UK: Health Insights - how innovations support in health and care communities

Hi Peter We are delighted to introduce our new series of Health Insights. These free to attend events for healthcare professionals feature interactive round table activities, news on how the latest innovations support the health and care community, and best practice experiences from NHS Trust colleagues. CLICK HERE TO SEE NEW DATES AND LOCATIONS Starting in Leeds and Newbury this October and held in association with NHS England, each one day conference will feature: Digital Discovery Sessions - facilitated round tables exploring procurement issues An update from NHS England on Tech Funds and Open Source Programme Host Roy Lilley, popular Healthcare Broadcaster, with lively panel debates Speakers will include Rob Webster, CEO of NHS Confederation, Tim Straughan, Director of Health and Innovation at Leeds and Partners, and Clive Kay, Chief Executive of Bradford Teaching Hospitals. REGISTER FREE TODAY We hope to see you at your local Health Insights. Kind regards Samantha Phillips HIMSS UK

Budgeting for Public Involvement in Research

Dear Colleagues,

INVOLVE and the Mental Health Research Network teamed up to produce a new resource to help with budgeting for the costs of public involvement in research. It can be used for everything from putting together an involvement budget for an entire study to working out how much it will cost to run a one-off consultation event.

The first part of the resource is a guide which:

• provides practical advice on what costs are associated with involvement in research
• includes a step-by-step process for identifying the associated costs and planning the budget
• presents examples of research projects with well-developed budgets for involvement work
• contains tips, links to useful websites, and references.

The second part of the resource is an online ‘involvement cost calculator' to work out the costs for your research study.

Please forward this information to your colleagues and networks.

If you have any questions or queries about Budgeting for involvement please contact:

Thomas Kabir
MHRN Service Users in Research Coordinator
Email: thomas.kabir AT kcl.ac.uk
Tel: 0207 848 0609
To find out about INVOLVE visit www.invo.org.uk

To find out more about the Mental Health Research Network visit
www.mhrn.info

My source: Laura Gardner: Research Design Service North West’s e-mail list.

NW England: 25th Apr - Help shape the future of the NHS: calling all students and professionals MBITS

At a recent health 2.0 meeting in Manchester, Sophie Dawes spoke about an initiative and meeting this Thursday evening.
I can't attend but offered to help spread the word so ... if you are in the NW. 
Even if you are not 'local' is this something you could try...?

Medical Business Innovation & Technology Society (MBITS) is a new student society that will be hosting its launch event!

Title: Help shape the future of the NHS: calling all students and professionals

*FREE ENTRY AND FREE FOOD*

Tickets are LIMITED - sign up on eventbite for FREE and receive free entry into the Virgin Active prize draw.

http://mbits.eventbrite.co.uk/ Date: 25th April Time: Registration opens at 6.15pm, talks start at 6.30pm. Venue: Uni Place Theatre A In association with: Manchester Medical School, Professor Freemont and Professor Townsend
The DOH have stated that innovation will play a key part in the future of the NHS. Could you be the next inventor? Have an idea you need help to develop/problem you want to solve? Want to start your own biomedical/medical business? Come and meet with like-minded individuals that could help make this a reality.

This event is open to anyone with a passion to improve patient care, not just medics! The event will cover:

• The importance of innovation and business in healthcare
• The role of medical company spin-offs
• Effective leadership and management in the medical industry
• The innovation process
• What is Intellectual property?

We are delighted to have secured 6 fantastic speakers who have a wealth of knowledge in these areas:

1. Professor Townsend: (Associate Dean for Business Engagement in the Health Faculties) http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=9169
2. Professor Freemont: (Head of Manchester Medical School)
3. Dr Magee (Chief Operating Officer at MAHSC): http://www.mhs.manchester.ac.uk/staff/LindaMagee/
4. Dr Maughfling: (UMIP) http://umip.com/umip-employees/
5. Dr John New (MIMIT site miner) http://www.spirehealthcare.com/manchester/our-facilities-treatments-and-consultants/our-consultants/dr-john-new/ : covering MIMIT and the innovation process
6. Mr Bibhas Roy (Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon – who pioneered PROMs 2.0): http://www.cmft.nhs.uk/trafford-hospitals/our-services/orthopaedics/mr-bibhas-roy.aspx

This is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about this important topic and socialise with like-minded individuals.

• Free entry 
• Free food and drink 
• Great chance to network with other students and professional
• Certificate of attendance for portfolio

Don't miss out!

RCN 2nd live chat Friday 25th January Emergency Care on Twitter

EMERGENCY CARE is the topic of the RCN’s second live chat on Twitter, taking place this Friday.


Is the hospital model of delivering care still fit for purpose? Is the pressure on emergency care services reaching breaking point? What does the future hold?
Join @theRCN for a live discussion on Friday between 12.45 and 1.15pm, using #RCNchat


The RCN (theRCN) on Twitter
Instantly connect to what's most important to you.
Follow your friends, experts, favorite celebritie...

(My source: Stu Young; Facebook - Royal College of Nursing Students)

Peter Gärdenfors - "Actions and events modelled in conceptual spaces"

The Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology summer school. Barcelona, Spain

Friday, 14 September, 2012 - 09:30 to 11:00

Recording of the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Brain and Technology Summer School, September 2012.
"Actions and events are central to a semantics of natural language. I present a cognitively based model of these notions. After giving a general presentation of the theory of conceptual spaces, I suggest how the analysis of perceptual concepts can be extended to actions and events. First, I argue that action space can be analyzed in the same way as e.g. color space or shape space. The hypothesis is that the categorization of actions depends, to a large extent, on the perception of forces. In line with this, I describe an action as a pattern of forces. An action category is identified as a convex region of action space. I review some indirect evidence for this representation. Second, I represent an event as an interaction between a force vector and a result vector. Typically an agent performs an action – i.e., exerts a force – that changes the properties of the patient. Such a model of events is suitable for an analysis of the semantics of verbs. I compare the model to other related attempts from cognitive semantics."

Additional links:
http://www.ht.lu.se/o.o.i.s?id=21232&p=PeterGardenfors
Conceptual Spaces At Work - Conference May 2012

Related posts on W2tQ

DrupalCamp North West November 24-25 Manchester

If your are based in the North West of England, or can travel to Manchester there are plans for a DrupalCamp in November 24-25th at Media City Salford.

You can sign up for news - http://ow.ly/dvj8r.

For the next few months the North West Drupal User Group are having 'back to basics' sessions (Madlab, Manchester 1st Weds in the month). I'm really grateful to Phil who sorted VirtualBox and DrupalPro on my Macbook last Wednesday. I've been struggling with MAMP since Drupalcon in Munich, asking too much of the conference wifi and paying the price with 'MySQL server gone away' and PDO errors. DrupalPro is quite something behold.

Thanks to the NW gang, friends old and new. Before DrupalCamp there is also PHPNW 2012 to enjoy next month.

Ways of Seeing John Berger - Conference

5-8 September 2012
King’s College London, Strand, London WC2

2012 marks the 40th Anniversary of two of John Berger’s major works: the novel G, winner of the Booker and James Tait Black Memorial Prizes, and the collaborative, SFTA/BAFTA-winning BBC TV series and book Ways of Seeing.

In celebration, the Centre for Life-writing Research at King's College London, and the Department of English and Drama at the British Library - home, since 2009, to the major collection of Berger’s papers - are holding a series of events.

For full details of the programme, and to book, please visit our website:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/centres/lifewriting/berger/index.aspx  
Centre for Life-Writing ResearchAHRI - Arts & Humanities Research Institute

Room K1.26 | School of Arts and Humanities | King’s College London | Strand | WC2R 2LS |
e: life-writing at kcl.ac.uk | w: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/ahri/index.aspx

Olympic Torches, History and Nostalgia for the Light

I never got to see the Olympic torch procession,  although I crossed its path on a couple of occasions.

This for me has much significance    +

In Euxton, Lancashire and more recently I found myself ahead of the relay in Oxford.

I saw a torch at the Disability Awareness Day in Warrington.



A prized possession: a keepsake of a lifetime.


Image source: http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/9825966.Disability_Awareness_Day_marks_21st_event_with_Olympic_glow/


Over the weekend I went to see the film - Nostalgia for the Light. A documentary that is simultaneously challenging, troubling, poetic and beautiful. A journey through history in its multiple forms; astronomy, and archaeology - ancient and modern. The setting is the Atacama desert. The astronomers using various telescopes explore celestial bodies, taking advantage of the elevation and transparency of the sky. The extremely low humidity that also supports such observations also preserves human bodies. Not just those thousands of years old, but human bodies from more recent times. Those of Chile's "disappeared" those who have been found and those still lost to their families.

Skeletons abounded. Ancient mummies, more recent explorers and miners. I noticed how these skeletons can give up their secrets from belongings, clothing, identified by relatives.

How telescopes themselves are skeletized in their design to save weight, cost. Today the affluent can purchase a skeletized watch - to make a statement. Mechanism. To mark their personal history. History.

What legacy? What cost? 

Around the world : dictatorship.

The search of the few for the many against the sun and the turn of stars.

Light seeking light, seeking peace and a final release.

Reflections [III] Conceptual Spaces At Work: Lund University, Sweden, May 2012

The next session - Event Structure, Conceptual Spaces and the Semantics of Verbs Peter Gärdenfors, Massimo Warglien & Matthijs Westera, was presented by Peter Gärdenfors whose book Conceptual Spaces (2000) I bought in Sedbergh in 2008 (talk about serendipity!).

Just reading the title back then was enough...

There was a starter question: Why are there word classes (nouns, verbs, adverbs...)?

It became evident that first morning that conceptual space as a representational form is very much still in active development. The abstract begins:

The aim of this paper is to integrate spatial cognition with lexical semantics. We develop cognitive models of actions and events based on conceptual spaces and vectors on them. The models are then used to present a semantic theory of verbs. ...

Word classes were related (as in the book) to conceptual space elements, e.g.

nouns - categories
adjectives - properties

In addressing verbs this paper seeks a two-vector model of an event.

Agent (Force) -> Patient (Result)   - result verbs describe the change in the object.

The Professor said that cognitive and linguistic aspects are often confused. Two theses were also provided - thesis 2: single domain constraint.

In addition talk of several spaces might be troubling (adding complexity), but to me the prospects of action space, category space and physical space makes the potential for modelling more explicit and accessible to Hodges' model.

I scribbled down 'agent not always necessary (fall, growth?...)' and pondered about self-care, relatives acting as a proxy.

There was a lot of detail on language, linguistics: static verbs, intentional verbs -> physical action; telic verbs. ... Rather than feel (completely!) confused by this specialist talk, I felt enthused for what is to follow.

[HIFA2015] International Nurses Day, May 12 "Closing the gap: From evidence to action"

Dear Colleagues / collaborators,

Nurses worldwide under the umbrella of the International Council of Nurses celebrates the International Nurses Day yearly on May 12. This is to pay tribute to the millions of men and women who put their lives to the service of humanity, in accordance with convention 149 of the ILO (Nursing Personnel Convention) passed in 1997. This celebration however has not yet gained the recognition it should, for how can one explain the fact that this day may even go by unnoticed in some countries, or are we therefore saying it is not worth it and why is this day not even a public holiday like for other professional groups.

I find it hard to believe that until now on this forum no one could think of it, when the celebration is due in barely 36 hours. I understand the delicate nature of health jobs, but this should not be an excuse for not paying tribute where is it due. I know this day should be meant for reflection among nurses and seeking for ways to improve nursing services. This will not happen in isolation, for nurses need the political will and inter sectoral collaboration to do their job effectively, shape a better future for the next generation of nurses consonant with current stakes.

This year, nurses are deliberating on the theme 'closing the gap: From evidence to action'. This topic is quite elaborate and needs lots of considerations both within and without the influence of nurses. Understanding evidence-based practice, seeking for sources of evidence, making the appropriate case for change and moving from evidence to action is the cycle in which nurses hope to reflect as they celebrate this year. Nurses will need new skills and expertise to deal with their clients in today's changing and challenging health environment. This is why this forum is of vital importance and I will continue to thank the team behind it. Nursing training programs may be subject to revision, expanding the legal and professional limits of practice while maintaining strict regulatory sanctions. This increased autonomy will enable nurses take up new functions within the confines of their practice and help in meeting the health needs of our population and not acting as physician substitutes or mini-doctors.

Therefore, I wish all nurses a happy celebration, calling on them to use the very rich celebration kit from the ICN, easily downloadable from their website, www.icn.ch, and share among themselves in all settings where nurses live and work. It is our day and we should be happy and honoured for the services we offer to the six billion people on earth, since nurses form the bulk of health care providers and work in remote areas in all countries.

In Cameroon, thousands of nurses from all the ten regions, shall be meeting in the economic capital Douala between June 14 to 16, to brainstorm on the activities. This event is usually opened by the Minister of Public health or his representative, various scientific presentations, round table conferences and other important activities grace the event and concluded by a closing ceremony during which important decisions taken are communicated to participants.

Tita Pale Isa Ndognjem, BSc, RN
Public Relation officer, Cameroon Nurses Association
2012 Fellow, Commonwealth Nurses Federation
paleisa AT yahoo.com 

Additional link:

C149 Nursing Personnel Convention, 1977
Convention concerning Employment and Conditions of Work and Life of Nursing Personnel (Note: Date of coming into force: 11:07:1979.) 
My source: HIFA2015

Oxford Drupal 'Education' Camp 22 - 23 June 2012

I have booked a holiday for Friday 22 June because as their website announces -
 Oxford Drupal 'Education' Camp is happening!

Venue: St Catherine’s College, Oxford.

I'm hoping to meet people from other Drupal events and specifically from Drupalcamp Cambridge. Although Drupal is far from a dedicated educational platform - either for authoring materials and managing learners / learning - there are many contributed modules that can be adapted and extended.

One of the three papers mentioned last week will be published by an online journal in June. News of the other two must wait, one is an end-of-year prospect. Although an abstract and preparation for the ICN Congress (if accepted!) is a non trivial undertaking, further writing must fit in with future web developments. This Drupalcamp will help bring several threads together.

Virtual International Day of the Midwife - start 10.00 5th May New Zealand

Hello everyone

For those of you who do not know me, I am one of the facilitators of the Virtual International Day of the Midwife. This is a free online conference that runs for:

24 hours starting 10.00 5th May New Zealand. 

The conference is designed for midwives and anyone interested in birth. And if you cannot attend, we'll be recording the conference sessions for you to watch in your own time.

I am delighted to announce that the program for the conference is now confirmed: http://internationaldayofthemidwife.wikispaces.com/

Please go to the website above for all information, including how to access the web conference room that we'll be using, as well as practice sessions where you can get one-to-one help with setting up your technology.

You can also follow us on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/VirtualInternationalDayoftheMidwife
and Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/VIDofM

There is also a poster that you can download and print off, in order to advertise this event to your colleagues. Look forward to seeing you at the conference. If you have any queries about the program, or the technology, please let me know or leave a comment on our Facebook page.

regards Sarah
Sarah Stewart
EdD Student and Consultant
http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com
Skype: sarah.m.stewart
Twitter: SarahStewart

Rare Disease Day 2012 - reflections using h2cm

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

Is it ironic that ‘I’, this ‘self’ becomes an expert of my condition by virtue of it being rare? Is it also rare because so few must live with the emotional consequences? Yes, personalised medicine holds great promise, but please don't forget - me: this person : I don't want to be left here.	Being that expert I may even know the ICD-10 … codes for my condition. I know the symptoms very well. I know the 'current' evidence and may also be able to tell you about the gaps in the knowledge base.  My family physician learns with me. Supported by policy and united as a group what might citizen science deliver?
Your carer may be the expert because for you this rare disease means you cannot readily self-advocate. We all need to know we are not alone. If there is a role for social media here it is: "Rare but Strong Together"	For those people with rare diseases we have to help them unify in order to shout, wave and raise awareness. After all: WE seek global health don't we? Being rare is there investment in funding for research? Must there be a market first to bring forth drugs / treatments? We know about individual motivation, whither the corporate drive - social responsibility.

My prompt and thanks!: Stu Young, Royal College of Nursing Students