward circuitry, no studies have compared reward circuitry function in bipolar I and bipolar II disorders. Furthermore, associations among reward circuitry activity, reward sensitivity, and striatal volume remain underexplored in bipolar and healthy individuals. The authors examined reward activity in the ventral striatum in participants with bipolar I and II disorders and healthy individuals, the relationships between ventral striatal activity and reward sensitivity across all participants, and between-group differences in striatal gray matter volume and relationships with ventral striatal activity across all participants

Selecting low-flammability plants as green firebreaks within sustainable urban garden design

In response to an increasing risk of property loss from wildfires at the urban–wildland interface, there has been growing interest around the world in the plant characteristics of urban gardens that can be manipulated to minimize the chances of property damage or destruction. To date, considerable discussion of this issue can be found in the ‘grey’ literature, covering garden characteristics such as the spatial arrangement of plants in relation to each other, proximity of plants to houses, plant litter and fuel reduction, and the use of low-flammability plants as green firebreaks [1,2,3,4]. Recently, scientific studies from a geographically wide range of fire-prone regions including Europe [5], the USA [6], Australia [7], South Africa [8], and New Zealand [9] have been explicitly seeking to quantify variation among plant species with respect to different aspects of their flammability and to identify low-flammability horticultural species appropriate for implementation as green firebreaks in urban landscapes. The future prospects of this scientific work will ultimately depend on how successfully the results are integrated into the broader context of garden design in fire-prone regions at the urban–wildland interface. Although modern design of urban gardens must consider more than just the issue of green firebreaks, we and others [10,11] believe that selection of low-flammability plants should be high on the priority list of plant selection criteria in fire-prone regions

A way forward: Process mapping and the delivery of mental health services

YesIntroduction: This paper demonstrates the practical application of process mapping principles as a model for evaluating NHS improvement. The NHS improvement in question was the merger of three crisis resolution teams within an NHS trust in 2012. The aims were to improve overall operational efficiency and enhance multidisciplinary working to meet operational targets. This paper examined changes following the merger to capture the effects of service improvement and the reality of the patient journey. Methods: A pooled cross-sectional approach, using six years of aggregated hospital data, was taken. To achieve operational efficiency, a process map of referrals, readmissions, length of stay and waiting times for crisis resolution team assessments was examined. Prevalence of clinical referral rates and disease classification before and after the merger were compared. Conclusion: Between 1 April 2009 and 30 March 2015, length of stay and readmissions for patients to crisis resolution team rates reduced. Operational sustainability and capacity was enhanced through the redistribution of clinical human resources. Multidisciplinary skill mix (e.g. through improved team composition) also improved

i-DAT DataJam-Quorum

i-DAT DataJam-Quorum (Commission Date: Saturday 25th July 2015. Exhibition: Interactive art work installation. Turbine Festival: One City. One Day. Tate Modern. http://quorum.i-dat.org/quorumscape/ QUORUMSCAPE integrates the Quorum algorithmic tools into a real-time geo-located CityScape simulation. An alpha version was release for the Mediacity (http://mediacity.i-dat.org/) conference and SAT ix Symposium (http://ix.sat.qc.ca/node/359?language=en), with further upgrades for the the Tate Modern Turbine Hall Festival (http://i-dat.org/tate-modern-data-jam-250715/) and the Big Buzz Plymouth event (http://bit.ly/1WJFTBQ) and Cairotronica. A stable distribution with mobile/Samsung Gear VR was commissioned by Design Informatics/Edinburgh University for the Edinburgh Cityscope Project (http://www.edinburghcityscope.org/)