Sensemaking Practices in the Everyday Work of AI/ML Software Engineering

This paper considers sensemaking as it relates to everyday software engineering (SE) work practices and draws on a multi-year ethnographic study of SE projects at a large, global technology company building digital services infused with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Our findings highlight the breadth of sensemaking practices in AI/ML projects, noting developers' efforts to make sense of AI/ML environments (e.g., algorithms/methods and libraries), of AI/ML model ecosystems (e.g., pre-trained models and "upstream"models), and of business-AI relations (e.g., how the AI/ML service relates to the domain context and business problem at hand). This paper builds on recent scholarship drawing attention to the integral role of sensemaking in everyday SE practices by empirically investigating how and in what ways AI/ML projects present software teams with emergent sensemaking requirements and opportunities

A Frequency Tuning Method for a Planar Inverted-F Antenna

A novel method is presented for electrically tuning the frequency of a planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA). A tuning circuit, comprising an RF switch and discrete passive components, has been completely integrated into the antenna element, which is thus free of dc wires. The proposed tuning method has been demonstrated with a dual-band PIFA capable of operating in four frequency bands. The antenna covers the GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, PCS1900 and UNITS frequency ranges with over 40% total efficiency. The impact of the tuning circuit on the antenna's efficiency and radiation pattern have been experimentally studied through comparison with the performance of a reference antenna not incorporating the tuning circuit. The proposed frequency tuning concept can be extended to more complex PIFA structures as well as other types of antennas to give enhanced electrical performance.</p

Korpusonomastinen tutkimus slanginimistä Hesa ja Stadi digitaalisissa diskursseissa

Artikkelissamme selvitämme Helsinkiä tarkoittavien slanginimien, Hesan ja Stadin, käyttöä uudentyyppisen aineiston ja menetelmän avulla. Aiemmissa näitä nimiä koskevissa tutkimuksissa lähtökohta on ollut kvalitatiivinen, mutta tässä tutkimuksessa lähdemme liikkeelle laajasta digitaalisesta aineistosta ja tilastollisista menetelmistä. Tutkimuksemme on uusi avaus nimistöntutkimuksessa, ja nimitämme sitä korpusavusteiseksi nimistöntutkimukseksi, lyhyemmin korpusonomastiikaksi. Aineistonamme on laaja Suomi24-keskustelufoorumista muodostettu ja Kielipankista saatava Suomi24-korpus, josta olemme hakeneet Hesa- ja Stadi-nimet. Tutkimus toteutetaan korpusavusteisena diskurssintutkimuksena. Molemmat nimet esiintyvät aineistossa yli 45 000 kertaa. Analyysimme alkaa tilastollisesta kollokaatioanalyysista, minkä jälkeen kummankin nimen kollokaateista on valittu tarkasteltavaksi 200 merkitsevintä kollokaattia. Kollokaatit on ryhmitelty merkityksensä perusteella luokkiin, jotka muodostavat näiden sanojen kontekstista fraseologisin perustein havaittavan diskurssiprosodian. Hesa- ja Stadi-nimet jakavat yhteisiä diskursseja, mutta niillä on myös omia diskurssejaan. Hesaa käytetään, kun Helsinkiä katsotaan ulkopuolelta ja se on esimerkiksi muuttamisen tai matkustamisen kohde; lisäksi Hesasta jatketaan matkaa muualle, mikä näkyy monina kaupunkia merkitsevinä kollokaatteina. Erilaisista paikoista ja kaupungeista sekä liikkumisesta ja matkustamisesta keskustelu onkin Hesan yhteydessä tavallista. Stadi-nimi kuvastaa puolestaan syntyperäistä ja aitoa helsinkiläistä identiteettiä, mikä tukee aiempia havaintoja nimen käytöstä. Stadia käytetäänkin juuri silloin, kun puhutaan "meistä stadilaista" ja katsotaan kaupunkia ikään kuin sisältäpäin. ”Stadilaisuutta” korostetaan myös slangisanojen käytöllä Stadi-nimen yhteydessä, ja toisinaan muulta tulleista käytetyt nimitykset ovat melko affektiivisia. Menetelmämme nostaa esiin uutena piirteenä erityisesti sen, että matkustaminen ja liikkuminen on erityisesti Hesaan liittyvien diskurssien läpileikkaava teema. Myös Stadiin liittyy liikkuminen, mutta näkökulma on selvästi erilainen: liikkuminen tapahtuu pikemmin Stadissa kuin sitä kohti tai sieltä pois. Aiempaa tutkimusta tukevat havainnot, jotka liittyvät aidon helsinkiläisen identiteettiin korostamiseen Stadi-nimellä.Peer reviewe

On the mechanism of the shape elongation of embedded nanoparticles

The mechanism of the shape elongation of metal nanoparticles (NPs) in silica, which is induced under swift heavy ion irradiation, is discussed with comparing the two candidates: (i) the synergy between the ion hammering and the transient melting of NPs by the inelastic thermal spike and (ii) the thermal pressure and flow model. We show that three experimental results are inconsistent with (i). The latter is supported by two-temperature molecular dynamics simulations, which simulate not only the atomic motions but also the local electron temperatures. A remarkable correlation was observed between the temporal evolution of the silica density around the ion trajectory and that of the aspect ratio of the NP later than similar to 1 ps after the ion impact, while no correlation was observed earlier than similar to 1 ps, even under the assumption of the instantaneous energy deposition.Peer reviewe

Current State of the Science: Health Effects and Indoor Environmental Quality

Our understanding of the relationship between human health and the indoor environment continues to evolve. Previous research on health and indoor environments has tended to concentrate on discrete pollutant sources and exposures and on specific disease processes. Recently, efforts have been made to characterize more fully the complex interactions between the health of occupants and the interior spaces they inhabit. In this article we review recent advances in source characterization, exposure assessment, health effects associated with indoor exposures, and intervention research related to indoor environments. Advances in source characterization include a better understanding of how chemicals are transported and processed within spaces and the role that other factors such as lighting and building design may play in determining health. Efforts are under way to improve our ability to measure exposures, but this remains a challenge, particularly for biological agents. Researchers are also examining the effects of multiple exposures as well as the effects of exposures on vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. In addition, a number of investigators are also studying the effects of modifying building design, materials, and operations on occupant health. Identification of research priorities should include input from building designers, operators, and the public health community

Verkkokeskustelujen kansa: Korpusavusteinen diskurssianalyysi Suomi24-keskustelupalstasta

People&nbsp;'kansa'&nbsp;in&nbsp;digital&nbsp;discourses.&nbsp; Corpus-assisted&nbsp;discourse&nbsp;analysis&nbsp;on Suomi24&nbsp;discussion forum.&nbsp; &nbsp;In&nbsp;this&nbsp;paper,&nbsp;our&nbsp;objective&nbsp;is to&nbsp;analyze&nbsp;how&nbsp;participants&nbsp;use the word&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;'people'&nbsp;on the largest discussion forum in Finland, called Suomi24 (Finland 24). Our main research questions are the following: 1) What&nbsp;kinds of&nbsp;discourses the&nbsp;forum participants&nbsp;relate&nbsp;to&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;'people'&nbsp;and 2)&nbsp;what kinds of representations the writers attach to&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;and what kinds of meanings they&nbsp;construct for the term&nbsp;on the&nbsp;discussion forum.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Our theoretical and methodological approach is based on corpus-assisted discourse analysis and on digital discourse analysis.&nbsp; Studying the data from two different perspectives with two different methods will give two complementary views on&nbsp;the discourses of&nbsp;kansa.&nbsp;In the first part of the study, we analyzed the&nbsp;2,4-billion-token&nbsp;Suomi24&nbsp;data&nbsp;in its entirety applying corpus-assisted discourse studies and keyword analysis in order&nbsp;to analyze the discourses and representations that the discussion participants attach to&nbsp;kansa.&nbsp;&nbsp;To this end, we extracted all paragraphs were the lemma&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;was used.&nbsp;Alltogether, the data&nbsp;contain&nbsp;about&nbsp;829 000&nbsp;occurrences of the&nbsp;lemma.&nbsp;&nbsp; In the second phase, we executed qualitative&nbsp;digital discourse analysis in which we focused on the positioning of the word&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;(people) by examining the type of linguistic action in the utterances where it was used, what kind of relation and agreement/isagreement&nbsp;&nbsp;writers expressed in relation to the topic and object of talk they were writing about.&nbsp; The first analysis showed&nbsp;that the most frequent discourses attached to&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;were religion, politics and power, ethnicity and society.&nbsp;In particular, these indicate that&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;is often represented through&nbsp;religion and&nbsp;that&nbsp;the discourses relate&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;strongly to nation-state, that is, independence, government and&nbsp;ethnic&nbsp;groups.&nbsp;Furthermore,&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;is often associated with inequality&nbsp;in the society, where&nbsp;parts of the&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;are&nbsp;seen as&nbsp;disfavoured.&nbsp;&nbsp; The second analysis, based on digital discourse analysis, reveals that the word people is used in the following five ways. First,&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;is positioned as&nbsp;either in the biblical sense or as religious people who blames others. Second, writers describe&nbsp;stupid people&nbsp;and they&nbsp;complain and blame while showing their disregard towards people. Third, people&nbsp;was&nbsp;described as victim, betrayed, and oppressed without access to power. Here, the writers complain and accuse. Forth, the people&nbsp;was&nbsp;described as social actor through the use of cognitive verbs and speech act verbs showing&nbsp;intelligence&nbsp;of this people to which the writers belonged. The last category was a mixed one that contained people as&nbsp;representative&nbsp;of a nation or described with some quality, such as&nbsp;sisukas&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;(persistent people, or people with guts).&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The&nbsp;results&nbsp;show&nbsp;that&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;(people)&nbsp;are&nbsp;used&nbsp;in&nbsp;very&nbsp;familiar and stereotypical ways. This word functions as part of an ideological discourse in the discussions in this&nbsp;forum&nbsp;that&nbsp;allow writers to build their self-image, distinguish themselves from the&nbsp;people&nbsp;or in order to legitimate their own position in a way that other writers recognize the shared and reproduced representation of&nbsp;people.&nbsp;In this way, this representation is part of this new kind of public vernacular discourse in various platforms of social media produced by ordinary people. However, these representations of the&nbsp;kansa&nbsp;(people)&nbsp;did not present any&nbsp;novel ways of understanding people.&nbsp; Avainsanat:&nbsp;verkkokeskustelu, korpusavusteinen diskurssintutkimus,&nbsp;avainsana-analyysi,&nbsp;digitaalinen diskurssianalyysi,&nbsp;representaatio &nbsp