Dear Madam/Sir,
We are glad to announce the following seminar:
MedGemma and HAI-DEF: A family of open models
by Andrew Sellergren, Software Engineer & Researcher at Google.
Save the date:
Thursday, April 16, 2026 - 4:30 PM (CEST)
Aula Pitagora - MT11 (Cubo 30B), Unical
Hybrid Format / Live Streaming
Link: https://dub.sh/medgemma2026
See also: https://goo.gle/medgemma
My source: francesco.calimeri AT unical.it
Conclusion: Sociology as a Skin Trade
In other writings (O'Neill, 1972, 1985) I have set out a rival conception of the embodied subject who suffers the hopes and defeats of what I have called 'sociology as a skin trade'. At the same time I began to renovate the imagery of society as a body-politic, to differentiate the levels of the bio-body, the productive body and the libidinal body as sites where human beings pursue the relevant knowledge and values of health, work and happiness. Each level of discourse requires he formulation of relevant technical knowledge (medicine, political economy, sociology and psychoanalysis) and each level has its own emancipatory discourse about health creativity and self-expression. Because each of these discursive interests is likely to be articulated by professional social scientists and therapists, it is necessary to require the institutionalization of mechanisms of political and ethical accountability to laypersons' common-sense knowledge and values regarding their bodies, their families, their work and their souls. Medical and sociological nemesis is not the result of a therapeutic conspiracy against society. It belongs to the radical technological a priori of Western knowledge whose ambition is fundamentally bio-technological. The sin of Adam and Eve was the best humankind could manage at the time. In today's laboratory Adam and Eve can be bypassed and life can be set in motion according to the best genetic formulas. Huge legal, ethical and sociological problems are simultaneously generated. And thus we step into a new 'crisis of opportunity` for which very few social scientists are prepared - whether by training or morals.' p.35.
| psychoanalysis | body as a machine body- bio- |
sociology |
-politic bio-politics of the population |
'In concrete terms, starting in the seventeenth century, this power over life evolved in two basic forms ... One of these poles - the first to be formed, it seems - centered on the body as a machine: its disciplining, the optimisation of its capabilities, the extortion of its forces, the parallel increase of its usefulness and docility, its integration into systems of efficient and economic controls, all this was ensured by the procedures of power that characterised the disciplines: an anatomo-politics of the human body.
The second, formed somewhat later, focussed on the species body, the body imbued with the mechanics of life and serving as the basis of the biological processes: propagation, births and mortality, the level of health, life expectancy and longevity, with all the conditions that can cause them to vary. Their supervision was effected through an entire series of interventions and regulatory controls: a bio-politics of the population. (Foucault, 1980a, p. 139; altered for my emphasis)' p.24.
'Bio-power regulates bodies individually, as in the clinical model. and collectively, as on the model of social medicine. The two strategies are combined to produce the most complete system of discipline ever known in the history of power. Disciplinary power works in hospitals. schools, prisons, armies, factories and bureaucracies. It is compatible with shifting vocabularies of rights, reform and welfare. It is intimate and collective; it is obeyed not because of its power over death but because of its power over life. It is this shift in emphasis that is the source of the expansion of bio-power whose corresponding apparatus we may call the therapeutic state.' p.25.
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| Healing grid by Ryota Kanai |
Hodges' model is surely a clear winner 'healing grid'? Acting not only in healing, but in recovery, rehabilitation, reablement, palliative, illness and well-being too.
Quite a grid all-in-all (which also fascinate grandchildren).
My source:
Great to see this on X. This is something I created during my PhD time 20 years ago. https://t.co/7mpU0D1tW5
— Ryota Kanai (@kanair) April 10, 2026
Previously: 'grids' : 'perception' : 'vision' : 'lines' : 'geometry'
#ArtemisSafeReturn #PrecisionGridManoeuvres
With a 15 minute talk and 5 minutes for questions, I have 15 slides. The final one, is a listing of sources, plus this book:
1. Estrada, E., Submitted (2026) Emergent Geometry in Complex Systems from Relational Dynamics. I. The Classical Setting.
https://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/publications/emergent-geometry-in-complex-systems-from-relation/
2. Napoli, P.H., Fischer, B., Salati Marcondes de Moraes, G.H. et al. (2026). When complexity does not mean chaos: nonlinear dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems. J Technol Transf https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-025-10314-7
3. Hylin MJ, Kerr AL, Holden R. Understanding the Mechanisms of Recovery and/or Compensation following Injury. Neural Plast. 2017;2017:7125057. doi: 10.1155/2017/7125057. Epub 2017 Apr 20. PMID: 28512585; PMCID: PMC5415868.
4. Zanin, M., Papo, D. (2020) Assessing functional propagation patterns in COVID-19. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 138, 109993
5. Braithwaite J, Ellis LA, Churruca K, et al. Complexity Science as a Frame for Understanding the Management and Delivery of High Quality and Safer Care. 2020
6. Bergström, J., & Dekker, S. W. A. (2014). Bridging the Macro and the Micro by Considering the Meso: Reflections on the Fractal Nature of Resilience. Ecology and Society, 19(4), art22. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06956-190422
7. Rickles, D., Hawe, P., & Shiell, A. (2007). A simple guide to chaos and complexity. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, 61(11), Article 11. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2006.054254
8. Miller, K. (2007). From Fears of Entropy to Comfort in Chaos: Arcadia, The Waste Land, Numb3rs, and Man’s Relationship With Science. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 27(1), 81-94.
9. Frankel, Steven & Thurber, Steven & Bourgeois, James. (2023). Complexity in Health Care: A Paradigm Shift for Clinical Practice. Cham: Springer. 10.1007/978-3-031-14949-8.
Also pointing to the bibliography in the sidebar and the template link.
More to follow ...
I can think for myself! | EVERYBODY |
My Undesirable Friends: |
Yesterday, this blog celebrated its 20th birthday. That first post seems an age away now -
Welcome to the Hodges Health Career - Care Domains Bloghttps://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2006/04/
Back then, I was full-time and on a secondment with the NHS's National Programme for Information Technology:
Independent report: Making IT work: harnessing the power of health information technology to improve care in England. Published 7 September 2016House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts - The National Programme for IT in the NHS: an update on the delivery of detailed care records systems - Forty-fifth Report of Session 2010–12
In that first post, several links take you to the former website which is now archived, as per the note in the sidebar. Similar links have been updated to the web.archive.org site, but some may have been missed. Other links may be plain broke.
The blog began as an acknowledgement of the former site's limitations, hence all the posts on Drupal the content management system.* The intention was to create a stop-gap. So much for that! I still have the 'new' site in my head.
Personally, there's been much change: as ever in life, a mix of sadness and great joy. Regards the former, a manager from 1985 into the 90s, colleague and friend David McKendrick died in 2009. And coinciding with personal bereavements, Brian Hodges in 2022. I do miss chats with both of them.
With periodic backups of the blog's content (and old website 1998-2015), there been one effort at a spring clean. Posts that are poor (what was I thinking?), or items that are clearly time-limited - event announcements have been deleted. Many more no doubt remain with images - banners - that will be removed at some point. With 3381 (inc.) posts published, it is quite an onerous, yet rewarding task.
During the two decades I would like to thank researchers who have discovered Hodges' model, recognised (either) its value, utility, relevance and cited the model in their studies/projects.
Thanks too to several co-authors whose patience and understanding in working with me, their recognition of the model and value in their work, and assistance to assure open access is invaluable to bring Hodges' model and this project to the attention of a global audience and community.
If I can help you with Hodges' model - acknowledgement not a requirement(!): please let me know.
The online presence has been about the model, not business, or commerce, so there's a lack of analytics. There's a project for someone, as I notice 'Blog Analysis' as an online research method.
People occasionally email and provide encouragement regards the content. In a way the blog is my thesis*.
Amid the time-dependent content, there may be much here that can demonstrate:
Thank you for your visiting! Here's to another 20 years ;-) !?
*I still live in hope: it's called dreaming.
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c/o Reuters |
Revisting a theme, and while it is not new - as in use of objected oriented approaches in health informatics; as a nurse, to suggest there's a need to view the elements of care systems as a series of objects surely runs counter to nursing's theory, practice, professional standing and values.
Or, does Wittgenstein come to the rescue in his 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'?
'2.01231 In order to know an object, I must know not its external but all its internal qualities'.
[My emphasis - and as ever high degree of selectivity.]
In reading 'internal qualities' I can equate internal with a person; and qualities with subjectivism, what is inherently seen as humanistic, a set of characteristics, and properties. Can it be argued that in the context of healthcare and person-centredness we can also take 'internal' as potentially referring to what happens in the mind, an individual's mental life, for example? This can be applied physically too. To bodily properties, which ultimately are internal genetically, and influenced by - expressed in-part - by the external environment.
While I sort books, creating space, there is the small matter that Wittgenstein walked away from philosophy after the Tractatus was published. Then, realising he had not answered the questions concerning human language and reality, he returned to Cambridge and his studies, with Philosophical Investigations published after his death.
Does this invalidate the thoughts above?
Another post to follow drawing from the Tractatus.
Previous posts:
Reflection: programming and caring II
In reading for WCCS later this month, I wonder if Braithwaite et al. (open access) may have found Hodges' model useful in addressing both the learning objectives and questions they raise in their chapter; and as a response to the recommendations?
Braithwaite J, Ellis LA, Churruca K, et al. Complexity Science as a Frame for Understanding the Management and Delivery of High Quality and Safer Care. 2020 Dec 15. In: Donaldson L, Ricciardi W, Sheridan S, et al., editors. Textbook of Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management [Internet]. Cham (CH): Springer; 2021. Chapter 27. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK585611/ doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-59403-9_27' Learning Objectives and Questions Covered in the Chapter
- How does a linear view of improvement contrast with a complexity science approach?
- The complexity frame makes it harder to manage and deliver high quality and safer care — does it therefore need to be rejected in favour of simpler improvement models?
- What examples can be brought to bear to show how studies in the complexity frame can lead to good outcomes and positive change?'
'In addition, in homing in on any part of a CAS, we can discern elements of both selfsimilarity and local nuances. Self-similarity can manifest fractally, at different scales (e.g., features of the culture of the organisation at the team level approximate to that of the culture of the department, and then division, and then the whole organisation) or laterally (e.g., one department looks comparable structurally to another). It might seem paradoxical, but healthcare levels or departments, despite being self-similar in some respects, also each operate as unique entities. There are always localised contextual, cultural and structural distinctions. Such local nuances occur as the result of the particular configurations of agents (e.g., nurses, doctors, quality managers, patients) following their internalised rules and shared mental models (e.g., put the patients first, project a good reputation to the outside world, prioritise safety) in that unique setting.' pp.378-379.
'Bringing clinicians from different departments together with the patient as the focus, provided a deeper understanding of other’s roles and barriers, helped create a shared mental model, and fostered a whole-of-system approach to the care for patients with this condition.' p.382.
[CAS - Complex Adaptive System]
'Recommendations
1. Sensitise those with responsibility for leading, managing, improving or researching care settings to a systems view.
2. Train sufficient staff in the tools of complexity: FRAM, network analyses, system dynamics modelling, process mapping, and the like.
3. Approach quality and safety and risk management activities with a knowledge of complexity science, sense-making, and non-linearity rather than as a set of linear problems amenable to simplistic causal change logic.
4. Consider how our studies, borrowing from complexity theory, have resisted simplifying the challenges, but have nevertheless made progress in understanding care systems and their improvement.' p.389.
[FRAM - Functional Resonance Analysis Method]
I will include this in my presentation, duly cited:
'Complexity science as a frame: or, frame for complexity science?'
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I don't think this is right. Either way, I'm asking for trouble? Will anybody else listen? |
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Do I really need a knife, Can I ask a friend? |
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR KNIFE CRIME Ronan's Law ITV News [UK] - 'Bereaved families welcome launch of national knife crime centre' |
'Information Design: Something New, Something Old
... I want in this chapter to challenge the central idea that information design is a new idea. Reducing the issues briefly to a polarity, it is useful to start by considering two ways to conceptualize information. One way, implicit in the above assumptions, is that information is something that describes an ordered reality and has some knowable, or at least idealized, isomorphic relationship to that reality (i.e., it represents in an identical way the form and content of reality). In short, information instructs us, this assumption says, about the nature of the world we live in: its history, its future, its functioning, our place in it, our possible
actions, and the potential consequences of those actions.' p.35.
[My emphasis.]
Previously: Information design: Tufte & Raskin
Use of the word 'global' in health care is common: from global assessment; global as in a pandemic, as per Covid which for a time closed down most human activity across the world; the global health workforce; and global health crises, that must include the climate crisis and pollution. Universal health coverage, allied with universal healthcare access, refers to (national and aspirational ...) global access to quality health services.
Above, 'global health' has itself already occurred several times. I've posted about global health on a great many occasions on behalf of other parties.
Defining global health in the context of public health, King and Koski (2020) write:
'We propose the following definition:
global health is public health somewhere else.'
More specifically, they add:
'Global health as a field is not distinguished by its aspirations, methods of research and practice, intervention strategies or even geographical area per se, but rather by a particular relationship between its practitioners and its recipients: a person engages in global health when they practise public health somewhere—a community, a political entity, a geographical space—that they do not call home.'
To apply Hodges' model to global health, there must be another definition.
King NB, Koski A. Defining global health as public health somewhere else. BMJ Global Health
2020;5:e002172. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2019-002172
The philosophy of science, can not avoid being viewed historically, which leads us to learn how mathematics literally took hold, from physics, to chemistry and biology. The application of mathematics to chemistry provides many and ongoing insights:
'Curiously enough, Kant’s own student, Jeremias Benjamin Richter (1762-1807), would only a few years later disprove his professor with his PhD dissertation On the use of the mathematical method in chemistry (Richter 1789). It laid the groundwork for stoichiometry as an algebraic approach to chemistry, including what was later called the ‘law of constant proportion’ that John Dalton used for his atomism on chemical grounds (Richter 1792-3, Dalton 1808). Moreover, at the time of Kant’s writing, experimental philosophy was taking over most of the centers of European research to become the mainstream methodology of modern science, which would later denounce the ideal of a priori knowledge in science as ‘mere’ metaphysics. Although some philosophers of mathematical physics still adhere to that ideal today, Kant was a late partisan in the struggle for the methodological priority of mathematics in the study of nature as it was exemplified by the old field of ‘rational mechanics’. Yet, his view on science became marginalized as much as his verdict on chemistry, that it would be alien to mathematics, was refuted.'
The pitfalls presented and Schummer's 2.4 A methodological suggestion for defining mathematical chemistry are helpful.
Joachim Schummer. Why Mathematical Chemistry Cannot Copy Mathematical Physics and How to Avoid the Imminent Epistemological Pitfalls. HYLE--International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 18, No.1 (2012). pp. 71-89. https://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/18-1/schummer.htm
Maths is filled with tragedy, but the personal manifestation in my lack of ability, pales to insignificance to the many scientific and human tragedies history reveals. Consider Galois, and Lavoisier:
‘Only a moment to cut off that head and a hundred years may not give us another like it,’ lamented the 18th-century French mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange. The head in question had belonged to the French aristocrat and chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, who was executed at the hands of French revolutionaries on 8 May 1794. Lavoisier’s ideas changed the face of chemistry. He is best remembered for overthrowing the phlogiston theory, but perhaps his greater and more lasting achievement was to impose order on the language and symbolism that have shaped the thoughts of chemists.'
Paul Board, The Aristocrat who revolutionised chemistry, New Scientist. May 7, 1994 (Volume 142, Issue 1924). https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14219243-300/
In an essay in the Charles Coulston Gillispie's essay in the history of scientific ideas, Chapter VI. The Rationalization of Matter, describes how Lavoisier sought to develop an algebraic approach:
'But what is most interesting is Lavoisier's mode of representing these results, so correct in quantity, so wrong in principle. In order to sec what he was about, one has to follow him into some detail. It is obvious, he writes, that acidification of a metal involves many variables-heat, concentration, chemical affinities, etc. each of which is a force acting with characteristic energy. Therefrom results a problem complex and difficult of solution: [my emphasis]
"Better to exhibit the state of the question in this respect, and in order to show at a glance the result of what happens in metallic solutions, I have constructed formulas of a sort, which could at first be taken for algebraic formulas, but which have not the same object, and do not derive from the same principles . . ."'
Gillispie, Charles Coulston. The Edge of Objectivity: An Essay in the History of Scientific Ideas. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960.
Gillispie quotes at length to demonstrate Lavoisier's approach*. There is a more accessible (for me, here) source in -
Stefano Zambelli (2012). Chemical Kinetics, an Historical Introduction, Chemical Kinetics, Dr Vivek Patel (Ed.),
ISBN: 978-953-51-0132-1, InTech, Available from:
http://www.intechopen.com/books/chemicalkinetics/chemical-kinetics-an-historical-introduction
Please see page 6: 3. Chemical equilibrium conception: The law of mass action.
To close, there is reading and advice to be carried forward in:
Guillermo Restrepo & José L. Villaveces, "Mathematical Thinking in Chemistry". Special Issue: Chemistry and Mathematics, Part 1. HYLE--International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry, Vol. 18, No.1 (2012). pp. 3-22. https://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/18-1/restrepo-villaveces.htm
Gillispie concludes his illustrated exploration of Lavoisier:
'Is this not the most tantalizing memoir in the history of chemistry, and in Lavoisier's the most appealing? Here alone, one gets a sense of modesty. He never claims for these expressions the dignity of algebra. "We are still very far from being able to introduce mathematical precision into chemistry, and I beg, therefore, that no one consider these formulas . . . as more than simple annotations, of which the object is to ease the labors of the mind." (But compare this disclaimer with what he says of algebra itself in the Method of Chemical Nomenclature: "Algebra is the analytical method par excellence: it was invented to facilitate the labors of the mind, to compress into a few lines what would take pages to discuss, and to lead, finally, in a more convenient prompt and certain manner to the solution of very complicated questions.")' p.245.
*in - Lavoisier, A.L. (1782). Considerations sur la dissolution des metaux dans les acides, Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences 1782, pp. 492-527, Available from http://www.lavoisier.cnrs.fr/ice/ice_book_detail-fr-text-lavosier-Lavoisier-49- 5.htm
MENTAL HEALTH and WELLBEING LIFELONG LEARNING KEY LITERACIES PSHE EDUCATION - |
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| 'Apps such as TikTok and Instagram are filled with videos of young girls and teenagers advising their peers on elaborate skincare routines, especially through a popular line of content called "Get Ready with Me". Parents have sounded the alarm over this trend, while recent medical literature has recognised the phenomenon of "cosmeticorexia", also called "dermorexia", defined as a culturally reinforced preoccupation or obsession with achieving "flawless" skin that can lead to "excessive, age-inappropriate or compulsive use of cosmetic products".' |
'Italy is investigating a beauty retailer and make-up brand owned by French luxury group LVMH over claims their marketing has fuelled "cosmeticorexia", an unhealthy obsession with skincare among young girls. The Italian Competition and Market Authority (AGCM) said yesterday it was probing Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics for suspected "unfair commercial practices" with the promotion of skincare products such as face masks, serums and anti-ageing creams to girls as young as 10 years old. Those marketing campaigns were carried out mainly via social media, the regulator said, leading young girls to "compulsively" buy such products.' |
My sources: Amy Kazmin, LVMH's Sephora probed in Italy over fuelling young girls' skincare obsession, FTWeekend, 28-29 March 2026, p.1. FTWeekend and The Times. Reviews.
London visit February. Waterstones, Foyles, Hatchards & others.
'Jürgen Habermas is recognized for his immensesynthetic ability, integrating diverse cognitive domains—philosophy, sociology, linguistics, and psychology—to develop a cohesive theory of communicative action and social critique. His synthetic thinking aims to bridge modern rationalism with normative concerns, creating an interdisciplinary framework that addresses the complexities of modern society.
Google AI Overview: https://share.google/aimode/Tev1Ip96TMCMcEgdF
'It is true that the sciences are increasingly interconnected with the development of productivity by way of technical progress; however, technical progress is not the only branch of science in the line of instrumental rationality defenders from Descartes and Bacon's scientific method. This is what distinguishes the Newtonian science from the second group of considerations: Darwinian science and contemporary systems theory (as Habermas, 1984 puts it). The latter do invite us to see the science as “an organism, population, or system [that] maintains itself through demarcation from and adaptation to a changeable, hypercomplex environment” (Habermas, 1984, p. 388). Also, the classical philosophical tradition, insofar that it suggests the possibility of a worldview, has become questionable:
Philosophy can no longer refer to the whole of the world, of nature, of history, of society, in the sense of a totalizing knowledge. Theoretical surrogates for worldviews have been devalued, not only by the factual advance of empirical science but even more by the reflective consciousness accompanying it. (Habermas, 1984, p. 1)'
Mejía Fernández, R. & Romero, J. (2022) Social Evolution in Jürgen Habermas: Towards a Weak Anthropological Naturalism between Kant and Darwin. Theoria, 88(3), 607–628. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12383
Viertbauer, Jürgen HKlaus (2019) Habermas on the Way to a Postmetaphysical Reading of Kierkegaard.'According to Habermas, the self of the ethical life stage embodies a basis for a postmetaphysical grounding of the good life:
'Rather, all his attention is on the structure of the ability to be oneself, that is, on the form of an ethical self-reflection and self-choice that is determined by the infinite interest in the success of one’s own life-project. With a view toward future possibilities of action, the individual self-critically appropriates the past of her factually given, concretely re-presented life history. Only then does she make herself into a person who speaks for herself, an irreplaceable individual.'30
My source: Nick Pearce, Philosopher who fought the slide towards illiberalism, Jürgen Habermas Obituary. FTWeekend, 21-22 March 2026. p.9.
In preparing my presentation for World Conference on Complex Systems 2026 (WCCS26) next month^, I am reading:
ABSTRACT. We pursued the following three interconnected points: (1) there are unexplored opportunities for resilience scholars from different disciplines to cross-inspire and inform, (2) a systems perspective may enhance understanding of human resilience in health and social settings, and (3) resilience is often considered to be fractal, i.e., a phenomenon with recognizable or recurring features at a variety of scales. Following a consideration of resilience from a systems perspective, we explain how resilience can, for analytic purposes, be constructed at four scales: micro, meso, macro, and cross-scale. Adding to the cross-scale perspective of the social-ecological field, we have suggested an analytical framework for resilience studies of the health field, which incorporates holism and complexity by embracing an ecological model of cognition, something supported by empirical studies of organizations in crisis situations at various spatial as well as temporal scales.
Key Words: human resilience; organizational resilience; resilience; resilience engineering; societal resilience
Since the turn of the millennium, it appears 'resilience' has exploded across the media, and literature. As a result, it has also been viewed negatively by mental health service advocates, and activists as they decry the run-down state of formal services. The 'recovery model', undoubtedly closely associated with personal resilience is not the only answer.
This paper is helpful, in several respects but specifically to illustrate the idea of how Hodges' model can frame holistic bandwidth, across its care / knowledge domains.
individual - emotional - mental resilience | resilience engineering |
human & societal resilience |
organizational resilience |
For a new student nurse, mention of your finals, as in, exams - seems a world-away. After a paroxysmal attack of fear (and motivation!), time resolves. "It's fine. I can relax. We're good!"
Especially so in the pre-Project 2000 days (Swaby, 2021), when nurse education was conducted in more local schools of nursing. You could be forgiven for feeling reassured that there's plenty of time; if your first step was to work as a nursing assistant (or cadet) prior to starting as a student.
Then all of a sudden, you can point to many wornout shoes. You've been busy; helped run a ward, a caseload, a team, and raised a family. And, while the NHS, nursing, society, and much else besides have continued their relentless pace of change, change and more change.
You blink,* look again and you're starting what will be your final 3-year period of nurse registration. What this will bring: who knows?
Kelly Swaby (2021) Did Project 2000 fulfil the intention set out by nursing’s leadership to create
a profession of highly educated practitioners. Thesis.
https://pure.hud.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/70492399/Swaby_THESIS.pdf
*'Blink' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0p5KqdU9U
My source: Tim Harford, How can we tell good AI from bad? FT Magazine. 21 March 2026. #1168: pp.9-10.
'Two new working papers address the tricky issue of verifying quality. In "Some Simple Economics of AGI", Christian Catalini, xiang Hui and Jane Wu (assisted, sometimes gratingly, by generative AI) propose the inevitable 2x2 matrix in which economic activity can be easy to automate, easy to verify, both or neither. Automatable, verifiable output is the stuff that computers do for us. The non-automatable stuff remains reassuringly artisanal.
The difficult quadrant is where tasks seem easy to complete but are hard to check. Catalini, Hui and Wu call this the "runaway risk zone". It is not a reassuring label and it is not meant to be.
...
In the second paper, "A model of Artificial Jagged Intelligence", Joshua Gans offers an analogy in which asking AI to perform task is like trying to cross a river over a network of planks supported by occasional pylons. The jagged frontier is represented by the fact that some planks are long and wobbly, while others are short and sturdy. Problem one: even if the planks are typically sturdy, the wobbly planks will require most of your time and attention. Problem two: if you can't predict in advance which planks will let you down, you may quite sensibly prefer to eschew the AI entirely and row yourself across the old-fashioned way.'
Catalini, C., Hui, X., & Wu, J. (2026). Some Simple Economics of AGI. arXiv preprint
arXiv:2602.20946.
The four primary therapeutic approaches used by Ash are:
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My source: Electronic therapy - Machines of loving grace, The Economist, November 15th-21st, 2025. Vol. 457: #9474. pp.72-73.
*"slingshot ai - what are the four therapeutic approaches used by ash?"
A pre-charity shop revisit:
'So long as we are healthy, we do not notice that we are healthy. Health is one of those phenomena that we do not perceive as anything special because they are a part of everyday life. We discover them by their absence. Only illness enables us to see health as health. That I am healthy, and in what way I am healthy, is something I experience when, and to the extent that, I am or was not healthy, or when I perceive (but this it is difficult to do) that, and to what extent, someone else is or was not healthy. Being healthy is not the only 'being' that escapes our gaze precisely by being, and that appears to us by its absence. One could say the same of being as such.' p.257.
von Weizsäcker, Carl Friedrich (1971 [1980 trans.]). Einheit der Natur [The Unity of Nature] New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
If we are to demonstrate ('prove') that Hodges' model can be applied, is relevant in:
Then these observations by Friedrich, allied with definitions of health, as per the WHO's Constitution:
'Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.'
https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution
The oft cited (when I was a student nurse) definition of nursing by Virginia Henderson:
“Assisting the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that an individual would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge”.
https://libguides.twu.edu/c.php?g=270174&p=1803121
We need to 'see' beyond these sources, to take in the global situation. But, being situated this is something Hodges' model is ideally equipped to achieve.
Supporting nurses and midwives to promote health, improve care and save lives Florence Nightingale Commemoration Service
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On Wednesday in Waterstones, Deansgate, Manchester, I spotted this book. Opening it randomly - I kid you not - it fell to pp.204-205, and Florence Nightingale's contribution. |
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'At that time, the idea of visualizing data in order to make its messages clearer to non-mathematicians (including politicians) in order to change minds and inform opinions had started to gain traction in Europe but was not common in England. Nightingale continued to use statistical diagrams to communicate stories hidden in data, and while this clearly contributed to improvements in health and mortality in British military encampments at home and abroad (and by extension in the population in general), it is also undoubtedly the case that she helped to popularize the use of appropriate data visualization methods to expand the reach of statistical information beyond specialist audiences. A testament to the influence of her work is that the Royal Statistical Society had the honour of accepting Florence Nightingale as their first female member in 1859.' p.204. |
My source: Waterstone, Deansgate, Manchester and email Florence Nightingale Foundation.
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Join us for this enlightening session to celebrate the contributions of Filipino nurses in social care and to gain valuable insights that can enhance your own journey in the field. Sessions moderated by Filipinos in Care Founder Kier Dungo and Co-Founder Jay Trondillo.
Tickets and website: https://www.filipinosincare.org.uk/event-details/fic-anniversary-event
My source: RCN North West Multicultural Group
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| Brian E. Hodges - c/o Brian's family. |
Born in Liverpool, UK.
Community Mental Health Nurse NHS, Part-time Lecturer,
Researcher Nursing & Technology Enhanced Learning
Registered Nurse - Mental Health & General
Community Psychiatric Nursing (Cert.) MMU
PG Cert. Ed.
BA(Joint Hons.) Computing and Philosophy - BIHE - Bolton
PG(Dip.) Collaboration on Psychosocial Education [COPE] Univ. Man.
MRES. e-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning, Lancaster Univ.
Live and work in NW England - seeking a global perspective.
The views expressed on W2tQ are entirely my own, unless stated otherwise.
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