Post-disaster Information Infrastructure: The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake

Government reports and members of the media blame information systems as the culprit of what has been characterized as faulty responses to disasters such as Virginia Tech and Hurricane Katrina. In the process they propose information and communication technologies (ICTs) as solutions to disaster response. Calls for new ICTs following recent American disasters reveal a poor understanding of the socially situated nature of ICTs. Disaster-related research does not expound a sophisticated understanding of ICTs either. As a consequence, information systems are seen as an unproblematic means of informing the right people with the right information at the right time. In my dissertation, I will challenge these simplistic notions of information systems as solutions to disaster response by proposing two case studies of ???information environments??? from the period following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I will introduce an analytical framework from the social studies of information which situates information systems in the social environment. The theoretical construct, the ???information environment,??? is meant to overcome the limitations of studying ICTs from a purely technical perspective

Heroic Repair: Labor and Disaster

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire broke physical information and communication technologies at the very moment that people wanted to connect with loved ones using the telegraph – the quickest way to send messages. Sending telegrams was one means by which people connected with each other, but the telegraphic infrastructure, like much of the physical infrastructure, was badly damaged. Telegraph operators labored long hours to repair the telecommunications infrastructures or to enact workarounds. The telegraph companies credited employees with taking great personal risk to ensure that the world knew about the disaster -- these operators and engineers were called “heroes.” However, even as these employees worked in exceptional circumstances and were celebrated for their heroic actions, they were reproducing the “normal” ordering of information infrastructures. Telegraph companies were taking money from people to ostensibly deliver telegrams via speedy but broken telegraphic infrastructure when in reality often sending the telegrams through the mail. These heroic telegraphers went on strike less than a year after the earthquake and fire when Western Union refused their requests for temporary raises to accommodate the cost-of-living increases in the damaged San Francisco area. While the capitalists running the telegraphic infrastructure publicly celebrated the improvisational work of their employees as heroic, the telegraph did not do what its clients paid for and swindled them. After 89 days the strikers went back to work with no gain. It was a moment of extraordinary upheaval and creative repair which nevertheless seemed to reinforce ordinary political economic ordering

Effect of Fluid Administration on Fluid Consumption and Hydration Status

The use of an external fluid administrator (EFA) to deliver fluids is a recent phenomenon in athletics. However, this has yet to be compared to the traditional method of self administration(SA). PURPOSE: To examine the influence fluid administration methods have on fluid consumption, hydration status, and perceptual variables. METHODS: Nineteen recreationally active individuals [14 males, 5 females (30±10y; 176±8cm; 72.5Kg) participated in two days of exercise with varying the method of fluid administration (self-administration SA; external fluid administration EFA) between days. EFA refers to when someone else squirts water into the participant’s mouth, whereas SA, the participant squirts water into their own mouth. The water bottle (WB) was kept equal distance from the mouth for both conditions. Participants weight (t-shirt and/or shorts only) and urine samples were collected prior to exercise. Participants then completed a 10-min warm-up. Participants had a 2-min fluid break before the exercise protocol (EP), which included a series of five 15-minute stations. Exercises provided aerobic and anaerobic demands, including hill jogging, push-ups, jumping jacks, ladder drills, and intermittent rest. After completing each station, participants received a 5-min fluid breaks where they drank ad libitum. Fluid variables and perceptual variables were collected during every fluid break. Following the final fluid break,participants provided a post-exercise weight and urine sample. The order of conditions and exercise stations were randomly assigned. Fluid variables assessed were volume consumed perfluid break (VC/FB), number of squirts per fluid break (#Sq/FB), squirt volume per fluid break (SqV/FB), total squirts (TSq), total volume consumed (TVC), and average volume per squirt (AV/Sq). Hydration status was assessed via urine specific gravity (USG), body mass loss (BML),sweat loss (SwL), and sweat rate (SwRt). Perceptual measures assessed include thirst and fullness. Repeated-measures ANOVA was used to analyze condition by time for VC/FB,#Sq/FB, SqV/FB, USG, thirst and fullness. A paired t-test was used for post-hoc analysis.Independent samples t-tests were used to analyze TSq, TVC, AV/Sq, BML, SwL, and SwRt.P<0.05 a priori RESULTS: No significant interaction was indicated for VC/FB or SqV/FB (p>0.05). A significant interaction was noted for #Sq/FB (p<0.05). TSq between conditions did not indicate significance, however TVC and AV/Sq were significantly different (p<0.05). With no significant interaction for USG, participants arrived (SA=1.016±.009; EFA=1.019±.008) and remained (SA=1.019±.008; EFA=1.020±.007) hydrated throughout the EP. BML, SwL, SwRt, thirst and fullness also indicated no significant differences between conditions (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: SA promoted more TVC likely due to greater VSq. Both conditions remained euhydrated, but EFA consumed less fluids. Euhydration may have been maintained because of regularly spaced fluid breaks and when regular fluid breaks are unavailable, EFA may result in more BML and hypohydration.Finn, Megan E.Yeargin, Susan WEberman, LindseyGage, MattMcDermott, Brendon p.Master of ScienceDepartment of Applied Medicine and RehabilitationCunningham Memorial library, Terre Haute,Indiana State University20110920-020MastersTitle from document title page. Document formatted into pages: contains 187p.: ill. Includes bibliography, abstract and appendi

Beyond Information Determinism to Information Orders: A New Framework for Policy

The mythology of information determinism – that access to the “right” information will precipitate desired actions – is common in policy arenas and develop. We identify information determinism in three programs in international development, education, and disaster response, describing their information deterministic framing and the implications of the mythology of information in action. As an alternative, we propose the framework of “information orders” to provide a more grounded framework for understanding the production and circulation of information in policy or development projects.ye

A narrative literature review considering the development and implementation of longitudinal integrated clerkships, including a practical guide for application.

Hailed by supporters as the answer to many challenges facing medical schools and the wider healthcare system, Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LICs) offer a practical and sustainable alternative to more traditional block rotational models. Given this, their popularity as a curricular measure is increasing, although such clerkships remain relatively novel within the United Kingdom (UK). This narrative literature review of international work provides a comprehensive introduction to developing and implementing LICs within medical education. This review generates a practical guide for medical educators with a focus upon the development and implementation of LICs within the United Kingdom (UK), on which there is little work. Using illustrated examples and with reference to contemporary literature, it outlines the rationale for considering an LIC within a curriculum, the different types of LIC, barriers and enabling factors to LIC implementation and considers the contemporary application of LIC models within the UK. The practical guide details key questions educators must consider when developing and implementing an LIC, particularly within the landscape of UK medical education

Beyond Information Determinism to Information Orders: A New Framework for Policy

The mythology of information determinism – that access to the “right” information will precipitate desired actions – is common in policy arenas and develop. We identify information determinism in three programs in international development, education, and disaster response, describing their information deterministic framing and the implications of the mythology of information in action. As an alternative, we propose the framework of “information orders” to provide a more grounded framework for understanding the production and circulation of information in policy or development projects.ye

A virtual postgraduate community of practice

During the COVID-19 lockdown one community of homeworkers at risk of being overlooked in contingency planning is that of postgraduate student researchers, known to suffer from higher levels of mental ill-health than the general population. Physical distance from a supportive network of supervisors, peers and colleagues holds the potential to negatively impact postgraduates' health

Troubled Worlds: A Course Syllabus about Information Work and the Anthropocene

The goal of this syllabus is to interrogate the material, and socioeconomic processes which underpin our everyday information work. In particular, we examine the relationships developing between contemporary information practices and what problematically gets configured as “nature”—that messy world of non-human entanglements that often exists beyond the purview of innovation work, whether digital software development or industrial engineering. Much recent work on the environmental conditions of computing has sought to break down technology-nature dualisms in order to expose the implication of information technology in broader social and material ecologies. Library and information professionals and researchers are well poised to deepen this inquiry by presenting alternative nature-technology epistemologies grounded in longstanding analyses of information resources and their consumption. The “Troubled Worlds” syllabus starts with a discussion of concerns most obviously germane to the work of most library and information science professionals: practices at the intersection of structuring information and computing. Building on this attention, we turn to humanistic approaches to thinking through the era of dominant human activities widely known as the “Anthropocene” by introducing poetic, artistic, and activist lenses. We explore how artistic objects representing an increasingly troubled natural world raise awareness of the challenges facing it, as well as how they may incorporate and reshape information for aesthetic ends. We then look to questions of disability justice and how it works in blended built and natural spaces as well as the many different ways in which bodies respond to the toxic environments produced by information technologies. We next consider the newer design approaches to library and information research, specifically asking how design perspectives on digital information objects get inscribed in the Anthropocene. Lastly, we consider paradigms of repair and making and analyze the different valences through which information researchers and professionals categorize and contextualize what is possible with them. This compilation does not provide a comprehensive review of the literature on the environment within the information fields. Instead, it extends this literature to promote experimental research and practice. The modules construct an interdisciplinary and provisional path through the related literature in a form that we hope may be continually adjusted, rearranged, and augmented. Pre-print first published online 03/15/202

Improving the biological interfacing capability of Improving the biological interfacing capability of diketopyrrolopyrrole polymers via p-type doping

Polydiketopyrrolopyrrole terthiophene (DPP3T), a high-performing conjugated polymer, holds great potential as active material for bioelectronics. Herein, its surface properties are modulated through p-type doping, thereby enhancing the cell behaviour on top of the doped films