ITGP Awards: Fall, 2005

Creation of a web site to accompany the Sargent Choice Program
Principal Investigator Roberta Durschlag
Department Department of Health Sciences
School/College Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Investigators Stacey Stimets, Ali Books, Richard Mendez,Pamela Powell, Edward Ramos
Project Description 

The purpose of the proposed project is to enhance the effectiveness of the Sargent Choice Program. Sargent Choice is a collaborative effort between Sargent College and BU Dining Services whose purpose is to increase the number of healthy food options available at BU as well as to educate the BU community about good nutrition. Currently Sargent Choice items are available at all residential dining halls. By January 2006 they should be available at the George Sherman Union and other retail dining locations. As the program develops educational material will be available at these locations as well. The proposed project will create a web site to accompany the Program where students, faculty and staff can:

  1. Calculate their nutritional requirements.
  2. Determine how to use Sargent Choice foods to meet their nutritional requirements.
  3. View educational material that will help them make better food choices.
Currently, the program provides healthy foods but cannot give personal recommendations about what to consume. Further, educational information will only be available at the point-of-purchase. This Web-based system will provide individualized nutrition recommendations and will provide these recommendations as well as educational material in an easily accessed manner.


 
Digital Access to Primary Sources for the Study of Modernity
Principal Investigator Liah Greenfeld
Department Institute for the Advancement of the Social Sciences
School/College The University Professors
Investigators David Barron
Project Description 
The intention of this project is to construct a web-based database of textual sources (from the public domain) to be used for the study of modernity. The database will serve as both a research tool and as an interactive learning-guide/teaching-aid. It will offer a non-linear approach to texts crucial in the understanding of modernity, nationalism, focusing in the first place on nationalism as its cultural framework, and using empirical, specifically comparative and historical methods. Students will be able to use the tool to better understand the context in which interpretations emerge and change, as well as to replicate the context of the teacher's/author's argument. Also, teachers will be able to assign more engaging, creative, and self-guided homework, which will ultimately lead to enhanced learning and group discussions.

 
Visual Sensor Network Testbed
Principal Investigator Janusz Konrad
Department Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
School/College College of Engineering
Investigators Clem Karl,Thomas Little,Venkatesh Saligrama,Wei Qin
Project Description 
A wide range of courses related to information processing and transmission is currently offered at the ECE Department. These courses are broadly related to each other as they cover various aspects of information capture, processing, communication and exploitation. Although the theoretical material covered in those courses is mutually complementary, the practical aspect is narrowly selected to suit each course's specific goals. Therefore, practical examples selected in individual courses rarely overlap, and thus usually do not reinforce concepts introduced in other courses. We believe many such concepts could be efficiently reinforced had a unifying application been developed and exploited in various courses. Therefore, we propose to build visual sensor network, a group of connected, CPU-enabled, video cameras, as a unifying application for teaching curriculum related to information processing and transmission. Such a network can offer a wide range of challenges at both undergraduate and graduate level. We propose three levels of camera network use, in order of increasing challenge: passive, active and collaborative. As we gain experience using this network, we expect to widen its applications to other courses, outside of the department as well.

 
Remediation and Redevelopment of The South Weymouth Naval Air Station: An interdisciplinary case study for public health
Principal Investigator Wayne LaMorte
Department Epidemiology Department
School/College School of Public Health
Investigators Richard Clapp,Wendy Heiger-Bernays, Rob Schadt
Project Description 
Despite growing interest in case-based, interdisciplinary teaching, curriculum reform in public health has been impeded by department-based teaching curricula and a reliance on traditional teaching models. In this project the environmental cleanup and redevelopment of South Weymouth Naval Air Station will serve as a focus for building interdisciplinary faculty collaboration to develop a realistic and engaging case-based learning module that invites students to explore concepts and information enabling them to work through the problems involved in health risk assessment, environmental remediation, and urban planning. This interactive module will be constructed as an on-line problem that students can work through at their own pace.

 
High-Fidelity Angiographic Model Simulation for Radiology Training
Principal Investigator Alexander Norbash
Department Department of Radiology
School/College School of Medicine
Project Description 
Despite Radiology losing nearly all arteriography in turf battles at Boston Medical Center, Radiology trainees are still expected to possess arteriographic expertise as they matriculate, take specialty board examinations, and practice. Ultimately, untrained individuals may perform life-threatening procedures on patients. We propose to create a high-fidelity arteriographic simulator for radiology training, incorporating a commercially available silicone model of the vessels. Features will include positioning of the model in a recumbent position, and a fabricated camera system that will permit projection of the training images on a display facing the proceduralist, as is standard in actual arteriography.

 
Visualizing human anatomy through imaging in the gross anatomy dissection laboratory: a pilot study
Principal Investigator Priscilla Slanetz
Department Department of Radiology
School/College School of Medicine
Investigators Todd Hoagland, Donald Siwek, Patricia McArdle, Richard Hoyt, Mark Moss, Kalidas Nandy
Project Description 
Over the past few decades, technological advances in imaging have led to the field of radiology being at the forefront of detection, diagnosis, and treatment of many medical diseases. Effective utilization of imaging is essential for graduates to provide high- quality and cost-efficient care to patients. Accomplishing this goal relies on exposure to imaging during the preclinical years and subsequent synthesis of this knowledge into evidence-based imaging strategies during the clinical years. This project represents one of the first steps in this process by introducing imaging to first year students in the dissection laboratory. Early exposure to cross-sectional imaging with direct anatomic correlates should enhance mastery of gross anatomy.

 
Teaching and Educating Children through Health & How to Exercise And Reach Target Scores in Physical Education
Principal Investigator Eileen Sullivan
Department Department of Curriculum and Teaching
School/College School of Education
Investigators Emily Clapham
Project Description 
In the past, it was acceptable to talk about the need to validate physical activity level but now we can objectively assess student and class performance while also motivating our students in the gymnasium. Preparing today's physical education, health education, and classroom teacher must include the use of technology for this critical need of data- driven assessment measures. Students in the School of Education Physical Education, Health Education, and Elementary Education Programs will learn how to use heart rate monitors (HRM's) as a reliable means of assessing exercise levels. ITGP funding will allow us to teach future teachers how to authentically assess fitness levels with HRM's, develop lesson plans, design interdisciplinary activities, teach fourth and fifth graders how to use HRM's as part of a pre-practicum experience on campus, and become involved with a technology research project.

 
A digital image life science library for curriculum development and instruction enhancement
Principal Investigator Douglas Zook
Department Department of Curriculum and Teaching
School/College School of Education
Investigators Swapna Kumar, Steve Dahill
Project Description 
The proposed project will collect images from life science researchers and produce original digital video clips. This ongoing, expanding digital library will serve as a valuable, accessible, up-to-date curriculum/course resource exclusively for Boston University life science instructors for the direct benefit of our students. The first year focus will be on digital images and video interviews that are applicable for on-campus and on-line versions of CAS Bi503 Symbiosis and CAS Bi117 Global Ecology. My biology leadership roles, including President of the International Symbiosis Society, afford me extensive world-wide contacts with many highly-regarded life science researchers. Support from ITGP would allow for a process to request, collect, categorize, store, and use submitted digital images and original produced video clips from these accomplished researchers.

 

Document last updated 5/22/2006