The ethics of forgetting in an age of pervasive computing

In this paper, we examine the potential of pervasive computing to create widespread sousveillance, that will complement surveillance, through the development of lifelogs; socio-spatial archives that document every action, every event, every conversation, and every material expression of an individual’s life. Examining lifelog projects and artistic critiques of sousveillance we detail the projected mechanics of life-logging and explore their potential implications. We suggest, given that lifelogs have the potential to convert exterior generated oligopticons to an interior panopticon, that an ethics of forgetting needs to be developed and built into the development of life-logging technologies. Rather than seeing forgetting as a weakness or a fallibility we argue that it is an emancipatory process that will free pervasive computing from burdensome and pernicious disciplinary effects

The value of pimecrolimus in improving quality of life of children with severe eczema – an open non-randomised study

Background: Atopic eczema is a common skin condition. It has the potential to severely impair quality of life in affected children. Pimecrolimus is currently registered for mild-moderate eczema but in clinical practice children with more severe disease are often treated with this therapy in an attempt to find a safe addition to long-term topical corticosteroid usage. The aim of this study was to test the value of pimecrolimus in improving quality of life in children with severe atopic eczema.Methods: This a single site, phase 4, non-randomised, open label trial of pimecrolimus use in children aged 4 months to 12 years living withmoderate to very severe atopic eczema. The study was conducted at Steve Biko Academic Hospital. Patients with unsatisfactorily controlled disease despite conventional topical therapy, adequate use of emollients, allergen avoidance and non-pharmacological skin hygiene were enrolled. A ParentIndex Quality of Life Questionnaire was completed by parents before and three months after using pimecrolimus.Results: A total of 24 patients were recruited, 20 of whom completed the study. Ninety per cent of patients had co-morbid asthma and allergicrhinitis. The Parent Index Quality of Life demonstrated a mean 33% score improvement after the use of pimecrolimus. There was an attendant reduction in cost of therapy to these patients.Conclusions: Pimecrolimus usage should be extended to patients with more severe atopic eczema as the improvement in quality of life is important and demonstrable.Keywords: severe eczema; topical steroids; calcineurin inhibitors; pimecrolimus; quality of lif

Predicting protein stability and solubility changes upon mutations: data perspective

Understanding mutational effects on protein stability and solubility is of particular importance for creating industrially relevant biocatalysts, resolving mechanisms of many human diseases, and producing efficient biopharmaceuticals, to name a few. Forin silicopredictions, the complexity of the underlying processes and increasing computational capabilities favor the use of machine learning. However, this approach requires sufficient training data of reasonable quality for making precise predictions. This minireview aims to summarize and scrutinize available mutational datasets commonly used for training predictors. We analyze their structure and discuss the possible directions of improvement in terms of data size, quality, and availability. We also present perspectives on the development of mutational data for accelerating the design of efficient predictors, introducing two new manually curated databases FireProt(DB)and SoluProtMut(DB)for protein stability and solubility, respectively

Asthma control - Practical suggestions for practicing doctors in family practice

Many surveys of asthma care suggest that only 5% of asthmatics are meeting the ‘Goals of asthma management' as set out in the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines. Despite the availability of useful asthma therapies and treatment strategies, the morbidity from asthma has remained significant. This review includes practical suggestions on optimal asthma control for the family practitioner. South African Family Practice Vol. 50 (2) 2008: pp. 26-3

Water reuse for irrigated agriculture in Jordan: challenges of soil sustainability and the role of management strategies

Reclaimed water provides an important contribution to the water balance in water-scarce Jordan, but the quality of this water presents both benefits and challenges. Careful management of reclaimed water is required to maximize the nutrient benefits while minimizing the salinity risks. This work uses a multi-disciplinary research approach to show that soil response to irrigation with reclaimed water is a function of the management strategies adopted on the farm by the water user. The adoption of management methods to maintain soil productivity can be seen to be a result of farmers’ awareness to potentially plant-toxic ions in the irrigation water (70% of Jordan Valley farmers identified salinization as a hazard from irrigation with reclaimed water). However, the work also suggests that farmers’ management capacity is affected by the institutional management of water. About a third (35%) of farmers in the Jordan Valley claimed that their ability to manage salinization was limited by water shortages. Organizational interviews revealed that institutional awareness of soil management challenges was quite high (34% of interviewees described salinization as a risk from water reuse), but strategies to address this challenge at the institutional level require greater development

Belfast Without Sight: Exploring Geographies of Blindness

In this paper (he transformed spaces of visually impaired and blind people is explored through a detailed analysis of interview transcripts with twenty seven visually impaired people living in or around Belfast. Data were collected using a structured open-ended interview and were analysed within NUD-IST, a qualitative data analysis package. Analysis revealed that visually impaired people become spatially confused (e.g. lost or disorientated) for two primary reasons. "Self-produced" confusion is spatial confusion caused by the misperception/miscognition of a route (e.g. miscounting intersections). "Situational" confusion is spatial confusion caused by a permanent or temporary localised occurrences such as road works, vehicles parked on pavements, and street furniture. Both types of spatial confusion were found to induce feelings of fear and anxiety, leading to a loss of selfconfidence, embarrassment and frustration, which in turn led to less independent travel and exploration, and constrained patterns of spatial behaviour. Respondents detailed a number of strategies for coping with spatial confusion. In addition, they assessed methods to make Belfast more navigable including environmental modifications and orientation and mobility aid

Belfast Without Sight: Exploring Geographies of Blindness

In this paper (he transformed spaces of visually impaired and blind people is explored through a detailed analysis of interview transcripts with twenty seven visually impaired people living in or around Belfast. Data were collected using a structured open-ended interview and were analysed within NUD-IST, a qualitative data analysis package. Analysis revealed that visually impaired people become spatially confused (e.g. lost or disorientated) for two primary reasons. "Self-produced" confusion is spatial confusion caused by the misperception/miscognition of a route (e.g. miscounting intersections). "Situational" confusion is spatial confusion caused by a permanent or temporary localised occurrences such as road works, vehicles parked on pavements, and street furniture. Both types of spatial confusion were found to induce feelings of fear and anxiety, leading to a loss of selfconfidence, embarrassment and frustration, which in turn led to less independent travel and exploration, and constrained patterns of spatial behaviour. Respondents detailed a number of strategies for coping with spatial confusion. In addition, they assessed methods to make Belfast more navigable including environmental modifications and orientation and mobility aid

Chemical Properties from Graph Neural Network-Predicted Electron Densities

According to density functional theory, any chemical property can be inferred from the electron density, making it the most informative attribute of an atomic structure. In this work, we demonstrate the use of established physical methods to obtain important chemical properties from model-predicted electron densities. We introduce graph neural network architectural choices that provide physically relevant and useful electron density predictions. Despite not training to predict atomic charges, the model is able to predict atomic charges with an order of magnitude lower error than a sum of atomic charge densities. Similarly, the model predicts dipole moments with half the error of the sum of atomic charge densities method. We demonstrate that larger data sets lead to more useful predictions in these tasks. These results pave the way for an alternative path in atomistic machine learning, where data-driven approaches and existing physical methods are used in tandem to obtain a variety of chemical properties in an explainable and self-consistent manner

The Effect of Spatial Tasks on Visually Impaired Peoples' Wayfinding Abilities

Thirty-eight people with visual impairments learned a 483-meter novel route through a university campus in four groups: verbalization, modeling, pointing, and control. The performance of all four groups improved with greater experience of the route, but the modeling group improved more than did the control group