Complexity Of People Research Articles

Time, Complexity, and the Meaning of Help: A Systematic Review of People's Experiences of Single-Session Therapy

Single-session therapy (SST) is an approach to service delivery, based on the precept that the power for psychological change rests with the client. The following is a systematic review of the qualitative literature that considered the question, what are people's experiences of single-session therapy? Ten papers were selected for review. Analysis draws on Curt's (1994) concept of critical polytextuality, in which “texts” can be read to create multiple meanings. Findings suggest that what clients find helpful about SST matches what people find helpful about psychotherapy more generally. Unlike “more traditional,” longer-term psychological therapy however, SST is valued in terms of being available at the point of need (as opposed to the point at which someone reaches the top of a therapy waiting list). Analysis focuses on issues relating to time in therapy, what help means to different people, and how the complexities of people's lives may guide these meanings.

Complex Case Management Workshop for Trainees &Trainers - a Quality Improvement Project -to Enhance the Understanding of the Case Management and Complexity in People With Intellectual Disabilities for Senior Trainees and Early Career Consultants

AimsWhilst there is always more to learn within any speciality, the particular zone of development for senior trainees and early career consultants is the management of the complex case. The factors underpinning complexity are varied, and can range from aspects of the service user such as complexity and severity of disorder and/or multi-morbidity, to aspects of their local social networks, to complexities arising from the service or care environment. The aim of this workshop was to offer a safe space for senior trainees and early career consultants to work through some principles that might be helpful, particularly where things seem to be getting into a pickle.Methods•A 60-minute slot was proposed, as part of the Northwest Learning disability academic teaching forum.•The structure of the workshop borrowed the informality and spirit of support from Balint groups.•Attendees were prepared to talk about one of their cases anonymously, and why they might be getting into a pickle.•Soundings were taken and a particular case chosen to workshop in more detail, as an exemplar for others.•Each session focused on one or two themes from the wider set of themes suggested by the CCaRM framework (Spurrell, Potts & Shaw, 2019) currently being used by Greater Manchester and Lancashire SST to expedite their work.•Each session concluded with an evaluation discussion of workshop usefulness.Results•There were 6 virtual workshops in first PDSA cycle (June 2021-Nov 2021)•Each workshop lasted approximately 100–120 minutes, with 8–12 people attended in each session.•The intention for the workshop was to include senior trainees and early career consultants who are within the NWLD forum however junior trainees, senior consultants and other MDT professional also became part of the sessions.•Each session concluded with an evaluation discussion of workshop usefulness•Qualitative feedback has been collated and analysed from the evaluation discussion.•The information derived from the qualitative analysis indicates that there is a substantial need for regular complex case discussions for the purposes of enhanced care delivery and improved patient outcomesConclusionThis approach helped in enhancing the understanding of the case management for people with intellectual disabilities among forum membersWe consider that the online workshops is a success and are planning further-PDSA 2 in order to create competent and well-rounded ID psychiatrist in the future in Northwest region.

The relationship between new PCR positive cases and going out in public during the COVID-19 epidemic in Japan.

The suppression of the first wave of COVID-19 in Japan is assumedly attributed to people's increased risk perception after acquiring information from the government and media reports. In this study, going out in public amidst the spread of COVID-19 infections was investigated by examining new polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive cases of COVID-19 and its relationship to four indicators of people going out in public (the people flow, the index of web searches for going outside, the number of times people browse restaurants, and the number of hotel guests, from the Regional Economic and Social Analysis System (V-RESAS). Two waves of COVID-19 infections were examined using cross-correlation analysis. In the first wave, all four indicators of going out changed to be opposite the change in new PCR positive cases, showing a lag period of -1 to +6 weeks. In the second wave, the same relationship was only observed for the index of web searches for going outside, and two indicators showed the positive lag period of +6 to +12 weeks after the change in new PCR positive cases. Moreover, each indicator in the second wave changed differently compared to the first wave. The complexity of people's behaviors around going out increased in the second wave, when policies and campaigns were implemented and people's attitudes were thought to have changed. In conclusion, the results suggest that policies may have influenced people's mobility, rather than the number of new PCR positive cases.

Species diversity enhances perceptions of urban coastlines at multiple scales

AbstractBiodiversity is increasingly understood as an important mediator of human aesthetic appreciation of scenes and landscapes, with implications for cultural services and well‐being. However, the generality of biodiversity effects across affective emotions, scales and habitats remains unclear.Urban coastal intertidal habitats on seawalls and other artificial structures are expanding worldwide. Despite growing calls to prioritise biodiversity in urban coastal planning and management, the potential co‐benefits determined by people's responses to biodiversity in these novel intertidal communities are unexplored.We investigated, using image‐based questionnaires, how several facets of biodiversity influence how people perceive urban coastal structures at both landscape and close‐up scales.Species richness strongly enhanced people's ratings of images for aesthetic appeal, interest and calming potential at both scales, but was more pronounced at the close‐up scale. Species evenness also increased ratings at the close‐up scale, while functional diversity (Rao'sQ) was associated with a decline in aesthetic appeal and interest at the close‐up scale, indicating that people can disfavour scenes dominated by species with contrasting traits.Analysis of free‐text assessments showed that people strongly and positively valued scenes that were perceived to be ‘diverse’, a response that was much more common when viewing scenes with high species richness. The underlying structure type also clearly affected appraisals, with more obviously engineered structures being perceived to be less natural and thus less desirable.Our results show that biodiversity's effects on aesthetic appreciation extend to multiple affective emotions and to unfamiliar urban intertidal habitats, suggesting that managing these environments for biodiversity may simultaneously support aesthetic, educational and well‐being benefits. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of responses to the facet of biodiversity and viewing scale in our results underlines the context dependency and complexity of people's perceptions of urban environments.Read the freePlain Language Summaryfor this article on the Journal blog.

Brain Fog in Hypothyroidism: What Is It, How Is It Measured, and What Can Be Done About It.

Background: Some levothyroxine (LT4)-treated hypothyroid patients report a constellation of persistent and distressing cognitive symptoms that has been termed brain fog. This narrative review focuses on attempts to define and measure hypothyroid-associated brain fog, summarize possible etiologies and contributing factors, present treatment options, and propose avenues for future research. Methods: Published literature was reviewed to summarize available information on patient-reported symptoms associated with brain fog in hypothyroidism, as well as objective evidence of impairment based on neurocognitive testing and functional imaging studies. Given the limited information specific for hypothyroid-associated brain fog, relevant data from other medical conditions associated with brain fog were also reviewed and incorporated into recommendations for clinical care and future research areas. Results: Hypothyroid-associated brain fog has not been well defined or quantitated, and the underlying pathophysiology is unclear. Symptoms vary among patients but commonly include fatigue, depressed mood, and cognitive difficulties in the areas of memory and executive function. Symptoms often predate the diagnosis of hypothyroidism, and the magnitude of cognitive impairment can range from mild to severe. Regardless of severity, these symptoms are associated with impaired quality of life and cause dissatisfaction with treatment, so often lead to requests for alternate therapies. Disease-specific and psychological factors impact the experience of brain fog in complex ways, including potential limitations in LT4 monotherapy, self-knowledge of a disease state, and expectations for therapeutic effects. Conclusions: Brain fog is a variable symptom complex in people with hypothyroidism, causing significant distress and diminished quality of life. In the absence of proven therapies, individualized treatment plans are recommended, which incorporate thyroid-specific, general medical, and psychosocial approaches. In particular, cognitive rehabilitation is an underutilized technique that is beneficial in other medical conditions associated with brain fog and could improve symptoms in hypothyroid people. The limitations in our current knowledge and questions presented throughout this review highlight a major need for clinical research in this understudied area. Future research should include attention to standardization of survey instruments to quantitate brain fog in hypothyroid people, as well as rigorously designed intervention studies.

Collaborative Portraits for Intersex Justice

Collaborative Portraits for Intersex Justice

Ideal types’ strategies related to handling early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: A thematic analysis of comments from an international survey

People (re)act differently when facing the pandemic. Multiple opinions about COVID-19 and related issues prevail, both in personal meetings and in (social) media. This article aims to illuminate different ideal types and handling strategies in early stages of the pandemic. A thematic Braun and Clark, and Weber inspired analysis of qualitative data from an international web-based survey was carried out in two steps. First, five ideal types related to handling the COVID-19 pandemic were constructed: the Stickler for the rules, the Challenger, the Fact hunter, the Idealist, and the Entertainer. Second, the ideal types were represented throughout four themes: Divided opinions on politico-medico restrictions, Multifaceted picture of the pandemic, Social media as a lookout point and source of insight, and The future between hope and fear. The results illustrated the complexity of people’s understanding of, (re)actions to and handling of the pandemic.

Challenging times: disconnects between patient and professional temporalities in chronic condition management

ABSTRACT Chronic health conditions represent a key challenge for contemporary public healthcare. Current policy promotes self-management support to reduce demands on health services and improve patients’ health and wellbeing. Though there is emerging recognition that self-management is achieved in collaboration between health professionals and patients, how chronicity is managed in interaction remains relatively underexplored in research. In this paper we report on research examining how people are supported to self-manage their conditions through their healthcare encounters. We draw on observational data from consultations between people with multiple chronic health conditions and their healthcare professionals, and semi-structured interviews with both patients and professionals about these consultations. We illuminate points of disconnect between patients and health professionals and demonstrate how these disconnects unfold in self-management support interactions. We argue that self-management is temporally and socially situated, incorporating past, present and (anticipated) future experiences. However, there is a disjuncture between the temporal logics of self-management enacted by health professionals and the subjective temporalities of people’s lived experience of chronicity. Health professionals focus on patients progressing toward optimistic futures but give less attention to the complexities of patient life histories that render self-management more difficult. For self-management support to be effective, we argue that health professionals need to consider the complexities of people’s life histories and how these shape imagined futures. Policy guidelines, we argue, should attend to how relations between patients and professionals shape self-management support, and the historical and social factors that shape experiences of living with chronic conditions.

Lacking social support is associated with structural divergences in hippocampus-default network co-variation patterns.

Elaborate social interaction is a pivotal asset of the human species. The complexity of people’s social lives may constitute the dominating factor in the vibrancy of many individuals’ environment. The neural substrates linked to social cognition thus appear especially susceptible when people endure periods of social isolation: here, we zoom in on the systematic inter-relationships between two such neural substrates, the allocortical hippocampus (HC) and the neocortical default network (DN). Previous human social neuroscience studies have focused on the DN, while HC subfields have been studied in most detail in rodents and monkeys. To bring into contact these two separate research streams, we directly quantified how DN subregions are coherently co-expressed with specific HC subfields in the context of social isolation. A two-pronged decomposition of structural brain scans from ∼40 000 UK Biobank participants linked lack of social support to mostly lateral subregions in the DN patterns. This lateral DN association co-occurred with HC patterns that implicated especially subiculum, presubiculum, CA2, CA3 and dentate gyrus. Overall, the subregion divergences within spatially overlapping signatures of HC–DN co-variation followed a clear segregation into the left and right brain hemispheres. Separable regimes of structural HC–DN co-variation also showed distinct associations with the genetic predisposition for lacking social support at the population level.

Career aspirations and trajectories of geographies of health and health care graduates: A cross‐sectional study

Despite the diverse academic training of health geographers and their capacity to think spatially and temporally when focusing on complexities of people's health in changing environments, career-related concerns have been raised due to the dearth of academic jobs in the sub-discipline. Given these concerns, an understanding of the career aspirations and trajectories of health geography graduates, as well as their experiences within and outside academia, has the potential to inform the progression and evolution of the sub-discipline. This cross-sectional study of members of the Geography of Health and Health Care Specialty Group of the Canadian Association of Geographers (n = 56) found that acquiring academic work remains the desired career goal for many geography graduates. While a majority of participants aspired to work in academia, some participants reported insecurity in obtaining academic jobs, and precarity in this trajectory. Although belonging to the specialty group has contributed positively to the experiences of graduates in providing network opportunities and job positions, there were calls for critical engagement of the group in mentorship, networking, and increasing exposure to careers outside of academia to help inform the future direction and the inter-relationship of academics within the sub-discipline of health geography. Malgré la formation universitaire diversifiée des géographes de la santé et leur capacité à réfléchir spatialement et temporellement lorsqu'ils se concentrent sur la complexité de la santé des populations dans des environnements changeants, on remarque des inquiétudes chez ceux-ci en raison de la pénurie d'emplois dans ce domaine en milieu universitaire. Dans ce contexte, une meilleure compréhension de leurs aspirations professionnelles et des trajectoires des diplômés, de même que de leurs expériences tant à l'intérieur qu'à l'extérieur du milieu universitaire, nous permet de documenter la progression et l'évolution de la sous-discipline. Cette étude transversale réalisée par certains membres du Groupe spécialisé en géographie de la santé et des soins de santé de l'Association canadienne des géographes (n = 56) fait ressortir que l'obtention d'un emploi en enseignement et recherche universitaires demeure l'objectif professionnel favorisé de nombreux diplômés. Bien qu'une majorité de participants aspirent à travailler en milieu universitaire, certains participants ont exprimé de l'insécurité face à la précarité de cette trajectoire. Par ailleurs, si l'appartenance au groupe spécialisé a contribué positivement aux expériences des diplômés, il y a eu de fortes demandes de participation du groupe au mentorat, au réseautage et à la promotion des carrières possibles à l'extérieur de l'université, afin de mieux informer et encadrer les futurs étudiants.

Processing Argument Structure and Syntactic Complexity in People with Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

IntroductionDeficits in language comprehension and production have been repeatedly observed in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (SSD). However, the characterization of the language profile of this population is far from complete, and the relationship between language deficits, impaired thinking and cognitive functions is widely debated. ObjectiveThe aims of the present study were to assess production and comprehension of verbs with different argument structures, as well as production and comprehension of sentences with canonical and non-canonical word order in people with SSD. In addition, the study investigated the relationship between language deficits and cognitive functions. MethodsThirty-four participants with a diagnosis of SSD and a group of healthy control participants (HC) were recruited and evaluated using the Italian version of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS, Cho-Reyes & Thompson, 2012; Barbieri et al., 2019). ResultsResults showed that participants with SSD were impaired – compared to HC – on both verb and sentence production, as well as on comprehension of syntactically complex (but not simple) sentences. While verb production was equally affected by verb-argument structure complexity in both SSD and HC, sentence comprehension was disproportionately more affected by syntactic complexity in SSD than in HC. In addition, in the SSD group, verb production deficits were predicted by performance on a measure of visual attention, while sentence production and comprehension deficits were explained by performance on measures of executive functions and working memory, respectively. DiscussionOur findings support the hypothesis that language deficits in SSD may be one aspect of a more generalized, multi-domain, cognitive impairment, and are consistent with previous findings pointing to reduced inter- and intra-hemispheric connectivity as a possible substrate for such deficits. The study provides a systematic characterization of lexical and syntactic deficits in SSD and demonstrates that psycholinguistically-based assessment tools may be able to capture language deficits in this population.

Biomechanical Changes in the Gastrocnemius Medius–Achilles Tendon Complex in People with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders: A Compression Sonoelastography Study

Biomechanical Changes in the Gastrocnemius Medius–Achilles Tendon Complex in People with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders: A Compression Sonoelastography Study

Antibiotic therapy for chronic infection with Burkholderia cepacia complex in people with cystic fibrosis.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) a life-limiting inherited disease affecting a number of organs, but classically associated with chronic lung infection and progressive loss of lung function. Chronic infection by Burkholderia cepacia complex (BCC) is associated with increased morbidity and mortality and therefore represents a significant challenge to clinicians treating people with CF. This review examines the current evidence for long-term antibiotic therapy in people with CF and chronic BCC infection. The objective of this review is to assess the effects of long-term oral and inhaled antibiotic therapy targeted against chronic BCC lung infections in people with CF. The primary objective is to assess the efficacy of treatments in terms of improvements in lung function and reductions in exacerbation rate. Secondary objectives include quantifying adverse events, mortality and changes in quality of life associated with treatment. We searched the Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis Trials Register, compiled from electronic database searches and handsearching of journals and conference abstract books. We also searched online trial registries and the reference lists of relevant articles and reviews. Date of last search: 12 April 2021. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of long-term antibiotic therapy in people with CF and chronic BCC infection. Two authors independently extracted data, assessed risk of bias and assessed the quality of the evidence using GRADE. We included one RCT (100 participants) which lasted 52 weeks comparing continuous inhaled aztreonam lysine (AZLI) and placebo in a double-blind RCT for 24 weeks, followed by a 24-week open-label extension and a four-week follow-up period. The average participant age was 26.3 years, 61% were male and average lung function was 56.5% predicted. Treatment with AZLI for 24 weeks was not associated with improvement in forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), mean difference 0.91% (95% confidence interval (CI) -3.15 to 4.97) (moderate-quality evidence). The median time to the next exacerbation was 75 days in the AZLI group compared to 51 days in the placebo group, but the difference was not significant (P = 0.27) (moderate-quality evidence). Similarly, the number of participants hospitalised for respiratory exacerbations showed no difference between groups, risk ratio (RR) 0.88 (95% CI 0.53 to 1.45) (moderate-quality evidence). Overall adverse events were similar between groups, RR 1.08 (95% CI 0.98 to 1.19) (moderate-quality evidence). There were no significant differences between treatment groups in relation to mortality (moderate-quality evidence), quality of life or sputum density. In relation to methodological quality, the overall risk of bias in the study was assessed to be unclear to low risk. We found insufficient evidence from the literature to determine an effective strategy for antibiotic therapy for treating chronic BCC infection.

"He Who Relies on His Brother's Property Dies Poor": The Complex Narratives of Livestock Care in Northern Tanzania.

Background: Endemic zoonoses have important impacts for livestock-dependent households in East Africa. In these communities, people's health and livelihoods are severely affected by livestock disease losses. Understanding how livestock keepers undertake remedial actions for livestock illness has the potential for widespread benefits such as improving health interventions. Yet, studies about livestock and human health behaviours in the global south tend to focus on individual health choices. In reality, health behaviours are complex, and not solely about individualised health experiences. Rather, they are mediated by a range of “upstream” factors (such as unequal provision of services), which are beyond the control of the individual.Methods: This paper presents qualitative research conducted from 2014 to 2019 for a study focused on the Social, Economic, and Environmental Drivers of Zoonoses in Tanzania (SEEDZ). Qualitative data were collected via focus group discussions, community meetings, informal interviews, formal in-depth interviews, observations and surveys that addressed issues of health, disease, zoonotic disease risks, and routes for treatment across 21 villages. Thematic analysis was carried out on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Conceptual analyses and observations were made through application of social science theories of health.Findings: Livestock keepers undertake a range of health seeking strategies loosely categorised around self and formal treatment. Two key themes emerged that are central to why people make the decisions they do: access to resources and trust in health care providers. These two issues affect individual sense of agency which impacts their ability to act to improve livestock health outcomes. We suggest that individual choice and agency in veterinary health seeking decisions are only beneficial if health systems can offer adequate care and health equity is addressed.Significance: This study demonstrates the value of in-depth qualitative research which reveals the nuance and complexity of people's decisions around livestock health. Most importantly, it explains why “better” knowledge does not always translate into “better” practise. The paper suggests that acknowledging and addressing these aspects of veterinary health seeking will lead to more effective provision.

Humanizing Security through Action‐oriented Research in Latin America

ABSTRACTThis article critically reflects on the use of action‐oriented participatory research to rethink violence and security in Latin America. The authors draw on 12 years of such research (2008‒20) in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica and Mexico, working with communities living in the midst of chronic violence and criminality. Despite innovative experiments, security policies and practices in the region continue to be dominated by counterproductive militarized responses that have failed to address violence and crime. This article argues that in order to challenge politically potent punitive approaches to security and to highlight the interconnected social and economic drivers of insecurity, communities living these realities need to develop their own understanding of ‘security’. This can be used to inform sustainable solutions that address people's complex experiences of insecurity on the ground. The article brings the agency of those living amidst chronic violence into the security debate through participatory action research. It demonstrates that people living amidst such violence can contribute to making public security equitable, accessible and capable of protecting them while addressing the conditions that reproduce violence and crime without reproducing further violence. This is what is meant by ‘humanizing security’.

JURGEN HABERMAS'S COMMUNICATIVE PARADIGM AS TRANSFORMATIVE DA'WAH REINFORCEMENT

Work and communication are two basic human that determine how humans as a species move and live in their world. The reformation begins with two basic human foundations. Jurgen Habermas, a German authoritarian who makes a fairly firm discount with his predecessors, seems to be in his central idea of the fundamental differences between the two dimensional praxis, namely work and communication. But it needs to be seen how communication and rationality of power are exercised, or how one positions in it. In the public space, each individual expresses his or her various thoughts related to the public interest that want to be discussed without coercion. This public space must be free from the intervention of any party, so that each individual can express his or her thoughts freely and openly. That's where a social area free from censorship and dominance. The complexity of people’s lives demands a more transformative movement of da’wah activities, in this case communication and transformative da’wah. This process also aims to "pay attention" to the target of da’wah to the weak. As coveted by the Islamic community, that not only focused on homogeneous social status, nor looked at the higher and lower social status, officials and subordinates, rich and poor, and so on. Rather, it sees from the level of laughter of an individual to his Lord. To achieve this, preachers need to emphasize an approach that better respects and respects human dignity and dignity, humanizes people, and uses local cultural approaches and the unstoppable use of information technology as a tool to transform a message.

Multigenerational immigrant trajectories and children's unequal exposure to fine particulate matter in the US

Fine particulate matter is a serious health threat and exposures are particularly damaging for children. The environmental justice (EJ) literature shows that racial/ethnic minority communities experience disproportionate exposure to particulate pollution in the US. While important, those EJ studies tend to neglect people's complex identities, including their nativity and their families' generational histories of residence in the US. Yet there is growing interest in the intersection of immigrant populations and EJ. Our use of individual-level data enables examination of immigrant generational status by race/ethnicity, which provides insights on the intergenerational persistence of environmental injustice. We pair data on 12,570 US third graders (from 2013 to 2014) collected through the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey with PM2.5 concentrations for the census tracts of their home and school locations. We apply generalized estimating equations to test for intergenerational disparities in exposure and to examine how those disparities vary between racial/ethnic groups. Independent of race/ethnicity, first- and second-generation children have greater PM2.5 exposure than 2.5- and third-generation children. However, generational status disparities in exposures vary based on race/ethnicity. First-generation White children face greater exposure than White children of later generational statuses, with inequalities attenuating by the second generation. In contrast, Hispanic/Latinx children experience no significant drop in exposure until the third generation. Among Asian and Black children, generational status was not a significant determinant of exposure. Results quantify the intergenerational persistence of environmental injustices for persons of color while showing the amelioration of inequalities for Whites after just one generation is born in the US, reflecting another facet of White privilege in the US.

Context, complexity and cross-pollination: Nursing leaders' views of the role of the voluntary and community sector in nurse education

BackgroundPlacements in voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations have long played an important part in student nurses' education in several countries. New standards for nurse education published by the Nursing and Midwifery Council in the United Kingdom include significant changes to practice supervision arrangements that enable students to spend more time in VCS organisations. ObjectivesTo assess nursing leaders' views on the role of the VCS in nursing education and benefits of VCS placements for students and organisations. DesignQualitative interview study. ParticipantsTwenty-four nursing leaders from academic (n=15), practice (n=4) and regulatory (n=5) sectors. MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face (n=21), by telephone (n=2) or Skype (n=1). Interviews were transcribed and analysed, using interview questions as structural themes, followed by inductive thematic analysis. ResultsNursing leaders identified three key roles for the VCS in nursing education: (1) determining knowledge needs; (2) developing curricula; (3) providing placements. Five key benefits of VCS placements for students were shared: (1) understanding the contribution of the VCS to care; (2) seeing the context and complexity of people's lives; (3) challenging attitudes and perceptions; (4) gaining confidence, knowledge and skills; and (5) supporting career decisions. Three benefits for VCS organisations were found: (1) cross-pollinating knowledge, skills and networks; (2) changing organisational cultures; (3) promoting careers in the VCS. ConclusionsChanges to practice supervision models enabling closer relationships with the VCS were welcomed. Nursing leaders thought that VCS placements had potential to cross-pollinate ideas and harness the role of student nurses as knowledge brokers in increasingly integrated health and social care systems. Nurse educators should embrace opportunities offered through collaboration with the VCS for student learning and deeper partnerships across health and social care settings to enable students to gain deeper insight into the context and complexity of people's lives.

Keeping Track of Family: Family Practices and Information Practices

In this article, I describe what a practices approach offers to the study of both information and family. I present findings from an empirical study analyzing the intertwining of information and family in the work of “keeping track” in the family context. Findings highlight three interrelated and overlapping ways that the information practices family members engage in both “do” family and define family membership. First, family members may be the object of information practices: keeping track of family. Second, family members might be the audience for information practices: keeping track for family. Finally, family members may engage in collaborative family-related information practices: keeping track with family. Information practices such as keeping track enact family practices and reveal them, both to family members and to outsiders. Looking at the intersection of information and family practices helps information studies scholars to reflect on family life as a context within which information practices take place and prompts us to explore questions to better understand the situatedness of information practices within particular contexts. For information professionals, this work provides insight into the complexity of people’s everyday life information practices.

DNA synthesis for true random number generation

The volume of securely encrypted data transmission required by today’s network complexity of people, transactions and interactions increases continuously. To guarantee security of encryption and decryption schemes for exchanging sensitive information, large volumes of true random numbers are required. Here we present a method to exploit the stochastic nature of chemistry by synthesizing DNA strands composed of random nucleotides. We compare three commercial random DNA syntheses giving a measure for robustness and synthesis distribution of nucleotides and show that using DNA for random number generation, we can obtain 7 million GB of randomness from one synthesis run, which can be read out using state-of-the-art sequencing technologies at rates of ca. 300 kB/s. Using the von Neumann algorithm for data compression, we remove bias introduced from human or technological sources and assess randomness using NIST’s statistical test suite.