SYSTEMS OF TRANSFIGURATION AND THE ADOPTION OF IT UNDER SURVEILLANCE

Research on the adoption of information technology (IT) has shown that employees either comply with the implementation of a new information system or resist its implementation, improvising information systems artifacts to replace it. We use a 15-month ethnography of the implementation of Siebel in a desk sales unit to outline a third specification of adoption where employees scaffold their work in an improvised information system that they hide from their managers by using their company’s information systems to create an electronic façade of compliance. This façade is a labor-intensive process, complex enough to require a third information system of its own. We call this system “transfiguration system” and expose and explain a hitherto unexplored link between the information systems improvised by employees and the information systems that their company implements. We refer to the work required to create and maintain this link as transfiguration work

The political and economic arguments in contemporary classroom teacher effectiveness research and inquiry

This paper outlines in broad detail the specific political and economic parameters that influence public education. In doing so, the paper examines the policy-making debate within Australia centred on effective classroom teaching practice instruction. The paper implies that significant and global political and economic considerations invariably force governments to act thus exerting influence and control over educational matters including classroom teaching practice. To this extent, public education policy-making must grapple with prevailing political and economic considerations in so far as they involve and require an educational response.&nbsp

Following ‘Fosfo’

The chemical substance synthetic phosphoethanolamine (fosfoetanolamina sintética) was developed at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil at the beginning of the 1990s and, until 2014, was tested on and distributed to cancer patients by members of USP’s Chemistry Institute (IQSC) in the city of São Carlos. That year, the production and distribution of ‘Fosfo’, as it became popularly known, was forbidden by IQSC’s director with the support of USP’s rector and the Brazilian National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). Shortly after this first prohibition, however, Fosfo gained popularity and became a national symbol of local scientific innovation and hope for a cancer cure. Likewise, it became an object of regulatory disputes involving multiple sectors of Brazilian society. Despite several further efforts by some scientists and patients to legitimate Fosfo as a pharmaceutical, ANVISA never authorized it. Nevertheless, at the same time as parts of Brazil’s established medical communities were becoming suspicious of Fosfo, its informal production and dissemination were increasing surreptitiously, with many Fosfo users and stakeholders questioning the legitimacy of conventional cancer therapies. In this article, I aim to understand the impact of Fosfo as a biotechnological innovation in terms of the ‘transfiguration’ of the physical and juridical persons involved in this controversy. Through the lens of transfiguration, the engagement and therapeutic-regulatory experiences of Fosfo users and stakeholders appear as deviant journeys that introduce discontinuities into established biomedicine and imply radical transformations at multiple levels, ranging from individuals to larger institutional environments

Approach to Adapt a Legacy Manufacturing System Into the IoT Paradigm

This work has been supported by Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, by Uninova-CTS research unit and by national funds through FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within the research unit CTS - Centro de Tecnologia e Sistemas (project UID/EEA/00066/2013). The authors would like to thank all the institutions.Enterprises are adopting the Internet of Things paradigm as a strategy to improve competitiveness. But enterprises also need to rely on their legacy systems, which are of vital importance to them and normally difficult to reconfigure or modify, their mere replacement being usually not affordable. These systems constitute, therefore, barriers to agility and competitiveness, raising the need to develop cost-effective ways for IoT adaptation. An approach for adapting legacy manufacturing systems into the IoT realm is proposed in this research. The methodology is twofold: an adaptation board is firstly designed to provide IoT connectivity, allowing to remotely invoke the “legacy” functionality as services. Then, the board itself can leverage the legacy system by developing additional functionalities inside it, as the update process is usually triggered by the need of new functionality from these systems. An experiment, which consists of adapting to IoT a small distribution line that is controlled by an aged Programmable Logic Controller, is developed to illustrate how straightforward, affordable and cost effective the adaptation approach is, allowing to holistically achieve a new system with more sophisticated functionality.publishersversionpublishe

Diversity or Perversity? Investigating Queer Narratives, Resistance, and Representation in Aotearoa / New Zealand, 1948-2000

This thesis contributes to the burgeoning field of the history of sexuality in New Zealand and seeks to distill the more theorised and reflexive understanding of the subjectively understood queer male identity since 1948. Emerging from the disciplines of History and English, this project draws from a range of narratological materials: parliamentary debates contained in Hansard, and novels and short stories written by men with publicly avowed queer identities. This thesis explores how both 'normative' identity and the category of 'the homosexual' were constructed and mobilised in the public domain, in this case, the House of Representatives. It shows that members of the House have engaged with an extensive tradition of defining and excluding; a process by which state and public discourses have constructed largely unified, negative and othering narratives of 'the homosexual'. This constitutes an overarching narrative of queer experience which, until the mid-1990s, excluded queer subjects from its construction. At the same time, fictional narratives offer an adjacent body of knowledge and thought for queer men and women. This thesis posits literature's position as an important and productive space for queer resistance and critique. Such texts typically engage with and subvert 'dominant' or 'normative' understandings of sexuality and disturb efforts to apprehend precise or linear histories of 'gay liberation' and 'gay consciousness'. Drawing from the works of Frank Sargeson, James Courage, Bill Pearson, Noel Virtue, Stevan Eldred-Grigg, and Peter Wells, this thesis argues for a revaluing of fictional narratives as active texts from which historians can construct a matrix of cultural experience, while allowing for, and explaining, the determining role such narratives play in the discursively constructed understandings of gender and sexuality in New Zealand

Epidemiology of the 21st century and cyberspace: rethinking power and the social determination of health

The study of epidemiologic processes as a form of socially determined movement requires a renewed understanding of the social order, and thus, an updated understanding of the social relations that move society. Recently, the dominance of big corporations on cyberspace has become visible as an new historical process that conditions the social order and extends the technological subordination of daily life, therefore expanding community massive submission to standard conducts. The new digital technological revolution, about which some frightening prognoses are made for the next decades, could easily imply the advent of an era of radical subsumption of life processes. This will negatively affect not only our general way of living, thinking and planning, but also our deepest daily intimacy. This movement implies radical effects on health which we call cybernetic determination and subsumption. This novel process raises new questions on public health and prevention; but also requires a new reading of reality, a rethinking of human life and health, of its social determination, which implies the need for new new categories and analysis and renewed challenges for critical epidemiology.El estudio de los procesos epidemiológicos como un movimiento socialmente determinado requiere de una nueva comprensión del proceso social y de una comprensión renovada de las relaciones de poder que mueven a la sociedad. En los últimos tiempos, la consolidación del dominio de las grandes corporaciones sobre el ciberespacio se ha hecho visible como un proceso histórico novedoso que marca el orden social y expande las posibilidades tecnológicas de subordinación de los modos de vivir, amplificando el sometimiento de las colectividades a patrones de conducta masiva. Los malos usos de la nueva revolución tecnológica digital sobre los cuales se hacen aun nuevos y atemorizantes pronósticos para las próximas décadas, implican el advenimiento de una era de subsunción radical de los procesos de la vida, que afectará negativamente no solo nuestro general modo de vivir, pensar y aspirar, sino nuestra más profunda intimidad cotidiana. Se trata de un movimiento con efectos radicales en la salud que podemos denominarlo como determinación y subsunción cibernética. El carácter novedoso de este proceso plantea nuevas preguntas al campo de la salud pública y la prevención; requiere de una relectura de la realidad y de un giro necesario para comprender nuevas dimensiones de la determinación social de la vida y la salud, lo cual presupone la aplicación de nuevas categorías del análisis y desafíos inéditos para la epidemiología crítica

Overcoming Liberal Democracy: “Threat Governmentality” and the Empowerment of Intelligence in the UK Investigatory Powers Act

The sudden rise of the socio-political importance of security that has marked the twenty-first century entails a commensurate empowerment of the intelligence apparatus. This chapter takes the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 as a vantage point from where to address the political significance of this development. It provides an account of the powers the Act grants intelligence agencies, concluding that it effectively legalizes their operational paradigm. Further, the socio-legal dynamics that informed the Act lead the chapter to conclude that Intelligence has become a dominant apparatus within the state. This chapter pivots at this point. It seeks to identify, first, the reasons of this empowerment; and, second, its effects on liberal-democratic forms, including the rule of law. The key reason for intelligence empowerment is the adoption of a pre-emptive security strategy, geared toward neutralizing threats that are yet unformed. Regarding its effects on liberal democracy, the chapter notes the incompatibility of the logic of intelligence with the rule of law. It further argues that the empowerment of intelligence pertains to the rise of a new threat-based governmental logic. It outlines the core premises of this logic to argue that they strengthen the anti-democratic elements in liberalism, but in a manner that liberalism is overcome

Paths from the Philosophy of Art to Everyday Aesthetics

During the past few decades, everyday aesthetics has established itself as a new branch of philosophical aesthetics alongside the more traditional philosophy of art. The Paths from Philosophy of Art to Everyday Aesthetics explores the intimate relations between these two branches of contemporary aesthetics. The essays collected in this volume discuss a wide range of topics from aesthetic intimacy to the nature of modernity and the essence of everydayness, which play important roles both in the philosophy of art and everyday aesthetics. With these essays, the writers and editors of this volume wish to commemorate professor Arto Haapala on his 60th birthday. This collection of articles is intended for scholars and students working in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy, and art studies

Banking Supervision and Its Regulations — Comparative Study between U.S. and China

The health of the economy and the effectiveness of monetary policy depend on a sound financial system. A smoothly functioning banking supervision regime is one of the cornerstones of any financial system. Only a stable financial system, which is one of the key aims of state regulation and oversight, can optimally fulfill its macroeconomic function of efficient and low-cost transformation and provision of financial resources. A global financial meltdown will affect the livelihoods of almost everyone in an increasingly inter-connected world. The primary goals of supervision and regulations include protecting depositors\u27 funds, maintaining a stable monetary system, promoting an efficient and competitive banking system and protecting consumer rights related to banking relationships and transactions. Weakness in the banking system of a country, whether developing or developed, can threaten financial stability both within that country and internationally. The need to improve the strength of financial systems has attracted growing international concern. It is clear that instability in systemically significant countries can spill over to other countries, either on a regional level or globally. There is a great deal of uncertainty around the nature of risks in the markets as well as many external risks, the adequacy of risk and what might trigger the next stress scenario. There is a lot that banks and supervisors can do in practice to better prepare for the inevitable next downturn. Banks and supervisors can focus their efforts on strengthening risk management in areas that presents the greatest vulnerabilities to the deteriorating market liquidity scenario, as well as on those risks that are not well addressed using more traditional risk metrics. Moreover, there is significant value in the industry and supervisors sharing insights on issues and concerns around this type of a scenario. Finally, Basel II provides a structured framework for discussing some of the new risks we are seeing and creating incentives to better measure and manage those risks