I’ve recently begun to write a few posts for the Michigan IT Newsletter, and will be reposting those here once they are released. This is part of my grand scheme to force myself back into blogging! Life’s crazy, so things are running late. Here’s the first piece I did for them, which was posted at https://michigan.it.umich.edu/news/2017/12/04/cool-toys/
The Cool Toys Conversation group started out as one of the many spaces on campus where people share cool tech they’ve discovered for education, research, clinical care, outreach, and productivity. Since then, it’s evolved to become more of a community of practice around emerging trends and technologies, but without ever completely giving up the original sharing of cool toys. Some of this happens in monthly meetings, usually at noon on the last Tuesday of the month (moving to BlueJeans only in January 2018), some in our email group cooltoysconversations@umich.edu (you may request to be added even if you aren’t part of UMich), and some on social media with the hashtag #cooltoysu. The scope of the resources shared is broad, as fits the scope and range of activities and interests across the university, with some of them focusing on pretty hard core tech and others focusing on links or apps or tech to do something interesting in another topic.
Here are just a few interesting things selected from the hashtag. Highlights include: augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, mobile apps, games, and productivity tools.
Seeing AI is a free app that narrates the world around you. Designed for the low vision community, this research project harnesses the power of AI to describe people, text, and objects.
A fun little “photo” app, Mirage allows you to create 3D audio/video/emojis/doodles augmented reality content with your phone. You can also browse other people’s content, but right now, since it’s fairly new, you may not find a lot of content where you are. Here’s a nice introduction to augmented reality from Hackernoon.
The Evolution of Trust is a clever online game/interactive simulation that explores the mathematics of trust, distrust, and miscommunication through various character types.
This online checklist tool helps you choose where to publish your research. In their words: “Sharing research results with the world is key to the progress of your discipline and career. But with so many publications, how can you be sure you can trust a particular journal? Follow this check list to make sure you choose trusted journals for your research.”
Index touts itself as an alternative to Evernote, or as a one-stop-shop organizational tool. In their words: “Index is the easiest way to capture your ideas. #tag links, notes, files and anything from anywhere, and Index will organize everything into searchable, shareable #collections. Just promise you’ll use it for good and not evil.”
This is a pretty interesting happening, and particularly interesting in the context of the maker movement, #DIYability, #InventHealth, #MakerNurse, and #MakeHealth. These are all concepts or movements driving the improvement of health and healthcare through engagement with the general public. This is where a lot of patients and the general public use creativity, insight, experience, and often various technologies such as 3D printing in order to craft custom solutions to interesting health challenges.
So, will the FDA guidance impact on people trying to make stuff at home, at work, in the hospital? Possibly. Actually, according to the strict interpretation of the current definitions, it sounds pretty likely. (Please, note, I am not a lawyer!) Here is one section on that aspect.
“Point-of-care device manufacturing may raise additional technical considerations. The recommendations in this guidance should supplement any device-specific recommendations outlined in existing guidance documents or applicable FDA-recognized consensus standards.”
So, this is talking about point-of-care, which would include pretty much all the maker communities I was mentioning above, but it’s really really vague. I’m not the only person who thinks so.
“Although the draft guidance is a start, there are still many unresolved regulatory issues that need to be addressed, especially as the technology continues to evolve and more innovative products are brought to market. One still-pressing, unanswered regulatory issue associated with 3D printing is how the FDA intends to approach non-traditional device manufacturers. As background, under the existing FDA regulatory framework, a manufacturer is defined broadly to include “any person who designs, manufactures, fabricates, assembles, or processes a finished device.” As 3D printers become increasingly accessible, a person (or entity) with a 3D printer does not need the financial capital, infrastructure, or resources historically associated with traditional manufacturing operations. While the draft guidance acknowledges point-of-care manufacturing, it does not provide much discussion on non-traditional entities, such as healthcare providers and suppliers becoming “manufacturers” of medical devices. … We also do not know how the FDA intends to resolve the legal and regulatory issues associated with point-of-care manufacturing.”
Matt Jackson, Kevin Madagan. FDA’S 3D Printing Draft Guidance Leaves Much Unresolved, Even More Unknown http://www.meddeviceonline.com/doc/fda-s-d-printing-draft-guidance-leaves-much-unresolved-even-more-unknown-0001
The next thing they mention, in the same paragraph, is biofabrication (which technically is less about making devices and more about 3d printing with biological “ink,” living cells, biomaterials, and such).
“In addition, this guidance does not address the use or incorporation of biological, cellular, or tissue-based products in AM. Biological, cellular or tissue-based products manufactured using AM technology may necessitate additional regulatory and manufacturing process considerations and/or different regulatory pathways. Therefore, all AM questions pertaining to products containing biologics, cells or tissues should be directed to the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).”
I’m actually relieved that they are leaving biofabrication alone for now, but it is not going to go away forever (nor should it). For people working at the intersectional spaces of 3D printing, where it combines with biologics, electronics, programmables, smart materials, and other materials with interactive potential, there is a possibility that content from this guidance may interact in unexpected ways with the other side of the work they are trying to do.
Here’s the good news.
“This draft guidance is a leap-frog guidance; leap frog guidances are intended to serve as a mechanism by which the Agency can share initial thoughts regarding emerging technologies that are likely to be of public health importance early in product development. This leap-frog guidance represents the Agency’s initial thinking, and our recommendations may change as more information becomes available.”
AND
“FDA’s guidance documents, including this guidance, do not establish legally enforceable responsibilities. Instead, guidances describe the Agency’s current thinking on a topic and should be viewed only as recommendations, unless specific regulatory or statutory requirements are cited. The use of the word should in Agency guidance means that something is suggested or recommended, but not required.”
So, don’t worry TOO MUCH just yet, but do please read this, consider how it might impact on work happening in your community, and consider replying to the draft guidance or filing comments. You may submit comments on the Technical Considerations for Additive Manufactured Devices Draft Guidance until August 8, 2016.
Well, I can’t believe how little I’ve been here. I am absolutely SHOCKED that I haven’t blogged in over a MONTH! Of course, this is because I’ve been so gosh all darned busy, both at work and at home. Just briefly, what all is keeping me away is probably of interest to folk.
First, a couple days after the last post, I was a keynote for the November meeting of MDMLG (Metropolitan Detroit Medical Library Group). It was a wonderful experience, a great group. I really enjoyed being with them, and by all reports, they enjoyed my talk. There are rumors that I might repeat it locally, and I’ve been pondering maybe repeating it in a Hangout or something for other folk. Maybe. In any case, here are the slides!
But is an Emerging Technologies Informationist a Librarian?
OPIOID OVERDOSE SUMMIT
Dashed away to visit family for the November holiday, dashed back, and immediately was livetweeting the UofM sponsored Opioid Overdose Summit. Another fantastic event! I’ve been working on a big beautiful Storify of the event for the last month, but the Storify platform developed a glitch and ate the whole thing. Unfortunately, the only engineer who MIGHT be able to restore the file from backup is out on vacation for another week, so for now I can offer you links to the UM Injury Center’s agenda, slides in Slideshare, their videos, and the hashtag #uminjuryctr.
— U-M Injury Prevention Center (@UMInjuryCenter) December 3, 2015
MICROBES AND MOOD
The same week, I also livetweeted the seminar, “Gut Feelings: Microbes, Mood, & Metabolism” from the Depression Center’s Colloquium Series. It was a wonderful triple of presenters on how emerging and historic research is revealing connections between our microbiome (the bacteria that live in and on us) impact our own emotions. Powerful and exciting stuff.
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) December 4, 2015
I was making a Storify of this, too, but the same glitch (which prevent some content from being inserted and erases other content) has made it impossible for me to finish, so I’m releasing it in the raw form.
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) January 7, 2016
DESIGN LAB & COLORING
The following week I worked on various Storify stories in progress and had a bunch of meetings. One of the meetings was with the new Design Lab that lives on the main floor of the Shapiro Library, where we started planning a workshop which will sneakily use the adult coloring craze as a way to teach things like internet search skills, internet security, paper/art/book preservation concepts, some online tools and toys, etc. The workshop is happening next week, and I think it is going to be super cool. Just to whet your appetite, here is an example.
Original image:
Coloring version of the same image:
PAGAMO (GAMING)
I didn’t livetweet this, but I felt very lucky that I was able to attend the small presentation by Dr. Benson Yeh on PaGamO for education. The lecture was FANTASTIC and was recorded, so I am hoping for a video to be available soon. In the meantime, here are a few links.
The next day, we had the first EVER meeting of the newly formed Graphic Medicine Interest Group for the University of Medicine. I took notes and lots of pictures, but the pictures did not end up in Flickr when I tried to put them there, so I have to hope they are in my hard drive backup for the phone. In the meantime, here is a picture of some of the graphic medicine titles I keep in my office when I have consults on the topic.
A few days later, in between my frantically working on the Storifys and an article deadline, I was doublebooked to livetweet two lectures, and had to pick one. So, I picked the one that was related to the library and was being presented by friends and colleagues. It was incredible, and again I took lots of pictures that are hopefully on that other hard drive. I had been hoping to enrich the Storify with those, but that isn’t going to happen until Storify fixes their bug with inserting links into story streams. So, here is another partially completed Storify, this one on the amazing artists working in the library making phenomenal art books. Beautiful.
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) January 7, 2016
SLEEP TRACKERS
Last but not least, we finished and submitted our article on sleep trackers for consumers and how they may or may not be useful in healthcare. It was an exciting and rewarding project, but I don’t want to say too much until we hear if the article is accepted. It was a LOT of work, and we compared many dozens of devices and tools. Learned a lot, and I hope the article is accepted. I must confess, I found it ironic that my own sleep tracker (Pebble + Misfit) quit working over the holiday. Color me perplexed.
NOW YOU UNDERSTAND?
So you can see why I was so busy I wasn’t getting blogging done? I’ll be a little absent for a while yet, still, since I have a few presentations next week, and piles of meetings coming up. But I’ll have to tell you all about what I’m doing with comics and hashtags and coloring in a future installment. And the weird Storify glitch that is supposedly only impacting me and one other person. Hope you all had a great holiday and end-of-the-year, with expectations of a Happy (and productive and fulfilling) New Year!
Do we need another coffee house? The amenity space and the evolution of neighborhoods
César A. Hidalgo, Elisa E. Castañer
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.02868v1.pdf
Soundbite: “Neighborhoods populated by amenities, such as restaurants, cafes, and libraries, are considered to be a key property of desirable cities. … Finally, we use the Amenity Space to build a recommender system that identifies the amenities that are missing in a neighborhood given its current pattern of specialization.”
Liberating language research from dogmas of the 20th century
Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho, Carlos Gómez-Rodríguez
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03295v1.pdf
Soundbite: ” Those tenets can be summarized as a belief in the existence of word order constraints that cannot be explained by evolutionary processes or requirements of performance or learning, and instead require either (a) heavy assumptions that compromise the parsimony of linguistic theory as a whole or (b) explanations based on internal constraints of obscure nature.”
Interesting: “We submitted our commentary to PNAS but it was rejected. We hope that the availability of our submission helps to liberate language research from dogmas of the 20th century”
Combining exome and gene expression datasets in one graphical model of disease to empower the discovery of disease mechanisms
Aziz M. Mezlini, Fabio Fuligni, Adam Shlien, Anna Goldenberg
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1508.07527v1.pdf
Soundbite: “It is not unusual to observe a significant gene expression change in thousands of genes, the majority being a downstream, rather than the driver, effect (e.g. inflammation, drug response, etc) Additionally, and more importantly, there is a large heterogeneity in gene expression in cancer: many patients within the same subtype will appear to have an abberant expression. These variations are of unknown cause.”
Using Genetic Distance to Infer the Accuracy of Genomic Prediction
Marco Scutari, Ian Mackay, David Balding
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.00415v2.pdf
Soundbite: ” In human genetics, decay curves could be used study to what extent predictions are accurate and thus to improve the performance of medical diagnostics for the general population. In plant and animal breeding, on the other hand, it is common to incorporate distantly related individuals in selection programs to maintain a sufficient level of genetic variability.”
Population genomics of intrapatient HIV-1 evolution
Fabio Zanini, Johanna Brodin, Lina Thebo, Christa Lanz, Göran Bratt, Jan Albert, Richard A. Neher
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.02483v1.pdf
Soundbite: “In most patients, the virus populations was initially homogeneous and diversified over the years, as expected for an infection with a single or small number of similar founder viruses (Keele et al., 2008). In two patients, p3 and p10, the first sample displayed diversity consistent with the transmission of several variants from the same donor.”
Soundbite: “Our reasoning proceeds as follows. Figure 6B indicates that diversity accumulates over a time frame of 2-4 years, i.e., about 1,000 days. Recombination at a rate of 10−5/bp/day hits a genome on average every 100 bps in 1000 days. Mutations further apart than 100bps are hence often separated by recombination and retain little linkage consistent with the observed decay length in Figure 7.”
Inadequate experimental methods and erroneous epilepsy diagnostic criteria result in confounding acquired focal epilepsy with genetic absence epilepsy
Raimondo D’Ambrosio, Clifford L. Eastman, John W. Miller
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.01206v1.pdf
Soundbite: “Because the authors could not induce focal seizures by FPI, they ended up comparing absence epilepsy in their controls with absence epilepsy in FPI rats, and concluded that they look similar. They also used inappropriate epilepsy diagnostic criteria that cannot distinguish between focal non-convulsive seizures and genetic absence epilepsy. Moreover, the authors failed to consider all literature conflicting with their conclusion, and surmised similarities between the absence epilepsy in their rats with the focal seizures we induce by rpFPI.”
Fractal Fluctuations in Human Walking: Comparison of Auditory and Visually Guided Stepping
Philippe Terrier
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.01913v1.pdf
Soundbite: “[B]ecause it can be assumed that AC and VC mobilize the same motor pathways, they can probably be used alternatively in gait rehabilitation. The efficiency of VC to enhance walking abilities in patients with neurological gait disorders needs further studies. However, the high gait variability induced by VC might have detrimental effects, for instance, a lower dynamic balance. This should be taken into account in the development of VC rehabilitation methods.”
Identification and modeling of discoverers in online social systems
Matus Medo, Manuel S. Mariani, An Zeng, Yi-Cheng Zhang
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.01477v1.pdf
Soundbite: “We develop an analytical time-aware framework which shows that when individuals make choices — which item to buy, for example — in online social systems, a small fraction of them is consistently successful in discovering popular items long before they actually become popular. We argue that these users, whom we refer to as discoverers, are fundamentally different from the previously known opinion leaders, influentials, and innovators.”
Time-aware Analysis and Ranking of Lurkers in Social Networks
Andrea Tagarelli, Roberto Interdonato
PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.02030v1.pdf
Soundbite: “Our goal in this work is to push forward research in lurker mining in a twofold manner: (i) to provide an in-depth analysis of temporal aspects that aims to unveil the behavior of lurkers and their relations with other users, and (ii) to enhance existing methods for ranking lurkers by integrating different time-aware properties concerning information-production and information-consumption actions.”
The newest Gartner Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle came out two days ago.
Gartner’s 2015 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Identifies the Computing Innovations That Organizations Should Monitor: 2015 Hype Cycle Special Report Illustrates the Market Excitement, Maturity and Benefit of More Than 2,000 Technologies http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217
I’ve been puzzling over it ever since. I’ve been tracking the Hype Cycle as long as I’ve been working in emerging tech. It’s kind of required. This one was immediately and visibly different from others.
Do you see what I see? The long tail on the right (“Slope of Enlightenment” and “Plateau of Productivity”) for 2015 is FAR more sparse and empty than the others. Concepts like “speech recognition” and “consumer telematics” are gone. Are they considered mature now? I’m not sure. Things that were in the trough last year and should have theoretically been climbing out this year (like “mobile health monitoring” and “near field communication”) are also gone. A lot of very interesting topics are now missing from the report, but are still not quite ready for prime time.
There is a video on the main Hype Cycle page that hints at a bit of the why.
Betsy Burton explains that Big Data is gone as a hype cycle report because the concept is in so many places they decided to fold it in to each of those other reports. It’s gone as a dot on the main curve also. Is it no longer relevant to the hype cycle? Far from it. But you have to dig deeper to understand.
“But it’s really important that people DON’T consider a position on the Hype Cycle — in other words, moving towards the peak, or even moving towards the trough — as an indication of maturity. It’s really an expression of what we’re hearing as industry noise.” Betsy Burton on the 2015 Gartner Hype Cycles.
They’ve expanded the way the hype cycle reports give information. It isn’t just about the hype anymore, but each report includes information on the specific technologies, their benefits, their maturity, and how well adapted they are to their market. Does it work? Does it work well? Are people using it? Is it ready? These are considered distinct and separate concepts from reporting about the “hype,” the industry conversations and reporting around any specific tech. She mentioned that the technologies are changing VERY rapidly. True, but does that mean that they are leapfrogging from the trough of disillusionment directly into full production for primetime consumption within a year? That seems unlikely.
The three main categories she mentioned as leading clusters are Bio, Smart, and People-Centric.
BIO = biotech; biochips; bioprinting; human augmentation
SMART = smart advisors; smart cities; smart dust (missing from this year’s list); smart government; smart grid; smart machines; smart robots; connected home; wearable devices in smart government
PEOPLE-CENTRIC = people centric experiences; citizen developer; citizen experience; corporate social responsibility; digital workplace; virtual care
I’m seeing a great many connections in the new ETech Hype Cycle and healthcare, as well as with libraries. Could we make libraries more “literate” about our patrons? Take a look at the curve at the opening of this post. Anything you’d like me to explore more?
To continue the series on “what I did for #ADA25,” I’d like to talk about the very exciting event here in town last week, in which Ann Arbor sets the stage for a national high speed rail system, and access for persons with disability is at the core of making this possible.
AMTRAK
The event was the ribbon cutting for the new disability-accessible platform at the Ann Arbor Amtrak station.
The event started out with the mayor, Chris Taylor, describing the importance of the University of Michigan Health System and hospitals in providing advanced health care to the residents of the State of Michigan, and how critical accessible rail transport is for supporting this.
Lt. Governor Brian Calley noted, “Acceptance & awareness are important, but inclusion is a game changer.”
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) July 23, 2015
Richard Bernstein, Judge of the Michigan Supreme Court, waxed eloquent, clearly joyful and delighted with this innovation. You can hear his full remarks on Soundcloud.
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) July 23, 2015
Joe McHugh (Amtrak’s Senior Vice President) described this as “the flagship of our new technology,” continuing with the vision and possibilities that would come from this.
As with all ribbon-cutting events, the actual story started long long before. Or stories, I should say. This event sprang from the intersection of many stories, many people’s experiences. There are the local folk who fought for a better way to take the train, and helped make people aware of the reasons why it should start HERE. There were wheelchair passengers who complained about being put on a jack, hoisted into mid-air, and left dangling in the rain while the station staff try to get the logistics sorted out. There were the Amtrak staff who helped people with luggage, moms with strollers, elderly folk climbing the narrow stairs into or out of the Amtrak cars.
The story that resonated most powerfully with me was told by Richard Devylder, the U.S. DOT’s Senior Advisor for Accessible Transportation.
Richard was born without arms or legs. The combination of his experience, his intelligence, his connections with the community of persons with disabilities all help to inform his position and influence change. And when the opportunity presents itself, he absolutely will go for the brass ring.
That’s kind of what happened one day a few years ago. Richard described a room full of transportation higher ups. He asked, “Well, do you want to see high speed rail in the United States?” Yes, yes, yes, they all did. The next thing Richard said? “Then you have to find a way to let people like me board the train in less than 15 minutes.” BOOM.
— PF Anderson @pfanderson@disabled.social (@pfanderson) July 23, 2015
That was one story. He had another good one. Richard described one day when he was trying to get on the train, and a ramp had been set up to allow him to board. But he couldn’t even get on the ramp because it was so crowded with people. Elderly with walkers. Parents with strollers. People with heavy rolling bags of luggage. Part of him thought, “Hey, why are all these people blocking my ramp?” Immediately he realized it is because all of them also needed a ramp, and the one provided for him was the only one there. BOOM #2!
We need ramps for boarding trains absolutely as much as we need curb cuts. The next ADA25 story I’ll be telling is about a group of people in virtual worlds. They were pretty impressed when I told them about this new Amtrak platform. Then they asked, “But why did it take 25 years? And why is there only ONE in the entire United States?” More on that in the next post.
The actual ribbon cutting, with Gary Talbot as the honored local person who pushed the hardest to make this happen.
This is possibly the coolest (or scariest) thing I’ve seen since I become an Emerging Technologies Librarian. I wanted to blog about it a WEEK ago (which is when I made the Storify, over the weekend because I was so geeked I couldn’t wait). The reason I didn’t blog it then was because our library is moving into our renovated digs TODAY and packing took precedence. Somehow that delay just makes this even more delicious. You MUST see this!
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the branch of the United States government most directly and publicly associated with emerging technologies. You better bet that I pay attention to what they’re doing. I try to peek at the DARPA budget, go every so often and poke around on their site, and keep my antennae tuned for mentions of DARPA in the news. They are in the news basically all the time, so I can’t pay TOO much attention, and since in recent years they have been largely focused on robotics (a.k.a. the famous DARPA Robotics Challenge) and engineering, and I am focused on healthcare emerging tech, maybe I haven’t visited as often as I might if it was just for fun. That has changed, because DARPA is now officially into the idea of biology as technology. Check out their recent conferences on this topic: Biology is Technology!
“DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office (BTO) is bringing together leading-edge technologists, start-ups, industry, and academic researchers to look at how advances in engineering and information sciences can be used to drive biology for technological advantage.”
Arati Prabhakar – Director, DARPA
Fireside Chat: Sue Siegel CEO GE Ventures
Geoff Ling – Director, BTO: Fomenting Technological Revolution
Phillip Alvelda – Program Manager: Beyond Prosthetics
Dan Wattendorf – Program Manager: Outpacing Infectious Disease
Jack Newman, Amyris
Alicia Jackson – Deputy Director, BTO: Programming the Living World
Fireside Chat: George Church interviewed by George Dyson
Justin Sanchez – Program Manager: Brain-Machine Symbiosis
Matt Hepburn – Program Manager: It’s the Host not the Pathogen
Stephen Friend – Sage Bionetworks
Barry Pallotta- Program Manager: A Wild Ride
Doug Weber – Program Manager: Enabling the Body to Heal Itself
Justin Gallivan – Program Manager: Embracing Biological Complexity
Keynote Craig Venter – Founder and CEO, HLI, JCVI and SGI
Keynote Saul Griffith – Otherlab
Karl Deisseroth, Stanford University
Will Old, University of Colorado at Boulder
Michel Maharbiz, University of California, Berkeley
Eddie Chang, University of California, San Francisco
Adam Abate, University of California, Berkeley
Scott Ulrey: Doing Business With DARPA
Alicia Jackson – Deputy Director, BTO: Programming the Living World
Welcome to DARPA BiT from Dr. Steve Walker, Deputy Director of DARPA
Dr. Geoff Ling: Fomenting Technological Revolution, DARPA BiT
Martine Rothblatt: Keynote at DARPA BiT
Dr. Phillip Alvelda: The Future of Neural Interface, DARPA BiT
Dr. Alicia Jackson: Programming the Living World, DARPA BiT
Jack Newman: Keynote at DARPA BiT
Zach Serber: Keynote at DARPA BiT
Dr. Elizabeth Strychalski: Biocomplexity, DARPA BiT
COL Matt Hepburn: It’s the Host Not the Pathogen, DARPA BiT
Dr. Doug Weber: Neurobiology as Technology, DARPA BiT
Kevin Tracey: Keynote at DARPA BiT
Dr. Justin Sanchez: Brain-Machine Symbiosis, DARPA BiT
MAJ Chris Orlowski: Optimizing Human Performance, DARPA BiT
COL Dan Wattendorf: Rapid Health Protection for the Population, DARPA BiT
Dr. Harvey Lodish: Keynote at DARPA BiT
Dr. Justin Gallivan: Building with Biology, DARPA BiT
Dr. Barry Pallotta: A Wild Ride, DARPA BiT
Dr. Geoff Ling: Day 1 Closing Remarks, DARPA BiT
Dr. Geoff Ling: DARPA BiT Day Two Introduction
Dr. Stephen Friend: Sage Bionetworks – DARPA BiT Keynote Speaker
Dr. Paul Cohen: DARPA Program Manager, DARPA BiT Keynote Speaker
Dr. Joel Dudley: Mount Sinai School of Medicine – DARPA BiT Keynote Speaker
Dr. Peter Sorger: Harvard Medical School – DARPA BiT Keynote Speaker
John Sculley: Former CEO of Apple and Pepsi-Cola – DARPA BiT Keynote Speaker
Scott Ulrey: DARPA Contract Management Office – DARPA BiT
Dr. Geoff Ling: Day 2 Conclusion – DARPA BiT
So much good stuff! I just had to make a Storify to integrate the videos with the pics and tweets.
And I made a big playlist with all of the videos so far, from all the sessions (partly because I started making this playlist before I found theirs, and because I want all of it in one place, easy for me to find).
Robbin A. Miranda, William D. Casebeer, Amy M. Hein, Jack W. Judy, Eric P. Krotkov, Tracy L. Laabs, Justin E. Manzo, Kent G. Pankratz, Gill A. Pratt, Justin C. Sanchez, Douglas J. Weber, Tracey L. Wheeler, Geoffrey S.F. Lin. DARPA-funded Efforts in the Development of Novel Brain–Computer Interface Technologies. H+ Magazine February 9, 2015. http://hplusmagazine.com/2015/02/09/darpa-funded-efforts-development-novel-brain-computer-interface-technologies/
I had a particular slant, where I was looking for new technology posters, emerging and emergent innovations, but then I was so delighted with the richness of systematic review research being presented, that there is a lot of that, too. The chosen few ran from A to Z, with apps, bioinformatics, data visualization, games, Google Glass in surgery, new tech to save money with ILL operations, social media, Youtube, zombies, and even PEOPLE. What is it with medical librarians and zombies? Hunh. Surely there are other gory engaging popular medical monsters? Anyway, here are some of my favorite posters from MLA’s Annual Meeting. There were so many more which I loved and tweeted, but I just can’t share them all here today. I’ll try to put them in a Storify when I get back home. Meanwhile, look these up online or in the app for more details. By the way, they started to get the audio up, so you can use the app to listen to many of the presenters talk about their poster.
The event so fondly known as MLATTT is a gathering of a panel of medical librarians who describe new and emerging technologies in what has become, by a kind of traditional, highly entertaining and engaging ways. For many, it is a not-to-be-missed highlight of the annual Medical Library Association meeting. This year was no different, and if anything topped previous years for sheer blistering hilarity. When the video becomes available, this is a must watch. I plan to watch it again, and I was there!
Eric Schnell gave a talk that had the older members of the audience guffawing with laughter as he extolled the pleasures of emerging technologies from the perspective of the 1980s and 1990s. There were some younger folk asking, “Mosiac? Atari?” It was extremely well scripted and supported with links and images, and delivered completely deadpan.
The quantified self section presented by Jon Goodall was great fun for me, and I particularly enjoyed how he engaged the audience in reviews of some of the highlighted technologies. It was interesting to see who had used various tools, and whether they worked for them or not.
Kimberley Barker was incredibly dynamic, personable, and knowledgeable, as she sprinted through a rapidfire, high energy delivery of examples of tools, technologies, and trends relative to what’s happening with the Internet of Things.
Jason Bengtson gave a candid, rollicking walk-through of some of his thoughts and experiences while creating the engaging information skills tutorial, Zombie Emergency. I was really impressed with how clearly he described the challenges of integrating education goals and content with gaming. Rachel Walden expressed well what I was thinking, when she commented on how impressive it was that Jason coded this, and is giving away the code for free in Github, as CC-licensed. You can find the actual quotes in the Storify, listed at the end of this post.
J. Dale Prince might have been last, but far from least, as he wittily recounted his tales of being a new Apple Watch owner, pros, cons, and maybes. By the way, if you decide to buy a gold Apple Watch, Dale is willing to trade. 😉
One book, two books,
Red books, blue books,
Fat books, thin books,
Old books, new books.
This one has a gold leaf spine,
This one sings a little rhyme.
I could read books all the time!
(a Dr. Seuss parody by yours truly)
Let’s just say I sometimes WISH I could read books all the time. And a great deal of my house looks like the photo. For today, World Book Day, I want to just mention a few (a VERY few) books I’ve been reading lately which may be of interest to readers of this blog.
First off, some that connect directly to healthcare social media, emerging technologies, accessibility, disability, and health literacy — some of my favorite topics!
I love the #SMEM community and #SMEMchat. SMEM stands for Social Media Emergency Management. Think of it as how we use social media for disaster and crisis response. I’ve touched on these topics here before, and will again. When I saw that a book had come out specifically on this, I was delighted. And it had even more — the roles of open data, open source software and tools, citizen science, and crowdsourcing. So HUGELY exciting. I couldn’t wait for the library to get a copy, I had to borrow it interlibrary loan. Then I listened to the webinar with Patrick, hosted by NNLM. Then I didn’t want to give back the copy I’d borrowed, so I had to buy a copy. And then I made SURE the library bought a copy. Well worth reading, in case you haven’t guessed.
Digital Outcasts: Moving Technology Forward Without Leaving People Behind, by Kel Smith: http://digital-outcasts.com/
I’ve been raving about Kel Smith’s book, Digital Outcasts. Kel does a brilliant job of not just look backwards at the intersection of disability, accessibility, and technology, but looking forward. He forecasts new technologies arising and some of the new ways in which they will create barriers to access for people. This one the library has, and they have it electronically.
Conquering Concussion: Healing TBI Symptoms With Neurofeedback and Without Drugs, by Mary Lee Esty & C. M. Shifflett: http://conqueringconcussion.net/
Another one I bought for my own collection is Conquering Concussion, which got a rave review from Kirkus and then was listed as one of the top indie published books of 2014. Let’s just say that I have had enough concussions of my own for this to be personally relevant. Then it turned out that the authors are friends of a friend. Small world. Good book.
Berci and I have known each other through social media since he was a med student. And now he’s NOT a medical student anymore, is a world recognized expert on emerging technologies and social media use in healthcare, a highly sought after public speaker, and he writes books. This one I bought as an e-book, because I wanted to highlight like crazy, and be able to download all my highlights in a nice tidy lump (something made much easier by reading the book on a Kindle!).
Last but not least, I’m brainstorming how we might make a webcomic about health literacy skills. Sounds like a really boring topic, eh? But the books I’m reading to do research on the idea are anything but boring.
This one isn’t remotely medical. Instead, it’s a book I’ve read over and over throughout my life, for which I own multiple editions in various formats, and Hope Larson went and turned it into a graphic novel (ie. comic book). You would not believe how much trouble I’ve had wrapping my head around how to tell a story in a comic. It’s not like I don’t read comics. It’s more like, well, brain freeze. This book got me over the first hurdle. Because I know the book so well in other forms, I could more easily understand how the story changed and stayed the same as it morphed into a more visual format.
I’ve known Vic Strecher professionally for many years, probably almost as long as I’ve been working here at the University of Michigan. When I heard that Vic’s daughter had died it was like a punch in the gut, even though I’d never met her. I couldn’t imagine. I’m a mom, and there is no more terrifying thought than that something like this might happen to one of my kids. When Vic wrote a comic book about his experience, and how this became, for him, an opportunity for personal growth, I had to get a copy. And this book is what helped me see how a personal story can become a universal story. Seeing how this transformed into a comic book / graphic novel helped me to see opportunities in my own life for stories that could possibly be transformed into comics.
Last month I was asked to review a copy of Erika Moen’s new nicer-than-average comic book on sex toys and sex education. You know. Oh Joy, Sex Toy? Trust me, most of the college age folk already know about it.
Erika Moen
You can read my review for the basics about the book (which is printed with nice ink on absolutely gorgeous paper, if you’re into that sort of thing). For me, the most exciting part of the book was in the appendix, where Erika did a funny little comic about one day in her life, sketching one panel for each hour. LIGHTBULB! Now, I can see how all the pieces fit together: comic formatting, personal experience, and story telling. Next, I’m hoping to find time to actually make one. I’m nervous. Wish me luck! And inspiration!
Emerging Technologies Librarian 