SOIRE 2017

This writing examines the phenomenon of Vocal Fold Paresis, one of several possible neurogenic disorders of the voice, from the perspective of a professional voice user. It investigates the potential denervation of the muscles of the larynx and the constellation of symptoms, both auditory and physical, that can result from neurological injury. In addition, it examines the diagnostic process and considers possible avenues of therapeutic and surgical intervention for persons who have been diagnosed with neurogenic disorders of the voice. Finally, it suggests preventive measures that educators may take to protect both themselves and their students from voice disorder.

One Professor’s Experience of Neurogenic Voice Disorder:  Implications for Music Educators

The widespread use of smart mobile devices brings a lot of benefits to people’s lives and increases the popularity of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Along with BYOD, there are also several challenge issues (e.g., limited hardware capacity, frequent upgrades of applications and security and privacy concerns). In this paper, we propose Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI), a general framework that provides more reliable and secure solution for BYOD. VMI is specifically designed for mobile users. The idea of VMI is to host a mobile Operating System (OS) on a remote server in a cloud data center, and run mobile applications on it. It enables mobile users to access the virtual mobile desktops via mobile optimized display protocols through the network. Particularly, we focus on the design and implementation of vMobiDesk, a prototype system for VMI. It provides an implementation of VMI desktop virtualization on Android OS which is one of the most popular mobile operating systems. vMobiDesk focuses on virtualizing the display of Android desktops, redirecting users’ input events, providing audio support and remote camera. The experimental results show that vMobiDesk has a low virtualization overhead, and meanwhile enables mobile users to obtain good user experience on remotely accessing Android virtual desktops.

vMobiDesk: Desktop Virtualization for Mobile Operating System

GESTURE ANALYSIS OF YOGA FOR EXERGAME DEVELOPMENT USING 3-D ROOM SENSOR

Paraspinal muscles support the spine and are the source of movement force. The size, shape, density and volume of the paraspinal muscles cross section area (CSA) are affected by many factors, such as age, health condition, exercise, and low back pain. It is invaluable to segment the paraspinal muscle regions in CT images in order to measure and study them. Manual segmentation of the paraspinal muscle CSA is time consuming and inaccurate. In this work, an atlas-based image segmentation algorithm is proposed to segment the paraspinal muscles in CT images automatically. To address the challenges of variations of muscle shape and its relative spatial relationship to other organs in CT images, mutual information (MI) is used as the similarity measure in the registration step to estimate the two dimensional affine transformation between the atlas and target. The affine transformation is then used to warp the boundaries of the paraspinal muscle regions from the atlas to target images. Due to the robustness of the MI-based registration in handling the variations of shape, size, relative spatial relationships among tissues and organs, and its capability in handling intersubject variations, the proposed algorithm can align the atlas with targets accurately, and the algorithm can do so without the help of the computationally expensive iterative local contour optimization to bring the mapped contours close to their truth locations in target images. These are the two salient features of the proposed algorithm. The GVF snake algorithm deforms muscle contours to refine the segmentation results after image registration.
Experimental results show the proposed algorithm can segment the paraspinal muscle regions in CT images automatically, in both intrapatient and interpatient cases. Only a single atlas is needed to process sequences of images from different patients. Furthermore, using mutual information to register atlas and target images outperforms the method using spine-spine registration. It segments the muscle regions accurately without the need of the computationally expensive iterative local contour optimization. The results provide physicians a solid foundation to estimate muscle volume in order to evaluate tissue damage due to spine surgery and monitor patient recovery progress.

Two Dimensional Paraspinal Muscle Segmentation in CT Images

Exploring elementary and middle grades students’ perceptions of Appalachian culture during Camp Appalachia

Surveillance, Bodies, and Power in the Millennium Trilogy

'Presidents and Vice Presidents and the U.S. Elections of 1796 and 1800...' well, probably not the first subject when you think of modern art song in 2016. The second and third elections produced interesting results: in 1796, a President and Vice President from differing parties; in 1800, the President had to campaign against his own running mate. So, the twelfth amendment was introduced to the constitution, changing the electorate and defining elections in the future. This amendment was worked into a new art song (a musical composition featuring solo voice with accompaniment), inspired by the history involving the U.S. elections of 1796 and 1800.
'Amendment XII' is a new composition for baritone and fixed media (sometimes called electro-acoustic). In this work, a live performer sings with fixed (pre-recorded) elements. These elements are not able to be presented live with other performers, because the performer will sing with pre-recordings of themselves or other heavily manipulated recordings.
This lecture/demonstration, with performance, will feature (as presented by the composer):
<ol>
<li>The artistic process and creation of the musical composition. We will define some of the textual/story elements and abstract ideas that were used to generate the core creative concepts, exploring the text from the constitution and how they led to structures and choices for musical elements.</li>
<li>How the music was realized - from monophonic notated sheet music, a recording of that music, using the recording as source material, adding synthesizers to augment the accompanying texture, and bringing the live performer back to interact with the resulting fixed electronic accompaniment. There will be live demonstrations to show the electronic manipulations used in the fixed accompaniment and how a commercial product (primarily used for film composition) was flipped into a tool for creating this art song.</li>
<li>A live performance of 'Amendment XII' by vocal artist, Benjamin Schoening.</li>
</ol>

Singing the Twelfth Amendment

In this study, we worked closely with a community school partner to better understand the perceptions of alternative high school students in regards to the characteristics that they feel contribute to a mentally healthy school space. Using the definition of mental health offered by the World Health Organization, which suggests that a mentally healthy space is one in which individuals feel safe to thrive and realize their potential, we sought to give a platform for students to express their visions of a mentally healthy school. 
**This research was made possible by a 2017 FUSE grant.**
This poster presentation will offer the results of a qualitative study that utilized focus group research with alternative high school students in order to better understand their various perspectives of the components of a mentally healthy school space. Eight (n = 8) alternative high school students participated in the in-depth focus group. The results of the focus group were transcribed, coded using methods common to Grounded Theory research, and themes were developed. 
Alternative schools are often a school system's frontline defense against school dropout (Souza, 1999) and often serve students labeled as "at-risk" (Conley, 2002). Our study pushes back against the rhetoric of risk and instead considers students "at-promise" (Swadener & Lubeck, 1995). This study offers a platform for the biggest stakeholders in alternative schools, the students, to express their concerns and ideas regarding mentally healthy school spaces. The results of this study offered three major themes: "Care as Pedagogy," "Alternative Schools as Platforms for Identity Development," and finally, "Designed for Us: Purposefully Designed Classrooms." In this poster presentation, we will explore these themes and as well as offer suggestions for classroom teachers and school administrators in regards to producing more mentally healthy and inclusive school spaces for students at-promise.

Bridging the Gap: Understanding Student Perspectives of Mentally Healthy School Spaces in Alternative School Settings

Consumers can be confused by the cornucopia of options and variety of labels on egg cartons in grocery stores. One of the most common concerns is the difference between organic and traditionally produced eggs. Consumers have been encouraged by advertisers to equate an organic product to superior quality, higher nutritional content, and, therefore, a healthier option for consumption. In addition, organic products tend to be more expensive than traditionally produced foods. Is this perception based on fact? Are there nutritional differences between organic and traditionally produced products? If nutritional differences exist, then to what extent? Do these differences justify the extra expense? To begin to answer these questions we looked at microbial differences and compared protein content between two locally purchased egg products. “Store brand” eggs and organic eggs were purchased from a local grocer. We then used standard microbiological and biochemical analytical methods to compare these products. First, a microbiological survey was performed to see if there were any differences between the egg types. Second, the protein content of the eggs was compared by UV-vis spectroscopy, SDS-PAGE electrophoresis, and Bradford Protein Assay to determine if there are any quantifiable differences in protein content or the type of protein in each kind of egg. Our results indicated that there are no differences in the microbial environment or protein content of the eggs.

A Protein and Microbiological survey comparing Organic and Traditional eggs

With the US college system welcoming an ever-increasing number of international students (Institute of International Education, 2016), the necessity of programs to help students acclimate to their new surroundings has become critical. China, India, and South Korea are three of the top four countries to send students to US colleges, with over a half million students hailing from these countries studying in the US (Institute of International Education, 2016). Many Asian international college students have a rich experience in the US and add tremendous value to the college communities that they join. That being said, struggles with acculturative stress, depressive symptoms, and negative affect are common among Asian international college students (Constantine, Okazaki, & Utsey, 2004; Dao, Lee, & Chang, 2007; Lee, Koeske, & Sales, 2004; Wang, Wei, & Chen, 2015; Wei et al., 2007; Ying & Han, 2006). Mental health services are used at comparatively lower rates among Asian international college students (Atkinson & Gim, 1989) creating the issue of how best to reach this population for relief from these symptoms. An online written emotional disclosure protocol may prove useful in this regard. Written emotional disclosure, initially developed by James Pennebaker, is a brief writing protocol that has improved symptoms of mood and physical health in multitudinous populations (Frattaroli, 2006). Research is proposed to examine the effects of an online written emotional disclosure protocol on Asian international college students in regard to alleviating symptoms of depression, acculturative stress, and negative affect.

An Examination of Affectivity, Depression, and Acculturative Stress in Asian International College Students using an Online Written Disclosure Protocol

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