Thinking Inside the Food Pantry Box

Background: Prior research has indicated a varying relationship between food security and obesity risk. Food insecurity is a known complication of men and women’s underlying health issues, such as hypertension and diabetes, because of altered food choices. Objective: Provide healthier food options to the food insecure within the facility’s food distribution boxes, as available, for the two most common health issues (diabetes and high blood pressure). Methods: Clients at a local food pantry were interviewed individually to learn more about food insecurity and complicating health issues, such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure (hypertension) while simultaneously offering alternative food box options. Results: Over half of the participants self-reported being previously told by a health care professional they should lose weight, have hypertension, and/or have diabetes. Fifty-two percent of the project participants choose a customized food box for hypertension or diabetes. Conclusion: A need exists in this population for food based on the chronic health issues of diabetes and hypertension. In the future, ensuring the nutritional quality of donated food is an important consideration to build the needed boxes for the population served

Personal Data: Thinking Inside the Box

We are in a ‘personal data gold rush’ driven by advertising being the primary revenue source for most online companies. These companies accumulate extensive personal data about individuals with minimal concern for us, the subjects of this process. This can cause many harms: privacy infringement, personal and professional embarrassment, restricted access to labour markets, restricted access to highest value pricing, and many others. There is a critical need to provide technologies that enable alternative practices, so that individuals can par- ticipate in the collection, management and consumption of their personal data. In this paper we discuss the Databox, a personal networked device (and associated services) that col- lates and mediates access to personal data, allowing us to re- cover control of our online lives. We hope the Databox is a first step to re-balancing power between us, the data subjects, and the corporations that collect and use our data.Work supported in part by the EU FP7UCN project, grant agreement no 611001

Personal Data: Thinking Inside the Box

We are in a ‘personal data gold rush’ driven by advertising being the primary revenue source for most online companies. These companies accumulate extensive personal data about individuals with minimal concern for us, the subjects of this process. This can cause many harms: privacy infringement, personal and professional embarrassment, restricted access to labour markets, restricted access to highest value pricing, and many others. There is a critical need to provide technologies that enable alternative practices, so that individuals can par- ticipate in the collection, management and consumption of their personal data. In this paper we discuss the Databox, a personal networked device (and associated services) that col- lates and mediates access to personal data, allowing us to re- cover control of our online lives. We hope the Databox is a first step to re-balancing power between us, the data subjects, and the corporations that collect and use our data.

Thinking inside the box: why the World Bank is not learning

An analysis of how the World Bank has maintained a position supportive of multinational strategies for privatisation of water

Legal Thinking Inside and Outside the Box

This paper commends Lindahl for his expansive and fluid conception of the defining and therefore delimiting terms of legal jurisdiction, as encompassing not only spatial, but al-so temporal, material and subjective criteria. It proceeds to challenge Lindahl to develop his philosophical insight in such a way thst allows for the intensified porosity of the con-temporary postnational or ‘globalising’ legal condition of late modernity to be adequate-ly distinguished from the State-centred Westphalian condition of high modernity

Wishful Thinking?:Inside the Black Box of Exposure Assessment

BACKGROUND: Decision-making processes used by experts when undertaking occupational exposure assessment are relatively unknown, but it is often assumed that there is a common underlying method that experts employ. However, differences in training and experience of assessors make it unlikely that one general method for expert assessment would exist. Therefore, there are concerns about formalizing, validating, and comparing expert estimates within and between studies that are difficult, if not impossible, to characterize. Heuristics on the other hand (the processes involved in decision making) have been extensively studied. Heuristics are deployed by everyone as short-cuts to make the often complex process of decision-making simpler, quicker, and less burdensome. Experts’ assessments are often subject to various simplifying heuristics as a way to reach a decision in the absence of sufficient data. Therefore, investigating the underlying heuristics or decision-making processes involved may help to shed light on the ‘black box’ of exposure assessment. METHODS: A mixed method study was conducted utilizing both a web-based exposure assessment exercise incorporating quantitative and semiqualitative elements of data collection, and qualitative semi-structured interviews with exposure assessors. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Twenty-five experts completed the web-based exposure assessment exercise and 8 of these 25 were randomly selected to participate in the follow-up interview. Familiar key themes relating to the exposure assessment exercise emerged; ‘intensity’; ‘probability’; ‘agent’; ‘process’; and ‘duration’ of exposure. However, an important aspect of the detailed follow-up interviews revealed a lack of structure and order with which participants described their decision making. Participants mostly described some form of an iterative process, heavily relying on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, which differed between experts. CONCLUSION: In spite of having undertaken comparable training (in occupational hygiene or exposure assessment), experts use different methods to assess exposure. Decision making appears to be an iterative process with heavy reliance on the key heuristic of anchoring and adjustment. Using multiple experts to assess exposure while providing some form of anchoring scenario to build from, and additional training in understanding the impact of simple heuristics on the process of decision making, is likely to produce a more methodical approach to assessment; thereby improving consistency and transparency in expert exposure assessment

Thinking Inside the Box: A New Integrated Approach to Mixed Music Composition and Performance

The Thinking Inside the Box project (TItB) seeks to address pragmatic concerns inherent to mixed music performance, and proposes ways to better consider the sound of the acoustic reality of the concert space at studio composition time. This is achieved through empirical investigation into subversive use of recent developments in hardware and software technologies. The primary concerns are (1) optimising the integration of live instruments and electroacoustic sound in the concert hall environment for both the performers and the public, by carefully choosing loudspeaker types and placement at commission time, and by avoiding sound reinforcement; (2) minimizing for studio composers the insitu trauma of the first live rendition of the piece, by bringing the concert hall acoustic environment into the studio composition process, using convolution reverb to reproduce in the studio the given loudspeaker setup through its impulse responses. This paper presents the conclusions of the project's early experiments in the form of three case study sets, and describes how this approach will be of use for any composer of mixed music