The nascent field of what has come to be known as “creative AI” consists of a range of activities at the intersections of new media arts, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. This ...article provides an overview of recent projects that emphasise the use of machine learning algorithms as a means to identify, replicate, and modify features in existing media, to facilitate new multimodal mappings between user inputs and media outputs, to push the boundaries of generative art experiences, and to critically investigate the role of feature detection and pattern identification technologies in contemporary life. Despite the proliferation of such projects, recent advances in applied machine learning have not yet been incorporated into or interrogated by creative AI projects, and this article also highlights opportunities for computational artists working in this area. The article concludes by envisioning how creative AI practice could include delineating the boundaries of what can and cannot be learned by extracting features from artefacts and experiences, exploring how new forms of interpretation can be encoded into neural networks, and articulating how the interaction of multiple machine learning algorithms can be used to generate new insight into the intertwining sociotechnical systems that encompass our lives.
Abstract
Motivation
We present an overview of the Kappa platform, an integrated suite of analysis and visualization techniques for building and interactively exploring rule-based models. The main ...components of the platform are the Kappa Simulator, the Kappa Static Analyzer and the Kappa Story Extractor. In addition to these components, we describe the Kappa User Interface, which includes a range of interactive visualization tools for rule-based models needed to make sense of the complexity of biological systems. We argue that, in this approach, modeling is akin to programming and can likewise benefit from an integrated development environment. Our platform is a step in this direction.
Results
We discuss details about the computation and rendering of static, dynamic, and causal views of a model, which include the contact map (CM), snaphots at different resolutions, the dynamic influence network (DIN) and causal compression. We provide use cases illustrating how these concepts generate insight. Specifically, we show how the CM and snapshots provide information about systems capable of polymerization, such as Wnt signaling. A well-understood model of the KaiABC oscillator, translated into Kappa from the literature, is deployed to demonstrate the DIN and its use in understanding systems dynamics. Finally, we discuss how pathways might be discovered or recovered from a rule-based model by means of causal compression, as exemplified for early events in EGF signaling.
Availability and implementation
The Kappa platform is available via the project website at kappalanguage.org. All components of the platform are open source and freely available through the authors' code repositories.
This review considers the burden of mortality observed in the older population of people with diabetes and identifies the risk factors associated with mortality hazard in this population. The ...mortality gap between older people with and without diabetes is enduring, with excess mortality being 10% greater than in the general population. While early mortality in men with diabetes is significantly greater than females with diabetes, the relative mortality risk in females is much higher compared to women without diabetes. Older people who have developed diabetes in middle age have significantly higher mortality hazard compared to those who develop it in old age, emphasizing the continued importance of optimizing diabetes care in all ages. To minimize mortality hazard in older age it is important to address some of the factors that convey risk, these include: comorbidity; polypharmacy; physical and mental frailty; safe glycemic targets for older people; hypoglycemia; glycemic targets; and the hypoglycemic agents. While the data to determine optimal management approaches are limited, the overall need is for a more diligent approach in assessing the needs of older people with diabetes to inform individualized care strategies and therapy goals that minimize potential hazards.
Understanding complicated networks of interactions and chemical components is essential to solving contemporary problems in modern biology, especially in domains such as cancer and systems research. ...In these domains, biological pathway data is used to represent chains of interactions that occur within a given biological process. Visual representations can help researchers understand, interact with, and reason about these complex pathways in a number of ways. At the same time, these datasets offer unique challenges for visualization, due to their complexity and heterogeneity.
Here, we present taxonomy of tasks that are regularly performed by researchers who work with biological pathway data. The generation of these tasks was done in conjunction with interviews with several domain experts in biology. These tasks require further classification than is provided by existing taxonomies. We also examine existing visualization techniques that support each task, and we discuss gaps in the existing visualization space revealed by our taxonomy.
Our taxonomy is designed to support the development and design of future biological pathway visualization applications. We conclude by suggesting future research directions based on our taxonomy and motivated by the comments received by our domain experts.
To assess the feasibility of an ante- and post-natal lifestyle intervention for women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) to reduce type 2 diabetes risk.
A partially randomised patient ...preference feasibility trial.
Diabetes antenatal clinics in two inner-London hospitals, UK.
Pregnant women ≥18 years with a GDM diagnosis and pre-pregnancy body mass index of ≥25kg/m2.
Participants in the intervention group were offered four motivational interview-based sessions (two antenatally and two postnatally, at 3 and 6 months postpartum), a WhatsApp support group, a FitBit and electronic self-help resources.
Recruitment; retention; intervention dose received; data completion; adaptions; proportion achieving ≥5% weight loss; weight change, blood glucose; blood pressure; diet, physical activity, breastfeeding and depression. Clinical outcomes were measured at baseline and 6 months postpartum.
50 participants were recruited from 155 eligible women (32% recruitment rate). Thirty-four were recruited to the intervention group (23 following randomisation (RI-group) and 11 based on preference (PI-group)); and 16 to the control group (13 randomised (RC-group) and 3 preference (PC-group)). Attrition was 44% (n = 22/50). Forty-six percent (n = 6) of the intervention group (25% (n = 2) of the RI-group and 80% (n = 4) of the PI-group) achieved ≥5% weight loss compared to 8% (n = 1) in the control group (95% confidence interval (CI) -0.69 to 0.07). Mean weight change was -2.1kg±9.0 in the intervention group (0kg±5.4 in the RI-group and -5.4kg±13.0 in the PI-group) compared to +4.4kg±4.9 in the control group (RC +4.4kg ±5.3 and PC +4.7kg ±3.1, 95% CI -12.4 to 0.2).
Recruitment was feasible, but strategies to improve retention are needed. The findings suggest the intervention can support women with GDM to lose weight. The observed weight loss was primarily in women who preferred the intervention. Therefore, future trials may need to adopt a preference design and consider factors associated with preference.
Trial registration: ISRCTN52675820 https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN52675820?q=ISRCTN52675820&filters=&sort=&offset=1&totalResults=1&page=1&pageSize=10&searchType=basic-search.
Revealing the Dark Threads of the Cosmic Web Burchett, Joseph N.; Elek, Oskar; Tejos, Nicolas ...
Astrophysical journal. Letters,
03/2020, Letnik:
891, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Modern cosmology predicts that matter in our universe today has assembled into a vast network of filamentary structures colloquially termed the "cosmic web." Because this matter is either ...electromagnetically invisible (i.e., dark) or too diffuse to image in emission, tests of this cosmic web paradigm are limited. Wide-field surveys do reveal web-like structures in the galaxy distribution, but these luminous galaxies represent less than 10% of baryonic matter. Statistics of absorption by the intergalactic medium (IGM) via spectroscopy of distant quasars support the model yet have not conclusively tied the diffuse IGM to the web. Here, we report on a new method inspired by the Physarum polycephalum slime mold that is able to infer the density field of the cosmic web from galaxy surveys. Applying our technique to galaxy and absorption-line surveys of the local universe, we demonstrate that the bulk of the IGM indeed resides in the cosmic web. From the outskirts of cosmic web filaments, at approximately the cosmic mean matter density ( m) and ∼5 virial radii from nearby galaxies, we detect an increasing H i absorption signature toward higher densities and the circumgalactic medium, to ∼200 m. However, the absorption is suppressed within the densest environments, suggesting shock-heating and ionization deep within filaments and/or feedback processes within galaxies.
Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is an increasingly common condition of pregnancy. It is associated with adverse fetal, infant and maternal outcomes, as well as an increased risk of GDM in future ...pregnancies and type 2 diabetes for both mother and offspring. Previous studies have shown that GDM can result in an emotionally distressing pregnancy, but there is little research on the patient experience of GDM care, especially of a demographically diverse UK population. The aim of this research was to explore the experiences of GDM and GDM care for a group of women attending a large diabetes pregnancy unit in southeast London, UK, in order to improve care.
Framework analysis was used to support an integrated analysis of data from six focus groups with 35 women and semi-structured interviews with 15 women, held in 2015. Participants were purposively sampled and were representative of the population being studied in terms of ethnicity, age, deprivation score and body mass index (BMI).
We identified seven themes: the disrupted pregnancy, projected anxiety, reproductive asceticism, women as baby machines, perceived stigma, lack of shared understanding and postpartum abandonment. These themes highlight the often distressing experience of GDM. While most women were grateful for the intensive support they received during pregnancy, the costs to their personal autonomy were high. Women described feeling valued solely as a means to produce a healthy infant, and felt chastised if they failed to adhere to the behaviours required to achieve this. This sometimes had an enduring impact to the potential detriment of women's long-term psychological and physical health.
This study reveals the experiences of a demographically diverse group of patients with GDM, reflecting findings from previous studies globally and extending analysis to the context of improving care. Healthcare delivery may need to be reoriented to improve the pregnancy experience and help ensure women are engaged and attentive to their own health, particularly after birth, without compromising clinical pregnancy outcomes. Areas for consideration in GDM healthcare include: improved management of emotional responses to GDM; a more motivational approach; rethinking the medicalisation of care; and improved postpartum care.
To assess the caregiver burden and factors determining the burden in patients receiving ranibizumab therapy for neovascular AMD (nAMD).
This is a cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 250 matched ...patient caregiver dyads across three large ophthalmic treatment centres in United Kingdom. The primary outcome was the subjective caregiver burden measured using caregiver reaction assessment scale (CRA). Objective caregiver burden was determined by the caregiver tasks and level of care provided. The factors that may predict the caregiver burden such as the patient's visual acuity of the better eye and vision related quality of life, demographics, satisfaction and support provided by the healthcare and the health status of the dyads were also collected and assessed in a hierarchical regression model.
The mean CRA score was 3.2±0.5, similar to the score reported by caregivers for atrial fibrillation who require regular hospital appointments for monitoring their thromboprophylaxis. Caregiver tasks including accompanying for hospital appointments for eye treatment and patient's visual acuity in the better eye were the biggest contributors to the caregiver burden hierarchical model explaining 18% and 11% of the variance respectively.
Ranibizumab therapy for nAMD is associated with significant caregiver burden. Both disease impact and treatment frequency contributed to the overall burden.
This paper introduces Polyphorm, an interactive visualization and model fitting tool that provides a novel approach for investigating cosmological datasets. Through a fast computational simulation ...method inspired by the behavior of Physarum polycephalum, an unicellular slime mold organism that efficiently forages for nutrients, astrophysicists are able to extrapolate from sparse datasets, such as galaxy maps archived in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and then use these extrapolations to inform analyses of a wide range of other data, such as spectroscopic observations captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Researchers can interactively update the simulation by adjusting model parameters, and then investigate the resulting visual output to form hypotheses about the data. We describe details of Polyphorm's simulation model and its interaction and visualization modalities, and we evaluate Polyphorm through three scientific use cases that demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
There is a rising prevalence of type 2 diabetes among older people. This population also suffers from co-morbidity and a greater number of diabetes related complications, such as visual and cognitive ...impairment, which can potentially affect their ability to manage insulin regimens. Understanding the experiences of older people when they transition to insulin will help the development of healthcare interventions to enhance their diabetes outcomes, overall health and quality of life.
The aims of this exploratory study were to (1) understand the experiences of older people with type 2 diabetes in relation to insulin treatment initiation and management and (2) use this understanding to consider how the insulin management support provided to older people by healthcare providers could be more tailored to their needs.
A qualitative study using semi structured (remote) interviews with older people with diabetes (n = 10) and caregivers (n = 4) from the UK. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, and framework analysis was used to analyse the data.
Three main themes, along with six subthemes, were generated from the study data. Participants generally felt at ease with insulin administration following training, yet some reported feelings of failure at transitioning to insulin use. Participants were also frustrated at what they perceived were insufficient resources for effective self-management, coupled with a lack of professional interest in optimising their health as older people. Some also expressed dissatisfaction regarding the brevity of their consultations, inconsistent information from different healthcare professionals and poor treatment coordination between primary and secondary care.
Overall, the study emphasised that older people need better support, education and resources to help manage their insulin use. Healthcare professionals should be encouraged to adopt a more individualised approach to supporting older people that acknowledges their prior knowledge, physical and psychological capabilities and motivation for diabetes self-management. In addition, better communication between different services and greater access to specialist support is clearly needed for this older population.
An integrated care pathway for insulin use in older people could be considered. This would include an assessment of the older person's needs and capacity on their initiation to insulin; targeted education and training in self-management; timely access to appropriate emotional and peer support resources; care plans developed collaboratively with patients; and individualised glucose targets that recognise the needs and preferences of the older person.
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