Sep. 21, 2023
Prototyping a Web-based Interface of Sensor Technologies for Remote Care Coordination and Self-management
The widespread adoption of consumer sensor technologies, including wearable and in-home sensors, present an opportunity for ambient monitoring of activities of daily living for health and behavioral intervention. Health care professionals (i.e., care coordinators trained as nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers) in the Age-friendly Sustainable Smart and Equitable Technologies for Access for Aging in Place (ASSETs for AIP) project monitor client behaviors using passive environmental and wearable sensors with several disparate tools to review and interpret sensor data. Together with care coordinators, informatics researchers are co-designing an interactive user-friendly and web-based interface for understanding patterns of behavior and identifying…
Sep. 20, 2023
NGA Ge0-Hack for Humanity Student Team Wins 2nd Place
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and T-REX sponsored the NGA Geo-Hack for Humanity held at the T-REX center in downtown St. Louis September 8-10, 2023. The MU-IDSI and DSA Program sent a team to compete. The hackathon was focused on Food Security. Students were asked to analyze key indicators related to food availability in a region of the world. Analysis included a wide variety of approaches, including the prediction of food availability based on crop yields, soil moisture, regional impacts/conflicts, and human population. The student teams were asked to conduct their problem solving and data analysis based on a real-world prompt. The prompt was developed by…
Sep. 20, 2023
Relationships Between Mortality and Respiratory Health, Medication Usage, Water Disappearance, and Climatic Conditions in Commercial Weaning-To-Finishing Pigs
Mortality in pigs is of paramount economic importance to United States pig producers. According to data compiled by MetaFarms SMS and Pork Checkoff in 2022, 21.2% of pigs die before reaching slaughter, and this statistic has increased, in general, over the last 5 years. Although only 6.8% of these losses are attributed to pigs in the wean-to-finish production phase, these pigs are more valuable due to added daily feed expenditure. Thus, reduction of weaning-to-finishing pig mortality is necessary to improve sustainability and profitability of current pig production operations. The objective of the current study was to identify health and climatic variables that are…
Sep. 20, 2023
Enhancing Single Cell RNA-seq Analysis and Annotation for Understanding the Impact of CD137 Agonist on Cancer Immunoprevention through Advanced Informatics Algorithms
SA-4-1BBL, a novel CD137 receptor agonist, has been generated by our group and selected as a promising candidate for preventing cancer progression in research. The SA-4-1BBL demonstrates notable immunoprevention efficacy in diverse tumor models when utilized as a treatment in research subjects. Nevertheless, this efficacy stands in contrast to 3H3, another CD137-targeting antibody, which appears failing in generating cancer prevention outcomes in research subjects. The differing results obtained with SA-4-1BBL and 3H3 have raised questions about the reasons behind this disparity even though SA-4-1BBL and 3H3 target the same CD137 receptor. To uncover the underlying differences between SA-4-1BBL, 3H3, and…
Sep. 15, 2023
Relationships between mortality and respiratory health, medication usage, water disappearance, and climatic conditions in commercial weaning-to-finishing pigs
Mortality in pigs is of paramount economic importance to United States pig producers. According to data compiled by MetaFarms SMS and Pork Checkoff in 2022, 21.2% of pigs die before reaching slaughter, and this statistic has increased, in general, over the last 5 years. Although only 6.8% of these losses are attributed to pigs in the wean-to-finish production phase, these pigs are more valuable due to added daily feed expenditure. Thus, reduction of weaning-to-finishing pig mortality is necessary to improve sustainability and profitability of current pig production operations. The objective of the current study was to identify health and climatic variables that…
Sep. 15, 2023
Enhancing Single Cell RNA-seq Analysis and Annotation for Understanding the Impact of CD137 Agonist on Cancer Immunoprevention through Advanced Informatics Algorithms
SA-4-1BBL, a novel CD137 receptor agonist, has been generated by our group and selected as a promising candidate for preventing cancer progression in research. The SA-4-1BBL demonstrates notable immunoprevention efficacy in diverse tumor models when utilized as a treatment in research subjects. Nevertheless, this efficacy stands in contrast to 3H3, another CD137-targeting antibody, which appears failing in generating cancer prevention outcomes in research subjects. The differing results obtained with SA-4-1BBL and 3H3 have raised questions about the reasons behind this disparity even though SA-4-1BBL and 3H3 target the same CD137 receptor. To uncover the underlying differences between SA-4-1BBL, 3H3,…
Aug. 30, 2023
Exploration of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (AI) Using Remote Sensing to Discover Climate, Environment, and Anthropogenic Features Related to Population Health
Computational modeling of geospatial data can bring valuable insight into communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases, and vector-borne diseases. However, each of these disease classes has its own challenges in terms of geospatial data analysis. Complex dynamics of environmental and social risk factors can determine the distribution of some diseases such as COVID-19, obesity and malaria, respectively. Environmental factors such as humidity, precipitation, rainfall, temperature, land use and land coverage, vegetation, and elevation play key roles in predicting prevalence or outbreaks. Measuring these features is time-consuming, costly, and biased since they are subject to human judgment. Remote sensing data, environmental and imagery,…
July 25, 2023
Data Science Innovation to Advance Journalism
COLUMBIA, Mo. (July 24, 2023) — Damon Kiesow is now the Knight Chair in Journalism Innovation at the Missouri School of Journalism, an update from his previous title of Knight Chair in Digital Editing and Producing. The new title reflects the evolution of the endowed chair position and Kiesow’s research and service as he finishes his fifth year at the School. Read more…
July 24, 2023
Productive Summer Curriculum Retreat at the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics
The faculty members at the MU Institute for Data Science and Informatics recently concluded a highly successful curriculum retreat this summer. The primary focus of the retreat was to meticulously review the curriculum, spanning from bootcamps to capstone projects, with the ultimate goal of providing an unparalleled learning experience for our students. Throughout the retreat, our dedicated faculty engaged in rigorous discussions and collaborative sessions to ensure the continuous refinement of our curriculum. By doing so, we aim to maintain the utmost coherence in our courses, while simultaneously delivering cutting-edge AI/ML tools and techniques in our data science training. This…