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Wandering with Wonder
Published in Usva Seregina, Astrid Van den Bossche, Art-Based Research in the Context of a Global Pandemic, 2023
Luciana Walther, Carlos Eduardo Félix da Costa
Schouten spent two weeks in Bichinho in April 2019. The second author visited the site in January 2020. The first author lives nearby and has been doing fieldwork on and off since the beginning of the project. A first round of observation sessions and ten in-depth interviews based on oral histories were conducted with OdA's social entrepreneurs Toti Bech and Sonia Vitaliano, other local entrepreneurs, and artisans currently and formerly employed by OdA. After that, the idea for an art installation arose, with the objectives of not only conveying research findings through artistic media but also of helping widen data collection and deepen interpretation. The installation will comprise a series of sculptures created by OdA's employees. So far, five artisans have sculpted a self-portrait commissioned by the researchers, using techniques and materials from their daily job. Upon delivery, sculptures were used as triggers for identity discussion during individual interviews with their makers, as part of an autodriving projective exercise (Heisley and Levy 1991). More sculptures, and therefore more interviews, are on the way. The final set of three-dimensional self-portraits will form the installation, whose details, like display arrangements, are still going to be developed by the team.
Reflections on the use of antiretroviral treatment among HIV+ men who have sex with men (MSM) in Nigeria
Published in Peri J. Ballantyne, Kath Ryan, Living Pharmaceutical Lives, 2021
Abisola Balogun-Katung, Paul Bissell, Muhammad Saddiq
Taking ART optimally was clearly not without its challenges and these fell into three groups: the nature of ART, patient-related and social/structural level challenges. In terms of the nature of ART, the factors reported by men in this study included those challenges related to the aesthetics and palatability of ART that made its use difficult. These findings are similar to findings in the literature pertaining to aspects of the nature of the drugs as a barrier to taking ART optimally (Mills et al., 2006a; Merten et al., 2010; Bezabhe et al., 2014). Similarly, participants in a study on patient-reported barriers in sub-Saharan Africa revealed adverse reactions as a barrier to taking ART optimally (Weiser et al., 2003; Merten et al., 2010). A study conducted in Botswana reported similar barriers to optimal ART use as those noted here: pill aesthetics (size, taste and overall palatability) as well as drug side effects (Weiser et al., 2003).
Theory of Tomographic Reconstruction
Published in Bhagwat D. Ahluwalia, Tomographic Methods in Nuclear Medicine: Physical Principles, Instruments, and Clinical Applications, 2020
Thus, one can imagine that as the set of error values e tends to zero, so the estimated solution fn tends to the true solution. The backprojection operation can be used to achieve this. The error terms can be backprojected and subtracted from the current estimate fn such thatorwhere w(i,j,ξ,θ) is an appropriate set of weights. An iterative process of this type in tomography is generally known as the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART).32 The question of convergence is far from simple.22 A rather superficial approach is given both in the next section and with respect to maximum entropy and conjugate gradient algorithms.
The estrogen receptor polymorphisms and controlled ovulation hyperstimulation outcomes: a meta-analysis
Published in Gynecological Endocrinology, 2022
Wei Fan, Zhongying Huang, Qiong Chen
ART is a multistep and complicated procedure. Several factors influence the success of ART. The controlled ovulation hyperstimulation (COH) controls the cornerstone of ART. The effectiveness of COH is a critical component in determining IVF outcomes. Although COH has been developed in recent decades, individual response to exogenous FSH is challenging to predict, ranging from the poor ovarian response to ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome. The dosage of COH for each patient is frequently determined empirically. Thus, identifying characteristics that predict COH outcomes, such as maternal age, ovarian volume, early antral follicle count, body mass index, and baseline serum hormonal state, plays an essential role in optimizing the COH protocol [4]. When analyzed separately, however, none of these parameters exhibited a significant predictive effect. Pharmacogenetics has recently received a lot of attention as a way to personalize the COH treatment. It was suggested that genetic factors influenced the ovarian response to gonadotropin stimulation [5]. Individual genetic variants appeared to be important predictors of COH response and IVF outcomes [6]. As a result, identifying the genetic variability associated with the ovarian response to COH may be essential to personalize COH treatments. Variant alleles of the follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) [7–9], anti-müllerian hormone (AMH) [10], and aromatase genes [11], as well as several other genetic loci, had been postulated to predict the ovarian response to COH to date.
Creating Our Own Suspension Bridge Between Practice and Evidence
Published in Art Therapy, 2022
Theresa Van Lith, James Bulosan
These collaborations and struggles are how art therapists may inevitably build a language of its own and not an assimilation to the language of adjacent fields. Instead of a conformity what is practiced and how it is spoken about, researchers can better form parallels to allied professions in order to shift ideas and build understanding among fields. Such bridging allow art therapists to keep what is creative and true to process instead of forcing terminology and practices thus diluting the profession’s own knowledge base. Art and its interactions are original and rich with data and researchers can take more responsibility for capturing it. Going back to the pipeline fallacy, it is time for art therapists to face these unique issues in research to identify the true problems that call to be solved. Researchers can strive to be active in what constitutes as data and find real and effective manners to capture what is happening within the art and by extension the individuals it touches (Visse et al., 2019).
Smartphone-based computer vision travelling aids for blind and visually impaired individuals: A systematic review
Published in Assistive Technology, 2022
Andrius Budrionis, Darius Plikynas, Povilas Daniušis, Audrius Indrulionis
The findings of this review show a relatively strong focus of the academic community worldwide on developing computer vision-based traveling aids for the blind. The accuracy, robustness, and efficiency of computer vision algorithms are improving, fueled by the novelties in neural network-based models and the increasing availability of computational resources. However, in the identified research applications, this class of algorithms is adopted only to a limited extent (Tapu et al., 2017; Zheng & Weng, 2016), hinting that academic community may struggle to utilize novel state-of-the-art image/video-processing algorithms. The performance of these novel algorithms is highly dependent on both quantity and quality of training data. While general purpose computer vision datasets exist, specialized training data tailored to the needs of the VI are not yet publicly available. Lack of benchmark datasets slow down the adoption of the state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms and hinders objective comparison and evaluation of the developed solutions.