Letter to Claire Engel regarding award of the Lucille Elliott Scholarship, April 19, 1988

A letter from Daniel B. Taysom to Claire Engel accepting the Lucile Elliott Scholarship awarded to him

Resilience: A multi-stakeholder perspective

Socio-technical systems are often designed with the explicit intention that those systems will exhibit ‘resilience’ in the face of unpredictable change. But there is often great uncertainty about what resilience really means in this context and how it can be achieved. This paper explores what can be learnt about resilience by eliciting, combining and contrasting the perspectives of multiple stakeholders of a socio-technical system. Communicating about resilience is challenging because the term means different things to different people, both within and across domains. Therefore, in this study a system mapping exercise was used with stakeholders in one-to-one interviews to structure conversations about resilience. The system maps produced with stakeholders were used to analyse the system according to three characteristics of resilience. The findings of the study draw out key themes, including the way in which stakeholders’ perspectives are influenced by their ideas about system boundary, system purpose and system timescale. This gives rise to a better understanding of the nature of change in socio-technical systems and how to design for the resilience of such systems

Resilience in Sociotechnical Systems: The Perspectives of Multiple Stakeholders

Abstract We often design sociotechnical systems with the explicit intention that they will exhibit “resilience” in the face of unpredictable change. But there is often great uncertainty about how to de ne resilience—or achieve it. This article explores what design can learn about resilience by eliciting, combining, and contrasting multiple stakeholder perspectives within a single sociotechnical system. During one-on-one interviews, we asked participants to structure their ideas about resilience into a map of the overall system they work within. The maps were then used to analyze the system according to three key resilience characteristics. We found that the nature of their viewpoints was in uenced by their ideas about the sys- tem’s boundaries, purpose, and timescale. Our ndings give rise to a better understanding of the nature of change in sociotechnical systems and how to design for their resilience

Change or be changed: understanding resilience in socio-technical systems

The world we live in is increasingly complex, interconnected and unpredictable. We face social and technological challenges, which must be overcome through the maintenance and redesign of existing systems, as well as the design and integration of new systems. Each of these systems has stakeholders at different levels and across domains, from those governing societies, to technical experts working on well-defined tasks. These stakeholders generally want their system to survive, or even thrive, in the face of uncertainty and unexpected influences. To describe this desire, people, from politicians to CEOs, use the word resilience. Resilience is a term that is referred to across domains in academic and public discourse. However, the exact definition of resilience is elusive, and it is not clear how to apply resilience in the context of socio-technical systems. To design resilient systems, we must first be able to answer questions including: Does a resilient system change to accommodate influences or stay the same? If the system changes, where should this change take place? How do we decide which system, or sub-system, to make resilient and at what level of abstraction? In this research I show how we can answer these questions by eliciting, combining and contrasting the perspectives of multiple stakeholders of socio-technical systems. In order to talk to these stakeholders, in interviews and workshops, I had to overcome communication barriers. Communicating about resilience is challenging because the term means different things to different people, both within and across domains. In this research I use diagrams to develop our understanding of resilience as a concept, prompt discussions with stakeholders, represent examples of resilience, and compare stakeholder perspectives across domains. Using these diagrams, I present three characteristics of resilience that have emerged from the literature and empirical studies: resisting, recovering and changing in response to influences. I also show how resilience is framed by stakeholders’ perspectives and depends on how a system’s boundary, purpose and timescale is defined. The characteristics of resilience are related to system dimensions, structure and function, with a focus on the similarities and differences between social and technical sub-systems. This research contributes a new understanding of resilience in the context of design practice, which moves us closer towards being able to design resilient socio-technical systems.This research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through a Doctoral Training Award. In addition, conference travel costs were supported by the EPSRC from Dr Crilly’s fellowship grant (EP/K008196/1)

To Copy or Not to Copy: The Influence of Instructions in Design Fixation Experiments

Design fixation experiments often require participants to solve a design problem whilst being exposed to an example solution and instructions for how to treat that example. However, little is known about the influence of such instructions, leading to difficulties in interpreting results and understanding how the introduction of examples affects idea generation. In our experiment, participants were all provided with the same design problem and example solution, but were presented with different instructions, ranging from strongly encouraging copying the example to strongly discouraging copying. Analyses of participants’ work indicated that only the instructions encouraging copying had an effect. When encouraged to copy, participants tended to only copy the structural features of the example rather than the underlying concept. By contrast, the number of features copied was not reduced when participants were discouraged from copying. These findings suggest that there are subtle interactions between instructions and stimuli that influence design fixation

Drug-induced musical hallucination

Musical hallucination is a rare perceptual phenomenon wherein individuals hear music in the absence of external auditory stimuli. This phenomenon occurs across diverse medical conditions and can be triggered by some drugs. The underlying mechanism of drug-induced hallucination is unknown. This study explores drug-induced musical hallucination through a literature review, aiming to investigate its pathophysiology and potential treatment modalities. A literature search was conducted until January 2024 using databases PubMed, WorldCat, Google Scholar, and DOAJ, with keywords “drugs induced musical hallucination” or “drugs” combined with “musical hallucination.” The search yielded 24 articles which met inclusion criteria, encompassing 27 cases. The average patient age was 58.3 years, with 67.9% females. Prevalent conditions among cases included hearing impairments, psychiatric disorders, cancers, and neurodegenerative conditions. Common trigger drugs comprised antidepressants, opioids, anti-Parkinson drugs, ketamine, and voriconazole. Musical hallucination descriptions varied widely, and 6 patients reported concurrent visual hallucinations. The onset of symptoms ranged from 75 min to 240 days. Treatment strategies included termination of trigger drugs, dosage reduction, alteration of administration routes or formula, switching to similar drugs, or addition of antidepressants, sedatives, or atypical antipsychotic medications. Musical hallucinations completely disappeared in 24/27 (88.9%) patients but continued in 3/27 (11.1%) patients. The current study concludes that drug-induced musical hallucination may arise from altering neurotransmitter/receptor balance and intricate interactions between trigger drugs and underlying conditions

Torino: A Tangible Programming Language Inclusive of Children with Visual Disabilities

© 2018, Copyright © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Across the world, policy initiatives are being developed to engage children with computer programming and computational thinking. Diversity and inclusion has been a strong force in this agenda, but children with disabilities have largely been omitted from the conversation. Currently, there are no age appropriate tools for teaching programming concepts and computational thinking to primary school children with visual disabilities. We address this gap through presenting the design and implementation of Torino, a tangible programming language for teaching programming concepts to children age 7–11 regardless of level of vision. In this paper, we: (1) describe the design process done in conjunction with children with visual disabilities; (2) articulate the design decisions made; and (3) report insights generated from an evaluation with 10 children with mixed visual abilities that considers how children are able to trace (read) and create (write) programs with Torino. We discuss key design trade-offs: (1) readability versus extensibility; and (2) size versus liveness. We conclude by reflecting upon how an inclusive design approach shaped the final result

Buses, cars, bicycles and walkers the influence of the type of human transport on the flight responses of waterbirds

One way to manage disturbance to waterbirds in natural areas where humans require access is to promote the occurrence of stimuli for which birds tolerate closer approaches, and so cause fewer responses. We conducted 730 experimental approaches to 39 species of waterbird, using five stimulus types (single walker, three walkers, bicycle, car and bus) selected to mimic different human management options available for a controlled access, Ramsar-listed wetland. Across species, where differences existed (56% of 25 cases), motor vehicles always evoked shorter flight-initiation distances (FID) than humans on foot. The influence of stimulus type on FID varied across four species for which enough data were available for complete cross-stimulus analysis. All four varied FID in relation to stimuli, differing in 4 to 7 of 10 possible comparisons. Where differences occurred, the effect size was generally modest, suggesting that managing stimulus type (e.g. by requiring people to use vehicles) may have species-specific, modest benefits, at least for the waterbirds we studied. However, different stimulus types have different capacities to reduce the frequency of disturbance (i.e. by carrying more people) and vary in their capacity to travel around important habita

Review of \u3ci\u3eWinter Quarters: The 1846-1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards\u3c/i\u3e Edited by Maurine Carr Ward

Winter Quarters, the first in the new Life Writings of Frontier Women series edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, is the result of Maurine Carr Ward\u27s excellent editing of the journal of Mary Haskin Parker Richards, who converted to Mormonism in Lancashire, England, in 1838 and joined other church members in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1843. Most of the journal, however, was written between 1846 and 1848, from the time she left Nauvoo until her husband, Samuel Richards, nephew of the better-known Willard Richards, returned from Britain to Winter Quarters. The journal, in offering its richly detailed daily life of one young, newly-married woman in Winter Quarters (a sometimes neglected part of the story of the Mormons\u27 trek west), gives us valuable insight into the lives of many women who made the same journey. Mary Richards describes her illnesses-including typhoid fever, malaria, even muscular dystrophy- and tells about the medicines, mostly herbs, used to relieve fever and pain. She writes poetry; she records in detail the counsel of church leaders and her visits with other sisters and their long talks together about the things of the kingdom. We learn much about quilting, sewing, yarn braiding, and bed bugs. Included also are the letters Mary wrote to Samuel, all reflecting her deep and constant love. Sometimes her prayers for him are written out with considerable care. The journals and letters shed new light on the problems associated with polygamy, loneliness, and anxiety, while revealing as well Mary Richards\u27s optimistic outlook in spite of harsh living conditions. Ward has included photographs of Richards\u27s handwriting on paper folded and sewn. The writing, she says, usually covered the whole page, with no margin at the top, bottom, or sides because of the scarcity of paper. The book has excellent photographs of the Richards family, useful maps, and a sixty-seven page biographical register listing and offering valuable information on each person Richards mentions in her journals and letters. Ward\u27s introduction and textual commentary and Beecher\u27s introduction to the series are valuable in and of themselves