Object Identity: Deconstructing the 'Hartree Differential Analyser' and Reconstructing a Meccano Analogue Computer

In 1934, a child's construction toy - Meccano - was used to build the first differential analyser in the UK. Initially intended as a proof-of-concept model, the original Meccano differential analyser proved so successful at resolving equations that many subsequent Meccano and non-Meccano analogue computers were built in the UK. These machines were used before, during, and after the Second World War as research instruments and teaching devices. Despite this, the part of the original Meccano differential analyser that has sat in the Science Museum since 1949 has been used to tell a Whiggish history of computers that focuses on digital machines at the expense of analogue mechanisms. While historians of computing today define their work in opposition to this linear-progressive account of computing, this approach featured prominently in academic literature until the turn of the millennium. This thesis explores Hartree and Porter's original Meccano differential analyser as an analogue computer, using it as a case study to explore the complex relationships between Meccano, play, science, and engineering. In doing so, it considers the object as an assemblage of its Meccano materiality, its instrumentality as an analogue computer, and its career as a collected object in the Science Museum. It deconstructs these different elements of the assemblage and explores how they are part of wider, external assemblages that have their own public histories. The thesis considers the changing materiality of Meccano as an object from 1901 to the present day, analysing marketing materials, the Meccano Magazine, and the voices of the Meccanomen to challenge the conventional, synchronic history of the toy as an unchanged engineering tool. It uses the Meccanomen's popular publications together with archival sources and interviews to historicise the 'alternative' version of the Meccanomen's movement, making it possible to see how individuals attached a variety of personalised meanings to their Meccano hobby. It also explores the object's instrumentality as an analogue computer, beginning with a detailed 'nuts and bolts' comparison of how the original Meccano differential analyser worked with how it was presented in academic and popular publications in 1934. It then brings together the stories and applications of other differential analysers constructed in Britain during this period, to provide further case studies about the role of these computers during the Second World War, and how they have been displayed in museums. The thesis then draws on these analyses by telling the story of the 'Trainbox' object that was collected by the Science Museum in 1949. The 'Trainbox' was comprised of parts of the original Meccano differential analyser that Hartree used to teach the principles of differential equations and integration after the Second World War. Through exploring how the public history and voices of the object have been changed in different exhibits in the museum, this thesis demonstrates the complex relationship between different parts of object's assemblage in a variety of contexts over time. The final part of the thesis builds on these deconstructed elements by reconstructing the original object as the Kent machine, a historical reproduction designed to recover elements of the tacit knowledge used to build it in 1934. It finishes by exploring how these new understandings of Meccano and analogue computers were used to co-curate a new public history for this curious object, using the 'shared authority' of myself, the Meccanomen, and audiences we engaged with the Kent machine

Law and Policy for the Quantum Age

Law and Policy for the Quantum Age is for readers interested in the political and business strategies underlying quantum sensing, computing, and communication. This work explains how these quantum technologies work, future national defense and legal landscapes for nations interested in strategic advantage, and paths to profit for companies

Back to the future. The future in the past: ICDHS 10th+1 Barcelona 2018: Conference proceedings book

Obra dedicada a la memòria d'Anna Calvera (1954–2018).Conté: 0. Opening pages -- 1.1 Territories in the scene of globalised design: localisms and cosmopolitanisms -- 1.2 Designing the histories of southern designs -- 1.3 Mediterranean-ness: an inquiry into design and design history -- 1.4 From ideology to methodology: design histories and current developments in post-socialist countries -- 1.5 [100th anniversary of the Bauhaus Foundation]: tracing the map of the diaspora of its students -- 1.6 Design history: gatekeeper of the past and passport to a meaningful future? -- 1.7 Constructivism and deconstructivism: global development and criticism -- 1.8 An expanded global framework for design history -- 1.9 Design museums network: strengthening design by making it part of cultural legacy -- 1.10 Types and histories: past and present issues of type and book design -- 2.1 Design aesthetics: beyond the pragmatic experience and phenomenology -- 2.2 Public policies on design and design-driven innovation -- 2.3 Digital humanities: how does design in today's digital realm respond to what we need? -- 2.4 Design studies: design methods and methodology, the cognitive approach -- 2.5 Vehicles of design criticism -- 3 Open session: research and works in progress (1) -- 3 Open session: research and works in progress (2) -- Addenda: 10th+I keywords mapInternational Committee of Design History and Design Studies. Conference (11a : 2018 : Barcelona, Catalunya),ICDHS is the acronym of the International Committee of De­sign History and Design Studies, an organisation that brings together scholars from Spain, Cuba, Turkey, Mexico, Finland, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, Portugal, the US, Tai­wan, Canada and the UK. Since 1999, when the Design and Art History departments of the University of Barcelona organised the first edition of the ICDHS, a conference has been held every two years at a different venue around the world. These conferences have had two dis­tinct aims: first, to present original research in the fields of Design History and Design Studies and, second, to include contributions in these fields from non-hegemonic countries, offering a speaking platform to many scientific communities that are already active or are forming and developing. For that reason, the structure of the conferences combines many paral­lel strands, including poster presentations and keynote speak­ers who lecture on the conferences’ main themes. The 2018 event is rather special. The Taipei 2016 conference was the 10th edition and a commemoration of the ten celebrations to date. Returning to Barcelona in 2018 marks the end of one stage and the beginning of a new one for the Committee. The numbering chosen—“10+1”—also means that Barcelona 2018 is both an end and a beginning in the ICDHS’s own history. The book brings together 137 papers delivered at the ICDHS 10th+1 Conference held in Barcelona on 29–31 October 2018. The papers are preceded by texts of the four keynote lectures and a written tribute from the ICDHS Board to its founder and figurehead, Anna Calvera (1954–2018). The Conference, and the book, are dedicated to her memory

Back to the Future. The Future in the Past. Conference Proceedings Book

ICDHS is the acronym of the International Committee of De­sign History and Design Studies, an organisation that brings together scholars from Spain, Cuba, Turkey, Mexico, Finland, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, Portugal, the US, Tai­wan, Canada and the UK. Since 1999, when the Design and Art History departments of the University of Barcelona organised the first edition of the ICDHS, a conference has been held every two years at a different venue around the world. These conferences have had two dis­tinct aims: first, to present original research in the fields of Design History and Design Studies and, second, to include contributions in these fields from non-hegemonic countries, offering a speaking platform to many scientific communities that are already active or are forming and developing. For that reason, the structure of the conferences combines many paral­lel strands, including poster presentations and keynote speak­ers who lecture on the conferences’ main themes. The 2018 event is rather special. The Taipei 2016 conference was the 10th edition and a commemoration of the ten celebrations to date. Returning to Barcelona in 2018 marks the end of one stage and the beginning of a new one for the Committee. The numbering chosen—“10+1”—also means that Barcelona 2018 is both an end and a beginning in the ICDHS’s own history. The book brings together 137 papers delivered at the ICDHS 10th+1 Conference held in Barcelona on 29–31 October 2018. The papers are preceded by texts of the four keynote lectures and a written tribute from the ICDHS Board to its founder and figurehead, Anna Calvera (1954–2018). The Conference, and the book, are dedicated to her memory

Dictionary of World Biography

Jones, Barry Owen (1932– ). Australian politician, writer and lawyer, born in Geelong. Educated at Melbourne University, he was a public servant, high school teacher, television and radio performer, university lecturer and lawyer before serving as a Labor MP in the Victorian Parliament 1972–77 and the Australian House of Representatives 1977–98. He took a leading role in reviving the Australian film industry, abolishing the death penalty in Australia, and was the first politician to raise public awareness of global warming, the ‘post-industrial’ society, the IT revolution, biotechnology, the rise of ‘the Third Age’ and the need to preserve Antarctica as a wilderness. In the Hawke Government, he was Minister for Science 1983–90, Prices and Consumer Affairs 1987, Small Business 1987–90 and Customs 1988–90. He became a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO, Paris 1991–95 and National President of the Australian Labor Party 1992–2000, 2005–06. He was Deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Convention 1998. His books include Decades of Decision 1860– (1965), Joseph II (1968), Age of Apocalypse (1975), and he edited The Penalty is Death (1968). Sleepers, Wake!: Technology and the Future of Work was published by Oxford University Press in 1982, became a bestseller and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Swedish and braille. The fourth edition was published in 1995. Knowledge Courage Leadership, a collection of speeches and essays, appeared in 2016. He received a DSc for his services to science in 1988 and a DLitt in 1993 for his work on information theory. Elected FTSE (1992), FAHA (1993), FAA (1996) and FASSA (2003), he is the only person to have become a Fellow of four of Australia’s five learned Academies. Awarded an AO in 1993, named as one of Australia’s 100 ‘living national treasures’ in 1998, he was elected a Visiting Fellow Commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1999. His autobiography, A Thinking Reed, was published in 2006 and The Shock of Recognition, about music and literature, in 2016. In 2014 he received an AC for services ‘as a leading intellectual in Australian public life

The development, evaluation, and initial implementation of a national programme for the use and collation of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) in osteopathic back pain services in the UK.

PhDIntroduction The use of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) to measure the effects of care is being advocated increasingly in clinical settings. Current patient data capture involves completion of paper questionnaires which is costly and environmentally perplexing. New innovations are required to balance the challenges of introducing data capture directly from patients while considering budgets, access to Information Technology, and the capability to use technological devices. Methods Two qualitative studies were undertaken to identify the views of patients and clinicians concerning electronic PROM data capture in osteopathic practice. One qualitative study involved patient interviews to identify their views on a selection of specific PROMs. Clinician focus groups and interviews (osteopaths, chiropractors, and physiotherapists) were undertaken concerning their views and experiences of using PROMs. Scoping of PROMs in musculoskeletal practice was undertaken followed by a systematic review of one identified PROM. The review and qualitative work informed the development of content for a mobile and web app for capturing PROM data. The app was piloted to evaluate feasibility, and the clinimetric performance of the included PROMs. Feedback from the pilot informed revisions to the app prior to implementation into osteopathic practice. Results Clinicians (n=46) identified a range of barriers and facilitators to PROM use. Patients (n=22) while generally more enthusiastic than clinicians welcomed the opportunity to provide feedback and although undaunted by the use of technology highlighted the need for assurances concerning confidentiality of data, and limits on data sharing. The systematic review identified good measurement properties for the Bournemouth (BQ). Piloting of the app involved 257 participants contributing 404 data returns: it performed well requiring minimal revision prior to implementation. Conclusions The app performed well demonstrating great potential for further development to collect outcome data in a musculoskeletal clinical setting.National Council for Osteopathic Research Institute of Osteopath

Books of Life: Post-DNA Life Science in 1960s American Fiction

Following the discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953, concepts of genetic code and program emerged to redefine life. A range of complementary assumptions—about the cryptographic behavior of language, the transcriptional nature of creative writing, and the mechanistic constitution of the human organism—buttressed this new, textual explanation for living beings. In this dissertation, I analyze how the 1960s novels of three writers—Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, John Barth’s Giles Goat-Boy, and the detective novels of Chester Himes—respond to this epistemic shift within the life sciences. While the loudly-heralded “genomic book of life” written in the double helix appeared to co-opt the novel’s age-old endeavor to describe life, it also proved a compelling invitation to writers who could reconceive these molecular metaphors as compositional resources. Drawing on intellectual histories of the post-WWII life sciences to establish the heavily rhetorical character of this episode in biology, I demonstrate how Kesey, Barth, and Himes mobilized biological metaphors to dual purpose. By employing these new concepts to parody the anachronistic organic logics of literary criticism, they challenged received notions of literary form. Simultaneously, they harnessed the truth-value of scientific metaphors in a complex speculative impulse, which, by taking the new biology’s claims literally, satirized the rhetorical bombast of scientific discourse while flaunting the period’s nostalgic literary-critical investments in the “Great American Novel.” Each text pursues post-DNA biological theory as theme and formal architecture, but ultimately arrives at a more fundamental reckoning with the poetics of literality that, at this historical juncture, worked to elide the distance between life and text. These analyses contribute to critical conversations around the Anthropocene, posthumanism, scale critique, biopolitics, and comparative methods for the interdisciplinary study of science and literature. They also promise to complicate dominant accounts of the postwar novel that have tended to minimize the contributions of 1960s writers, and to augment our understanding of the postwar novel’s debts to contemporaneous scientific discourse.Doctor of Philosoph

Education and Historical Evolution of Information and Communication Technologies: Background, international influences and their development in Spain in the 1980s.

This doctoral thesis, made up of published works, develops a historical analysis of the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the educational system of Spain. The many innovations that have taken place in the development of digital tools has produced great transformations in all social spheres, and especially in educational systems. In reviewing the bibliography on ICT and Education we find massive numbers of scientific publications, but most of these are on topics related to the use of such devices to improve teaching and learning processes, or to the development of Educational Technology as a disciplinary field. This research sets out other objectives, trying to analyse the fundamental issues that led a specific technological tool - the first personal computer - to be introduced massively into schools all over the world, even when it was still an incipient and little-used device. We believe that in order to understand current digitalization we must look at the first incursions of ICT into educational systems, analysing and tracking the first programmes that were developed and the arguments used in justifying them. Since the 1950s, with the appearance of teaching machines and following the behavioural theory proposed by Skinner, the fundamental role of the mass media and the emerging ICTs in the modernisation of educational systems has been a subject of debate. With the development of the first personal computers starting at the end of the 1960s, and the reduction in size and cost in relation to previous models, the potential of these tools for use in the classroom first began to be appreciated. This innovation occurred at the same time that access to education began to become effective for all social sectors, and when transnational bodies such as UNESCO, the OECD and the World Bank, among others, were stressing the fundamental importance of modernising education systems in order to spur economic development. To this end, technologies such as radio, cinema and television were considered the ideal tools, a realm a few decades later was taken over by the computer. Given this scenario, it was not only the large organisations and state governments that saw the opportunity to implement programmes for development where the computer was the fundamental element; the computer industry also saw a virtually infinite business niche in the national education systems. All of this led to the alignment of many interests and initiatives during the 1980s, resulting in an infinite number of state programmes that introduced computers into schools. The Spanish case was by no means an exception. At the end of the sixties, Spain, still under Franco's dictatorship, began to implement various policies in an attempt to promote economic development. In 1968, it received a team of expert consultants led by members of the UNESCO who strongly recommended undertaking a structural reform of the education system, and what ultimately became the General Education Law of 1970 began to take shape. This reform, advised and financed largely by the UNESCO and the OECD, was the result of a series of close contacts between these bodies and Spain. It was in this context that the UNESCO itself recommended that the first pilot project proposed for the use of computers to improve teaching and learning processes (in this case for initial teacher training) be carried out in Spain. The programme was intended to be a first experiment, one whose results would then be exported to other developing countries. After this first initiative, at the beginning of the 1980s, and especially starting in 1983, a new programme was planned which had as one of its main objectives to provide schools with computers and encourage their use to improve the efficiency of teaching and learning. Atenea, as it was finally called, was developed between 1985 and 1989, and was the first major state initiative to provide schools with extensive computer equipment, a measure that was also meant to spur on the Spanish industry in this sector. The results were questioned and disputed at length but, in general terms, the conclusions arrived at were similar to those of programmes being implemented in other countries at the same time: there were no great advances in terms of improving educational processes, and, in most cases, political and economic interests were placed above pedagogical criteria. The gap between curricular contents and educational software, the limited computer skills of the teaching staff — only logical if we take into account that the expansion of its commercialisation in Spain began in 1984— and the fact that the administrations relegated it to the teachers’ voluntary initiative were some of the key conditioning factors of the results. Larry Cuban (2001) concluded that these programmes had failed across the board, and although the sales of computer products increased greatly, their use in schools was quite insignificant. The interesting thing about the study of these initiatives and of the background that led to this shift in education towards ICT and digitalisation was that the arguments and interests that have historically been put forward to support their use have not changed significantly from these early programmes in the middle of the last century to the present day. Therefore, the need for critical study and analysis of the use of ICT in education is fundamental to avoid falling into the instrumentalization of education and ending up with it being exclusively at service of political and economic interests