Through artistic interventions into the computational backbone of maternity services, the artists behind the Body Recovery Unit explore data production and its usages in healthcare governance. Taking their artwork The National Catalogue Of Savings Opportunities. Maternity, Volume 1: London (2017) as a case study, they explore how artists working with ‘live’ computational culture might draw from critical theory, Science and Technology Studies as well as feminist strategies within arts-led enquiry. This paper examines the mechanisms through which maternal bodies are rendered visible or invisible to managerial scrutiny, by exploring the interlocking elements of commissioning structures, nationwide information standards and databases in tandem with everyday maternity healthcare practices on the wards in the UK. The work provides a new context to understand how re-prioritisation of ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ births, breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, age of conception and other factors are gaining momentum in sync with cost-reduction initiatives, funding cuts and privatisation of healthcare services.
MULTIFILE
In an image-saturated society, methods for visual analysis gain urgency. This special issue explores visual ways to study online images, focusing on their collection and circulation. The proposition we make is to stay as close to the material as possible. How to approach the visual with the visual? What type of images may one design to make sense of, reshape, and reanimate online image collections? How may arrangements of online images promote various analytical procedures, participatory actions, and design interventions? Furthermore, we focus on the role that algorithmic tools, including machine vision, can play in such research efforts while being sensitive to their flaws and shortcomings. Which kinds of collaborations between humans and machines can we envision to better grasp and critically interrogate the dynamics of today’s digital visual culture? The different practices and formats discussed in this special issue (including data feminism, visual scores, machine vision, image networks, field guides) offer a range of approaches that seek to understand, reanimate, and change perspectives on our digital visual culture.
MULTIFILE
To accelerate differentiation between Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (CNS), this study aimed to compare six different DNA extraction methods from 2 commonly used blood culture materials, i.e. BACTEC and Bact/ALERT. Furthermore, we analyzed the effect of reduced blood culture times for detection of Staphylococci directly from blood culture material. A real-time PCR duplex assay was used to compare 6 different DNA isolation protocols on two different blood culture systems. Negative blood culture material was spiked with MRSA. Bacterial DNA was isolated with: automated extractor EasyMAG (3 protocols), automated extractor MagNA Pure LC (LC Microbiology Kit MGrade), a manual kit MolYsis Plus, and a combination between MolYsis Plus and the EasyMAG. The most optimal isolation method was used to evaluate reduced bacterial culture times. Bacterial DNA isolation with the MolYsis Plus kit in combination with the specific B protocol on the EasyMAG resulted in the most sensitive detection of S.aureus, with a detection limit of 10 CFU/ml, in Bact/ALERT material, whereas using BACTEC resulted in a detection limit of 100 CFU/ml. An initial S.aureus load of 1 CFU/ml blood can be detected after 5 hours of culture in Bact/ALERT3D by combining the sensitive isolation method and the tuf LightCycler assay.
