Beyond Radiation

mLearn 2012 - Tackling Health Risk of Mobile Learning?

The biggest mobile learning research conference took place in Helsinki, Finland:

"mLearn 2012 - the  11th World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning"

Surprise: I and Tarmo Koppel (Tallinn Technical University) had the only presentation and paper about health risks of children. 

This paper of ours is called "Mobile learning and health-risk management of pulsed microwave technologies"

We measured several Wi-Fi access points, compared our resulth with health studies and provided recommendations at the end of the paper.

If I look at the heavy sponsoring programs of service providers (teleoperators), I have a feeling that with hype papers and related presentations it would be much easier to get research funding ;-)

Well, hopefully the time comes when IAmLearn (International Association of Mobile Learning) will finally addresses health risks.

Every comment about our research paper is welcome.

 

Environmental Polluter of the Year 2010 Award

The winners for these questionable prizes are:

Worst Service: Foursquare

Worst Gadget: Teddyfone

Worst Technology: 4G (LTE)

Please, keep on reading to find out why.

I will also present more sustainable and healthier alternatives.

 

 

Power Quality and Health - Is There a Connection?

Power Quality and Health - Is There a Connection?

View more presentations from Mikko Ahonen.

Misconduct in Science 1: How Power Industry Controls Research

The latest story in the Microwave News (MWN) is worth reading:

 

      The Real Junk Science of EMFs

Stop Electric Field Cancer Research, Say Industry Scientists

It describes how one industry-minded researcher and three industry representatives make a poor literature review and then suggest that there is no reason to do research on electric fields any more. [1],[2].

All this happens in once prestigious Bioelectromagnetics journal, where editorial policy has  been lately quite biased [1],[2] and sloppy.

Why is the power industry acting like this right now? My guess is that it has something to do with the (future) health problems related to transients and harmonic overwaves (aka dirty electricity)  [1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7] and installation of Not So Smart Meters [1],[2]. By installing hundreds of millions of these meters world wide as part of this Definitely Not Smart Grid [1] will have a massive impact on health … and environment :-(  

My own definition of Climategate:

”An Illusion Created by the Industry and some Misled Environmental Organisations to Make Consumers to Believe that:
a) By Buying CFL Energy Saving Lamps, Smart Meters and Electric Cars They Would Save the World and Environment.
b) While Simultaneosly These Poorly Constructed Devices Possibly Ruin the Health of Their Users and Create (Electro)Pollution in Massive Scale. - M.A.

Please, don't get me wrong: I have nothing against well-designed energy-saving devices and networks. However, the mass-marketed, existing ones are not well-designed. Additionally The Really Smart Grid would have been based on fibre and wired connections without transients or pulses. I told this to Finnish government ministers (especially Mauri Pekkarinen, but they don't listen since they prefer to spread Wonderful Wireless Technologies and to promote partially government-owned Mobile&Power industry :-\  I also contacted industry representatives, but they were not willing to change their plans. Currently, I am using another channel to promote more sustainable alternatives.

Remember what Robert O. Becker once said?

“I have no doubt in my mind, that at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the Earth’s environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be far greater on a global scale than warming and the increase in chemical elements in the environment.”

- MD, Professor Robert O. Becker

Becker's prediction is more precise than I ever could have imagined :-(

Glad to hear/read your comments about this!

P.S. I highly recommend MWN. The chief editor, PhD Louis Slesin is one the best experts in the world in the EMF & Health area. It has been pleasure to meet and discuss with him :-) Please, don’t miss the WHO Files in right frame of the MWN !!

Mass-Customization MCPC2009 + EMF & Health Business in Drucker framework

The 5th World Conference on Mass Customization & Personalization (MCPC2009) will be arranged between 4th-8th October 2009 in Helsinki, Finland. This conference gathers together a nice mixture of people (architects, business executives, designers, artists, researchers, etc). What I like in this year's MCPC, is the ability to co-create and customise the actual conference with a toolkit! During the years, I have tried to stay tuned what is happening in this fascinating mass-customization scene [1].

If you are curious about this mass-customisation and personalisation area, I recommend the blog of professor Frank Piller. Frank always has interesting things going on and he is good in telling business stories :-)

My presentation and paper in this year's MCPC2009 Conference is called:

"Sources of Innovative Opportunity and Mass-Customization
 – An Analysis of EMF & Health Business Area"

Abstract (updated): "Systematic innovation means monitoring changes in existing business structures and early entrepreneurs often take risks in entering a new business area. Therefore, the Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity, an innovation monitoring framework from Peter Drucker is presented. Within this paper we investigate how this framework is related to mass-customization and personalization. First we test this framework in real context by evaluating three health product companies and their innovation activities. These companies operate in a new business area called the EMF (Electro-Magnetic Fields) and Health. Recently, several scientists, governments and the European Parliament have emphasized precautionary principle and indicated health risks in mobile phones, base stations and other technologies. At the same time authorities and standard setting bodies (like ICNIRP, IEEE and WHO) have not officially recognized such risks. This tension provides a starting point for the evaluation. At the end of this paper we discuss how crowdsourcing and mass-customization toolkits could be utilized more effectively by entrepreneurs. Open innovation paradigm and the challenges in knowledge brokering in R&D are also introduced."

Update 4th October  2009:  My paper in PDF format can be found here. The presentation in the MCPC2009 will take place on Tuesday, 6th of October 2009, starting at 13:45.

Update 19th October 2009: An interesting concept was mentioned in the MCPC2009: Continuous Innovation. This happened in Joseph Pine 's presentation:"Future of mass customization". I need to focus on this in the future.

Comments about the paper or about the conference are welcome!

ITK 2009 Hämeenlinna and Environmental BioIndicators Moscow -conferences

In 2 conferences I will talk about healthier, more sustainable practices in using educational technologies:

1. Mobiilioppiminen – miten mahdolliset terveysriskit vaikuttavat
opetuksen käytäntöihin

[Mobile learning - What kind of impact do health risks have on educational practices]

 

Together with professor in physiology, Osmo Hänninen and with researcher Antti Syvänen.

On Thursday, 23th April 2009 at the ITK-Conference, Interaktiivinen Tekniikka Koulutuksessa, Hämeenlinna, Aulanko, Finland.

Esitysrunko + Lataa koko ITK-esitys, päivitetty versio 17.5.2009 klo 8:45.

2.  Schools, Wireless Technologies and Health Risks - How to Minimise Radiation Exposure

In the 17th International Conference on Environmental BioIndicators

 

On 17th-22nd May 2009 in Moscow, Russia

Abstract (draft)

In this presentation I will also discuss about mobile phone base stations and their proper siting.

It will be great to meet (again) professors Oleg and Yuri Grigoriev in Moscow from the RNCNIRP (Russian National Committee on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection) :-)  Please, check the latest recommendations of RNCNIRP in English: [1],[2].

What is your opinion: Are health risks of children properly addressed in today's schools? Do you happen to know good educational practices to reduce microwave exposure?

Deezer - Social Media Service for Music

Quite often I have talks and presentations about Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing. The Deezer service is a good example of users recommending content and remixing content. In that sense Deezer is a basic example of Social Media as well. Try it:

My earlier favourite: Musicovery. Waiting for an invitation to Spotify ;-)

With Deezer I will be curious to:

A) add my own music to service (as MP3s)
 
B) add friends to my profile and see how the recommendation part works.

C) sing karaoke through it (just kidding/dreaming :)

Wikis & 3D-Worlds - Better eLearning and Collaboration tools?

What does telepresence mean in wikis? Or should wikis just remain asyncronous, text-based, tabula rasa -type of collaboration platforms?

Ever since we had this Virtual Reality seminar in Galway, I have been wondering how to create meaningful collaboration within Second Life. Those SL-tools seem to be superficial for that.

An integrated wiki approach might  be more interesting, especially for large-scale planning projects. A promising start - Wikitecture:

"Having conducted a number of experiments over the last year into the feasibility of applying an open-source paradigm to the practice of architecture, the Studio Wikitecture group developed a 3D-Wiki plug-in on the virtual reality platform, Second Life, that they used to help build consensus among the numerous contributors in this open-source project. 

The ‘Wiki-Tree’ as it was called, acted as a version tracking system that worked very much like a conventional Wiki, but instead of tracking text documents in a linear history as you see in Wikipedia, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ tracked versions of 3-dimensional models and saved them within a continually evolving 3-dimensional digital tree ‘canopy’.  Similar to Wikipedia, this 3D-Wiki allowed this loose, self-organized group of contributors to share ideas, edit the contributions of others, and vote on which design iterations should be considered for further refinement."

This is one area I am curious to check in the Online Educa Berlin -conference in December 2008 ;-)

In Online Educa, Berlin - Healthier Wireless Practices in Schools

(Please, click the programme to enlarge it)

Update: The slide set is now available through SlideShare:

Wireless Systems and Health Risks - Implications for Pedagogical and Educational Practices

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: health risk)

Update 16th December 2008: My session will be was in Berlin on Friday 5th December 2008 between 4:30-6:00 p.m. Not the best time slot, but I could live with it. Especially the teachers and headmasters in the audience were asking about safer ways to implement wireless technologies in schools. The problem seems to be that wireless technologies are installed in schools (almost automatically) in many countries and only afterwards the discussion about health risks takes place. Maybe this discussion should take place beforehand?!?

The original introduction PDF-paper: Download ahonen_abstract_online_educa_berlin.pdf

 

Glad to talk about the topic  .... before, during or after the conference!

 

UPDATE: In the Mlearn-conference in 2012 I had a presentation about the same topic. Please, look at the presentation and paper.

Depression and violence - What role does EMF play?

The tragedy in Jokela and Kauhajoki has made many people ask: What's wrong with Finland?

As a Finn, I can not totally ignore these terrible incidents :-(

So, where do increased depression, sleep problems and violence come from?

With Ed (Edward) Dutton I have had good thought exchange about the origins of  Finnish violence. We both agreed that there are some "in-born" factors in every society.

BUT, I don't believe that "Bad Genes", "High expectations", "Computer games", "Historically Depressed Finns" are sufficient explanations.

Please, let me provide you an Alternative Explanation related to EMF (Electromagnetic Fields):

[Update, 30th March 2010: Broken links revised]

1. Mobile Phone aka Cell phone :

- The use of mobile phones may have an effect on dopamine-opiate system of the brain.

- Exposure to pulse-modulated radio frequency electromagnetic fields most likely affects regional cerebral blood flow

- Update 21st February 2011: Exposure to low intensity EM energy potentiates the effects of low doses of morphine; this effect is comparable to that found in dopamine inhibitors. Additionally, Allan Frey demonstrates several experiments where EMFs interact with various drugs by altering the original (intended) effect of the drug. 

- Especially the pulse-modulated radiation has an effect on concentration, cognition and memory.

Point: Mobile phones should not be pressed against head or body. And most of the time the mobile phone aka 'The Gradual Depressor' should be switched off. Children are in particular risk.

2. Base stations aka Cell towers:

- The 'Microwave syndrome' may explain also depression close to base stations.

- The pulsed and UMTS-modulated radiation may affect melatonin production and immunity system.

- A possible effect on youngsters' suicidal behaviour in a certain area was discussed in the UK.

- In nature heavy exposure to EMF creates aggressive and suicidal behaviour in animals and insects.

- To my understanding, the publications about EMF, basestations and health can not be neglected by decision makers. Update 21st February 2011: See also my Chronic Exposure research overview of base stations and their health effects.

Point: The output power is too strong in base stations. The mobile phone needs less than 1 uW/m2 to operate fully. Currently in many European households the radiation power density levels originating from base stations are in hundreds or thousands of uW/m2.

3. Power lines and electrical wiring:

- What has been shown in earlier research, heavy exposure to low-level EMF may cause depression.

- Especially melatonin production is in risk.

- Living too close to a power-line may cause adverse health effects

- Dirty electricity with transients causes unexpected consequences in homes and workplaces. Update 21st February 2011: Take a look at my voltage transients presentation.

- Update 4th October 2009: Chargers, transformers and other electrical appliances in bedroom may heavily affect sleep and well-being.

- Typical households have many 'spots' that could be improved with simple changes (see the pictures in the Austrian document).

Point: Houses should not be too close to powerlines. Additionally, the electrical wiring and grounding should be installed better in homes and offices.

What I am saying: Exposure to EMF does not fully explain violent behaviour or depression. But, it may play a surprising role in the incidents.

Please, provide a comment to a Finn ;-)