"It's an equation Jim, but not as we know it!"

Silver (2013) in “The Signal and the Noise” refers to Drake’s equation, which has fascinated me since my teens. It is a formula that provides a framework for predicting the number of intelligent extraterrestrial species in the galaxy. Due to the high number of parameters and uncertainties that make up Drake's equation, Silver describes how the extreme range of results depend on the initial ‘inputs’. Given the variables presented they are estimates. I made a connection to Drake's work through BBC BASIC programming:

'The Nursing Process'
'Computer-Aided Patient Assessment'
'Blood Groups'
'Shades of Grey'

As time went on the simplicity of 'The NP' gave way to DIM arrays, which can provide data structures, and DEF PROC and DEF FN with parameters. 

The evidence for the elements of Drake's equation has made great strides since the 1990s. Despite the remaining uncertainties, Silver notes that Drake's equation has provided a useful lens for astronomers, plus - philosophers and the lay-person to think about life, the universe and everything.

Is there an implicit theory – an equation – in Hodges’ model?

See also: BBC BASIC

Previously: 'Sagan' : 'SETI' ; 'math' : 'Publication list (2024)'

Nate Silver (2013). “The Signal and the Noise”, Notes 89, London: Penguin. p.488.

Title Ack. the original is often misattributed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCARADb9asE

Brief introduction to Hodges' model

Hodges’ model is a conceptual framework of universal value in theoretical work, practice, policy and care management. While this model is a product of the health-education sector, it is global in scope, taking in the current situation, history and future as complicated by scientific, socio-political, technology and climate change. Practice-based, Hodges’ model is a tool simple in form and yet powerful in terms of how it can help users frame the problems and opportunities of the 21st century. The model was originally taught in studies for the post-registration certificate of care of the mentally ill in the community and other courses. Student assessment included the completion of a case study (vignette), demonstrating competence in application of the model and its embedded (implicit) values.

Access to education, especially early years, is emphasised as foundational for personal and community growth and development. For individuals this can set the course for lifelong learning and an ability to contribute to society and the economy. Given this primary challenge, global institutions and policy makers point to the need for curricula that are relevant. In turn employers and industry leaders need a (global) workforce who are: 

• reflective practitioners;
• critical thinkers;
• able to see the ‘big-picture’; and focus on detail and priorities when needed (risk and triage);
• decompose a problem, but also integrate (care);
• work as team-members;
• and extend across several literacies.

These challenges are ongoing for education (being health literate, so as to address personal, social, health and economic education, and the sustainable development goals), and increasingly climate impacts.

The Sciences: Points, lines, angles and perspectives on Domains

In Hodges' model the axes are presented - by convention - as perpendicular. From this it follows that the resulting four domains, or quadrants appear as equivalent in terms of the space they each occupy. There are many posts on the blog that present a 2x2 table. When in template form Hodges' model is also a potential corpus, empty apart from its structure, then there must surely be a gross asymmetry in the SCIENCES domain compared with the others, including the SPIRITUAL. Discuss?

#simplicity #complexity #folktheory #humanities #arts #humanistic #emotion #balance

See also: https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2026/06/h2cm-domains-symmetry.html

Study invitation: Examining the Experiences of Black African Nurses in the UK Healthcare System

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET

Examining the Experiences of Black African Nurses in the UK Healthcare System

You are being invited to take part in a research project exploring the experiences of Black African nurses working in the UK healthcare system.

For the purpose of this study, Black African nurses refers to male and female nurses aged 18 years and above who migrated from an African country to the UK and have worked within the UK healthcare sector for at least one year. This includes nurses who arrived in the UK on a work visa and are currently working in the NHS, care homes, or private healthcare organisations. It does not include individuals who later changed their education or career pathway after settling in the UK. Please read the following information carefully to help you decide if you want to take part. 

What is the purpose of Study?

The purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of Black African nurses who have migrated from African countries and are working within the UK healthcare system. Research and workforce reports suggest that internationally recruited and racially minoritised nurses may face unique professional and personal challenges, yet their lived experiences are often under-represented in research and policy discussions. This study aims to bring greater awareness to how race, culture, identity, and migration background may interact with workplace environments and organisational systems to shape nurses’ professional experiences and wellbeing. By giving participants the opportunity to share their perspectives in their own words, the research seeks to highlight areas where support, inclusion, and fair practice can be strengthened.

It is hoped that the findings will contribute to improved understanding, inform future policy and workplace practices, and support ongoing efforts toward equity, inclusion, and culturally appropriate support within the UK healthcare workforce.

What will happen if I decide to take part?

If you agree to take part in this study, you will be invited to an online interview using Microsoft Teams at a time that is convenient for you. Before the interview begins, you will have the opportunity to ask any questions about the study before confirming your consent to participate.

During the interview, you will be asked some brief background questions, such as your professional background and migration route. The interview will focus on your experiences of working as a Black African nurse in the UK healthcare system, including workplace experiences, identity, support, challenges, and sources of strength or resilience.

With your permission, the interview will be audio-recorded to ensure your views are captured accurately.

... ... ...

WHO CAN I CONTACT? [... and for the FULL DETAILS ]

This study has been reviewed and approved by the University of Edinburgh Research Ethics Board. 

If you have any questions or concerns about the study, you can contact the researcher:

Oluchi Mellor – O.D.Mellor@sms.ed.ac.uk

My source: Oluchi via RCN NWMG 

https://www.rcn.org.uk/northwest/Get-Involved/NW-Multicultural-Group

Koln 75

The film Koln 75 was very enjoyable ...

'Brandes quit the music business a few years ago, after a very successful career. Why? "Digital formats were taking over the record industry, which was giving away entire repertoires to companies like Apple with a completely idiotic accounting system in the background, which would never, ever allow for the artists to get properly remunerated for their rights. The whole industry thought that digital would be the biggest portion of whipped cream on top of the cake that they would continue to be eating until the end of all time.'"

Instead, inspired by a 1993 study that found that listening to classical music-specifically Mozart-enhances spatial-temporal reasoning, and by Don Campbell's bestselling 1997 book The Mozart Effect: Tapping the Power of Music to Heal the Body, Strengthen the Mind, and Unlock the Creative Spirit. Brandes studied psychology at university and then, funded by the Austrian Ministry of Culture, established the Research Program for Music-Medicine at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg. "Being a music producer, I dreamt about doing scientific research on the effect of music and trying to figure out what effects music has on us - cognitive, emotional, whatever," she says. "Since then I have developed a method to use music to help people with chronic depression."

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

cognitive emotional chronic depression
Jazz

Stuart Jeffries, How a teenager helped to make jazz history, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 30/31 May 2026. p.15.

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CrFdGMj4cM

10 years of Money and Mental Health

An update from Helen Undy OBE - Chief Executive of Money and Mental Health.

Marking a full decade since we were founded, we've put together a short film summarising who we are, what we do, how we put lived experience at the heart of our work and our impact so far. We're particularly grateful to the members of our Research Community - Suzanne, Rob and Catherine - for giving up their time to appear in this film. If you're interested, please watch below. And please do feel free to share with friends or colleagues who might be interested in learning more about our work.

Sometimes the most basic of formulations speaks volumes and distances ...


individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

Mental health
	Money

Remembering Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas - Self Help Graphics

Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas standing next to José Lozano’s 1995 serigraph La familia que nunca fue, a serigraph printed at Self Help Graphics & Art. Image from “Man on a Mission Professor, Collector, Leader Gil Cárdenas”, The Austin Chronicle, Aug. 18, 1995.

We are saddened to share that Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas, a member of Self Help Graphics & Art’s board since 1980 and most recently a part of SHG’s Council of Governors, passed away on July 26, 2026 in Austin, Texas. As one of the earliest supporters of Self Help Graphics, his role in advancing the art of Chicanx and Latinx artists has transformed the art world and our own organization. He was not only an arts and cultural guardian, but also an internationally recognized scholar and leader in sociology, advocacy, and education, exemplified by his foundational role in establishing Latino Studies in universities across the United States.

 Continued ...

My source:  Self Help Graphics & Art, 1300 East 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90033, United States

Arriving at Hodges' model via guided discovery ...

Following Brian Hodges’ lead in his notes, I have engaged a great many learners with a guided discussion through the following questions:

Questions	Answers	Outcome/Significance
Who do we care for?	The person, individual, patient, client, carer.The group, family, community, national/global population. The 'duty of care'. The Planet.	It is the individual (guardian) who consents to care. The subject at the top of the vertical axis of Hodges’ model is first identified. It is the person who consents to care (or their guardian); then the group occupies the bottom of the vertical axis.
What do we do to help deliver care?	We attempt - complete tasks and interact in ways that are both mechanistic and humanistic. We use procedures, equipment, devices, technologies, physical interventions; and the self – empathy, rapport listening, being present. Team work with effective communication, coordination and collaboration are also essential.	To care is to act. The horizontal axis is added, with humanistic to the reader’s left; and mechanistic to the right. The axes are then complete, revealing the model’s ‘fixed’ structure. Interdisciplinary can be identified and further discussed.
What skills and knowledge do we need to care for the individual, family and populations?	Here we are concerned with the content of the given situation. This can encompass the whole curriculum and acknowledges experiential learning.	The epistemological and ontological scope and scale of health is revealed from self to planet. The importance of context and situation can be stressed. Including first-aid and its rules and risk assessment. Discussion visits and demonstrates the significance of each of the domains of Hodges’ model and the spiritual to participants. The relevance of Hodges' model to the 21st century, as a bio-psycho-socio-POLITICAL model is emphasised.

Previously: 'Hodges' model'.

The Line(s)

Foresight, hindsight, sight itself and that illusory association with the line of time is a fascination for us all. No doubt, as a result of the hardwired analogue found in the lifeline and our ultimate fate. Hodges' model acknowledges all these lines; concrete and abstract. The work and health careers, an individual's education career (where accessible / permitted) now lifelong learning.

Abstract things seem tenuous, indistinct, maybe lost somewhere in theory. Concrete on the other hand, is physical, tangible. 

Hodges' model can cover paper with lines, two of them ideally. The model can then be applied in practice.

There is then an interplay between abstract and concrete; between which data, information and knowledge flows, uncertainty reduced. Scope and scale become clearer once assessment, planning, intervention and evaluation are concurrent.

This applies to all lines, if they are not destined to be covered in sand.

My source:  

End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled, FTWeekend: 
https://ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-line/

 

See also: 'design' : 'architecture' : 'line'

vi WCCS26: World Conference on Complex Systems 20-22nd April

April and WCCS26 seems an age ago, but the motivational impetus provided by this experience has been ongoing.

Luis Comolli - Best Paper Award 
for Emergence in Designed Agroecosystems:
Collective Dynamics in a Perennial Multi-Species 
Agroforestry Network

At the closing ceremony there was an award for the best paper which was awarded to Luis Comolli for:

Emergence in Designed Agroecosystems: 
Collective Dynamics in a Perennial Multi-Species Agroforestry Network

Sat by Luis, I offered to take his photo to which he agreed - so better late than never! And: Well done Luis!

My presentation on the 21st April was part of:

Parallel Session 2
Track 1 - Agent-Based and Social Complexity
Session chair: Helena Knyazeva

    ▪ Peter Jones
Presenting a Universal and Simple Conceptual Workbench to Situate and Encompass Complexity

    ▪ Nisrine Jarmoune and Bouchra Lebzar
The Ontology of Behavior: Formalizing the Institutional Project as a Complex System
    
    ▪ Lionel Scotto d’Apollonia, Florian Charvolin, Lise Verlaet, Deborah Nourrit, Dominique Deveaux, Elisabeth Sénégas and Nourdine Bara
Participatory Action Research with and for Society: The Case of “Oasis of Fraternity”

▪ Harvey Spencer Sánchez-Restrepo, Jorge Louçã, Martha Belén Carmona-Soto and Sofialeticia Morales-Garza
Topological Patterns of Academic Success: Insights from Complex Network Analysis

To be clear there was a great deal in all the sessions (see below!). I noticed in Nisrine Jarmoune's presentation, however, more specific conceptual overlap in terms of the individual, collective - groups, behaviour and institutions, with reference to ontology and philosophy. Several mathematical concepts also arose and since April online discussion has proved very interesting. In the near future I hope to report on how ideas develop and may be taken further, both for Nisrine's PhD studies and my work on Hodges' model.

We are considering, especially with the options to participate available -

https://www.measuringbehavior.org/

'The next Measuring Behavior conference will take place from 28 to 30 April, 2027, in Düsseldorf, Germany. Düsseldorf is in a region with a high concentration of behavioral research across a variety of fields both in universities and industry. It is easy to reach by international trains and flights. It is a city combining innovative modern architecture with a historic city centre. The conference will take place in the Clayton Hotel, which is in the Little Tokyo region of Düsseldorf, with its distinctive Japanese flavor. We will be hosted by the Heinrich Heine Medical University and the location is within easy walking distance of the central station.'

https://www.measuringbehavior.org/call-for-symposia-mb2027-2/

Going back to the Monday, the closing Keynote Speaker: Abdelmajid Ibenrissoul 

Public Decision-Making and Complexity: What Rationality for Evaluation?

- provided fascinating insights and economic history:

Abdelmajid Ibenrissoul - Public Decision-Making and Complexity: What Rationality for Evaluation?

There remains much to follow up, seek understanding and see how this relates to Hodges' model.

More details to follow.

I have noticed the main website for WCCS appears to be unavailable? I will check.