h2cm: philosophy of science - analytical AND dialectical Refinetti, R. (1989).

"For centuries, philosophers have discussed whether knowledge progresses analytically or dialectically. In the Cartesian tradition of starting with simple concepts and then building up more complex concepts [4], the idea of science as a gradual accumulation of small pieces of knowledge was put forward by Auguste Comte [5]. This constitutes an analytical view of the progress of knowledge. On the other hand, Hegel proposed that knowledge grows as a whole, so that contradictions between opposing ideas are solved (and disperse pieces of knowledge are integrated) at each stage of the dialectical progress of knowledge [6]. This constitutes a dialectical view of the progress of knowledge.

The partial correctness of both the analytical view of Comte and the dialectical view of Hegel have been acknowledged for many years. Wisdom from both views can be found in the writings of many contemporary philosophers of science." Refinetti, R. (1989) p.583.

.... and can also be found within the structure and potential content of the Health Care Domains Model. Goethe in his own way(s) of seeing recognised the same...


Refinetti, R. (1989). Information processing as a central issue in philosophy of science, Information Processing & Management, 25, 5, 583-584.

Personal realities and in the media

Ordinarily I would be completely lost in tonight's Horizon - What Is Reality? at 9pm BBC2. I will be watching, but I won't be as lost as I have been.

Today I took a big step forward - sorting 'issues' that will allow me to purchase a new home. I ('we') also resolved the post-marital issue of pensions. This has proved a major reality re-orientation factor since July 2008. There is the old house to sell, but nonetheless real progress.

I am really looking forward to the NW England Drupal meet in Manchester on Friday. That's another reality to immerse oneself in - especially Drupal 7!

Call for Maps: Mapping Science Exhibit, 7th Iteration on "Science Maps as Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries" (2011)

Background and Goals

The Places & Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit was created to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how to best track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale. It has two components: (1) physical exhibits enable the close inspection of high quality reproductions of maps for display at conferences and education centers and (2) the online counterpart (http://scimaps.org) provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of how these maps work.

Places & Spaces is a 10-year effort. Each year, 10 new maps are added, which will result in 100 maps total in 2014. Each iteration of the exhibit attempts to learn from the best examples of visualization design. To accomplish this goal, each iteration compares and contrasts four existing maps with six new maps of science. Themes for the different iterations/years are:

  * 1st Iteration (2005): The Power of Maps
  * 2nd Iteration (2006): The Power of Reference Systems
  * 3rd Iteration (2007): The Power of Forecasts
  * 4th Iteration (2008): Science Maps for Economic Decision Makers
  * 5th Iteration (2009): Science Maps for Science Policy Makers
  * 6th Iteration (2010): Science Maps for Scholars
  * 7th Iteration (2011): Science Maps as Visual Interfaces to Digital Libraries
  * 8th Iteration (2012): Science Maps for Kids
  * 9th Iteration (2013): Science Maps for Daily Science Forecasts
  * 10th Iteration (2014): Telling Lies With Science Maps

Places & Spaces was first shown at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers in April 2005. Since then, the physical exhibit has been displayed at more than 175 venues in over 15 countries, including eleven in Europe, plus Japan, China, Brazil, Canada, and the United States. A schedule of all display locations can be found at http://scimaps.org/exhibitions

Submission Details

The 7th iteration of the Mapping Science exhibit is devoted to science maps that serve as visual interfaces to digital libraries. These maps might communicate the

  * quality and coverage of data sets,
  * the structure (ontology, taxonomy, classification hierarchy) of data sets,
  * (semantic) linkages between data sets,
  * the evolution of a data set, or
  * access and usage patterns of data sets.

They are intended to support the navigation, management, and utilization of mankind’s scholarly knowledge and to make it more readily available to researchers, educators, industry, policy makers and/or the general public.

We invite maps that show a visual rendering of a dataset together with a legend, textual description, and acknowledgements as required to interpret the map. Science map dimensions can be abstract, geographical, or feature-based, but are typically richer than simple x, y plots. Scientific knowledge can be used to generate a reference system over which other data, e.g., funding opportunities or job openings, are overlaid or be projected onto another reference system, e.g., a map of the world, but must be prominently featured.
See http://scimaps.org/static/docs/all-maps-1-6.pdf for an overview of the 60 maps already featured in the exhibit.

Each initial entry must be submitted by Jan 30th, 2011 and needs to include:

  * Low resolution version of map
  * Title of work
  * Author(s) name, email address, affiliation, mailing address
  * Copyright holder (if different from authors)
  * Description of work: Scholarly needs addressed, data used, data analysis, visualization techniques applied, and main insights gained (100-300 words)
  * References to publications in which the map appeared
  * Links to related projects/works

Entries should be submitted via email to the curators of the exhibit: Katy Börne (katy at indiana.edu) and the exhibit designer Michael J. Stamper (mstamper at indiana.edu) using the email subject header “Mapping Science Entry”.

Please feel free to send any questions you might have regarding the judging process to Katy Börner (katy at indiana.edu). Please keep subject header (as used here).

This call - with additional details -  is also available at http://scimaps.org/call

h2cm = Bayesian Quarters?

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

The Bayesian approach allows human insight, subjective though it is, to be combined with statistical information, limited though it may be. It is not surprising that this blurring of the line between the methodologies of the sciences and the humanities has attracted passionate supporters as well as furious enemies on both sides of the cultural divide.

Von Baeyer (2003) p.79.

von Baeyer, H.C. (2003) Information: The New Language of Science, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.

Comets, holistic care and peripheral vision

Comet Hartley 2 is still bright and yet throughout its visit by Earth quite diffuse, so I have yet to try to find it with my binoculars. To effectively use binoculars, a telescope (or even a microscope) and enjoy the astronomical delights (especially as Councils save money and switch off street lights) it helps to develop your peripheral vision.

Nursing, medicine and social care calls for its own kind of peripheral vision. Peripheral vision that nonetheless enables us to really see. It is ironic that in order to see the big picture that includes the person, that allows us to coherently assess, plan, deliver and evaluate person-centred care we must look off-center.



Comet image source: http://maineastro.com/2010/10/binocular-comet-now-high-in-the-sky/

Naivety [I] ever unfolding : ever present - SCIENCES

naivety [naɪˈiːvtɪ], naiveté, naïveté [ˌnɑːiːvˈteɪ]n pl -ties, -tés

1. the state or quality of being naive; ingenuousness; simplicity

2. a naive act or statement

My source:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/naivety

There are times when we are all naive. It can be so embarrassing! When you realise, or more severely are made aware by others the abrupt learning is suddenly resolved. Within the bounds of the health career model, naivety can be found and is expressed in so many ways.

Hodges' model may appear naive in its simplicity, but behind that simplicity there are several assumptions. When you act as scribe, reader or doer you exercise the model's structure. You potentially demonstrate several levels of literacy.

If the health career model can represent most 'everything', then naivety should be no problem. So, if we visit each of the care domains in turn what can we find?

SCIENCES

I came across a post: 'We are all naive scientists' on The Financial Philosopher blog which includes this quote:

"It is clear, then, that the idea of a fixed method, or a fixed theory of rationality, rests on too naive a view of man and his social surroundings." ~ Paul Feyerabend

Regularly, I ask myself if I am naive in this particular domain. Am I right to assume that there are questions in nursing that can be answered (or at least reflected upon) using Hodges' model? Furthermore, can this use, this application be demonstrated in a scientific (evidenced) way?

Does experience of programming in BBC Basic as an enthusiast really help equip me now to get to grips with PHP, using Drupal and even Ruby?

Is information (and informatics) really the all encompassing Swiss army knife of a concept I take it to be?

The most extreme naivety here is not mine, however; it is as Feyerabend suggests the one that is in diagonal opposition. It is the scientific naivety of the masses in the social domain. Is this ignorance? In some cases, yes. But the tabloid (gutter) press shouts aloud when science gets it wrong; or, more accurately industrial porcesses based on science totally mess up.

The masses are not divorced from science. True, there was (still is?) a promised intimate relationship borne of equality and egalitarian ideals (education), but this naivety matures in real (social) time also known as life-chances. Its cost is not just red-faced, but illiteracy and exclusion at a time when literacy, inclusion and engagement are paramount.

The art and science of Serresian spin

To Michel Serres:
- the middle is a point of reflection, a point at which questions - the question - must be asked. In fulfilling the purposes of the health career model:

• bridging the theory - practice gap;
• facilitating holistic practice;
• supporting (personal and group) reflection;
• enabling curriculum development;

- the model's four domains are constantly (re-)visited in turn. Motion is constant. Conception - birth provides that initial impetus. Health status. Life - momentum. Centered on the person the movement is usually self-correcting, seeking balance. Health care. Questions and answers whether whole or in part follow, leaving a trail of care delivered and care planned. A record.

There is definite synergy between our use of the health career model, the dynamic quality and quantity of health and social care and Serres' description of the spinning top:

"The behaviour of the cone or the top is worth analysing. Throw this toy and describe, as Plato did, what happens. It is in movement, this is certain, yet it is stable. It even rests on its point or its pole, the more so as its movement is rapid. All children know this. But its rest is still more paradoxical. The top may move about, by translation, without ever losing its stability. To repeat, it can do so as long as it turns very quickly.


Even better, its axis may lean, take on an inclination, without putting the movement of the whole in too much danger. It may again rock, by nutation, oscillating around a mean location. This very ancient and quite childish machine is marvellously instructive.

First of all, it combines and the movements known and thinkable at the time: rotation, translation, fall, leaning and swaying. An integral model, additive, overcharged, yet simple. Second, and above all, it conjoins in a simple one-off experiment phenomena judged or presumed to be contradictory. It is in movement and rest, it turns and yet does not move, it rocks and is stable. The simplicity of a complexity, first and foremost, an additive machine; a synthesis of contradictions, beyond anything else. Now it may serve as a little model of the world, for a naive simple and local orrery. It quivers, at rest, it moves forward, turning, like the heavens, like the stars." p.28-29.

Michel Serres, (2000) The Birth of Physics, Return of the Model, Turba, turbo. Clinamen Press.


Image source: http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10002785/spinvox-or-someone-like-it-keeps-spinning/

ERCIM News "Computational Science/Scientific Computing - Simulation & Modelling for Research and Industry"

Dear ERCIM News Reader,

ERCIM News No. 81 has just been published at http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/

Special Theme:
"Computational Science/Scientific Computing -
Simulation & Modelling for Research and Industry

- coordinated by: Ulrich Trottenberg, Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing (SCAI), Germany, and Han La Poutré, CWI, The Netherlands

- featuring a keynote by Kostas Glinos, European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, Head of GEANT and e- Infrastructure Unit.

Next issue: July 2010

Special Theme: "Computational Biology" (see call for articles)

Thank you for your interest in ERCIM News.
Feel free to forward this message to others who might be interested.

Best regards,
Peter Kunz

<->

[PJ] This issue includes:

p. 44 A Computational Approach to Patient Flow Logistics in Hospitals by Anke Hutzschenreuter, Peter Bosman and Han La Poutré

p.48 Accurate Reconstruction of Single Individual Haplotypes for Personalized Medicine by Filippo Geraci and Marco Pellegrini

p.56 EXTRA Helps SMEs Assess their Knowledge Management Practices by Sanae Saadaoui and Frederic F. Monfils

p.57 The ACM Digital Library at the forefront of Semantic Technology by Stephanie Parker

Holistic interferometry

Since Galileo first pointed a telescope at the moon, the instrument has evolved with bigger lenses and mirrors. Despite additional advances in optics, physical constraints eventually prompted development in other directions. Rather than one optical or radio telescope, why not combine the inputs of several, tens, hundreds... ?

The health career model can act as an interferometer
for health across the care spectrum*.

We desperately need holistic interferometry for the personal, social, community (urban, rural and nomadic), national and global health care challenges we face.

* Which includes much of the electromagnetic.

Links:

Interferometry: Space.com

Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI)

Allen Telescope Array

SETI@home

Seti Inst.

LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory

Image source: Seti League
http://www.setileague.org/array2k/array2kb.jpg

L.A.S.E.R. - C.A.S.E.R

The LASER -

Light Amplification by the
Stimulated Emission of Radiation

In the Health Career Model, meet -

the CASER -

Care Awareness by the
Stimulated Emission of REFLECTION

Additional links:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/laser.htm

Image source:

http://opticsclub.engineering.ucdavis.edu/home_files/laser.jpg

Drugs, Policy and spent Energy

The ongoing controversy here in the UK over drugs policy amid the sacking of Prof. David Nutt - chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and since Friday the resignation of other members highlights the tension between the SCIENCES and POLITICS.

As a father, mental health nurse (and light imbiber of real ale and wine) all I know is that the government has been lobbied for decades by concerned groups over the risks of excessive alcohol consumption. With changes in alcohol licensing opening hours and pricing/tax it seems the government has the local town centres and community legislation it deserves.

Given the current spat you might think that within Hodges' model the SCIENCES and POLITICAL domains would be diametrically opposed? But no! There they are bosom buddies on the mechanistic side of the model.

Although the clue is in the title - advisory - as to the extent to which the government is bound to follow advice, the government's policy, advisory groups and policy should be in accord as far as the media and public are concerned.

Otherwise what price for evidence-based politics?

For individuals and communities alike we need order between the SCIENCES and POLITICS otherwise chaos reigns. Order does not just fall out of the tree. The issues here include at risk youngster's for whom exposure to cannabis might precipitate a psychotic episode; the granularity of a classification of drugs for legal purposes and that for clinical and social care. The debate is complex and takes work and energy on many levels. There are many dimensions to appreciate in this situation:


While very unfortunate, this is timely as I read Ben Goldacre's Bad Science.

You do have to worry about the position of
common sense.

There are other sources of heat already on the boil with many spillages to follow. These will arise from the friction of SCIENCE, climate change and policy. Ah bliss to live in interesting times. ...

Web can help elderly surfers slow dementia: The Sunday Times

From The Sunday Times
October 18, 2009
Web can help elderly surfers slow dementia

Ivy Bean

(Photo by Bob Collier)

Ivy Bean, who is 104 years old, is the UK's oldest Tweeter (IvyBean104) on the social networking site, Twitter.
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

GOOGLING is good for grandparents. Internet use can boost the brain activity of the elderly, potentially slowing or even reversing the age-related declines that can end in dementia, researchers have found. Using brain scans, they found the internet stimulated the mind more strongly than reading, and the effects continued long after an internet session had ended.

“We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function,” said Gary Small, professor of neuroscience and human behaviour at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In the research, Small and his colleagues worked with 24 men and women aged between 55 and 78. Half of them had used the internet a lot; the others had little experience.

At the start of the research, they were asked to conduct a series of internet searches while their brains were scanned using a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). This measures changes in blood flow around the brain to work out which parts are the most and least active. After the initial scan, participants went home and used the internet to carry out specified tasks for an hour a day at least seven times over the following fortnight. Then they had a second brain scan, again while searching the internet.

Small and his colleagues found the impacts began immediately, with the first scan demonstrating brain activity in regions controlling language, reading, memory and vision. By the time of the second scan, however, the activated areas had spread to include the frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus, areas known to be important in working memory and decision-making. The researchers suggest internet searching stimulates brain cells and pathways, making them more active.

“Searching online may be a simple form of brain exercise that might be employed to enhance cognition in older adults,” said Teena Moody, a UCLA researcher who co-wrote the report with Small. Moody believes internet searching challenges the brain more than reading because people need to perform several tasks at once. These include holding important information in their own memory while simultaneously assessing the information on screen and extracting the parts they want from graphics and words.

The research will be presented tomorrow at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, where the impacts of ageing on the brain are a big theme. It has long been known that as people age, their brain functions and abilities also change. In many respects these changes are beneficial — verbal and social skills tend to improve until at least late middle age, for example. In other areas there can be declines. One of the best known is mathematics, as shown by the number of mathematicians and physicists who do their best work early and then struggle to match their youthful performances.

It is only in recent years, however, that researchers have been able to use technologies such as fMRI to observe the brain in action and measure the changes that come with age. What they have found is that as people age, their brains undergo structural and functional changes, often including atrophy, reductions in cell activity and increases in deposits of insoluble protein. All of these can reduce cognitive function.

In Britain, for example, around 700,000 people suffer from dementia, a condition in which so much of the brain has died that function is severely impaired.

Small and Moody’s argument is that brains are similar to muscles, in that the more they are exercised, the healthier they become. So, activities such as internet use, reading and socialising can slow or reverse normal age-related declines. Small said: “Our most striking finding was that internet searching appears to engage a greater extent of neural circuitry that is not activated during reading.” Other neuroscientists support the idea of exercising the brain but question the benefit of spending too much time on the internet.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6879663.ece

My source: CI list thanks to Michael Gurstein (with additional editing and links)

Relative poverty (3) - sciences

[The introduction is repeated across these posts: intrapersonal, political, sociology]

There are many paradoxes in life and many of these are concentrated in the realm of health and medicine (a major sub-division of life and death).

For decades the link between poverty and standards and quality of health has been recognised and politicised in the media and policy. Just this past week was news of a Bill to make the eradication of child poverty a legal obligation not something that can be the political objective at the start of a Government and then cast aside.

Many things are relative and poverty is often described in this way applying to individuals, social classes, communities, regions and whole nations. Using the domains of Hodges' model what reflections does this prompt? Let us see:

SCIENCES: We tend to think of economics and the definition of poverty in materialistic and monetary terms. In this domain things become things. Processes and much more besides - people are objectified and commodified: prostitution, child labour, child soldiers, people trafficking - individuals as numbers at a certain time, certain place. The person reduced to a process - service.

On the sciences front in an explicit way our poverty of knowledge ('education, education, education') becomes apparent as we try to place value on the environment and not only our personal use, but national use of the green and blue. A new economics is indeed called for.

In the current 2009 Reith Lectures (closing lecture this week) Professor Michael Sandel presents A New Citizenship. Within these lectures Prof Sandel explains how fees change services, values and expectations with examples of child care and blood supply in health care. Organisations have to be aware of their assets with laptops, PCs and umpteen other pieces of equipment and resource possessed of their own unique ID.

Yes, according to my interpretation of Hodges' model the points raised here belong in the political domain, and yet we are so befuddled, intoxicated and to a certain extent deluded with the sciences, technology and material things (de-vices?) that in contemplating poverty we must extend the political realm. ...

From now on the public's attitude to science as individuals and families, communities and nations is going to be critical to change our understanding and more importantly our experience of poverty - material, relative or otherwise.

Image source: BBC

Additional links:

The Simonyi Professorship: hair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University

'Poverty' on W2tQ

Sciences care (knowledge) domain links resource

Political care (knowledge) domain links resource

European Science Foundation invites proposals for high-level research conferences to take place in 2011

The European Science Foundation invites scientists to submit proposals for high-level research conferences to take place in 2011 within the framework of its Research Conferences Scheme in the following scientific domains:

• Molecular Biology+
• Brain, Technology and Cognition
• Mathematics
• Physics/Biophysics and Environmental Sciences
• Social Sciences and Humanities

This appears to provide a golden opportunity for a creative and innovative group of academics to put a proposal together. Would it be timely to revisit:

• visualization in the humanities

Or, to boldly go and explore:

• conceptual frameworks for global health
• structures in conceptual space to support health and social care
  
• 21st Century models for health and social care*
• ....?

* That include public (mental) health and health promotion.

Nursing Times: Safety ytefaS :semiT gnisruN

This weeks Nursing Times includes an article by Liz Owen 'Improving compliance with the C. difficile root cause analysis tool' (2009). The piece includes a section that highlights* the importance of reflection, which together with action planning underpins the concept of root cause analysis (p.16).

There are three references in particular cited: Murphy (2002) in relation to the infection and prevention team giving leadership to staff committed to reducing health care associated infections (HCAI) rather than accepting sole responsibility for HCAI. This also entails capturing the 'hearts and minds' of staff (Shapiro, 2003) completing the root cause analysis tool (p.16). Amongst many interesting points - it was found that there were unexpected benefits too (Glanfield, 2003) notably - strengthened relationships and improved attitudes.

This reminds me of affordances in human-machine interfaces and the use of technology more generally. As Owen and others show whatever we call these unexpected outcomes they are by definition unexpected, or not readily accessible to our initial perception and reasoning. Owen found that clinical engagement and leadership proved central in this project. Is there a way to foresee more of the 'unexpected' whether barriers or benefits?

Before being able to engage with others we need to be aware and able to -

reflect on our own hearts and minds.

A coherent team with the inevitable chaotic-creative outliers that (just 1 or 2....) personalities bring might just help us see around the corners - an additional key asset to safety...

Murphy, D.M. (2002) From expert data collectors to interventionists: Changing the focus for infection control. American Journal of Infection Control; 30: 120-132.

Shapiro, A. (2003) Creating Contagious Commitment. Hillsborough, NC: Strategy Perspective.

Glanfield, P. (2003) Towards sustainable change and improvement. In: Pickering, S.P. (ed) Clinical Governance and Best Value. London: Churchill Livingstone.

Owen, L. (2009) Improving compliance with the C. difficile root cause analysis tool. Nursing Times; 105: 16, early online publication.

*even if that is just a subtitle?

Issue 2, 2009 of The Cochrane Library

Issue 2, 2009 of The Cochrane Library is now available. Among the new and updated Cochrane Reviews you will find :

• Homeopathic medicines for adverse effects of cancer treatments
• Music for stress and anxiety reduction in coronary heart disease patients
• Interventions for preventing falls in older people living in the community
• Extraction of primary (baby) teeth for unerupted palatally displaced permanent canine teeth in children
• Psychological therapies for the management of chronic pain
• Topical treatments for chronic plaque psoriasis
• Alcohol and drug screening of occupational drivers for preventing injury
• And many more … www.thecochranelibrary.com

Some of these reviews have been highlighted in Evidence Podcasts and are free to access.

Please see the Release Notes for a summary of the updates in this issue. Users can also access our Highlights PDF to learn more about the findings of new and updated Cochrane Reviews.
The Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions is now available in print format. It is published by John Wiley for The Cochrane Collaboration.

Editors: Julian P. T. Higgins MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK Sally Green Australasian Cochrane Centre, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

There is a 25% discount for Cochrane Review authors and an information page for the book where authors can also order, with a prompt to enter their discount code.

Wiley authors are entitled to a 25% discount not only on their own titles, but on all Wiley books, when ordering either via the site, by phoning customer services or filling in any printed order forms.

Sign up now for the Author Discount club by filling in the registration form. You will be sent a discount club card with a special promotion code printed on it. You will need this to order via on-line through the shopping cart (just type in the code in the discount information field) or through our customer services department.

Free Training and user guides:
Instructor-led virtual training sessions on The Cochrane Library. Self-paced online tutorials.

For User guides and Powerpoint presentations see the Help page on - Cochrane Library


Images and my source: John-Wiley mail-list

The Science Collaboration Framework (SCF)

My attention was drawn today (by Robert Douglas) to The Science Collaboration Framework (SCF) that is based on Drupal.

Here are some details from the SCF website:

About:

Interdisciplinary research programs at Harvard and elsewhere naturally tend to be distributed geographically, across campuses and departments. Effective collaboration for these programs requires the ability to bridge distance, which in turn implies digital collaboration, and therefore abilities to publish and discuss on-line content such as articles, news, and perspectives; to provide semantic context to on-line content for more powerful interactions within multiple sub-disciplines and to integrate as well as distinguish the individual contributions of many scientific workers.

The Scientific Collaboration Framework (SCF) is reusable software that can be used to develop web-based, collaborative, scientific communities. The framework is designed to support interdisciplinary scientists in publishing, annotating, sharing and discussing content such as articles, perspectives, interviews and news items, as well as assert personal biographies and research interests – the basics of any online community. These web materials can then be linked to external, heterogeneous knowledge repositories of life science resources such as genes, antibodies, cell-lines or model organisms. SCF, thus supports structured “Web 2.0” style community discourse amongst researchers, makes various data resources available to the collaborating scientist and captures the semantics of the relationship among the discourse and resources.

Our framework is based on Drupal – a popular content management system that is highly extensible and has a thriving ecosystem of contributed modules. SCF includes new modules for managing publications, interviews, member information, news items, announcements, and biological entities (e.g., genes). The framework is freely available as a Drupal distribution; however the modules can be used a la carte as well.

SCF is a project of the Initiative in Innovative Computing at Harvard University in collaboration with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. The first instance of SCF is being adopted by StemBook (stembook.org) – a comprehensive, open-access collection of original, peer-reviewed chapters covering topics related to Stem Cell Biology. A joint project with Michael J Fox Foundation (MJFF) to develop a community site for Parkinson's researchers is under development. SCF is also being evaluated by several other communities.

Publications:
Sudeshna Das, Tom Green, Louis Weitzman, Alister Lewis-Bowen & Tim Clark. Linked Data in a Scientific Collaboration Framework. 17th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2008), Beijing, China.

I am particularly interested in SCF since as noted above "the modules can be used a la carte as well." The potential of putting this together with the Drupal Education distribution is really exciting. I still believe that SVG (or similar) has a role to play for my plans. In the meantime though back to Drupal version 6.9....

Additional links:

Alzforum
R. Douglas at Drupal.org
WWW2009 Madrid

Good things come to those who wait...:

Being interested in astronomy I've used this theme in quite a few blog posts. Hodges' model cannot only act as a repository for a constellation of ideas - the model is up there in the constellations - in several forms including - The Southern Cross, Crux.

I thought about the Milky Way, but was disappointed about the scope for finding h2cm there on two counts:

1. we (and more especially our children) can hardly see the Milky Way such is the light pollution;
2. the Milky Way does not reflect Hodges' model - which axis would it be?

Then I realised:

One day, there will be two bands of star dust across the night sky:

Andromeda is heading our way

It just goes to show you... good things come to those who wait...

Image source: The Southern Cross

Additional links:

International Year of Astronomy

Kepler Star Wheel

The Times: Virus clue to cause of Alzheimer’s

From The Times
December 6, 2008

Virus clue to cause of Alzheimer’s

Cheap cold sore drugs could offer best treatment yet


Mark Henderson, Science Editor

The virus that causes cold sores may be one of the main causes of Alzheimer’s disease, according to research that suggests that existing drugs could be used to treat the most common form of dementia.

Compelling new evidence found by British scientists has implicated the cold sore virus, known as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1), in up to 60 per cent of Alzheimer’s cases.

Though the findings from the University of Manchester remain preliminary, they could transform scientific understanding of a brain disorder that affects more than 400,000 people in Britain, and open an entirely new approach to treating it.

...

Full article

Major research opportunity: Life Long Health and Wellbeing 2 (MRC)

From: "Peter Lansley"
Date: 12 November 2008 21:09:31 GMT
Subject: [Sparc-network] Major research opportunity announced -

Life Long Health and Wellbeing 2 MRC has just released a call for proposals to the second round of this cross-research council programme. It has a very different specification to the first round and many more organisations are involved. See the SPARC website for links to the call.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Peter Lansley BSc MSc PhD MCIOB FCOT
Director, SPARC
School of Construction Management and Engineering
Urban and Regional Studies Building, The University of Reading
Whiteknights, PO Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW, UK
T: +44 116 378 8202 E: p.r.lansley @ reading.ac.uk W: www.sparc.ac.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sparc-network mailing list
http://www.lists.rdg.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/sparc-network

Additional links:

SPARC: Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity

MRC: Medical Research Council