Contesting the cruel treatment of abortion-seeking women

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Reproductive Health Matters. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH MATTERS, [VOL 22, ISSUE 44, (2014)] DOI: 10.1016/S0968-8080(14)44818-

Legal Form, Commodities and Reproduction: Reading Pashukanis

This chapter offers a feminist reading of Pashukanis’s legal theory as a contribution to critical evaluation of the relationship between legality, commodification and gender. Contemporary feminist interests in the relationship between legal and non-legal norms, in the role of commodification, and in the limits of gender as a category of analysis, make a re-engagement with Pashukanis timely. For Pashukanis, legal form constitutes subjects as if they have property rights over objects, generates exchange value, and represents differently situated subjects as if they are equal. Here I develop an account of legal form analysis that recuperates Pashukanis’s distinction between legal form and technical regulation, his theorisation of the subject of commodification, and his historical method of form/content analysis. Drawing on this critical reading of Pashukanis, I argue for the development of legal form analysis so as to accommodate the roles of social reproduction and consumption in the generation of care value and use value in commodity-exchanging societies. I illustrate this method by providing a legal form analysis of a conflict in consent rights over the use of genetically related embryos. Such an analysis asks how consent rights would extract care value from the subject’s reproductive wishes, recognise contributions to the development of the embryo, and recognise investments in the future use of that embryo. In this way, legal form analysis provides a reading of legal contributions to the generation of value from human reproductive activities without making assumptions about their gendered content

Status of the Electroforming Shield Design (ESD) project

The utilization of a digital computer to augment electrodeposition/electroforming processes in which nonconducting shielding controls local cathodic current distribution is reported. The primary underlying philosophy of the physics of electrodeposition was presented. The technical approach taken to analytically simulate electrolytic tank variables was also included. A FORTRAN computer program has been developed and implemented. The program utilized finite element techniques and electrostatic theory to simulate electropotential fields and ionic transport

The case for the development of novel human skills capture methodologies

As the capabilities of industrial automation are growing, so is the ability to supplement or replace the more tacit, cognitive skills of manual operators. Whilst models have been published within the human factors literature regarding automation implementation, they neglect to discuss the initial capture of the task and automation experts currently lack a formal tool to assess feasibility. The definition of what is meant by "human skill" is discussed and three crucial theoretical underpinnings are proposed for a novel, automation-specific skill capture methodology: emphasis upon procedural rules, emphasis upon action-facilitating factors and taxonomy of skill

The limitations of using only CAD and DHM in design relating to high value manufacturing

The ergonomics suites available within computer aided design and digital human modelling programs are increasingly being used to predict and prevent ergonomic and human factors risk due to poor design. To further aid the reduction in poor design, it is of importance to understand the need for user input and the limitations of these software programs. These limitations include: the small number of available anthropometric population samples; and the disconnect between what a designer perceives as possible, and what is possible within a manufacturing environment. A method of mitigating these limitations is the use of user input using virtual reality suites, mock-ups and motion capture technology

Human-automation collaboration in manufacturing: identifying key implementation factors

Human-automation collaboration refers to the concept of human operators and intelligent automation working together interactively within the same workspace without conventional physical separation. This concept has commanded significant attention in manufacturing because of the potential applications, such as the installation of large sub-assemblies. However, the key human factors relevant to human-automation collaboration have not yet been fully investigated. To maximise effective implementation and reduce development costs for future projects these factors need to be examined. In this paper, a collection of human factors likely to influence human-automation collaboration are identified from current literature. To test the validity of these and explore further factors associated with implementation success, different types of production processes in terms of stage of maturity are being explored via industrial case studies from the project’s stakeholders. Data was collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with shop floor operators, engineers, system designers and management personnel