Organization Monkey

oh boy, i have just the thing to perk you up this friday.  here’s a snippet of lyrics from the song by hefe, “increase the ‘n’”:

there’s a trend but the error is big
increase the N
the rat’s no good use the guinea pig
increase the N
the antibody’s weak the background high
increase the N
my P value is bigger than pi
increase the N

see?  don’t you feel better?  here’s a link to the rest of the lyrics: http://www.scq.ubc.ca/?p=180 ,
and the song at hefe’s myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/heferocks

i’m still processing the position paper on “open data,” but so far i’m having a difficult time with the practicality of the concept.  the argument falls flat for me because it calls for no restrictions on (certain) scientific data at all, noting that it should be made available for use without permission (or acknowledgment, as far as i can tell from the wikipedia article).  the wikipedia article implies that these data are just laying around somewhere, waiting to be used, but in fact their very collection implies some intellectual authority and that, in my opinion, should be respected and acknowledged.

futhermore, murray states in his paper that “the data be Open and be re-used by someone not connected with the original author without the need for permission or correspondence. Legal, syntactic, semantic and ontological questions must be answered by the data themselves.”  in a community of scientists where the key for “openness” seems to be about a more active communication, why would you make part of your position that you be allowed to shut yourself off from the data collectors?

any feedback is welcome as i continue to process the concept of “open data.”

i got a chapter accepted for publication (yay!) and am preparing the packet of materials to send to the editors, including the publication agreement.  i will be attaching the amendment to the publication agreement that i made.  a particularly disagreeable clause in the agreement they want me to sign reads: “Furthermore, author(s) cannot post the contents of the chapter on any personal website or other sites, or distribute the work to others in either electronic or print forms.”  if i accepted that clause it would mean that i can’t send my mom a copy of my chapter or post it in my institution’s repository.

i’ll report back with any comments from the publisher.  stay tuned!

every morning between 9 and 10 david lynch phones in to the indie radio station here in l.a., 103.1, and gives a weather report.  it usually goes something like this: “today is april 12.  it’s a thursday.  where i am the skies are blue, with glorious sunshine.  it’s 60 degrees fahrenheit, 15 degrees celsius.  thought for the day: beginning to feel like spring.”  the funny thing about his reports is that he doesn’t always say where he is, and he may be calling in from a totally different climate.  one time he called in and reported that where he was it was gray, looked like rain, and was very cold, certainly nothing like l.a.!  i guess the other funny thing is that david lynch is doing a weather report.  yes, that david lynch.  view a quicktime video of his weather report at davidlynch.com.

i’m working on my poster for the upcoming medical library association conference and came across a free clip art site.  it’s called “open clip art,” and every image there is in the public domain.  i found a very nice magnifying glass image, which i may use for the analysis portion of the poster.  you may like it for your own powerpoint or poster presentations.  leave a comment if you have a favorite free clip art site you’d like to point me to.

Today is World Health Day. An issues paper posted at the WHO site notes the following as key issues you may wish to consider regarding the theme of this year’s World Health Day, international health security:

• emerging diseases
• economic stability
• international crises and humanitarian emergencies
• chemical, radioactive and biological terror threats
• environmental change
• AIDS – provoking the health and security debate
• building health security
• strengthening health systems

The aim of the paper is to “spark global debate” (p.20), but it also makes me consider where I fit into the discussion. I like to think that, in some very small way, by doing the kind of work that I do, I contribute to the issue surrounding strengthening health systems. That is all. May you each have a healthy day.