An autonomous rendezvous and docking system using cruise missile technology

In November 1990 General Dynamics demonstrated an AR&D system for members of the Strategic Avionics Technology Working Group. This simulation utilized prototype hardware derived from the Cruise Missile and Centaur avionics systems. The object of this proof of concept demonstration was to show that all the accuracy, reliability, and operational requirements established for a spacecraft to dock with Space Station Freedom could be met by the proposed AR&D system

Modelling mobile health systems: an application of augmented MDA for the extended healthcare enterprise

Mobile health systems can extend the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider by bringing services to the patient any time and anywhere. We propose a model-driven design and development methodology for the development of the m-health components in such extended enterprise computing systems. The methodology applies a model-driven design and development approach augmented with formal validation and verification to address quality and correctness and to support model transformation. Recent work on modelling applications from the healthcare domain is reported. One objective of this work is to explore and elaborate the proposed methodology. At the University of Twente we are developing m-health systems based on Body Area Networks (BANs). One specialization of the generic BAN is the health BAN, which incorporates a set of devices and associated software components to provide some set of health-related services. A patient will have a personalized instance of the health BAN customized to their current set of needs. A health professional interacts with their\ud patients¿ BANs via a BAN Professional System. The set of deployed BANs are supported by a server. We refer to this distributed system as the BAN System. The BAN system extends the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider. Development of such systems requires a sound software engineering approach and this is what we explore with the new methodology. The methodology is illustrated with reference to recent modelling activities targeted at real implementations. In the context of the Awareness project BAN implementations will be trialled in a number of clinical settings including epilepsy management and management of chronic pain

Long read review: the impossible grammar of civil war by Ed Jones

Ed Jones explores two books from Bill Kissane and David Armitage that reflect on the history of civil war, including the conceptual challenge it poses as a term that is – in the words of the latter – ‘an unstable, fissile compound

Book review: the Chinese typewriter: a history by Thomas S. Mullaney

In The Chinese Typewriter: A History, Thomas S. Mullaney offers the first of two volumes exploring the global history of Chinese information technologies by focusing on the development of the Chinese typewriter. Challenging easy narratives and offering digestible insight into technological concepts, this is an incredible work of scholarship, writes Ed Jones, that is as much a history of the past as it is one for the future. The Chinese Typewriter: A History. Thomas S. Mullaney. MIT Press. 2017

Book review: anthropologists in the stock exchange: a financial history of Victorian science by Marc Flandreau

In Anthropologists in the Stock Exchange: A Financial History of Victorian Science, Marc Flandreau traces the interwoven development of anthropology, global finance and scientific study, placing all three at the heart of late-nineteenth-century British imperialism. While taking issue with elements of Flandreau’s style and disinclination to link his findings with other scholarly work in the field, the book offers thought-provoking reflections on the epistemic ties between colonialism and the stock market that should inspire further research, writes Ed Jones

Book review: Islamic political thought: an introduction

This volume covers central themes of Islamic thinking such as the caliphate, Shari’a, the life of Muhammad, jihad, and the Qu’ran. Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction addresses how modernity, minorities, and women’s rights relate to the Islamic intellectual tradition, writes Ed Jones, who finds this book to be mandatory reading for anyone hoping to understand the core themes behind the contemporary uses and abuses of Islamic traditions of political thought

Book review: blood and faith: the purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614 by Matthew Carr

In Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614, Matthew Carr explores how, following the 1492 conquest of Granada, the sixteenth-century Spanish monarchy conducted peninsula-wide expulsions and conversions of Muslims as well as Jews. Ed Jones finds in the book’s historical analysis a valuable cautionary tale for contemporary public conversations surrounding immigration and integration regarding the consequences of legitimating fear and violence

Book review: duress: imperial durabilities in our times by Ann Laura Stoler

How do colonial histories remain active forces shaping the conditions and most urgent issues of the present? In Duress: Imperial Durabilities in our Times, Ann Laura Stoler utilises ‘duress’ as a category of domination as the prism through which to analysis how imperial traces continue to impact on relations of exploitation in the contemporary moment. Ed Jones praises this book as a refreshing and deeply creative interpretation of modern politics that will offer a laboratory of ideas to readers

Assumptions of authority: the story of Sue the T-rex and controversy over access to fossils

Although the buying, selling, and trading of fossils has been a principle part of paleontological practice over the centuries, the commercial collection of fossils today has re-emerged into a pervasive and lucrative industry. In the United States, the number of commercial companies driving the legal, and sometimes illegal, selling of fossils is estimated to have doubled since the 1980s, and worries from academic paleontologists over this issue has increased accordingly. Indeed, some view the commercialization of fossils as one of the greatest threats to paleontology today. In this article, I address the story of “Sue”—the largest, most complete, and most expensive Tyrannosaurus rex ever excavated—whose discovery incited a series of high-profile legal battles throughout the 1990s over the question of “Who owns Sue?” Over the course of a decade, various stakeholders from academic paleontologists and fossil dealers to Native Americans, private citizens, and government officials all laid claim to Sue. In exploring this case, I argue that assumptions of authority are responsible for initiating and sustaining debates over fossil access. Here, assumptions of authority are understood as assumptions of ownership, or expertise, or in some cases both. Viewing the story from this perspective illuminates the significance of fossils as boundary objects. It also highlights the process of boundary-work by which individuals and groups constructed or deconstructed borders around Sue (specifically) and fossil access (more generally) to establish their own authority. I draw on science studies scholarship as well as literature in the professionalization, commercialization, and valuation of science to examine how assumptions of authority facilitated one of the most divisive episodes in recent paleontological history and the broader debate on the commercial collection of vertebrate fossil material in the United Sates