Evaluation of the Trajectory Operations Applications Software Task (TOAST). Volume 2: Interview transcripts

The Trajectory Operations Applications Software Task (TOAST) is a software development project whose purpose is to provide trajectory operation pre-mission and real-time support for the Space Shuttle. The purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate TOAST as an Application Manager - to assess current and planned capabilities, compare capabilities to commercially-available off the shelf (COTS) software, and analyze requirements of MCC and Flight Analysis Design System (FADS) for TOAST implementation. As a major part of the data gathering for the evaluation, interviews were conducted with NASA and contractor personnel. Real-time and flight design users, orbit navigation users, the TOAST developers, and management were interviewed. Code reviews and demonstrations were also held. Each of these interviews was videotaped and transcribed as appropriate. Transcripts were edited and are presented chronologically

Hacking practices and software development : a social worlds annalysis of ICT innovation and the role of free/libre open source software

Through use of social worlds theory and qualitative research methods, this thesis explores hackers ’ practices and their relationships with the computing world and the wider society from a socio-technical perspective. The hacker social world comprises actors from diverse social-technical backgrounds who share a constellation of im/material practices, namely open source practices (OSPs). Through engaging with these collective practices, actors and actants communicate, negotiate, and shape each other’s identities, practices and understandings of the innovation structure and system in various aspects. In examining the diverse articulations and performances in which hacker culture and hacker identity are both reflected and constructed, the thesis tries to contextualise and deconstruct the ICT architecture we take for granted, as well as the innovations made possible by this architecture. The major findings of my research are: 1) As a community of open source practices, the FLOSS social world allows diverse actors to engage in th

Reports to the President

A compilation of annual reports for the 1985-1986 academic year, including a report from the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as reports from the academic and administrative units of the Institute. The reports outline the year's goals, accomplishments, honors and awards, and future plans

Establishing a New Teachership through Interactive Radio Instruction:Evaluating the impact of IRI on teachers’ practices in Malawian primary schools

Abstract This evaluation research study is concerned with the quality of support and in-service development for Malawian primary teachers through the medium of radio. The study aims to evaluate the influence that the current United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded interactive radio instruction (IRI) programme has on teachers’ behaviours, with the aim of proposing some guidelines for the development of a model of continuing professional development (CPD), appropriate to the Malawian context, using IRI. It identifies the teacher as a critical entity in raising levels of learners’ achievement within the primary school and posits that through improved teacher support and development, higher levels of learner achievement can be attained. The study identifies the potential that communication technology in the form of interactive radio instruction (IRI) offers in improving CPD of teachers at a cost that could be affordable to disadvantaged school communities in the country. The study takes place in a context where the Malawi government has been challenged to provide quality universal primary education after introducing free primary education (FPE) in 1994, which resulted in a massive expansion of primary schools, resulting in acute shortages of teachers. The study has drawn on aspects of practice theory and in particular the work of Giddens (1984), Bourdieu (1977, 1978), Shatzki et al (2001) and Reckwitz (2002a) in an attempt to emphasise the role of artefacts, such as interactive radio, as part of social practice. A practice theoretic perspective has been used to highlight the contentious role played by learning-objects in teacher practice and the need for flexibility and innovation in employing learning-objects like interactive radio as part of teaching practice. To carry out a critical exploration of the issues of teacher learning and practice, a longitudinal qualitative research approach was proposed for the evaluation of the existing IRI programme in Malawi. As the researcher was also actively involved in the planning of the Malawi IRI programme from onset, he therefore maintained a dual role of researcher and co-founder throughout the research process. The empirical evidence employed within this research was elicited through three main processes: interview survey, participant observation and focus groups in order to achieve validity through methodical triangulation. The analysis of this evidence shows the considerable difficulties faced by classroom teachers in attempting to adopt interactive radio and therefore be able to use interactive/active learner-centred instruction as part of their ongoing teaching practice. The analysis, however, also highlights the possibility of exploiting interactive radio for provision of an integrated, sustainable CPD of teachers in educationally deprived school communities. Overall, the research study puts emphasis on the need for paying attention to the social practices (contextually specific) within which the use of educational technologies (such as interactive radio), are enmeshed. There is need to explicate the details of such practices (instead of adopting a narrow, technical, focus on attributes of interactive radio itself) in order to improve the efficacy of using interactive radio

Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend

Byron was—to echo Wordsworth—half-perceived and half-created. He would have affirmed Jean Baudrillard’s observation that “to seduce is to die to reality and reconstitute oneself as illusion.” But among the readers he seduced, in person and in poetry, were women possessed of vivid imaginations who collaborated with him in fashioning his legend. Accused of “treating women harshly,” Byron acknowledged: “It may be so—but I have been their martyr. My whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.” Those whom he spell bound often returned the favor in their own writings tried to remake his public image to reflect their own. Through writings both well known and generally unknown, James Soderholm examines the poet’s relationship with five women: Elizabeth Pigot, Caroline Lamb, Annabella Milbanke, Teresa Guiccioli, and Marguerite Blessington. These women participated in Byron’s life and literary career and the manipulation of images that is the Byron legend. Soderholm argues against the sentimental depictions of biographers who would preserve Byron’s romantic aura by diminishing the contributions of these women to his social, sexual, and literary identity. By restoring the contexts in which literary works charm or bedevil particular readers, the author shows the consequences of Byron’s poetic seductions during and after his life. James Soderholm is assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Soderholm is a nimblefooted writer whose characterizations have punch. . . . [He] has taken the extra time and effort to give us this economical, well-researched, clever, and convincing study of Byron\u27s serious relationships with literate and literary women. —European Romantic Review Soderholm has taken the extra time and effort to give us this economical, well-researched, clever, and convincing study of Byron\u27s serious relationships with literate and literary women. —European Romantic Review A study that will clearly make a solid contribution to biographical theory, Byron scholarship, and scholarship on the women writers related to him. —Rocky Mountain Review A delightful book: lucidly written, eloquently expressed, and scholarly without being in the least instance turgid or pretentious. . . . An exemplary book that ushers in a fresh and invigorating critical approach to Byron. —Byron Journalhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1085/thumbnail.jp

Geek Cultures: Media and Identity in the Digital Age

This study explores the cultural and technological developments behind the transition of labels like \u27geek\u27 and \u27nerd\u27 from schoolyard insults to sincere terms identity. Though such terms maintain negative connotations to some extent, recent years have seen a growing understanding that geek is chic as computers become essential to daily life and business, retailers hawk nerd apparel, and Hollywood makes billions on sci-fi, hobbits, and superheroes. Geek Cultures identifies the experiences, concepts, and symbols around which people construct this personal and collective identity. This ethnographic study considers geek culture through multiple sites and through multiple methods, including participant observation at conventions and local events promoted as geeky or nerdy ; interviews with fans, gamers, techies, and self-proclaimed outcasts; textual analysis of products produced by and for geeks; and analysis and interaction online through blogs, forums, and email. The findings are organized around four common, sometimes overlapping images and stereotypes: the geek as misfit, genius, fan, and chic. Overall, this project finds that these terms represent a category of identity that predates the recent emergence of geek chic, and may be more productively understood as interacting with, rather than stemming from, dimensions of identity such as gender and race. The economic import of the internet and the financial successes of high-profile geeks have popularized the idea that nerdy skills can be parlayed into riches and romance, but the real power of communication technologies has been in augmenting the reach and persistent availability of those things that encourage a sense of belonging: socially insulated safe spaces to engage in (potentially embarrassing) activities; opportunities to remotely coordinate creative projects and social gatherings; and faster and more widespread circulation of symbols - from nerdcore hip-hop to geek-sponsored charities - confirming the existence of a whole network of individuals with shared values. The emergence of geek culture represents not a sudden fad, but a newly visible dimension of identity that demonstrates how dispersed cultures can be constructed through the integration of media use and social enculturation in everyday life

Reason and Representation in Scientific Simulation

This thesis is a study of scientific practice in computational physics. It is based on an 18 month period of ethnographic research at the Imperial College Applied Modelling and Computation Group. Using a theoretical framework drawn from practice theory, science studies, and historical epistemology, I study how simulations are developed and used in science. Emphasising modelling as a process, I explore how software provides a distinctive kind of material for doing science on computers and how images and writings of various kinds are folded into the research process. Through concrete examples the thesis charts how projects are devised and evolve and how they draw together materials and technologies into semi-stable configurations that crystallise around the objects of their concern, what Hans-Jorg Rheinberger dubbed “epistemic things”. The main pivot of the research, however, is the connection of practice-theoretical science studies with the philosophy of Gaston Bachelard, whose concept of “phenomenotechnique” facilitates a rationalist reading of scientific practice. Rather than treating reason as a singular logic or method, or as a faculty of the mind, Bachelard points us towards processes of change within actual scientific research, a dynamic reason immanent to processes of skilled engagement. Combining this study of reason with the more recent attention to things within research from materialist and semiotic traditions, I also revive a new sense for the term “representation”, tracing the multiple relationships and shifting identities and differences that are involved in representing. I thus develop a theory of simulation that implies a non-representationalist concept of representing and a non-teleological concept of reason

Advanced Automation for Space Missions

The feasibility of using machine intelligence, including automation and robotics, in future space missions was studied