Of Gods, Beasts And Men: Digital Sculpture

My most recent body of work explores the synthesis of my influences, interests and life experiences into imagery of common themes: The expression of dynamic figures and forms and colors in digital 3d space, cinematic composition, and vibrant color, expressed through a semblance of Aztec culture and wildlife. My sculptures of nature and ancient culture are created using contemporary digital art creation technologies and techniques. I examine the art and religion of the Aztecs and the universal search for understanding and purpose in the world and the forces around and beyond us

Application of Charge Detection to Dynamic Contact Sensing

The manipulation contact forces convey substantial information about the manipulation state. This paper address the fundamental problem of interpreting the force signals without any additional manipulation context. Techniques based on forms of the generalized sequential likelihood ratio test are used to segment individual strain signals into statistically equivalent pieces. We report on our experimental development of the segmentation algorithm and on its results for contact states. The sequential likelihood ratio test is reviewed and some of its special cases and optimal properties are discussed. Finally, we conclude by discussing extensions to the techniques and a contact interpretation framework

Proliferation of private online healthcare companies:Should the NHS try to keep up?

With an app for just about everything, why not one for contacting your doctor? In the United Kingdom, private companies offering primary healthcare are proliferating, with Dr Morton, a website offering email or telephone consultations, and Dr Now, a smartphone app offering video consultations. Companies in the United States are offering an Uber-type experience, where instead of a car, a doctor appears at your door. These companies operate in a climate where patients want convenience, flexibility, and speed of access, features which overstretched general practitioners in the UK are struggling to provide. Meanwhile, new companies are appearing regularly, with the UK digital health market currently worth £2bn (€2.6bn; $2.8bn) and expected to grow to £2.9bn by 2018.2 What are the implications for the NHS

A Digital Tectonic Activity Map of the Earth

The subject of neotectonics, covering the structures and structural activity of the last 5 million years (i.e., post-Miocene) is a well-recognized field, including "active tectonics," focussed on the last 500,000 years in a 1986 National Research Council report of that title. However, there is a cartographic gap between tectonic maps, generally showing all features regardless of age, and maps of current seismic or volcanic activity. We have compiled a map intended to bridge this gap, using modern data bases and computer-aided cartographic techniques. The maps presented here are conceptually descended from an earlier map showing tectonic and volcanic activity of the last one million years. Drawn by hand with the National Geographic Society's 1975 "The Physical World" map as a base, the 1981 map in various revisions has been widely reproduced in textbooks and various technical publications. However, two decades of progress call for a completely new map that can take advantage of new knowledge and cartographic techniques. The digital tectonic activity map (DTM), presented in shaded relief (Fig. 1) and schematic (Fig. 2) versions, is the result. The DTM is intended to show tectonism and volcanism of the last one million years, a period long enough to be representative of global activity, but short enough that features such as fault scarps and volcanos are still geomorphically recognizable. Data Sources and Cartographic Methods The DTM is based on a wide range of sources, summarized in Table 1. The most important is the digital elevation model, used to construct a shaded relief map. The bathymetry is largely from satellite altimetry, specifically the marine gravity compilations by Smith and Sandwell (1996). The shaded relief map was designed to match the new National Geographic Society world physical map (1992), although drawn independently, from the digital elevation model. The Robinson Projection is used instead of the earlier Van der Grinten one. Although neither conformal nor equal-area, the Robinson Projection provides a reasonable compromise and retains useful detail at high latitudes

Crustal Accretion in the Gulf of California: An Intermediaterate Spreading Axis

An important objective of Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) Leg 65 was to study crustal accretion at an ocean ridge axis with an intermediate-spreading rate for comparison with previously studied sections displaying slowand fast-spreading rates. The southern Gulf of California was selected for this purpose because the basement displays high seismic velocities (comparable to those observed for Cretaceous basement in the western North Atlantic) and high ambient sedimentation rates, which facilitated penetration of zero-age basement. Four sites were drilled, forming an axial transect immediately south of the Tamayo Fracture Zone (Figs. 1 and 2) and providing a series of characteristic sections into the crust. This chapter attempts to provide a brief synthesis of the results from Leg 65, focusing particularly on the lithology, geochemistry, and paleomagnetic properties of the cored basement material. From these data, we present an interpretation of the processes of magmatic evolution and crustal accretion occurring at the Gulf of California spreading axis

The potential of alternatives to face-to-face consultation in general practice, and the impact on different patient groups: a mixed-methods case study

Background: There is international interest in the potential role of different forms of communicationtechnology to provide an alternative to face-to-face consultations in health care. There has beenconsiderable rhetoric about the need for general practices to offer consultations by telephone, e-mail orinternet video. However, little is understood about how, under what conditions, for which patients and inwhat ways these approaches may offer benefits to patients and practitioners in general practice.Objectives: Our objectives were to review existing evidence about alternatives to face-to-face consultation;conduct a scoping exercise to identify the ways in which general practices currently provide these alternatives;recruit eight general practices as case studies for focused ethnographic research, exploring how practicecontext, patient characteristics, type of technology and the purpose of the consultation interact to determinethe impact of these alternatives; and synthesise the findings in order to develop a website resource about theimplementation of alternatives to face-to-face consultations and a framework for subsequent evaluation.Design: Mixed-methods case study.Setting: General practices in England and Scotland with varied experience of implementing alternatives toface-to-face consultations.Participants: Patients and practice staff.Interventions: Alternatives to face-to-face consultations include telephone consultations, e-mail,e-consultations and internet video.Main outcome measures: How context influenced the implementation and impact of alternatives to theface-to-face consultation; the rationale for practices to introduce alternatives; the use of different forms ofconsultation by different patient groups; and the intended benefits/outcomes.Review methods: The conceptual review used an approach informed by realist review, a method forsynthesising research evidence regarding complex interventions.Results: Alternatives to the face-to-face consultation are not in mainstream use in general practice, withlow uptake in our case study practices. We identified the underlying rationales for the use of thesealternatives and have shown that different stakeholders have different perspectives on what they hope toachieve through the use of alternatives to the face-to-face consultation. Through the observation of real-lifeuse of different forms of alternative, we have a clearer understanding of how, under what circumstancesand for which patients alternatives might have a range of intended benefits and potential unintendedadverse consequences. We have also developed a framework for future evaluation.Limitations: The low uptake of alternatives to the face-to-face consultation means that our researchparticipants might be deemed to be early adopters. The case study approach provides an in-depthexamination of a small number of sites, each using alternatives in different ways. The findings aretherefore hypothesis-generating, rather than hypothesis-testing.Conclusions: The current low uptake of alternatives, lack of clarity about purpose and limited evidence ofbenefit may be at odds with current policy, which encourages the use of alternatives. We have highlightedkey issues for practices and policy-makers to consider and have made recommendations about priorities forfurther research to be conducted, before or alongside the future roll-out of alternatives to the face-to-faceconsultation, such as telephone consulting, e-consultation, e-mail and video consulting.Future work: We have synthesised our findings to develop a framework and recommendations aboutfuture evaluation of the use of alternatives to face-to-face consultations.Funding details: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and DeliveryResearch programme.ABSTRACTNIH