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Vitality and nature in psychiatric spaces: Challenges and prospects for ‘healing architecture’ in the design of inpatient mental health environments
Get PDFHistorically, nature has been considered central to healing and recovery in institutional mental health settings, with inpatient spaces designed to mirror the restorative forces nature may afford. Within contemporary healthcare architecture, the discourse surrounding nature’s role has once again become prominent, especially in the concept of ‘healing architecture’. While the literature on ‘healing architecture’ primarily considers how to connect recovery to nature through interventions in the built environment, less interest has been directed towards how nature is configured in design processes and what implications that has for the everyday experiences of patients and staff. In this paper we consider the design and implementation of one particular psychiatric hospital in Denmark to show that the ‘nature’ brought into this healthcare space can be experienced as anything but ‘natural’ and may reduce rather than enhance a felt sense of ‘vitality’ amongst patients. Based on our analysis, we end the paper by suggesting four principles for future healthcare design
Persistent Low-Level Variants in a Subset of Viral Genes Are Highly Predictive of Poor Outcome in Immunocompromised Patients With Cytomegalovirus Infection
Get PDFBackground Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is the most common and serious opportunistic infection after solid organ and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In this study, we used whole-genome HCMV data to investigate viral factors associated with the clinical outcome. Methods We sequenced HCMV samples from 16 immunocompromised pediatric patients with persistent viremia. Eight of the 16 patients died of complications due to HCMV infection. We also sequenced samples from 35 infected solid organ adult recipients, of whom 1 died with HCMV infection. Results We showed that samples from both groups have fixed variants at resistance sites and mixed infections. Next-generation sequencing also revealed nonfixed variants at resistance sites in most of the patients who died (6/9). A machine learning approach identified 10 genes with nonfixed variants in these patients. These genes formed a viral signature that discriminated patients with HCMV infection who died from those who survived with high accuracy (area under the curve = 0.96). Lymphocyte numbers for a subset of patients showed no recovery posttransplant in the patients who died. Conclusions We hypothesize that the viral signature identified in this study may be a useful biomarker for poor response to antiviral drug treatment and indirectly for poor T-cell function, potentially identifying early those patients requiring nonpharmacological interventions
A Luddite Archaeology of Hobbyist Computation
Get PDFThe practice element of this research includes the How-To documented here, as well as the collected recordings and artist events I have documented. It also includes the forms I have chosen and experimented with for the publication of this. This text was written primarily as a website, and the styling of different sections here references the web version. To read the website version visit: http://bruise.in/research/luddite-archaeology.html. Some additional notes on the construction of the page are included in the code which can be viewed in the inspector. Excerpts of the code are included in the Code Practice section
Afterword (chapter 15)
Get PDFThis is an invited afterward, which comments on the contributions within the anthology on religious literacy in the context of Nordic religious education. Based on her own theorisation of worldview literacy, Martha Shaw provides commentary on the various ways in which religious literacy is understood and approached in the classroom
Fruit and vegetable waste used as bacterial growth media for the biocementation of two geomaterials.
Get PDFThis paper investigates the feasibility of using randomly collected fruit and vegetable (FV) waste as a cheap growing medium of bacteria for biocementation applications. Biocementation has been proposed in the literature as an environmentally-friendly ground improvement method to increase the stability of geomaterials, prevent erosion and encapsulate waste, but currently suffers from the high costs involved, such as bacteria cultivation costs. After analysis of FV waste of varied composition in terms of sugar and protein content, diluted FV waste was used to grow ureolytic (S. pasteurii, and B.licheniformis) and also an autochthonous heterotrophic carbonic anhydase (CA)-producing B.licheniformis strain, whose growth in FV media had not been attempted before. Bacterial growth and enzymatic activity in FV were of appropriate levels, although reduced compared to commercial media. Namely, the CA-producing B.licheniformis had a maximum OD of 1.799 and a CA activity of 0.817 U/mL in FV media. For the ureolytic pathway, B. licheniformis reached a maximum OD of 0.986 and a maximum urease activity of 0.675 mM urea/min, and S. pasteurii a maximum OD = 0.999 and a maximum urease activity of 0.756 mM urea/min. Biocementation of a clay and locomotive ash, a geomaterial specific to UK railway embankments, using precultured bacteria in FV was then proven, based on recorded unconfined compressive strengths of 1-3 MPa and calcite content increases of up to 4.02 and 8.62 % for the clay and ash respectively. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), attested the formation of bioprecipitates with characteristic morphologies and elementary composition of calcite crystals. These findings suggest the potential of employing FV to biocement these problematic geomaterials and are of wider relevance for environmental and geoenvironmental applications involving bioaugmentation. Such applications that require substrates in very large quantities can help tackle the management of the very voluminous fruit and vegetable waste produced worldwide
Understanding the weigh forward: Exploring management for children and young people with obesity
Get PDFThis presentation gives an overview of the obesity crisis for children and young people in the UK. Causes of obesity are discussed, as well as diagnosis and assessment. Consideration is given to aspects of safe prescribing in obesity, alongside medical management and CEW clinics
Impact of Climate on Indoor Environmental Preferences of Social Housing Residents in the Eastern Mediterranean Island of Cyprus
No full textThis paper presents the results of an investigation of overheating risk and occupants’ thermal comfort within representative residential tower blocks (RTBs) in a mass scale residential development that might alleviate energy consumption reduction in the residential sector by means of a field study in Famagusta, Cyprus. Out of 288 households approached, 100 questionnaires were successfully completed, including in-situ measurements of living rooms of the same flats. The field study consisted of a thermal comfort survey conducted with households, which helped to estimate their preferred temperatures. The survey was carried out between July and September 2018 with high indoor air temperature data collected for the peak cooling demand period during summer. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 29.0 was used to determine the input parameters for Pearson's correlations. The descriptive data of each of different orientations of the RTBs and its impact on the occupants’ thermal sensation votes (TSVs) was investigated to identify the neutral adaptive thresholds in the Eastern Mediterranean climate where the weather is hot and dry in the summer. The on-site environmental monitoring findings reported that the operative air temperatures ranged from 25.3°C to 38.7°C, with a mean of 28.7°C. From this study, it can be inferred that occupants’ adaptation to high humidity and outdoor air temperatures would challenge the implementation of feasible retrofit interventions for energy consumption reduction, if industry-based temperature design criteria were to be met, as these would conflict with the occupants’ adaptive comfort temperatures
Endocrine conditions in children
Get PDFThis presentation gives a broad overview on the relevance of understanding physiology, and how it relates to endocrine conditions in children, ranging from embryology until puberty
Crowd as image, crowd as method
Get PDFThis paper explores a long-standing interest I have in the idea of the crowd, both as a theoretical object and also as situations I have constructed and then documented as photographs. What a crowd is, what this social form represents, and the question of when a group of people can be said to have become a crowd, have been the guiding questions in the making of the works. In addition, this paper explores the invitation, as an offer to participate and also to view, as central to the photographic process. Leading to considerations of hospitality, strangerhood, and the social spaces housed within these photographic constructions
