Conferences and studies (what's the date?!)

I don't know about 21.12.12 being a date of note. 12.12.12 has brought another addition to a string of  disappointing conjunctions this past week.

I posted in the summer - here - about the ICN Congress in Melbourne next May. My submission did not make it, being placed on the reserve list. If this journey was going to happen then I would need to make arrangements now. So a desire to visit Australia and share Hodges' model with the ICN community and possibly some academic centers there will have to wait for another time. The original idea of a symposium would have been marvellous, so perhaps there are partnerships still to be forged.

Next up: another possible speaking opportunity for April, admittedly provisional has not been confirmed. Quite a disappointment this as I would have repeated a workshop approach I've used.

And finally ... finding an avenue to study Hodges' model at a postgraduate level (part time PhD) is proving far from straightforward. I knew this would be the case, so I will continue to refine my preparations and make further enquiries and applications.

As this year comes to a close I'm pleased to have done the presentations to date. Great experiences and communities all. I understand that the preoccupations with the Mayan calendar and the end of the World are mistaken. It is the start of a new calendar - a new age. That sounds good to me.

October beckons - update PHP, Drupal and Public Health

October looks to be a busy month, at least the first half.

It's the PHPNW Conference next weekend and I'm pleased that they were able to use some copy I provided for their blog. The 2010 conf was very good and 2012 is looking a real treat.

Before then, this Wednesday evening it's the monthly NW Drupal User Group meeting also in Manchester. They are continuing the Back to Basics sessions. Since last month I've not had much time to explore and use DrupalPro. I will do before Wednesday, after the excellent input I was provided with last month it's over to me now.

Another event - and one needing a presentation is the -

Institute of Public Health: Open Conference 2012

Thursday, 11^th October 2012 at The King's Hall, Belfast. After visiting Dublin last November for the first time I'm really looking forward to this brief first trip to Northern Ireland too.

On the blog front I've deleted a service that was slowing things down. I've also reduced the total number of posts on display.

A fellow delegate and a full-time academic at the IPONS conference in Leeds earlier this month suggested that I blog less and write more. Things will go quieter here - year on year...

More to follow - for the time being!

Reflections [VII] Conceptual Spaces At Work: OntoSpaces - A Perspectivist Approach to CS

This session started fairly quietly but was one that rather shouted out in the end because of its possible relevance to Hodges' model. There was a clue having recognised one contributor from a reference already found:

Hautamäki, A. (1992). A Conceptual Space Approach To Semantic Networks, Computers and Mathematics with Applications. 23, 6-9, 517-525.

Kaipainen and Hautamäki began by asking what is the origin of quality dimensions? They proceeded to explain their use of perspectivism and the perspectival nature of cognition directing the audience to Giere (2006). The history of this is based on philosophy and the work of Nietzsche, Goodman and Putnam.

The work of Kaipainen and Hautamäki proposes the OntoSpace as a means to further extend Gärdenfors' work. An ontospace is an n-dimensional metadata space. In this space a perspective is an array of weights. The weights express the interest or attention towards each onto-dimension.


A transformation can be made from Ontospace A to lower dimensional space B. There are many technical points here to get to grips with. A figure was provided (I have gone over the yellow square 'Topical Domain' as it was indistinct; the green circle reads 'b Representational Space B').

This is an ecological and manageable means to conceptualization of a topical domain in ontospace A. Mention of ecological and manageable prompted me to clarify what this means, as I can see h2cm as being ecological and manageable. In the sense of breadth and depth of knowledge and possibly reducing the data context (as ever), patient, carer, nurse, learner....

The presentation included a software demonstration insofar as time allowed. The context was banking. The interface both applied dimensions and prioritised them. In the break I was able to explain Hodges' model to Mauri (Kaipainen), using a board in the upstairs dining room. By email Mauri subsequently noted that the home page of the old website actually reflects the model down to the placement of the menu links. (This is a struggle with Drupal and its themes, trying to come up with something that is original, represents the model and yet is not gimmicky the interface being obscure.) I approached Mauri and his colleague regards referencing their draft paper and they are happy for me to do so.

In health and social care of course we are very used to 'perspectives'. Especially seeking a caring perspective through empathy and rapport, putting on the shoes of the other and trying to appreciate the perspective they may or may not see. As I have said before I wonder at times if my passion for h2cm is an overvalued idea. I feel at times I am clutching at straws to find a theoretical underpinning for Hodges' model. At this conference there were no warts, and this presentation added more very useful ideas and in this case interdisciplinary bridges:

Solomon describes Nietzsche’s perspectivism so that it’s a view that “one always knows or perceives or thinks about something from a particular perspective - not just a spatial viewpoints, but a particular context of surrounding impressions. influences, and ideas, conceived of through one’s language and social upbringing and, ultimately, determined by virtual everything about oneself, one’s psychophysical make-up, and one’s history” (Solomon 1996, 195). Kaipainen and Hautamäki (to follow)

Ontospaces also seems to reflect the resulting dialogues found in health and social care and the need to constantly attend to and reconcile the same:

As Baghramian sees it, there can be more than one correct account of how things are in any given domain (2004, Chapter 10). Thus the issue is not which perspective is correct or true, but how to explore and mutually relate multiple perspectives.

Kaipainen, M., Hautamäki, A. Ontospaces: A Perspectivist Approach to Conceptual Spaces (to follow).

Giere, Ronald, N. (2006). Scientific Perspectivism. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Images: Peter Jones (with thanks to the presenters)

Reflections [VI] Conceptual Spaces At Work: Adams & Raubal - CSML

The final day of the CS@W conference started with a topic I was really anticipating as per a previous blog post. Ben Adams and Martin Raubal had indicated by email that CSML was a work in progress and a chat after their session emphasized the same. The existence of CSML and looking at some code examples holds great promise.

Direction in Lund, Sweden May 2012 by Peter Jones

The motivation for their work stems from geographical information systems [GIS] and how to formalise conceptual spaces. Palmer (1978) was cited as providing one form of representation. Palmer's mental model being matched with formal conceptual spaces. As per Gardenfors' book Minkowski's vector space is central to this work and informs a previous paper by Raubal (2004).

Way-finding provided an example: how there are different domains with semantic distances and weights that can change according to context. The facades of buildings and the contexts of day and night. What features stand out in terms of the shape, colour, visibility, area of buildings?

Adams and Raubal moved to differentiating topological relations that emphasise dynamic concepts. Piaget's contribution was noted in how we perceive conceptual change and the work of Torsten Hägerstrand whose time geography was illustrated (the geographical aspect of their work).

Behind CSML is a conceptual space algebra that is still being developed. On conceptual spaces and the semantic web, Adams and Raubal observed through their slides that:

Description logics are limited in ability to represent semantic content (RDF, OWL).
They fail to easily express
    Semantic similarity which plays an important role in cognitive categorization.
    Complex concept combinations.
Present Semantic Web technologies are restricted in their ability to answer queries and make inferences.

My BA(Philosophy and Computing Joint Hons.) project was on the application of semantic networks in nursing. The hard work was done for me in that it was directed by existing work in GRAIL. The dissertation I produced was essentially descriptive looking at nursing examples, identifying care issues and modelling them using is_a relationships. Among a great many slides and fascinating explanations Adams and Raubal note that:

Is-A, Instance-Of
Strong – based on topological relationships
Weak – based on similarity relationships

- so the advent of conceptual spaces, CSML and their efforts to engage with the existing semantic web community shows the ongoing dynamic of the semantic web's development. They are pursuing a reification of OWL 2 CS file to OWL 2:

Unique IRI for OWL classes, individuals, properties
Unique IRI for CS domains, concepts, and instances

There may be a future website to follow in addition to the CSML source. Questions followed about whole spaces, contrast classes and support vectors.

Reflecting back, my studies from 1996-97 and the examples produced - mobility... did not really even scratch the surface. Ben and Martin's work begs the question of trying to develop CSML examples that go beyond the surface(s) and enter the conceptual space (or spaces) that is Hodges' model.

Adams, B., Raubal, M. (2009). Conceptual Space Markup Language (CSML): Towards the Cognitive Semantic Web. ICSC '09 Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing IEEE Computer Society Washington, DC, USA.

(Photo: mine)

Update papers, Drupal and future April 2012

You might have noticed a slight hiatus in posts recently, in fact over the past six weeks or so. During that time I was working on a paper following the November's CARDI conference when two others popped up again out of the academic ether.

I've probably whined on before about how I write, but don't benefit from like-minded people to read stuff and bounce ideas off. It's not that my nursing and multidisciplinary colleagues are not academically inclined: far from it. There's people taking time to travel to Lancaster, Preston and Manchester to pursue good stuff. It is about mindset though for the many (and having a cussed question). That means being in the groove, finding your rubric, whatever you want to call it. The other week I was trying to encourage a colleague to do the Master's thing; because if you (we!) don't soon then it ain't going to happen.

One paper a co-written effort has been ongoing for quite sometime (must be years). Another paper highlights my idiosyncratic style when working solo (I bet my two current co-authors might agree to that) quite a few referees have. The latest co-authored effort 6,000+ words has actually come together quite quickly over the past six weeks. There was an abortive start when extending a poster was abandoned for a forthcoming journal special topic issue. Once a target publication was identified  things took shape rapidly. Nothing like a deadline to charge the batteries. No doubt there will be changes to follow, but it's a fitter piece of work on submission than I could have produced alone. I'm sparing you the specifics for obvious reasons, but when there's progress you'll have the details here. In the meantime thanks George and thanks for staying the course Mike! Extending the h2cm bibliography is never easy, but then academic writing is not intended to be.

Of course I need to leave Open Office and pick up Drupal in earnest. With the matrimonial home now a matter of many happy memories - one thing I miss is a key in the door to a place of my own.

Since summer 2008 I would have been lost without family support - thanks mum! I'd also be lost without Sue where I spend most of my time*: thanks to you too Sue!

Space to work in a consistent way though just isn't there presently. Yes, I know what this means. "You're NO genius!" If Drupal was going to happen, you'd make it happen: whatever!

The laser treatment last month worked fine: brilliant ;-) in fact. My poor left eye, is now my best. They didn't do the right, it wasn't as bad as they thought (suddenly though I notice the problem there too).

I'm really looking f/w to Sweden next month and Conceptual Spaces at Work. That trip's not about presenting - going to learn.

I've been watching SVG for many years and notice that the SVG Open series of conferences is changing its name to The Graphical Web.

Now if an investor needed a sign....

In between there's Drupalcon Munich.

 Wondering if I can justify going to Zurich in September?

*Drafted and posted in Tom and Jerry's!

Drupal ScienceCamp Cambridge 20-21st January & Thoughtworks 13th Feb.

Next month I'm looking f/w to *ThoughtWorks' Quarterly Technology Briefing:

Is programming language
choice a good thing?

Before that I've booked for Drupal ScienceCamp in two weeks. It's a drive as the trains are not straight forward.

While there I'll post and tweet through proceedings. Being a DrupalCamp the program is still to be finalised. Leeds last May was excellent, as was Manchester. There are a few names for Cambridge that I recognise which is great.


I've cleared 1GB of old stuff off the laptop, three years worth that includes Drupal modules.

Time to update, focus, make use of the whiteboard, find and maintain some impetus...

I gather the title for the Camp derives from the venue - Cambridge Science Park. If there was a scientific theme now that would be a bonus. *Trademarks acknowledged also.

2011 highlights ...

The highlight of the year was the trip to Colombia in February with a presentation, workshop and meeting with quite a few students and their Professor. Lovely people, a warm, very well organised welcome and assistance c/o Luz Stella Saray, Prof. Wilson Canon, Andrea Ramirez and Fred Manrique / UPTC and many others. Colombia is an amazing country even on a brief visit:

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/search/label/Colombia

It appears the conference link may have changed:
http://www.uptc.edu.co/eventos/2011/cong_enfermeria/index.html

There were two poster presentations: Health Literacy, Manchester in June and the CARDI conference last month in Dublin. The latest poster was a great improvement on June's effort thanks to Prof. Kernohan; and there's a paper to follow.

September brought The Difference that Makes a Difference held at the Open University, Milton Keynes, UK 7-9 Sept 2011. It was a great experience being able to contribute to an event outside of health and social care. Quite a change also to be on the panel and able to respond to a question or two. I find information a fascinating subject. I wish there had been time to respond to the call for papers (and another on health literacy) but there was not enough time. There's more besides posted here on W2tQ, Drupalcon London in August.

I wonder what 2012 will bring...? I've nine days leave left up to the end of March so will be packing the laptop to focus on Drupal up in the Lake District.

Sue and I have tickets for Leonardo at the National Gallery. I can't wait for this after last years visit to The British Museum exhibition Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance drawings

http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2010/05/nursing-art-and-science-fra-angelico-to.html

Next month it looks like I may be moving from Nursing Home Liaison to the Intermediate Support Team.

Thanks for your visit and interest.
Whatever else happens in 2012 I hope the wishes and dreams of individuals and Nations in search of peace and freedom come true. Remember+ChangeHappens2.
Best wishes to all!
PJ

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) eHealth Bulletin - December Issue

In this Issue:

ICN eHealth SAG Meeting
ICN Accredited Centres News
eHealth Programme Activities
Conference Presentations
eHealth Team Publications
ICN Website
Conference Announcements

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