Amish Workarounds: Toward a Dynamic, Contextualized View of Technology Use

Interviews with northern Indiana Amish business owners reveal a tendency to create complex technological workarounds that allow them to abide by shared religious values while remaining competitive in the marketplace. These observations support theoretical approaches to understanding Amish technology use that view technology use as socially contextualized, dynamic and contested. It draws on literature from science and technology studies which views technology as an artifact that is socially constructed. The participants in this study report struggling to manage tensions between maintaining economic stability and traditional family, community, and religious values when deciding whether or not to adopt new technologies. These Amish entrepreneurs feel technology use must be possible but should also be complicated in today’s world. Two categories of workarounds emerge from the analysis of interviews: limitations on use and use via a trusted non-Amish person. These two categories illustrate interactions of economic forces, religious values, and professional tradition. In this way, technology adoption is seen as situated in a particular social context and functions as a signal of one’s “Amishness” or association to an Amish identity

Virtually Amish

How the Amish have adopted certain digital tools in ways that allow them to work and live according to their own value system. The Amish are famous for their disconnection from the modern world and all its devices. But, as Lindsay Ems shows in Virtually Amish, Old Order Amish today are selectively engaging with digital technology. The Amish need digital tools to participate in the economy—websites for ecommerce, for example, and cell phones for communication on the road—but they have developed strategies for making limited use of these tools while still living and working according to the values of their community. The way they do this, Ems suggests, holds lessons for all of us about resisting the negative forces of what has been called “high-tech capitalism.” Ems shows how the Amish do not allow technology to drive their behavior; instead, they actively configure their sociotechnical world to align with their values and protect their community's autonomy. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two Old Order Amish settlements in Indiana, Ems explores explicit rules and implicit norms as innovations for resisting negative impacts of digital technology. She describes the ingenious contraptions the Amish devise—including “the black-box phone,” a landline phone attached to a device that connects to a cellular network when plugged into a car's cigarette lighter—and considers the value of human-centered approaches to communication. Non-Amish technology users would do well to take note of Amish methods of adopting digital technologies in ways that empower people and acknowledge their shared humanity

Was können Pflegende zur Reduktion unnötiger Kathetertage beitragen : Eine Analyse pflegegeleiteter Strategien zur Verhinderung unnötiger Kathetertage und den damit verbundenen katheterassoziierten harnwegsinfektionen bei Erwachsenen im Akutspital

Hintergrund: In der Schweiz erhält jede(r) vierte Patient(in) während des Spitalaufenthaltes einen Dauerkatheter (DK). Trotz bestmöglicher DK-Pflege erhöht jeder zusätzliche Kathetertag das Risiko einer katheterassoziierten Harnwegs-infektion (CAUTI) um 3-10%. Ziel: Anhand der Fragestellung soll herausgefunden werden, welche pflegerischen Interventionen bei Erwachsenen im Akutspital unnötige Kathetertage verhindern und damit verbundene katheterassoziierte Harnwegsinfektionen (CAUTIs) reduzieren können. In dieser Arbeit werden pflegerische Strategien zur Evaluation der DK-Notwendigkeit aufgelistet und miteinander verglichen. Methode: Es wurde eine Literaturrecherche in den Datenbanken CINAHL, Medline, Pubmed und Cochrane Library durchgeführt. Die relevante Literatur wurde analysiert und bezüglich ihrer Güte eingeschätzt. Ergebnisse: Die Evidenz zeigt einen positiven Effekt verschiedener pflegerischer Strategien zur Evaluation der DK-Notwendigkeit auf die Reduktion von Kathetertagen, von einer CAUTI-Reduktion wird teilweise berichtet. Schlussfolgerungen: In der Literatur wird empfohlen, Pflegende in die Evaluation der DK-Notwendigkeit miteinzubeziehen, um den DK-Gebrauch zu reduzieren. Es sollte im Akutspital eine pflegerische Strategie verfolgt werden, um das Bewusstsein bezüglich DK-Gebrauchs zu erhöhen. Die Auseinandersetzung mit der Literatur zeigt, dass eine Kombination mehrerer pflegerischer Strategien zur DK-Evaluation sinnvoll wäre. So beispielsweise ein pflegegeleitetes DK-Protokoll in Kombination mit Edukation

A survey of cardinalfish (Apogonidae) of Antsiranana Bay, northern Madagascar

The cardinalfish of Antsiranana Bay, northern Madagascar, were surveyed over an 11 month period by underwater census employing a simple search pattern using self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Over this period 15 species were observed including one species not previously recorded in Madagascar, Siphamia versicolor. Whilst some species were ubiquitous across sites within the bay others appeared only as single records. Cardinalfish communities were compared between sites within the bay using PRIMER 6 (Plymouth Routines In Multivariate Ecological Research) and on a national scale against existing records. Overall the species richness of cardinalfish in Antsiranana Bay is less than that observed in other regions of Madagascar. The reasons behind these regional variations include oceanic currents, temperature, depth, disturbance and sedimentation, a recognised threat to Madagascar’s marine communities. This final point was reaffirmed by comparison of cardinalfish communities between sites within the bay which revealed little variation in species composition between sites, with the exception of highly-sedimented sites in the north - east of the bay that had a significantly different cardinalfish fauna to the rest. As a family that rely on the complexity of the coral reef for shelter, and exhibit high site fidelity, examination of cardinalfish communities may provide a measure of the health of a region’s reef