Design hackathons offer a unique research opportunity to study time-pressured collaborative design. At the same time, research on design hackathons faces unique methodological challenges, prompting the exploration of new research approaches. This paper proposes a new data-collection framework that leverages a virtual format of hackathon events and enables a deeper insight into hackathon dynamics. The framework applicability is presented through a case study of the IDEA challenge hackathon, in which different intrusive and non-intrusive data collection approaches were used.

Microglia are enigmatic non-neuronal cells that infiltrate and take up residence in the brain during development and are thought to perform a surveillance function. An established literature has documented how microglia are activated by pathogenic stimuli and how they contribute to and resolve injuries to the brain. However, much less work has been aimed at understanding their function in the uninjured brain. A series of recent in vivo imaging studies shows that microglia in their resting state are highly motile and actively survey their neuronal surroundings. Furthermore, new data suggest that microglia in their resting state are able to phagocytose unwanted synapses and in this way contribute to synaptic pruning and maturation during development. Coupled with their exquisite sensitivity to pathogenic stimuli, these data suggest that microglia form a link that couples changes in brain environment to changes in brain wiring. Here we discuss this hypothesis and propose a model for the role of microglia during development in sculpting brain connectivity.