Vascular and Neuroimmune Contributions to Brain Function Symposium

Join the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and the Department of Anesthesiology at Duke University for a symposium on vascular and neuroimmune contributions to brain function. The event features a keynote speech from Costantino Iadecola, MD, director of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. Held in-person at the Great Hall, Trent Semans Center for Health Education, on the Duke campus in Durham, NC.

A New Look at P Values for Randomized Clinical Trials

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Erik van Zwet, PhD
Department of Biomedical Data Sciences
Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands

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This interactive online workshop will provide an introduction to focus groups, a data collection method used in qualitative research. Attendees will also observe or participate in a mini "mock" virtual focus group session.

Topics:

• Focus group methodology
• Considerations for planning a focus group
• Development of focus group discussion guides
• Focus group facilitation skills
• Tips for conducting virtual focus groups

Presenters:
MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Program Manager, Qualitative and Engaged Research
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Project Manager, Community Engagement in Research
NC TraCS Institute

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Developing a Pipeline for the Discovery of Anti-Enterovirus Cross-Reactive Monoclonal Antibodies

Join the Children's Research Institute for a hybrid seminar with Timothy Thoner, PhD, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Vogt Laboratory in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UNC School of Medicine. Participate in the seminar either in person at 3116 Mary Ellen Jones Building (with lunch provided) or via Zoom.

Zoom information - Meeting ID: 985 6644 6544 | Password: 097476

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Book Launch: Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State

Join the Sheps Center in celebrating a new book written by Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, Equal Care: Health Equity, Social Democracy, and the Egalitarian State. In Equal Care, Berkowitz delves into the social mechanisms that connect injustice to poor health. He presents practical policies designed to create a system of social relations that ensures equal care for everyone. The launch will include a talk and book signing. Equal Care will be available on March 26. Refreshments will be provided.

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Coffee with the UNC Office of Human Research Ethics & IRB

Date/Time: April 10 from 9:00-10:30 a.m.
Location: Brinkhous-Bullitt, 2nd Floor, Room 219

The UNC Office of Human Research Ethics (OHRE/IRB) would like to invite you to chat with the UNC OHRE Director, Associate Directors, IRB Analyst and IRB Senior Analyst over coffee. Register early to reserve your spot as space is limited!

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2024 Research Excellence Awardees

Please join the Department of Health Sciences Office of Research & Scholarship for their April research forum featuring DHS doctoral student winners of the Research Excellence award presenting their work.

The hybrid forum will take place in person (MacNider 321, LUNCH provided) and via Zoom. Please register to attend.

Questions? Contact the Department of Health Sciences Office of Research & Scholarship at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Designing Web Surveys

This 4-hour course will be held online only. Attendance is required as it will not be recorded.

This course will provide an introduction to effectively designing web surveys to avoid common pitfalls that impact data quality and introduce measurement error. The course will focus on the following elements of web survey design – overall formatting and visual layout of screens, selecting and designing questions and response options (e.g., radio buttons, check boxes, grids, and open text fields), error and validation messaging, navigation elements, and usability. Special considerations for designing web surveys to accommodate mobile response will also be covered. This course will also provide an overview of the various web survey software systems available and offer practical guidance on selecting appropriate platforms. However, this course will not provide instruction on the technical aspects of web survey programming or introduce programming languages. The course will draw from empirical literature on best practices coupled with practical considerations when designing and implementing web surveys.

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Team Science and the Academic Research Enterprise

Join the ACTS Webinar Series kickoff for a discussion of Team Science practices with key stakeholders at UNC-Chapel Hill. Hear from several campus institutes utilizing Team Science to advance research. This webinar will include discussions of terminology and highlight critical aspects of successful Team Science efforts as well as pitfalls to avoid.

Learn more at renci.org/team-science/.

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Placebos Without Deception

Recent randomized controlled trials demonstrate that open-label placebos can improve outcomes, like pain management and reduced opioid use, even when patients know they are receiving a placebo. These findings shift the conversation about placebos from whether deception is ethical to what role they should play in health care. Panel discussion organized by the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School; Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics; and the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL).

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Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine, A Clustered-randomized Stepped-wedge Trial Across 33 Emergency Departments

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Corita R. Grudzen, MD, MSHS, FACEP
Fern Grayer Chair in Oncology Care and the Patient Experience
Division Head, Supportive and Acute Care Services
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Professor of Emergency Medicine
Weill Cornell Medical College

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This online training will provide an introduction to qualitative data analysis, focusing on content/thematic analysis. The session will cover the basics of qualitative data analysis and steps in the analysis process, including: transcribing, memoing, codebook development and coding, exploring content areas or themes, and interpreting and communicating findings. Participants will have the opportunity to practice developing and applying codes.

Please note: We will not be demonstrating how to use qualitative data analysis software during this session.

Presenters:

MaryBeth Grewe, MPH
Program Manager, Qualitative and Engaged Research
NC TraCS Institute

Simone Frank, MPH
Project Manager, Community Engagement in Research
NC TraCS Institute

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NC TraCS Data Science Seminar Series: ChatGPT as your research assistant

Please join the NC TraCS Institute as members of the TraCS Data Science Lab discuss ways that common generative AI models have been particularly helpful in their research. This seminar will focus on using accessible, off-the-shelf models in ways that are applicable to diverse research domains.

Seminars in the NC TraCS Data Science Seminar Series will cover a range of topics related to health care data science, clinical data, data engineering, and working in these areas at UNC-Chapel Hill. These hybrid seminars will be held on the third Tuesday of each month from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the NC TraCS suite on the 2nd floor of Brinkhous-Bullitt or via Zoom.

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Confronting Bias in Medical Algorithms at UNC Health

This seminar features three UNC faculty who will offer their perspectives on bias in medical algorithms. Dr. Gibson, a nephrologist, will discuss race corrections for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Dr. Goralski, Pulmonary/Critical Care, will discuss bias in pulse oximeter and pulmonology function tests. Dr. Seashore, Associate Chief Medical Informatics Officer for UNC Health, will discuss how UNC Health is approaching AI for clinical use, particularly when bias is “baked-in” to Epic@UNC.

Moderator:
Gail Henderson, PhD

Featured Speakers:

Keisha L. Gibson, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Chief, Pediatric Nephrology Division, UNC School of Medicine

Jennifer Goralski, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics
Division of Pulmonary Diseases & Critical Care Medicine
Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, UNC School of Medicine

Carl Seashore, MD
Professor of Pediatrics
Division of General Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, UNC School of Medicine

To place a lunch order, please register by Friday, April 12th.

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UNC NRP April 2024 Education Session: Clinical Research Billing Compliance and the Billing Coverage Analysis: The 5 W's (and 1 H)

Please join the UNC Network for Research Professionals and the Clinical Research Compliance team from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research for a presentation on the 5 W's and 1 H of Clinical Research Billing Compliance and the Billing Coverage Analysis (BCA).

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The Yale Open Data Access (YODA) Project: 10 Years of Clinical Trial Data Sharing

This NIH Collaboratory Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds features:

Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS
Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Yale University

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Detecting Change in Within-Person Processes

Behavioral researchers are often interested in change within-persons over time that may occur due to environmental phenomenon or during the course of an intervention. In some circumstances there is a question of both whether and when change occurs. This course introduces applied approaches for determining whether and when change occurs using individual, person-specific data. The course will be taught primarily in R with an emphasis on visualizing differences using network models.

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This one-day course will be offered via Zoom only. Attendance is required as it will not be recorded.

Course Summary:
Statistical machine learning is an interdisciplinary research area which is closely related to statistics, computer sciences, engineering, and bioinformatics. Many statistical machine learning techniques and algorithms have proven to be very useful for various scientific areas. This course will cover a number of unsupervised learning techniques for finding patterns and associations in Big Data. These include dimension reduction techniques such as principal components analysis and non-negative matrix factorization, clustering analysis and significance analysis, and network analysis with graphical models. The main emphasis will be on the analysis of real data sets from various scientific fields. The techniques discussed will be demonstrated in R.

This course is intended for researchers who have some knowledge of statistics and machine learning, and want to be introduced to relatively more advanced statistical machine learning topics.

Prerequisite:
Participants should be familiar with matrix linear algebra, linear regression and basic statistical and probability concepts, as well as some familiarity with R programming.

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The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) invites all members of the research community to a once-per-semester live update session.

What to Expect for the April Session:
IRB Process Updates: Senior Associate Vice Chancellor Andy Johns and Director of the Office of Human Research Ethics Carley Emerson will provide the latest information and changes to IRB procedures.
Research Enterprise Updates: Vice Chancellor Penny Gordon-Larsen will share general news and developments impacting Carolina’s research activities.
Q&A: There will be a dedicated Q&A session for participants to ask questions to any member of the OVCR leadership team.

Please submit your questions in advance to facilitate a smooth discussion. You can submit them during registration or by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Optimizing Data Collection and Creating Maps with Drones

This course is being offered in collaboration between the Odum Institute and the Center for Urban & Regional Studies. Attendance is required - this course will not be recorded.

This one-day short course, led by the Carolina Drone Lab, will cover drone data collection, planning, and analysis. Small unoccupied aircraft systems (sUAS or drones) are a common mapping and 3D-modeling tool in many organizations. To fully leverage the technology and its benefits, there needs to be a foundation in understanding how to collect quality images and process those images into usable information. The course discusses the best flight parameters for different environments along with advanced data analysis in a GIS environment. Attendees will be introduced to: mission planning, creating automated flights for data capture, processing software for drone imagery (Pix4dMapper), and working with drone imagery in GIS. Commonly used tools and resources will be shared.

Students will learn the technical capabilities and limitations of the drones available for use, and why selection of the right drone and sensor combination is important to obtaining the right data for a project. This course offers participants the chance to learn about a broad spectrum of techniques to take the next steps on their own.

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Value of Knee OA Treatments

Join the UNC School of Medicine Thurston Arthritis Research Center for a UNC Core Center for Clinical Research (CCCR) Speaker Series seminar featuring Elena Losina, PhD. Losina is the Robert W. Lovett Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Director of the PIVOT Center, and Director of the OrACORe in the Department of Orthodedic Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Knee osteoarthritis is a debilitating painful condition affecting quality of life. Currently, there are no disease-modifying treatments to halt the progression of knee OA. Treatments are focused on symptom alleviation. Provision of value-based care is centered on efficacy and economic efficiency. The cost-effectiveness measures both efficacy and effectiveness in a single outcome measure. In this talk, Losina will highlight the assessments of value for non-pharmacologic, pharmacologic, and surgical treatments for knee OA.

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This course is being offered in collaboration between the Odum Institute and the Center for Urban & Regional Studies.

Urbanization has been a fundamental trend of the past two centuries and a key force shaping the development of the modern world. While urbanization in rapidly growing nations is helping lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, it is also creating immense societal challenges by increasing greenhouse-gas emissions, destabilizing fragile ecosystems and creating new demands on public services and infrastructure that pose significant challenges on the environment. Despite the importance of understanding the drivers of urban growth, we are still unable to quantify the magnitude and pace of urbanization in a consistent manner at a high resolution and global scale.

The revolution in geospatial data has transformed how we study cities. Since the 1970s, terrestrial Earth observation data have been continuously collected in various spectral, spatial and temporal resolutions. As improved satellite imagery becomes available, new remote-sensing methods and machine-learning approaches have been developed to convert terrestrial Earth-observation data into meaningful information about the nature and pace of change of urban landscapes and human settlements. But until recently, most remote sensing studies focused on local settings. Mapping land cover at a national or regional scale is challenging because of the lack of high-resolution global imagery, the heterogeneous and complex spectral characteristics of land, the small and fragmented spatial configuration of many cities, and importantly, computational constrains (for storage and processing). Emerging cloud-based computational platforms now allow for scaling analysis across space and time. Google Earth Engine (GEE) is one platform that leverages cloud-computing services to achieve planetary-scale utility. GEE leverages cloud-computational services for planetary-scale analysis and consists of petabytes of geospatial and tabular data, including a full archive of Landsat, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1, and MODIS, together with a JavaScript, Python based API (GEE API), and algorithms for supervised image classification.

This hands-on course will focus on the use of Google Earth Engine (GEE) for urban research applications. It will demonstrate how free and open-source satellite imagery – including electro-optical (EO) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery – can be utilized to map urban areas and urbanization trends and patterns, across space and time, and to perform a qualitative analysis of the impacts of urban expansion on the landscape. In addition to analyzing existing classification schemes of urban areas to understand how cities expand and evolve, the course will provide a brief introduction to concepts in Remote Sensing Machine Learning, with a focus on supervised pixel-based image classification. Students will learn how to automatically map built-up land cover based on publicly available satellite imagery (e.g., Landsat and Sentinel). In addition, the course will demonstrate recent innovations in the use of remotely sensed nighttime light observations to understand variations in economic activity within and between cities – all utilizing data and tools that are available in GEE. The course will include PowerPoint slides, group hands-on coding (in JavaScript) and short exercises. Prior coding knowledge is not required.

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In this session, participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and seek feedback on their qualitative analysis from facilitators and other attendees. This session serves as a workshop in which participants get a chance to discuss and review qualitative analysis techniques while also learning from others.

To attend, participants must be working on a qualitative data analysis project and can seek feedback on any step in the process (e.g., coding, creating matrices/diagrams/other products, developing categories or themes, summarizing data). Participants must have attended an Introduction to Qualitative Data Analysis training offered by NC TraCS (either the session offered on April 16, 2024 or a previously offered session).

Please note: We will not be presenting information about qualitative analysis in this session; instead, we will ask participants to share where they are in their analysis process, ask questions about their analyses, and collectively discuss strategies for moving our analyses forward.

Facilitators:
MaryBeth Grewe, MPH, Program Manager, Qualitative and Engaged Research
Simone Frank, MPH, Project Manager, Community Engagement in Research
Milenka Jean-Baptiste, MPH, Qualitative Research Specialist

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