Posts

October 12

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4 Problems With the Way the Media Depicts Poor People:

   Out of all three articles this one was pretty accurate on how society ignores poor people. “This escapism – and that’s really what “reality” TV is – takes us away from the realties of our daily, monotonous lives, and enables us to live temporarily in a world wherein our own problems don’t exist. And I get why that’s nice”(Ridgway pg. 1). I can totally relate this quote. As much as I don’t really watch TV, when I do I watch it for pleasure not for knowledge. We typically watch TV to disconnect from our hectic schedules.

    In reality, when attending elementary school, middle school, and high school we are learn  to become a “middle-class American.” We are rarely informed about the disadvantages many have in society. As mentioned in this week’s readings, not everyone has the same access to the same level of education many of us receive. I don’t blame us for not knowing enough about the poor and those living with benefit assistance. We are not raised to really know about the financial situations that the poor or low income families have. I’m guilty too, we usually blame our fellow human beings for their disadvantages. For example, “Well if they focused on education, they could have done better in life,” ” They chose that life because they had children too early.” Not all situations can be justified; however, there are several that are not known because we lack the knowledge to understand them. Like media, education isn’t diverse because we are raised to be “middle- class” and are not told that many will not be “middle-class.”

 

Submit your question for our guest speakers!

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Please click the link below and submit your question for Michael Berman and Raechelle Clemmons.

For more details about our guests, please click here: http://tiny.cc/whybesocial

 

Ronald Reagan

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A while back My classmates and I spent the day at the Reagan Library in  Simi Valley to analyze the Museum and the view it has on President Reagan. Well my over is simple that like most stories told by the US it very one sided and is always on the side of what makes us good. In actuality while the Museum didn’t technically lie to anyone it omitted the full story of President Reagan, which is a lie lol. My personal observation is that the Museum is obviously geared toward putting Reagan in a good light, but it’s done so blatantly and avoiding all of his faults that whole museum was not geared toward anyone with prior knowledge. In addition if you factor in the amount of elementary school  students, old people and tourist it seem like it’s more of an indoctrination process and wants to mislead people that President Reagan Was without Sin and was the best thing to have happen to America since sliced bread or mass production. But knowing anything about Reagan you would know that the museum failed to bring up how reagan did not  favor the middle class or unions, failed to address the AIDS epidemic and barely addressed the the unemployment rate, he tripled the debt and cut taxes for the rich, as well as funded terrorist cells(the same ones that caused the (9/11 attacks).

 

The first picture that I took was right as you enter the museum of Ronald Reagan. The picture is well light, with a stronger light coming from above giving a heavenly look to the photo. In addition the genuine smile that he gives off overall gives very nice and trustworthy  But in contrast communist or people who are considered enemies of the state such as Daniel Ortega, Hafez Assad, Muammar Gaddafi, Yasser Arafat, Fidel Castro, and Ayatollah Khomeini were put in a darker setting. All of them are look menacing, they are also all set in a dark lighting and the pictures themselves have a darker filter to them adding to the menacing look to the whole room and the men in the Photos.
While walking around the Museum there is a curved hallway that contain a few photo of President Ronald reagan with different people having a grand time. These images present him as a  average guy, while there is some truth to that you can not ignore the fact that he was an actor as well as one of our controversial presidents. But if you look at these picture you can see him playing mini golf in his office, or accepting gifts from boy scouts, and having laughs with the first lady. But it almost makes you forget about all of the bad things he did while in office that I have listed above. IMG_2271 IMG_2303 IMG_2284 IMG_2281 IMG_2280 IMG_2279 IMG_2278IMG_2271 IMG_2303 IMG_2281 IMG_2280 IMG_2279 IMG_2278

CI’s Disruptive Manufacturing

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3D Printing ROV Thruster Housing
3D printing a new ROV thruster housing in the PIRatE Lab.

We often hear that this invention or that tech will be a game changer or birth some new industry or other.  These missives come so often we can become blasé about even the idea.  At the risk of being like so many other rah-rah overhypers, the technology we know as 3D printing is already changing the world.

 

A New Way To Print

3D printing or additive manufacturing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file.  The creation of a 3D printed object is achieved using additive processes.  In an additive process an object is created by laying down successive layers of material until the entire object is created.  Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object.

–3D Printing.com

 

Our current default 3D printing technology involves a computer controlled emitter of stuff (usually primed with plastic, but metal, wood + resin, plant-based polymers, and food such as chocolate are all possible options) that moves about over an X-Y plane laying down precise amounts of the printed material under computer control.  Once a given slice or plane of material has been laid down and hardened, the emitter is lifted up ever so slightly and repeats the process.  This is all under computer control with the printer creating in real space the target model held in the computer’s memory.

Leveling the Machining Playing Field

Our array of 3D printers in the AARR laboratories allow us to print replacement parts of create new capabilities by generating new parts we have brainstormed.  Rather than sending some schematic off to the engineering department or a machine shop that would take weeks and weeks to produce something for hundreds or thousands of dollars, we can print our needed piece for a few cents over the course of a few minutes (or hour or two depending upon the size).

With this tech we have created, revised, and improved a whole host of underwater and aerial robots. Our Lulzbot printer cost less than $3,000 and yet has brought an amazing amount of manufacturing parity to our program, effectively equivalent to having a well-equipped CNC machine shop that would have cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) only a couple of years ago.  We can now produce robotic units that rival or surpass those from much wealthier and better resourced programs around the country.  This is exactly the phenomenon we have seen with cell phone technology across much of the globe.  In the late 1990s the developed world boasted the best telecommunications systems in the world.  Now the developed world (especially the United States) is the backwater with most developing economies have massively better, cheaper, and faster telecommunication networks.  Those countries often have essentially no landline phone networks to speak of.  So assembling cell phone networks and proliferating telecom service providers was easy and unimpeded.  Now every sheepherder I meet in eastern Turkey has a cell phone with signal reception usually better than what we are afforded in our laboratory building.  In the case of 3D printing, we here at CI had nothing and so jumping on the latest tech was easy.  At most of our more established university campuses in the U.S. and beyond, there is way too much investment in traditional machining and machining technologies to simply pivot to the new and improved world of 3D printing.  So they are staying with the AT&T model of slow speed, insanely overpriced services, sloth-like innovation speeds, and crappy products.

The Next Wave

The future of 3D printing includes optically printed objects created at speeds much faster than our current tech, an ever-more diverse array of materials comprising the printed objects, and a much greater complexity of the tissues comprising the printed object.

GI Teaching

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http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/healthy_living/hic_Keeping_Your_Digestive_Tract_Healthy/hic_improving_your_health_with_fiber

Just quick and easy to read article about the importance of fiber in a diet. It’s great because it provides an example of a food label and demonstrates how to read one. It informs people that a high fiber food has to have 5 gm or more of dietary fiber. Would be great if patients were provided with an informative brochure like this one!

Diverticular disease and diet

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As nurses, it is vital that we take the time to educate patients fully on the disease they have and how they can manage it. Those who have diverticular disease need thorough instruction on the diet that they should stick to in order to prevent inflammation and infection (diverticulitis). In addition, there are some foods, specifically seeds, that these patients must stay away from.  Verbal education about the diet plan for these patients can be overwhelming. Therefore, a simple handout with foods that the patient should eat and possible meal plans can greatly decrease a patients anxiety and stress and hopefully help them maintain their disease and prevent further progression towards diverticulitis. While the patient’s diet will have to adapt to their disease, it does not mean they cannot enjoy good meals.

Here is a link for a handout that can be given to the patient in addition to verbal education. It explains what diverticular disease is, what foods are high in fiber, and suggests possible meal plans (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and diet the patient can eat.

Click to access gastro_diverticular.pdf

GI Education

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There are many applications available to download on tablets and phones for nurses and other healthcare providers to educate their patients. In my research of the topic, I found a few apps that seem to be quite beneficial. These include the MedScape app, Human Anatomy Apps, and TouchSurgery.

MedScape offers explanations of the drugs and conditions, including the pathophysiology of the disease. You can select conditions such as hemorrhoids and the app will provide information about the causes & treatment of hemorrhoids. In another area of the app, the procedure for removal of rectal hemorroids is explained with pictures.

The Human Anatomy Apps offer diagrams of organ systems which is useful as a reference & aiding explanation of the patient’s condition. There are 3-D diagrams of organ systems which aid in educating patients.

In the TouchSurgery app, it offers a background of the condition and symptoms, and allows you to virtually navigate the surgery. One surgery included in the app is a laparoscopic cholecystectomy. It provides a very detailed demonstration of the procedure, which patients may want to view.

These apps can be useful in education patients of the anatomy and physiology of the GI tract as well as basic pathophysiology & treatment of their condition. They can help the nurse educate and stress the importance of medication regimens and treatment rationales, as well as explaining to the patient and their family about home-care.

The setbacks to these apps is that they aren’t peer-reviewed and there isn’t a clear way to tell that they are medically accurate.

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Coloring Books for Kids

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Children pay attention more when they are entertained and are doing something they enjoy… As a matter of fact, who doesn’t?! To enhance patient teaching in the young pediatric populating, coloring books will be used to enhance their learning about their disease.  Coloring pages can be provided and explained by the nurse or the parents to tell the child about their condition.  In this way, the patient will be more open to learning and hearing about their condition and will have a better understanding of what is going on.

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