It’s the economy stupid!

The main story is about an ‘anti-vaxxer’ who had informed the university that he/she was opposed to receiving any vaccinations, but the university had not noticed or acted upon this advice till after the student had started univeristy. Cardiff university were ordered to pay £9K to the anti-vaxxer healthcare student.

Cardiff ordered to pay £9K to anti-vaxxer healthcare student | Times Higher Education (THE)

But this caught my eye even more.

In a separate case summary, also published on 1 July, the OIA said that it had told Wrexham Glyndwr University to compensate eight students who had complained about the quality of a healthcare-related course.

The watchdog said that the students had complained that a key part of the course had not been taught as promised, meaning that they were not given the necessary skills to practise safely. Some teaching hours were cancelled for some modules, and the group also complained about the behaviour of a staff member, who they said was “unapproachable and aggressive”.

The OIA, which ruled that the complaint was partly justified, said that Glyndwr should refund tuition fees of £2,140 to each student, and pay an additional £1,500 compensation to each of them for the inconvenience caused.

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The digital skin web

On some Swedish trains, passengers carry their e-tickets in their hands—literally. About 3,000 Swedes have opted to insert grain-of-rice-sized microchips beneath the skin between their thumbs and index fingers. The chips, which cost around $150, can hold personal details, credit-card numbers and medical records. They rely on Radio Frequency ID (RFID), a technology already used in payment cards, tickets and passports.

Why Swedes are inserting microchips into their bodies – Bjorn Cyborg

One of these is going to end up being sectioned as some time….waiting for the first case-report. Not often I can get two puns in a three word title.

Sunday in Lisbon

“Catholicism imbued a spirit of rebellion and the ghost of faith.”

Well, I get that, too. In a review of Bruce Springsteen’s biography in the Economist.

Did you enjoy Uni?

“The job prospects outweigh three years of misery.”

The Economist | The glum ones

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On  ratio scales and the spirits of invention

It is said that much of the foundations of 20th century physics was done in coffee houses (or in the case of Richard Feynman in strip bars), but things were once done differently in the UK

With neither institutional nor government masters to answer to, the British cyberneticians were free to concentrate on what interested them. In 1949, in an attempt to develop a broader intellectual base, many of them formed an informal dining society called the Ratio Club. Pickering documents that the money spent on alcohol at the first meeting dwarfed that spent on food by nearly six to one — another indication of the cultural differences between the UK and US cyberneticians.

The work of the British pioneers was forgotten until the late 1980s when it was rediscovered by a new generation of researchers… A company that I cofounded has now sold more than five million domestic floor-cleaning robots, whose workings were inspired by Walter’s tortoises. It is a good example of how unsupported research, carried out by unconventional characters in spite of their institutions, can have a huge impact.

A review from 2010 by Rodney Brooks of MIT of “The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future” in Nature (For more on Donald Michie and “in spite of their institutions” see here).

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Chadgrind lives on

I have had of all people a historian tell me that science is a collection of facts, and his voice had not even the ironic rasp of one filing-cabinet reproving another.

Jacob Bronowski | Science and Human Values

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Precision medicine and a den of robbers

I have removed the name of the institution only because so many queue to sell their vapourware in this manner

Precision Medicine is a revolution in healthcare. Our world-leading biomedical researchers are at the forefront of this revolution, developing new early diagnostics and treatments for chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis and stroke. Partnering with XXXXX, the University of XXXX has driven … vision in Precision Medicine, including the development of a shitload of infrastructure to support imaging, molecular pathology and precision medicine clinical trials……  XXXXXX is now one of the foremost locations in a three mile radius to pursue advances in Precision Medicine.

And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer. But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.'” Matthew 21:13

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The pleasures of tenure

Mr Sammallahti is not a recluse, nor lacking in ambition. He travels the world taking photographs; a book, “Here Far Away”, was published in 2012; another, of bird pictures, comes out later this year. But he shuns the art scene, believing that commercial pressures undermine quality. He does not lecture and rarely gives interviews. In 1991 he received an unprecedented 20-year grant from the Finnish government. Its sole condition was that he should concentrate on photography, so he gave up teaching. “I want to work in peace,” he explains, “to be free to fail.”

Economist

TEF or REF?

Smith was supported by earnings from his professorship at Glasgow, where a university teacher’s earnings depended on fees collected directly from students in the class. This contrasted with Oxford, where Smith had spent six unhappy years, and where, he observed, the dons had mostly given up even the pretence of teaching.

But Smith relinquished his professorship in 1763, and the writing of ‘Wealth…’ and the remainder of his career was financed by the Duke of Buccleuch, who as a young man employed Smith as a tutor.

Is there more to Adam Smith than free markets? | Financial Times

On statistics

Statistics — to paraphrase Homer Simpson’s thoughts on alcohol — is the cause of, and solution to, all of science’s problems.

Andrew Gelman

Of chaos, storms and forking paths: the principles of uncertainty

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