Modeling Outside the Box (MOTB) Workshop

(co-located with MODELS'13 in Miami, Florida, USA, September 30, 2013)

http://cserg0.site.uottawa.ca/modelingoutsidethebox2013

WHAT IS IT?
-----------
Through a series of creativity, lateral thinking, and brainstorming activities, the Modeling Outside the Box (MOTB) workshop will ask participants to think outside the box and imagine different, radical, innovative forms of model-driven engineering (MDE). Participants will be asked to leave behind all their preconceived notions of MDE and to approach the issue of MDE from a different angle. This will be a highly interactive workshop in which facilitators will use tried-and-tested methods for fostering creativity to generate fresh new ideas for MDE. The aim is to avoid the blinkered thinking and tunnel vision that is a natural consequence of any mature discipline. The outcomes will be new connections between people and, hopefully, new ideas that may lead to future research collaborations.

SOUNDS FUN. BUT IS IT FOR ME?
-----------------------------
We are looking for people who are willing to step outside their particular areas of expertise or interest and join with other positive-thinking individuals to imagine alternative futures for MDE. If you have been frustrated with the current state of MDE practice and want to change, then we want you!

SOUNDS LIKE ME. WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
-----------------------------------
We are asking all potential participants to fill in a short 2 page application form
  http://cserg0.site.uottawa.ca/motb13/MOTB13application.doc
and submit it in pdf format via EasyChair
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=motb2013.
The application form is just meant to ensure a diverse mix of people with a range of experiences are represented as creativity works best when there is diversity. In particular, we are aiming for a mix of senior people and junior people, including students. We encourage both academics and practitioners to join us. We will try our best to accept all applications.

SOUNDS INTERESTING. BUT WILL IT REALLY CHANGE ANYTHING?
-------------------------------------------------------
We cannot promise that the world will change if you come to this workshop.
We can promise that you will meet like-minded individuals, that you will get a chance to have proper conversations with them rather than just listening to presentations, and that your way of thinking will be challenged.

WHO IS BEHIND THIS?
-------------------
Your friendly organizers are Jon Whittle, Nelly Bencomo, and Gunter Mussbacher.
Feel free to contact them at modelingoutsidethebox2013-info@site.uottawa.ca
if you have any questions or just want more information.

PUBLICATION AND COMMITMENT
--------------------------
There will be no presentations or papers in workshop proceedings.
Furthermore, while MODELS’13 allows participants to move between workshops, this is not conducive to creative thinking. We therefore ask applicants to commit to spending the whole day with MOTB.

IMPORTANT DATES
---------------
Deadline for Application: Sunday, August 4, 2013, 23:59:59, Pago Pago, American Samoa time
Notification Sent to Participants: Monday, August 12, 2013
Workshop: Monday, September 30, 2013


I realise this is not models of nursing, and it is a workshop with a specific focus - MDE - it is also rather short notice. The appeal for me is the aims of the workshops and how it encourages a socio-technical approach. I'm sure that h2cm could inform proceedings. Thinking outside the box means you first must identify them.

Dem@Care Summer School on Ambient Assisted Living

Dem@Care SUMMER SCHOOL ON AMBIENT ASSISTED LIVING (DemAAL 2013)
16-20 September 2013, Chania, Crete, Greece
http://mklab.iti.gr/demaal2013/

We are pleased to announce the 1st Dem@Care summer school on Ambient Assisted Living. The DemAAL summer school is primarily intended for postgraduate (PhD or MSc) students, postdocs and researchers investigating clinical and technical aspects related to Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies for remote health management, ageing well and independent living. Leading researchers from academia and industry will cover theoretical and practical aspects pertinent to pervasive and ubiquitous computing technologies for Ambient Intelligence (AmI) applications, while special focus will be given on the role and opportunities of such technologies for dementia management.

Lecture material will be augmented with hands-on practical sessions. Participants will be provided with electronic versions of all programme lectures and all necessary tools and environments for the hands-on sessions. PC access with all tools pre-installed will be available on site as well. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to present their work and obtain feedback during a dedicated poster session intended to further facilitate interactions and the exchange of ideas.

TOPICS
=======
- Dementia and ICT for staging, enablement, and support
- Wearable and pervasive computing
- Sensor networks
- Sensor correlation and fusion
- Context modelling
- Activity monitoring and recognition
- Semantic Complex Event Processing
- Contextual reasoning in AmI
- Assistive technologies for cognitive support and well-being
- Video & voice-based analytics for symptomatic assessment of dementia

SPEAKERS
==========
- Assoc. Prof. Panagiotis Bamidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
- Prof. Jenny Benoit-Pineau (University of Bordeaux 1, France)
- Prof. Claudio Bettini (University of Milan, Italy)
- Dr. Antonis Bikakis (University College London, UK)
- Dr. Francois Bremond (INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France)
- Dr. Ceyhun Burak Akgül (Vistek Isra Vision)
- Prof. Cem Ersoy (Boğaziçi University, Turkey)
- Dr. Kate Irving-Lupton (Dublin City University, Ireland)
- Dr. Laura Klaming (Philips Research, The Netherlands)
- Prof. Chris Nugent (University of Ulster, UK)
- Assoc. Prof. Mounir Mokhtari (CNRS/Institut Mines-Telexom, France)
- Prof. Adrian Paschke (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
- Dr. Daniel Rogen (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
- Prof. Stefan Sävenstedt (Luleå University of Technology, Sweden)
- Prof. Alan Smeaton (Dublin City University, Ireland)
- Dr. Alex Sorin (IBM Research Haifa, Israel)
- Prof. Kåre Synnes (LTU, Sweden)
- Prof. Magda Tsolaki (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)

HOW TO APPLY
=============
Please visit and follow the instructions at http://mklab.iti.gr/demaal2013/registration. The deadline for applications is May 30th, 2013.
The summer school fee, including lectures, accommodation, meals and social events is 450 €.

VENUE
=======
The summer school will be held in Chania, Crete, a beautiful land brimming with natural beauty, history, and culture, at the Conference Center of MAICh. For more information about Chania, transportation and accommodation please visit http://mklab.iti.gr/demaal2013/venue.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE
======================
- Ceyhun Burak Akgül (Vistek Isra Vision)
- Stamatia Dasiopoulou (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas)
- Kate Irving (Dublin City University)
- Athina Kokonozi (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas)-
- Yiannis Kompatsiaris (Centre for Research and Technology Hellas)
- Erik Schuijers (Philips Research)

DTMD 2013 & Three different perspectives on a model

I am really looking forward to next week's the Difference That Makes a Difference an interdisciplinary workshop on Information: Space, Time, and Identity at the The Open University and the MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK. 

There's a session of instant interest to me as it refers to Peter Gärdenfors' work on conceptual spaces -

Session 1: Information and Space

Spacification: How to design and construct spaces
that can enhance artistic experiences

Ambjörn Naeve (KTH, Sweden) and Carl Smith (London Metropolitan University, UK)

Naeve and Smith provide a further reference:

A (conceptual) model is a description of the most important concepts and their respective relationships within a certain domain of interest. Whatever domain of interest that you focus on, your model will consist of (conceptually simplified) parts that interact with each other in some way. This leads to three different types of models:

1. The static model describes WHAT the (most important) parts are about.
2. The dynamic model describes HOW these parts interact with each other.
3. The intentional model describes WHY they display this behavior.

As we will see, these modeling types can often be mixed into a single model, and then these different types should be thought of more as “aspects” or “perspectives” of the model.

Ref: Ambjörn Naeve. 2011-01-31. A Modeling Primary on Methods and Techniques for Communicative Modeling and Disagreement Management. European Commission Seventh Framework Project (IST-257822).

BBC Horizon II: Processes - step this way ... safely

Following the BBC TV Horizon programme last night "How to Avoid Mistakes in Surgery" I came across the following list concerned with processes:

Sequential steps. Where one step follows another.

Alternative steps. Where conditional logic specifies which of several paths should be traversed.

Iterative steps. Where a single step is repeated multiple times.

Composite steps. Where steps are nested within other steps.

Optional steps. Where any one of a set of steps may be traversed, depending on the results of a boolean operation.

Checklist. Where all of a number of steps must be traversed, but in any order. p.126.

The list is related to software development and manufacturing as per the reference source below. Within informatics and project management I've noticed and written here about the emphasis placed on processes. Process, process and yet more - in one form or other. As A&E doctor Kevin Fong revealed people can get lost in a process (intubation), especially experts within organisational hierarchies - complex teams in urgent circumstances. In information system projects the need for a socio-technical perspective is essential, and is synonymous with due consideration of human factors. Processes are an essential ingredient to understanding the world and there's a huge literature on events, co-ordination, timing, logistics, value ... but as the Horizon programme pointed out there's also a need for reflection, stepping back, taking in or trying to grasp the big picture. Maintaining situation awareness is vital to assure safety and as the program showed in a crisis hindsight makes a blind spot visible. This is why process is one of four P's in Hodges model (the others - purpose, practice and policy). Processes count, but they are only part of the bigger picture.

The steps above are intended for software developers, but the descriptions throw up some points when subject to a more literal - human - interpretation (which might be a problem?).

The 'alternative' steps: could that mean skipping one in turn as in 'alternate'?

And crucially for the checklist are there any risks associated with its being completed in any order?

There is a world of difference between programming methods and logic on the one hand; and human language and dialogue on the other.

Fayad, M.E., Johnson, R.E. (Editors). (2000). Domain-Specific Application Frameworks: Frameworks Experience by Industry. Wiley. p.126.

Papers, case formulation and hyperbole

I am enjoying a three night break in Keswick where it is dry, windy and chilly. Invigorating for all that.

In between taking in the hills and the atmospherics of the skies I am working on completing the revision to the - scope of nursing - paper. There is still a paragraph to lose to reduce the length for the target journal.

The case formulation and h2cm paper is taking shape too - 5,000 words. I am sure the ongoing advice and thoughts of my co-author on the scope effort is making a difference. As a result the case formulation paper will be in final draft form soon. Then I'll seek some feedback from a CBT therapist before trying to locate a journalistic home. Here's a snippet from the draft:

... If the talking therapies are specialised forms of conversation then we should also be able see case formulation as being on a continuum, derived from narratives that can include extreme case formulation, and hyperbole (Norrick, 2004). The specific therapies discussed here [cognitive behavioural therapy and cognitive analytical therapy] are concerned with overstatement and exaggeration in thought not just speech. Things may be said in everyday speech that are rhetorical and not necessarily indicative of deeply held core, dysfunctional beliefs. ...

Norrick, N.R. (2004). Hyperbole, extreme case formulation. Journal of Pragmatics 36. 1727–1739.

I receive regular reminders about a part time PhD application that remains incomplete. So I will address this too (and check other opportunities) over the next few days.

Post on a new laptop and a socio-technical-existential addiction to follow ....

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

International Workshop on Knowledge Representation for Health Care (KRH4C'13) & Process-oriented Information Systems in Healthcare (ProHealth’13)

Call for Papers

5^th International Workshop on Knowledge Representation for Health Care (KRH4C'13)

+

6^th International Workshop on Process-oriented Information Systems in Healthcare (ProHealth’13)

Organized as One Full Day Workshop

Acronym: KR4HC’13 / ProHealth’13

Murcia, Spain –  June 1^st, 2013

In conjunction with the 14th Conference on
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME'13)

Web site: http://banzai-deim.urv.net/events/KR4HC-ProHealth-2013/

Important Dates

Deadline for workshop paper submissions: 8 March 2013
Notification of Acceptance: 9 April 2013
Camera-ready version: 7 May 2013
KR4HC/ProHealth Workshop: 1 June 2013

Workshop Goals

Healthcare organizations are facing the challenge of delivering high quality services to their patients at affordable costs. These challenges become more prominent with the growth in the aging population with chronic diseases and the rise of healthcare costs. High degree of specialization of medical disciplines, huge amounts of medical knowledge and patient data to be consulted in order to provide evidence-based recommendations, and the need for personalized healthcare are prevalent trends in this information-intensive domain. The emerging situation necessitates computer-based support of healthcare process & knowledge management as well as clinical decision-making.

This workshop brings together researchers from two communities who have been addressing these challenges from two different perspectives. The knowledge-representation for healthcare community, which is part of the larger medical informatics community, has been focusing on knowledge representation and reasoning to support knowledge management and clinical decision-making. This community has been developing efficient representations, technologies, and tools for integrating all the important elements that health care providers work with: Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and healthcare information systems, clinical practice guidelines, and standardized medical vocabularies. The process-oriented information systems in healthcare community, which is part of the larger business process management (BPM) community, has been studying ways to adopt BPM technology in order to provide effective solutions for healthcare process management. BPM technology has been successfully used in other sectors for establishing process-aware enterprise information systems (vs. collections of stand-alone systems for different departments in the organization). Adopting BPM technology in the healthcare sector is starting to address some of the unique characteristics of healthcare processes, including their high degree of flexibility, the integration with EMRs and shared semantics of healthcare domain concepts, and the need for tight cooperation and communication among medical care teams.

This joint workshop brings together two approaches: healthcare process support, as addressed in previous ProHealth workshops, and healthcare knowledge representation as dealt with in previous KR4HC workshops. The workshop shall elaborate both the potential and the limitations of the two approaches for supporting healthcare process & healthcare knowledge management as well as clinical decision-making. It shall further provide a forum wherein challenges, paradigms, and tools for optimized knowledge-based clinical process support can be debated. We want to bring together researchers and practitioners from these different, yet similar fields to improve the understanding of domain specific requirements, methods and theories, tools and techniques, and the gaps between IT support and healthcare processes yet to be closed. This forum also provides an opportunity to explore how the approaches from the two communities could be better integrated.

History of the Joint Workshop 

Providing computer-based support in healthcare is a topic that has been picking up speed for more than two decades. We are witnessing a plethora of different workshops devoted to various topics involving computer applications for healthcare. Our goal has been to try to join forces with other communities in order to learn from each other, advance science, and create a stronger and larger community. In 2012, the two workshops, KR4HC and ProHealth held a joint workshop, which proved to be very successful. This year, we are aiming to continue the collaboration initiative and hold another joint workshop.

The two workshops have quite a long history, as briefly described below.

The first KR4HC workshop, held in conjunction with the 12th Artificial Intelligence in Medicine conference (AIME'09), brought together members of two existing communities: the clinical guidelines and protocols community, who held a line of four workshops (European Workshop on Computerized Guidelines and Protocols (CPG'2000, CPG'2004); AI Techniques in Health Care: Evidence-based Guidelines and Protocols 2006; Computer-based Clinical Guidelines and Protocols 2008) and a related community who held a series of three workshops / special tracks devoted to the formalization, organization, and deployment of procedural knowledge in healthcare (CBMS’07 Special Track on Machine Learning and Management of Health Care Procedural Knowledge 2007; From Medical Knowledge to Global Health Care 2007; Knowledge Management for Health Care Procedures 2008). Since then, two more KR4HC workshops have been held, in conjunction with the ECAI’10 and the AIME’11 conferences.

The first ProHealth workshop took place in the context of the 5th Int’l Conference on Business Process Management (BPM) in 2007. The next three ProHealth Workshops were also held in conjunction with BPM conferences (BPM'08, BPM’09, and BPM’11). The aim of ProHealth has been to bring together researchers from the BPM and the Medical Informatics communities. As the workshop was associated with the BPM conference that had never been attended by researchers from the Medical Informatics community, we had included Medical Informatics researchers as keynote speakers of the workshop, members of the program committee, and to our delight, saw a number of researchers from the Medical Informatics community actively participating in ProHealth workshops. Following the keynote talk given by Manfred Reichert from the BPM community at the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine 2011 (AIME’11) conference, where KR4HC was held, the organizers of ProHealth and KR4HC workshops have shown their interest to hold their workshops in conjunction as part of the BPM'12 conference, which marks a landmark in the collaboration between the two communities. We are continuing the efforts that started four years ago by members of the Software Engineering in Health Care (SEHC) community to strengthen the collaboration between the ProHealth and SEHC communities.

Workshop Theme

Original contributions are sought, regarding the development of theory, techniques, and use cases of Artificial Intelligence and / or process management in the area of healthcare, particularly connected to patient data, clinical guidelines and healthcare processes.

Submitted papers will be evaluated on the basis of significance, originality, technical quality, and exposition. Papers should clearly establish their research contribution and the relation to the goals of the workshop. The scope of the workshop includes, but is not limited to the following areas:

• Process modeling in healthcare
• Computer-interpretable clinical guidelines / protocols and decision support
• Workflow management in healthcare
• Semantic integration of healthcare processes with electronic medical records
• Knowledge representation and ontologies for healthcare processes
• Temporal knowledge representations and exploitation
• Facilitating knowledge-acquisition of healthcare processes
• Visualization, monitoring and mining healthcare processes
• Knowledge extraction from healthcare databases and EPRs
• Knowledge combination, personalization and adaptation of healthcare processes
• Compliance of healthcare processes
• Evaluation of quality and safety of careflow systems
• Managing flexibility and exceptions in healthcare processes
• Process optimization and simulation in healthcare organizations and healthcare networks
• Experiences in deploying knowledge-based tools in healthcare
• Patient empowerment in healthcare
• Linking clinical care and clinical research
• Lifecycle management for healthcare processes
• Context-aware healthcare processes
• Ambient intelligence & smart processes in healthcare
• Mobile process support in healthcare
• Process interoperability & standards in healthcare
• Process-oriented system architectures in healthcare

Format of the Workshop

The 1-day workshop will comprise accepted long and short papers, tool presentations, and 1 keynote. Papers should be submitted in advance and will be reviewed by at least three members of the program committee. An informal proceedings will be available during the workshop. At least one author for each accepted paper should register for the workshop and present the paper. The selected best long (full) papers will be included in the formal proceedings, which are expected to be published as part of the LNAI Springer series, as it was done in all previous editions of the workshop.

Paper Submission

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers for presentation in any of the areas listed above. Only papers in English will be accepted. Three types of submissions are possible: (1) full papers (12 pages long) reporting mature research results, (2) position papers reporting research that may be in preliminary stage not yet been evaluated, and (3) tool reports. Position papers and tool reports should be no longer than 6 pages. Papers must present original research contributions not concurrently submitted elsewhere.
Papers should be submitted in the LNCS format. The title page must contain a short abstract, a classification of the topics covered, preferably using the list of topics above, and an indication of the submission category (regular paper, position paper, or tool report). Papers (in PDF format) should be submitted electronically via the Easychair system

https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=kr4hcprohealth2013.

Gestalt, patterns and models: pressing buttons

The three recent events have all in different ways emphasized the role of patterns.

Patterns were there at the Drupal Education Camp, then the Visual Methodologies Workshop and the Scottish Ruby Conference.

There is a lot of very informative content in .net magazine. In the two most recent issues a single page has proved a great help (Buttons gestalt, .net August 2012, p.74) and in the current issue (.net Summer 2012) page 72.

Gene Crawford notes that gestalt in graphic design refers to how a person will recognise and react to an element of something we've designed. Buttons are discussed as an essential part of any design. Crawford points out how a button is the end point in submitting a form, completing an action, or transaction of some form.

A button has to fit in with an overall design - so that as an individual element it shouts out its function, its potential; whether or not that potential is realised.

In case of a medical emergency there is only one button to press: that which activates emergency procedures.

When we are concerned to deliver health and social care the button we should press is: Hodges' model. This is a compound operation. One press activates four (five) buttons: four care domains. This is the umbilicus, not just the nexus, the physical 'belly' button, but the mind, the social, political and spiritual.

For holistic, reflective and integrated care viewing h2cm as a button begs we contemplate the potential that lies beneath. Beneath in the sense of what follows after the button is activated. This is precisely Gene's focus in the summer 2012 issue of .net Mental Models on page 72.

He points to a book: Mental Models Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behaviour, which I also learned of from a lady staying in Lund at the same B&B. Here the thought processes of a visitor to a web site are central. I have some old content - archive material, but vital and still central to understanding and the history of h2cm. How are visitors to navigate their way to find original content, what mental model do they bring even before they seek out menus and buttons. What expectations will they associate with the words and vocabulary of the website: Hodges' model, conceptual framework, structure, content, and conceptual spaces?

I often think of h2cm as a care (information) architecture and Crawford notes the need for empathy with users as a website is designed. So, closer than ever these worlds: nursing and websites. ...

New: NHS Change Model

The NHS has a new model to help deliver change, a critical objective over the months and years as new commissioning arrangements are also implemented. The introduction below is from the website, from where the components of the model are also explained following registration and this is a chat forum:

Welcome to the NHS Change Model

The model has been created to support the NHS to adopt a shared approach to leading change and transformation.  We hope to build this website further and add practical information, tools and support over the coming months.  Please tell us what you think to help us shape this model and the ongoing future work using the chat room facility.

Why do we need a change model?
Building on what we collectively know about successful change the ‘NHS Change Model’ has been developed with hundreds of our senior leaders, clinicians, commissioners, providers and improvement activists who want to get involved in building the energy for change across the NHS by adopting a systematic and sustainable approach to improving quality of care.  

What does the model do?

The model brings together collective improvement knowledge and experience from across the NHS into eight key components. Through applying all eight components change can happen. This means no matter whom or wherever you are in the NHS you can use the approach to fit your own context as a way of making sense at every level of the ‘how and why’ for delivering improvement, to consistently make a bigger difference.

NHS Change Model

Health Care - drawing lines

Multidisciplinary care

Original image source:
http://www.jointline-group.co.uk/councils.php

Scope, Space, Nursing, Informatics: Fusion II (care)

After Paolo Perrotta (see post January 20, 2012):

and Paolo Perrotta, (2010). Metaprogramming Ruby, The Pragmatic Bookshelf. p.75.


Imagine being a care coordinator making sense and sense making (Dervin, 2005) your way through a new health and social care referral: here is the care program(me) approach. You jump from care problem, to strength, to further assessment question ... until the care domain priority is resolved. A decision point. That's the initial scope (and in an urgent / crisis situation this is resolved in an instant).

The scope is not defined in a single program, but several in parallel. This is why health and social care is often described as complex. You find yourself in a complex. At this decision point you are at the center of a range of local variables.

You can see bindings all over the scope. p.75.

There are assumptions, hypotheses and bits of data yet to be fully apprehended. It's hard but vital to be aware of what is objective and what is subjective. Why?

Raise your head, and you see that you're standing within an object,

[ a very special object ]

with its own methods and instance variables; that's the current object, also known as self. p.75.

To your immediate left and forward there are instance variables: beliefs, choices, motivation, aspirations, memories ... and the unique ability of this self to use its methods to communicate and interact with other selves, the world and future. You notice a problem. Many of the methods you might expect are not intact. There is a problem with the capacity of memory. Where there should be several parameters in sequence: there is. One. This may even then be lacking. Reading and writing is a problem here.

To the right and forward there is a monthly weight chart, a medication administration chart, BP and pulse are also recorded. There is a history of falls, a fractured femur, and bruising. There is a diagnosis - an inguinal hernia. Two postcodes have you momentarily perplexed. Ah, one is static 'home'; the other is current location and that's a close to home telecare mediated match.
 
Turning first to your right and over your shoulder there is an issue with care management and wandering at night: a vulnerability for this person. Another instance variable then flags mental capacity for a that hernia which needs repair. Respite care vouchers have been issued, but the year's allocation remain unused.

Next, turning around to your left there are details of next of kin and the fact that the carer involved is under a great deal of stress.

Further away, you see the tree of constants so clear that you could mark your current position on a map. p.75.

You are in fact encircled by a series of official identifiers. First at 10 o'clock two first names - these are the names that are given. The names for the person, the individual who is the focus of the referral. At two o'clock a key event for this individual their DOB - date of birth. At four o'clock the digits of the NHS number and a local case record number are captured. Completing the "Full name" at 8 o'clock you find a surname, the family name. It's double-barreled too. An explicit effort to preserve and extend family history and lineage.

Squint your eyes, and you can even see a bunch of global variables off in the distance. p.75.

Global variables.

What lies behind them?

It sounds strange to describe the person as an object, even if the context alludes to informatics.
To confirm this object is special. When you think about it though this object, the patient, the person, the individual, this self has a partner: the healthcare professional.

When we say that positive, high quality care values are global that makes sense. They should be: globally. To say they are variable seems to invite poor quality care, slack standards, inequality, inequity. Acknowledging that standards do vary can help ensure vigilance and that high quality care remains the key aspiration for new learners and experts alike. Nursing and other values are then a global variable that need constant attention and governance.

Scope, Space, Nursing, Informatics: Fusion I

Paolo Perrotta writes:

Imagine being a little debugger making your way through a Ruby program. You jump from statement to statement until you finally hit a breakpoint. Now, catch your breath and look around. See the scenery around you? That's your scope.

You can see bindings all over the scope. Look down at your feet, and you see a bunch of local variables. Raise your head, and you see that you're standing within an object, with its own methods and instance variables; that's the current object, also known as self. Further away, you see the tree of constants so clear that you could mark your current position on a map. Squint your eyes, and you can even see a bunch of global variables off in the distance. p.75.

Paolo Perrotta, (2010). Metaprogramming Ruby, The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

Drupalcon London (revisited) Entities & Omega

I mentioned these two Drupalcon 2011 sessions in summer posts and thought they are well worth  revisiting. The first concerns adaptive, responsive design and the Omega theme with Jake Strawn:

Omega keeps cropping up previous Drupalcons, in May at Drupalcamp in Leeds and Wednesday night at NWDUG in Manchester. What is Omega? Here is the intro to this (Drupal) project:

Omega - Responsive HTML5 Base Theme

The Omega Drupal 7 Base Theme is a highly configurable HTML5/960 grid base theme that is 100% configurable. Each zone (group of regions) can be configured for content first layouts (push/pull classes), hidden at any time and each region can be disabled, resized, and placed easily any way you see fit.

The theme appears fairly complex, but there is a lot of effort in developing the theme and tools to support it. Not unique to Omega but there's a way to have some pages with a different format according to context with alternate layout in terms of columns, zones, regions. ... The thought of working with columns seems constraining and yet reading and other sessions on the history of the printed page show how fundamental grids remain to design including the web.

A site that can respond and adapt the viewport to the device it is being viewed on is a must have. Central to design choices, there are fonts too. I notice this past week BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week has featured Just My Type by Simon Garfield and there are still a couple of days to listen to the episodes.

Another topic that keeps coming up is Entities, presented in August by Ronald Ashri:



The video and my notes from Drupalcon London remind me of being really switched on by this module, both in itself and with my requirements in mind.

In addition to the astronomical reference, Eric Evans's book Domain-Driven Design has an excellent figure that helps explain the scope and use of entities. I'll see if I can capture this at some point.

The astrolabe, programming and big pictures

The astrolabe was a
mechanical implementation of
an object-orientation
model of the sky. p.47.

Eric Evans, (2009). Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software, Model-Driven Design. Addison-Wesley.


Image source: http://planetariubm.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/femei-celebre-in-istoria-astronomiei-1/