“MacGyver-Meets-Dr. Ruth”: Science Journalism and the Material Positioning of Dr. Carla Pugh

This article examines the rhetorical consequences of foregrounding female scientists\u27 materials through an analysis of seven news articles on Dr. Carla Pugh, a surgeon who designs medical patient simulators. Journalists foreground Pugh\u27s materials by positioning her as both “MacGyver,” creatively assembling simulators from everyday objects, and “Dr. Ruth,” willingly discussing intimate parts. These positions avoid focusing on Pugh\u27s personal life or body but still ultimately gender her and her work. The MacGyver position associates Pugh with gendered activities, objects, and spaces while undermining her affiliation with the technical aspects of design. Meanwhile, the Dr. Ruth position implies Pugh\u27s knowledge comes from inherent bodily expertise, making certain scientific fields appear more natural for women

The significant other: the value of jewellery within the conception, design and experience of body focussed digital devices

In this paper, we demonstrate how craft practice in contemporary jewellery opens up conceptions of ‘digital jewellery’ to possibilities beyond merely embedding pre-existing behaviours of digital systems in objects, which follow shallow interpretations of jewellery. We argue that a design approach that understands jewellery only in terms of location on the body is likely to lead to a world of ‘gadgets’, rather than anything that deserves the moniker ‘jewellery’. In contrast, by adopting a craft approach, we demonstrate that the space of digital jewellery can include objects where the digital functionality is integrated as one facet of an object that can be personally meaningful for the holder or wearer.</p

Big Data and the Internet of Things

Advances in sensing and computing capabilities are making it possible to embed increasing computing power in small devices. This has enabled the sensing devices not just to passively capture data at very high resolution but also to take sophisticated actions in response. Combined with advances in communication, this is resulting in an ecosystem of highly interconnected devices referred to as the Internet of Things - IoT. In conjunction, the advances in machine learning have allowed building models on this ever increasing amounts of data. Consequently, devices all the way from heavy assets such as aircraft engines to wearables such as health monitors can all now not only generate massive amounts of data but can draw back on aggregate analytics to "improve" their performance over time. Big data analytics has been identified as a key enabler for the IoT. In this chapter, we discuss various avenues of the IoT where big data analytics either is already making a significant impact or is on the cusp of doing so. We also discuss social implications and areas of concern.Comment: 33 pages. draft of upcoming book chapter in Japkowicz and Stefanowski (eds.) Big Data Analysis: New algorithms for a new society, Springer Series on Studies in Big Data, to appea

Fireground location understanding by semantic linking of visual objects and building information models

This paper presents an outline for improved localization and situational awareness in fire emergency situations based on semantic technology and computer vision techniques. The novelty of our methodology lies in the semantic linking of video object recognition results from visual and thermal cameras with Building Information Models (BIM). The current limitations and possibilities of certain building information streams in the context of fire safety or fire incident management are addressed in this paper. Furthermore, our data management tools match higher-level semantic metadata descriptors of BIM and deep-learning based visual object recognition and classification networks. Based on these matches, estimations can be generated of camera, objects and event positions in the BIM model, transforming it from a static source of information into a rich, dynamic data provider. Previous work has already investigated the possibilities to link BIM and low-cost point sensors for fireground understanding, but these approaches did not take into account the benefits of video analysis and recent developments in semantics and feature learning research. Finally, the strengths of the proposed approach compared to the state-of-the-art is its (semi -)automatic workflow, generic and modular setup and multi-modal strategy, which allows to automatically create situational awareness, to improve localization and to facilitate the overall fire understanding

Small unmanned airborne systems to support oil and gas pipeline monitoring and mapping

Acknowledgments We thank Johan Havelaar, Aeryon Labs Inc., AeronVironment Inc. and Aeronautics Inc. for kindly permitting the use of materials in Fig. 1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD