Google Apps for Education: Valparaiso University\u27s Migration Experience

Many campuses are investigating cloud-based or hosted email solutions. This paper will cover Valparaiso University’s decision to move to the Google Apps for Education platform and our campus migration strategy. Google Apps offers significant savings in both cost of service and cost of support / maintenance while simultaneously offering functionality improvements to the campus experience over our previous system. Valparaiso University was using the GroupWise email and calendaring system and began the process of migrating all of campus to the Google Apps for Education platform in early 2011. Our process began with a student led evaluation team to select the new platform and started rolling out to new students beginning summer of 2011 with migration of existing students conducted from July 2011 through October 2011. Faculty / Staff migration began in December 2011 and were rolled out on a department by department basis throughout the spring 2012 Semester. Heavy promotion and utilization of multiple “Meet Google Apps” presentations greatly enhanced communication about the process and reduced migration anxiety. Apps were limited during migration process to those that reproduced existing system functionality to avoid over-taxing IT support resources. Valparaiso University’s migration process has been refined several times and overall feedback from students, faculty, and staff has been very positive throughout the process

Towards an Intelligent Learning Environment for Melody Composition Through Formalisation of Narmour's <i>Implication-Realisation Model</i>

This thesis describes research with the ultimate goal o f finding ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to encourage and facilitate melody composition by musical novices. The work described in this thesis forms the groundwork for the development of intelligent learning environments for novice composers in this domain. There were two stages to the research. The first stage was the formalisation and testing of an existing analytical theory o f melody. This theory offers an explanation of how musical listeners break-up a melody into "chunks", and hear some notes as more important than others. The theory enables analysis of melodies in a hierarchical fashion. The formalisation process involved the implementation of a parser to create hierarchical analyses, and comparison of published analyses based on the theory with those created by the parser from the same melodies. From these results a critical evaluation of the analytical theory, and the parser, is presented. The second stage o f the research involved extending the parser with constraint-based generation techniques. One result is an AI tool (called MOTIVE), which can generate melodies given an analysis (from the parser, or constructed by the user) and a set of constraints to be applied at each hierarchical level. The features of the tool are presented, and a general architecture for an intelligent learning environment is proposed, within which MOTIVE would reside, which shows how the formalised analytical theory from the first part of the work could be used educationally by novice composers of melody

Google Apps for Education: Valparaiso University\u27s Migration Experience

Many campuses are investigating cloud-based or hosted email solutions. This paper will cover Valparaiso University’s decision to move to the Google Apps for Education platform and our campus migration strategy. Google Apps offers significant savings in both cost of service and cost of support / maintenance while simultaneously offering functionality improvements to the campus experience over our previous system. Valparaiso University was using the GroupWise email and calendaring system and began the process of migrating all of campus to the Google Apps for Education platform in early 2011. Our process began with a student led evaluation team to select the new platform and started rolling out to new students beginning summer of 2011 with migration of existing students conducted from July 2011 through October 2011. Faculty / Staff migration began in December 2011 and were rolled out on a department by department basis throughout the spring 2012 Semester. Heavy promotion and utilization of multiple “Meet Google Apps” presentations greatly enhanced communication about the process and reduced migration anxiety. Apps were limited during migration process to those that reproduced existing system functionality to avoid over-taxing IT support resources. Valparaiso University’s migration process has been refined several times and overall feedback from students, faculty, and staff has been very positive throughout the process

Malaria intervention scale-up in Africa : effectiveness predictions for health programme planning tools, based on dynamic transmission modelling

Scale-up of malaria prevention and treatment needs to continue to further important gains made in the past decade, but national strategies and budget allocations are not always evidence-based. Statistical models were developed summarizing dynamically simulated relations between increases in coverage and intervention impact, to inform a malaria module in the Spectrum health programme planning tool.; The dynamic Plasmodium falciparum transmission model OpenMalaria was used to simulate health effects of scale-up of insecticide-treated net (ITN) usage, indoor residual spraying (IRS), management of uncomplicated malaria cases (CM) and seasonal malaria chemoprophylaxis (SMC) over a 10-year horizon, over a range of settings with stable endemic malaria. Generalized linear regression models (GLMs) were used to summarize determinants of impact across a range of sub-Sahara African settings.; Selected (best) GLMs explained 94-97 % of variation in simulated post-intervention parasite infection prevalence, 86-97 % of variation in case incidence (three age groups, three 3-year horizons), and 74-95 % of variation in malaria mortality. For any given effective population coverage, CM and ITNs were predicted to avert most prevalent infections, cases and deaths, with lower impacts for IRS, and impacts of SMC limited to young children reached. Proportional impacts were larger at lower endemicity, and (except for SMC) largest in low-endemic settings with little seasonality. Incremental health impacts for a given coverage increase started to diminish noticeably at above ~40 % coverage, while in high-endemic settings, CM and ITNs acted in synergy by lowering endemicity. Vector control and CM, by reducing endemicity and acquired immunity, entail a partial rebound in malaria mortality among people above 5 years of age from around 5-7 years following scale-up. SMC does not reduce endemicity, but slightly shifts malaria to older ages by reducing immunity in child cohorts reached.; Health improvements following malaria intervention scale-up vary with endemicity, seasonality, age and time. Statistical models can emulate epidemiological dynamics and inform strategic planning and target setting for malaria control

A Sacred Responsibility: Governing the Use of Water and Related Resources in the International Columbia Basin Through the Prism of Tribes and First Nations

In the fall of 2012, leaders from Columbia Basin First Nations and tribes participated, along with about 150 other people, in the 4th transboundary symposium convened by the Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance. Gathered on the shores of Flathead Lake in Polson, Montana, the participants explored the interests, rights, roles, and responsibilities of indigenous people in the international Columbia River Basin. This symposium generated two notable outcomes: first, The Columbia River Basin: A Sense of the Future—a synthesis of interests and concerns with regard to the future of the transboundary river basin as captured by the Universities Consortium during four symposia and related research initiatives; and second, a commitment from indigenous people to continue exploring their role in the governance of the international Columbia Basin. Following the symposium, members of the Universities Consortium continued to work with the Columbia Basin tribes and First Nations to frame an appropriate set of objectives to guide this applied research and report. After an exchange of memorandum and the creation of a steering committee, the Steering Committee agreed to a number of objectives

Towards an objective measure of presence: examining startle reflexes in a commercial virtual reality game

A large body of literature is concerned with models of presence-the sensory illusion of being part of a virtual scene-but there is still no general agreement on how to measure it objectively and reliably. For the presented study, we applied contemporary theory to measure presence in virtual reality. Thirty-seven participants explored an existing commercial game in order to complete a collection task. Two startle events were naturally embedded in the game progression to evoke physical reactions and head tracking data was collected in response to these events. Subjective presence was recorded using a post-study questionnaire and real-time assessments. Our novel implementation of behavioral measures lead to insights which could inform future presence research: We propose a measure in which startle reflexes are evoked through specific events in the virtual environment, and head tracking data is compared to the range and speed of baseline interactions

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE TECHNIQUES HAVE NON-LINEAR EFFECTS ON RADIATION RESPONSE AND CAN ALTER THE EXPRESSION OF RADIATION INDUCED BYSTANDER EFFECTS

Many so-called “alternative medicine” techniques such as Reiki and acupuncture produce very good outcomes for intractable pain and other chronic illnesses but the efficacy is often dismissed as being psychosomatic. However a plausible mechanism does exist i.e. that the treatments alter the electromagnetic fields in living organisms and thereby prevent or reduce activity of neurons which lead to the pain. Low doses of ionising radiation have similar effects on electromagnetic fields and are known to induce signaling cascades in tissues due to ion gradients. To test this hypothesis cell cultures were exposed to Reiki – like and to acupuncture – like treatments, both performed by qualified practitioners. The cells were exposed either before or after the treatment to x-rays and were monitored for production of direct damage or bystander signals. The data suggest that the alternative techniques altered the response of cells to direct irradiation and altered bystander signal mechanisms. We conclude that alternative medicine techniques involving electromagnetic perturbations may modify the response of cells to ionizing radiation. In addition to the obvious implications for mechanistic studies of low dose effects, this could provide a novel target to exploit in radiation protection and in optimizing therapeutic gain during radiotherapy

Resistance to BRAF inhibitors induces glutamine dependency in melanoma cells

BRAF inhibitors can extend progression-free and overall survival in melanoma patients whose tumors harbor mutations in BRAF. However, the majority of patients eventually develop resistance to these drugs. Here we show that BRAF mutant melanoma cells that have developed acquired resistance to BRAF inhibitors display increased oxidative metabolism and increased dependency on mitochondria for survival. Intriguingly, the increased oxidative metabolism is associated with a switch from glucose to glutamine metabolism and an increased dependence on glutamine over glucose for proliferation. We show that the resistant cells are more sensitive to mitochondrial poisons and to inhibitors of glutaminolysis, suggesting that targeting specific metabolic pathways may offer exciting therapeutic opportunities to treat resistant tumors, or to delay emergence of resistance in the first-line setting