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Next-Generation Healthcare: Digital Twin Technology and Monkeypox Skin Lesion Detector Network Enhancing Monkeypox Detection - Comparison with Pre-trained Models
Get PDFThe rise of digital healthcare has led to the adoption of various technologies aimed at enhancing health operations, patient well-being, and healthcare costs. Digital Twin (DT) technology is a pivotal innovation in this domain. Monkeypox virus (MPXV), a zoonotic virus, poses a significant public health risk, particularly in remote regions of Central and West Africa. Early diagnosis of monkeypox lesions is crucial but challenging due to similarities with other skin conditions. Many studies have employed deep-learning models to detect the monkeypox virus. However, those models often require substantial storage space. This research introduces the Monkeypox Skin Lesion Detector Network (MxSLDNet), an automated digital twin framework designed to enhance digital healthcare operations by enabling early detection and classification of monkeypox and non-monkeypox lesions. Monkeypox Skin Lesion Detector Network (MxSLDNet) significantly advances monkeypox lesion identification, outperforming conventional models like Visual Geometry Group 19 (VGG-19), Densely Connected Network 121 (DenseNet-121), Efficient Network B4 (EfficientNet-B4) and Residual Network 101 (ResNet-101) regarding precision, recall, F1-score, and accuracy, while requiring less storage. This innovation addresses the critical issue of storage demands, making the Monkeypox Skin Lesion Detector Network (MxSLDNet) a viable solution for early monkeypox lesion detection in resource-limited healthcare settings. Utilizing the “Monkeypox Skin Lesion Dataset” with 1428 monkeypox and 1764 non-monkeypox images, Monkeypox Skin Lesion Detector Network (MxSLDNet) achieves high recall, precision, and F1-scores of 0.96, 0.95, and 0.95, respectively. Integrating digital twins into healthcare promises to create a scalable, intelligent, and comprehensive health ecosystem, enhancing treatments by connecting patients and healthcare providers
‘Hang on, why am I editing my photos?’ Disrupting the virtual gaze through selfie-editing workshops
Get PDFThis article presents findings from a qualitative study which aimed to provide some of the first detailed accounts of how young people use selfie-editing apps, and the implications for young people’s embodiment, body concerns, and wellbeing. In particular, the article discusses the methodology and method of selfie-editing workshops as a way of studying the actual practice and meanings associated with editing in ‘real time’ with small groups of young people, that can also work to unsettle the normalisation of a ‘forensic gaze’ (Lavrence and Cambre 2019). Participants described how the process of editing ‘out loud’ altered their understanding and experience of editing. Some registered a new sense of ‘strangeness’ about their self-talk while editing. Others described the method as assisting them to feel a sense of solidarity and unity with others: ‘I’m not alone’. Other examples showed how the process of editing alongside someone else helped them to see how critical others are of themselves, and to interrupt their own critical reading of their ‘flaws’ while editing: ‘I don’t see what you see’. Overall, through aspects of the workshop’s collaborative processes, including collective discussion and analysis, the selfie editing workshop method indicated possibilities of interrupting the silent, closed loop of identifying ‘flaws’, then resolving them through ‘correction’, again and again. This method, we suggest, could thus open up the individualising impacts associated with selfie editing, which is usually viewed as a pathologized or risky practice harmful to body image and self esteem for young people
Days Are as Grass. On Karel Miler’s “Felt by Fresh Grass,” Plant Intelligence and Expanded Aesthetics
Get PDFKarel Miler’s Felt by Fresh Grass (1976) is a performance-photograph in which the artist lies down on a bank of grass, temporarily addressing the sensory world of the grass. This article invites a consideration of Miler’s work via theories of plant communication and intelligence, the photographic time of the camera as a medium, and the question of how it might contribute to an expanded ecological aesthetics
Critical Factors in Shaping the Parameters of Cultural Valuation in Europe
No full textThis chapter is part of a book that sums up the research undertaken by the UNCHARTED consortium. It outlines five critical factors that have an impact on Cultural Valuation in Europe in recent decades. These include rising diversity, globalisation and digitisation, urban transformations, the development of cultural policy and neoliberalism. Understanding, Fostering and Capturing the Societal Values of Culture (UNCHARTED) was supported by Horizon 2020 Framework Programme [grant number: Grant Agreement 870793]
A Systematic Review of School Governance Literature Between 2000 and 2023
Get PDFSchool governance is a contested concept due to ongoing disagreements over its meaning and application, particularly in education sub-fields like leadership, management, and administration (ELMA). Aware of global efforts to differentiate ELMA’s knowledge base, this paper critically reviews school governance literature from 2000 to 2023. Using PRISMA guidelines, 361 journal articles were identified from Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Employing both statistical and qualitative methods, we explore the volume, geographic distribution and publication outlets of said literature, as well as map the conceptual structures constituting the school governance field. Statistical results point to interesting findings, revealing a consistent upward trend in volume, together with an internationalisation of the ELMA field beyond the Global North, being published more widely in generic education journals including the Global South. A critical narrative synthesis of the 361 publications enabled us to construct a conceptual framework based on five main themes: school participation politics; autonomy and control; policy reform trends; global education confluences and influences; and digital governance. These findings yield important insight for future research relevant to theory, policy, and practice while simultaneously identifying blind spots and gaps in the field, thus laying the groundwork for future knowledge production
The Moving Mandala: Exploring the Pro-Social Effects of Musical and Non-Musical Synchrony in Children in a Virtual World
Get PDFSynchronous movement between individuals has been shown to increase pro-sociality, such as closeness and generosity. To date, synchrony research tests these effects using a variety of movement tasks, including musical and non-musical coordination. However, musical versus non-musical synchrony may have separable pro-social effects. To test this, we had 60 children immersed in an augmented reality space called the ‘Moving Mandala’ where they moved asynchronously with only visual cues, synchronously with only visual cues or synchronously with musical and visual cues. We then tested for differences in pro-social effects using sharing and proxemics tasks. Results showed that while the synchrony version of the mandala led to greater closeness in the proxemics task, the musical synchrony led to more pro-sociality on the sharing task. The implications of these findings are discussed
After Twitter: Fragmentation, Platform Polities and Protective Sociality
No full textThis article argues that a profound change has occurred in the spaces of social media, centring on the region formerly occupied by Twitter. More than Twitter rebranding as X, After Twitter refers to a historical punctuation point in the timeline of social media and an emerging social media reality. After Twitter registers the slow death of a set of ideals and related practices specific to platforms like Twitter, but also to the waning of ideals in relation to the communicative potentials of the open web more generally. We make three broad claims which characterise social media After Twitter: First, by way of an overview of alternatives and competitors including Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Truth Social and more, we observe a social media fragmentation. Such fragmentation is not solely driven by economic forces or technological development and instead is understood along explicitly political lines. Second, we observe the rise of polarised platform polities. These polities reflect divergent political positions, create distinct political realities and foster different modes of interaction and belonging. Third, we observe a general shift from connective to protective forms of sociality, where users approach social media as if they are constantly in the presence of adversaries, and the ‘weak ties’ that once defined a web of opportunities are replaced by an assumed toxicity of ties. We conclude by reflecting on the nostalgia for the Twitter-that-was, suggesting the need to foster a critical and reflective relationship with the Twitter of old
The Visual Analogue Test for Anosognosia for Dysphagia: VATA-Dysphagia
No full textBackground: Swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) can be associated with a plethora of neurological diseases representing a life changing condition and, in severe cases, a life-threatening situation. It is, therefore, crucial that patients and caregivers are aware of its implications to implement the best strategies for safety and functional rehabilitation. Current scales present some limitations in assessing patients’ and their caregivers’ awareness, making difficult to evaluate more ecological aspects of dysphagia and hampering the assessment of patients with aphasia, attentional disorders, or showing poor compliance.
Aim: We endeavoured to develop a novel tool for assessing potential distortions of awareness for dysphagia while mitigating the effect of the aforementioned constraints.
Methods and procedures: Capitalising on current methods to assess lack of awareness (anosognosia), we devised and validated a new scale, the VATA-dysphagia, with healthy volunteers, clinicians and adult neurological patients. A sample of 70 neurological patients presenting with dysphagia and different food intake limitations were asked to rate, on a visual-analogue scale, their difficulties in performing specific tasks.
Results: Up to 42% of patients were deemed as anosognosics and 10% fell in the borderline range. Interestingly, in a few cases, the caregivers also showed lack of awareness for the patient’s dysphagia. A rapid identification of similar situations may help to promptly intervene and avoid highly risky situations for the patient.
Conclusions and implications: Anosognosia for dysphagia can be more frequent than expected and the VATA-dysphagia, which does not intent to replace dysphagia assessment scales, offers a reliable and rapid method to assess awareness for different types of swallowing disorders in adult neurological patients. It can also be used to evaluate caregiver’s awareness of the patient’s circumstances to help anticipate possible risks and minimise incidents
“Revolutionary Mass Propaganda”: The German Communist Party, the Reichstag Election and Extra-parliamentary Struggle in the Summer of 1932
Get PDFThis article examines the German Communist Party’s (KPD’s) propaganda campaign during the Reichstag election in the summer of 1932. It asks why a movement which openly rejected parliamentary democracy fervently contested elections and it analyzes the KPD’s strategy, campaign organization and publicity. The article argues that the party’s culture created a distinctive electoral appeal. As a Stalinized, heavily bureaucratized party, the KPD ran a centralized campaign with tightly controlled ideological messaging. Yet its leadership was also able to compete with better-funded rivals by tapping the party’s ethos of revolutionary activism and showing hitherto unrecognized pragmatism in encouraging independence and initiative. Supercharged by an extra-parliamentary campaign that summer, the KPD waged an edgy, violent “battle of symbols” in the streets which united the party’s revolutionary aims with its supporters’ neighborhood activism. Revolutionary mass propaganda projected a uniquely Communist visual and audio appeal, embodying protest, poverty and radicalism
Careful Whisper, Heart Feminism
Get PDFThis Image & Text piece is a polyvocal account of Careful Whisper, an experimental installation at the Science Gallery London involving a re-engagement with an essay published in the inaugural issue of Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, “Heart Feminism” (Pollock 2015). After an introduction that situates the project in the domain of art and STS, each of the project’s collaborators contributes a section to this paper: feminist STS scholar Anne Pollock on how the project emerged, artist Nina Wakeford on its site specificity, recent neuroscience bachelor of science student (now master of science in science communication student) Maithili Pittea on how the sonic experiments engaged with Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), and bachelor of fine art student Aysha Leach on the making of the zine for the project. This account illuminates the generativity of immersive yet disorienting engagements in which feminist STS, art, and science can barely be disentangled