Modelling turbulence in flight: and other situations?

'Thomas Q. Carney, a retired professor of aviation technology at Purdue University in Indiana who has logged more than 11,000 flight hours as a pilot, said, "The better the model, the more it captures of the particular turbulent field, then the better the forecast, which is what the pilot is going to use."'

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

complexity and turbulence here ...	Birnir, B., & Angheluta, L. (2025). Scaling of Lagrangian structure functions. Phys. Rev. Res., 7(2), 023225.  https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.023225
here	and here ...

'To try to make sense of chaos, Dr. Birnir worked with Luiza Angheluta-Bauer, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oslo, to devise a model that combines two different methods for observing turbulence: what are known as Lagrangian and Eulerian mechanics. Experts say that neither framework can fully explain how turbulence works. 

That's because these two frameworks look at fundamentally different aspects of a turbulent system. In Lagrangian mechanics. researchers observe a simple particle. while in the Eulerian framework they look at a single point in space. Put simply, Lagrangian mechanics is like watching a leaf flow downriver, subject to the whims of eddies in the water. On the other hand, Eulerian mechanics is like watching a rock that protrudes from the river's surface and studying how the turbulence of the water moves around that fixed point.

Lagrangian turbulence is trickier to model because it requires an understanding of how a lone particle will behave. That lone particle will "execute the most complicated motion that you could imagine," Dr. Birnir said.

Knowing how each type of turbulence fits into the bigger picture is akin to selecting the appropriate lens for a microscope, since both are highly dependent on perspective. "Same turbulence, different stories," said Tomek Jaroslawski a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Turbulence Research at Stanford University.' Nazaryan, p.12.

Nazaryan, A. A new theory of in-flight turbulance lands, Science: The New York Times International Edition, October 15, 2025, p.12.

[Subscription: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/science/physics-airplanes-turbulence.html ].

See previously: 'care architecture' : 'Serres' : 'complexity' - and, if needed 'spiritual'

Birth and Bubbles - Holistic Spaces

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

HUMANISTIC ----------------------------------------------- MECHANISTIC

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

health services - organisations

... "To the holistic absorption by the One – upon which the success of so many religions and philosophies was premised for centuries – Sloterdijk opposes the proposition of a dyadic theory of intimacy. This is a distinction between an acute appearance of unity, experienced from a cosmic position of being fully contained inside a whole, and an ontological insistence that this position is itself contingent on a constitutive relationality".

"Sloterdijk dedicates the bulk of Bubbles to birth, providing a detailed discussion of intrauterine dwelling, including the sensory presence of liquids, soft bodies, the early experience of spatial boundaries, fluidal communion in the medium of blood, the constitution of an intimate acoustic bipolar sphere and, above all, cohabitation with the placenta, conceived as primal, anonymous companion. Intrauterine space is approached as the most vivid illustration of the spherological principle according to which coexistence precedes essence. At once enclosed and porous, poetic and connected, intrauterine space is the production of a dense and connected ‘two’: ‘What we call ‘mother and child’ in the abbreviated terms of subject-object language are, in their mode of being, only ever poles of a dynamic in-between’ (Bubbles, p320)". ... p.47.

Duclos, V. (2019). Falling into things: Peter Sloterdijk, ontological anthropology in the monstrous. new formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics 95, 37-53. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/715818.

Under the SSKIN

Since W2tQ started almost 15 years ago a collection of 250 draft posts have gathered (virtual dust). Many are probably empty - half-baked ideas - with no clear title (reminder - of the contents).

In nursing there are (thankfully) constant reminders, one being: the need to strike a balance between the person, being least restrictive, assumed mental capacity, best interests and high quality care delivery.

Revisiting the threshold concepts, h2cm and deprivation of liberty safeguarding draft paper brings recollection of a draft post and the lesson:

In many nursing situations you cannot assess what you cannot see.

In Nursing Times 29.11.11 a Nursing Practice comment item was titled:

“Compulsory training would help every HCA spot moisture lesions” 

Denise Elson, points to the SKIN (Surface, Keep moving, Incontinence and Nutrition) bundle as a set of very useful principles, and further refined to SSKIN:

SSKIN - Surface: Skin inspection: Keep moving: Incontinence: Nutrition

The Tissue Viability use the principle of SSKIN:

• Surface: make sure you're on a supportive surface 
• Skin inspection: check it isn't discoloured or sore 
• Keep moving: change your position often 
• Incontinence: keep clean and dry 
• Nutrition: eat healthily and drink frequently ( https://www.plymouthhospitals.nhs.uk/tv-sskin )

As a reflective exercise, if needed, think about SSKIN within h2cm - Hodges' model. Not just the physical (SCIENCES) focus but how these relate to the INTRA-INTERPERSONAL, SOCIAL, POLITICAL and the SPIRITUAL. We will revisit this using h2cm.

On the blog's 15th anniversary 20th April, I'll also try and put some numbers together.

Whitlock, J., et al. (2011) Using the skin bundle to prevent pressure ulcers. Nursing Times; 107: 35, 20-23.

See also:
Tissue Viability Society

Controlling the deluge: data, information, knowledge

"The longueil and the traversier, these are the names of the two cables that, wound on four winches called the papillonnage, tied our dredger, right and left, to the shores of Garonne. For seen from a plane, the four steel cables, the first two of which, in front, opposed the current while the two at the stern stabilized the pontoon, must have formed the edges of a transparent butterfly covering the width of the river with its spread wings." pp.11-12.

Serres, M. (2012). Biogea. Minneapolis: Univocal Publications.

NMC Code and Guidance on using social media responsibly

NMC: Guidance on using social media

In March the Nursing & Midwifery Council published a new Code for nurses and midwives.

There is also guidance on the use of social media for this group of health professionals.


https://www.nmc.org.uk/standards/guidance/social-media-guidance/

Social Care is dry in January

I bought The Times today and on the front page is the news from University of Oxford:

Dehydration ‘common’ among patients admitted from care homes:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-01-16-dehydration-%E2%80%98common%E2%80%99-among-patients-admitted-care-homes

When nursing and residential homes are struggling to manage an individual's care and look to refer to mental health services (usually) they know they need to asked the 'question'. This is about physical health: does the resident have an infection, are they eating and crucially drinking, are they in pain, constipated. ...

Although the headline augers badly and points to an ongoing (politically) 'inflammatory' problem within the sector, there is a great deal of compassion out there.

A resident's marked emotional distress and torment can upon investigation become a matter of how to also manage the staff's distress as they try to meet the individual's care needs. The latter does not help the former and amongst other things points to an educational need. This is especially so, if residents are to be able to continue to 'age' in their new 'home' with the additional complex needs that might follow.

Fluid balance used to be an element of basic nursing care.

Now of course - social care is not nursing care.

It is not always 'basic' either.

The art and science of Serresian spin

To Michel Serres:
- the middle is a point of reflection, a point at which questions - the question - must be asked. In fulfilling the purposes of the health career model:

• bridging the theory - practice gap;
• facilitating holistic practice;
• supporting (personal and group) reflection;
• enabling curriculum development;

- the model's four domains are constantly (re-)visited in turn. Motion is constant. Conception - birth provides that initial impetus. Health status. Life - momentum. Centered on the person the movement is usually self-correcting, seeking balance. Health care. Questions and answers whether whole or in part follow, leaving a trail of care delivered and care planned. A record.

There is definite synergy between our use of the health career model, the dynamic quality and quantity of health and social care and Serres' description of the spinning top:

"The behaviour of the cone or the top is worth analysing. Throw this toy and describe, as Plato did, what happens. It is in movement, this is certain, yet it is stable. It even rests on its point or its pole, the more so as its movement is rapid. All children know this. But its rest is still more paradoxical. The top may move about, by translation, without ever losing its stability. To repeat, it can do so as long as it turns very quickly.


Even better, its axis may lean, take on an inclination, without putting the movement of the whole in too much danger. It may again rock, by nutation, oscillating around a mean location. This very ancient and quite childish machine is marvellously instructive.

First of all, it combines and the movements known and thinkable at the time: rotation, translation, fall, leaning and swaying. An integral model, additive, overcharged, yet simple. Second, and above all, it conjoins in a simple one-off experiment phenomena judged or presumed to be contradictory. It is in movement and rest, it turns and yet does not move, it rocks and is stable. The simplicity of a complexity, first and foremost, an additive machine; a synthesis of contradictions, beyond anything else. Now it may serve as a little model of the world, for a naive simple and local orrery. It quivers, at rest, it moves forward, turning, like the heavens, like the stars." p.28-29.

Michel Serres, (2000) The Birth of Physics, Return of the Model, Turba, Turbo. Clinamen Press.


Image source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spinvox-or-someone-like-it-keeps-spinning/

earth, wind, fire, water AND the birth of physics

To begin - the health career model is concerned with space, structures and knowledge (care domains) built around two axes, plus the 'subjects' and 'activities' of health.

How we define and (so) divide space and accord that space salience amid changing contexts is critical to theory, practice and management and the models we subsequently derive:

... The dichotomy does not cut, it defines, it surrounds the closure of a limit, it delineates a boundary. Within the space thus enclosed like meets like. Or rather, conversely, the specific convergance [convenance] or identity, the assembly of the analogous, delimits zones in the disorder which are distinguished from each other. The earth is separated from the waters, air divides from fire. ... p.28.

Michel Serres, (2000) The Birth of Physics, Return of the Model, Turba, Turbo. Clinamen Press.

water	earth
air	fire