There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

How to ... be a reflective practitioner.

The problem of which cues, internal or external, permit a person to label and identify his own emotional state has been with us since the days that James (1890) first tendered his doctrine that \"the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion\" (p. 449). Since we are aware of a variety of feeling and emotion states, it should follow from James' proposition that the various emotions will be accompanied by a variety of differentiable bodily states. Following James' pronouncement, a formidable number of studies were undertaken in search of the physiological differentiators of the emotions. The results, in these early days, were almost uniformly negative. All of the emotional states experi-

"Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state": Erratum

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

▶ Addresses the accessibility, usability, and, ultimately, acceptability of Information Society Technologies by anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and through any media and device. ▶ Focuses on theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, of both technological and non-technological nature. ▶ Features papers that report on theories, methods, tools, empirical results, reviews, case studies, and best-practice examples.

Universal access in the information society

Background 
Contemporary cancer diagnostics are becoming increasing reliant upon sophisticated new molecular methods for analyzing genetic information. Limiting the scope of these new technologies is the lack of adequate solid tumor tissue samples. Patients may present with tumors that are not accessible to biopsy or adequate for longitudinal monitoring. One attractive alternate source is cancer cells in the peripheral blood. These rare circulating tumor cells (CTC) require enrichment and isolation before molecular analysis can be performed. Current CTC platforms lack either the throughput or reliability to use in a clinical setting or they provide CTC samples at purities that restrict molecular access by limiting the molecular tools available.


Methodology/Principal Findings 
Recent advances in magetophoresis and microfluidics have been employed to produce an automated platform called LiquidBiopsy®. This platform uses high throughput sheath flow microfluidics for the positive selection of CTC populations. Furthermore the platform quantitatively isolates cells useful for molecular methods such as detection of mutations. CTC recovery was characterized and validated with an accuracy (<20% error) and a precision (CV<25%) down to at least 9 CTC/ml. Using anti-EpCAM antibodies as the capture agent, the platform recovers 78% of MCF7 cells within the linear range. Non specific recovery of background cells is independent of target cell density and averages 55 cells/mL. 10% purity can be achieved with as low as 6 CTCs/mL and better than 1% purity can be achieved with 1 CTC/mL.


Conclusions/Significance 
The LiquidBiopsy platform is an automated validated platform that provides high throughput molecular access to the CTC population. It can be validated and integrated into the lab flow enabling CTC enumeration as well as recovery of consistently high purity samples for molecular analysis such as quantitative PCR and Next Generation Sequencing. This tool opens the way for clinically relevant genetic profiling of CTCs.

/pdf/circulating-tumor-cells-clinically-relevant-molecular-access-2ned1b0a7n.pdf

Circulating Tumor Cells: Clinically Relevant Molecular Access Based on a Novel CTC Flow Cell

Creativity can be considered one of the key competencies for the twenty-first century. It provides us with the capacity to deal with the opportunities and challenges that are part of our complex and fast-changing world. The question as to what facilitates creative cognition—the ability to come up with creative ideas, problem solutions and products—is as old as the human sciences, and various means to enhance creative cognition have been studied. Despite earlier scientific studies demonstrating a beneficial effect of music on cognition, the effect of music listening on creative cognition has remained largely unexplored. The current study experimentally tests whether listening to specific types of music (four classical music excerpts systematically varying on valance and arousal), as compared to a silence control condition, facilitates divergent and convergent creativity. Creativity was higher for participants who listened to ‘happy music’ (i.e., classical music high on arousal and positive mood) while performing the divergent creativity task, than for participants who performed the task in silence. No effect of music was found for convergent creativity. In addition to the scientific contribution, the current findings may have important practical implications. Music listening can be easily integrated into daily life and may provide an innovative means to facilitate creative cognition in an efficient way in various scientific, educational and organizational settings when creative thinking is needed.

/pdf/happy-creativity-listening-to-happy-music-facilitates-4hla6emxd1.pdf

Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking

This paper describes a software project called PsySound3. This software provides an accessible platform for the analysis of sound recordings using procedures applied in acoustics and psychoacoustics. Acoustical analysis methods include a sound level meter module, as well as processes such as Fourier transform, cepstrum, Hilbert transform and auto-correlation. Psychoacoustical models include dynamic loudness, sharpness, roughness, loudness fluctuation, pitch height and pitch strength. Results are presented as numbers, auditory graphs and visual graphs. The software is modular, allowing additional analysis methods to be contributed. Several additional analysis modules are planned. The software is distributed freely via www.psysound.org. This paper illustrates some of the analysis possibilities by using auditory alarms as examples. [

/pdf/psysound3-software-for-acoustical-and-psychoacoustical-4fqc1n7gob.pdf

'Psysound3': Software for Acoustical and Psychoacoustical Analysis of Sound Recordings

The use of interactive technology in the arts has changed the audience from viewer to participant and in doing so is transforming the nature of experience. From visual and sound art to performance and gaming, the boundaries of what is possible for creation, curating, production and distribution are continually extending. As a consequence, we need to reconsider the way in which these practices are evaluated. Interactive Experience in the Digital Age explores diverse ways of creating and evaluating interactive digital art through the eyes of the practitioners who are embedding evaluation in their creative process as a way of revealing and enhancing their practice. It draws on research methods from other disciplines such as interaction design, human-computer interaction and practice-based research more generally and adapts them to develop new strategies and techniques for how we reflect upon and assess value in the creation and experience of interactive art. With contributions from artists, scientists, curators, entrepreneurs and designers engaged in the creative arts, this book is an invaluable resource for both researchers and practitioners, working in this emerging field.

Sam Ferguson

Papers

Circulating Tumor Cells: Clinically Relevant Molecular Access Based on a Novel CTC Flow Cell

Happy creativity: Listening to happy music facilitates divergent thinking

'Psysound3': Software for Acoustical and Psychoacoustical Analysis of Sound Recordings

Interactive Experience in the Digital Age: Evaluating New Art Practice

Interactive Experience in the Digital Age