Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition

Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New developments in information processing and information communication technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions, representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective, multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences, sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions. When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics. We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our different research fields that include information studies, computability, human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and philosophy.Comment: Chapter in a forthcoming book: Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity - Forthcoming book in World Scientific. Mark Burgin and Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Editor

Disregarding History: Contemporary IS Contexts and Participatory Design

User participation has long been seen as a core topic of study within the IS field, yet its relevance to contemporary development environments and contexts has recently been brought into question. The aim of this article is to investigate the extent to which this rich history and experience is used to inform contemporary practices. We provide a survey that evaluates the degree to which PD (participatory design) is currently represented in the IS literature, the results of which reveal a low representation. Based on these findings, a number of propositions are offered

Ecologies of e-Infrastructures

We present and discuss a historical reconstruction of the development of a Microsoft SharePoint eInfrastructure in NorthOil (2003 – 2008). The eInfrastructure was to support strategically emphasized work processes and open up a richer context of decision-making around production optimization. Specifically, the new eInfrastructure was to make it more convenient to trace decisions historically and across disciplinary and geographical boundaries – a need driven in part by post-Enron requirements for more elaborate and systematic reporting to the stock exchange. The Microsoft-based SharePoint eInfrastructure was intended to “seamlessly” integrate the many different and distinct information systems holding relevant information on production optimization. A principal aim of our study is to analyze how, why, and who resisted this largely top-down eInfrastructure initiative. We analyze how local practices rely heavily on specialized, niche information systems that are patched together as an ongoing performance to achieve commensurability. These local practices, however, are not immune to change. We discuss the indications of a transformative amalgam of (elements of) the new eInfrastructure and (elements of) the existing, local practices

lLTZVisor: a lightweight TrustZone-assisted hypervisor for low-end ARM devices

Dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresVirtualization is a well-established technology in the server and desktop space and has recently been spreading across different embedded industries. Facing multiple challenges derived by the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) era, these industries are driven by an upgrowing interest in consolidating and isolating multiple environments with mixed-criticality features, to address the complex IoT application landscape. Even though this is true for majority mid- to high-end embedded applications, low-end systems still present little to no solutions proposed so far. TrustZone technology, designed by ARM to improve security on its processors, was adopted really well in the embedded market. As such, the research community became active in exploring other TrustZone’s capacities for isolation, like an alternative form of system virtualization. The lightweight TrustZone-assisted hypervisor (LTZVisor), that mainly targets the consolidation of mixed-criticality systems on the same hardware platform, is one design example that takes advantage of TrustZone technology for ARM application processors. With the recent introduction of this technology to the new generation of ARM microcontrollers, an opportunity to expand this breakthrough form of virtualization to low-end devices arose. This work proposes the development of the lLTZVisor hypervisor, a refactored LTZVisor version that aims to provide strong isolation on resource-constrained devices, while achieving a low-memory footprint, determinism and high efficiency. The key for this is to implement a minimal, reliable, secure and predictable virtualization layer, supported by the TrustZone technology present on the newest generation of ARM microcontrollers (Cortex-M23/33).Virtualização é uma tecnologia já bem estabelecida no âmbito de servidores e computadores pessoais que recentemente tem vindo a espalhar-se através de várias indústrias de sistemas embebidos. Face aos desafios provenientes do surgimento da era Internet of Things (IoT), estas indústrias são guiadas pelo crescimento do interesse em consolidar e isolar múltiplos sistemas com diferentes níveis de criticidade, para atender ao atual e complexo cenário aplicativo IoT. Apesar de isto se aplicar à maioria de aplicações embebidas de média e alta gama, sistemas de baixa gama apresentam-se ainda com poucas soluções propostas. A tecnologia TrustZone, desenvolvida pela ARM de forma a melhorar a segurança nos seus processadores, foi adoptada muito bem pelo mercado dos sistemas embebidos. Como tal, a comunidade científica começou a explorar outras aplicações da tecnologia TrustZone para isolamento, como uma forma alternativa de virtualização de sistemas. O "lightweight TrustZone-assisted hypervisor (LTZVisor)", que tem sobretudo como fim a consolidação de sistemas de criticidade mista na mesma plataforma de hardware, é um exemplo que tira vantagem da tecnologia TrustZone para os processadores ARM de alta gama. Com a recente introdução desta tecnologia para a nova geração de microcontroladores ARM, surgiu uma oportunidade para expandir esta forma inovadora de virtualização para dispositivos de baixa gama. Este trabalho propõe o desenvolvimento do hipervisor lLTZVisor, uma versão reestruturada do LTZVisor que visa em proporcionar um forte isolamento em dispositivos com recursos restritos, simultâneamente atingindo um baixo footprint de memória, determinismo e alta eficiência. A chave para isto está na implementação de uma camada de virtualização mínima, fiável, segura e previsível, potencializada pela tecnologia TrustZone presente na mais recente geração de microcontroladores ARM (Cortex-M23/33)