Bottom-up Infrastructures: Aligning Politics and Technology in building a Wireless Community Network

Contemporary innovation in infrastructures is increasingly characterized by a close relationship between experts and lay people. This phenomenon has attracted the attention from a wide range of disciplines, including computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), science and technology studies (S&TS), organization studies and participatory design (PD). Connecting to this broad area of research, the article presents a qualitative case study concerning the building and maintenance of a grassroots, bottom-up information infrastructure in Italy, defined as wireless community network (WCN). Methodologically, the research is based on qualitative interviews with participants to the WCN, ethnographic observations and document analysis. The aim of the article is to understand the alignment between the technical work implied in building this bottom-up infrastructure and the political and cultural frameworks that move people to participate to this project. Relying on the field of science & technology studies, and in particular on the notions of ‘inverse infrastructure’ and ‘research in the wild’, we disclose the WCN’s peculiar innovation trajectory, localized outside conventional spaces of research and development. Overall, the presentation of the qualitative and ethnographic data allows to point out a more general reflection on bottom-up infrastructures and to enrich the academic debate concerning bottom-up infrastructuring work and other similar typologies of collaborative design projects in the domain of infrastructures

Overcorrection in mandibular advancement

Seven cases of class II skeletal deformities of the face are described in which overcorrection into a class III relationship was performed. This concept is based on the unpredictability of the relapse tendency on the one hand and the anterior inclination of the lower front teeth in some cases (which may block mandibular advancement significantly) on the other hand. Depending on the degree of the relapse occurring, postoperative orthodontic treatment, a second segmental operation or mere occlusal grinding is required

The influence of age at operation for clefts on the development of the jaws

In this follow-up study of adult cleft patients with a unilateral cheilognathopalatoschisis, the effect on maxillo-mandibular development of the age at which the palatoplasty had been performed was investigated. It was concluded that it makes little difference whether the hard palate is closed at the age of 3 or 6 years

Postoperative contamination of mandibular osteotomy sites with saliva

Postoperative salivary contamination of surgical wounds around the mandible was found in several types of osteotomy and bone grafting procedure. This problem was investigated by determining the amylase content of wound secretions in redon bottles every 24h. The implications for antibiotic prophylaxis are discussed

Reconstruction of soft tissues of the chin and lower lip region following excision of a basal cell carcinoma

Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery16C337-339JCMS

Preserving the pterygoid plates in posterior repositioning of the Le Fort I osteotomy

Journal of Cranio-Maxillo-Facial Surgery175219-221JCMS

Osteotomy of the premaxilla

31 cleft patients with displaced premaxilla were operated on and the results evaluated. On the whole, there were few complications, but bony consolidation was sometimes retarded. Also closure of residual fistulae may present a problem