Center Updates
Infectious Disease Model Featured in Textbook
Tuesday 2 October 2012
The Infectious Disease model developed by Michael Ball as part of
research work for the CCH is being used for a "Quick Lab" in
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's new Environmental Science textbook. The
Quick Lab is designed to be performed during a single class period
or as a part of self-directed study, with the students running the
simulation with different settings and answering several
observational questions. The quick lab appears on page 520 as part
of the Biological Hazards chapter in the textbook.
The textbook information is:
Environmental Science, ©2013, ISBN 978-0-547-90401-6
Click here to jump to the model.
CCH In The News
Friday 20 July 2012
The Kent State University Research Department has posted an
article on their website that spotlights the work being done at the
Center for Complexity in Health.
Click here to read the full article.
Friday 23 March 2012
Dr. Brian Castellani and Dr. Rajeev Rajaram have finished an
article mathematically outlining the SACS Toolkit, a new
case-based method for modeling complex systems, particularly
complex social systems. It was published with the Springer
journal,
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, an
excellent journal run/edited by
Kathleen M. Carley Carnegie Mellon University, with a great
editorial board.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ARTICLE
Much thanks to
Jürgen Klüver and Christina Klüver for allowing us to
present an earlier version of this paper during their session at
the
8th International Conference on Complex Systems, hosted by
the New England Complex Systems
Institute.
First Issue of the Proceedings of the Center for Complexity in
Health
Friday, 6 January 2012
We are announcing the launching of the
Proceedings of the Center for Complexity in Health.
The PCCH is an annual publication
designed both to showcase and provide a publication outlet for some
of the main avenues of research being conducted in the Center for
Complexity in Health, Robert S. Morrison Health and Science
Building, Kent State University at Ashtabula. These areas
include medical professionalism, community health, allostatic load,
school systems, medical learning environments and case-based
modeling—all explored from a complexity science perspective.
The studies published in the PCCH are
generally comprehensive, in-depth explorations of a topic, meant to
provide a wider and more complete empirical and theoretical backdrop
for the specific studies that scholars involved in the Center for
Complexity in Health (CCH) regularly publish in various disciplinary
journals. Such an outlet as the PCCH is useful given the
conventions (e.g., page constraints and narrowness of focus) typical
of most research periodicals, which make it very difficult to
publish relatively complete statements on a topic in complex systems
terms. While PCCH studies augment, acknowledge and cite CCH
work published in other venues, each PCCH study is an original,
distinct manuscript. Finally, PCCH studies are peer-reviewed.
Prior to publication each study is sent to colleagues for review and
criticism to ensure the highest quality of published proceedings
possible.
PCCH and all of its studies are the
copyright © property of the Center for Complexity in Health, Kent
State University at Ashtabula. Manuscripts published in
the PCCH should be cited appropriately, as in the following example:
Castellani, B., Rajaram, R., Buckwalter,
JG., Ball, M., and Hafferty, F. 2012. “Place and Health as Complex
Systems: A Case Study and Empirical Test.” Proceedings of the
Center for Complexity in Health, Kent State University at Ashtabula,
1(1):1-35.
Our first publication is an in-depth
exploration of several key issues in complexity science and its
intersection with the study of community health. First, how does one
determine the empirical utility of defining a community as a complex
system? What unique insights emerge that could not otherwise
be obtained? Second, how does one conduct a litmus test of
one’s definition of a community as a complex system in a systematic
manner—something currently not done in the complexity science
literature? Third, how does one use the methods and techniques
of complexity science to conduct such a litmus test, in combination
with conventional methods such as statistics, qualitative method and
historical analysis? In our study we address all three
questions, as pertains to a case study on the link between sprawl
and community-level health in a Midwestern county (Summit County,
Ohio) in the United States and the 20 communities of which it
comprised.
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Just
got back from the
The Association for Medical Education in Europe
Conference. AMEE "is a worldwide organisation with
members in 90 countries on five continents. Members
include educators, researchers, administrators,
curriculum developers, assessors and students in
medicine and the healthcare professions."
We did a pre-conference workshop on complexity method as
applied to the topics of medical professionalism and the
hidden curriculum. It went very well. My co-conspirators
in presenting were:
1) Jim Price (Institute of Postgraduate Medicine,
Brighton & Sussex Medical School, UK)
2) Susan Lieff (Centre for Faculty Development,
Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Canada)
3) Frederic Hafferty (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota,
USA)
4) John Castellani (Johns Hopkins University, USA)
We also had two student presentations using social
networks to analyze medical education:
O B Nikolaus*, R Hofer, W Pawlina, B Castellani, P K
Hafferty, F W Hafferty. “Social networks and academic
help seeking among first year medical students.” The
Association for Medical Education in Europe Annual
Conference, Vienna Austria 2011.
Ryan E Hofer, O Brant Nikolaus, Wojciech Pawlina, Brian
Castellani, Philip K Hafferty, Frederic Hafferty.
“Peer-to-peer assessments of professionalism: A time
dependent social network perspective.” The Association
for Medical Education in Europe Annual Conference,
Vienna Austria 2011
Overall, a very successful conference.
CCH Members Attending Roundtable Event
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Drs. Castellani and Hafferty are involved this weekend in a
roundtable event sponsored by the Mayo Clinic and the American
Board of Internal Medicine. The purpose of the roundtable is
the advancement of medical professionalism through the
application of complexity science. You can download Dr.
Castellani's presentation in PDF format from the link below.
Castellani
Complexity Presentation.pdf
Paper Published in Journal of Sociocybernetics
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
The ISA online Journal of Sociocybernetics has released a special
issue covering the proceedings from last year's Urbino Conference.
Contained in the issue is a paper authored by CCH research team
members Dr. Brian Castellani, Dr. Frederic Hafferty, and Michael
Ball. The paper, E-Social Science from a Systems Perspective:
Applying the SACS Toolkit, addresses the use of the SACS
Toolkit to translate, organize and manipulate electronic data from
varied sources. The complete issue of the journal can be viewed at:
http://www.unizar.es/sociocybernetics/Journal/JoS7-2-2009.pdf
The CCH paper begins on page 89 of the issue.
Infectious Disease Model
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
CCH Research Team Member, Michael Ball, has completed a model
looking at the progression of a fatal illness communicated via
contact, complete with incubation period, variable disease period
and terminality, and agents who are immune to the disease. This
model simulates the spread of an infectious disease traveling via
contact through a randomly moving population. The user can draw
walls, buildings, or obstacles in the in the simulation grid to
simulate different environments.
Future versions of the model will show the progression of
air-borne, food-borne and fixed source contact diseases. This model
was developed as part of research work for the Center for Complexity
in Health. A working copy of the model, along with directions and
the complete code can be found at:
http://www.personal.kent.edu/~mdball/Infectious_Disease_Model.htm
Questions, comments, or suggestions for the model are quite
welcome.
