Technologies for Development: Project - founding ideas

Reading the website of the project (posted yesterday) I noticed that their founding ideas can be mapped to Hodges' model. As depicted below some are pretty obvious, notably the POLITICAL domain and the SOCIOLOGICAL.

Their first founding idea is placed in the interpersonal domain. This is very subjective exercise - literally playing with words - but here I am prioritizing individual cognitive access above physical access. I am thinking of individual participants. As Nanotechnologies for Development state the first idea also focuses on countries - the group. So maybe I am wrong, if there is a wrong when using models - idealisations - in this way?

Staying with the group, access and participation are also a crucial matter of human rights - education, health information, health and social care, employment, freedoms, and security - freedom from violence, unlawful imprisonment...

These founding ideas clearly denote underpinning values, note in-particular the way risks and benefits are included at the individual and the group level.

In the SCIENCES domain from the beginning acknowledges time, process, project management. Nanotechnology needs to be understood in terms of the environments we inhabit. Not just us, now; but grandchildren... too. Not just the physical environment, but that embodied under and within this other divide: skin.

Within the mechanistic domains how will consultation about benefits and risks be negotiated and communicated to the humanistic domains?

How will the individual - group : community - commercial enterprise and innovation be squared?
 
This individual-group distinction is becoming ever more significant - of which more to follow.

individual
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

group

The first founding idea of this project is that developing countries should not be denied participation in advanced modern technologies.	The third core idea is that such developments entail risks and benefits that need to be addressed from the beginning.
The second that they should do that in their own culturally-specific ways. Our approach rejects any a priori distinction between traditional and modern technologies, but rather seeks innovative ways to connect indigenous and globalized knowledge and practices.	The fourth founding idea is that choices about those benefits and risks need to be made in a democratic way.

Source: Technologies for Development: Project Founding ideas

Technologies for Development: Project Closing Conference - Nanotechnologies for Development in India, Kenya, and the Netherlands

[ This is a small but interesting interdisciplinary conference - pj ]

December 15-17, 2014. Maastricht University Brussels Campus

What is the challenge of development today? What is the role of science and technology in development? What are the problems and possibilities that emerging technosciences—such as nano-bio-technoscience—pose for development? What institutional and organizational configurations enable development? How can interdisciplinary inquiries into the social studies of science, technology, and innovation contribute to developmental agendas?

The closing conference of the NWO-WOTRO http://www.nwo.nl/en/about-nwo/organisation/nwo-divisions/wotro sponsored project, *Nanotechnologies for Development* http://fasos-research.nl/nano-dev/, invites proposals that reflect on the relationship between science, technology, development, and innovation.

We are interested in contributions that offer insights into the historical and contemporary principles and practices of development and the role of science and technology therein. These reflections can be empirical, conceptual, or methodological. We also welcome contributions that reflect on collaboration between researchers and development practitioners. We thus invite proposals from a broad range of participants: activists, academics, development practitioners, and beyond.

The conference programme will strive to strike a balance between various approaches and perspectives and consist of keynotes, panel presentations, and a closing roundtable discussion.

The conference will be held at the Brussels campus of Maastricht University (Avenue de l’Armée / Legerlaan 10, 1040 Brussels, Belgium) on December 15-17, 2014. Participation is limited to 50 participants.

To participate, please submit a title, 500-word abstract, a list of 5 keywords, and your CV (max. 400 words) to techdev-conf-fasos AT maastrichtuniversity.nl. The deadline for sending your abstract is September 14, 2014. The conference committee will notify their decision by September 30, 2014.

Jordan JNC Conference: Mental health and stigma, Student nurse's aptitude and the MDGs

There were a great many fascinating talks at the conference in Amman. The following caught my attention:

Dr Heyam Dalky on Perception and Coping with Stigma of Mental Illness: Arab Families' Perspectives

Since I trained in the late 1970s there has been a marked positive change in the social stigma associated with medical and mental health conditions. People are by and large more enlightened regards epilepsy for example. Although perhaps some of the progress can be related to medication, medicine management and community follow-up. Mental health professionals and services are aware of the potential damage that a diagnosis of 'schizophrenia' can inflict on young adults. Despite any sense of progress I might see, there is much still to be done as campaigns such as Time To Change attest.

It was very useful then to revisit the historical development of thought in stigma. Dr Dalky also shared global insights into stigma perception within families by citing research in a range of countries; for example, in Jordan, Morocco, Sweden, Germany, China, Malaysia, and Ethiopia.

Within Hodges' model the individual, as in the self, is given a pivotal and yet mobile place (transferable from the top of the model to the center) this led me to the concept of self-stigma (Corrigan, 2009) as I draft a paper on h2cm, case formulation and diagrams.

In her presentation Dr Dalky notes:

• Link and Phelan (2001) defined stigma as the co-occurrence of the components of: 
• labeling, stereotyping, separation, status loss, and discrimination.
• “self-stigma” or “stigma perception,” is the extent to which individuals believe others stigmatize them because of who they are.

They say travel broadens the mind and listening to this presentation you really see the difficulties, objectives and aspirations that not only practitioners share but families and our clients too.

Heyam F. Dalky, PhD, RN, Jordan University of Science & Technology, Irbid, Jordan
 

Ever since my engineering aptitude was measured in the mid 1970s by predicting the movement of a series of gears I've always held a special place for aptitude and attitude, as reflected here on W2tQ.

Mrs. Maxie Andrade, et al. presentation Aptitude Towards Nursing: Is it Measurable? highlighted a central challenge within nurse education.

Nurse training represents a major personal investment for the student (their family too in many cases), the educational institutions and societies concerned. As a sign-off mentor I assess third year students on their final placement. This is a great responsibility that is usually a privilege, but it can be a frustration at the loss entailed for a failing student.

Mrs Andrade defined aptitude:

Is a condition, a quality or a set of qualities in an individual, which is indicative of the probable extent to which one will be able to acquire under suitable training some knowledge, skill or composite of knowledge, understanding and skill

Ref: Mangal S L. General Psychology. Fifteenth reprint. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd; 2008.

The main questions:

Do nursing students possess the required ability (aptitude) to become an effective nurse?

What abilities do we really expect from nursing students?

The development of a tool to measure aptitude was described, reviewing the literature. Are there any existing tools within nursing? What exactly should a tool measure? Statistics and results were listed. This was a very interesting presentation and of particular interest to me.

Mrs. Maxie Andrade, Asst. Professor, Manipal College of Nursing Manipal, Manipal University


There was also a reminder of the time left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] c/o Prof. Hester C. Klopper's keynote: The nursing education tipping point: Forces of change. 

Less than 1,000 days and that was last month.

One thing I noticed and a sign of the issues in the Eastern Mediterranean is that the JNC conference website has proved unavailable at times. It is accessible as I post this.

Andrade M. Perceptions of health care consumers, deliverers and nurse educators on nurses, nursing practice and nursing education system. Manipal University, Manipal: 2010. (Dissertation work).
Andrade M. Choice of nursing career: Pleasure or pressure. International Journal of Nursing Education. 2012; 4(1); 42-44. 
Corrigan, P.W., Larson, J.E., Rüsch, N. (2009). Self-stigma and the “why try” effect: impact on life goals and evidence-based practices. World Psychiatry. 8(2): 75–81.