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"The mid-session panel on the first day of DEMO typically consists of individuals that are using technology for their research purposes.  This year was no exception.  The two individuals that participated in the panel were Dr. Steven M. Barlow, Professor, SPLH, Programs in Neuroscience, Human Biology, and Bioengineering at the University of Kansas, and Yannis Papakonstantinou, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego.  Both are working on two very different projects.  Dr. Barlow's is more tangible, and Papakonstanitinou's is quite web-based.  \nWith Dr. Barlow's work with infants, he has actually created a mechanism for triggering certain brain development in pre-term infants so that they will be able to feed on their own once it's time for them to come off of feeding tubes.  The background on Dr. Barlow's device is necessary, so bear with me for a moment.  \nWhen a pre-term infant is born, most of you know that it needs a lot of support in an incubator in order to finish developing outside the womb.  As the machines used to support the pre-term infant do a good amount of the work for that infant, certain stimuli is lacking in the pre-term infant's brain that would otherwise trigger development for necessities like learning how to suck (a feeding basic for infants).  Technology working directly with the brain.  Reminds me of another DEMO panel I saw last year...\n\nWhat Dr. Barlow has created is an Actifier and NTrainer, upon which the pre-term infant's pacifier can be placed, and they will imitate the motions needed in order to get the pre-term infant's brain to make the neural connections for learning such necessary behavior.  Once the infant is taken off the feeding machines in the incubator, its learning will not be staggered, and it will be more prepared for life on its own, easing the transition for the baby, the hospital staff, and the parents. \nWhile Dr. Barlow's research in technology has led to a very physical manifestation of a tool that can be used to stimulate pre-term infant brain development, Papakonstantinou's research involves an algorithm that has been used to develop an automated query process for the creation of web applications.  Called app2you, it works by pulling data from your existing site's content, and utilizing it for recommendations consisting of items like feeds, forms, calendars, contact information etc.  The example Papakonstantinou offered was that of a company website that could use app2you's automated query function to determine what content to place on the Jobs page.  App2you suggested that items such as the website URL, contact email address and more important stuff like current openings and job application forms.  \n\nClients pick and choose which content will be used, and format it with basic drag'n'drop technology.  In using a tool such as app2you for a very automated process of creating an entire application, the larger potential for lowering the barrier to entry for web apps and social networks is practically here.  In taking a closer took at app2you and getting the chance to speak with Papakonstantinou, I wondered two things: will this automated query process be utilized for recommendations across applications, and will it become more customized for the client? The answer to both of these questions turned out to be \"yes.\"  \nAs app2you is an ongoing research project, the continued amassing of data based on the way in which each client utilizes the recommendations offered by its tool will in fact help tweak the algorithm to make the product better for all clients that will use app2you in the future.  Considering the future for app2you is just over the horizon, it will be necessary for its end products to be able to integrate perfectly with a client's existing content.  So after much debate, the team behind app2you decided that it will in fact need to allow clients to customize colors, formats, backgrounds, headers, and a slew of other options.\n[image credit University of Kansas]"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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