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The paper introduces a visual programming language and corresponding web and cloud-based development environment called NetsBlox. NetsBlox is an extension of Snap! and builds upon its visual formalism as well as its open source code base. NetsBlox adds distributed programming capabilities by introducing two well-known abstractions to block-based programming: message passing and Remote Procedure Calls (RPC). Messages containing data can be exchanged by two or more NetsBlox programs running on different computers connected to the Internet. RPCs are called on a client program and are executed on the NetsBlox server. These two abstractions make it possible to create distributed programs such as multi-player games or client–server applications. We believe that NetsBlox not only teaches basic distributed programming concepts but also provides increased motivation for high-school students to become creators and not just consumers of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed computing, computer networking, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are all around us, yet only computer science and engineering majors learn the technologies that enable our modern lives. This paper introduces PhoneIoT, a mobile app that makes it possible to teach some of the basic concepts of distributed computation and networked sensing to novices. PhoneIoT turns mobile phones and tablets into IoT devices and makes it possible to create highly engaging projects through NetsBlox, an open-source block-based programming environment focused on teaching distributed computing at the high school level. PhoneIoT lets NetsBlox programs—running in the browser on the student's computer—access available sensors. Since phones have touchscreens, PhoneIoT also allows building a Graphical User Interface (GUI) remotely from NetsBlox, which can be set to trigger custom code written by the student via NetsBlox's message system. This approach enables students to create quite advanced distributed projects, such as turning their phone into a game controller or tracking their exercise on top of an interactive Google Maps background with just a few blocks of code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many diseases linked with ethnic health disparities associate with changes in microbial communities in the United States, but the causes and persistence of ethnicity-associated microbiome variation are not understood. For instance, microbiome studies that strictly control for diet across ethnically diverse populations are lacking. Here, we performed multiomic profiling over a 9-day period that included a 4-day controlled vegetarian diet intervention in a defined geographic location across 36 healthy Black and White females of similar age, weight, habitual diets, and health status. We demonstrate that individuality and ethnicity account for roughly 70% to 88% and 2% to 10% of taxonomic variation, respectively, eclipsing the effects a short-term diet intervention in shaping gut and oral microbiomes and gut viromes. Persistent variation between ethnicities occurs for microbial and viral taxa and various metagenomic functions, including several gut KEGG orthologs, oral carbohydrate active enzyme categories, cluster of orthologous groups of proteins, and antibiotic-resistant gene categories. In contrast to the gut and oral microbiome data, the urine and plasma metabolites tend to decouple from ethnicity and more strongly associate with diet. These longitudinal, multiomic profiles paired with a dietary intervention illuminate previously unrecognized associations of ethnicity with metagenomic and viromic features across body sites and cohorts within a single geographic location, highlighting the importance of accounting for human microbiome variation in research, health determinants, and eventual therapies. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03314194. Many diseases linked with ethnic health disparities associate with changes in microbial communities in the United States, but the causes and persistence of ethnicity-associated microbiome variation are not understood. This study reveals that individuality and ethnicity eclipse a short-term dietary intervention in shaping microbiomes and viromes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]