Enriching community engaged learning through interdisciplinary collaboration

Twenty first century society presents critical challenges for higher education (Brew 2013, 2). The challenges facing modern communities require graduates to have skills that respond to issues at the boundaries of, and intersections between, disciplines. Mounting evidence suggests that interdisciplinary curriculum and pedagogies help students to develop boundary-crossing skills and a deeper awareness of the student’s domain-specific knowledge (Spelt et al. 2009; Strober 2011). Spelt et al. (2009) describe boundary-crossing skills as the ability to engage with different discourses, take account of multiple perspectives, synthesise knowledge of different disciplines, and cope with complexity. In this chapter we investigate emerging conditions, practical processes, and pedagogical strategies that are enabling the Lab stakeholders, the community, the university, and students to participate in interdisciplinary community-engaged learning. Aspects of the Lab that are considered in this chapter include building trust, sharing values, establishing learning goals that are reflected in learning experiences and assessment, and employing strategies that define and attend to relationships and roles. The case study, “The Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Australian Constitution”, a QUT collaborative project with the Social Justice Research Unit Anglicare Southern Queensland, describes the collaborators, processes, outcomes, and the lessons learned through one Lab project over three semesters. The issues illustrated in the case study are then further explored in a critical discussion of the strategies supporting interdisciplinarity in community-engaged learning across university/community collaboration, within and across the university, and for student participants

Teleoperation of a 7 DOF humanoid robot arm using human arm accelerations and EMG signals

We present our work on tele-operating a complex humanoid robot with the help of bio-signals collected from the operator. The frameworks (for robot vision, collision avoidance and machine learning), developed in our lab, allow for a safe interaction with the environment, when combined. This even works with noisy control signals, such as, the operator’s hand acceleration and their electromyography (EMG) signals. These bio-signals are used to execute equivalent actions (such as, reaching and grasping of objects) on the 7 DOF arm.

Practice-based learning in community contexts: A collaborative exploration of pedagogical principles

The primary focus of this chapter is an exploration of four pedagogical principles emerging from a practice-based learning lab. Following an overview of community engaged learning and the Lab approach, the chapter is structured around a discussion of pedagogical principles related to (1) collaboration, (2) interdisciplinarity, (3) complexity and uncertainty and (4) reflection. Through a participatory action research (PAR) framework, students, academics and community partners have worked to identify and refine what it takes to support students negotiate complexity and uncertainty inherent in problems facing communities. It also examines the pedagogical strategies employed to facilitate collaboration across disciplines and professional contexts in ways that leverage difference and challenge values and practices.

Calculation of the speed of walking of individuals with transfemoral amputation fitted with bone-anchored prosthesis

Typically, the walking ability of individuals with a transfemoral amputation (TFA) can be represented by the speed of walking (SofW) obtained in experimental settings. Recent developments in portable kinetic systems allow assessing the level of activity of TFA during actual daily living outside the confined space of a gait lab. Unfortunately, only minimal spatio-temporal characteristics could be extracted from the kinetic data including the cadence and the duration on gait cycles. Therefore, there is a need for a way to use some of these characteristics to assess the instantaneous speed of walking during daily living. The purpose of the study was to compare several methods to determine SofW using minimal spatial gait characteristics.

Applications of real-time machine vision to the control of mining equipment

The mining industry presents us with a number of ideal applications for sensor based machine control because of the unstructured environment that exists within each mine. The aim of the research presented here is to increase the productivity of existing large compliant mining machines by retrofitting with enhanced sensing and control technology. The current research focusses on the automatic control of the swing motion cycle of a dragline and an automated roof bolting system. We have achieved: * closed-loop swing control of an one-tenth scale model dragline; * single degree of freedom closed-loop visual control of an electro-hydraulic manipulator in the lab developed from standard components.

Active learning: A step towards automating medical concept extraction

Objective This paper presents an automatic active learning-based system for the extraction of medical concepts from clinical free-text reports. Specifically, (1) the contribution of active learning in reducing the annotation effort, and (2) the robustness of incremental active learning framework across different selection criteria and datasets is determined. Materials and methods The comparative performance of an active learning framework and a fully supervised approach were investigated to study how active learning reduces the annotation effort while achieving the same effectiveness as a supervised approach. Conditional Random Fields as the supervised method, and least confidence and information density as two selection criteria for active learning framework were used. The effect of incremental learning vs. standard learning on the robustness of the models within the active learning framework with different selection criteria was also investigated. Two clinical datasets were used for evaluation: the i2b2/VA 2010 NLP challenge and the ShARe/CLEF 2013 eHealth Evaluation Lab. Results The annotation effort saved by active learning to achieve the same effectiveness as supervised learning is up to 77%, 57%, and 46% of the total number of sequences, tokens, and concepts, respectively. Compared to the Random sampling baseline, the saving is at least doubled. Discussion Incremental active learning guarantees robustness across all selection criteria and datasets. The reduction of annotation effort is always above random sampling and longest sequence baselines. Conclusion Incremental active learning is a promising approach for building effective and robust medical concept extraction models, while significantly reducing the burden of manual annotation.

Media futures: A review essay on'The Future of Reputation','TV Futures', and'The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It'

In his 1987 book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, Stewart Brand provides an insight into the visions of the future of the media in the 1970s and 1980s. 1 He notes that Nicolas Negroponte made a compelling case for the foundation of a media laboratory at MIT with diagrams detailing the convergence of three sectors of the media—the broadcast and motion picture industry; the print and publishing industry; and the computer industry. Stewart Brand commented: ‘If Negroponte was right and communications technologies really are converging, you would look for signs that technological homogenisation was dissolving old boundaries out of existence, and you would expect an explosion of new media where those boundaries used to be’. Two decades later, technology developers, media analysts and lawyers have become excited about the latest phase of media convergence. In 2006, the faddish Time Magazine heralded the arrival of various Web 2.0 social networking services: You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy‐strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television. And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open‐source software. America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user‐created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy. The magazine announced that Time’s Person of the Year was ‘You’, the everyman and everywoman consumer ‘for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. This review essay considers three recent books, which have explored the legal dimensions of new media. In contrast to the unbridled exuberance of Time Magazine, this series of legal works displays an anxious trepidation about the legal ramifications associated with the rise of social networking services. In his tour de force, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Daniel Solove considers the implications of social networking services, such as Facebook and YouTube, for the legal protection of reputation under privacy law and defamation law. Andrew Kenyon’s edited collection, TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia, explores the intersection between media law and copyright law in the regulation of digital television and Internet videos. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain explores the impact of ‘generative’ technologies and ‘tethered applications’—considering everything from the Apple Mac and the iPhone to the One Laptop per Child programme.

Targeting glucocorticoid receptors that promote resilience in the treatment of addiction

There is strong evidence to suggest that the combination of alcohol and chronic repetitive stress leads to long-lasting effects on brain function, specifically areas associated with stress, motivation and decision-making such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. Alcohol and stress together facilitate the imprinting of long-lasting memories. The molecular mechanisms and circuits involved are being studied but are not fully understood. Current evidence suggests that corticosterone (animals) or cortisol (humans), in addition to direct transcriptional effects on the genome, can directly regulate pre- and postsynaptic synaptic transmission through membrane bound glucocorticoid receptors (GR). Indeed, corticosterone-sensitive synaptic receptors may be critical sites for stress regulation of synaptic responses. Direct modulation of synaptic transmission by corticosterone may contribute to the regulation of synaptic plasticity and memory during stress (Johnson et al., 2005; Prager et al., 2010). Specifically, previous data has shown that long term alcohol (1) increases the expression of NR2Bcontaining NMDA receptors at glutamate synapses, (2) changes receptor density, and (3) changes morphology of dendritic spines (Prendergast and Mulholland; 2012). During alcohol withdrawal these changes are associated with increased glucocorticoid signalling and increased neuronal excitability. It has therefore been proposed that these synapse changes lead to the anxiety and alcohol craving associated with withdrawal (Prendergast and Mulholland; 2012). My lab is targeting this receptor system and the amygdala in order to understand the effect of combining alcohol and stress on these pathways. Lastly, we are testing GR specific compounds as potential new medications to promote the development of resilience to developing addiction.

Critically deconstructing race through a multimodal analysis of iPad Tellagami videos

Drawing on multimodal texts produced by an Indigenous school community in Australia, I apply critical race theory and multimodal analysis (Jewitt, 2011) to decolonise digital heritage practices for Indigenous students. This study focuses on the particular ways in which students’ counter-narratives about race were embedded in multimodal and digital design in the development of a digital cultural heritage (Giaccardi, 2012). Data analysis involved applying multimodal analysis to the students’ Gamis, following social semiotic categories and principles theorised by Kress and Bezemer (2008), and Jewitt (2006, 2011). This includes attending to the following semiotic elements: visual design, movement and gesture, gaze, and recorded speech, and their interrelationships. The analysis also draws on critical race theory to interpret the students’ representations of race. In particular, the multimodal texts were analysed as a site for students’ views of Indigenous oppression in relation to the colonial powers and ownership of the land in Australian history (Ladson-Billings, 2009). Pedagogies that explore counter-narratives of cultural heritage in the official curriculum can encourage students to reframe their own racial identity, while challenging dominant white, historical narratives of colonial conquest, race, and power (Gutierrez, 2008). The children’s multimodal “Gami” videos, created with the iPad application, Tellagami, enabled the students to imagine hybrid, digital social identities and perspectives of Australian history that were tied to their Indigenous cultural heritage (Kamberelis, 2001).

Scientists in Control: a progressive approach to preparing work ready graduates in QC, EQA and method evaluation

Introduction QC, EQA and method evaluation are integral to delivery of quality patient results. To ensure QUT graduates have a solid grounding in these key areas of practice, a theory-to-practice approach is used to progressively develop and consolidate these skills. Methods Using a BCG assay for serum albumin, each student undertakes an eight week project analysing two levels of QC alongside ‘patient’ samples. Results are assessed using both single rules and Multirules. Concomitantly with the QC analyses, an EQA project is undertaken; students analyse two EQA samples, twice in the semester. Results are submitted using cloud software and data for the full ‘peer group’ returned to students in spreadsheets and incomplete Youden plots. Youden plots are completed with target values and calculated ALP values and analysed for ‘lab’ and method performance. The method has a low-level positive bias, which leads to the need to investigate an alternative method. Building directly on the EQA of the first project and using the scenario of a lab that services renal patients, students undertake a method validation comparing BCP and BCG assays in another eight-week project. Precision and patient comparison studies allow students to assess whether the BCP method addresses the proportional bias of the BCG method and overall is a ‘better’ alternative method for analysing serum albumin, accounting for pragmatic factors, such as cost, as well as performance characteristics. Results Students develop understanding of the purpose and importance of QC and EQA in delivering quality results, the need to optimise testing to deliver quality results and importantly, a working knowledge of the analyses that go into ensuring this quality. In parallel to developing these key workplace competencies, students become confident, competent practitioners, able to pipette accurately and precisely and organise themselves in a busy, time pressured work environment.

Co-distribution and co-infection of chikungunya and dengue viruses

BACKGROUND Chikungunya and dengue infections are spatio-temporally related. The current review aims to determine the geographic limits of chikungunya, dengue and the principal mosquito vectors for both viruses and to synthesise current epidemiological understanding of their co-distribution. METHODS Three biomedical databases (PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science) were searched from their inception until May 2015 for studies that reported concurrent detection of chikungunya and dengue viruses in the same patient. Additionally, data from WHO, CDC and Healthmap alerts were extracted to create up-to-date global distribution maps for both dengue and chikungunya. RESULTS Evidence for chikungunya-dengue co-infection has been found in Angola, Gabon, India, Madagascar, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Saint Martin, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand and Yemen; these constitute only 13 out of the 98 countries/territories where both chikungunya and dengue epidemic/endemic transmission have been reported. CONCLUSIONS Understanding the true extent of chikungunya-dengue co-infection is hampered by current diagnosis largely based on their similar symptoms. Heightened awareness of chikungunya among the public and public health practitioners in the advent of the ongoing outbreak in the Americas can be expected to improve diagnostic rigour. Maps generated from the newly compiled lists of the geographic distribution of both pathogens and vectors represent the current geographical limits of chikungunya and dengue, as well as the countries/territories at risk of future incursion by both viruses. These describe regions of co-endemicity in which lab-based diagnosis of suspected cases is of higher priority.

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on (Re)Creating Lively Cities Through Ambient Technology in Arts, Culture and Gastronomic Experiences

Digital and interactive technologies are becoming increasingly embedded in everyday lives of people around the world. Application of technologies such as real-time, context-aware, and interactive technologies; augmented and immersive realities; social media; and location-based services has been particularly evident in urban environments where technological and sociocultural infrastructures enable easier deployment and adoption as compared to non-urban areas. There has been growing consumer demand for new forms of experiences and services enabled through these emerging technologies. We call this ambient media, as the media is embedded in the natural human living environment. This workshop focuses on ambient media services, applications, and technologies that promote people’s engagement in creating and recreating liveliness in urban environments, particularly through arts, culture, and gastronomic experiences. The RelCi workshop series is organized in cooperation with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in particular the Urban Informatics Lab and the Tampere University of Technology (TUT), in particular the Entertainment and Media Management (EMMi) Lab. The workshop runs under the umbrella of the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) (http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org), which is hosting the international open access journal entitled “International Journal on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia”, and the international open access series “International Series on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia” (see http://www.tut.fi/emmi/Journal). The RelCi workshop took place for the first time in 2012 in conjunction with ICME 2012 in Melbourne, Autralia; and this year’s edition took place in conjunction with INTERACT 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa. Besides, the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) organizes the Semantic Ambient Media (SAME) workshop series, which took place in 2008 in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2008 in Vancouver, Canada; in 2009 in conjunction with AmI 2009 in Salzburg, Austria; in 2010 in conjunction with AmI 2010 in Malaga, Spain; in 2011 in conjunction with Communities and Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, Australia; in 2012 in conjunction with Pervasive 2012 in Newcastle, UK; and in 2013 in conjunction with C&T 2013 in Munich, Germany.

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) modulates CD38 expression, absorbs retinoic acid and may perturb retinoid signalling

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is the most commonly used material in the manufacture of customized cell culture devices. While there is concern that uncured PDMS oligomers may leach into culture medium and/or hydrophobic molecules may be absorbed into PDMS structures, there is no consensus on how or if PDMS influences cell behaviour. We observed that human umbilical cord blood (CB)-derived CD34+ cells expanded in standard culture medium on PDMS exhibit reduced CD38 surface expression, relative to cells cultured on tissue culture polystyrene (TCP). All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) induces CD38 expression, and we reasoned that this hydrophobic molecule might be absorbed by PDMS. Through a series of experiments we demonstrated that ATRA-mediated CD38 expression was attenuated when cultures were maintained on PDMS. Medium pre-incubated on PDMS for extended durations resulted in a time-dependant reduction of ATRA in the medium and increasingly attenuated CD38 expression. This indicated a time-dependent absorption of ATRA into the PDMS. To better understand how PDMS might generally influence cell behaviour, Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was used to identify potential upstream regulators. This analysis was performed for differentially expressed genes in primary cells including CD34+ haematopoietic progenitor cells, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC), and keratinocytes, and cell lines including prostate cancer epithelial cells (LNCaP), breast cancer epithelial cells (MCF-7), and myeloid leukaemia cells (KG1a). IPA predicted that the most likely common upstream regulator of perturbed pathways was ATRA. We demonstrate here that ATRA is absorbed by PDMS in a time-dependent manner and results in the concomitant reduced expression of CD38 on the cell surface of CB-derived CD34+ cells.

The pedagogic prosthetic: Augmented learning as content-in-motion in hybrid educational spheres

This article draws on the design and implementation of three mobile learning projects introduced by Flanagan in 2011, 2012 and 2014 engaging a total of 206 participants. The latest of these projects is highlighted in this article. Two other projects provide additional examples of innovative strategies to engage mobile and cloud systems describing how electronic and mobile technology can help facilitate teaching and learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning, and support communities of practice. The second section explains the theoretical premise supporting the implementation of technology and promulgates a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The third section discusses mobility, both in terms of the exploration of wearable technology in the prototypes developed as a result of the projects, and the affordances of mobility within pedagogy. Finally the quantitative and qualitative methods in place to evaluate m-learning are explained.