Abstract Aims Aortic valve calcium (AVC) is strongly associated with the risk for severe aortic stenosis (AS). The prevalence of AVC increases with age, but the impact of age on the progression of AVC and its association with moderate-severe AS is unknown. Methods and results Our study included 6810 participants (52.9% women) without overt cardiovascular disease between ages 45 and 84 from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. AVC was measured using non-contrast cardiac CT at Visit 1. Progression was calculated as the change in AVC divided by years between CT scans (2–10 years). Incident moderate-severe AS was adjudicated using medical chart review and echocardiogram data from Visit 6 (median follow-up of 16 years). The association between AVC and moderate-severe AS was assessed using multivariable adjusted Cox proportional hazards ratios. There were 5899 participants with AVC = 0 and 911 with AVC >0. There were 3834 participants age <65 years and 2979 age ≥65 years. The median AVC was 34.1 AU (IQR 13–1113) for participants <65 vs. 69.0 AU (IQR 23–2453) for participants ≥65. Participants <65 and ≥65 years had no significant difference in median annualized AVC progression within the baseline AVC categories of 1–99 (10 vs. 12 AU/year, P = 0.303) and AVC ≥100 (50 vs. 47 AU/year, P = 0.846). AVC >0 was associated with a similar significantly higher risk of incident moderate-severe AS for both younger (HR 13.37; 95% CI 5.67–31.52) and older participants (HR 10.59, 95% CI 6.77–16.56). Conclusion AVC progression was significantly associated with baseline AVC burden and was similar for younger vs. older persons after accounting for baseline AVC. The presence of AVC was significantly associated with a higher long-term risk for moderate-severe AS among both younger and older participants.
This study introduced a Multimodal Mindfulness-Training System. Our installation, 'EmotionCarrier', correlates traditional calligraphy interactions with real-time physiological data from an Apple Watch. We aim to enhance mindfulness training effectiveness, aiding in achieving physiological calmness through calligraphy practice. Our experiments with varied participant groups focused on data diversity, usability, and stability. We adopted methods like using EmotionCarrier for Heart Sutra transcription and adjusting installation placement for optimal user experience. Our primary finding was a correlation between calligraphy performance data and emotional responses during the transcription of the Heart Sutra.
A survey of 26 CS students reveals that AI coding assistants are mainly used for writing code (second to online searches) while AI chatbots are the top resource for debugging. Participants with different coding experience prefer online help over direct human help from peers and instructors.
Natalia Kucirkova, Alexis Hiniker, Megumi Ishikawa
et al.
This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of research on conversational agents with children and young people across four countries, exploring the ways AI technologies can support children's well-being across social and cultural contexts.
User Experience (UX) in virtual worlds is a fast-developing discipline that requires creative design concepts to overcome the divide between physical and virtual interaction. This research investigates primary principles and techniques to improve UX in virtual experiences based on usability, accessibility, user engagement, and technology advancements. It gives detailed insight into trends, issues, and prospects for UX design of virtual applications that guarantee an efficient, easy-to-use, and immersive experience.
Parag Anilkumar Chevli, Christopher L. Schaich, Alexis C. Wood
et al.
AbstractIntroductionGrowing interest centers on the association between circulating ketone bodies (KB) and cognitive function, notably in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.MethodsAssociations of plasma KB with incident dementia and cognitive performances were examined among Multi‐Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) participants. KB were measured using plasma samples collected following an overnight fasting at Exam 1 (2000–02) and detailed cognitive testing at Exam 5 (2010–2012, N = 4392), Exam 6 (2016–2018, N = 1838), and in MESA‐MIND (2019–2021, N = 2060).ResultsOver 16.7 years, a doubling of total KB was associated with a greater risk of incident dementia (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.14 [1.04–1.29]). Higher total KB was associated with worse cognitive performance in the Digit Span test at exam 5 [β: −0.30 (−0.47, −0.14)]. We also found that a higher KB was associated with greater functional impairment and a higher Quick Dementia Rating Scale (QDRS) score.DiscussionIn a diverse, cardiovascular disease‐free population, elevated KB levels were associated with incident dementia and impaired cognitive performance in specific domains.Highlights A study of ketone bodies (KB) and cognitive performance and incident dementia. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to measure plasma KB at baseline. Doubling of baseline total KB was associated with higher incident dementia. Higher KB was also associated with worse performance on a test of working memory.
In this research, we conduct a user study that compares different computer/system authentication methods. More specifically, we look into comparing regular password authentication with picture authentication. Picture authentication means selecting a sequence of pictures from a set of pictures (30). We present users with both interfaces; various metrics are tracked while the participants conduct a variety of user authentication-related tasks. Other metrics include user perception of security with such technologies.
Extended reality can weave together the fabric of the past, present, and future. A two-day design hackathon was held to bring the community together through a love for history and a common goal to use technology for good. Through interviewing an influential community elder, Emile Pitre, and referencing his book Revolution to Evolution, my team developed an augmented reality artifact to tell his story and preserve on revolutionary's legacy that impacted the University of Washington's history forever.
Jan M. Hughes-Austin, Ronit Katz, Darcy S. Majka
et al.
Background Antibodies to citrullinated protein antigens have been linked to altered left ventricular (LV) structure and function in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Serum reactivity to several citrullinated protein/peptide antigens has been identified in RA, which are detectable years before RA onset and in individuals who may never develop RA. Among community-living individuals without heart failure (HF) at baseline in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), we investigated associations between serum reactivity to citrullinated protein/peptide antigens, LV mass, LV ejection fraction (LVEF), and incident HF. Methods Among 1232 MESA participants, we measured serum reactivity to 28 different citrullinated proteins/peptides using a multiplex bead-based array. Each antibody was defined as having extremely high reactivity (EHR) if >95th percentile cut-off in MESA. Number of EHR antibody responses to citrullinated protein/peptide antigens were summed for each participant (range 0–28). LV mass(g) and LVEF(%) were measured on cardiac MRI. Associations between EHR antibodies and LV mass and LVEF were evaluated using linear regression. Cox proportional hazards models were used to evaluate associations between EHR antibodies and incident HF during 11 years of follow-up, adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, use of anti-hypertensive medications, self-reported arthritis, IL-6, body surface area, and estimated glomerular filtration rate. Results Mean age was 65±10, 50% were female, 40% were White, 21% were Black, 26% were Hispanic/Latino, and 14% were Chinese. Twenty-seven percent of MESA participants had extremely high reactivity to ≥ 1 citrullinated protein/peptide antigen. In fully adjusted analysis, every additional EHR antibody was significantly associated with 0.1% lower LVEF (95% CI: -0.17%, -0.02%). No association was observed with LV mass (β per additional EHR antibody) = 0.13±0.15 (p = 0.37)). Neither the presence nor number of EHR antibodies was associated with incident HF during follow-up (HR per additional EHR antibody = 1.008 (95% CI: 0.97, 1.05)). Conclusion Greater number of extremely highly reactive antibodies was associated with lower LVEF, but not with LV mass or incident HF. Thus, serum reactivity to citrullinated protein/peptide antigens was associated with subtle subclinical changes in myocardial contractility, but the significance in relation to clinically apparent HF is uncertain.
Making technology design inclusive requires facing multiple challenges in different dimensions: the populations we work with, who we are, what interaction possibilities we consider, and what context we examine. We reflect on these challenges and propose two main measures to achieve research inclusiveness.
The conception and design of new musical interfaces is a multidisciplinary area that tightly relates technology and artistic creation. In this paper, the author first exposes some of the questions he has posed himself during more than a decade experience as a performer, composer, interface and software designer, and educator. Finally, he illustrates these topics with some examples of his work.
In this survey I discuss ophthalmic neurophysiology and the experimental considerations that must be made to reduce possible noise in an eye-tracking data stream. I also review the history, experiments, technological benefits and limitations of eye-tracking within the information retrieval field. The concepts of aware and adaptive user interfaces are also explored that humbly make an attempt to synthesize work from the fields of industrial engineering and psychophysiology with information retrieval.
The Gaze Interaction Markup Language (GIML) is presented, which is new language for designing the gaze-controlled application and psychological experiments (also by non-programmers).
This paper presents an overview of Carnap, a free and open framework for the development of formal reasoning applications. Carnap's design emphasizes flexibility, extensibility, and rapid prototyping. Carnap-based applications are written in Haskell, but can be compiled to JavaScript to run in standard web browsers. This combination of features makes Carnap ideally suited for educational applications, where ease-of-use is crucial for students and adaptability to different teaching strategies and classroom needs is crucial for instructors. The paper describes Carnap's implementation, along with its current and projected pedagogical applications.
Inter-individual variability in blood pressure (BP) is influenced by both genetic and non-genetic factors including socioeconomic and psychosocial stressors. A deeper understanding of the gene-by-socioeconomic/psychosocial factor interactions on BP may help to identify individuals that are genetically susceptible to high BP in specific social contexts. In this study, we used a genomic region-based method for longitudinal analysis, Longitudinal Gene-Environment-Wide Interaction Studies (LGEWIS), to evaluate the effects of interactions between known socioeconomic/psychosocial and genetic risk factors on systolic and diastolic BP in four large epidemiologic cohorts of European and/or African ancestry. After correction for multiple testing, two interactions were significantly associated with diastolic BP. In European ancestry participants, outward/trait anger score had a significant interaction with the C10orf107 genomic region (p = 0.0019). In African ancestry participants, depressive symptom score had a significant interaction with the HFE genomic region (p = 0.0048). This study provides a foundation for using genomic region-based longitudinal analysis to identify subgroups of the population that may be at greater risk of elevated BP due to the combined influence of genetic and socioeconomic/psychosocial risk factors.
NMR spectroscopy analysis is a detail-oriented analytic feat that typically requires specific domain expertise and hours of concentration. This work presents an ethnographic-style study of this analysis process in the context of evaluating the symptoms of cognitive depletion. The repeated, non-trivial decisions required by and the time-consuming nature of NMR spectroscopy analysis make it an ideal, real-world scenario to study the symptoms of cognitive depletion, its effect on workflow and performance, and potential strategies for mitigating its deleterious effects.
A heuristic extending the Squarified Treemap technique for the representation of hierarchical information as treemaps is presented. The original technique gives high quality treemap views, since items are laid out with rectangles that approximate squares, allowing easy comparison and selection operations. New key steps, with a low computational impact, have been introduced to yield treemaps with even better aspect ratios and higher homogeneity among items.
Gili Freedman, Sukdith Punjasthitkul, Max Seidman
et al.
The present research examines two problems inherent to the creation of crowdsourcing games: how to give feedback when the right answer is not always known by the game and how much time to give players without sacrificing data quality. Taken together, the present research provides an important first step in considering how to create fun, challenging crowdsourcing games that generate quality data.