Risk: Triangles that Trip [ack. Siegel, HSJ 20 Dec. p.23]

Happy holidays to one and all! Your interest is greatly appreciated.

In last weeks HSJ Matt Siegel's Data Briefing featured 'Missing pieces of the emergency plan', the focus was the risk relative to the population average of emergency admission, outpatient and A&E visits for specific intervention groups.

One of the figures comprised a pyramid which lists the intervention strategies that aim to reduce these service contacts:

CASE
MANAGEMENT
[Very high relative risk]
DISEASE MANAGEMENT [High risk]
SUPPORTED SELF-CARE [Moderate risk]
PREVENTION AND WELLNESS PROMOTION [Low risk]

By pursuing case management of course we can reduce the number of people needing to visit or be admitted to health services. Siegel highlights that if efforts are limited to those at very high risk then we can only influence (at best) 10% of total emergency admissions.

I've been working quite closely with a community matron recently and this 10% are a worthy target, but looking at triangles there are two essential dimensions here. One concerns the 'ascent'. Although it usually takes time (and may even entail oxygen at home) we need to entertain people at base camp for as long as possible. Why?

Because when viewed in terms of the health career every one of us is a climber.

As the supported self-care and prevention labels reveal this is recognised and is very much a part of overall strategy - but; in the low-lands though, the fog can cloud our vision.

The other dimension also lies in the very structure of triangles. The sticky-out-bits: the feet - can trip you up. Siegel points out the need to intervene elsewhere; apparently for example, the two middle risk levels which account for 20% of the total population. In the saga of joined-up health and social care the value of day care for example seems lost in the debate about who/how it should be provided? I need to check the latest literature, but I thought the size and stability of an individual's social network is a key determinant in +ve mental health? Another research question relates to how the number of required day places is derived?

In looking to make changes in the towering heights, let's not forget the nitty-gritty of care on the ground.

It isn't just having these varied intervention programmes in place. It's about managing the traffic on the passes (now there's a subtle interface!). There are many communities out there and they are far from equal. Community care: define. ...

an·a·gram: triangle = alerting, altering, integral, relating

Two UK conferences 2008

Here are two conferences - flyers with the Health Service Journal:

Patient Safety Congress 2008

and

Integrating the Primary and Secondary Care Interface

Why bother to single (double!) these out? I've been fascinated for ages by the primary-secondary care interface at the level of mental health and the health of our notions of holistic care. Safety is ever paramount across the b-(B)oard.

It's well recognised that junctions, transitions, information interchange - INTERFACES in short - between people, technology (hard/soft) and organisations are an invitation for things to go awry. They are also an opportunity to learn.

How many axes are there in Hodges' model?

On paper the answer is two: INDIVIDUAL-GROUP and HUMANISTIC-MECHANISTIC
It could be argued there are four.

They meet at the centre of the model.

I believe there are many more.

Although simplistic and static in appearance the axes are dynamic and compound in the imagination. The situations you care to throw at Hodges' model stress the framework and so stress the axes. They partially give way. Stress fractures. Across the interfaces that result meaning can be found if we care to look and listen (with all our senses).

Learning heals people and organisations too.

HTML -> XHTML & accessibility in my hands

My copy of Jeremy Keith's "DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model” was published in 2005. Sat on the shelf for a year or so (don't let the library list fool you), finally reading it cover2cover.

I've developed bad habits over the past year or so, especially when updating the four links pages (no small task). Sometimes I'm using upper case HTML tags, on other occasions lower case. For HTML that's no problem, but Keith advises that if you have the future of the web in mind XHTML insists that all tags must be closed and tags plus attributes must be typed in lower case (p.149).

So, the revisions for the Drupal site and on the 'old' site will be XHTML compliant from now on; that's a lot of tags to change.

Keith's brilliant book also describes step-by-step Javascript functions, e.g., to list abbreviations and (as I mentioned recently) making use of ID and CLASS. The potential of using the DOM to create content is going to have me day dreaming (but not while I'm driving).

Keith has woke me up regards my accessibility requirement too. I knew I was missing something! Here I am wondering about what Drupal modules can do for me, but where have I been? I hadn't come across 'accesskey' before (p.171). Well no time like the present! Just what I (and future visitors!) need. My apologies to visitors in need of keyboard links, these will be provided in future.

Little boxes, little boxes ....

We are obsessed with 'boxes' - many of us especially so - at this time of year.

We cut and dice Nature into categories - boxes for things and concepts. Leaving the car and aircraft aside, being somewhere else - means thinking out of the box. Materialism? Well that is thinking out of the box taken to the extreme since materialism has us:

• filling boxes
• shipping boxes
• and the populous buying the latest and greatest of them.

(What would I like for Christmas? Well, I could really put a MacBook to good use - please!)

It used to be you shook the box - something rattled. These days silence prevails. The contents are virtual. The only rattle is from the dosette boxes. Count them out - M:T:W:T:F:S:S....

Science and medicine in particular has a thing about boxes. Of course, I have to put my hand up here as Hodges' model is not exactly quadratically challenged. It's rather ironic that in order to think out of the box, Hodges' model encourages us to think in four or five (spiritual) of them!

The business community is equally obsessed. The box clichés abound loud and clear in group, consultancy and change exercises. Of course the problem is when we only think in one box then things can come unstuck. They are often blinkered and this makes sense at times. As mentioned previously, medicine very frequently has to deal with life saving interventions that need snap decisions. I don't think it would go down very well in a crisis that someone pipes up "Now hold-on everyone we need to reflect on this, let's proceed in an holistic manner." At other times though critics point the finger, when people are treated purely in a box called 'SCIENCES' and the person becomes a mere adjunct to the box: a sticky label with a diagnosis (or two) written on it.

Nurses pride themselves and their person-centred caring approach on seeing the individual, not just the diagnosis.

Health professionals spend several years getting to know their box(es). The SCIENCES anatomy, biochemistry, physiology... Now in medical training doctors spend more time on communication skills. All health and social care professionals are prepared to 'travel', i.e. to put themselves in the patient's (carer's) shoes and see the world through their eyes. Increasingly in all human activities one discipline depends on the combined contributions of many others. Maybe that's why there's so much emphasis on words and disciplines like - integrated, transdisciplinary, socio-economics, interdisciplinary, psychosocial and geopolitical. New disciplines like neuromarketing emerge which we can expand in the respective boxes - e.g.

• INTRAPERSONAL box: behaviour, experiments, priming, freewill, ethics, personal choice, memetics
• POLITICAL box: consent, advertising, legislation, neuroeconomics, public health, governance-control, measures
• SCIENCES box: functional-MRI, bioinformatics, research programmes
• SOCIAL box: media, language, mental pollution, social nets, cultural acceptance, public perception

Using the model and 'travelling' you don't have to think of it as being 'in' or 'out' of boxes. Draw Hodges' model on A4 paper:

[Archived]:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060705190702/http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/index.htm

OK, now mentally fold it - one way - then another.

Suddenly disparate ideas, issues, techniques are thrown together. As physicists show (in theory only alas) as our learning grows, our previous journeys (new experiences - role plays, placements, secondments...) mean we don't have to travel the full distance. You too can warp space. In addition you are better equipped to take the patient and carer (student, whoever) with you and (try) to get their engagement.

It's true that many of these combined horizons may not work, but that's the nature of risk and creativity for you. Boxes! Do take care how you handle yours. Look out for those edges too - the leading edges change constantly....

Image source: Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc.

GP launches YouTube health films

Bob Pyke posted the following today:
--------------
I wrote about this about a year ago and they recently updated it, but it is still pretty cool.
http://www.builthsurgery.co.uk/

A GPs' surgery in mid Wales has launched a series of health education films on YouTube, better known as a website featuring home videos.

Advice about flu vaccination and cervical screening are two of the topics covered by Builth and Llanwrtyd Medical Practice in Powys.

Doctors said they wanted to help educate their 7,700 patients and a wider global audience.

Last year, the surgery launched a series of podcasts to advise patients.

YouTube allows users to upload their home videos and other clips online.

Dr Richard Walters, who helped to develop the practice's project, said surgeries normally printed leaflets to advise patients, but added that things were changing.

He told the Western Mail newspaper: "There are a lot of things that we do in a GP practice that have to be conveyed to patients, some of which are not easy to demonstrate within the surgery.

"Sometimes getting patients to watch a quick video on the computer screen is a lot easier."

He added: "We are a practice in rural mid Wales, shops in Hereford and Aberystwyth are an hour away, Cardiff an hour-and-a-half, so although broadband access is not ideal, people tend to use the internet for all sorts of things."

The practice, which covers more than 500 square miles (1,295 sq kms), hopes its advice online will avoid unnecessary travelling to a see a doctor. The videos include tips about asthma inhalers, smear testing, blood sugar testing and the winter flu vaccine, and are made by two practice nurses.

New topics are planned to be added every month. As well as being available on YouTube, the videos are posted on the practice's own website and can be downloaded onto an MP3 player. The surgery is no stranger to using modern technology to get across its health messages to patients. Last year, it launched podcasts demonstrating, among other topics, how to use an asthma inhaler properly.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/6234141.stm

Drupal Themes - eeny meeny minny mo.....

I've been going through the Drupal themes again, this time with a fresh pair of eyes - having tinkered and read a little. The themes that stand out for the h2cm archive project include:

• Aurora
• Brushed Steel
• Denver
• Flexible
• Foundation
• Itheme
• Meta
• Multiflex37
• Salamander
• Stylized Beauty
• supriya
• Wall

With the admin theme fixed, I've been enabling and making the themes default in turn. Some of them stand out straight away in terms of fitting the content and the styling. Unsurprisingly, others mess up positioning the title and the menus - although I have been messing about and I'm not using the theme engines. The other two requirements I have - page printing and accessibility are also varied. As the names above suggest some are bare bones that you can adapt yourself, including Zen which is were I am up to. I'm going to need to decide soon! In Mercer's book though, he advises taking some time to check through the themes - so....

It shows you Drupal's reach as there are UN templates, yes, that 'UN'. This shows how open source projects often 'give-back' the community as a whole.

There are four of us so far for Wednesday's Drupal night. Hope there's a few more.

Bell jars and bell curves

To those who do not know Mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty,
the deepest beauty of nature. ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature,
it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in.
Richard Feynman. 1918-1988. American physicist.

As those of us who can - work through school, college and those who are gifted (in both senses) take the university detour we identify, refine and utilise our intellectual strengths. This entails that we must also come to recognise our limitations. Looking heaven wards the day dawns that the "way of the astronaut" is a step too far, that's OK others can fly for me. ... At some point and usually much too early in academic careers specific aptitudes, intelligence and abilities crystallise into that form of diamond known as yea or nay. Statistics have it that there are many average scholars out there. Some people are average in maths AND English (languages), a smaller proportion excel in one or the other. So, how is your essay writing? Or should I ask how is your number theory?

The bell curve has its say, but having that bell jar placed over you is just the start of the story. Minds should be constantly enquiring. The result is coming across things you cannot fully comprehend and yet you have this real sense - you know - that "there is a tool here I could use - if only...."

At work we will naturally share many abilities with our peers - including befuddlement when it comes to maths. The nursing literature includes an ongoing parade of titles dedicated to explaining maths and stats to the numerically challenged.

In the mid 80s the dichotomy between the SCIENCES and HUMANITIES was illustrated for me in a working paper from the school of geography at University of Leeds. I still have it, saving it for a rainy day:
Macgill, S.M. (1984). Structural Analysis of Social Data, A Guide to Ho's Galois Lattice Approach and A Partial Re-Specification of QAnalysis, Working Paper 416, School of Geography, University of Leeds.
Abstract 1985

I came across this like a moth to a flame (thankfully I found an egg-carton to hide under). I began to work through the paper and had a puncture before even leaving the lay-by. My '84 A5 copy is rather basic in terms of print quality. Showing it to a few people at the time they thought perhaps there were some printing errors. They may well be right although may be they were also being kind. It wasn't just a 'NO ENTRY' sign, it was a brick wall I had met before. Some teachers reinforced this wall; while there were many others who did their level best to help me find a way through, or around. The truth is my cognitive wiring just ain't up to it. Referencing a paper is one thing, plumbing its depths and applying it is another.

So the obvious conclusion from this mathematical close encounter (more like a distant approach really) is that I'm challenged when it comes to maths. I've worked my may through (IBM) SPSS descriptive stats and some 'real' stats; implemented BASIC search algorithms. But away from the lecture-IT room the knowledge quickly evaporates. I'm utterly fascinated looking at the world-universe within and around me, but I'm knee deep in a river and dying of thirst. There are millions of people haunted by the spectre of their ineptitude with numbers.

This is one of the main points of Macgill's text. The paper highlights an approach of great potential to social science researchers (including health and social care?) and yet the people most in need of such methods are frequently disadvantaged being unable to fully understand, grasp and apply these tools.

So tantalising, so frustrating - the glass is very frosted for this 'average student' (lifelong learner!).

Is it just about opportunities or opportunities to break the frosted glass?

Drupal - CSS and the DOM, NHS & Paxman

I managed to sort the image in the Drupal archive (trial and error - learning!) page. Now to get to grips with CSS, DOM and Drupal themes. Human nature often wins out to the detriment of learning: you pick up just sufficient HTML, a limited amount of javascript to get your website up and running and then your learning stops.


Reading through DOM Scripting there is so much more I can do by correctly and comprehensively using CITE, 'title', 'ID' and 'class'. ... There's a name for it starting from scratch. So, the old content I have copied and pasted thus far needs a lot of tweaking stylistically. I plan on to spend some time on this, but not as long as I feared. Using CSS stylesheets a single change can be reflected across the whole site.

I've also downloaded a Drupal print module and will ask about this next Wednesday night in Manchester.

I just watched Can Gerry Robinson Fix The NHS? One Year On and must dash soon 22:30 BBC2 Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman there's a follow-up to the programme. This should be available online for 24 hours after and VERY 'interesting' too? [Hope they do re-visit this topic].

To all 'average scholars'...

Michel Serres:

"Intelligence is not about knowing axiomatically how to reason... The French 16th Century philosopher Montaigne already had dismissed the concept of a 'well-stuffed head'. The advent of the printing press made the memorization of Ulysses' travels and of folk tales - the support of knowledge at that time - redundant. Montaigne saw no longer use in memorizing a library that was potentially infinite. But does not the Internet ask for a 'well-endowed head'? Won't the best surfer be a 'Jack of all trades'? The fastest surfer is not going to be your typical Ivy-league super-titled philosopher: That guy's head will be simply too loaded to sort it out on the Net. So, there will be fresh opportunities for those who were viewed by society as laggards. It is a clean start with equal opportunities for all."

Source:
Join-Lambert, L., Klein, P., & Serres, M. (1997). Interview. Superhighways for All: Knowledge’s Redemption. Revue Quart Monde. http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-9810/msg00137.html

Health Career Model Cygnet Hospital Bierley [II]

Dear Denise

Thanks for your message, interest and ongoing support of Hodges' model. I've copied your query to Brian. It is marvellous to read of your career to date and how you have adapted the model to fit your needs.

I have some insight into PSI (psychosocial intervention) and feel that the model could certainly be used in your new post. I suppose (as ever) there are several caveats as you may have already found...

Chief among them is that your colleagues may be reluctant to follow your lead - asking for the evidence* to support safe and effective clinical use of Hodges' model?

The website and blog represent a call for research in Hodges model and similar approaches.

In support of Hodges' model in Bierley -

* 16 bed Acute Ward(male)
* 15 bed Complex Needs Ward (male)
* 15 bed PICU Ward (male)
* 15 bed Personality Disorder Service Ward (female)

- as you will be aware the model is very high-level and it does not dictate practice or philosophy. If adopted however the model can help assure (not guarantee) a holistic approach, as you have already found.

You may care to look at the current processes - care pathways - and map these using Hodges' model. Then look at the specifics of therapeutic modality and PSI (for example, specialised cognitive therapeutic/schema therapies personality disorder) on the unit and effects on the key (h2cm) elements -

INDIVIDUAL-GROUP
HUMANISTIC-MECHANISTIC

- and across the four knowledge domains.

On the blog, check the post 'labels' (on the right-hand side) for -

process,
practice,
purpose
and policy [4P's]. These posts may help also.

An often 'neglected' area is outcomes and outputs. Check what aspects of care (and outcomes) the commissioners of care are focusing upon? Public involvement, client and family engagement may be challenging aspects of care for you and your colleagues? You can also utilise the POLITICAL domain which in your work - as with the TEMSS/secure services posts is no doubt central. The focus on PSI is another crucial dimension SOCIOLOGY - POLITICAL, especially if family oriented? What areas do you want change? Should you concentrate your efforts on one care (knowledge) domain, or are there some inter-domain dependencies highlighted in the literature*?

What data do you have on your patient (referral) population (month-year?); your local (catchment area) population?

Hodges' model is a space - what can you fill it with?

What data do you already have? Sometimes this can come as a pleasant surprise, or a data-poverty shock? Who can you speak to internally - externally? Statistics, reports, intelligence? Is your organisation a learning organisation? (There are times to join in with the fashion game...) If so, does that include the clients and their families? Is anyone on a course and in need of a project? What does multidisciplinary team and integrated care (really) mean in your service? Has a staff member been away for 6-12 months, if so speak to them...

Your bed numbers:staffing ratios speak volumes to some people more than others (£...$) how does economics figure across Hodges' model? If it may help SWOT each domain?

Currently on the psychiatric nursing mail list there is a discussion on 'recovery' and employment-benefits. What does this mean for your care objectives and service overall?

If you still have any contacts at Kemple View or notes (essays) that you could possibly share please let me know. If you are interested in writing / collaborating on a paper I'd be happy to assist.

If there is a 'clinical development (governance) lead' in your new organisation it would help to get them on-board - then you are not out-on-a-limb. Your success thus far suggests you'll have this covered!

If you would like some views on your progress to date do not hesitate to tap my screen.

All the best to you and your colleagues Denise with your plans and for the holidays - 2008!

Keep in touch...

Peter J.
===========================================================
Peter,
Thanks very much for your speedy response, I have already met with my two charge nurses on the ward and we have agreed a way forward. There is of course much to do to ensure that we can introduce the model successfully, your answer will prove very useful. I would be happy to keep in touch and of course feel free to add my question to the blog if you think that this will be helpful to others.

Kind Regards
Denise Banks

Drupal tinkering - images walking into walls

I managed to wade into Drupal last night, not quite the dive I had in mind although still very useful.

Drupal is a gift for creating communities of users as the Drupal site title makes clear. So here am I wanting first to create an archive, basically duplicating three existing pages with some corrections/revision along the way:

1. Brian's lecture notes introducing Hodges' model;
2. Brian's notes on bridging theory and practice;
3. My original 1998 introduction to the website and Hodges' model, written after interviewing Brian in Manchester.

I created an Adobe pdf version of Brian's intro notes many years ago, but never had the bandwidth to publish in this way. It's not that I expect a deluge of downloads, it's just that I know how many papers I download and never quite have a chance to read in full. Now though thanks to Chris Ward's great offer of sponsorship with hosting the future looks a lot more open. There should be scope to offer several formats.

After the PC power supply problem interrupted play I fired Drupal up and quickly ran into a wall. There does seem to be some issues with image management in Drupal. Drupal's community plumbing prowess is concerned with how users can add images to their posts, not the type of static content I am concerned with at present. There's a way around this which I am looking at - using inline images. Also wondering about 'content types' and what the existing ones may offer? At last month's Drupal meeting TinyMCE and IMCE image tools were discussed. It looks like there are many options with the modules on offer. The .pdf, .doc option may be simpler for this at least?

Anyway I've an image in the 'files' directory and added the necessary html to the page, but the image wants to play hide and seek. Will tackle this later.

I'm using the Ubiquity theme (see below) at present and will need to settle on one theme soon. I think themes are up for discussion in Manchester MDDA this month. It's one thing to keep changing themes and posting pretty (or not so pretty) pictures here, but it's what's under the surface that counts. I'm going to have to dig a little bit. Mercer's beginner's Drupal book will be required (re-)reading for a long time yet! Drupal's is now on version 5.5, so I will update this week - another useful lesson just before the next Drupal meeting on the 19th. The update will also force me to back things up.


Re. Atlantis: hope they sort those engine cut-off sensors soon - there's a lot of medical and materials research to follow when the Shuttle crew finally deliver the Columbus lab to the International Space Station. I wonder what new medical wonders will arise from the materials research, in orbit and at home? Now launch is set for 2nd January. Safety first!

Socio-tech paper and snippet

Close now to completing the paper I think - 30 refs and 7,085 words, eight figures with two to draw.

About five years ago I desperately needed to write to complete a dissertation, but personal circumstances had the better of me. The difference then was walking away with a PG Dip. not an MSc.. There are two positives: 1. walking away with something and 2. I was walking.

Now I'm up and running and finding it much easier to write (really enjoying it) and the ideas are flowing, which as a mental health nurse can be a bit scary at times. Whether these thoughts, this work adds up to much is not for me to judge... Anyway here's a snippet from the draft paper (concerning socio-technical structures in nursing informatics). A student nurse - thanks Brenda - is kindly reading the text through. I'll also post it on to a few other contacts this week - feedback ever crucial (which reminds me I've some reading to do for someone):

As befits the socio-technical and media drenched world we live in, it seems that everyone is busy moving forward. Nursing as a profession must constantly aspire to make a difference and effect positive change. In the decades ahead (nursing) informatics can help leverage positive change in tackling health inequalities, and addressing the ongoing revision of the new health agenda of health promotion and education. To do so though nursing informatics must also recognise its limits; it must seek out or help create new structures through partnerships with other informatics disciplines; community, social care, urban, citizen for example. Although 2x2 matrices are ubiquitous as a structuring device for concepts, ideas and much more, they are also consequentially much maligned: a ready reckoner for gross assumptions. Upon first encounter Hodges’ model may be considered merely as a brainstorming tool. Hodges' model can act as a framework for weaving, a template for a socio-technical tapestry. The framework provides a lattice upon which vital conceptual connections can be displayed explicitly on its public face, or privately when the handicraft is viewed from the back – the infrastructure. ....

I've noticed and highlighted in the paper that h2cm can show two formulations of socio-tech that overlap across Hodges' knowledge domains and highlight the primacy of the 'individual'. I've used Word for two related figures which need to be drawn up - then I can post them here.

Bye for now - PJ

To follow: Drupal and a sore nose plus that boxing post!
8 hours 22mins and counting: Atlantis - Good luck-Great flight!

Thermo, Long Way Down, Aether and Atlantis

Here's a video on a forthcoming new Adobe development tool - 'Thermo'.

Thanks Ewan and Charley - great TV.

Another journal - Aether : The Journal of Media Geography -

Aether offers a forum that examines the geography of media, including cinema, television, the Internet, music, art, advertising, newspapers and magazines, video and animation. It is our goal to provide a space for contributions to current issues surrounding these media, beginning with constructions of space & place, cultural landscapes, society, and identity.

Atlantis takes flight tomorrow (fingers x'd). For a different media mix try NASA EDGE.

In the Northern hemisphere whether you're walking the dog or E.T. is walking you, keep your eyes open for the Shuttle and ISS. In the Southern hemisphere too with those mid-summer nights - enjoy!

Hosting sponsor offer for Hodges' model site

I've had some great news (really welcome as I try to sort my pay and future career prospects)! The offer of sponsorship with hosting - 5GB space and bandwidth to boot - c/o and thanks to Chris Ward at Human Ecology Forum and Greenhosting.

Chris and I have exchanged e-mails and blog posts already through the Northern England Human Ecology - CHE - group, which should next meet in March - details tbc.

This is a great incentive for me to push on with Drupal and content revision. It will take some time, but knowing there's a home for h2cm is a flag to aim for. Apart from the part-time flavour of this enterprise another reason not to hold your breathe is that I plan to include learning objectives with all relevant content. So with Drupal I need to check the potential of CONTENT TYPES and MODULES and forms .... without re-inventing any wheels. Exciting, but heady times...

Socio-technical ticket stubs

Psychologists are a busy bunch. The number of tests, assessment schemes and theories to help explain intrapersonal and socio-political phenomena are legion. All strive to be scientific, constantly refined and evidence based.

It was recognised a long time ago how we humans have a tendency to polarise, dichotomise - left-right, good-bad. ... We have to dice and slice the world in order to make it accessible and understandable. Life and death decisions have always depended upon this ability, which is one of the reasons why we're all here today.

This vital capacity also assures the creation of socio-technical structures. A ticket that provides entry to several problem domains, each with two, three, four, five .... viewpoints. And as safety dictates there are at least two entrances-exits.

The problem is of course that as is customary only half the ticket is actually 'used'. So many stubs end up on the floor. Such a waste.

Make sure you use and retain yours. Happy memories of a project well done!

Sociotechnical paper and a new S-T journal

Well I have 7,100 words for the socio-tech structures paper, need to chase some references, prune the deadwood and complete three figures. Then leave it alone for a few days. While enjoying this morning's coffee at the Barn I had written that some of the vitality seems to have gone out of socio-tech. ...

Big mistake: this afternoon a new quarterly journal was announced for January 2009:

International Journal of Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development

There's another revision then. ... I should have known better, as there is an active British Computer Society S-T specialist group that meets in London and the NE. I'll post more about the journal with a link that is apparently to follow soon.

Not unrelated the Society for Philosophy and Technology also have a journal TECHNE. The Charleston trip is still a highlight of the year (sure do miss the sun):

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2007/07/soc-philosophy-technology-conf.html

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2007/07/spt-2007-infovis-infoaesthetics-history.html

Ellis Nadler whose hearts image I used in the previous post spotted a typo on the SCIENCES links page (I can't spell 'domain'). Sorted now thanks Ellis! If you find any others please let me know - h2cmuk AT yahoo.co.uk

To follow: the noble art of boxing plus a snip from the paper. This week I must also bury myself in Drupal and sort how to add images.

Lonely model seeks ...

 


Lonely model seeks caring companion in mind and body. Open minded and adventurous (so make that companions!). Seeking at minimum a life-long relationship. Wise head on young shoulders. Outgoing: ready to travel anywhere. Enjoy milling around hospitals guessing the illnesses of out-patients. Will consider alternate scene. VERY flexible. Minimal baggage (will help YOU to carry yours). Interests span sciences and arts, ICT, global health, human ecology, the world of ideas and ideologies, analysis and synthesis: but never before breakfast in bed. Bag-ladies and excluded others please do apply. If you are into boxes or out of them get in TOUCH asap! Reply PO Box h2cm-4 (or is that 5?)
 
Image source with thanks to Ellis Nadler.