{"554401":{"#nid":"554401","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech and Emory Team Earns NIH Research Grant","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech and Emory University have received a $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to partner on developing new technology to significantly enhance behavioral observation and data collection of rhesus monkeys.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETucker Balch and Jim Rehg, faculty at Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, will serve as co-leads of the project. They are tasked with developing the new technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir creation will allow for simultaneous tracking of the location of more than 40 monkeys at the Yerkes Field Station by outfitting them with radio frequency identity tags (RFIDs) that will broadcast their movements in 3D to sensors located around the large, outdoor compound.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech and Emory team will develop software that identifies affiliation patterns and specific behaviors, such as conflicts and mating from the collected location and velocity data. That information could then be made available to researchers around the globe for their own projects, such as those focused on the behavioral effects of experimental manipulations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe new technology will also help veterinary and animal care personnel monitor group health within the social colonies of research animals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cCurrently most research with social animals requires researchers to manually record their activities \u2014 a very time consuming process,\u201d said Balch. \u201cOur approach will enable automatic tracking without human intervention, which will speed animal behavior data collection and make it more accurate and precise.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technology also may improve the safety of the animals, since it will enable detection of any unusual behavior.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022One unique element of our approach is the combination of RFID-based tracking with video analysis technology,\u201d said Rehg. \u201cRFID supports continuous 3D monitoring at a large scale, while video analytics can provide more fine-grained behavioral data for specific animals.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project leader is Kim Wallen, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroendocrinology at Emory College of Arts and Sciences and a researcher at Emory\u0027s Yerkes National Primate Research Center.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBecause this system simultaneously tracks multiple monkeys continuously and will identify specific social behaviors, it promises to collect social interactions on a scale impossible with human observers,\u201d said Wallen. \u201cWith the robust observational data we\u2019ll be able to collect with this new system, we anticipate revealing patterns of social interaction previously undetectable in brief human observations.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project will be funded for four years, starting this month.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Georgia Tech and Emory team have earned a $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for a primate research project."}],"uid":"32045","created_gmt":"2016-07-20 16:42:11","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:22:08","author":"Ben Snedeker","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-07-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-07-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"554221":{"id":"554221","type":"image","title":"Resus monkeys","body":null,"created":"1469021771","gmt_created":"2016-07-20 13:36:11","changed":"1475895353","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:53","alt":"Resus monkeys","file":{"fid":"206556","name":"rhesus220vert.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rhesus220vert.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/rhesus220vert.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":81044,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/rhesus220vert.jpg?itok=rv_OFCeZ"}}},"media_ids":["554221"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}