Sensemaking and lens-shaping : Identifying citizen contributions to foresight through comparative topic modelling

As foresight activities continue to increase across multiple arenas and types of organizations, the need to develop effective modes of reviewing future-oriented information against long-term goals and policies becomes more pressing. The activities of institutional sensemaking are vital in constructing potential and desired futures, but remain sensitive to organizational culture and ethos, thus raising concerns about whose futures are being constructed. In viewing foresight studies as a critical component in such sensemaking, this research investigates a method of textual analysis that deploys natural language processing algorithms (NLP). In this research, we introduce and apply the methodology of topic modelling for conducting a comparative analysis to explore how citizen-derived foresight differs from other institutional foresight. Finally we present pros-pects for further employing NLP for strategic foresight and futures studies.Peer reviewe

In Dialogue with The Age of Surveillance Capitalism : A reconstruction and critique of the theory and its apocalyptic-dystopian narrative

Social scientific research has theorized utopia and utopianism as methods of imagining and theorizing alternative, desired futures. While various definitions of utopia and utopianism exist, most scholarship agrees that there is an inherent ideology to them. In both social theory and literary fiction, utopia and dystopia are often preceded by an apocalyptic event. Humanities scholars have researched the relationship between fictional dystopian and apocalyptic narratives and anxieties about societal change, such as rapid technological development, changing social relations of power, community, and individuality. Utopia and dystopia, whether social theory or fictional narratives, can be thought of as social diagnoses with a future-oriented temporality. This thesis partakes in these theoretical discussions by reconstructing The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) by Shoshana Zuboff. The thesis engages in a critical dialogue with the surveillance capitalism theory/narrative from the perspective of its dystopian and utopian reality-making. Second Rational reconstruction is used to analyze explicit and implicit theoretical arguments in the surveillance capitalism theory. The reconstruction is divided into two broad themes: narrativity, and personhood and society. Narrative analysis is employed to examine the type of knowledge and reality producing through narrative choices made by the author. The term apocalyptic-dystopian narrative guides this analysis: the horror of the imagined end of the world and the following bad society reveals what is most feared and desired by the author. Additionally, the Janus-face of dystopia and utopia is considered, and the terms utopia and utopianism assist the analysis. This thesis suggests that the theory presented in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a liberal social diagnosis with a dominating apocalyptic-dystopian narrative. Yet, despite its explicit antiutopianism, the theory also includes an implicit utopian vision. Personhood and society are interpreted by the author through a liberal lens, and consequently the theory emphasizes autonomy and individuality, society as public life organized by the principle of efficiency, and democratic capitalism. The theory, while critical of the surveillance capitalism phenomenon, is not a general critique of capitalism. Instead, the aim of the author is to open the door to the good society by saving capitalism, society, and the individual from the dystopian surveillance capitalism. These elements of the theory highlight its overarching paranoia and dualistic division of good and evil as knowledge practices. This thesis joins a newly expanding group of scholarship on the surveillance capitalism theory. The reconstruction conducted in this thesis offers a long-form theoretical analysis and critique of the theory and its narrative and connects them to conversations about dystopian and utopian knowledge production

The First Brown Dwarf Discovered by the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Project

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is a powerful tool for finding nearby brown dwarfs and searching for new planets in the outer solar system, especially with the incorporation of NEOWISE and NEOWISE-Reactivation data. So far, searches for brown dwarfs in WISE data have yet to take advantage of the full depth of the WISE images. To efficiently search this unexplored space via visual inspection, we have launched a new citizen science project, called "Backyard Worlds: Planet 9," which asks volunteers to examine short animations composed of difference images constructed from time-resolved WISE coadds. We report the discovery of the first new substellar object found by this project, WISEA J110125.95+540052.8, a T5.5 brown dwarf located approximately 34 pc from the Sun with a total proper motion of $\sim$0.7 as yr$^{-1}$. WISEA J110125.95+540052.8 has a WISE $W2$ magnitude of $W2=15.37 \pm 0.09$, this discovery demonstrates the ability of citizen scientists to identify moving objects via visual inspection that are 0.9 magnitudes fainter than the $W2$ single-exposure sensitivity, a threshold that has limited prior motion-based brown dwarf searches with WISE.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

\u3cem\u3eBorrelia burgdorferi\u3c/em\u3e SpoVG DNA- and RNA-Binding Protein Modulates the Physiology of the Lyme Disease Spirochete

The SpoVG protein of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease spirochete, binds to specific sites of DNA and RNA. The bacterium regulates transcription of spoVG during the natural tick-mammal infectious cycle and in response to some changes in culture conditions. Bacterial levels of spoVG mRNA and SpoVG protein did not necessarily correlate, suggesting that posttranscriptional mechanisms also control protein levels. Consistent with this, SpoVG binds to its own mRNA, adjacent to the ribosome-binding site. SpoVG also binds to two DNA sites in the glpFKD operon and to two RNA sites in glpFKD mRNA; that operon encodes genes necessary for glycerol catabolism and is important for colonization in ticks. In addition, spirochetes engineered to dysregulate spoVG exhibited physiological alterations

Underwater Thruster Saturation Detection and Prevention Considering Battery Voltage Sag

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the development of a control module that detects and effectively prevents thruster saturation for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). A model has been developed to approximate the maximum available thrust, per thruster, as a function of the battery voltage sag. A thruster would be considered to be in saturation if its reference input exceeds its particular output limit. This ratio can be expressed as a scalar value, which can be used to adjust the reference thrust vector that is fed to the thruster control system. This approach can minimize the total error vector in the vehicle kinematics