Pizza

Man, if there\u27s anything that bugs me more than this pizza making bit during a Saturday night rush, I\u27m sure I don\u27t know what it is..

“Transposing the Vernacular: Moving Images in the Work of Akram Zaatari”, catalogue published on the occasion of Akram Zaatari’s touring show, The Script, ISBN: 978-0-9932659-8-3

This essay was one of the first to examine the digital in the work of Akram Zaatari. It set out to explore how the exceptional proliferation of digital images has generated multiple concerns about the reliability of the information being circulated and the algorithmic biases deployed by YouTube — which is a key source for Zaatari’s film — and other websites. The essay also provided context for how the artist references a selection of online videos as source material and how he subsequently distilled the essential actions and prevalent gestures found therein into one complete work. I also sought to place this work in the broader context of the artist’s work, including how YouTube videos were previously explored in Dance to the End of Love, an earlier work by Zaatari that was realised as a four-channel installation film in 2011

“Scopic Reflections: Incoming and the Technology of Exceptionalism", catalogue published on the occasion of Richard Mosse: Incoming, 15 February – 23 April 2017, published in 2017 by Barbican Curve Gallery, London EC2Y 8DS United Kingdom. ISBN 978 0 9957082 0 4

Richard Mosse's Incoming was made using a thermal camera’s powerful telescopic reach and shot from a distance of between 5 and 15 kilometres, well beyond the capacity of the human eye to register such detail. This essay critically explained the basis of this technology and how it is used extensively in surveillance and weapon systems. Mosse's subject matter included images of refugees boarding rescue boats, or huddled along the shores of the coastal city Ayvacık in Turkey. He also filmed asylum applicants enduring a limbo-like existence in the make-shift camp that is now housed in Berlin’s former Tempelhof Airport. This essay sought to contextualise how the scenes we witness in Incoming bear a distinct resemblance to reality but seem to have undergone a fundamental transmutation in both substance and character that relates to the surveillance economy that surrounds the representation of migration today

Algorithmic predictions and pre-emptive violence: artificial intelligence and the future of unmanned aerial systems

The military rationale of a pre-emptive strike is predicated upon the calculation and anticipation of threat. The underlying principle of anticipation, or prediction, is foundational to the operative logic of AI. The deployment of predictive, algorithmically driven systems in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) would therefore appear to be all but inevitable. However, the fatal interlocking of martial paradigms of pre-emption and models of predictive analysis needs to be questioned insofar as the irreparable decisiveness of a pre-emptive military strike is often at odds with the probabilistic predictions of AI. The pursuit of a human right to protect communities from aerial threats needs to therefore consider the degree to which algorithmic auguries—often erroneous but nevertheless evident in the prophetic mechanisms that power autonomous aerial apparatuses—essentially authorise and further galvanise the long-standing martial strategy of pre-emption. In the context of unmanned aerial systems, this essay will outline how AI actualises and summons forth “threats” through (i) the propositional logic of algorithms (their inclination to yield actionable directives); (ii) the systematic training of neural networks (through habitually biased methods of data-labelling); and (iii) a systemic reliance on models of statistical analysis in the structural design of machine learning (which can and do produce so-called “hallucinations”). Through defining the deterministic intentionality, systematic biases and systemic dysfunction of algorithms, I will identify how individuals and communities—configured upon and erroneously flagged through the machinations of so-called “black box” instruments—are invariably exposed to the uncertainty (or brute certainty) of imminent death based on algorithmic projections of “threat”

"Where to Now: Imminent Impermanence in the Work of Sheela Gowda", catalogue published on the occasion of Sheela Gowda, Ikon Gallery, November 2017. ISBN 978-1-911155-10-2

This volume involved series of in-depth discussions with the artist and curator over a 3 month period. The essay sought to counter readings of Gowda's work, that often focus on its abstract elements, and reframe this apparent abstraction as a seismic yet imprecise measure of lasting social and political change, arguing, in turn, that the materials used in the work — despite their allusions to Minimalist sculpture — underwrites Gowda’s non-didactic, open displays of repurposed material and allusive forms. This monograph essay also gave context to the larger exhibition catalogue for the Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, and set out to provide an extended critical engagement with an eminent artist while also situate readers within a complex and challenging body of under-researched work

Managing Patient Health Across Diverse Spaces: Using Activity Theory to Model Pervasive Decision Support

Clinical decision support (CDS) systems can offer health care providers and patient data that is intelligently filtered and presented in ways to enhance diagnosis and long-term health care management, both within and outside clinical spaces. Challenges to this information management include diagnostic error and inefficiencies from conflicting, incomplete, or suboptimal clinical systems [3] as well as extending care outside the traditional clinical environment. We propose a Clinical Activity Model (CAM) to understand pervasive CDS system design and use across multiple health care spaces as patients move between critical care, recovery, and long-term home care. We discuss CAM in the context of research findings comparing a novel CDS system with traditional modes of data delivery and by describing use of that system as a mobile diagnostic tool to bridge clinical care and home care

Use of an automated, integrated laboratory environment to enable predictive modeling approaches for identifying critical process parameters and controlling key quality attributes

An essential part of ensuring a high quality medicine is being able to reliably control Critical Quality Attributes (CQA’s). In the cell culture process, bioreactor conditions, feeds, cell state are some of the many variables that affect CQA’s. Out of this very large set of possible variables, the small subset of these (i.e., critical process parameters, or CPP’s) that have a large effect on the CQA’s must be identified and understood such that those CPP’s can be controlled to ensure quality product. Here, we demonstrate the use of predictive modeling techniques to supplement experimental bioreactor studies when defining critical process parameters (CPP’s) and generating process control strategies. Using predictive models to relate culture process conditions to CQA’s has the benefit of enabling both: 1) using model predictions to supplement experimental data when determining critical process parameters (CPP’s) and the resulting control strategy, and 2) active control of CQA’s based on model forecasts to achieve finer control of CQA’s. In order to support this predictive forecasting approach for bioreactor process definition and control, Bend Research has developed a new bioreactor laboratory environment that allows us to run the right experiments, take the right data, and determine which measurements are actually important in determining CQA’s, and to generate model predictions based on those data sets. Here we demonstrate the application of this new laboratory paradigm in practice, using galactosylation, an important product quality attribute, as the “CQA” of interest. We show how through using automated, perfusion-type systems identification experiments, combined with automated data-generation and reduction tools, we can generate a prediction of the effect of galactose feeding on product qualit

Pathfinder Project – Preliminary Systems Mapping Report: A report delivered by The Plymouth Marjon University Pathfinder Team, June 2021.

Background Sport England has been exploring place-based project work across the UK and has explored whether, through the injection of focused support, local knowledge, skills and capacity can be developed to drive positive change in the system that surrounds and impacts upon a community's health & wellbeing. Plymouth Pathfinder is a 2-year programme that seeks to maximise the benefits that physical activity can bring to a cohort of children and young people in Plymouth. It is an initiative led by Plymouth City Council and Active Devon, and which Plymouth Marjon University are supporting as evaluation partners. The project hypothesis is that physical activity is a mediator to improved wellbeing, making people better able to tackle the issues they see as key to improving their lives, as well as bringing health gains through the physical activity itself. The programme will aim to link multiple systems across Plymouth and build on the evolving Trauma-Informed Network. The initial stage of this project requires the evaluation partners to, “to complete a ‘baseline’ study of the trauma�informed system in Plymouth and explore understandings of ‘trauma’ and ‘trauma-informed’ approaches. Methods Presented with a list of potential stakeholders, we identified key roles and individuals to interview. We then completed a series of 45-60 min semi-structured interviews with each of ten stakeholders using these interviews to explore different methods of mapping stakeholders to help understand the "system” and identify appropriate levers of change that may exist in the system. We developed a series of resources on the use of systems mapping and evaluation to help this element of the project to act as a springboard for further systems level work. Results We produced several draft systems maps. We identified a number of themes and insights from the interviews. These are outlined in the report. Within all interviewees there was a consistent and knowledgeable understanding of what “trauma-informed” approaches involved. Summary Findings • Trauma-Informed approaches were well understood by the interviewees; however, it was acknowledged that this is not the case with all those in “the system” and that the use of jargon can be problematic as it can slow down translation into practice and potentially mask real change. • The existing database of service level stakeholders is an extensive resource and there are existing networks that offer opportunities for sharing information and connecting with key stakeholders. • The range of work being undertaken in Plymouth, around trauma-informed thinking and special educational needs, is established and trauma-informed approaches are continuing to develop although in its early stages of awareness. There is however a gap in the rhetoric of trauma informed principles and the practical realities imposed by working practices and resource constraints. • The support system that surrounds young people can be fragmented and not conducive to optimal “trauma�informed approaches”. • The contribution of physical activity and sport in a trauma informed approach and special educational needs was agreed in principle by all participants. The active ingredient in these activities were the relationships withtrusted adults. • All interviewees stressed the need for sustainable approaches that can engage with the young people in question over an extended period and do not disappear once the funding has been taken away. • While it is important for young people to be able to "tell their stories", extreme caution should be exercised when asking people to re-tell their stories unnecessarily as this can be re-traumatising