Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

Sober (1984) Child's toy

"It is gratifying to find these biological ideas already enshrined in the ordinary meaning of 'selection for' and 'selection of'. My young son has a toy which takes all the mystery out of this distinction. Plastic discs with circles cut out of them are stacked with spaces in between in a closed cylinder. Top-most disc contains very big holes, and the holes decrease in size as one moves down from disc to disc. At the top of the cylinder are found balls of different sizes. A good shaking will distribute the balls to their respective levels. The smallest balls end up arrayed at the bottom. The next smallest sized balls settle at the next level up, and so on. It happens that the balls of the same size also happen to have the same color. Shaking sends the black balls to the bottom, the pink to the next level up, and so on. The whole cylinder (plus paternal administered shaking) is a selection machine. The device selects for small balls (these are the ones which pass to the bottom). It does not select for black balls (even though these are the ones that pass to the bottom). But when we ask after a shaking what was selected, it is equally correct to say that the black balls were selected and that the small ones were. 'Selection for' focuses on causes; 'selection of' picks out effects." p.50-51.

Sober, E. Force and disposition in evolutionary theory. In. Hookway, C. (ed.) (1984). Minds, Machines And Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.43-61.

Image adapted from figure 4 within "Is art an adaptation? Prospects for an evolutionary perspective on aesthetic emotions" http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa/artfunction/art.htm

See also: slide 35/47  http://slideplayer.com/slide/9735486/

Hodges' model: A tool for Curation

CURATION

"Curation helps solve the problems of today and tomorrow. It's the mass sourcing of the expertise needed to navigate and comprehend the saturated, complex markets* of the twenty-first century." p.166.

Bhaskar also lists (and briefly introduces) the principles of curation:

• Saving time
• Freeing cognitive resources
• Sparing us anxiety
• Maximising utility
• Cutting down complexity
• Finding quality
• Overcoming information overload
• Creating contrast 
• Redefining creativity
• Channeling attention
• Providing context
• Beating overproduction (pp.167-168).

*To markets above, I would add disciplines and professions.

By definition an aide-mémoire should save us time. 

The structure of Hodges' model provides a conceptual scaffold, a substrate affording us cognitive economy.

Through selection (self guided discovery) we are assuring data, information gathering, properly supervised this should spare us anxiety.

We are trying to ensure the effective use of our time, and efficiently zero-in on the concepts that are salient.

By reducing complexity, we increase the relevance and value of what is noted, recorded, acted upon. Data, facts, observations that are not redundant can be dismissed.

Contrast is co-confirmed by using innate oppositions, polarities and dichotomies with attention on the other and the middle.

When needed, Hodges' model can explode subject headings, concepts assisting exploration and creativity, potentially assisting at a transdisciplinary level.

Context rationalisation by testing and filtering a situation, helps to focus attention.

Duplication and repetition do not foster sustainable services, but there should always be scope for verification and person-centredness.

"As the eighteenth-century English painter Joshua Reynolds put it, 'Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.' Curation helps ensure that exact medium." p.159. 

Bhaskar. M. (2016) Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess. London: Piatkus.

Book image: Waterstones.

See also: Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

Healthcare & Nursing: A select sport

Ed Smith: ‘We can’t risk stars’ mental health by playing too much’

Gruelling summer proved to England selector that player welfare is critical

Apparently, cricket is a late arrival to team building around a strong core and leader and then using a selection strategy. According to Wilde (below*), cricket is playing catch up with baseball (1880) football (1990) and rugby in 2010s. Even with a squad and substitution some players can play too much with physical and mental impacts. Delivery of healthcare is no 'game' even though certain aspects are open to gamification. Everyone understands the need to stay 'fresh' and avoid injury (burnout too). Nurses are not the only professionals and team players to experience the paradox of a break. On the one hand it's like you've never been away; on the other it is great to pick up the threads of cases, caseloads, referrals old and new. Key here too is the cover provided by colleagues while you were temporarily 'off the field'.

"Eddie Jones was asked after England's quarter-final
win over Australia if he felt vindicated in his decision
 to drop George Ford. He said, we didn't drop him, we
changed his role - welcome to modern rugby."

In health, the appliance of sport's 'win ratio' is not in dispute. We can test this! What is the satisfaction rating of the patient and family? But, let's broaden things to include the tax-payer and the patient's recovering, staying that way and becoming self-caring as far as possible. What has to be considered is the context, for example, palliative, end-of-life care and the aims of care.

Nurses have no choice but to 'play'. Sometimes an astute manager will recognise that a specific staff member is best suited to deal with a specific referral, or re-referral even.

As you guessed it, 'selection' does not end there. 

If Hodges' model is the compound field of play, then the selection of care concepts is the vital strategy to assure -

• person-centredness;
• integrated care;
• parity of esteem;
• reflective practice;
• critical thinking;
• a learning encounter;
• preventive approaches
• addressing health and other literacies ?
• teamwork ...

Yes, care assessment, evaluation can be a team effort. The significant care concepts (social determinants ... ), associations and priorities, risks and opportunities can be identified by an individual practitioner and also as a collective effort (group case discussion) and always with the patient / carer - guardian.

So, let Play commence  - and congratulations South Africa!

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTRA- INTER-PERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

GROUP

Simon Wilde, Cricket correspondent, The Big Interview. ‘We can’t risk stars’ mental health by playing too much’. The Sunday Times. October 27 2019. p.9.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-smith-interview-risk-mental-health-cricket-brw2t8lxk

ii Learn your lines and the hyperplanes will follow

With these lines, partitions, axes and domains in mind, when a clinical practitioner is presented with a new person, whether as a patient, client, or carer ... they can, using Hodges' model (and other tools!) approach their assessment in an open and receptive manner.

This means that the information provided by the 'patient' can be readily fielded, captured whatever the context and situation.

As noted previously, my study of Hodges' model began in the late 1980s. Application in my work as a community mental health nurse, with an interest in informatics followed quite naturally(?). Primed as I was, for various reasons to carry this forward, I also carried a mathematical learning disability. At the risk of getting bogged down in my thought, use and approach to Hodges' model I need a challenge.

Mathematics is the challenge for me. It's fascinating how we have in-built 'calculators' that can help us catch a ball, and judge fairly well where to throw a ball for interception. There seems then to be an informal or naïve  mathematics, at work unconsciously. Does the same apply to Hodges' model? If so, how can I isolate, and identify it?

• Is it represented somewhere, implicit in Hodges' model itself?
• Is it (once again) to be found in the user of the model?
• Is it (more likely, and obviously) a combination of these two?
• Or, is it a product of the system, or a series of systems? 

I was reminded of what is a Sober toy, several years ago:

Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

All four original purposes of Hodges' model:

1. Person-centred, integrated and holistic care;
2. To bridge the theory - practice gap;
3. To facilitate reflection and reflective practice;
4. To support curriculum development;

- are concerned with conjunction and choice, selection. So is life itself through distinction, difference, and differentiation.

Hodges' model is a selection machine, that is both fhuman and machine driven.

A clinician may obtain the referral information through an email, a history of previous contacts can be retrieved from a clinical information system; the context and purpose supporting access to the information.   

A whole series of blog posts describe the role of Hodges' model to help assure parity of esteem across mental and physical health. What does this mean in practice?

For the practitioner, they take selected data from the referral, a history - if available, an initial telephone contact, a conversation with a colleague who remembers the person re-referred and starts to populate Hodges' model. What are the psychological concepts that arise? What are the physical?

If a referral in whatever form, or a database record can be viewed as a bag-of-words, then Hodges' model is a collection of care concepts. Four bags then. Sets or classes. An experienced user of Hodges' model may position care concepts that throws attention on the INDIVIDUAL↔GROUP axis. Lying between the INTRA- INTERPERSONAL and SCIENCES domains, this axis (like all the others) earns its keep. There is work to be done that is also of interest in machine learning:

'A support vector machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning algorithm that classifies data by finding an optimal line or hyperplane that maximizes the distance between each class in an N-dimensional space.

SVMs were developed in the 1990s by Vladimir N. Vapnik and his colleagues, and they published this work in a paper titled "Support Vector Method for Function Approximation, Regression Estimation, and Signal Processing"¹ in 1995.' 

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

Strange to think that perhaps the VERTICAL axis and others in Hodges' model are not precisely S-N-E-W in their bearing? There may also be several vectors at work in fact?

Image: c/o https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

The word 'naïve' has been bubbling away for a good-many years. A close colleague Silvana Bettiol, Univ. of Tasmania kindly read my draft on Hodges' model as a mathematical object, and mentioned the introduction points to Bayes theorem even if informally. Even in those initial 'clinical' encounters (and social meetings, that attend to empathy, rapport and engagement...) complex judgements are being made, beliefs tested, from what is often partial and disparate sources of information.

Checking other leads led to Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches

'Statistical inference is a series of methods used to make decisions and draw conclusions based on available data. There are two primary approaches for inference: Frequentist and Bayesian. Each framework relies on a different philosophical perspective on probability and modeling, leading to different techniques and interpretations. Each has its own strengths and drawbacks, so understanding the distinctions between them is vital for researchers, data scientists, and statisticians who aim to choose the most suitable approach for their specific analysis.'
https://www.statology.org/comparing-frequentist-and-bayesian-approaches/

More reading required and threads to run.

Earlier this week I posted re. Cromer's book -

Cromer, A. (1997) Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy, and Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Before passing the book on, p.198, Chapter 8 notes, #4:

'"Understanding" is a commonly used English word which has no precise meaning. It's sometimes taken to mean the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. In this sense, it is a very high-level skill. Benchmarks for Science Literacy says, "Learning to solve problems in a variety of subject-matter contexts, if supplemented on occasion by explicit reflection on that experience, may result in the development of a generalized problem-solving ability that can be applied in new contexts' (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993)." The key word here is "may." 'We really don't know how to help students develop a generalized problem-solving ability, or whether there is such an ability apart from mere knowledge of many different problem-solving strategies. Whatever the case, since we do know how to teach students to solve specific, problems. this should be the primary focus of science education' p.198.

Ack. IBM.

Universal and Generic: Hodges' model and conceptual frameworks, or

What the papers say . . .

The purpose of many research papers is to produce a conceptual framework, perhaps as a step towards a greater goal and objective.

Whatever the context or purpose of the conceptual framework:

• Theoretical Framework
• Conceptual Model
• Empirical Framework
• Descriptive Framework
• Analytical Framework
• Conceptual Framework for Policy Analysis
• Logical Frameworks
• Conceptual Frameworks for Program Evaluation
• Conceptual Frameworks for Organizational Analysis
• Conceptual Frameworks for Strategic Planning*

Hodges' model can be applied. This past week I saw a way to illustrate the scope of Hodges' model, which I will revisit. As ever, this merely scratches an itch on #MentalHealthNursesDay.

With apologies to authors and publishers - original citations follow:

Divya Sussana Patil, Ajay Bailey, Sobin George, Martin Hyde & Lena Ashok (2023) Unpacking the role of (INSERT [focus1..x/protected characteristic]) among (INSERT [Population]) for accessing healthcare in (INSERT [City, Town, Village, 3-words; Country]). Global Public Health, 18:1, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2023.2274438


Ahuvia, I.L., Mullarkey, M.C., Sung, J.Y., Fox, K.R. and Schleider, J.L. (2023), Evaluating a treatment selection approach for (INSERT [modality, delivery]) single-session interventions for (INSERT [Life-stage, Condition/Diagnosis]). J Child Psychol Psychiatr, 64: 1679-1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13822

Xu H, Bayless TM, Østbye T, Dupre ME. Care sequences leading to the diagnosis of (INSERT [Disease] and [related]): An analysis of (INSERT [format / owner]) records. Alzheimer's Dement. 2024; 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.13669

Original citations:

Divya Sussana Patil, Ajay Bailey, Sobin George, Martin Hyde & Lena Ashok (2023) Unpacking the role of transport inequalities among older adults for accessing healthcare in Bengaluru, India, Global Public Health, 18:1, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2023.2274438

My source: https://x.com/HydeM1976/status/1718975653175796085?s=20 (and prompt)

Ahuvia, I.L., Mullarkey, M.C., Sung, J.Y., Fox, K.R. and Schleider, J.L. (2023), Evaluating a treatment selection approach for online single-session interventions for adolescent depression. J Child Psychol Psychiatr, 64: 1679-1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13822

https://x.com/acamh/status/1759539440605606159?s=20

Xu H, Bayless TM, Østbye T, Dupre ME. Care sequences leading to the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias: An analysis of electronic health records. Alzheimer's Dement. 2024; 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1002/alz.13669

https://x.com/DukeGHI/status/1759978730192306179?s=20

*https://researchmethod.net/conceptual-framework/

CfP International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP)

********************* CALL FOR PAPERS *********************
(edited here for length)
*** INAUGURAL ISSUE ***

SUBMISSION DUE DATE: 1st May 2010

International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP)

Official publication of the Information Resources Management Association
http://www.igi-global.com/IJPOP

Co-Editors-in-Chief: Steve Goschnick & Sandrine Balbo
Published: Semi-annual (both in Print and Electronic form)

Mission of IJPOP:

The International Journal of People-Oriented Programming (IJPOP) is cross-discipline in range yet singularly focused on empowering individuals to conceptualise, design, program, configure and orchestrate Internet-powered mashups, game mods (modifications), aggregate and structure personal media and build standalone cloud-based and client-side applications (on smartphones, netbooks, laptops, desktops, home network and novel appliances) – into self-fashioned tools and products that ultimately suit the user's own unique needs and aspirations. Other individuals may well take up such apps, mods and mashups for themselves, further customising, enhancing and embellishing them, or they may in part be used in a social or family context (to the benefit of the collective aspirations of those Social Worlds of which the individual is a part) – nonetheless, the focus of composition, development and customisation is on a product for oneself, upon theory, concepts, techniques, methodologies and ultimately tools that service a market of one. Our mission is to be the first journal that comes to mind to academics and practitioners alike and remain the best with regard to all aspects of People-Oriented Programming. Our papers and reviews will be insightful and compelling to both educators and researchers, and often to a wider audience too – the people for whom this paradigm of software development has come about.

SCOPE:

People-Oriented Programming requires high-level tools to empower both the technical and non-technical user, which in turn calls upon research into meta-models that inform design and construction, that aid comparisons of these tools, and facilitates the interchange of content between them. The meta-models of most interest to POP initially, are drawn from two disparate disciplines – the Task Analysis (TA) and Agent-Oriented (AO) paradigms– both of which often have models with representations of entities matching the needs of POP, e.g. goal, task, object, agent, individual, role, intention and communication. Several AO architectures and methodologies have called upon branches of Psychology to formulate AO meta-models that incorporate mentalistic notions such as perception, motivation and intention, but which are most often aimed at constructing artificial humans and the like. In POP we too call upon those same Psychologies and similarly enhance and formulate meta-models and methodologies influenced by them, but with the intention of augmenting and empowering the individual human, in areas where they themselves desire aid or have identified a gap in their own abilities or resources, which they want to enhance.

From Sociology, POP draws upon ethnography with a focus on self-ethnography using tools such as cultural probes, life blogs and life logs to capture aspects of the individual's own life, themselves (or through a life coach), from which they draw the desire and/or frame the need for new technological artefacts to be used in their own lives. Interactivity, with respect to facilitating and streamlining a regular user's intention to build their own artefacts, and situatedness in terms of the individual's current location and activities, are two other facets of HCI (human computer interaction) that POP encompasses.

Video gaming is the first application area where large numbers of everyday users have been able to envisage and then developed their own innovations within existing games. So-called game mods are working examples of POP where players have appropriated userfriendly tools, usually built into the game engines by the vendors (e.g. The Sims, World of Warcraft, etc.). Video games have joined other media (e.g. movie, novel, comic) in the new genre of transmedia storytelling (e.g. franchises such as Tomb Raider, The Matrix, Harry Potter), allowing the player to enter the story 'so far', extending it in the 'now', constructing their own individualised narratives and increasingly, with the capability to enhance and extend the realm of the game itself. These individual constructed game mods allow players to extend virtual realms and narratives in real-time, in directions often unforeseen by the game engine makers. Such activities are increasingly a part of an individual's entertainment and education. Game modding as described, and the engines and tools that enable it, are within the scope of POP.

Internet-based mashup tools (e.g. Google Wave) have opened up a second application front beyond game mods, where POP is likely to gain mass adoption and occasionally produce radical user innovation. The selection and orchestration of disparate distributed services (e.g. web services; information feeds; the Cloud) by an individual within a user-friendly toolkit or framework, is also in the scope of POP. While the formal protocols and the technical enactment of such specific services are of little interest here, the quality, access, usage, aggregation and orchestration of them by the individual themselves, into a personalised synergy of capability made available through some enacting technology, are of acute interest to POP. Modeling techniques and people-friendly notations that bridge and coordinate distributed services together with local resources within POP tools – ones that the layperson can understand and use in conceptualising their designs - encompasses another cross-discipline facet of POP.

RECOMMENDED TOPICS:

Topics to be discussed in this journal include (but are not limited to) the following:

* Activity theory and modeling
* Agent meta-models, mental models
* Alert filter and notification software, automated task assistance
* Augmented reality, augmented interaction
* Automating personal ontologies, personalised content generation
* Client-side conceptual modeling
* Computational models from psychology
* Context-aware systems, location-aware computing, ubiquitous computing
* Cultural probes, self-ethnography
* End-user composition, end-user multi-agent systems
* Game development support tools
* Game mods, game engines, open game engines
* Home network applications
* Human-centred software development
* Interface generators, XML-based UI notation generators
* Interface metaphors
* Life logs, life blogs, feed aggregators
* Mashups, mashup tools, cloud mashups
* Model-driven design, didactic models, model-based design and implementation
* New generation visual programming
* Personal interaction styles, touch and gestures
* People-Oriented Programming (POP)
* People-Oriented Programming case studies
* Personal ontologies and taxonomies
* Personalisation, individualisation, market of one
* Personas and actors
* Real-time narrative generation engines
* Role-based modeling
* Service science for individuals
* Situated computation, social proximity applications
* Smart-phone mashups, home network mashups, home media mashups
* Software analysis & design, software process modeling
* Software component selection
* Speech and natural language interfaces
* Storyboarding, scenarios, picture scenarios
* Task flow diagrams, Task-based design
* Task models, task analysis, cognitive task models, concurrent task modeling
* Use case models, user interface XML notations
* User-centered design, usage-centered design
* User interface tools, XML-based UI notations
* User modelling, end user programming, end user development
* Wearable computing, bodyware
* Web-service orchestration, web-service co-ordination

SUBMITTING TO IJPOP:
Prospective authors should note that only original and previously unpublished articles will be considered. INTERESTED AUTHORS MUST CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS at:
http://www.igi-global.com/Files/AuthorEditor/guidelinessubmission.pdf

PRIOR TO SUBMISSION. All article submissions will be forwarded to at least three members of the Editorial Review Board of the journal for double-blind, peer review. Final decision regarding acceptance/revision/rejection will be based on the reviews received from the reviewers. All submissions must be forwarded electronically to: stevenbg AT unimelb.edu.au

All inquiries and submissions should be should be directed to the attention of:

Steve Goschnick
Co-Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of People-Oriented Programming
E-mail: stevenbg AT unimelb.edu.au

Additional links:

Goschnick, S. (2009). People-Oriented Programming: from Agent-Oriented Analysis to the Design of Interactive Systems, In. J.A. Jacko (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction, Part I, HCII 2009, LNCS 5610, pp. 836–845.

Paper: "Obtaining Consensus in Psychotherapy: What Holds Us Back?" c/o Goldfried

In respect to Goldfried's paper and the disciplines of psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy; please also consider research as it applies to all, across the domains of Hodges' model. Hence, to include: objective, subjective, methods, methodology, quantitative, qualitative, communication, meaning, integration, data, information, policy, autonomy, accessibility (to therapy) and agency. As per the review of Kinchin - to be completed next post, it is the links/relationships to be made and understood between these concepts that are fundamental.

"There are at least three problematic issues that seem to contribute to the difficulty we have in obtaining a consensus within the field of psychotherapy: The first involves our long-standing practice of solely working within theoretical orientations or eclectic combinations of orientations. More-over, not agreeing with those having other frameworks on how to bring about therapeutic change results in the prolif-eration of schools of therapy (Goldfried, 1980). The second issue involves the longstanding gap between research and practice, where many therapists may fail to see the relevance to their day-to-day clinical practice and also where many researchers do not make systematic use of clinical observations as a means of guiding their research (Gold-fried, 1982). The third issue is our tendency to neglect past contributions to the field (Goldfried, 2000). We do not build on our previous body of knowledge but rather rediscover what we already know or—even worse—ignore past work and replace it with something new. What follows is a description of how these three issues prevent psychotherapy from achieving a consensus, after which there will be a consideration of some possible steps that might be taken in working toward a resolution of these issues." p.484.

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

GROUP - POPULATION

Psychotherapy (Schools) Waves? 3rd Wave of CBT? Patient (as Self, Client, Person) Therapist (as Self, Person) Clinical Psychology Occupational Psychology et al... Psychological problems person-centeredness meta-cognition, reflection ... (see list, p.488) (my) PURPOSE	Theoretical orientation(s) empirical, experiential Biological Psychiatry 'medical model'  clinical training (ref to 'the' manual, protocol) THERAPY :: RESEARCH PROCESS
Therapeutic alliance  COMMUNICATION Therapeutic change Other (as patient, subject) History (benefiting from lessons learned) Social change, expectations "the sociology of science" p.486 PRACTICE	Curricula (as political entities) supervision, governance, professionalism funding access to therapy selection criteria (for therapy, gate keeping [self-assessment as exclusion?], studies) POLICY

Goldfried, M.R. Obtaining consensus in psychotherapy: What holds us back? Am Psychol. 2019 May-Jun;74(4):484-496. doi: 10.1037/amp0000365

Jones, P. (1996) An overarching theory of health communication? Health Informatics Journal,2,1,28-34.

ERCIM News No. 107 Special theme: "Machine Learning"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 107 has just been published at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en107

This issue features :

- A Special Theme presenting a selection of articles about current trends and new paradigms in Machine Learning, coordinated by the guest editors Sander Bohte (CWI ) and Hung Son Nguyen (University of Warsaw).

- A Research and Society section dedicated to Open Access - Open Science, coordinated by Laurent Romary (Inria).

- A "Research and Innovation" section with news about research activities and innovative developments from European research institutions

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Next issue: No. 108, January 2017 - Special Theme: "Computational Imaging"

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ERCIM News editor in chief

Editorial: Dismantling racism in education: In 2020, the year of the nurse & midwife, “it's time.”

Maya Angelou:

"The plague of racism is insidious,
entering into our minds as smoothly
and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies
to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams"


individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

Mind (My) Education [Student - Teacher] Individual Ideology Cognitive bias INDIVIDUAL RACISM  reflection - cultural humility SUBJECTIVE Covert Racism  (What information I choose to share/not share) Mental Health Nursing Mental Health Disparities Healthcare Disparities (lived individual experience micro-MACRO aggressions) Cognitive access, languages NURSING?: "Abstracting the individual from

Body COVID crisis Physical Health (General) Nursing Covert Racism Overt Racism Geography - Areas Population Ethnicity Physical environment Statistical evidence - BAME/BIPOC population OBJECTIVE RACE: Physical access - Health access -> BURDEN OF DISEASE 'Placement' variation in experiences. Race in the curriculum - jaundice, "The colour of my skin is..." The visibility of 'whiteness' ..." (Visibility of gender in research...)   Silence is NOT                    (Profiling:) Racial

the context of a racialised society through well-meaning attempts to individualise care must also be critiqued." "Nursing's  ̳transcultural‘ or  ̳multicultural‘ practices, where proficiency is measured by gaining more ― ethnocentric knowledge" Social Determinants of Health Socially determined health risks Covert Racism/subtle abuse (Information I don't read/hear of...) Overt Racism Interpersonal exchange: Outright abuse (criminal) Healthcare Disparities (as experienced collectively micro-MACRO aggressions)  Sinophobic abuse of Asian/Chinese peoples  Social isolation Social exclusion  Social inclusion Social justice, fairness, equality, equity What does 'teamwork' really mean? Peer group (belonging) STRUCTURAL

neutral                                           Violence Education Inst. Diversity in Nurse Education Professors, Degree attainment ... Power: Faculty - Students - Race 'neoliberal discourse' Law & Order The 'Protected Characteristics' Codes of practice - Worldwide Institutional Ideology as 'sustained' in Org. Structures  [policies, governance, audit, reporting] Covert Racism Overt Racism - Political Groups (even if banned) Employment - Short-list, Selection Tokenism Healthcare Disparities - measures - change? Visible BAME/BIPOC in Faculty  "If you can‘t see one, you can‘t be one." #BlackLivesMatter curricula CHANGE championed by - Nursing and Midwifery leadership - RACISM ............ "No SIIR!"

The 'can of worms' that is SIIR infects, pervades and moves around each and all the care domains above and can affect the spiritual also. It can no longer evade individual, collective and institutional attention: action must follow.
.
SIIR: structural, individual and ideological racism

A. Burnett, C. Moorley, J. Grant, et al., Dismantling racism in education: In 2020, the YEAR of the nurse & midwife, “IT'S time.”, Nurse Education Today (2020). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104532
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0260691720311916

ERCIM News No. 122 Special theme "Solving Engineering Problems with Machine Learning"

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ERCIM News No. 122 has just been published at https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/


This special theme explores different fields in which ML algorithms can help engineers to create designs with increased performance and reduced consumption, identify hidden dependencies and anomalies, and optimise and control manufacturing.

Guest editors: Noémi Friedman (Institute for Computer Science and Control (SZTAKI)) and Abdel Labbi (IBM Research – Europe)

The special the includes a keynote by Christopher Ganz, Head of Solutions & Standards of ABB Future Labs: "Machine Learning in Engineering - A view from industry"


The section "Research and Society" features a selection of articles on "Machine Ethics" coordinated by Erwin Schoitsch.

This issue is also available for download in pdf and ePub.

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Special Theme: "Blue Growth"

Announcements in this issue:

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ERCIM - the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics - aims to foster collaborative work within the European research community and to increase co-operation with European industry. Leading European research institutes are members of ERCIM.
ERCIM is the European host of W3C.

Follow us on twitter @ercim_news
https://twitter.com/ercim_news
and join the open ERCIM LinkedIn Group http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ERCIM-81390

-- 
Peter Kunz                       
ERCIM Office
2004, Route des Lucioles
BP93
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex

See also on W2tQ:
'Engineering'

A call for applications for the 3rd phase of Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW)

Advanced Notice

A call for applications for the third phase of Lifelong Health and Wellbeing (LLHW) will be announced in early May 2010.

Lifelong Health and Wellbeing is a major cross-council initiative involving AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC and MRC in partnership with the UK health departments. LLHW supports multi-disciplinary research addressing factors across the life course that influence healthy ageing and wellbeing in later life.

The initiative aims to lead to improvements in health and quality of life in later life, inform policy and practice and increase capacity building in ageing related research.

Phase 3 will invite high-quality innovative multidisciplinary applications that focus on major ageing-related challenges faced by the UK in the 21^st century. Proposals will be welcome from multidisciplinary teams in the areas of, but not restricted to the following:

• Mental Health and Wellbeing including quality of life, preserving cognitive function and exploiting mental capital
• Resilience for successful ageing: from cell to society including life course influences, markers for ageing and processes of ageing
• Age-related conditions, including frailty and interventions to promote independence in later life.

Structure of the call
Funds will be available through two modes of support:

LLHW Research Grants - up to £10m will be available for multi-disciplinary research awards from £300k up to £2.5m over three to five years.

LLHW Pilot Studies - a total of £2.5m to fund up to 10 pilot or feasibility studies for a maximum of two years, aimed at informing the development of future cross-disciplinary research proposals.

Selection Criteria
Successful proposals will be of strategic importance, be truly multi-disciplinary, encompassing the remits of more than one Research Council, and have clearly articulated and robust methodology and design.

Further information
Updates and further information about phase 3 can be found on the website:
https://mrc.ukri.org/research/initiatives/lifelong-health-wellbeing/

My source:
Charlotte Jones
NDA Programme Secretary
The University of Sheffield
Department of Sociological Studies
Elmfield, Northumberland Road
Sheffield, S10 2TU, UK

"Registered Nurse RN": What is in a Title?

or, Here is Saturday's Multidisciplinary Team selection;
Registered Nurses on the subs bench;
On the Roll, or Roll with the Times?

While never a union/professional body (formal) representative, I have as a nursing assistant then student nurse been aware of the 'political' in health. Once again perhaps another way in which I was primed to the reality of staff as a key (the) resource and hence the centrality of the workforce. Abbreviations are ever present and I remember RAWP - Resource Allocation Working Party; which also drew attention to geography and scale. Unfortunately, the vitality of the workforce has suffered with workforce planning inconsistently exercised.

Once again, I also recall a presentation by Derek Hoy on the need for information systems (data - information - knowledge . . .) through nurse informatics to help make nursing visible. It seems this is still an issue, for example:

Lyu, XC., Huang, SS., Ye, XM. et al. What influences newly graduated registered nurses’ intention to leave the nursing profession? An integrative review. BMC Nurs 23, 57 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-023-01685-z

Leamy, M., Sims, S., Levenson, R. et al. Intentional rounding: a realist evaluation using case studies in acute and care of older people hospital wards. BMC Health Serv Res 23, 1341 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-10358-1

Stadnicka, S.K., Zarzycka, D. Perception of the professional self-image by nurses and midwives. Psychometric adaptation of the Belimage questionnaire. BMC Nurs 22, 412 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-023-01564-7

 
Last month on a trip to Hay-on-Wye I picked up some back-issues of London Review of Books. Needless to say, in light of space and the clearing exercise I was very selective. The pearl of an essay cited below prompted me to wonder on the silence, quietness, lack of noise - invisibility even - of certain wards where registered nurses are present: or not? How and what data is captured and interpreted for reporting purposes and how meaning is gleaned and by whom? Making a difference in terms of patient safety and the quality of care:

LRB 45:18

"Call​ it the Jaap Stam conundrum. The story is told in Rory Smith’s entertaining book about the use of data in football, Expected Goals. Stam was a very talented but ageing central defender who had for three years been crucial to the success of Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United. Stam got into Ferguson’s bad books, and Ferguson decided to get rid of him, backed by data showing that Stam was now making fewer tackles. Stam was sold to Lazio for £16.5 million. Simon Kuper, co-author of Soccernomics (2009), about the use of numbers in football, wrote that this might have been the first deal in football based partly on data. It was, as Ferguson later admitted, a ‘bad decision’. Stam went on to have several productive years at the top of Italian football. The mistake was based on the fact that the data were Delphic. The question Man U wanted to have answered was ‘Should we keep Stam?’ Instead, the oracle answered the question ‘How many tackles is Stam making?’ But, as Smith writes,

'the best defenders do not need to make many tackles. The tackle itself is an act of last resort; great defenders intervene long before anything so tawdry is required. That Stam was making fewer tackles was not a sign that he was getting worse; if anything, it may have been a sign that his anticipation and his positioning and his reading of the game were all improving.'

Football, like Mao’s China, has discovered that getting hold of the data is one thing, interpretation of the data is another. The terms ‘data’ and ‘analytics’ are used interchangeably in sport, Smith points out, but in fact the gathering of data, fuelled by surging interest from sports teams and professional gamblers, has tended significantly to outpace the intelligent analytic use of that data."

("Delphic. It answers the question you ask, but it doesn’t tell you what to do.")

John Lanchester. Get a rabbit. Vol. 45 No. 18 · 21 September 2023.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n18/john-lanchester/get-a-rabbit 

See also:

Gorsky M, Millward G. Resource Allocation for Equity in the British National Health Service, 1948-89: An Advocacy Coalition Analysis of the RAWP. J Health Polit Policy Law. 2018 Feb 1;43(1):69-108. doi: 10.1215/03616878-4249814. PMID: 28972019; PMCID: PMC6312698.

RAWP

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/assets/icbh-witness/rawp.pdf

Biology, axioms, teleology and knowledge c/o Cox & Forshaw (2012)

'Teleological ideas generally have a rather bad reputation in science, and it's easy to see why. In biology, a teleological explanation for the emergence of complex creatures would be tantamount to an argument for the existence of a designer, whereas Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection provides a simpler explanation that fits the available data beautifully. There is no teleological component to Darwin's theory - random mutations produce variations in organisms, and external pressures from the environment and other living thing determine which of these variations are passed on to the next generation. This process alone can account for the complexity we see in life on Earth today. In other words, there is no need for a grand plan and no gradual ascent of life towards some sort of perfection. Instead, the evolution of life is a random walk, generated by the imperfect copying of genes in a constantly shifting external environment. The Nobel-Prize-winning French biologist Jacques Monod went so far as to define a cornerstone of modern biology as "the systematic or axiomatic denial that scientific knowledge can be obtained on the basis of theories that involve, explicitly or not, a teleological principle".

As far as physics is concerned, there is no debate as to whether or not the least action principle actually works, for it allows calculations to be performed that correctly describe Nature and it is a cornerstone of physics. It can be argued that the least action principle is not teleological at all, but the debate is in any case neutralized once we have a grasp of Feynman's approach to quantum mechanics. The ball flying through the air 'knows' which path to choose because it actually, secretly, explores every possible path.' pp.52-53.

Cox, Brian, and Jeff Forshaw. (2012) Quantum Universe, the: Everything That Can Happen Does Happen. London: Penguin Books Ltd.

See also: 

Jacques Monod - https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/monod/

Harrison, Peter. 2022. 'The History of Science and Theology', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by Brendan N. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/TheHistoryofScienceandTheology

Greslehner GP. "Molecular Biology"- Pleonasm or Denotation for a Discipline of Its Own? Reflections on the Origins of Molecular Biology and Its Situation Today. Biomolecules. 2023 Oct 12;13(10):1511. doi: 10.3390/biom13101511. PMID: 37892193; PMCID: PMC10605324.

Previously: 'axiom' : 'biology' : 'corner'

After'math' of... The Difference that Makes a Difference: an interdisciplinary workshop on information and technology

Here's my take on this workshop 7-9th September in Milton Keynes at the Open University. It was a really challenging and stimulating event. How so? Well...

Challenging: The first day's theme - What is information? and Thursday a.m. included presentations on quantum information. Trying to keep up with such ideas, to keep up with the progress of science and its philosophical implications demands effort, as does putting the ideas, concepts and applications in a form the public can understand. Given the academic calibre of the keynote speakers and organisers several books were held aloft and referred to:

Perspectives on Information 
Edited by Magnus Ramage, David Chapman

Decoding Reality

  Vlatko Vedral

Stimulating: Revisiting information theories with one slide c/o Paolo Rocchi, LUISS Univ. / IBM, The Concepts of Signifier and Signified Revisited listing 25 examples. The vast majority were new to me and of course as was also pointed out the list was not comprehensive.


Challenging: The maths on display here were way beyond me. With the talk about hard and soft sciences though I recalled a previous post Bell Jars and Bell Curves and how many mathematical techniques remain off limits to would-be users in the humanities. The maths didn't help my note taking - do I assume that lack of notes is shorthand for befuddled?

Stimulating and Challenging: Exposing Hodges' model and my vision of the model as a conceptual space (whether one ... four, or five) helps me focus on how best to lift a foot, and envisage the next steps. In the workshop I've found a few puzzle pieces for the draft text I have on h2cm as a conceptual space. It's a mix of nursing, informatics, Gärdenfors' definitions, ICT and aspects of education. Next month I'll post a draft content listing - adding to it as it takes shape.

Stimulating: On Wednesday evening there was a screening of a documentary film narrated by Nora Bateson An Ecology of Mind a portrait of her father Gregory. The film was quite a delight - in content and style - covering the central themes of Bateson's life and work with insights from his daughter and recognised commentators and colleagues:

"Gregory Bateson’s theories, such as “the double bind” and “the pattern which connects”, continue to impact the fields of anthropology, psychiatry, information science, cybernetics, urban planning, biology, and ecology, challenging people to think in new ways."

I remember double bind from mental health and reference to Bateson in family therapy circles. The title of the workshop - the difference - stems from Bateson as quoted on the DTMD2011 website:

Kant, in the Critique of Judgment – if I understand him correctly – asserts that the most elementary aesthetic act is the selection of a fact. He argues that in a piece of chalk there are an infinite number of potential facts. ... I suggest that Kant’s statement can be modified to say that there is an infinite number of differences around and within the piece of chalk. There are differences between the chalk and the rest of the universe, between the chalk and the sun or the moon. And within the piece of chalk, there is for every molecule an infinite number of differences between its location and the locations in which it might have been. Of this infinitude, we select a very limited number, which become information. In fact, what we mean by information – the elementary unit of information – is a difference which makes a difference Gregory Bateson (1972).

Not unexpectedly some speakers did challenge the views of Kant and Bateson. I found the recurring discussion on objects, subjects and relationships very enlightening. After the first day and the film I took Shannon's communications model SENDER, RECEIVER, CHANNEL, MESSAGE and NOISE and extended reference to this in my slides. Being situated and encompassing four care - knowledge domains h2cm can represent several contexts.  From a systems perspective we can consider the nurse, patient and carer as sender and receiver. Disease becomes 'noise', or according to Canguilhem life as the background noise with disease as (an inevitable) manifestation? The philosophical talk prompted me to cast health care practitioners as 'existential informaticians' (although the majority see themselves as assistants to a higher power).

<->

Unless speakers have indicated otherwise slides and audio will eventually appear on the DTMD website. I've uploaded my DTMD presentation comprising 13 slides:

Dtmd jones hodges model h2cm ou sept 2011 from Peter Jones

The workshop was a great experience, the organisers and  participants were very friendly, a very inclusive community; essential for all events clearly, but critical for one with interdisciplinary aspirations. I was not the only NHS employee there and now have a new NHS contact on Linkedin from finance / information governance. After Drupalcon this is great - as networking is of course a key objective. At Druplcon I was told about another nurse and Drupaller in Manchester and now we plan to meet up next month. You can learn to play the guitar on your own, but it helps to learn with others.


The organisers have applied for funding to support research and three further events tentatively proposed for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Speakers and attendees are also encouraged to submit to a special issue of tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-operation The Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society.

I will add more in another post (on sessions) as time permits.

Thanks to: the Committee for being able to present and the Open University Department of Communication and Systems (http://cands.open.ac.uk/) and the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (http://www.cresc.ac.uk/) who supported the workshop.

Fully funded PhD opportunity: Power

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

	'Power' How power is exercised here ...

[The above is my addition, and is not an endorsement]

Power as a social determinant of health inequalities (supervised by Mhairi Mackenzie and Sharon Greenwood at the University of Glasgow and Dr Gerry McCartney, Head of the Scottish Public Health Observatory at Public Health Scotland).

This PhD aims to deliver academic and policy learning about how power shapes health and health inequalities at a societal level and methodological learning about collaborative autoethnography as a means of generating data from/with elite participants. The findings will be used to develop learning materials for those engaged in the health inequalities field and to contribute to Public Health Scotland’s ongoing work programme in understanding power as a fundamental driver of health inequalities (HI).

In its proposed focus and methodological approach, the PhD draws on three ideas within the health inequalities literature:

• Power is not properly understood as a determinant of health and HI – it appears as a relatively amorphous concept whose multiple mechanisms have not been sufficiently delineated; this means that potential policy levers remain obscured.
• Those working within HI themselves sit within power structures and, as such, are a group whose understanding of power is important to explore. They have opportunities to influence policy debates, experience barriers created through power structures and, it is argued, despite commitment to resolving the problem, themselves benefit from the so-called ‘poverty industry’.
• Researching concepts such as HI with professional elites is difficult when professionals have well-practiced repertoires of responses.

There is evidence that using non-standard research approaches in the field of HI can bring original perspectives to bear.

Using a novel methodological approach (collaborative autoethnography) the study will:

• Explore how academic/policy elites working within the HI field:

1. Understand the mechanisms through which different types of power impact on health outcomes and HI.
2. Reflect on and conceptualise the power which they deploy or otherwise benefit from within their own personal/professional lives.

• Generate learning about hidden and actionable levers of power relevant to HI. 
• Develop learning sets for use with professionals in the HI field.
• Generate learning about researching with elite participants.
  

https://www.sgsss.ac.uk/studentship/power-as-a-social-determinant-of-health/

Mhairi Mackenzie,
Professor of Public Policy,
Urban Studies, School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Glasgow,
Email: mhairi.mackenzie AT glasgow.ac.uk

AND:

Deputy Director (Studentships and External Communications) of the Scottish Graduate School Social Sciences: Doctoral Training Partnership
Sgoil Cheumnaichean Saidheans Sòisealta na h-Alba: Com-pàirteachas Trèanaidh Dotaireachd
University of Edinburgh


A selection of recently published papers:

Mackenzie, M., Skivington, K., Fergie, G. (2020) “The State They’re In”: Unpicking Fantasy Paradigms of Health Improvement Interventions as Tools for Addressing Health Inequalities. Social Science & Medicine. 256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113047

Mackenzie, M., Gannon, M., Stanley, N., Cosgrove, K., Feder, G. (2019) ‘You certainly don't go back to the doctor once you've been told, “I'll never understand women like you.”’ Seeking candidacy and structural competency in the dynamics of domestic abuse disclosure. Sociology of Health & Illness 41(6): 1159-1174. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12893

Mackenzie, M., Bradley, L., Gannon, M., Cosgrove, K., Barton, D., Feder, G., Stanley (N) (2019) What might normalisation process theory bring to policy implementation studies? Learning lessons and uncovering questions through a case study of the profound implementation failure of a new policing policy’. Social Policy & Administration 53 (3): 449-463 DOI: 10.1111/spol.12467

Mackenzie, M., Hastings, A., Babbel, B., Simpson, S. and Watt, G. (2017) Proportionate universalism as a route to mitigating health inequalities? Exploring political, policy and practice uncertainties in times of austerity. In: Fee, D. and Kober-Smith, A. (eds.) Inequalities in the UK: New Discourses, Evolutions and Actions. Emerald Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781787144804,

Mackenzie, M., Collins, C., Connolly, J., Doyle, M. and McCartney, G. (2017) Working-class discourses of politics, policy and health: 'I don't smoke; don't drink. The only thing wrong with me is my health'. Policy and Politics, 45(2), pp. 231-249. (doi:10.1332/030557316X14534640177927)

Mackenzie, M., Hastings, A., Babbel, B., Simpson, S. and Watt, G. (2017) Tackling and mitigating health inequalities – policymakers and practitioners 'talk and draw' their theories. Social Policy and Administration, 51(1), pp. 151-170. (doi:10.1111/spol.12154)

My source: POHG

Drupalcon Munich 2012 [i]

Drupalcon Munich 2012 Group Photo

Well another European Drupalcon has been and gone. It was an awesome event in Munich; the venue, sessions, organisation and the community. It all proved a brilliant experience even without the night time thunder and lightening.

I'm not sure if this particular sponge is saturated to its limited capacity, but compared with previous years I took fewer notes and haven't posted as yet. The (glaring) take home lesson for me remains the same. Write less: do!

The notes I do have started after the first keynote by Dries Buytaert on the State and future of Drupal. Personally, I prefer a presentation rather than the interview format. A change in format must be a relief for Dries and for circuit regulars, but despite a visual interlude the social negotiation seemed for me to get in the way of the show and tell. Given that though Drupal is a year aware from the next release, so this reduces the 'news'. Portland 2013 will no doubt be literally more telling.

I did scribble some ..., on Entities and Properties and attending How to Dominate the Theme Layer. Useful to consider that the visual hierarchy may not match the outline of your site in terms of information architecture. The idea of styling now and injecting classes later has much appeal. I am enthralled by the prospect of font selection, colour and other site design aspects.

There were several sessions on Multilingual sites in D7 & D8. The pros and cons of node level translation vs. field level translation were explained, the latter being considered the best model for most use cases and set to be the likely default in D8. Given the cons of translation and the need to keep it simple I would set about limiting translation to Brian Hodges' original course notes and a new introduction to h2cm. Another key question referred to the type of experience you are building - is it totally symmetrical or asymmetric?

More to follow.  
Photo source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/drupalassoc/7893709730/

municipal SOLID waste: Activist tinder - the perpetual fuel

There is nothing like a little bit of local politics to ignite the activist tinder - a perpetual fuel - that can be found in the POLITICAL care domain of Hodges' model.

At the end of February there was a knock at the door @2130 hours on a Sunday. It was a neighbour who lives a few doors away. What transpired was news of plans to extend an existing solid municipal waste plant in the valley between the communities of Blackrod and Horwich.

There was a meeting of the local council the following night and it was vital that people attend to learn of the plans and act on the information as they see fit. The proposal was summarised in the local press as copied below from the The Bolton News:

• The plant would be capable of processing up to 75,000 tonnes of household and commercial rubbish.
• It would create recyclable materials and biofuel products and would operate 24 hours a day, six days a week..
• Four 38ft high bio-filters would need to be built to clean the air produced by the processing plant.
• Owners say the facility would mean that 48,000 tonnes of waste, including recyclable glass, metal and plastics, would not be sent to landfill sites and that it would produce bio-fuel products, which could be processed to create environmentally friendly fuels. It is estimated the plant would create an extra 20 jobs.
• Environmental health officers and the Environmental Agency have raised no objections to the plans.

While in the garden last summer I'd wondered about the occasional loud crashing noise. It couldn't be from over the wall (Halloween was ages off). Walking Sam I'd noticed rubbish on the road past the station, but thought it was just vehicles passing through. Well... they were passing through all right. Hearing the details at the council meeting and the smaller group who gathered together made me wish I'd been more curious and not lost in the virtual world. Station Road had been dusty for ages and suddenly it all clicked into place.

I never thought I would be asking myself - "Hey are you playing the NIMBYist?" Getting involved with the Environmental Action Group [EAG] I discovered that NIMBY is not alone:

... As the waste problem gets more acute, site selection for waste facilities becomes conflict-ridden, and the decision is usually met with considerable local opposition, e.g., with BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone), LULU
(Locally Unwanted Land Use), NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard), NOPE (Not On Planet Earth), or NOTE (Not Over There Either) arguments. Therefore, the solution should not be only cost effective but also environmentally and socially acceptable. Hence, the waste management facility location–allocation problem is characterised by multiple, often conflicting objectives. ... p.1405.

Erhan Erkut, Avraam Karagiannidis, George Perkoulidis, Stevanus A. Tjandra (2008) A multicriteria facility location model for municipal solid waste management in North Greece, European Journal of Operational Research. 187, 1402–1421.

As the environmental action group [EAG] stated at a further public meeting we really DO need new technologies and innovative ways of dealing with waste. Not everyone recycles. Local and national governments are under (fiscal) pressures to reduce landfill. I was immediately struck by the topography: at what height would the proposed chimneys be in relation to the surrounding homes and schools...? What impact would there be on people's mental health, a factor that was already an issue for many homes nearby? Investigating this to put together and articulate objections some key points had been omitted:

• The publications from the company concerned and DEFRA highlighted these as new technologies, so what about the need for the precautionary principle?
• Due diligence needs to be demonstrated and proven.
• The estimates for the increase in traffic and noise did not seem realistic.
• Contrary to claims made, the citizens impacted by the potential development were not informed.
• Mention was made of another existing (new) plant, but how did its location compare with that proposed?

The EAG were able to make use of individual and professional knowledge. Other [EAG] people put a lot of work into this, collating, producing and delivering handouts, site visits and making contact with key people. Being at work I could not attend the main council meetings. Over a 1,000 letters of objection were submitted, with contingency plans in waiting.
The news is that the planning application was withdrawn 3 hours before Bolton Planning Committee was due to make a decision: Success (with eyes, ears and heart on the future)!
So, if you're making decisions that affect whole communities - think holistically - it is always best to avoid the BANANAs.
(I would love to map this onto Hodges' model, but no time....)

Book review: Quinn's Principles and Practice of Nurse Education [ 6th Edition ]

I owned the 3rd edition of this book and approached the publisher for a copy of the most recent, which is gratefully received. This review is quite delayed in fact, I've a few other reviews to get on with too.

From the outset while a book on nurse education, the text serves general students and practitioners in education in parts one and two. I completed my PG Cert almost twenty years ago and this book would be an asset to current students (see the content listing for parts 1-2 below). There are many technical concepts within what is a comprehensive text; for example, there are 54 index entries related to 'assessment'.

Much of the book's value is accentuated for readers here in the UK. Here is an established and high quality textbook that provides a UK perspective. As a 7th edition the references for each chapter are expansive taking in key historical sources and more recent publications. There are many illustrations in the form of flowcharts and figures. Following each chapters references, suggested further reading is provided. Review exercises at the end of chapters serve the added purpose of sign-posting content. The information architecture and design of the book makes for a logical, clear and readable experience. Even if the content were lacking, which it is not, the book is fairly substantial at 550 pages. The book is well produced, the paper quality (lending to the weight) and the binding works! Yes, the binding serves to secure the pages and works well when the book is opened flat. This is an obvious requirement and yet so frequently it is a struggle.

As to specifics: Parts 1 and 2 are a welcome refresh. The discussion on thinking and critical thinking are sufficiently detailed and of special interest (pp.58-66) to me. Intuition receives a 'nod' with a dedicated paragraph on p.66, sufficient no doubt to give our students a troubling 'prod' in their future and ongoing careers? I wonder if pages 51-59 might benefit from review and more references, acknowledging what is a well-executed historical account within part 1? An educational challenge I am pondering at present is that of values within nursing. How can we teach these (including the 6Cs)? Amongst what is new to the book is that it meets NMC standards. It would be easy to produce a list of omissions, but I would expect to see abuse, safeguarding, whistleblowing, and vulnerability in this book. How students encounter these concepts and subsequently learn about such sensitive topics must be critical to their insight (life experience to date), self-awareness and skills development. Reflection is very well represented throughout the parts of the book which encourages my efforts with Hodges' model.

I mentioned the book's relevance to current PG Cert Education students and must add that I have referenced the text in a paper for my current studies in technology enhanced learning. On this front the publishers clearly recognise the extended potential of additional e-learning services through CourseMate. An Instant Access Card accompanies the book. Part 4 extends this relevance to continuing professional development and lifelong learning. Chapter 11 is very helpful for its practical dimension, describing placement learning, link lecturers, mentoring and the challenge of the failing student. Sometimes ESOL - English for Speakers of Other Languages is a factor and 'language' could be noted more specifically. This is not a matter for student selection but should be ongoing and would also be addressed within the public (equality and diversity pp.129-134). In mental health I am acutely aware of the importance of communication skills. This comprehensive treatment includes supervision, sign-off mentoring, practice educators plus triennial review.

If I have a bad habit it's looking through the index of a book and asking: What might I expect to see here? The bad aspect is it's tantamount to reviewing by exclusion. And I'm already guilty too. The book fulfills its purpose and does not need to reflect the whole nursing curriculum. But... I would have hoped to see 'open source', Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), the role of mobile e-learning, learning management systems - Blackboard is mentioned but not Moodle. Perhaps there are commercial considerations at work? 'Threshold levels' are mentioned but not 'threshold concepts'. This is understandable as we are only just on the cusp of a special interest group in health and social care (more on that to follow I hope). For those like myself who are on the service-practice side chapter 8 is insightful, on marking and providing student feedback beyond the student-mentor relationship. There is constructive support and encouragement for new lecturers and advice on quality and evaluation in higher education.

A year ago I reviewed an even larger textbook on Nursing Informatics, and in truth informatics still has a long way go to prove itself to most of the nurses I meet and work with. I keep doing the sales pitch and this includes acknowledging the student's awareness of coding and classification, or  pointing them (usually 1st and 2nd years) to this knowledge. Health Informatics is represented in the text and the glossary (pp.539-541). In terms of professional accountability it is vital that as nurses we are aware of what happens to the data we help to create. Students are also the researchers of tomorrow and as such they need to be aware of diagnostic schemas and ongoing issues in this area. It is true that this is the curriculum and yet the authors do right by including classification in the context of the library, and coding as in the types of fractures (figure 3.6, p.77); some mention of coding and classification within nursing and healthcare surely seems justified?

Nursing has struggled to make itself visible - for the right reasons for many years. As we look to our students to resolve this are they to rely upon some form of reverse-magic* alone? Despite this proverbial bee, I can highly recommend this book - it is a great resource.

1 Introduction: Nurse Education in the university and the clinical setting
PART ONE – THE PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
2 Adult learning theory
3 Perspectives on teaching and learning
PART TWO – LEARNING, TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT
4 Curriculum theory and practice
5 Planning for teaching
6 Teaching strategies
7 Assessment of learning
8 Student feedback / feed-forward
9 Teaching study skills
10 Evaluation
...

*It is of course customary to marvel at the visible becoming invisible.

HUGHES, S.J. & QUINN, F.M. (2013) Quinn's principles and practice of nurse education. 6^th Edition. Andover, Hampshire: Cengage Learning.

I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Matthew Keown at Cengage for my copy of this book.
 

Descartes - alive and well ...

... within the Incident Reporting System

'Policy guidance on recording patient safety events and levels of harm 

This guidance is for users of the new Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) service, to provide context and guidance on selection of appropriate categories when recording incidents. It focuses on which Event Type is appropriate for different circumstances, and how to select the most appropriate options for the Levels of Harm categorisation required within Patient Safety Incidents.'

Previous harm grades

No harm

Low harm

Moderate harm

Severe harm

Death

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

New psychological harm grades No psychological harm Low psychological harm  Moderate psychological harm Severe psychological harm n/a	New physical harm grades No physical harm Low physical harm Moderate physical harm Severe physical harm Fatal

Q. 'n/a'. Discuss.

CPD reading.