The Independent LifeStyle Assistant: Lessons Learned

The Independent LifeStyle Assistant (I.L.S.A.) is an agent-based monitoring and support system to help elderly people live longer in their homes by reducing caregiver burden. I.L.S.A. is a multiagent system that incorporates a unified sensing model, situation assessments, response planning, real-time responses, and machine learning. This paper describes the six-month study of the system we fielded in elders' homes and the major lessons we learned during development.     

Mindful Teaching Practice: Lessons Learned through a Hearing Voices Simulation

A hearing voices simulation (Deegan, 1996) was conducted with mental health nursing students (N = 87) at a large Midwestern university. The goals of this simulation were to change attitudes and decrease stigma. Students used mp3 players to listen to an audio simulation while simultaneously engaging in activities requiring focus and concentration. The Attitude toward Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ; Cunningham, Sobell, & Chow, 1993) was administered pre-and post-simulation and open-ended questions about the experience also were asked. Responses to questions demonstrated increased patience, tolerance, understanding, and empathy among participants. Statistical data demonstrated significant changes in participants post-simulation. However, although students reported increased comfort being around persons hearing voices, they were less likely to acknowledge individual behavior as indicative of recovery. In this article, we discuss how these unexpected outcomes may be related to a subtle illness versus recovery focus. We emphasize how educators must be mindful and reflective about beliefs and attitudes that inform their teaching, and ultimately, their students’ learning.     

HIV/AIDS vaccines: 2007

Development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine has been slow because classical approaches to vaccine development have not yielded a vaccine. Encouragingly, new approaches using recombinant viral vectors, DNA vaccines, and combinations of different vectors in heterologous prime/boost regimens are yielding vaccines capable of controlling virulent immunodeficiency virus challenges in non-human primate models. These new vaccines elicit T cells capable of recognizing and killing virus-infected cells. Brief synopses are given for six vaccines currently advancing in human trials.     

Strategies for Mentor Matching: Lessons Learned

Mentoring serves to guide early stage researchers toward opportunities which can further their careers. The most beneficial mentoring experience occurs when both the mentor and mentee share a common background and have appropriate expectations. Our CTSA serves individuals in a five state region with widely disparate needs and we have often struggled to provide appropriate guidance for those requesting mentoring services. Here we present an overview of our past mentor identification strategy along with a proposed new direction to increase flexibility, sustainability and better serve researchers in our region.     

The HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Malawi

In Africa south of the Sahara desert, nearly 21 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. In 13 countries in the region at least 10% of all adults are infected with HIV/AIDS and the prevalence rates in many capital cities are 35% or more. Botswana and Zimbabwe have reached a prevalence rate of 25%, or one out of every four adults in the country is infected. ¹³ And in nearby Malawi, the prevalence rate is 15% among adults and increasing daily. The Malawi Government recognizes HIV/AIDS as a serious public health and socioeconomic problem requiring multisectoral involvement. Below is an overview of the epidemic's magnitude, the cultural practices facilitating its proliferation and how nurses are joining the country's community mobilization strategy.