From social machines to social protocols:Software engineering foundations for sociotechnical systems

The overarching vision of social machines is to facilitate social processes by having computers provide administrative support. We conceive of a social machine as a sociotechnical system (STS): a software-supported system in which autonomous principals such as humans and organizations interact to exchange information and services. Existing approaches for social machines emphasize the technical aspects and inadequately support the meanings of social processes, leaving them informally realized in human interactions. We posit that a fundamental rethinking is needed to incorporate accountability, essential for addressing the openness of the Web and the autonomy of its principals. We introduce Interaction-Oriented Software Engineering (IOSE) as a paradigm expressly suited to capturing the social basis of STSs. Motivated by promoting openness and autonomy, IOSE focuses not on implementation but on social protocols, specifying how social relationships, characterizing the accountability of the concerned parties, progress as they interact. Motivated by providing computational support, IOSE adopts the accountability representation to capture the meaning of a social machine’s states and transitions. We demonstrate IOSE via examples drawn from healthcare. We reinterpret the classical software engineering (SE) principles for the STS setting and show how IOSE is better suited than traditional software engineering for supporting social processes. The contribution of this paper is a new paradigm for STSs, evaluated via conceptual analysis

Discernment-Oriented Leadership in the Johannine Situation—Abiding in the Truth versus Lesser Alternatives (Chapter in Rethinking the Ethics of John: Implicit Ethics in the Johannine Writings)

Excerpt: Leadership within the Johannine situation has been approached from various angles, ranging from structures of leadership, to the location of Johannine Christianity with relation to other groups, to the identity/nonidentity of Johannine leaders. Common to these and other inquiries regarding leadership within the Johannine situation, however, is a focus on the character and operation of leadership that is proposed, both of which relate centrally to abiding in the truth. Further, the call to abide in the truth pits this value over lesser alternatives in ways apparent over the longitudinal span of the Johannine situation. It comes to a head in the later stages of the Johannine situation, but it does not begin there

Cosmopolitanism, Creolization, and Non-Exceptionalist Buddhist Modernisms: On Evan Thompson’s Why I am Not A Buddhist

In his recent book, Why I Am Not a Buddhist, Evan Thompson argues that inter-tradition or cross-cultural philosophical dialogue ought to be governed by cosmopolitan conversational norms that do not subsume any one tradition’s deep commitments under those of any other tradition, but rather bring those commitments into the discussion so that they can be challenged and defended. He argues on this basis for the application of a deeply contextualist and historicist interpretive methodology to Buddhist texts, concepts, and theories in dialogue with philosophy and contemporary cognitive sciences. Buddhist modernism, in eschewing that deeply contextualist and historicist methodology, falls short of those cosmopolitan commitments. We argue that Thompson’s cosmopolitan commitments do not mandate the deeply contextualist and historicist methodology he recommends. As an alternative, we propose a creolizing methodology that finds value in mixing, reinterpreting, and reinventing cultural traditions and other forms of belonging to address the complex problems the world faces. We suggest that such a creolizing methodology can be found in other forms of Buddhist modernism than those Thompson criticizes. We provide, as two examples, the thought of the Chinese monk Taixu and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh

Designing technology to promote mental health and wellbeing

PhD ThesisMental health and wellbeing are fundamental to our quality of life, enabling us to be resilient against everyday stresses, work productively, to have fulfilling relationships, and experience life as meaningful. While HCI research has recently begun to address important challenges in the treatment of mental illness, approaches to promote and protect mental wellbeing, as positive emotional, psychological and social health, have received far less attention. Besides, the design space for technology innovation for people with severe mental health problems and as hospital inpatients is largely under-explored. The research presented in this thesis investigates how technology can promote the mental health and wellbeing of a group of women, living in the medium secure services of a forensic hospital in the UK. These women present a difficult to treat group due to the complexity of their mental health problems, extremely challenging behaviours, and a mild-tomoderate Learning Disability. Following an Experience-centred Design (ECD) approach in this context, the thesis describes how I worked collaboratively with hospital staff to gain a rich understanding of the women, their treatment regime, and constraints of their secure care; my approach to sensitively engaging this vulnerable group of women into a co-creative process to personalise their technology, and to carefully build up a relationship with them; and how the design of the technology builds upon qualities of creativity, physicality and personal significance for promoting engagement in mental health and wellbeing enhancing activities. In response to the design context I introduce the concept of the Spheres of Wellbeing, a set of three artefacts designed to collectively offer opportunities for engagements that are stimulating, enjoyable and personally meaningful; contribute to the formation of a positive sense of self; assist in tolerating emotional distress; and help familiarise the women with therapeutic concepts of mindfulness. Furthermore, in presenting the findings of a real-world deployment and evaluative study of the Spheres, this thesis contributes to current discourse in HCI on how empathy can be enabled with vulnerable populations, and provides rich insights into the complexities and challenges of conducting design-led research within hospital settings.Microsoft Research through its PhD Scholarship Programme and was partly been funded by the RCUK Digital Economy Hub on Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy (SiDE)

Critical Approaches to Clinical Social Work Practice: Considerations from Contemporary Relational Psychoanalytic Theory

Critical social workers now contend that an individual’s everyday living both shapes and is shaped by overarching social structures and discourses. As such, the subjectivity of the individual is considered an axis on which the existing social order can be either perpetuated or transformed. Transformations on the level of the individual are therefore argued to contribute to transformations on the levels of larger societal arrangements. For this reason, many critical social work theorists today argue that clinical social work practice with individuals is an essential component of effecting egalitarian forms of social change. Yet, critical social workers also widely acknowledge that clinical social work theory is currently a relatively underdeveloped area within critical social work literature. Contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory offers highly textured accounts of the interdependence of sociopolitical arrangements and cultural discourses, on the one hand, and the subjectivity of the individual, on the other, and has much to contribute to critical social workers’ current efforts to overcome oppressive relations on personal, interpersonal, and ultimately, societal levels

Constructing the external image of the European Union in the post-Lisbon environment: The official discourse of the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy / vice president of the commission

This thesis aims to demonstrate how the institutional actor of High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice President of the Commission (HR/VP) contributed to the construction of EU’s external image during the period of January 2010 to July 2013. In order to deliver the research aim, the theory of Discursive Institutionalism (DI) is introduced along with the methodology of Dialectical-Relational Approach (DRA) of Critical Discourse Analysis. DRA foresees a three-level analysis guided by HR/VP-set three priorities for her time in office. After analysing semantic aspects of the six themes/concepts, inductively identified from the texts, the discourse analysis shows that the creation and the functioning of the European External Action Service (EEAS), as both a priority and a theme, became a common denominator with which all the remaining five themes and two priorities could be linked. It was depicted as a prerequisite to considerably enhance EU’s external performance, in fact it was depicted as an institution which delivers EU foreign policy altogether. Consequently, the relationship between the HR/VP discourse and the institutional practice of external representation is explained through DI theory. Firstly, it is argued that in the HR/VP communicative discourse the identified themes/concepts could be taken as the upgraded versions of role conceptions (established images of EU’s role and performance in international system). They were utilised as discursive tools to refrain from bringing attention to role prescriptions, i.e. the still prevalent institutional fragmentation in EU’s external policies the HR/VP is aware of while speaking on behalf of the Union. This makes understandable with which means it was possible to construct the EEAS as a source enabling advancements in the post-Lisbon EU’s external conductions. Secondly, the HR/VP symbolic act of setting three vague priorities in the communicative discourse enabled to depict this institutional actor as one of having true discretionary power to set goals for whole EU’s external action, which in reality is impossible according to institutional rules. Lastly, in the HR/VP communicative discourse links were made between the initially set guiding priorities, the EEAS and the EU’s foreign policy. The latter remains a clear discursive attempt to depict an institutionally inexistent phenomenon as something real and tangible. In sum, all the aforesaid allows to better understand how the EU’s external image was constructed during the period of interest.http://www.ester.ee/record=b4410592~S58*es

Addressing organisational and societal concerns : an application of critical systems thinking to information systems planning in Colombia

Most current information system s (IS) planning methodologies are focused on achieving ‘successful’ plans, i.e. plans that provide competitive advantage, can be implemented in a given period of time, and that solve the problems of information needs by taking advantage of the latest technologies available. Concerns are technology and business driven, and focus on how to get the maximum profit for organisations from investing in information systems. However, this relatively narrow focus can be problematic, especially in developing countries where the social contexts of IS implementation may require a different primary focus. This chapter presents a methodology for IS planning based on critical systems thinking – an approach that encourages the critical analysis of stake holder understandings of social contexts prior to the selection and/ or design of planning methods. The methodology presented in this chapter uses a combination of the systems theories of autopoiesis and boundary critiques, which deepen our understanding of what it means to reflect on participation, values and social concerns during IS planning. In the course of applying the methodology in a project in Colombia, an issue arose of the ethics of the practitioner. To address this issue, following completion of the project, we sought to enhance critical systems thinking with Foucault ’s notions of power and ethics, which offer interesting alternatives for practitioner self-reflection. Implications for IS planning are derived from this perspective on ethics and power