The organisation of technology and the technology of organisation: the Vehicle Mounted Data System and the provision of UK fire services

Social and organisation theorists have become increasingly interested in studying information and communication technologies over the last two decades. This thesis examines how information and communication technologies are organised, and what is organised by information and communication technologies. The thesis contributes to the interest in detailed studies of information and communication technology through an analysis of the implementation and deployment of a mobile data system-the Vehicle Mounted Data System (VMDS)-by firefighters, fire crews and officers at a United Kingdom fire brigade. This thesis examines what becomes of the Vehicle Mounted Data System when it is introduced into a UK fire brigade. This includes an exposition of how recurring issues including the boundaries of the brigade, what is meant by standardisation and risk, what counts as information, and what is understood by devolved incident management is reordered as the VMDS becomes a constitutive part of the problematic fire service provision. The VMDS is bound up with reality constituting effects and this means that what is meant by technology and organisation becomes an important topic of scholarly study. This thesis develops a non-essentialist ontology of technology and organisation-an ontological turn in organisation theory. It is argued that the VMDS is a relational effect that is aligned with existing boundaries and assumptions at Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade, that the VMDS is a multiple object that is a mutable mobile and is deployed not only to manage safety at incidents but also for managing performance and organisational flexibility, and that the instabilities of the VMDS are responded to ambivalently by various actors as they are enrolled in the collective upkeep of the VMDS. In analysing the Vehicle Mounted Data System a range of analytical resources are drawn upon, including, most significantly, actor-network theory, but also the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the politics of theory and suggests that researchers would remain faithful to their intellectual tradition and a sense of critical and creative purpose if they engaged with and helped to construct the heterogeneous ways in which technological devices such as the Vehicle Mounted Data System transform what organisation theorists understand by organisation

Complex Drilling Logistics for Lake El'gygytgyn, NE Russia

Lake El’gygytgyn was formed by astrophysical chance when a meteorite struck the Earth 100 km north of the Arctic Circle in Chukotka 3.6 Myrs ago (Layer, 2000) on the drainage divide between the Arctic Ocean and the Bering Sea. The crater measures ~18 km in diameter and lies nearly in the center of what was to become Beringia, the largestcontiguous landscape in the Arctic to have escaped continental scale glaciation. Within the crater rim today, Lake El’gygytgyn is 12 km in diameter and 170 m deep, enclosing 350–400 m of sediment deposited since the time of impact (Gebhardt et al., 2006). This setting makes the lake ideal for paleoclimate and impact research

Lost in Delegation? : (Dis)organizing for Sustainability

Using actor-networks as our conceptual lens for appreciating complex sociomaterial interdependencies, we explore how a vision to “do things differently” for sustainability becomes enacted and significantly diluted at a major brownfield development project in the UK. We show how visions for sustainability can become substantially delegated into a range of specialised and functionally differentiated practices, with nonhuman mediators producing significant agency. Additionally, extending actor-network approaches, we develop the concept of localised hybridity to consider how the possibilities for progressive sustainability practices are interdependent with mediators in other ‘locals’ across times and spaces. We suggest that greater reflexive attention and inquiry to the types of relational work required to form alliances with nonhuman mediators is crucial to realise visions for sustainability

The Economic Theology of Quakerism

This chapter focuses on the practices of the liberal branch of Quakerism in England, Wales and Ireland from around 1650 to around 1930. Its aim to understand both the connections and the disconnections between theological values, business practice and economic thinking that created the possibilities and growth for Quaker businesspeople and which led to the eventual decline of what might be called the “Holy Experiment” of Quaker business. Quakerism was one outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation’s long wave begun by Martin Luther in 1517. Quakers have always emphasized the integration of inward reflection and outward action, and have ceased to wait “upon a miraculous event and turned to the present miracle that Christ was waiting to perform daily in their hearts”. Quakers’ success in business has to be understood in relation to the beliefs and practices that have been persistently reproduced since the Quakers emerged in the mid-seventeenth century.2020-09-07 JG: PDF updated with correct versio

Extractivism, Value and Waste:Organizational Mining of e-Waste in the United Kingdom

In this paper we critically evaluate the mining and extraction of e-waste – electronic waste – and the relationship with the emerging cleaner and greener economy. Drawing on ethnographic data, gathered from an e-waste management organization – e-WasteOrg, we show how e-waste and value are assembled, extracted and circulated within local, national and global contexts. To date little attention has been paid to interdependent systems of waste and value. We argue that e-WasteOrg operates polyphonically in order to secure, routinize and circulate the ongoing disposal of e-waste. Extracting waste becomes associated with a range of differentiated value systems, as sourcing and valuing waste is a continual concern for those in the waste management sector. As more waste is sought, we conclude that a cleaner and greener economy is both constricting in terms of new market entrants and expanding as waste management actors mine for materials across value systems. Keywords: e-waste, extractivism, mining, value, waste, green economy, circular econom

Religion, Organization and Company Law:A Case Study of a Quaker Business

This paper examines the effect of changes in corporate law in the mid-nineteenth century – incorporation and limited liability – on the ownership, control and socio-economic objectives of a Quaker family firm between 1841 and 1972. The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) were wellknown for adhering to internalized quasi-legal rules and self-governance, and had a strongreputation, which persists today, for trust, integrity and honesty in all business dealings. We read existing archival research on Quaker firm Huntley & Palmer (the biscuit manufacturer) against the grain to trace how incorporation and limited liability fundamentally changed its capital structure and the family’s control of the firm and which, in turn, led to a gradual weakening of its social ambitions.We argue that changes to the law are akin to changing the rules of the game within which players’ play, and we show how Quaker quasi-legal rules became subordinate to corporate law resulting in unexpected and non-trivial impacts that play out over long, longitudinal periods of time

E-Waste Trading Zones and the Economy of Greening:Imbricating Computer Sourcing in the Pre- and Post-WEEE Directive Era

In the context of the environmental impacts caused due to the increasing volumes of discarded technologies (e-Waste), this article critically evaluates whether environmental policy, the Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) legislation in particular, can contribute to a shift in logic from neo-liberal growth to green growth. Drawing upon empirical research we show how three computer waste organisations evolve through the imbrication of pre- and post- policy logics in collaborative and heterogeneous ways to create an economy of greening. Extending the concept of a fractionated trading zone, we demonstrate the heterogeneous ways in which computer sourcing is imbricated, providing a taxonomy of imbricating logics. We argue that what is shared in a fractionated trading zone is a diversity of imbrications. This provides for a nuanced perspective on policy and the management of waste, showing how post-WEEE logics become the condition to continue to pursue pre-WEEE logics. Our research focuses on three organisations and the EU 2003 and UK 2006 versions of the WEEE legislation. We conclude that our research findings have important implications, more specifically, for how e-waste policy is enacted as an economy of greening in order to constitute the managerial and organisational adaptation needed to create a sustainable economy and society. Our paper's contribution is threefold. First, theoretically, we extend the literature on trading zones and imbrication by considering how they can complement one another. Our focus on imbrication is a ‘zooming in’ on the managerial and organisational implications and dynamics of a trading zone. Second, we add to the literature on imbrication by identifying a diverse range of imbricating logics that can be used to discern a more nuanced understanding of the translated effects of policy. Last, we ground these ideas in a relevant empirical context – that of e-waste management in the UK, providing a deeper knowledge, over time, of specific actors’ translations of policy into organisational practices

Applications of the wave packet method to resonant transmission and reflection gratings

Scattering of femtosecond laser pulses on resonant transmission and reflection gratings made of dispersive (Drude metals) and dielectric materials is studied by a time-domain numerical algorithm for Maxwell's theory of linear passive (dispersive and absorbing) media. The algorithm is based on the Hamiltonian formalism in the framework of which Maxwell's equations for passive media are shown to be equivalent to the first-order equation, $\partial \Psi/\partial t = {\cal H}\Psi$, where ${\cal H}$ is a linear differential operator (Hamiltonian) acting on a multi-dimensional vector $\Psi$ built of the electromagnetic inductions and auxiliary matter fields describing the medium response. The initial value problem is then solved by means of a modified time leapfrog method in combination with the Fourier pseudospectral method applied on a non-uniform grid that is constructed by a change of variables and designed to enhance the sampling efficiency near medium interfaces. The algorithm is shown to be highly accurate at relatively low computational costs. An excellent agreement with previous theoretical and experimental studies of the gratings is demonstrated by numerical simulations using our algorithm. In addition, our algorithm allows one to see real time dynamics of long leaving resonant excitations of electromagnetic fields in the gratings in the entire frequency range of the initial wide band wave packet as well as formation of the reflected and transmitted wave fronts.Comment: 23 pages; 8 figures in the png forma

Glacial legacies on interglacial vegetation at the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition in NE Asia

Broad-scale climate control of vegetation is widely assumed. Vegetation-climate lags are generally thought to have lasted no more than a few centuries. Here our palaeoecological study challenges this concept over glacial–interglacial timescales. Through multivariate analyses of pollen assemblages from Lake El’gygytgyn, Russian Far East and other data we show that interglacial vegetation during the Plio-Pleistocene transition mainly reflects conditions of the preceding glacial instead of contemporary interglacial climate. Vegetation–climate disequilibrium may persist for several millennia, related to the combined effects of permafrost persistence, distant glacial refugia and fire. In contrast, no effects from the preceding interglacial on glacial vegetation are detected. We propose that disequilibrium was stronger during the Plio-Pleistocene transition than during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period when, in addition to climate, herbivory was important. By analogy to the past, we suggest today’s widespread larch ecosystem on permafrost is not in climate equilibrium. Vegetation-based reconstructions of interglacial climates used to assess atmospheric CO2–temperature relationships may thus yield misleading simulations of past global climate sensitivity

Toward an Unsteady Aerodynamic ROM for Multiple Mach Regimes

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/97065/1/AIAA2012-1708.pd