Use the Difficulty through Schwierigkeit: Antiusability as Value-driven Design

In the style of a polemic discursive essay, Antiusability (also known as Schwierigkeit) is introduced as a radical design paradigm to reawaken dedicated awareness of the user-system interface through challenge. A philosophical work in flux, it is described as a kind of science (or logic) of difficulty with an underpinning that promotes the generic greater good in usability per se

Institutional development of the Chinese National People's Congress (1978-89) : intellectual perspectives

This research focuses on the institutional development of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in the period 1978-89, which was approximately the initial decade of the Post-Mao period of Chinese politics. For the NPC, this period saw the sharpest institutional development, which thus far remains under-researched.The main research question is how and why the NPC institution has developed. In other words, the research aims to illustrate the mechanism and factors that shape the NPC’s unique institutional characteristics. This study contributes to the existing literature that focuses largely on describing how the NPC institution changes by exploring why the NPC has acquired its many particularities.The main research question is answered from a new perspective external to the institution itself, which is guided by a theoretical framework centred on the ‘reform influencers’ who had a direct linkage to, or participated in, the NPC institutional reform. It is argued that clashes of consciousness (involving Marxist intellectual ideas, liberal democratic ideas, and domestic intellectual ideas such as nationalism) played an important role in the post-Cultural Revolution political reforms. Accordingly, the primary concern of the research is how the diversified consciousness, or the ‘intellectual background’, of the reform participants has influenced the institutional development of the NPC.Empirically, this study pursues the following issues: (1) who are the reform influencers and which social groups they represent; (2) how influencers’ diversified intellectual background shaped their preference in reforming the NPC institutions; (3) how the diversified preference finally shaped the main characteristics of the NPC institution.Based on the study of four major groups of influencers associated with NPC reforms, a series of ‘principles’ are identified in the concluding chapter as being responsible for shaping the NPC’s many unique institutional characteristics from an intellectual perspective.The new perspective analysed in this thesis represents an innovative attempt to study Chinese legislative development by linking the institutional development with its external ‘environment’ – the reform influencers and their conflicting intellectual ideas. Furthermore, the empirical analysis adds new knowledge and understanding of the NPC development to the current literature by a) studying those actors (e.g. intellectual elite and wall-posters), whose linkages to the NPC institutional development have not been subject to systematic analysis; and b) examining new sources of data, including those established through interviews with NPC deputies in the 1980s and surveying the compilation of the wall-posters’ underground publications

A Framework for the Organization and Discovery of Information Resources in a WWW Environment Using Association, Classification and Deduction

The Semantic Web is envisioned as a next-generation WWW environment in which information is given well-defined meaning. Although the standards for the Semantic Web are being established, it is as yet unclear how the Semantic Web will allow information resources to be effectively organized and discovered in an automated fashion. This dissertation research explores the organization and discovery of resources for the Semantic Web. It assumes that resources on the Semantic Web will be retrieved based on metadata and ontologies that will provide an effective basis for automated deduction. An integrated deduction system based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) and description logic (DL) was built. A case study was conducted to study the system effectiveness in retrieving resources in a large Web resource collection. The results showed that deduction has an overall positive impact on the retrieval of the collection over the defined queries. The greatest positive impact occurred when precision was perfect with no decrease in recall. The sensitivity analysis was conducted over properties of resources, subject categories, query expressions and relevance judgment in observing their relationships with the retrieval performance. The results highlight both the potentials and various issues in applying deduction over metadata and ontologies. Further investigation will be required for additional improvement. The factors that can contribute to degraded performance were identified and addressed. Some guidelines were developed based on the lessons learned from the case study for the development of Semantic Web data and systems

Biohacking and code convergence : a transductive ethnography

Cette thèse se déploie dans un espace de discours et de pratiques revendicatrices, à l’inter- section des cultures amateures informatiques et biotechniques, euro-américaines contempo- raines. La problématique se dessinant dans ce croisement culturel examine des métaphores et analogies au coeur d’un traffic intense, au milieu de voies de commmunications imposantes, reliant les technologies informatiques et biotechniques comme lieux d’expression médiatique. L’examen retrace les lignes de force, les médiations expressives en ces lieux à travers leurs manifestations en tant que codes —à la fois informatiques et génétiques— et reconnaît les caractères analogiques d’expressivité des codes en tant que processus de convergence. Émergeant lentement, à partir des années 40 et 50, les visions convergentes des codes ont facilité l’entrée des ordinateurs personnels dans les marchés, ainsi que dans les garages de hackers, alors que des bricoleurs de l’informatique s’en réclamaient comme espace de liberté d’information —et surtout d’innovation. Plus de cinquante ans plus tard, l’analogie entre codes informatiques et génétiques sert de moteur aux revendications de liberté, informant cette fois les nouvelles applications de la biotechnologie de marché, ainsi que l’activité des biohackers, ces bricoleurs de garage en biologie synthétique. Les pratiques du biohacking sont ainsi comprises comme des individuations : des tentatives continues de résoudre des frictions, des tensions travaillant les revendications des cultures amateures informatiques et biotechniques. Une des manières de moduler ces tensions s’incarne dans un processus connu sous le nom de forking, entrevu ici comme l’expérience d’une bifurcation. Autrement dit, le forking est ici définit comme passage vers un seuil critique, déclinant la technologie et la biologie sur plusieurs modes. Le forking informe —c’est-à-dire permet et contraint— différentes vi- sions collectives de l’ouverture informationnelle. Le forking intervient aussi sur les plans des iii semio-matérialités et pouvoirs d’action investis dans les pratiques biotechniques et informa- tiques. Pris comme processus de co-constitution et de différentiation de l’action collective, les mouvements de bifurcation invitent les trois questions suivantes : 1) Comment le forking catalyse-t-il la solution des tensions participant aux revendications des pratiques du bioha- cking ? 2) Dans ce processus de solution, de quelles manières les revendications changent de phase, bifurquent et se transforment, parfois au point d’altérer radicalement ces pratiques ? 3) Quels nouveaux problèmes émergent de ces solutions ? L’effort de recherche a trouvé ces questions, ainsi que les plans correspondants d’action sémio-matérielle et collective, incarnées dans trois expériences ethnographiques réparties sur trois ans (2012-2015) : la première dans un laboratoire de biotechnologie communautaire new- yorkais, la seconde dans l’émergence d’un groupe de biotechnologie amateure à Montréal, et la troisième à Cork, en Irlande, au sein du premier accélérateur d’entreprises en biologie synthétique au monde. La logique de l’enquête n’est ni strictement inductive ou déductive, mais transductive. Elle emprunte à la philosophie de la communication et de l’information de Gilbert Simondon et découvre l’épistémologie en tant qu’acte de création opérant en milieux relationnels. L’heuristique transductive offre des rencontres inusitées entre les métaphores et les analogies des codes. Ces rencontres étonnantes ont aménagé l’expérience de la conver- gence des codes sous forme de jeux d’écritures. Elles se sont retrouvées dans la recherche ethnographique en tant que processus transductifs.This dissertation examines creative practices and discourses intersecting computer and biotech cultures. It queries influential metaphors and analogies on both sides of the inter- section, and their positioning of biotech and information technologies as expression media. It follows mediations across their incarnations as codes, both computational and biological, and situates their analogical expressivity and programmability as a process of code conver- gence. Converging visions of technological freedom facilitated the entrance of computers in 1960’s Western hobbyist hacker circles, as well as in consumer markets. Almost fifty years later, the analogy drives claims to freedom of information —and freedom of innovation— from biohacker hobbyist groups to new biotech consumer markets. Such biohacking practices are understood as individuations: as ongoing attempts to resolve frictions, tensions working through claims to freedom and openness animating software and biotech cultures. Tensions get modulated in many ways. One of them, otherwise known as “forking,” refers here to a critical bifurcation allowing for differing iterations of biotechnical and computa- tional configurations. Forking informs —that is, simultaneously affords and constrains— differing collective visions of openness. Forking also operates on the materiality and agency invested in biotechnical and computational practices. Taken as a significant process of co- constitution and differentiation in collective action, bifurcation invites the following three questions: 1) How does forking solve tensions working through claims to biotech freedom? 2) In this solving process, how can claims bifurcate and transform to the point of radically altering biotech practices? 3) what new problems do these solutions call into existence? This research found these questions, and both scales of material action and agency, in- carnated in three extensive ethnographical journeys spanning three years (2012-2015): the first in a Brooklyn-based biotech community laboratory, the second in the early days of a biotech community group in Montreal, and the third in the world’s first synthetic biology startup accelerator in Cork, Ireland. The inquiry’s guiding empirical logic is neither solely deductive or inductive, but transductive. It borrows from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of communication and information to experience epistemology as an act of analogical creation involving the radical, irreversible transformation of knower and known. Transductive heuris- tics offer unconvential encounters with practices, metaphors and analogies of code. In the end, transductive methods acknowledge code convergence as a metastable writing games, and ethnographical research itself as a transductive process

Eliciting and understanding commonsense reasoning about motion.

The focus of the present research is on children's commonsense reasoning in mechanics. The important effect of pre-instructional ideas on children's learning is now widely recognised and much effort has gone into investigating what these ideas are like in various domain areas in science in the past few years. Early researches in this area have provided us with a comprehensive catalog of phenomenological descriptions of various aspects of children's reasoning about forces and motion. A related line of research has grown over recent years, which attempts to probe into whether there are deeper explanations underlying these misconceptions. If we take scientific theories and commonsense reasoning as two ends of a dichotomy, then early researches in this field have predominantly started from the scientific end, looking towards the intuitive end, trying to find out where the intuitive ideas go astray. To look for deeper levels of analysis, some have since turned to looking from the opposite end, trying to take children's ideas seriously, in their own right and not as a distortion of the scientific view. This latter perspective is the one taken by the present research and is believed to be appropriate if an understanding of the phenomenological descriptions of children's intuitive ideas is to be attained. The present research sets out to investigate the possible cognitive models used in the spontaneous interpretation of and reasoning about motion by students with varying amounts of Physics instruction. It is hoped that the resulting models will not only provide a context for interpreting children's misconceptions, but also provide insight into the evolution of naive cognitive models to more scientific ones. The research consists of two tasks. The first is a classification task asking students to categorize comic strip pictures about motion and to explain their underlying reasoning. The second is a programming task, asking students to write expert systems about motion in the language PROLOG. The second task is in fact one of self elicitation of knowledge by the students themselves under the assistance of the researcher. The advantage of such an exercise is that the representation is not only open for inspection by the students but is also explorable. The results from both tasks will be analysed and synthesized in the thesis

Understanding, Analysis, and Handling of Software Architecture Erosion

Architecture erosion occurs when a software system's implemented architecture diverges from the intended architecture over time. Studies show erosion impacts development, maintenance, and evolution since it accumulates imperceptibly. Identifying early symptoms like architectural smells enables managing erosion through refactoring. However, research lacks comprehensive understanding of erosion, unclear which symptoms are most common, and lacks detection methods. This thesis establishes an erosion landscape, investigates symptoms, and proposes identification approaches. A mapping study covers erosion definitions, symptoms, causes, and consequences. Key findings: 1) "Architecture erosion" is the most used term, with four perspectives on definitions and respective symptom types. 2) Technical and non-technical reasons contribute to erosion, negatively impacting quality attributes. Practitioners can advocate addressing erosion to prevent failures. 3) Detection and correction approaches are categorized, with consistency and evolution-based approaches commonly mentioned.An empirical study explores practitioner perspectives through communities, surveys, and interviews. Findings reveal associated practices like code review and tools identify symptoms, while collected measures address erosion during implementation. Studying code review comments analyzes erosion in practice. One study reveals architectural violations, duplicate functionality, and cyclic dependencies are most frequent. Symptoms decreased over time, indicating increased stability. Most were addressed after review. A second study explores violation symptoms in four projects, identifying 10 categories. Refactoring and removing code address most violations, while some are disregarded.Machine learning classifiers using pre-trained word embeddings identify violation symptoms from code reviews. Key findings: 1) SVM with word2vec achieved highest performance. 2) fastText embeddings worked well. 3) 200-dimensional embeddings outperformed 100/300-dimensional. 4) Ensemble classifier improved performance. 5) Practitioners found results valuable, confirming potential.An automated recommendation system identifies qualified reviewers for violations using similarity detection on file paths and comments. Experiments show common methods perform well, outperforming a baseline approach. Sampling techniques impact recommendation performance

Pharmacopornographic Subjectivity in the Work of Paul B. Preciado

This thesis examines ‘pharmacopornographic’ subjectivity in the work of contemporary Spanish philosopher, Paul B. Preciado, and represents the first extended study of his work. In Preciado’s writing, ‘pharmacopornographic’ describes the entwined influence and dominance of the pharmaceutical and pornographic industries, and the thesis analyses how they produce ‘pharmacopornographic’ subjects. This thesis explores Preciado’s writing on gender, sexuality, pornography, drugs and power between 2002 and 2014 and articulates an emergent trans-feminism. This research analyses how pharmacological and pornographic industries affect the design and production of genders and subjectivities. The thesis further refines Preciado’s assertion that contemporary, ‘pharmacopornographic’ regimes of power produce subjects rather than objects, or people, rather than things. Ultimately, this research is concerned with understanding the production of pharmacologically-determined subjectivity. The thesis articulates various subject positions, as a means of theorising pharmacopornographic subjectivity: ‘The Voyeur’, ‘The Sex Worker’, ‘The Biodrag King’ and ‘The Junkie’. These subject-position chapters are prefaced with a chapter exploring theoretical frameworks used to analyse Preciado’s work, and the thesis concludes with a chapter on accelerationism and the microprosthetic scale of Testo Junkie.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Data and Language in Organizations: Epistemological Aspects of Management Support Systems

This book contributes to the literature on management decision support systems (DSS). DSS research is motivated by the observation that much of what managers do involves unstructured problem solving. For the reason, the structured, procedural models implemented in management information systems (MIS) have had little impact on actual managerial practice. Actually, the terms "decision" and "problem solving" over-simplify the image of managerial activity, if what is meant is choosing from a set of well-defined alternatives. Management also includes such aspects as reality testing, problem finding, scenario generation, and just plain muddling through. A broader conception of management cognition -- of which decision making is only a part -- is therefore adopted. The challenge to technology development is to support these unstructured managerial activities. The emphasis is to amplify managerial cognition and to improve decision effectiveness. However, to achieve this we must go beyond platitudes and come to a better understanding of what managers actually do. The activity of managers is almost entirely linguistic. Computers, as symbolic processors, ought to be an effective complement. However, a fundamental problem, stressed repeatedly throughout the book, is semantic change. The context of managers is always changing, whereas computational inference depends on fixed semantics. Herein Lies the basis for a theory of management support systems. The theory takes the form of an applied epistemology: how do managers know their world and detect its changes? Thus, while this book is oriented towards improving information technology, its attention is primarily to the content of management information and only secondarily to technology. Technological innovations abound. What is needed now is a better understanding of what these technologies are to do

Morphology, Plasticity, and Transformation between Philosophy and Biology

In biology, interest in form was the prerogative of developmental biology, while it was practically neglected by evolutionary biology. This situation has changed a lot in recent decades and has led to a reinterpretation of the concept of evolution and evolutionism focusing more on the problem of form and morphology. In Italy, especially Alessandro Minelli, one of the editors of this issue, has dedicated his studies to the need to communicate form to structure, to reconnect morphology and evolution. This theme is a highly relevant one for philosophy, inasmuch as the question of form and morphology, since the days of Goethe and Bergson, has always been considered as the starting point for a philosophy of the living being endowed with its own categories that cannot be reduced to those of physics