The End of AIDS: Gender, Race and Class Politics in New York\u27s Campaign to End the Epidemic

Since its official discovery in 1981, the story of HIV/AIDS has been a story of inequality. Not only has the virus spread more easily among those marginalized due to their gender, race, or class, but AIDS activism itself has tended to elevate the voices and needs of the more powerful over those with less privilege. While we might point to 1981, when the CDC issued its first official report on HIV, as the official “beginning” of HIV/AIDS, where and how does the story end? This dissertation examines one attempt to bring the story to a close: New York State’s “Ending the Epidemic” campaign. Based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork (October 2014 – December 2015) throughout New York State, this dissertation draws on participant-observation and interviews with government officials, researchers, physicians, activists, and other advocates either directly involved in or affected by the campaign to answer the question: How do the fault lines of society come out at the end ? In addressing this question, the study draws on the theoretical literature on social activism, knowledge creation and management, pharmaceuticals, and gender, race, and sexuality to examine how inequalities are either perpetuated or transformed in the context of Ending the Epidemic. It finds that, while many longstanding inequalities are still evident in the campaign, particularly concerning women and people of color, Ending the Epidemic has also served as an opportunity for some people representing historically marginalized groups to gain a stronger voice in the field. These include, most notably, men of color who have sex with other men. However, young people represent a group that is particularly vulnerable to HIV, but is not yet adequately engaged by Ending the Epidemic. Not having grown up with the fear of AIDS instilled in earlier generations and with little voice in high-level political platforms, young people present both a challenge and an opportunity for the Ending the Epidemic campaign to reach beyond the usual suspects and address under-recognized inequalities

Strengthening Our Collective Resources: A comment on Morten Kyng\u27s \u27A contextual approach to the design of computer artifacts\u27

abstract not available

Located accountabilities in technology production

This paper explores the relevance of recent feminist reconstructions of objectivity for the development of alternative practices of technology production and use. I take as my starting place the working relations that make up the design and use of technical systems. Working relations are understood as sociomaterial connections that sustain the visible and invisible work required to construct coherent technologies and put them into use. I outline the boundaries that characterize current relations of development and use, and the boundary crossings required to transform them. Three contrasting positions for design – the view from nowhere, detached intimacy, and located accountability – are discussed as alternative bases for a politics of professional design practice. From the position of located accountability, I close by sketching aspects of what a feminist politics and associated practices of technology production could be

Situational awareness and adherence to the principle of distinction as a necessary condition for lawful autonomy

As a contribution to the CCW’s third informal meeting of experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), this briefing paper focuses on the implications of the requirement of situational awareness for autonomous action – whether by humans, machines or complex human-machine systems. For the purposes of this paper, ‘autonomy’ refers to self-directed action, and more specifically the action-according-to-rule that comprises military discipline. Unlike the algorithmic sense of a rule as that term is used in Artificial Intelligence (AI), military rules always require interpretation in relation to a specific situation, or situational awareness. Focusing on the principle of distinction, I argue that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) presupposes capacities of situational awareness that it does not, and cannot, fully specify. At the same time, autonomy or ‘self-direction’ in the case of machines requires the adequate specification (by human designers) of the conditions under which associated actions should be taken. This requirement for unambiguous specification of condition/action rules marks a crucial difference between autonomy as a legally accountable human capacity, and machine autonomy. The requirement for situational awareness in the context of combat, as a prerequisite for action that adheres to IHL, raises serious doubts regarding the feasibility of lawful autonomy in weapon systems

A study of the economic benefits of meteorological satellite data

Satellite data, while most useful in data poor areas, serves to fine tune forecasts in data rich areas. It consequently has a resulting significant economic benefit because, as previously stated, even one improved forecast per client per year can save each client thousands of dollars. Multiply this by several hundred clients and the dollar savings are sizeable. The great educational value which experience with satellite data gives undoubtedly leads to improved forecasts. Any type of future satellite data delivery system should take into account the needs and facilities of the user community to make it most useful

The Power of Words: A Comment on Hamann and Vogel’s Evidence-Based Jurisprudence Meets Legal Linguistics—Unlikely Blends Made in Germany

By offering an international and interdisciplinary point of comparison, Hamann and Vogel demonstrate that current American forays into corpus-based legal scholarship reflect only a small sliver of the full range of possibilities for such research. This Comment considers several key branching points that may lie ahead, as the nascent literature begins to mature. In particular, the Comment examines two vexing ambiguities in the corpus-linguistic agenda: the first centers on the ambiguous meaning of legal “empiricism”; the second, on the ambiguous relationship between words and actions. To achieve its full potential, legal corpus linguistics will need to move beyond mere description, to identify patterned configurations, to interpret cultural meanings, and to trace causal processes. To do so effectively, researchers will need to look beyond legal corpora alone, to explore the varied and complex relationships between texts and acts, and between legal institutions and the surrounding society

Situational awareness and adherence to the principle of distinction as a necessary condition for lawful autonomy

As a contribution to the CCW’s third informal meeting of experts on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), this briefing paper focuses on the implications of the requirement of situational awareness for autonomous action – whether by humans, machines or complex human-machine systems. For the purposes of this paper, ‘autonomy’ refers to self-directed action, and more specifically the action-according-to-rule that comprises military discipline. Unlike the algorithmic sense of a rule as that term is used in Artificial Intelligence (AI), military rules always require interpretation in relation to a specific situation, or situational awareness. Focusing on the principle of distinction, I argue that International Humanitarian Law (IHL) presupposes capacities of situational awareness that it does not, and cannot, fully specify. At the same time, autonomy or ‘self-direction’ in the case of machines requires the adequate specification (by human designers) of the conditions under which associated actions should be taken. This requirement for unambiguous specification of condition/action rules marks a crucial difference between autonomy as a legally accountable human capacity, and machine autonomy. The requirement for situational awareness in the context of combat, as a prerequisite for action that adheres to IHL, raises serious doubts regarding the feasibility of lawful autonomy in weapon systems