Ternary linear codes

iii+69hlm.;24c

Partial spreads and vector space partitions

Constant-dimension codes with the maximum possible minimum distance have been studied under the name of partial spreads in Finite Geometry for several decades. Not surprisingly, for this subclass typically the sharpest bounds on the maximal code size are known. The seminal works of Beutelspacher and Drake \& Freeman on partial spreads date back to 1975, and 1979, respectively. From then until recently, there was almost no progress besides some computer-based constructions and classifications. It turns out that vector space partitions provide the appropriate theoretical framework and can be used to improve the long-standing bounds in quite a few cases. Here, we provide a historic account on partial spreads and an interpretation of the classical results from a modern perspective. To this end, we introduce all required methods from the theory of vector space partitions and Finite Geometry in a tutorial style. We guide the reader to the current frontiers of research in that field, including a detailed description of the recent improvements.Comment: 30 pages, 1 tabl

Self-dual codes, subcode structures, and applications.

The classification of self-dual codes has been an extremely active area in coding theory since 1972 [33]. A particularly interesting class of self-dual codes is those of Type II which have high minimum distance (called extremal or near-extremal). It is notable that this class of codes contains famous unique codes: the extended Hamming [8,4,4] code, the extended Golay [24,12,8] code, and the extended quadratic residue [48,24,12] code. We examine the subcode structures of Type II codes for lengths up to 24, extremal Type II codes of length 32, and give partial results on the extended quadratic residue [48,24,12] code. We also develop a generalization of self-dual codes to Network Coding Theory and give some results on existence of self-dual network codes with largest minimum distance for lengths up to 10. Complementary Information Set (CIS for short) codes, a class of classical codes recently developed in [7], have important applications to Cryptography. CIS codes contain self-dual codes as a subclass. We give a new classification result for CIS codes of length 14 and a partial result for length 16

Co-creating a Transdisciplinary Map of Technology-mediated Harms, Risks and Vulnerabilities: Challenges, Ambivalences and Opportunities

The phrase "online harms" has emerged in recent years out of a growing political willingness to address the ethical and social issues associated with the use of the Internet and digital technology at large. The broad landscape that surrounds online harms gathers a multitude of disciplinary, sectoral and organizational efforts while raising myriad challenges and opportunities for the crossing entrenched boundaries. In this paper we draw lessons from a journey of co-creating a transdisciplinary knowledge infrastructure within a large research initiative animated by the online harms agenda. We begin with a reflection of the implications of mapping, taxonomizing and constructing knowledge infrastructures and a brief review of how online harm and adjacent themes have been theorized and classified in the literature to date. Grounded on our own experience of co-creating a map of online harms, we then argue that the map -- and the process of mapping -- perform three mutually constitutive functions, acting simultaneously as method, medium and provocation. We draw lessons from how an open-ended approach to mapping, despite not guaranteeing consensus, can foster productive debate and collaboration in ethically and politically fraught areas of research. We end with a call for CSCW research to surface and engage with the multiple temporalities, social lives and political sensibilities of knowledge infrastructures.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, to appear in The 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work And Social Computing. October 13-18, 2023. Minneapolis, MN US

Publications of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, July 1964 through June 1965

JPL publications bibliography with abstracts - reports on DSIF, Mariner program, Ranger project, Surveyor project, and other space programs, and space science

Measuring Quality of Life in Dystonia: An Ethnography of Contested Representations

Chapter 1: Introduction Describes my personal engagement with QOL measurement and disability. Situates research in a theoretical context by reviewing literature on the anthropologies of disability, audit, medicine, the body, and science and technology. Introduces dystonia and my field sites and briefly describes healthcare provision in the UK (including the role of the National Institute of Clinical Evidence). Section 1: Experiences of people living with dystonia Chapter 2 Living with dystonia Briefly reviews anthropological and sociological literature on living with a chronic illness, before focusing on the themes that characterise the experience of dystonia (understanding and representing changes in the body, obtaining a diagnosis and maintaining relations of trust with doctors, communicating dystonia to others, responding to dystonia, and external responses to dystonia). Chapter 3 Stories from people living with dystonia Explores the themes identified in chapter 2, using six stories to give a sense of how dystonia is integrated into people's lives. Looks at how people use narrative to make sense of illness and give it personal meaning and explores methodological problems with using narrative. Section 2: Encounters with bureaucracy Chapter 4 Encounters with medicine: Derek's story Examines individual encounters with medical bureaucracy through the story of Derek, an intelligent and articulate man with generalised dystonia. His story is contextualised by other interviews and accounts from people living with dystonia, and sociological and anthropological literature on "doctor-patient relations". Chapter 5 Professional or bureaucratic?: The dilemma of the Dystonia Society Examines the Dystonia Society (the main patient support organisation for people living with dystonia), which is an influential actor in the networks explored in chapter 6. Describes its history, culture, and relationship with members, and looks at how it constructs "the voice of people living with dystonia" in fundraising and media campaigns. Chapter 6 "Partnerships for progress"? Explores the relationships between pharmaceutical companies, patient support organisations, doctors, and the government, and their mediation through QOL, using ethnography from national and international meetings of neurologists, neurological patient support organisations, and QOL researchers. Treats QOL (and its related discourse on "the patients' voice") as a "boundary object" around which diverse alliances can form and explores these further in the context of submissions to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence. Section 3: Quality of life Chapter 7 Defining and measuring QOL Examines how the discipline of QOL research has expanded and professionalised, and constructs a "genealogy" of QOL to explore the links between its psychometric ancestry and the expansion of statistics and eugenics in the nineteenth century. Looks at the implications of definitions of QOL and assumptions underlying different measures. Explores how they are used in the health economic analyses that are increasingly guiding resource allocation in the UK and addresses the ethical and methodological problems of asking "healthy" people and health professionals to value the lives of people with disabilities. Chapter 8 An ethnography of QOL measurement Describes how measures of QOL are created and used, using ethnography from fieldwork on a multiple sclerosis-specific QOL measure and a European survey of the QOL of people living with dystonia. Chapter 9 Realising the potential of QOL: The World Health Organisation Uses the example of the WHO to demonstrate the double-edged nature ofQOL by examining three projects: a multilingual, multidimensional QOL measure to be used internationally with "healthy'' and sick populations; a universal classification of health (the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health); and the Global Burden of Disease Project, which uses health economic analyses to set international priorities for health spending using the Disability Adjusted Life Year. Conclusion Addresses key questions explored in the thesis, specifically how the rhetorics of QOL and the "voice of the patient" are used as resources in the struggles of doctors, patient support organisations, and pharmaceuticals; how QOL measures can represent "invisible" conditions like dystonia and make them visible and accountable; whether QOL measurement is an example of medicalisation and/or the extension of audit culture into health, and, finally, whether the voices of patients are currently being heard and what can be done to facilitate this

Assembling the value of nature : a performative analysis of English biodiversity offsetting and the DEFRA pilot study

This thesis explores the UK Government’s Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs’ (DEFRA) 2-year pilot study into biodiversity offsetting (BDO) in England. The objective is to investigate the socio-technical assemblages of biodiversity offsetting to examine what it means to value biodiversity in practice, how the ensuing values materialise and with what effects. The thesis undertakes a multi-sited investigation of the DEFRA pilot study. Firstly I explore the origins of the BDO assemblage focussing on two of its critical elements, the policy standard of ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity and the central calculative device, the DEFRA metric. I contextualise these conceptual and calculative technologies within the wider socio-political milieus in which they were conceived, circulated and subsequently took effect. The next three chapters present case studies built through diachronic empirical engagements with three sites of the DEFRA pilot. These chapters trace the assemblages of actual BDO negotiations, efforts to value biodiversity by actors in-situ, and the tensions that threaten these processes. Lastly, I explore the value/s conflicts appearing in these case studies through an empirical investigation of the BDO dispute as it played out at the Business and Biodiversity Offsetting Programme (BBOP) conference in London in June 2014. I argue for an understanding of value making in conservation as a performative project through which the values of nature are actively constructed and assembled via social, political and technical processes that can be documented empirically. I emphasise that biodiversity value does not therefore exist waiting to be captured but is actively performed through the assemblages and practices of BDO. The thesis concludes by discussing the implications of a valuation approach in conservation noting the necessary occlusions this sustains and the important changes to biodiversity conservation policy and practice it signals. Keywords: Biodiversity offsetting, Conservation policy, English biodiversity offsetting pilot, DEFRA, Assemblage, Performativity, Valu

Theories of Informetrics and Scholarly Communication

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published The need for a theory of citing - a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact