Territories of Belief, Community, Nature and Technology i

SOCIO - TECHNICAL

 INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

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

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

The Digital Human BBC Radio 4 Aleks Krotoski	The TERRITORY
The Digital Human 13 June 2022 BBC Radio 4 'Unintended'	The TERRITORY

The Territory Trailer (2022)

Image: The Territory - https://www.enprimeur.ca/photos/english/the-territory/163889/movie-poster/

What is a 'domain'?

With visitors to the website confusing the title Hodges' Health Career Model for job careers; the addition of 'Care Domains' was intended to reduce confusion.

I think this has helped, but because the future beckons and this blog plus the website appear to have a multidisciplinary readership more clarity may be of help, especially the use of this word 'domain'.

The dictionary is a good place to start:

do·main

1. A territory over which rule or control is exercised.
2. A sphere of activity, concern, or function; a field: the domain of history. See synonyms at field.
3. Physics. Any of numerous contiguous regions in a ferromagnetic material in which the direction of spontaneous magnetization is uniform and different from that in neighboring regions.
4. Law.
a) The land of one with paramount title and absolute ownership.
b) Public domain.
5. Mathematics.
a) The set of all possible values of an independent variable of a function.
b) An open connected set that contains at least one point.
6. Biology. Any of three primary divisions of living systems, consisting of the eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea, that rank above a kingdom in taxonomic systems that are based on similarities of DNA sequences.
7. Computer Science. A group of networked computers that share a common communications address.
[Source: Answers.com]

1. A territory over which rule or control is exercised: can apply in Hodges' model from a theoretic perspective by a curriculum, a scheme of work, and consequently in practice. We refer to the clinical domain, medical domain or social domain. This latter usage overlaps with 2. we often speak of fields of study and practice.

Place (territory) is the vital ingredient here; specific wards, clinics, treatment centres and even community may be described as a domain of care. The way 'domain' is used in day-to-day language may vary markedly. On some occasions the domain in question may be at an even higher level: clinical domain versus management domain.

3. Is interesting because although they are not exactly magnetic, there are several polarities* at work in Hodges' model.

On the borders between Hodges' domains, what is the 'switch' (context, situation, person focus ...) that determines the placement and direction of care concepts: for example - humanistic or mechanistic?

Sticking with physics there are undoubtedly several chaotic attractors within the bounds of Hodges' model. From the behaviour of the heart to the role of psychosocial stress in risk of relapse. If several variables are linked chaotically, what risks are run if one or more domains (however defined) are deemed non-relevant or out of scope?

4. This legalistic definition of 'domain' also applies. Hodges' model is person-centred, but although focused on the individual the model acknowledges the need to reconcile the diametric opposition that is the law that prevails for the one [INTERPERSONAL] and the law, justice and systems of the many [SOCIAL] and [POLITICAL].

Hodges' model is also in the public 'domain' all that is needed is an acknowledgement.

The remaining definitions 5, 6 and 7 - maths, biology and computer science - are all connected.

The connection?

Language?

More to follow.... Hope to return over the weekend...
*Will post about polarities, when I take a certain photo over in Manchester.
Just hope they don't pull it down before I get there! Bye for now...

Understanding Mathematics + Domains towards Corridors

It is for others to judge - whether it is helpful or distracting; but I find concepts defined by other disciplines, or professions illuminating and insightful. Especially so, when it comes to 'domain'. In Hodges' model - all four of them. Five! When (not if), we include the spiritual:

'Greeno (1991) argued that students develop understanding when

"a domain is thought of as an environment, with resources at various places in the domain. In this metaphor, knowing is knowing your way around ir the environment and knowing how to use its resources. This includes knowing what resources are available in the environment as well as being able to find and use those resources for understanding and reasoning. Knowing includes interactions with the environment in its own terms - exploring the territory appreciating its scenery and understanding how its various components interact. Knowing the domain also includes knowing what resources are in the environment that can be used to support your individual and social activities and the ability to recognize, find, and use those resources productively. Learning the domain, in this view, is analogous learning to to live in an environment: learning your way around, learning what resources are available, and learning how to use those resources in conducting your activities productively and enjoyably. (p. 175)"

In particular, in chapter 8, Nemirovsky et al. use the metaphor of becoming familiar with a new place (e.g., a town, a train station) and the process of learning a new mathematical concept.' p.7.

Greeno, J. (1991), Number sense as situated knowing a conceptual domain.,Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 22(3), 170-2 18. 

Understanding Mathematics and Science Matters. Edited by Thomas A. Romberg Thomas P. Carpenter Fae Dremock University of Wisconsin-Madison. EA LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2005 Mahwah, New Jersey London. (I hope there is a 2nd edition?)

(I will try to add the Nemirovsky et al. reference when I can.)

Previously: 'territory' : 'map' : 'vocabulary'

AI, Beliefs, Helplessness, Misinformation ...

Viewing this debate and SDGs both as information spaces, and mental health/illness can provide some insights.

'Learned helplessness' is an established phenomenon in psychological studies and history.

Adam Grant in Life&Arts, FTWeekend 29-30 March 2025, p.2. 

( https://adamgrant.net/book/think-again/ )
writes in 'HOW TO UNLEARN HELPLESSNESS'

'Many people believe that in a world of echo chambers and misinformation, it's not possible to talk anyone out of their convictions. They`re wrong. Even a bot can do it.

In recent experiments psychologists recruited thousands of Americans who believed in unfounded conspiracy theories ranging from the moon landing being faked to 9/11 being an inside job. After the participants described their views, the psychologists randomly assigned some of them to discuss these views with an AI chatbot that was prompted to refute them.

After less than 10 minutes of conversation with a ChatGPT-based LLM, more than a quarter of participants felt uncertain about their views - and those doubts persisted two months later. Short exchanges were even enough to move the opinions of strong believers.

Why? It's not just that ChatGPT has access to infinite knowledge. It turns out that AI chatbots are better listeners than the average human. The researchers found that chatbots were persuasive because they presented information that directly challenged the reasons behind people's beliefs.'

Also helpful, as per discussion to consider AI as a new / emerging 'information space' as a literal frontier, a new territory with unknowns that businesses wish to conquer and the public must learn to trust - even as users. What knowledge - understanding is needed of what is happening in the 'box'?

Once again (within Hodges' model) we can potentially draw in (ask questions of - all) the literacies:

3Rs, information, IT, media, culture, spiritual, financial, health, sciences, civic - national, international...

This also means to what extent are existing imbalances in parity of esteem - between the mind and body dichotomy perpetuated, even increased?

It is not surprising that there is an imbalance, in the distribution of datasets - LLMs on huggingface:

https://huggingface.co/docs/hub/en/datasets

e.g. INTRA- INTERPERSONAL [MIND]

BioBert 1.1
UCI ML Drug Review dataset - Subset 

LOST arXiv:2306.05596 [cs.CL]

Mindwell https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-3601-0_34

SCIENCES [BODY]

eScience kidney factomics (PubMed titles)
BioBert 1.1
SAVSNET sample (VetCN) - Important in terms of Zoonotic diseases and planetary health*.

Image datasets: 

Lung Cancer IQ-OTH/NCCD 

Surface Crack Detection 

Oxford-IIIT Pet 

BreastMNIST 

DermaMNIST 

PneumoniaMNIST 

BloodMNIST 

RetinaMNIST

There is overlap also.

Ack. *As mentioned late 2024, the datasets were discussed at: https://www.bcs-sgai.org/health2024/

Posted to HIFA - with some editing

'ChatGPT (40) Differentiating reliable information from misinformation (12)'

At the Frontiers of Systemic Design - Relating Systems Thinking to Design (4)

RSD4 @ Banff Centre, Alberta   Sept 1-3, 2015

Submit Abstracts for Paper/Presentation or Workshops by March 15

As original members of the Design for Care book community I wanted to share with you the opportunity to participate in RSD, now in its fourth year and its first in North America. Last year we had 200 people in Oslo with speakers Ranulph Glanville, Hugh Dubberly and John Thackara. A day of workshops from leading practitioners in this field. Two days of engaging discussions with new thinking and case studies in systemic design, including a dedicated healthcare track.

For 3 years the Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD) symposium has convened scholars, design researchers, and serious practitioners to articulate and demonstrate the shared value of a transdisciplinary field with applications across all complex systems and services. We invite participation for RSD4 from all those working at the frontiers of systemic design – those leading real projects informed by systemic and complexity theories, and those researching systemic behaviours within real-world complexity, services and systems.

At the frontiers we are searching for those stories and experiments into new territory, stories of survival and sustainment, narratives of complexity unfolding into new terrains of application or discourse. We seek abstracts for presentations on real world projects that have led design into new fields, frontier domains, and both small steps or quantum leaps. These cases could demonstrate how systemic design has contributed to a case, how it adapts to the unique situation or how a case has employed systemic approaches.

Three types of contributions are suggested:

• Case studies of design-led projects involving clear systemic impacts and principles
• Research supporting systemic design applications and validating theoretical claims
• Workshops for collaborative discourse or sharing new methods and practices

Join us in Banff this year for this growing transdisciplinary symposium in the intimate and reflective space of the Banff Centre. Sponsored this year by the Alberta Government, the RSD4 Symposium is brought into being by co-chairs Alex Ryan (Gov of Alberta), Birger Sevaldson (Oslo School of Architecture and Design), Peter Jones (OCAD University, Toronto) and Jodi Forlizzi (Carnegie Mellon). www.systemic-design.net

Design for Care update: 
You received this email as a member of the original Design for Care community. If you'd like to stay in touch and hear about significant events from me every so often, stay subscribed.

If you don't yet have the book, please remember you have a 30% discount code of DFCFRIENDS only at Rosenfeld Media designforcare.com  Design for Care remains the only design practitioner reference in the healthcare domain, the only service and system design book in healthcare. There are texts on digital health and patient-centered care research, but this field is still very much in the early stages of development - but picking up quickly. The book continues to find new adopters and I'm finding myself at very different conferences than I used to be.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about RSD, are interested in a presentation around the book's ideas, or are interested in our unique Master of Design programs at OCAD University.

PETER JONES, Ph.D.  @designforcare
Redesign Network and OCAD University
pjones AT ocadu.ca
Design Dialogues

Call for Papers for Special Issue "Philosophy and Disability"

"HUMANA.MENTE Journal of Philosophical Studies"

https://www.humanamente.eu 

Call for Papers for Special Issue "Philosophy and Disability"
Editors: Brunella Casalini; Chiara Montalti

deadline for submissions: 30th September 2024

In the past fifty years, the concept of disability has productively transcended the medical, psychiatric and rehabilitative domains. It has been defined, to name some examples, as the result of social exclusion, as a cultural trope, as a territory of political struggle and resistance, as a multi-faceted experience that emerges from the several inter-relational aspects of daily life, or as a neutral or even positive space.

Since Disability Studies is a trans-disciplinary area, the research on disability has benefitted from the contributions, methodology, and conceptual tools of many different fields. Disability has been explored from the perspectives of Sociology, Art, Anthropology, Law, Literary and Cultural Studies and the Humanities at large.

Regarding the latter field, it has been pointed out that disability, even though not always explicitly addressed, “pervades” nonetheless “language and literature”: as a concept, as an image, or as a metaphorical crutch (Mitchell, Snyder, 2000; Snyder, Brueggemann, Garland-Thomson, eds., 2002). Despite this intrinsic abundance, however, disability is still largely unrecognised as a topic of academic interest, especially in the Humanities, in what David Bolt and Claire Penketh define as a form of “disciplinary avoidance” (2015) – the reasons for which should be investigated.

The scholars and researchers would therefore be invited to deepen our understanding of the possible intersection between Philosophy and disability. They would be invited, on one hand, to examine how Philosophy can be a suitable starting platform in order to address several issues related to disability, and, on the other hand, to explore how the analyses on disability may significantly impact Philosophy. We aim therefore to bring forth philosophical inquiries that investigate, among the possible topics, disabled people’s lived experiences; emerging ethical challenges; social and political implications of ableism; theoretical foundations of disability, examined through a philosophical lens.

The Special Issue aims to explore a wide range of philosophical topics related to disability, including but not limited to:

I) Examinations of various philosophical perspectives and frameworks for understanding disability, including the social model, the cultural model, the relational model and the capabilities approach.

II) Ethical considerations concerning disability, such as questions related to autonomy, dignity, justice, violence, and the ethics of care.

III) Epistemology inquiries into how disability affects knowledge, perception, and cognition.

IV) Explorations of disability's influence on art, aesthetics, and the perception of beauty.

V) Discussions on disability rights, social policies, and disabled people’s participation or exclusion from citizenship.

VI) Phenomenological analyses of lived experiences, that include the embodiment of disability and the material encounters with the world. Philosophers’ first-person experiences and accounts would also be positively valued in this regard.

VII) Analyses of the role of disability in language, in the discursive realm, in the creation of meaning, and in the construction of metaphors, including the investigation of how philosophical language and theorization could contribute to ableism, disablism, and disabled’s people exclusion.

VIII) Investigation of disability through the lens of humanism and/or its critical stances (Anti-Humanism, Philosophical Posthumanism, Transhumanism, New Materialisms, and so on).

Intersectional analyses, which explore how disability interacts with, and impacts, other social categories such as race, gender identity, sexuality, and class, would be greatly welcomed. Furthermore, contributions could cover a wide array of historical and geographical frameworks, from Ancient Philosophy towards Contemporary Philosophy – not only from a Western perspective.

Information

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2024

Publication of the Special Issue: July 2025

We anticipate that submissions will come both through solicitations and this open Call. Papers should be between 8000 and 10,000 words (including abstracts, footnotes, and references). Only papers in English will be accepted. For further information do not hesitate to contact the editors (brunella.casalini[at]unifi.it; chiara.montalti[at]unisalento.it).

My source: 

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ 

Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos 

What sort of field is 'nursing'? (i)

. . . It is NOT 'relaxed'.

My copy of Harris (2015) is secondhand, £8.50 from 'Green Ink' in Hay-on-Wye last November. 

Apparently, the (professional - high-level) study of mathematics is a relaxed field. McCleary reviews the book and the good, truth, and beauty of mathematics; 'relaxed field' relates to the latter:

Mathematics without Apologies:
Portrait of a Problematic Vocation

"That leaves beauty, the deepest source for Hardy, and the most challenging motivation for mathematical activity. Challenging because it calls into question how external support of mathematics is justified. Hardy tells us that “a mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns.” Throwing mathematicians in with the painters and poets leads to justification of mathematics as an art. Harris situates his discussion of beauty in the notion of play. Play needs to take place in a “relaxed field,” a notion introduced by ethologist Gordon Burghardt to describe animal behavior when not preoccupied with food, mating, territory, or predators—'the opposite of stress.'"

John McCleary, Book Review, NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 65, NUMBER 10 pp.1280-1283. https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201810/rnoti-p1280.pdf 

Talk of absolutes is common in mathematics. There is absolutely no mathematician involved in the writing of this post and others. That said, I have been privileged to work in a 'relaxed' manner.* When I trained mental health and then general nursing, we were part of the 'numbers' on the duty-rota. Your presence was not just a matter of learning, there were concrete things - tasks - to do. Completing the Community Psychiatric Nursing Certificate course 1987-8, involved a secondment to another community team (thank you Bolton!). My caseload was left to the support of colleagues, so I could concentrate on the course. A course in which Brian Hodges (not Wilfred Hodges - the  logician) taught his eponymous model. Post-Project 2000 with nurse education an undergraduate pursuit, students were designated supernumerary. Student nurse finances are precarious, worthy of a post in itself. 

If relaxed and stress are opposites, nurses would seek to be 'relaxed'** suffice to have the time and resources to deliver care safely, professionally and to a high standard. Adequate time + resources also brings a dividend: person-centredness, health promotion and education, preventing relapse. As it stands, however, for nurses be they students or qualified, nursing is far from relaxed.

tbc... ii

Harris, M. (2015) Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation. Princeton University Press.

*But without the charisma Harris describes.

**The notion of slack resource could be applied, space for creativity and innovation in assessment, planning, interventions (case formulation) and evaluation.

See also: 'Four Fields'

On Sociology & Becoming a Patient

'The Subject matter of Sociology
& Becoming a Patient'

A primer for my picking up Hodges' model, or being pressed onboard, was early exposure to history and sociology. There was an understandable emphasis in the (then) school of nursing (registered mental nursing) on the role of society, social history, lunacy and the asylums, law, and attitude towards mental illnesses.

Continuing to sort books (inc. secondhand) and papers, there is:

Maclean, Una. (1974) Nursing in contemporary society. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/qhqc24fv

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

'The sociological viewpoint can be taken on many different subjects. Thus, political sociology has to do with people's voting behaviour and their reactions to the processes of government, while the sociology of education takes into account the influence of various social factors upon educational opportunities and achievements. In addition, social psychology, social psychiatry and social medicine are all related to medical sociology. These terms all imply the use of sociological methods and insights in different areas of human behaviour, and the divisions between them are a convenient way of dealing with what is a very wide territory. Such divisions may suggest that events and things in the real world are already separated in themselves, whereas the divisions are actually in the minds of the people who make them. It is easier to regard sociology generally as being the study of people's behaviour in groups, groups of all kinds, large and small, casual or permanent, groups of which people are very conscious as well as those of which they may scarcely be aware. Thus, much of sociology is concerned with the human family, a group whose form and composition varies from one part of the world to another and from one set of people to another but which does have common features and functions wherever it is studied. The family will be referred to repeatedly in this book, since not only does it affect all our lives but it profoundly influences the way in which people react in relation to illness.' pp.8-9.

Maclean pointed to the 'innumerable other human groupings' (p.9) and how these - family, schools, clubs, professional training, friendships, audiences, tourist crowds, customers, villager, hostel dweller; such groupings, some historic, temporary or transient - also differentiate into populations, that inform epidemiological and demographic studies. 

It is remarkable how societies have changed globally, since Maclean's 1974 text.

As if to presage the one-to-one encounters to follow, chapter 2 'Becoming a patient' after a brief history 'sickness' arrives at the work of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons.

I don't have the date but I remember making a note the four combined conditions at work for an individual to adopt the sick role. What stood out was how something we think is individually determined is social and so often a question of permission.

Maclean's text (with my emphasis) on these factors follows; and is then mapped to the domains of Hodges' model:

'In the first place, the illness must be outside the patient's control, in no sense his own fault. Second, the sick role will allow him exemption from his other roles. with their associated obligations and duties. For example, a man can legitimately give up work and leave his usual family 'responsibilities to his wife. But, third, the sick role requires that the patient should positively desire to get well, he should not relish the relinquishment of responsibility and, fourth, he has the obligation to seek competent medical help.' p.25.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

the sick role requires that the patient should positively desire to get well	the illness must be outside the patient's control, in no sense his own fault.
the sick role will allow him exemption from his other roles. with their associated obligations and duties	he has the obligation to seek competent medical help

Again as an exercise you might care to reflect on this and our experiences since the millennium?

What is most remarkable is the need to view this as a 'future lesson' in terms of how societies must, will change to meet the challenges of tomorrow, and the day after that ...

Vectors of the Biopolitical - (Chap. 2) c/o Bull

The Concept of the Social

'From one sentence in Aristotle derive two arresting theoret- ical discourses of the twenty-first century: Michel Foucault's biopolitics, provocatively reformulated by Giorgio Agamben in terms of the relationship between sovereignty and the body, and the capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum as a means of evaluating and promoting development, justice and freedom. Both are characterized by deep reflection on the sources of Western political thought, and by urgent engagement with contemporary social and legal problems. Both are in some sense biopolitical in that they are shaped by the interplay of the same Aristotelian categories the human and the animal, politics and nature. But they are on opposite sides of the divide that has opened up in the human sciences since the 1960s, and there currently seems no optic through which they might simultaneously be viewed, no way of integrating or comparing their insights.

 

In part, this reflects a situation in which political debate appears to have fragmented into a multiplicity of single issues. The ancient 'Who will rule?' and the modern 'Who shall have what?' have been supplemented by an array of questions that deal with matters once exclusively cultural, personal or natural. For previous eras, the relative integrity and unmalleability of cultures, bodies and environments rendered such questions redundant. Now they frequently appear unanswerable from within established political traditions, and incommensurable in relation to each other. Within this expanded field, biopolitics and the capabilities approach have unusual salience and potential, for both bundle together issues otherwise assumed to be distinct. If they, in turn, could be coordinated, perhaps we could begin to map the new territory.' p.68.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

'Who shall have what?'	nature human - animal bio-
culture	political 'Who will rule?'

Bull, M. (2021) The Concept of the Social, London: Verso.

What is a 'domain'? II

Last week I referred to a definition of domain that included mention of:

1. A territory over which rule or control is exercised.
2. A sphere of activity, concern, or function; a field: the domain of history. See synonyms at field.
3. Physics. Any of numerous contiguous regions in a ferromagnetic material in which the direction of spontaneous magnetization is uniform and different from that in neighboring regions.
4. Law.
a) The land of one with paramount title and absolute ownership.
b) Public domain.The remaining definitions -

5. Mathematics.
a) The set of all possible values of an independent variable of a function.
b) An open connected set that contains at least one point.
6. Biology. Any of three primary divisions of living systems, consisting of the eukaryotes, bacteria, and archaea, that rank above a kingdom in taxonomic systems that are based on similarities of DNA sequences.
7. Computer Science. A group of networked computers that share a common communications address.
[Source: Answers.com]

- I suggested were connected by language....

There are some very formal definitions of domain from the world of 5. maths. Pulling other words out of the hat isn't the answer, but the idea of mapping between 'domains' is (I think) very important in Hodges' model; even though any mapping is subjective and - in this instance - not evidence based. Is it possible to be presented by an insurmountable edifice - something that terrifies you and yet fascinates at the same time? Well that's maths for me. I'll return to this another time.

Maths, 6. biology and computer science (to follow) are as noted in the first post domains of study. In health care and especially within medicine 'formal languages' has been and remain a major preoccupation in the form of coding and classification schemes. If you follow the links above you'll see they are listed in the SCIENCES page - since they are formal and structured. In order to report on activity locally and epidemiology at a global level, classification and coding is essential.

The links also include examples of languages of nursing. Nurses spend quite some time writing and computers still choke when it come to analysing and reporting on reams of narrative text. Computers still love codes. Although they are becoming ever more versatile, they still crunch numbers or 'data'.

As for computer science 7: in the 1980s I remember seeing graphs depicting 'languages' from microcode and assembler language at the heart of the machine, through to the fuzzy world of written and spoken language. In between there's quite a spectrum covering logic and a huge range of computer programming languages.

Searching the web I suppose I was bound to come across domain specific languages (DSL). There's a couple of videos and Ruby's in the frame. Funny that, I had noticed in Starbucks how some people like to show off their DSL expertise.
One things for sure this really focuses the mind in terms of defining a domain.

Paper - "The concept of legal space: A topological approach to addressing multiple legalities"

 INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

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

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

"5 An early reference to topology in psychology has been developed by Kurt Lewin, Principles of Topological Psychology (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1936). Linking literature and topology, Angus Fletcher, The Topological Imagination: Spheres, Edges, and Islands (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016). For an overview of philosophical approaches related to topology, see Daniel Parrochia, Mathematics and Philosophy (Wiley, Chichester, 2018) Ch 11. Using a topological approach to law, Müller-Mall (n 4). This last contribution constructs a topological approach for assessing perspectives in law (such as reflected in judicial decisions on a certain legal question) and situating them within ‘reference frames’ (in particular 117 et seq)." p.520.

"Law is fragmented ‘along issue-specific rather than territorial lines’, as exemplified by regulatory regimes for environmental and health issues or the private regulation of the cyberspace and of transnational commercial activities.20 Some authors have described this as a ‘deterritorialization’ of law.21 One reason for such a deterritorialization is the increasing amount of regulatory objects that cannot, or can only with difficulty, be linked to any territory – particularly salient in the case of digitalized data and its fluid location." p.522.

"... the notion of legal space suggested here comprises various features that are guided by concepts from topology, a branch of mathematics that analyses the qualitative nature of spaces. This approach has been adopted in an interdisciplinary manner, including in various disciplines of social science."5(See above). pp.519-520.

Global Constitutionalism

Burchardt, D. (2022). The concept of legal space: A topological approach to addressing multiple legalities. Global Constitutionalism, 11(3), 518-547. doi:10.1017/S2045381722000041

'Land Back' - Owens Valley, California

"The vast territory known as Owens Valley in California was home for centuries to Native Americans who lived along its rivers and creeks fed by snowmelt that cascaded down the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Then came the European settlers, and over time, the Native Americans tribes lost access to nearly all of that land. Eventually, the water was lost too: ...

Less familiar is what happened to the Owens Valley, and the people who lived there, after most of the water was sent south. Owens Lake is now a patchwork of saline pools covered in pink crystals and wetlands studded with gravel mounds designed to catch the dust. And today, the four recognized tribes in the area have less than 2,000 acres (800 hectares) of reservation land, estimated Teri Red owl, a local Native American leader. 

But things are changing, tribal members say. They have recently reclaimed corners of the valley, buoyed by the growing momentum across the United States to return land to Indigenous stewardship, also known as the "Land Back" movement." p.7.

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES                   

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

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

	LAND
culture indigenous peoples history	BACK justice

Cowan, J. Native Americans reclaim lost land in California, The New York Times International Edition, June 18, 2024. p.7.

There is this thing - 'universal construction'

The problem of bugs in software is an ongoing problem across all IT industries. For application that are safety critical we are still reminded of the risk implications and consequences if bugs are software is not tested and bugs - errors identified and corrected.

Back in the 90s during BA(Joint Hons. Philosophy & Computing) studies, I was introduced to the formal specification language 'Z'. It was designed for definition, and modelling of computer software, working from specification to implementation, as per these images:

https://personalpages.bradley.edu/~young/CS592M120_OLD/handoutZed.pdf

https://personalpages.bradley.edu/~young/CS592M120_OLD/handoutZed.pdf

To be clear I've never worked as part of a software project and my 'tinkering' - Drupal, Pharo, online groups, hosting platform - reveals how the development stack and work processes have developed apace. The challenge is keeping up. Simultaneously, there is the sense of being on the bank of deep water; or, a vertiginous cliff:

A little learning is a dang’rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
Fir’d at first sight with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts,
While from the bounded level of our mind,
Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,
But more advanc’d, behold with strange surprise
New, distant scenes of endless science rise! 

Pope. https://interestingliterature.com/2021/09/a-little-learning-is-a-dangerous-thing-meaning-analysis-origin/

 Acknowledging the need for an 'evidence-base' and theoretical underpinning the effort to 'push' Hodges' model forward is ongoing. Maths remains an alien territory to me, but the 'secret garden' is as tantalizing as ever. Over the years I have posted - with much overlap about:

• maths
• relation
• logic

- and more recently:

• isomorphism
• category theory
• and as previously posted - laws of form.

In an effort to get to grips with the above, I'm following various online videos, books and papers. Bartosz Milewski's videos, blog and publications are aimed at programmers, but are very interesting nonetheless. The first video provides an introduction to the motivation and philosophy of category theory. In another, Milewski refers to 'universal construction' on YouTube and in a blog post about 'Function Types'.

The 'universal' figures in healthcare too: universal health access, and universal health coverage appear to over-shadow 'universal health care'. The quality of 'universal' also creeps into assessment. Data gathering is not merely complete, it is comprehensive. It has to be, to contribute not just to a care plan, for one that is (supposedly) person-centred, with risks identified, strengths, weaknesses - needs, history, social network, and much more. The care plan informs and orchestrates the interventions; then evaluation follows. Are we delivering? What is the patient's (client's, carer's) level of satisfaction. Have care stages and actions been completed as per policy (in time!)? (More on this to follow later this year in light of UK mental health/illness news.)

So as I consider (wrestle with...) initial, and terminal objects, sets and categories … I can hopefully, especially with help, extend the number of posts tagged 'universal' here on W2tQ. In this vein, is Hodges' model a universal construction? There may not be a universal truth to reveal, but it will prove a marvellous learning journey.

South Sudan Medical Journal: 'Stroke' Vol 17 No 1 Feb. 2024

Dear reader,

The February 2024 issue is online here. 

It includes several items on ‘Stroke’ edited by Dr Eluzai Abe Hakim, Founder and Associate Editor of SSMJ. Note our new ‘Notice Board’ on the back page. The full contents are listed below.

We are pleased to announce that our articles are now indexed by Scopus, in addition to  African Journals Online (AJOL) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) as well as on our website. SSMJ is included in the EBSCO scientific research collection.

Please share this issue with your colleagues
and promote it through social media.

For example: “See the South Sudan Medical Journal’s February issue for articles related to stroke in Africa here @SSMedJournal #SouthSudan #SSOT” or retweet from @SSMedJournal.

Editorial

•  Address risk factors as part of clinical practice to prevent stroke Eluzai Abe Hakim 

Articles

• Reference intervals for serum creatinine and urea in the adult western Sudanese population Muaath Ahmed Mohammed, Ibrahim Abdelrahim Ali, Abdarahiem Alborai Abeadalla, and Omer Abdelaziz Musa
• Prevalence and perceptions of voluntary medical male circumcision among University of Juba students, South Sudan Kon Alier, Akway Cham, Jonathan Majok, Kenneth Sube Achan Nyang, Ezbon Wapary, James Malek, John Makuei, Jok Malith, Lual Mayuol and Yak Adim
• Paranasal sinuses in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis, Tanzania Enica R.Massawe, Happy E Somboi, Asterius Muganyizi, and Petra Joseph
• Hepatocellular carcinoma and aflatoxin in Sudan: The way forward Moawia Mohammed Ali Elhassan

Stroke Series Articles

• Stroke rehabilitation in low resource countries: time to provide an organised service Mehran Maanoosi
• Risk factors for stroke in the African populace: need for action Paul Bolaji
• Stroke units in low and middle income countries (LMICs) save lives: application of the western model of stroke care Omotayo Taiwo, Min K Koko, and Eluzai Hakim

Short Communications

• QUIZ: Unenhanced Brain Computerised Axial Tomographic (CAT) scan quiz
• Obituary: Dr Asia Dawud Kuek
• Obituary: Dr Lou Joseph Bosco
• Obituary: Mr Gideon Wurube Kara

Notice Board (Back Cover): Advertise in the South Sudan Medical Journal

Front Cover Image: Brain CAT scan of a stroke patient showing acute right non-haemorrhagic infarct in posterior middle cerebral artery territory as well as right basal ganglia with mass effect. (Credit: Eluzai Hakim)

The SSMJ team
Email: southsudanmedicaljournal AT gmail.com
Website: http://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com
Follow us on Twitter/X @SSMedJournal and our Facebook Group

Dramatherapy i - thresholds, liminality and wounded healers

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

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

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

A personal journey The 'wounded healer' - Halifax (1982) ".. it is the experience of our own wounding that will enable us to engage with our clients in a healing process". p.15.

"Therefore we can begin to understand that rather than the drama being the chaos, the drama is both the container of the chaos and the means of exploring it. Accompanying our groups through such dangerous territory may seem too frightening for the dramatherapist to contemplate, let alone the client". p.15.

"The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (threshold people) are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these people elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate places and position in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither here nor there: they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention and ceremonial. As such their ambiguous and indeterminate attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols in the many societies that ritualise social and cultural transitions. This liminality is likened frequently to - death, being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the wilderness and to an eclipse of the sun or the moon". p.14.

"The 'illness/treatment' model has by its nature to emphasise what the patient cannot do rather than what he might be able to do; to emphasise that what requires to be done is carried out by others rather than what the patient might do for him/herself". p.262. Power as exercised (degrees of freedom?) through the therapeutic turn: the history of therapies; social, industrial, occupational, physical, drama, psychotherapy et al. ...

Turner, V. (1969) The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. Routledge, London. cited in Jennings, S. (1987) Dramatherapy and Groups, Chap. 1. pp.1-18. In Jennings, S. (Ed.), (1987) Dramatherapy. Theory and Practice for Teachers and Clinicians. Routledge, London. p.14.

Mitchell, R. (1987) Dramatherapy in In-patient Psychiatric Settings, Chap. 12. pp.257-276. In Jennings, S. (Ed.), (1987) Dramatherapy. Theory and Practice for Teachers and Clinicians. Routledge, London. p.14.

In theoretical terms, Mitchell also describes the creative model, the learning model and the therapeutic model (p.265).

Halifax, J. (1982) Shaman: the wounded healer. Thames and Hudson, London [England].

Previously: theatre , threshold , liminal

Trauma - MUSIC PRESCRIPTION - James Rhodes

 'By now we're all familiar with the idea of music as therapy. For James Rhodes, however, music can be equivalent - at times even preferable - to  medication in the management of mental health. "Obviously, I am in favour of medication when it is necessary to save lives," says the 49-year-old British-Spanish classical pianist, when I meet him at Peregrine's, an upmarket piano shop in Clerkenwell, central London. "I was on medication and it genuinely saved my life. What I'm not in favour of is medication as a kind of easy option instead of doing other things that will also have the same effect. And there's no question that music [can]." 

 Manía, Rhodes's new album, is driven by that philosophy. Traversing swaths of classical territory, from JS Bach to 20th-century Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera, it is an attempt to profile the therapeutic properties of music from all angles, "I've always loved this idea of prescribing pieces," says Rhodes. As someone who has struggled with his own mental health, he says he has selected works that "accompany me and my insomnia, my anxiety, my desperation and my fears in the middle of the night"'. p.13.

My source:
Nepilová, H. Music on prescription, Arts, Life&Arts, FTWeekend. 8-9 March 2025. p.13.

INDIVIDUAL

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

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

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

MANiA	DRUG PRESCRIPTION ARTS PRESCRIPTION ...
SOCIAL PRESCRIBING

Hodges' model: a New Invention

Created in the early 1980s, Hodges' model is clearly not a -

'New Invention' P. Halling

While Hodges' model is not a new invention, we have always needed to way-find. Maps are very powerful and even more so now that the world is literally within our grasp. What forms of way-finding can Hodges' model encompass ...

Psyche's journey: All aboard!?

The journey that is life and death... within which and beyond is the arrival of love.

The anatomy and physiology of the human body - the journey called development.

The wound healing journey, the granulated path.

The many skills to become more acutely aware of and honed to be a more effective communicator.

The ways and means by which a clinical procedure MUST be followed - with the essential detours that must include psychological considerations and assuring that 

dignity, respect and privacy are upheld.

This ineffable stuff called information how do we arrive there from data?

From information what is the direction of travel to knowledge - 

is W1S D0M a postcode?

This ineffable stuff called evidence, where is that to be found 

and then by what routes can it be applied?

The journey of the health and social care record from blank to comprehensive.

The journey past the signage (paper ... IT systems) that denotes local vocabularies.

The student's journey from novice to expert.

The patient's journey from illness to recovery; relapse to recovery, 

through palliative care to end of life.

Transitions: from care at home, to hospital, home or residential setting.

The patient's journey to hospital: paramedics, ambulance, corridors and bays, 

accident & emergency, ward, transfers, home.

The patient's narrative journey repeated to own doctor, paramedics, nurse, another doctor, social worker, physiotherapist, occupational therapist (not as long as it used to be?).

Crisis informational: worry - going for tests, scan ... attending clinic for results.

 Informational and temporal compression of the above due to headwinds of pressure on beds.

Self-referral journey to destinations (services) and agencies to be confirmed.

The medication journey (not yet personalised) absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion.
The other medication journey that precedes (reconnoitre) rationale, information giving, consent, titration, established regime, withdrawal, medication stopped.

The terrible journey that sees family losing their loved ones twice over.

Explicit and implicit journeys how closely observed formally and informally.

The trip around the other hubs that also turn: the bed hub, social services hub...

The journey through the calendar that is reflected in so many diaries.

The journey called supervision and why is the start session square so hard to find - time for?

The journey called allocation from referral to assignment of care coordinator. 

The journey through procedure land which includes a territory called complaints.

There is the healthcare journey that claims respect as it is predicated upon the postcode.

The journey of idealism and legacy that is called integrated, 

person centred, holistic care and reflective practice...?

Care programme approach review - initial, intermediate, discharge meeting and community review.

The path clearly delineated but less (not yet) travelled

 - health promotion, preventive medicine, self-care, self-efficacy and health literacy (education).

The journey through so many environments: inner - outer space.
The journey that is hope... and Psyche's way-finder...

How many of the care domains of Hodges' model 

do you ensure you pass through - including the spiritual?

Of course, this list only scratches the surface...

All these journeys can be found and navigated through Hodges' model.

NORTH

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

WEST--------------------------------------- EAST

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

SOUTH

As for the sign 'New Invention'...

Last Saturday at 0700 I left WN4 and headed south for Hay-on-Wye. I arrived at 0930 after passing through Clun and the hamlet of New Invention. I returned with a box of secondhand books, including a couple on education history purchased on my last visit in November 2015. These were useful in the studies at Lancaster. Once sold, 22 books in all, I had £20. Six other books went to the charity shop. An enjoyable trip.

Photo by Philip Halling, CC BY-SA 2.0, Link

After'math' II of... The Difference that Makes a Difference

Continuing in the vein of challenging and stimulating ....

It seems there are several people attributed with the saying "the map is not the territory". The debate around maps and territories came up in discussion and is frequently raised on psychology and therapy discussion lists. At DTMD I referred to h2cm as a cognitive periplus, which I came across in Cunliffe's book The Voyages of Pytheas. Basically, ancient mariners would draw a map, a periplus of the coastlines for navigation and an outline of land masses. During the meeting I came to equate the basic features on the coast as data; buildings or smoke as information; and the conclusions derived as knowledge. Whether to proceed inland well, that is about pioneering, courage and wisdom.

A challenge comes with the DTMD talk of information theories. The DTMD workshop was promoted as a forum to discuss and expand our collective understanding of what we mean by information in our different disciplines.

What would an information theory based on the knowledge domains look like? Given the presence of the SCIENCES domain then the mathematical and logic-based theories are already determined for us, are the specific information theories and models that relate to the physicality, the entropic journey of the body? What information theories can we identify for the other domains:

• INTRA-INTERPERSONAL?
• SOCIAL?
• POLITICAL?
• and the spiritual, unknown?

If we categorised the 25 info theories listed by Paolo Rocchi in his session how might they be distributed across the h2cm domains?

Here is part of the listing c/o Prof. Rocchi and with many thanks:

• The statistical theory of information by Shannon (1949);
• The algorithmic theory of information by Solomonoff, Kolmogorov (1965), and Chaitin (1977);
• The economic theory of information by Marschak (1971);
• The living system information theory by Miller (1978);
• The autopoietic theory of information by Maturana, Varela (1980);
• The biological information theory by Jablonka (2002);
• The cybernetic information theory by Nauta jr. (1970);
• The dynamic theory of information by Chernavsky (1990);
• The fisherian theory of information by Fisher (1950);
• The general information theory by Klir (1991);
• The general theory of information by Burgin (2009). ...

What is the result? What criteria determines the final domain 'home'? On what basis can we differentiate such theories - quantitatively and qualitatively? As noted at DTMD where are the family resemblances? Perhaps they can be found within the care domains:

Sciences - inclusion of a mathematical - logical underpinning (There be equations in the hold!)?
Social - reference to social and family networks without explicit recourse to mathematics? The use of psycho-social concepts?
Interpersonal - reductionist-wholist rendering that incorporates perception, individual information processing? What can be drawn from the latest research in anxiety and psychoses for example? Is it appropriate to wonder if ontological* approaches have anything to offer?
Political - Theories that cover economics and also explain power relations, decision making, and choice for example? 

Even though when we see / read the word 'unified' you tread carefully, Hodges' model ultimately presupposes a unified view. Recall again the DTMD2011 challenge:

to discuss and expand our collective understanding of what we mean by information in our different disciplines.

So the purpose here on W2tQ and through h2cm is to focus on all the domains simultaneously; at least when information in the context of health is our concern. As I mentioned in my presentation, there are clear exceptions in emergency and crisis situations. Then 'holism' is suspended. Information (re)sources, selection, analysis, synthesis and salience are focussed; specialised individual, team and organisational memory are brought into play with varying degrees of technology in support. The second-by-second, minute-by-minute demand for data, information and knowledge increases, its longevity in terms of significance may decrease, replaced by updated values by turn until 'stability' is restored: by human effort or nature.

To be sustainable (applicable, creditable, relevant ...) for me a unified theory of (health) information must span situations such as the emergency and all the h2cm domains and care contexts. Now that is a challenge!

*What would it mean to create four ontologies that could be merged together?