Does treatment of the laryngeal mucosa reduce dystonic symptoms? A prospective clinical cohort study of mannose binding lectin and other immunological parameters with diagnostic use of phonatory function studies

This study examined efficacy of the innate immune defence via the mannose binding lectin (MBL) in a cohort of 55 dystonic patients prospectively referred to the clinic with laryngeal mucosal complaints, who were placed on local steroids (budesonid inhaler, 400 μg 2 times daily) and antihistamines (fexofenadin 180 mg mostly 3 times daily) with adjuvant lifestyle corrections. Treatment efficacy of the larynx was assessed based on mucosal findings of the vocal folds examined with phonatory function studies (PhFS) comprising simultaneous high-speed digital images, kymography, electroglottography and voice acoustics combined with a visual score of arytenoids oedema, as these measures are indicative of the magnitude of laryngitis. Lactose and gluten intolerance and immunological analyses of the innate system were made systematically. Results showed that the genetic aspects of immunology did not reveal a role for the innate immune system, represented by the MBL. But an unexpected positive effect of the larynx treatment on dystonia symptoms was found evidenced by reduction of dystonic complaints and more normative results of PhFS, and a reduction of oedema of the inter arytenoids region. Symptoms relieve and better quality of life was observed on follow-up for the dystonia complaints

Sensing a live audience.

Psychophysiological measurement has the potential to play an important role in audience research. Currently, such research is still in its infancy and it usually involves collecting data in the laboratory, where during each experimental session one individual watches a video recording of a performance. We extend the experimental paradigm by simultaneously measuring Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) of a group of participants during a live performance. GSR data were synchronized with video footage of performers and audience. In conjunction with questionnaire data, this enabled us to identify a strongly correlated main group of participants, describe the nature of their theatre experience and map out a minute-by-minute unfolding of the performance in terms of psycho-physiological engagement. The benefits of our approach are twofold. It provides us a robust and accurate mechanism for assessing a performance. Moreover, our infrastructure can enable, in the future, real-time feedback from remote audiences for online performances. We are currently scaling up the system allowing for simultaneous GSR measurement of larger audiences

Confirmation Report: Modelling Interlocutor Confusion in Situated Human Robot Interaction

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is an important but challenging field focused on improving the interaction between humans and robots such to make the interaction more intelligent and effective. However, building a natural conversational HRI is an interdisciplinary challenge for scholars, engineers, and designers. It is generally assumed that the pinnacle of human- robot interaction will be having fluid naturalistic conversational interaction that in important ways mimics that of how humans interact with each other. This of course is challenging at a number of levels, and in particular there are considerable difficulties when it comes to naturally monitoring and responding to the user’s mental state. On the topic of mental states, one field that has received little attention to date is moni- toring the user for possible confusion states. Confusion is a non-trivial mental state which can be seen as having at least two substates. There two confusion states can be thought of as being associated with either negative or positive emotions. In the former, when people are productively confused, they have a passion to solve any current difficulties. Meanwhile, people who are in unproductive confusion may lose their engagement and motivation to overcome those difficulties, which in turn may even lead them to drop the current conversation. While there has been some research on confusion monitoring and detection, it has been limited with the most focused on evaluating confusion states in online learning tasks. The central hypothesis of this research is that the monitoring and detection of confusion states in users is essential to fluid task-centric HRI and that it should be possible to detect such confusion and adjust policies to mitigate the confusion in users. In this report, I expand on this hypothesis and set out several research questions. I also provide a comprehensive literature review before outlining work done to date towards my research hypothesis, I also set out plans for future experimental work

Disparities in Oral Health: Socioeconomic Status and Policies to Increase Access to Primary Dental Care

Primary dental care is a patient-centered service consisting of routine dental checkups. The oral cavity is the first point of entrance to the body for many harmful pathogens. Therefore, primary dental care is essential to not only prevent and treat conditions in the mouth, but to also reduce the number of systemic diseases in the rest of the body. However, people with higher incomes or wealth have increased access to primary dental care. People with low socioeconomic status have decreased access to primary dental care, at least in part due to difficulties in paying for separate dental insurance. Disparities in oral health are a growing problem. Preventative services need to be available to ensure everyone is receiving quality dental care. This policy analysis identifies barriers to accessing primary dental care for people with low socioeconomic status and evaluates policy solutions to increase primary dental care access and overall dental health

Optimising the use of bio-loggers for movement ecology research

1.The paradigm‐changing opportunities of bio‐logging sensors for ecological research, especially movement ecology, are vast, but the crucial questions of how best to match the most appropriate sensors and sensor combinations to specific biological questions, and how to analyse complex bio‐logging data, are mostly ignored. 2.Here, we fill this gap by reviewing how to optimise the use of bio‐logging techniques to answer questions in movement ecology and synthesise this into an Integrated Bio‐logging Framework (IBF). 3.We highlight that multi‐sensor approaches are a new frontier in bio‐logging, whilst identifying current limitations and avenues for future development in sensor technology. 4.We focus on the importance of efficient data exploration, and more advanced multi‐dimensional visualisation methods, combined with appropriate archiving and sharing approaches, to tackle the big data issues presented by bio‐logging. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities in matching the peculiarities of specific sensor data to the statistical models used, highlighting at the same time the large advances which will be required in the latter to properly analyse bio‐logging data. 5.Taking advantage of the bio‐logging revolution will require a large improvement in the theoretical and mathematical foundations of movement ecology, to include the rich set of high‐frequency multivariate data, which greatly expand the fundamentally limited and coarse data that could be collected using location‐only technology such as GPS. Equally important will be the establishment of multi‐disciplinary collaborations to catalyse the opportunities offered by current and future bio‐logging technology. If this is achieved, clear potential exists for developing a vastly improved mechanistic understanding of animal movements and their roles in ecological processes, and for building realistic predictive models

How to scale up from animal movement decisions to spatiotemporal patterns: An approach via step selection

Uncovering the mechanisms behind animal space use patterns is of vital importance for predictive ecology, thus conservation and management of ecosystems. Movement is a core driver of those patterns so understanding how movement mechanisms give rise to space use patterns has become an increasingly active area of research.This study focuses on a particular strand of research in this area, based around step selection analysis (SSA). SSA is a popular way of inferring drivers of movement decisions, but, perhaps less well appreciated, it also parametrises a model of animal movement. Of key interest is that this model can be propagated forwards in time to predict the space use patterns over broader spatial and temporal scales than those that pertain to the proximate movement decisions of animals.Here, we provide a guide for understanding and using the various existing techniques for scaling up step selection models to predict broad-scale space use patterns. We give practical guidance on when to use which technique, as well as specific examples together with code in R and Python.By pulling together various disparate techniques into one place, and providing code and instructions in simple examples, we hope to highlight the importance of these techniques and make them accessible to a wider range of ecologists, ultimately helping expand the usefulness of SSA

Open electronics for medical devices: State-of-art and unique advantages

A wide range of medical devices have significant electronic components. Compared to open-source medical software, open (and open-source) electronic hardware has been less published in peer-reviewed literature. In this review, we explore the developments, significance, and advantages of using open platform electronic hardware for medical devices. Open hardware electronics platforms offer not just shorter development times, reduced costs, and customization; they also offer a key potential advantage which current commercial medical devices lack—seamless data sharing for machine learning and artificial intelligence. We explore how various electronic platforms such as microcontrollers, single board computers, field programmable gate arrays, development boards, and integrated circuits have been used by researchers to design medical devices. Researchers interested in designing low cost, customizable, and innovative medical devices can find references to various easily available electronic components as well as design methodologies to integrate those components for a successful design