Working the Digital Humanities: Uncovering Shadows between the Dark and the Light

The following is an exchange between the two authors in response to a paper given by Chun at the “Dark Side of the Digital Humanities” panel at the 2013 Modern Languages Association (mla) Annual Convention. This panel, designed to provoke controversy and debate, succeeded in doing so. However, in order to create a more rigorous conversation focused on the many issues raised and elided and on the possibilities and limitations of digital humanities as they currently exist, we have produced this collaborative text. Common themes in Rhody’s and Chun’s responses are: the need to frame digital humanities within larger changes to university funding and structure, the importance of engaging with uncertainty and the ways in which digital humanities can elucidate “shadows” in the archive, and the need for and difficulty of creating alliances across diverse disciplines.  We hope that this text provokes more ruminations on the future of the university (rather than simply on the humanities) and leads to more wary, creative, and fruitful engagements with digital technologies that are increasingly shaping the ways and means by which we think.&nbsp

How does this make you feel? A comparison of four affect induction procedures

Affect is a fundamental aspect of the human mind. An increasing number of experiments attempt to examine the influence of affect on other psychological phenomena. To accomplish this research, it is necessary to experimentally modify participants' affective states. In the present experiment, we compared the efficacy of four commonly used affect induction procedures. Participants (38 healthy undergraduate students: 18 males) were randomly assigned to either a pleasant or an unpleasant affect induction group, and then underwent four different affect induction procedures: (1) recall of an affectively salient event accompanied by affectively congruent music, (2) script-driven guided imagery, (3) viewing images while listening to affectively congruent music, and (4) posing affective facial actions, body postures, and vocal expressions. All four affect induction methods were successful in inducing both pleasant and unpleasant affective states. The viewing image with music and recall with music procedures were most effective in enhancing positive affect, whereas the viewing image with music procedure was most effective in enhancing negative affect. Implications for the scientific study of affect are discussed

Automated Extraction and Classification of Time-Frequency Contours in Humpback Vocalizations

A time-frequency contour extraction and classification algorithm was created to analyze humpback whale vocalizations. The algorithm automatically extracted contours of whale vocalization units by searching for gray-level discontinuities in the spectrogram images. The unit-to-unit similarity was quantified by cross-correlating the contour lines. A library of distinctive humpback units was then generated by applying an unsupervised, cluster-based learning algorithm. The purpose of this study was to provide a fast and automated feature selection tool to describe the vocal signatures of animal groups. This approach could benefit a variety of applications such as species description, identification, and evolution of song structures. The algorithm was tested on humpback whale song data recorded at various locations in Hawaii from 2002 to 2003. Results presented in this paper showed low probability of false alarm (0%–4%) under noisy environments with small boat vessels and snapping shrimp. The classification algorithm was tested on a controlled set of 30 units forming six unit types, and all the units were correctly classified. In a case study on humpback data collected in the Auau Chanel, Hawaii, in 2002, the algorithm extracted 951 units, which were classified into 12 distinctive types

A systematic review of psychosocial interventions for people with intellectual disabilities and dementia

OBJECTIVES: As the life expectancy of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) continues to increase, there is an increased risk of developing dementia. While psychosocial interventions are gaining prominence, evidence is limited for people with both dementia and ID. This review discusses the effectiveness of direct psychosocial interventions and adaptations to facilitate delivery within this population. METHODS: The review followed the PRISMA guidelines. Five electronic databases, grey literature, and reference lists of included articles were searched for relevant studies. 10 eligible studies were appraised and analysed by narrative synthesis. RESULTS: Ten distinct interventions were identified and categorised based on their purpose and delivery. All interventions were beneficial in improving a range of outcomes, though some studies were of low quality and most had small samples. Common adaptations included simplification of tasks and material, higher staff-to-client ratio, and alternative communication methods. CONCLUSION: There is emerging evidence for several psychosocial interventions for people with ID and dementia, though further research is required on effectiveness and generalisability. The adaptations discussed may guide implementation into routine care and contribute to current policies and guidelines on improving ID and dementia care

Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems

Dynamic biological processes, such as intracellular signaling pathways, commonly are taught in science courses using static representations of individual steps in the pathway. As a result, students often memorize these steps for examination purposes, but fail to appreciate either the cascade nature of the pathway. In this study, we compared eye movement patterns for students who correctly ordered the components of an important pathway responsible for vasoconstriction against those who did not. Similarly, we compared the patterns of students who learned the material using three dimensional (3-D) animations previously associated with improved student understanding of this pathway against those who learned the material using static images extracted from those animations. For two of the three ordering problems, students with higher scores had shorter total fixation duration when ordering the components and spent less time (fixating) in the planning and solving phases of the problem-solving process. This finding was supported by the scanpath patterns that demonstrated that students who correctly solved the problems used more efficient problem-solving strategies

Development of an Antimicrobial Stewardship Intervention Using a Model of Actionable Feedback

We describe the development of an audit and feedback intervention to improve antibiotic prescribing in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) using a theoretical framework. Participants included attending physicians, neonatal fellows, pediatric residents, and nurse practitioners. The intervention was based on the “model of actionable feedback” which emphasizes that feedback should be timely, individualized, nonpunitive, and customized to be effective. We found that real-time feedback could not be provided for the parameters established in this study, as we had to collect and analyze numerous data elements to assess appropriate initiation and continuation of antibiotics and required longer intervals to examine trends in antibiotic use. We learned during focus groups that NICU clinicians strongly resisted assigning individual responsibility for antibiotic prescribing as they viewed this as a shared responsibility informed by each patient's laboratory data and clinical course. We were able to create a non-punitive atmosphere thanks to written informed consent from NICU attendings and assurance from leadership that prescribing practices would not be used to assess job performance. We provided customized, meaningful feedback integrating input from the participants. Adapting the principles of the “model of actionable feedback” to provide feedback for antimicrobial prescribing practices proved challenging in the NICU setting

Linalool inhibits the angiogenic activity of endothelial cells by downregulating intracellular ATP levels and activating TRPM8

Angiogenesis crucially contributes to various diseases, such as cancer and diabetic retinopathy. Hence, anti-angiogenic therapy is considered as a powerful strategy against these diseases. Previous studies reported that the acyclic monoterpene linalool exhibits anticancer, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative activity. However, the effects of linalool on angiogenesis still remain elusive. Therefore, we investigated the action of (3R)-(−)-linalool, a main enantiomer of linalool, on the angiogenic activity of human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMECs) by a panel of angiogenesis assays. Non-cytotoxic doses of linalool significantly inhibited HDMEC proliferation, migration, tube formation and spheroid sprouting. Linalool also suppressed the vascular sprouting from rat aortic rings. In addition, Matrigel plugs containing linalool exhibited a significantly reduced microvessel density 7 days after implantation into BALB/c mice. Mechanistic analyses revealed that linalool promotes the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), downregulates the intracellular level of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and activates the transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily M (melastatin) member (TRPM)8 in HDMECs. Inhibition of ERK signaling, supplementation of ATP and blockade of TRPM8 significantly counteracted linalool-suppressed HDMEC spheroid sprouting. Moreover, ATP supplementation completely reversed linalool-induced ERK phosphorylation. In addition, linalool-induced ERK phosphorylation inhibited the expression of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-2 and linalool-induced TRPM8 activation caused the inhibition of β1 integrin/focal adhesion kinase (FAK) signaling. These findings indicate an anti-angiogenic effect of linalool, which is mediated by downregulating intracellular ATP levels and activating TRPM8

DDX5 facilitates HIV-1 replication as a cellular co-factor of Rev.

HIV-1 Rev plays an important role in the late phase of HIV-1 replication, which facilitates export of unspliced viral mRNAs from the nucleus to cytoplasm in infected cells. Recent studies have shown that DDX1 and DDX3 are co-factors of Rev for the export of HIV-1 transcripts. In this report, we have demonstrated that DDX5 (p68), which is a multifunctional DEAD-box RNA helicase, functions as a new cellular co-factor of HIV-1 Rev. We found that DDX5 affects Rev function through the Rev-RRE axis and subsequently enhances HIV-1 replication. Confocal microscopy and co-immunoprecipitation analysis indicated that DDX5 binds to Rev and this interaction is largely dependent on RNA. If the DEAD-box motif of DDX5 is mutated, DDX5 loses almost all of its ability to bind to Rev, indicating that the DEAD-box motif of DDX5 is required for the interaction between DDX5 and Rev. Our data indicate that interference of DDX5-Rev interaction could reduce HIV-1 replication and potentially provide a new molecular target for anti-HIV-1 therapeutics