# Culture-specific neurodevelopmental assessment of HIV-affected children: Home-Based Evaluation through Cloud-Readiness Enhancement

> **NIH NIH R01** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $432,238

## Abstract

In R01HD098027 we have rolled out our Africa Brain Powered Games (BPG) tablet-based games app for use
with HIV-affected children at our Kampala Uganda and Blantyre Malawi study clinic sites. BPG is a package
of cognitive training games originally clinically tested (with NIH support) with HIV+ school children in Uganda.
As a child plays, BPG gathers game data for neurocognitive assessment. During the lockdowns in 2020-2021
associated with COVID-19 outbreak in Uganda, we shifted BPG sessions from the clinic to the participant’s
homes. Developing a cloud architecture would allow us to deliver content and receive data faster given the
distributed nature of the cloud structure. If we could manage neurocognitive training app requests using the
cloud-based integrated network of many servers, local mobile network bandwidth constraints in Africa could
be circumvented. Real-time data requests could be scaled up to meet demand and therefore, not overwhelm
a single local server. This is the overarching goal of making our computer-based assessment/rehabilitative
apps with at-risk African children “cloud-ready” with the support of this supplemental grant. In Study Aim 1
we will evaluate concurrent and predictive validity of BPG and a newly developed prosocial game of
reasoning and planning called Village Builder (VB) to other proven computer-based and testing battery
indicators of brain/behavior integrity of neurocognitive function. Supplemental Development Activity for
Study Aim 1. The software development activities most relevant to our 1st study aim is re-factoring software
to scale efficiently to the cloud. Cloud-readiness consulting experts will work with R01 co-investigator and
BPG and VB apps developer Professor Brian Winn to move the apps developed in his “serious games for
entertainment and learning” (GEL) lab from the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) web stack to AWS or
other cloud providers. We will then move our current PHP API used for internet-based data gathering to a
REST API componentized application. Supplemental Development Activity for Study Aim 2 involves
provisioning of standard source code structure, documentation, version management, build and test support
in codebases that promotes community open-source enhancement. We will do so with such provisioning tools
as Git/GitHub, that we have use for other software adaptations to the cloud. Prof. Winn’s GEL lab
programmers will utilize JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Most of the REST APIs and any native cloud
services are going to utilize JSON as our R01 training/assessment apps (BPG and VB) are transitioned for
cloud readiness in this supplemental software development initiative. Supplemental Development Activity
for Study Aim 3 will pilot test the usability, interoperability and scalability of BPG under increasing internet
real-time bandwidth at both sites (Uganda and Malawi). These include making use of enhanced hardware and
clustering technology. Conclusion. This administrative supplem...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10598698
- **Project number:** 3R01HD098027-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Michael Joseph Boivin
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $432,238
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2022-03-01 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10598698

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10598698, Culture-specific neurodevelopmental assessment of HIV-affected children: Home-Based Evaluation through Cloud-Readiness Enhancement (3R01HD098027-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10598698. Licensed CC0.

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