Four domain link pages updated

The four links pages are still out there and recent interest prompted a review. Given the total number of links included, it is no surprise how url domains are taken over - vape, fitness... It felt good using a links checker and finding and deleting these 'broken' sites and some that are plain dead-ends: the 'domain for sale'. There may be a few more to sort in there...

The pages are archaic in terms of approach - they are not responsive but the format is fine on a desktop and should work on a tablet. The pages started in 1997-98, you don't do this now! People search in real-time for what they need. Besides not everyone may agree with the subjects I have included and the domain in which I have placed them? What is missing?

The intention is to indicate as with another resource the potential scope of Hodges' model in the knowledge and subjects that can be encompassed. I'm not sure of the longer term future of these pages, as I look to new hosting for Drupal.

Over the coming months I will emphasise research, TEL - technology enhanced learning, e-learning and Drupal resources.

Keen to reduce the maintenance overhead, two rows have been removed and categories moved about. As a result there are a couple of 'vacant' columns in there.

In the future I need to investigate the full ramifications of SEO search engine optimization. I receive many requests offering SEO services, and to add links. Given the demanding update task if I can add a few paid links this will help me fund conference travels and studies. ...

As I return to revising my latest essay I'll let you grab a drink and browse, enjoy...(?)

Intra-Interpersonal	Sciences
Sociology	Political

Two-day symposium ‘Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect’ 28-29 Nov. 2014

We are pleased to announce a two-day symposium ‘Concerning Relations: Sociologies of Conduct, Care and Affect’, 28/29 Nov. 2014, University of Exeter. The aim of this exciting international workshop is to bring together leading researchers, practitioners and scholars from care studies, sociology of health and illness, science and technology studies, humanities and philosophy to rethink care. We also plan to publish the results of the workshop.

This interdisciplinary symposium, funded by Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness (FSHI) and Exeter University, aims to interrogate the implications of shifting the focus of health care away from ‘delivery’ towards care as an ongoing everyday accomplishment. The situatedness of care relations and how situated care relations are practiced and experienced are vital to understanding the impacts care has upon patients, families and healthcare staff. This shift represents a contrasting view on care, from one that is predicated upon a discourse of absence (of care) or lack (of dignity) to the affective interactional relations between social actors. Such shifts of focus are of prime concern as care may be viewed less as a commodity which can be lost, saved, traded or withheld, but as a relation that is deeply embedded within institutional contexts, of individuals and the social worlds they inhabit.

This symposium examines spaces of collisions, elisions or alignments of social worlds, within which the affective dimension of social life in healthcare may be fruitfully examined. Drawing upon relational concerns as a distinct and distinctive mode of sociological inquiry, the symposium seeks to develop an understanding of care and its consequences that help us get beyond the economics of care as a commodified and managed form of engagement with the ‘other’. Making this shift has huge potential for addressing long-standing, global concerns around ‘cultures of poor care’ or ‘care as absence’, the seemingly intractable problems that are not readily amenable to a quick or even a slow fix.

The symposium examines how the fix, the cure, remains an issue of perspective. Central questions include:

• What if the ‘problem’ of caring in health care settings was viewed differently, how would the issues be seen through an affective, situated relational perspective, how would an affective orientation resolve or heighten long standing and seemingly intractable problems of institutional care?
• Is the demand for a cure (the fix) a manifestation of a broader political economy at work, is it a question of the mundane interaction order where contemporary modes of conduct reinforces distance, or is the organisational ‘cure’ simply a manifestation of organisational disease?
• Can materials, economies, institutional practices and modes of accounting contribute to poor clinical and managerial conduct and do such devices legitimate a focus away from the patient?

Rather than provide a critique with no visible solution, or provide a simplification of institutional mores, a more cogent question may be what or who is now being cared for. Once such questions of central importance to a relational sociology have been attended to, the case for re-imagining the organization of care as a situated accomplishment can be made, a case based upon sound sociological reasoning. This symposium challenges what it means to care.

The organizers would appreciate general information about your possible participation before 15.07.2014. Please reply to: m.schillmeier AT exeter.ac.uk

Kind regards

Michael Schillmeier (Exeter)
Joanna Latimer (Cardiff)
Paul White (Swansea)
Alexandra Hillman (Cardiff)
----------------------
Professor Michael Schillmeier
Schumpeter Fellow / VolkswagenStiftung
Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology
Centre for the Studies of Life Sciences
Byrne House
University of Exeter
Exeter EX4 4PJ

New Nuevo Neu
Eventful Bodies: The Cosmopolitics of Illness. Ashgate (forthcoming)

http://www.nanomedizin.soziologie.uni-muenchen.de

Psychiatric Bulletin - Letter: Psychiatry for medical students: need for a more holistic approach to teaching?

From: Psychiatric Bulletin -

http://pb.rcpsych.org/content/38/3/138.2.full

Kristina Rodney and Laura Wilkinson

Kristina Rodney and Laura Wilkinson are both ST4 medical students, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK, email:k.rodney AT newcastle.ac.uk.

We are two medical students who wish to offer a perspective on undergraduate education and psychiatry.

During our student placement, we attended the old age psychiatry module at the Northern Deanery MRCPsych programme focusing on dementia and ethics. This was aimed at trainees and not specifically medical students but we were surprised to find that this was not above our level of knowledge. This prompted discussion of undergraduate psychiatry training more broadly, which we felt focused too heavily on the diagnosis of mental illness and less so on the holistic approach to the patient and their presentation as covered by the MRCPsych course. From our experience of undergraduate psychiatry we feel that the assessment by means of a logbook of conditions encourages students to find patients with a certain diagnosis, and in doing so overlooks the true essence of psychiatry. To our mind this incorporates the ability to consider all aspects of a patient’s life and formulating these, while demonstrating compassion for another person at a time of most need.

Through choosing a 6-week placement in old age psychiatry we have been able to explore the specialty more thoroughly and broadly than facilitated within the standard undergraduate programme, and we have realised how little of psychiatry we have been exposed to as undergraduates. We have become more aware of the importance of considering the patient’s personal and social circumstances alongside their diagnosis, and how these can influence each other. Specifically, the importance of a sound ethical approach to practice has been highlighted through the higher-level teaching we experienced, where the Mental Capacity Act was discussed in detail.

We believe that it would benefit undergraduates to experience a more realistic and rounded placement in psychiatry and truly consider the social implications of mental illness. As it currently stands, undergraduate education in psychiatry is oversimplified to focus on diagnosis and does not acknowledge the capabilities of medical students to adopt a holistic approach. An opportunity to consider all aspects of a psychiatrist’s role may encourage more students to consider a career in this field.

<>

I have contacted the authors of this letter to inform them of Hodges' model and its scope in assuring holistic and integrated care. The model could also facilitate curriculum development. The authors of the letter are not endorsing Hodges' model, I am seeking to highlight the need for such a resource.

Thanks to:

Lucy Alexander
Rights and Permissions Manager
Royal College of Psychiatrists

Winter Exhibition at Wellcome Trust: Foreign Bodies, Common Ground

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

Art in Global Health: Reflections

The exhibition brings together artworks including painting, photography, sculpture, film and performance, made during residencies at medical research centres funded by the Wellcome Trust in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Thailand, Vietnam and the UK. The contributing artists were given a simple and wide-ranging brief: to find out about research being undertaken and produce work responding to their investigations. The result is a series of varied, moving and humorous works, recording journeys taken within the complex realm that lies between scientific processes and local communities, often on the frontlines of communicable diseases. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2013/WTP054754.htm

"Health issues are usually addressed by women because of their standing in society. The question is: how do we bring the  men into the picture?" Elson Kambalu

About Art in Global Health ‘Global health’ is a phrase we hear more and more frequently. As it attracts more attention it attracts more investment and more research. But what does it mean? ...

group - population

‘Foreign Bodies, Common Ground’ at Wellcome Collection


My source: FT Weekend Magazine

Call for papers: Social Robots: Form, Content, Critique - International Journal of Social Robotics

Dear Humanists,

With the usual apologies for duplications and request for cross-posting to suitable lists and potentially interested colleagues - on behalf of my co-editors:

Call for Papers: Social Robots: Form, Content, Critique
special issue of The International Journal of Social Robotics

Co-editors: Michaela Pfadenhauer (Karlsruhe University / Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Satomi Sugiyama (Franklin College, Switzerland), Charles Ess (University of Oslo).
 
We invite papers from scholars and researchers across the disciplines (including philosophy, robot ethics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, media/sociology, information science, art history) that examine and explore social robots through three distinct but inextricably interwoven frameworks:

• Form/appearance (e.g., human/animal likeness in appearance; everyday media forms and robotic functions; cultural attitudes toward robot forms, etc.)
• Content/AI/applications (e.g., implications of artificial intelligence in everyday human experiences such as memories, relationships, and conceptions of the self and self-understanding;  applications that shape human-robot interactions; applications of mobile media and their implications in human's robotic experiences, etc.)
• Critical issues that undergird the above, including; ethics, intimacy, emotions, authenticity, etc.

Paper submission deadline: 1 January 2014
Notification to authors: 1 March 2014
Submission of authors' revised papers: 1 May 2014
Final acceptance: 1 June 2014
(accepted papers will be immediately published at the IJSR webpage with a Digital Object Identifier for citation purposes)
Publication: August, 2014

The call is an outcome of the COST Strategic Workshop on Social Robotic and Sustainability that took place in Brussels, Belgium, on 10-13 June 2013.
http://www.cost.eu/events/socialrobotics

The online submission system is available at:
http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/
Authors are required to register on the website and to follow the Journal's Instructions for Authors' as provided there.

Many thanks in advance,

- Charles Ess
Professor in Media Studies
Department of Media and Communication
Director, Centre for Research on Media Innovations
http://www.hf.uio.no/imk/english/research/center/media-innovations/

My latest book, Digital Media Ethics, is now available from Polity:
http://www.politybooks.com/book.asp?ref=0745656056

University of Oslo
P.O. Box 1093 Blindern
NO-0317
Oslo Norway
email: charles.ess AT media.uio.no

My source: http://digitalhumanities.org/humanist

66,000+1 'cultural sensitivity, political correctness', or +0 real action ?

HUMANistic -------- RIGHTS

context: eradicating female genital mutilation

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

individual

psychological effects ...	physical effects ...
socialisation into ...? intergenerational practices expectations social change education norms need for 'cultural sensitivity' need for ACTION

group - population

Additional links:

C4 TV - The Cruel Cut: A passionate, exuberant exploration of the complex world of Female Genital Mutilation

BBC News: Health professionals must screen for genital mutilation

Image: Daughters of Eve

The Guardian: Report calls for female genital mutilation to be treated as child abuse

Symposium: Zero Tolerance: Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation
A Public Policy Exchange Symposium 13 November 2013 - Public Policy Exchange

Overview

It has been estimated that over 20,000 girls under the age of 15 are at risk of FGM in the UK each year, and that 66,000 women in the UK are living with the consequences of FGM. More than 1,700 victims were referred to specialist clinics in the last two years, with at least 70 women and girls as young as 7 seeking treatment every month. FGM has been a criminal offence in Britain since 1985; however, there has not been a single prosecution to date. Furthermore, since 2003, it has been illegal to aid or participate in arranging FGM to be performed on another person inside or outside Britain.

Evidence Network Newsletter [II]

I posted about this over two years ago. Here is a revisit, prompted by the arrival of the April Evidence Network e-Newsletter c/o Alan Gomersall at the Centre for Evidence & Policy, King’s College London:

Founded in 2001 as part of an ESRC-funded initiative, the Evidence Network is an information resource aimed at anyone concerned with evidence-informed policy and practice (EBPP) in the broad field of social and public policy.

You have to join but it is very worthwhile for those as noted above.

This issue includes an invitation for submissions to the Research Synthesis Methods Journal:

... Papers may address any aspect of research synthesis, including information retrieval aspects such as searching for studies to incorporate into evidence syntheses such as systematic reviews, health technology assessments and guidelines.

Papers on topics in fields such as the health and social sciences are welcome if they can also demonstrate relevance to general research synthesis.  Papers reporting the results of a particular research synthesis are not, however, appropriate unless the focus is exclusively on an innovative or instructive methodological feature.  To promote widespread dissemination that will enhance methodological innovation and synthesis practice, the articles in this journal must be accessible to a broad and interdisciplinary audience. ...

In addition there's a new website for The Alliance for Useful Evidence, systematic reviews, information for practice and much more across seven-eight pages.

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences & the scope of innovation

A prize that furthers progress in the life sciences is to be welcomed and the winners certainly lauded. Logic would dictate that The Life Sciences Breakthrough Prize and the funding behind it targets the hard sciences: biology, physics and chemistry and the vast and growing number of associated specialist disciplines.

'Life', however, as in living is more than a binary operation - as the FT Weekend editorial notes:

Those eureka ideas

... It would be good to see more daring choices in the future: those outside the well-trodden circuit of university departments and research institutions in the industrialised world.
Breakthroughs in life science go beyond the laboratory to interactions with patients, doctors, public health officials, drug companies and regulators. They should also tap into advances in information technology. ...

(Financial Times - FT Weekend, page 10, 9th - 10th March 2013)

Hodges' model 'Always Waiting' with Michael Kiwanuka

Seeing and listening with Hodges' model:

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

	Safety, 'Illness', ...?
LIFE HISTORY, several selves, ...?	LIBERTY ...?

Spaces that Speak*: Theatrum Mundi / The Global Street

Even as I search for extraterrestrials we are creatures of space.

The Agora in
400 BCE

Womb, swaddling clothes, crib, play pen, 'home', garden, neighbourhood, community, village, town, city...

Here on W2tQ cognitive and conceptual space is the focus. Hodges' model provides a space for individual or group reflection. In addition to providing a conceptual space the model can represent our physical spaces, our social spaces - incorporating the various means of denoting relationships be that social network, family - genogram, or community group.

As a unit of 'civilization' there should be civic spaces in villages, towns and cities.  This is frequently not a 'civil' space as might be envisaged in the political sense. In contemplating the health of the individual we must also see the group, the citizens and ultimately the global community. If in future individual's must assume greater responsibility for their health, through which space will that responsibility be communicated? Will the channel of choice be the 2nd, or 3rd household TV, the PC-laptop screen; smart phone or merely the Parliamentary debate?

Where is 'public space', where can women and children meet in safety, where can free speech be voiced, be heard? If the presence and stability of public space is not an indicator of 'public health' what is it? What is the impact of policy? When cars are removed from an inner town and the area pedestrianised does a public space follow - the people as they walk by(e)? Can philosophy break out of our pubs and into other public spaces?

The following initiative is centered upon only three cities Frankfurt, London and New York, but will hopefully provide some insights:

Theatrum Mundi / The Global Street 

- is a new urban forum. It seeks to understand what brings life to a city, particularly in its public places and asks how these might be better designed. It brings architects and town planners together with performing and visual artists to reimagine the public spaces of twenty-first century cities.

 
*and listen.

My source: Heathcote, E., Design. A breath of fresh air for public spaces. FT Weekend 27-28 October 2012. 4-5.

Image source: http://mkatz.web.wesleyan.edu/grk201/GRK201.Agora.400.html

Hodges' model: Lazy data, organisations and domain outreach (HSJ Ack.)

In the (northern) summer Dr Mark Davies (NHS Information Centre) noted that:

We have lots of data but it's lazy data. We have to make it work and turn it into actionable data - data we can do something with.

Interview: The hard data man's soft spot. Health Service Journal, 2 August, 2012. p.17.

There are many ways that we can put data to work. In the interview with HSJ Dr Davies also highlighted the common and not unexpected emphasis upon the organisational views of the world. Here in England in management the current preoccupation is the preparation for April 2013 of clinical commissioning groups. The NHS has an incredible resource in its data. Whether or not the volume involved qualifies as big data is debatable, but in the interview Dr Davies continues:

 Professionals have a duty to measure, to compare and open up their data to scrutiny. "We talk about the purchaser provider split," he says. "But I think that is the wrong purchaser and provider. It is the split between the tax payer and public services that is important. ..." p.17.

I've mapped this to Hodges' model below. You could say that taxation is POLITICAL and it clearly is, but it is also part of what is frequently termed the social contract. For me this is why Dr Davies' views matter.

Looking at the model we can also see the task ahead in the many ways (domains) in which data can be put to work.

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

PURPOSE	lazy data (inertia!) actionable data (information - knowledge)
public tax payers	ORGANISATIONS /                    \ PURCHASER  PROVIDER (citizens) public services

reVision Launch, 20th September 2012, Liverpool, UK

My source: MHHE list

Invitation to the Launch of reVision (formerly The Joint Forum)

We are a coalition of radical activists who believe in the social model of mental health.
We are seeking to be a voice for change by promoting and exploring knowledge and understandings of the social, economic and political causes of mental distress, and by proposing socially derived alternatives to medicalised approaches.

 Our vision is a society in which the social causes of mental distress are understood and treated with socially based solutions that improve individual lives and bring about wider social change.

We are launching our organisation on Thursday 20th on September 2012
At Liverpool John Moores University, Room 5.04, Avril Robarts, 79 Tithebarn Street,
Liverpool, L2 2ER from 1.00 to 4.00pm

We will be welcoming new members to the organisation at the launch, and are looking for people who seek radical alternatives to psychiatry and who have a critical, political understanding of the social causes of mental distress.

Our keynote speakers will be:

• Helen Spandler, member of Asylum and contributer to Critical Psychiatry
• Malcolm Kinney, Senior Lecturer in Mental Health Social Work: LJMU
• Phil O’Hare, Senior Lecturer: School of Social Work: UCLAN
• Naphtali Titus Chondol, mental health activist
• Jackie Patiniotis, freelance researcher with a particular interest in women’s mental health and working to end violence against women and girls

More info in the Who_we_are_looking_for PDF.

Please email revision.liverpool at hotmail.co.uk to confirm your attendance.

A research coordination network (RCN) for Digital Societies and Technologies

From: Wayne Lutters Date: 19 April 2012 20:02:13 GMT+01:00
To: "CHI-ANNOUNCEMENTS at LISTSERV.ACM.ORG"

Subject: Sociotech announcement

Hi All,

I'm happy to write that the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is now funding:  "A research coordination network (RCN) for Digital Societies and Technologies".  The focus of the RCN is towards community building for sociotech scholars. This initial funding for this Digital Societies and Technologies RCN will run through December, 2016 in  support of three broad efforts: (1) sociotech community building; (2) planning and piloting shared sociotech resources(heading towards a community cyberinfrastructure) and (3) expanding the breadth, depth, impact and visibility of sociotech scholarship.

The Digital Societies and Technologies RCN and the successful Consortium for the Science of Sociotechnical Systems (CSST) summer research institutes (http://sociotech.net/) serve a similar community of scholars. However, the summer research institute is not a part of the RCN effort - it remains both a vibrant activity and distinct from the RCN.

Beyond sharing the good news, we write to draw your attention to opportunities to participate in events supported by the Digital Societies and Technologies RCN.  Calls for participation in specific events and projects will begin being announced over the coming months and much of the RCN funding is to support workshops of various kinds.  We'll need your help to plan, organize, staff and participate in these!

Feel free to share this news with sociotech colleagues and others.

Sincerely, the RCN steering committee:

Steve Sawyer (PI) (Syracuse), Wayne Lutters (Co-PI) (UM-BC), Brian Butler (Co-PI) (UM-CP), Diane Bailey (Texas), Dan Cosley (Cornell), Tom Finholt (Michigan), Sean Goggins (Drexel) and Andrea Tapia (Penn State).