Data Representation in the DARPA SD2 Program

Modern scientific enterprises are often highly complex and multidisciplinary, particularly in areas like synthetic biology where the subject at hand is itself inherently complex and multidisciplinary. Collaboration across many organizations is necessary to efficiently tackle such problems, but remains difficult. The challenge is further amplified by automation that increases the pace at which new information can be produced, and particularly so for matters of fundamental research, where concepts and definitions are inherently fluid and may rapidly change as an investigation evolves. The DARPA program Synergistic Discovery and Design (SD2) aimed to address these challenges by organizing the development of data-driven methods to accelerate discovery and improve design robustness, with one of the key domains under study being synthetic biology. The program was specifically organized such that teams provided complementary types of expertise and resources, and without any team being in a dominant organizational position, such that subject-matter investigations would necessarily require peer-level collaboration across multiple team boundaries. With more than 100 researchers across more than 20 organizations, several of which ran experimental facilities with high-throughput automation, participants were forced to confront challenges around effective data sharing. The default architecture for scientific collaboration is essentially one of anarchy, with ad-hoc bilateral relations between pairs of collaborators or experimental phases. This was by necessity the case during early phases of the SD2 program as well, in which incorporating new tools into pipelines was ad-hoc and time-consuming, and data was generally disconnected from genetic designs and experimental plans. The other typical approach for collaboration is one of "command and control", in which a dominant organization determines the data sharing content and format for all participants. This can be efficient, but tends to be limited in flexibility and extensibility, rendering it unsuitable for research collaboration, as indeed was found when we attempted this approach during the first year of the SD2 program. We addressed these problems with the application of distributed standards to create a "flexible rendezvous" model of collaboration, enabling information flow to track evolving collaborative relationships, improving the sharing and utility of information across the community and supporting accelerated rates of experimentation.

Complementarity of Information Products

In “Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis,” Sarvary, M., and P. M. Parker. 1997. “Marketing Information: A Competitive Analysis.” Marketing Science 16 (1): 24–38 (S&P) argue that in part of the parameter space that they considered, a reduction in the price of one information product can lead to an increase in demand for another information product, i.e. information products can be gross complements. This result is surprising and has potentially important marketing implications. We show that S&P obtain this complementarity result by implicitly making the following internally inconsistent assumptions: (i) after purchasing information products, consumers update their beliefs using a Bayesian updating rule that assumes they have a diffuse initial prior (i.e. their initial prior variance is ∞ before receiving any information); (ii) if consumers choose not to purchase any information product, it is assumed that their initial prior variance is 1 (implied by the utility function specification). This internal inconsistency leads to the possibility that when information products are uncorrelated and their variances are close to 1, marginal utility is increasing in the number of products purchased, and hence information products can be complements in their model. We show that if we remove this internal inconsistency, in the parameter space considered by S&P, information products cannot be complements because the marginal utility of information products will be diminishing. We also show that, in parts of the parameter space not considered by S&P, it is possible that information products are complements; this space of parameters requires consumer’s initial prior to be relatively precise and information products to be highly correlated (either positively or negatively).

Genetic Testing for Antipsychotic Pharmacotherapy: Bench to Bedside

There is growing research interest in learning the genetic basis of response and adverse effects with psychotropic medications, including antipsychotic drugs. However, the clinical utility of information from genetic studies is compromised by their controversial results, primarily due to relatively small effect and sample sizes. Clinical, demographic, and environmental differences in patient cohorts further explain the lack of consistent results from these genetic studies. Furthermore, the availability of psychopharmacological expertise in interpreting clinically meaningful results from genetic assays has been a challenge, one that often results in suboptimal use of genetic testing in clinical practice. These limitations explain the difficulties in the translation of psychopharmacological research in pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics from bench to bedside to manage increasingly treatment-refractory psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia. Although these shortcomings question the utility of genetic testing in the general population, the commercially available genetic assays are being increasingly utilized to optimize the effectiveness of psychotropic medications in the treatment-refractory patient population, including schizophrenia. In this context, patients with treatment-refractory schizophrenia are among of the most vulnerable patients to be exposed to the debilitating adverse effects from often irrational and high-dose antipsychotic polypharmacy without clinically meaningful benefits. The primary objective of this comprehensive review is to analyze and interpret replicated findings from the genetic studies to identify specific genetic biomarkers that could be utilized to enhance antipsychotic efficacy and tolerability in the treatment-refractory schizophrenia population.

Quality and Utility of Information Captured by Surveillance Systems Relevant to Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR): A Systematic Review

Health surveillance systems are considered vital for combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR); however, the evidence-base on the effectiveness of these systems in providing information that can be used by healthcare professionals, or the acceptability of these systems by users, has not been reviewed. A systematic review was conducted of a number of databases to synthesise the evidence. The review identified 43 studies that met the inclusion criteria, conducted in 18 countries and used 11 attributes in their assessment of surveillance systems. The majority of systems evaluated were for monitoring the incidence of tuberculosis. The studies found that most surveillance systems were underperforming in key attributes that relate to both effectiveness and acceptability. We identified that two features of systems (ease of use and users’ awareness of systems) were associated with greater acceptability and completeness of systems. We recommend prioritising these for the improvement of existing systems, as well as ensuring consistency in the definition of attributes studied, to allow a more consistent approach in evaluations of surveillance systems, and to facilitate the identification of the attributes that have the greatest impact on the utility of data produced.

Predicted Utility Modulates Working Memory Fidelity in the Brain

The predicted utility of information stored in working memory (WM) is hypothesized to influence the strategic allocation of WM resources. Prior work has shown that when information is prioritized, it is remembered with greater precision relative to other remembered items. However, these paradigms often complicate interpretation of the effects of predicted utility on item fidelity due to a concurrent memory load. Likewise, no fMRI studies have examined whether the predicted utility of an item modulates fidelity in the neural representation of items during the memory delay without a concurrent load. In the current study, we used fMRI to investigate whether predicted utility influences fidelity of WM representations in the brain. Using a generative model multivoxel analysis approach to estimate the quality of remembered representations across predicted utility conditions, we observed that items with greater predicted utility are maintained in memory with greater fidelity, even when they are the only item being maintained. Further, we found that this pattern follows a parametric relationship where more predicted utility corresponded to greater fidelity. These precision differences could not be accounted for based on a redistribution of resources among already-remembered items. Rather, we interpret these results in terms of a gating mechanism that allows for pre-allocation of resources based on predicted value alone. This evidence supports a theoretical distinction between resource allocation that occurs as a result of load and resource pre-allocation that occurs as a result of predicted utility.

A Study on the Women's Use of Social Media & Breast Cancer-related Health Information-Seeking Behavior: Utility of Information Channel as a Mediator

Social media is quickly becoming the most available and easiest source for seeking health information due to the emerging popularity of social media among people where everyone is expected to be online and connected to social media. This research was carried out to examine women's online breast cancer-related information-seeking behavior. The comprehensive model of information seeking (CMIS) was tested in Pakistan in order to examine the information-seeking behavior of women. Another significant factor of social stigma was added as an independent variable into the existing model. Researchers hypothesized that the utility of information channels plays a role of mediator in the association amongst the factors, i.e. demographics, social stigma, direct experience, salience, beliefs, and characteristics in the information-seeking behavior about breast cancer. The survey questionnaire was distributed among Six hundred women from Islamabad by using the convenient sampling technique. Researchers collected the data by already developed scales. Statistical test of Multiple Linear Regression was employed by the researchers. Therefore, the study carried out significant findings.

Pengaruh Pemahaman Sistem Akuntansi Keuangan Daerah, Kapasitas Sumber Daya Manusia dan Pemanfaatan Teknologi Informasi terhadap Kualitas Informasi Laporan Keuangan Pemerintah Daerah (Studi Kasus pada Pemerintah Daerah Kota Yogyakarta)

The research is to examine the influence of the understanding of local financial accounting system, capacity of human resource and the utility of information tecnology toward the quality of financial report information of yogyakarta government.The used data for the research is primer data. It is the result from questionnaires spreading. The respondence of this research is manager of financial report of yogyakarta local government. The questionnair is spread to 90 respondents, meanwhile that can be proccesd are 63 questionnaires. The method of sample taking is using purposive sampling. Analytic technique of data in this research is using double linier regretion technique.The result of regretion test shows that the local government financial accounting system understanding and the capacity of human resource are not influenced significantly to the quality of local government financial report information, meanwhile the utility of technology is influenced positively to the quality of local government financial report information.keyword: the understanding of local financial accounting system, capacity of human resource, the utility of information technology and quality of local government financial report information.

Optimalisasi Penggunaan MS. Word dan MS. Excel Pada Siswa SMP PGRI Astra Insani Bekasi

The utility of information technology in this case Computers in the world of education are very important. The use of information technology, in this case, is to utilize the use of word and data processing software applications that are easy and powerful while still making it easier for students and teachers to do material editing. As one of the schools that is concerned in creating a systematic, interesting and friendly learning process, SMP PGRI Astra Insani Bekasi, has a computer practice room that is used to deliver learning material every day. Microsoft Office Word and Excel can be maximized by using the facilities in it. The optimization program for the two Microsoft Office applications aims to explore and explore more about the features that exist in the two Microsoft Office applications, which students may not have been familiar with before. By utilizing and maximizing features on find text, replace text, autocorrect, create and edit tables, introduce MS features. Excel and activate the menus that are in it, so that it helps the teacher's role in maximizing student knowledge of the lessons delivered. Keywords: computer training, MS. Word, MS. Excel, junior school student Abstrak Peran teknologi informasi dalam hal ini komputer di dunia pendidikan sangatlah penting. Penggunaan teknologi informasi dalam kasus ini adalah dengan memanfaatkan penggunaan software aplikasi pengolah kata dan data yang mudah dan powerfull dengan tetap mempermudah siswa dan guru untuk melakukan editing materi. Sebagai salah satu sekolah yang konsen dalam menciptakan proses pembelajaran yang sistematis, menarik, dan penuh keramahan, SMP PGRI Astra Insani Bekasi, telah memiliki ruang praktek komputer yang digunakan untuk menyampaikan materi pelajaran setiap harinya. Microsoft Office Word dan Excel dapat dimaksimalkan penggunaanya dengan memanfaatkan fasilitas-fasilitas di dalamnya. Program pelatihan pengoptimalan dua aplikasi Microsoft Office ini bertujuan untuk menggali dan mengeksplorasi lebih jauh mengenai fitur-fitur yang ada pada dua aplikasi Microsoft Office tersebut, yang mungkin sebelumnya siswa-siswi belum mengenal fitur-fitur tersebut. Dengan memanfaatkan dan memaksimalkan fitur pada find text, replace text, auto correct, membuat dan menyunting tabel, pengenalan fitur-fitur pada MS. Excel serta mengaktikan menu-menu yang ada didalamnya, sehingga turut membantu peran guru dalam memaksimalkan pengetahuan siswa terhadap pelajaran yang disampaikan. Kata kunci: pelatihan komputer, MS. Word, MS. Excel, siswa SMP