Global technology companies and the politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in the digital age: Processual proxies, Trojan horses and global beachheads

From SAGE Publishing via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: epub 2021-03-16Publication status: PublishedFunder: Economic and Social Research Council; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000269; Grant(s): ES/T015055/1In this paper, we take the concept of ‘new urban spaces’ as our jumping off point to engage with the efforts of Alphabet/Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs to cultivate a new integrated digital and infrastructural urban space on the Toronto waterfront. We interrogate the process and politics of imagining this new, digital urban space as an urban socio-technical imaginary. The paper critically examines the central role of ‘big tech’ in producing the urban socio-technical imaginary not as a snapshot but, rather, as a ‘process of becoming’. This processual focus on the role of big tech allows us to develop three interrelated analytical contributions. First, we generate in-depth understanding of the proxy politics of urban socio-technical imaginaries in constituting new digital urban spaces. Second, we argue that an urban socio-technical imaginary was used as a Trojan horse to promote private experimentation with urban governance. Third, we demonstrate attempts to imagine a global beachhead via ‘the global model’ of a new digital urban space predicated on the digital control of integrated urban infrastructure systems

The City Like a Maze

The City Like a Maze Handmade photo book - photographs and layout by Caroline Edge, cover design by Mike Hodson. This book was selected for exhibition at the Athens Photo Festival 2015. https://www.photofestival.gr/aphf15-photobook

Factors influencing the societal acceptance of new, renewable and energy efficiency technologies: meta-analysis of recent European projects

The paper addresses the conditions for the successful introduction of sustainable energy technology projects in different geographic, institutional and cultural contexts. Our aim is to identify contextual and process-related factors influencing the level of societal acceptance and techno-economic successfulness achieved in energy projects that aim to mitigate climate change (renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced technologies). Our focus is on successfulness on the level of individual projects, but we also consider how ‘lessons learned’ in individual projects diffuse into the wider context of energy planning. In our conclusions, we identify key challenges for project managers and policy makers

Retrofit 2050: critical challenges for urban transitions

Scaling up retrofit presents a number of critical challenges for the transition to urban sustainability. Drawing together insights from the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 project this briefing sets out key success factors that need to be in place to deliver sustainable futures for UK cities

Circular economy inspired imaginaries for sustainable innovations

In this chapter, Narayan and Tidström draw on the concept of imaginaries to show how Circular Economy (CE) can facilitate values that enable sustainable innovation. Innovation is key for sustainability, however, understanding and implementing sustainable innovation is challenging, and identifying the kind of actions that could direct sustainable innovations is important. The findings of this study indicate that CE-inspired imaginaries enable collaboration and by relating such imaginaries to common and shared social and cultural values, intermediaries could motivate actors into taking actions that contribute to sustainable innovation.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin with gemtuzumab ozogamicin improves event-free survival in younger patients with newly diagnosed aml and overall survival in patients with npm1 and flt3 mutations

Purpose To determine the optimal induction chemotherapy regimen for younger adults with newly diagnosed AML without known adverse risk cytogenetics. Patients and Methods One thousand thirty-three patients were randomly assigned to intensified (fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin [FLAG-Ida]) or standard (daunorubicin and Ara-C [DA]) induction chemotherapy, with one or two doses of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO). The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Results There was no difference in remission rate after two courses between FLAG-Ida + GO and DA + GO (complete remission [CR] + CR with incomplete hematologic recovery 93% v 91%) or in day 60 mortality (4.3% v 4.6%). There was no difference in OS (66% v 63%; P = .41); however, the risk of relapse was lower with FLAG-Ida + GO (24% v 41%; P < .001) and 3-year event-free survival was higher (57% v 45%; P < .001). In patients with an NPM1 mutation (30%), 3-year OS was significantly higher with FLAG-Ida + GO (82% v 64%; P = .005). NPM1 measurable residual disease (MRD) clearance was also greater, with 88% versus 77% becoming MRD-negative in peripheral blood after cycle 2 (P = .02). Three-year OS was also higher in patients with a FLT3 mutation (64% v 54%; P = .047). Fewer transplants were performed in patients receiving FLAG-Ida + GO (238 v 278; P = .02). There was no difference in outcome according to the number of GO doses, although NPM1 MRD clearance was higher with two doses in the DA arm. Patients with core binding factor AML treated with DA and one dose of GO had a 3-year OS of 96% with no survival benefit from FLAG-Ida + GO. Conclusion Overall, FLAG-Ida + GO significantly reduced relapse without improving OS. However, exploratory analyses show that patients with NPM1 and FLT3 mutations had substantial improvements in OS. By contrast, in patients with core binding factor AML, outcomes were excellent with DA + GO with no FLAG-Ida benefit