Co-production in practice : how people with assisted living needs can help design and evolve technologies and services

Background The low uptake of telecare and telehealth services by older people may be explained by the limited involvement of users in the design. If the ambition of ‘care closer to home’ is to be realised, then industry, health and social care providers must evolve ways to work with older people to co-produce useful and useable solutions. Method We conducted 10 co-design workshops with users of telehealth and telecare, their carers, service providers and technology suppliers. Using vignettes developed from in-depth ethnographic case studies, we explored participants’ perspectives on the design features of technologies and services to enable and facilitate the co-production of new care solutions. Workshop discussions were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically. Results Analysis revealed four main themes. First, there is a need to raise awareness and provide information to potential users of assisted living technologies (ALTs). Second, technologies must be highly customisable and adaptable to accommodate the multiple and changing needs of different users. Third, the service must align closely with the individual’s wider social support network. Finally, the service must support a high degree of information sharing and coordination. Conclusions The case vignettes within inclusive and democratic co-design workshops provided a powerful means for ALT users and their carers to contribute, along with other stakeholders, to technology and service design. The workshops identified a need to focus attention on supporting the social processes that facilitate the collective efforts of formal and informal care networks in ALT delivery and use

Enhancing collaborative learning in an augmented reality supported environment

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

From community networks to off-the-cloud toolkits art and DIY networking

The last fifteen years, and especially parallel to the increasing datafication of everyday life, an emerging scene of network practitioners from different fields has been actively involved in building alternative networks of communication and file-sharing. Among the practitioners of this DIY networking scene, a growing number of artists have been playing a crucial role offering alternatives and critical perspectives. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss these particular initiatives, while locating them within a context and relating them to the needs of the particular time-period

Peer production of Open Hardware: Unfinished artifacts and architectures in the hackerspaces

The dissertation adopts the theoretical framework of peer production to investigate the phenomena of open collaboration in hacker clubs through two case studies of small scale electronic artefacts. A critique of current theories of peer production is developed from a Science and Technology Studies point of view, arguing for the primacy of social constructivism over technological determinist narratives about the role of ICTs in late capitalism in general and hacker culture in particular. Properties of disruptive novelty and spontaneous emergence routinely attributed to ICTs – and by extension to the peer production practices of hackers – are approached sceptically with a historically informed ethnographic method that concentrates on continuities and contexts.La tesis adopta el marco teórico de la producción entre iguales para investigar los fenómenos de colaboración abierta en los clubs de hackers, a través de dos estudios de caso sobre artefactos electrónicos de pequeña escala. Se desarrolla una crítica de las teorías actuales sobre la producción entre iguales desde el punto de vista de los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología, defendiendo la primacía de la visión constructivista social por encima de las narrativas deterministas tecnológicas en el papel de las TIC en el capitalismo tardío, en general, y en la cultura hacker en particular. Nociones como la novedad perturbadora y la aparición espontánea, atribuidas habitualmente a las TIC y, por extensión, a las prácticas de producción entre iguales de los hackers, se tratan con escepticismo mediante un método etnográfico históricamente informado, que se concentra en las continuidades y contextos.La tesi adopta el marc teòric de la producció entre iguals per investigar els fenòmens de col·laboració oberta als clubs de hackers, a través de dos estudis de cas sobre artefactes electrònics de petita escala. S’hi desenvolupa una crítica de les teories actuals sobre la producció entre iguals des del punt de vista dels Estudis de Ciència i Tecnologia, defensant la primacia de la visió constructivista social per sobre de les narratives deterministes tecnològiques en el paper de les TIC en el capitalisme tardà, en general, i en la cultura hacker en particular. Nocions com la novetat pertorbadora i l’aparició espontània, atribuïdes habitualment a les TIC i, per extensió, a les pràctiques de producció entre iguals dels hackers, es tracten amb escepticisme mitjançant un mètode etnogràfic històricament informat, que es concentra en les continuïtats i els contextos.Societat de la informació i el coneixemen

Autonomous Exchanges: Human-Machine Autonomy in the Automated Media Economy

Contemporary discourses and representations of automation stress the impending “autonomy” of automated technologies. From pop culture depictions to corporate white papers, the notion of autonomous technologies tends to enliven dystopic fears about the threat to human autonomy or utopian potentials to help humans experience unrealized forms of autonomy. This project offers a more nuanced perspective, rejecting contemporary notions of automation as inevitably vanquishing or enhancing human autonomy. Through a discursive analysis of industrial “deep texts” that offer considerable insights into the material development of automated media technologies, I argue for contemporary automation to be understood as a field for the exchange of autonomy, a human-machine autonomy in which autonomy is exchanged as cultural and economic value. Human-machine autonomy is a shared condition among humans and intelligent machines shaped by economic, legal, and political paradigms with a stake in the cultural uses of automated media technologies. By understanding human-machine autonomy, this project illuminates complications of autonomy emerging from interactions with automated media technologies across a range of cultural contexts

Making in the making

During the last two decades, we have witnessed the spreading of shared spaces of work and production in different urban contexts, attracting attention from both policymakers and scholars in economic geography and urban studies. In particular, Fablabs are considered open workshops for grassroots innovation, which is enabled by the availability of shared digital fabrication machines and by the possibility to share knowledge with peers and work together on a project, either in person or online. People attending Fablabs are usually called Makers and, according to the discourse surrounding them, they are deemed the harbingers of a democratisation of production and part of a broader transformation of urban economies and work in the era of digital capitalism. The book is the result of a PhD research on Makers and Fablabs in Turin, mainly based on an ethnographic observation conducted at Fablab Torino. It offers an original theoretical framework inspired by the recent strand of post-structuralist economic geography, together with a reliance on ontological tenets coming from Actor-Network Theory and Science and Technology Studies. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the study is therefore of interest for scholars in different social sciences who study the reconfiguration of work and production in cities and digitally mediated economic transformations. The analysis unpacks the enactment of Making as a new form of work and production through three different conceptual foci – knowledge, materiality, and work. Notably, the inquiry looks at how Fablab Torino and the urban ‘Maker scene’ in Turin are performatively enacted through the entanglement between economic theories on the phenomenon with specific socio-technical arrangements aiming at making those economic theories true. The geographical relevance of the phenomenon is identified not in some static spatial configuration but, on the one hand, in the heterogeneous and emergent spatialities that emerge from individual practices of Making and, on the other, in the sociomaterial practices of organising that bring into being economic organisations such as Fablabs

(In)authentic Participation: Contemporary Participatory Performance Practice, Social Media & Neoliberalism

There has been a (re)emergence of participatory modes of audience engagement in contemporary western European theatre and performance since the mid-2000s. The concern at the root of contemporary participatory performance practice is the authenticity or inauthenticity with which one constitutes and presents one’s self in contemporary digitised society. Social media technology is not inauthentic in of itself, however the wider political economy in which social media operates encourages users to participate in a way that promotes the constitution, maintenance and presentation of a consistent, static and commodifiable self. Participation in social media in the context of neoliberalism makes users vulnerable to external influence and manipulates them into disengaging with their fundamental agency while promoting an ideology of choice and self-creation. Contemporary participatory performance practice problematises this inauthentic orientation by appropriating, reflecting and critically amplifying both social media technologies and modes of participation inherent in neoliberally induced social media. Contemporary practice also provides participatory alternatives that help audiences approach selfhood from an authentic orientation, embracing individual agency, responsibility and a liminal position between internal intention and external influence. This thesis draws upon the phenomenological ontology of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre to investigate the question of why this has come to pass by exploring the recent changes to the way that one presents oneself and interacts with other people through online social media

Proximity as a Service via Cellular Network-Assisted Mobile Device-to-Device

PhD ThesisThe research progress of communication has brought a lot of novel technologies to meet the multi-dimensional demands such as pervasive connection, low delay and high bandwidth. Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is a way to no longer treat the User Equipment (UEs) as a terminal, but rather as a part of the network for service provisioning. This thesis decouples UEs into service providers (helpers) and service requesters. By collaboration among proximal devices, with the coordination of cellular networks, some local tasks can be achieved, such as coverage extension, computation o oading, mobile crowdsourcing and mobile crowdsensing. This thesis proposes a generic framework Proximity as a Service (PaaS) for increasing the coverage with demands of service continuity. As one of the use cases, the optimal helper selection algorithm of PaaS for increasing the service coverage with demands of service continuity is called ContAct based Proximity (CAP). Mainly, fruitful contact information (e.g., contact duration, frequency, and interval) is captured, and is used to handle ubiquitous proximal services through the optimal selection of helpers. The nature of PaaS is evaluated under the Helsinki city scenario, with movement model of Points Of Interest (POI) and with critical factors in uencing the service demands (e.g., success ratio, disruption duration and frequency). Simulation results show the advantage of CAP, in both success ratio and continuity of the service (outputs). Based on this perspective, metrics such as service success ratio and continuity as a service evaluation of the PaaS are evaluated using the statistical theory of the Design Of Experiments (DOE). DOE is used as there are many dimensions to the state space (access tolerance, selected helper number, helper access limit, and transmit range) that can in uence the results. A key contribution of this work is that it brings rigorous statistical experiment design methods into the research into mobile computing. Results further reveal the influence of four factors (inputs), e.g., service tolerance, number of helpers allocated, the number of concurrent devices supported by each helper and transmit range. Based on this perspective, metrics such as service success ratio and continuity are evaluated using DOE. The results show that transmit range is the most dominant factor. The number of selected helpers is the second most dominant factor. Since di erent factors have di erent regression levels, a uni ed 4 level full factorial experiment and a cubic multiple regression analysis have been carried out. All the interactions and the corresponding coe cients have been found. This work is the rst one to evaluate LTE-Direct and WiFi-Direct in an opportunistic proximity service. The contribution of the results for industry is to guide how many users need to cooperate to enable mobile computing and for academia. This reveals the facts that: 1, in some cases, the improvement of spectrum e ciency brought by D2D is not important; 2, nodal density and the resources used in D2D air-interfaces are important in the eld of mobile computing. This work built a methodology to study the D2D networks with a di erent perspective (PaaS)

Re-Start Italy: (post-)Covid19 Lessons for Full Scope Renovation of the Italian Public Space

The Covid-19 pandemic has suddenly upset the way we used to live. When eventually lockdown ended, the desire to return to open spaces while respecting social distancing have challenged the role of public space as a space for interaction. In Italy, one of the most affected countries, the piazza as public space par excellence has not remained immune to the issue. This contribution addresses four Italian design experiences that have tried to give an immediate answer to the needs of these precise historical circumstances.  The Covid-19 emergency can become an opportunity for innovation in the project and in the way the piazza can be perceived and experienced. New approaches and processes of regeneration of the piazza lead to reconsider the role of the project and that of the architect. An updated idea of public space as a problem-solver space follows suit, turning the piazza into a space that does not need to project itself into the future, but aims to answer to current needs embracing new core features: temporariness, flexibility, functionality, repeatability and the community’s contribution. The idea of the piazza as a permanent public space is replaced by that of an adaptive public space. Such an open phenomenology is starting to think of the piazza as a space for experiences - a space that, while respecting the Covid-19 logistical constraints, allows people to return, in new ways, to social interactions