Academic literature on the topic '080399 Computer Software not elsewhere classified'

Story spreads out through time the behaviors or bodies – the shapes – a self has been or will be, each replacing the one before. Hence a story has before and after, gain and loss. It goes somewhere…Moreover, shape or body is crucial, not incidental, to story. It carries story; it makes story visible; in a sense it is story. Shape (or visible body) is in space what story is in time. (Bynum, quoted in Garland Thomson, 113-114) Drawing on Goffman’s classic work on stigma, research documenting the existence of discrimination and bias against individuals classified as obese goes back five decades. Since Cahnman published “The Stigma of Obesity” in 1968, other researchers have well documented systematic and growing discrimination against fat people (cf. Puhl and Brownell; Puhl and Heuer; Puhl and Heuer; Fikkan and Rothblum). While weight-based stereotyping has a long history (Chang and Christakis; McPhail; Schwartz), contemporary forms of anti-fat stigma and discrimination must be understood within a social and economic context of neoliberal healthism. By neoliberal healthism (see Crawford; Crawford; Metzel and Kirkland), I refer to the set of discourses that suggest that humans are rational, self-determining actors who independently make their own best choices and are thus responsible for their life chances and health outcomes. In such a context, good health becomes associated with proper selfhood, and there are material and social consequences for those who either unwell or perceived to be unwell. While the greatest impacts of size-based discrimination are structural in nature, the interpersonal impacts are also significant. Because obesity is commonly represented (at least partially) as a matter of behavioral choices in public health, medicine, and media, to “remain fat” is to invite commentary from others that one is lacking in personal responsibility. Guthman suggests that this lack of empathy “also stems from the growing perception that obesity presents a social cost, made all the more tenable when the perception of health responsibility has been reversed from a welfare model” (1126). Because weight loss is commonly held to be a reasonable and feasible goal and yet is nearly impossible to maintain in practice (Kassierer and Angell; Mann et al.; Puhl and Heuer), fat people are “in effect, asked to do the impossible and then socially punished for failing” (Greenhalgh, 474). In this article, I explore how weight-based stigma shaped the decisions of bariatric patients to undergo weight loss surgery. In doing so, I underline the work that emotion does in circulating anti-fat stigma and in creating categories of subjects along lines of health and responsibility. As well, I highlight how fat bodies are lived and negotiated in space and place. I then explore ways in which participants take up notions of time, specifically in regard to risk, in discussing what brought them to the decision to have bariatric surgery. I conclude by arguing that it is a dynamic interaction between the material, social, emotional, discursive, and the temporal that produces not only fat embodiment, but fat subjectivity “failed”, and serves as an impetus for seeking bariatric surgery. Methods This article is based on 30 semi-structured interviews with American bariatric patients. At the time of the interview, individuals were between six months and 12 years out from surgery. After obtaining Intuitional Review Board approval, recruitment occurred through a snowball sample. All interviews were audio-taped with permission and verbatim interview transcripts were analyzed by means of a thematic analysis using Dedoose (www.dedoose.com). All names given in this article are pseudonyms. This work is part of a larger project that includes two additional interviews with bariatric surgeons as well as participant-observation research. Findings Navigating Anti-Fat Stigma In discussing what it was like to be fat, all but one of the individuals I interviewed discussed experiencing substantive size-based stigma and discrimination. Whether through overt comments, indirect remarks, dirty looks, open gawking, or being ignored and unrecognized, participants felt hurt, angry, and shamed by friends, family, coworkers, medical providers, and strangers on the street because of the size of their bodies. Several recalled being bullied and even physically assaulted by peers as children. Many described the experience of being fat or very fat as one of simultaneous hypervisibility and invisibility. One young woman, Kaia, said: “I absolutely was not treated like a person … . I was just like this object to people. Just this big, you know, thing. That’s how people treated me.” Nearly all of my participants described being told repeatedly by others, including medical professionals, that their inability to lose weight was effectively a failure of the will. They found these comments to be particularly hurtful because, in fact, they had spent years, even decades, trying to lose weight only to gain the weight back plus more. Some providers and family members seemed to take up the idea that shame could be a motivating force in weight loss. However, as research by Lewis et al.; Puhl and Huerer; and Schafer and Ferraro has demonstrated, the effect this had was the opposite of what was intended. Specifically, a number of the individuals I spoke with delayed care and avoided health-facilitating behaviors, like exercising, because of the discrimination they had experienced. Instead, they turned to health-harming practices, like crash dieting. Moreover, the internalization of shame and blame served to lower a sense of self-worth for many participants. And despite having a strong sense that something outside of personal behavior explained their escalating body weights, they deeply internalized messages about responsibility and self-control. Danielle, for instance, remarked: “Why could the one thing I want the most be so impossible for me to maintain?” It is important to highlight the work that emotion does in circulating such experiences of anti-fat stigma and discrimination. As Fraser et al have argued in their discussion on fat and emotion, the social, the emotional, and the corporeal cannot be separated. Drawing on Ahmed, they argue that strong emotions are neither interior psychological states that work between individuals nor societal states that impact individuals. Rather, emotions are constitutive of subjects and collectivities, (Ahmed; Fraser et al.). Negative emotions in particular, such as hate and fear, produce categories of people, by defining them as a common threat and, in the process, they also create categories of people who are deemed legitimate and those who are not. Thus following Fraser et al, it is possible to see that anti-fat hatred did more than just negatively impact the individuals I spoke with. Rather, it worked to produce, differentiate, and drive home categories of people along lines of health, weight, risk, responsibility, and worth. In this next section, I examine the ways in which anti-fat discrimination works at the interface of not only the discursive and the emotive, but the material as well. Big Bodies, Small Spaces When they discussed their previous lives as very fat people, all of the participants made reference to a social and built environment mismatch, or in Garland Thomson’s terms, a “misfit”. A misfit occurs “when the environment does not sustain the shape and function of the body that enters it” (594). Whereas the built environment offers a fit for the majority of bodies, Garland Thomson continues, it also creates misfits for minority forms of embodiment. While Garland Thomson’s analysis is particular to disability, I argue that it extends to fat embodiment as well. In discussing what it was like to navigate the world as fat, participants described both the physical and emotional pain entailed in living in bodies that did not fit and frequently discussed the ways in which leaving the house was always a potential, anxiety-filled problem. Whereas all of the participants I interviewed discussed such misfitting, it was notable that participants in the Greater New York City area (70% of the sample) spoke about this topic at length. Specifically, they made frequent and explicit mentions of the particular interface between their fat bodies and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), and the tightly packed spaces of the city itself. Greater New York City area participants frequently spoke of the shame and physical discomfort in having to stand on public transportation for fear that they would be openly disparaged for “taking up too much room.” Some mentioned that transit seats were made of molded plastic, indicating by design the amount of space a body should occupy. Because they knew they would require more space than what was allotted, these participants only took seats after calculating how crowded the subway or train car was and how crowded it would likely become. Notably, the decision to not take a seat was one that was made at a cost for some of the larger individuals who experienced joint pain. Many participants stated that the densely populated nature of New York City made navigating daily life very challenging. In Talia’s words, “More people, more obstacles, less space.” Participants described always having to be on guard, looking for the next obstacle. As Candice put it: “I would walk in some place and say, ‘Will I be able to fit? Will I be able to manoeuvre around these people and not bump into them?’ I was always self-conscious.” Although participants often found creative solutions to navigating the hostile environment of both the MTA and the city at large, they also identified an increasing sense of isolation that resulted from the physical discomfort and embarrassment of not fitting in. For instance, Talia rarely joined her partner and their friends on outings to movies or the theater because the seats were too tight. Similarly, Decenia would make excuses to her husband in order to avoid social situations outside of the home: “I’d say to my husband, ‘I don’t feel well, you go.’ But you know what? It was because I was afraid not to fit, you know?” The anticipatory scrutinizing described by these participants, and the anxieties it produced, echoes Kirkland’s contention that fat individuals use the technique of ‘scanning’ in order to navigate and manage hostile social and built environments. Scanning, she states, involves both literally rapidly looking over situations and places to determine accessibility, as well as a learned assessment and observation technique that allows fat people to anticipate how they will be received in new situations and new places. For my participants, worries about not fitting were more than just internal calculation. Rather, others made all too clear that fat bodies are not welcome. Nina recalled nasty looks she received from other subway riders when she attempted to sit down. Decenia described an experience on a crowded commuter train in which the woman next to her openly expressed annoyance and disgust that their thighs were touching. Talia recalled being aggressively handed a weight loss brochure by a fellow passenger. When asked to contrast their experiences living in New York City with having travelled or lived elsewhere, participants almost universally described the New York as a more difficult place to live for fat people. However, the experiences of three of the Latinas that I interviewed troubled this narrative. Katrina felt that the harassment she received in her country of origin, the Dominican Republic, was far worse than what she now experienced in the New York Metropolitan Area. Although Decenia detailed painful experiences of anti-fat stigma in New York City, she nevertheless described her life as relatively “easy” compared to what it was like in her home country of Brazil. And Denisa contrasted her neighbourhood of East Harlem with other parts of Manhattan: “In Harlem it's different. Everybody is really fat or plump – so you feel a bit more comfortable. Not everybody, but there's a mix. Downtown – there's no mix.” Collectively, their stories serve as a reminder (see Franko et al.; Grabe and Hyde) to be suspicious of over determined accounts that “Latino culture” is (or people of colour communities in general are), more accepting of larger bodies and more resistant to weight-based stigma and discrimination. Their comments also reflect arguments made by Colls, Grosz, and Garland Thomson, who have all pointed to the contingent nature between space and bodies. Colls argue that sizing is both a material and an emotional process – what size we take ourselves to be shifts in different physical and emotional contexts. Grosz suggests that there is a “mutually constitutive relationship between bodies and cities” – one that, I would add, is raced, classed, and gendered. Garland Thomson has described the relationship between bodies and space/place as “a dynamic encounter between world and flesh.” These encounters, she states, are always contingent and situated: “When the spatial and temporal context shifts, so does the fit, and with it meanings and consequences” (592). In this sense, fat is materialized differently in different contexts and in different scales – nation, state, city, neighbourhood – and the materialization of fatness is always entangled with raced, classed, and gendered social and political-economic relations. Nevertheless, it is possible to draw some structural commonalities between divergent parts of the Greater New York City Metropolitan Area. Specifically, a dense population, cramped physical spaces, inaccessible transportation and transportation funding cuts, social norms of fast paced life, and elite, raced, classed, and gendered norms of status and beauty work to materialize fatness in such a way that a ‘misfit’ is often the result for fat people who live and/or work in this area. And importantly, misfitting, as Garland Thomson argues, has consequences: it literally “casts out” when the “shape and function of … bodies comes into conflict with the shape and stuff of the built world” (594). This casting out produces some bodies as irrelevant to social and economic life, resulting in segregation and isolation. To misfit, she argues, is to be denied full citizenship. Responsibilising the Present Garland Thomson, discussing Bynum’s statement that “shape carries story”, argues the following: “the idea that shape carries story suggests … that material bodies are not only in the spaces of the world but that they are entwined with temporality as well” (596). In this section, I discuss how participants described their decisions to get weight loss surgery by making references to the need take responsibility for health now, in the present, in order to avoid further and future morbidity and mortality. Following Adams et al., I look at how the fat body is lived in a state of constant anticipation – “thinking and living toward the future” (246). All of the participants I spoke with described long histories of weight cycling. While many managed to lose weight, none were able to maintain this weight loss in the long term – a reality consistent with the medical fact that dieting does not produce durable results (Kassirer and Angell; Mann et al.; Puhl and Heuer). They experienced this inability as not only distressing, but terrifying, as they repeatedly regained the lost weight plus more. When participants discussed their decisions to have surgery, they highlighted concerns about weight related comorbidities and mobility limitations in their explanations. Consistent then with Boero, Lopez, and Wadden et al., the participants I spoke with did not seek out surgery in hopes of finding a permanent way to become thin, but rather a permanent way to become healthy and normal. Concerns about what is considered to be normative health, more than simply concerns about what is held to be an appropriate appearance, motivated their decisions. Significantly, for these participants the decision to have bariatric surgery was based on concerns about future morbidity (and mortality) at least as much, if not more so, than on concerns about a current state of ill health and impairment. Some individuals I spoke with were unquestionably suffering from multiple chronic and even life threatening illnesses and feared they would prematurely die from these conditions. Other participants, however, made the decision to have bariatric surgery despite the fact that they had no comorbidities whatsoever. Motivating their decisions was the fear that they would eventually develop them. Importantly, medial providers explicitly and repeatedly told all of these participants that lest they take drastic and immediate action, they would die. For example: Faith’s reproductive endocrinologist said: “you’re going to have diabetes by the time you’re 30; you’re going to have a stroke by the time you’re 40. And I can only hope that you can recover enough from your stroke that you’ll be able to take care of your family.” Several female participants were warned that without losing weight, they would either never become pregnant or they would die in childbirth. By contrast, participants stated that their bariatric surgeons were the first providers they had encountered to both assert that obesity was a medical condition outside of their control and to offer them a solution. Within an atmosphere in which obesity is held to be largely or entirely the result of behavioural choices, the bariatric profession thus positions itself as unique by offering both understanding and what it claims to be a durable treatment. Importantly, it would be a mistake to conclude that some bariatric patients needed surgery while others choose it for the wrong reasons. Regardless of their states of health at the time they made the decision to have surgery, the concerns that drove these patients to seek out these procedures were experienced as very real. Whether or not these concerns would have materialized as actual health conditions is unknown. Furthermore, bariatric patients should not be seen as having been duped or suffering from ‘false consciousness.’ Rather, they operate within a particular set of social, cultural, and political-economic conditions that suggest that good citizenship requires risk avoidance and personal health management. As these individuals experienced, there are material and social consequences for ‘failing’ to obtain normative conceptualizations of health. This set of conditions helps to produce a bariatric patient population that includes both those who were contending with serious health concerns and those who feared they would develop them. All bariatric patients operate within this set of conditions (as do medical providers) and make decisions regarding health (current, future, or both) by using the resources available to them. In her work on the temporalities of dieting, Coleman argues that rather than seeing dieting as a linear and progressive event, we might think of it instead a process that brings the future into the present as potential. Adams et al suggest concerns about potential futures, particularly in regard to health, are a defining characteristic of our time. They state: “The present is governed, at almost every scale, as if the future is what matters most. Anticipatory modes enable the production of possible futures that are lived and felt as inevitable in the present, rendering hope and fear as important political vectors” (249). The ability to act in the present based on potential future risks, they argue, has become a moral imperative and a marker of proper of citizenship. Importantly, however, our work to secure the ‘best possible future’ is never fully assured, as risks are constantly changing. The future is thus always uncertain. Acting responsibly in the present therefore requires “alertness and vigilance as normative affective states” (254). Importantly, these anticipations are not diagnostic, but productive. As Adams et al state, “the future arrives already formed in the present, as if the emergency has already happened…a ‘sense’ of the simultaneous uncertainty and inevitability of the future, usually manifest in entanglements of fear and hope” (250). It is in this light, then, that we might see the decision to have bariatric surgery. For these participants, their future weight-related morbidity and mortality had already arrived in the present and thus they felt they needed to act responsibly now, by undergoing what they had been told was the only durable medical intervention for obesity. The emotions of hope, fear, anxiety and I would suggest, hatred, were key in making these decisions. Conclusion Medical, public health, and media discourses frame obesity as an epidemic that threatens to bring untold financial disaster and escalating rates of morbidity and mortality upon the nation state and the world at large. As Fraser et al argue, strong emotions (such hatred, fear, anxiety, and hope), are at the centre of these discourses; they construct, circulate, and proliferate them. Moreover, they create categories of people who are deemed legitimate and categories of others who are not. In this context, the participants I spoke with were caught between a desire to have fatness understood as a medical condition needing intervention; the anti-fat attitudes of others, including providers, which held that obesity was a failure of the will and nothing more; their own internalization of these messages of personal responsibility for proper behavioural choices, and, the biologically intractable nature of fatness wherein dieting not only fails to reduce weight in the vast majority of cases but results, in the long term, in increased weight gain (Kassirer and Angell; Mann et al.; Puhl and Heuer). Widespread anxiety and embarrassment over and fear and hatred of fatness was something that the individuals I interviewed experienced directly and which signalled to them that they were less than human. Their desire for weight loss, therefore was partially a desire to become ‘normal.’ In Butler’s term, it was the desire for a ‘liveable life. ’A liveable life, for these participants, included a desire for a seamless fit with the built environment. The individuals I spoke with were never more ashamed of their fatness than when they experienced a ‘misfit’, in Garland Thomson’s terms, between their bodies and the material world. Moreover, feelings of shame over this disjuncture worked in tandem with a deeply felt, pressing sense that something must be done in the present to secure a better health future. The belief that bariatric surgery might finally provide a durable answer to obesity served as a strong motivating factor in their decisions to undergo bariatric surgery. By taking drastic action to lose weight, participants hoped to contest stigmatizing beliefs that their fat bodies reflected pathological interiors. Moreover, they sought to demonstrate responsibility and thus secure proper subjectivities and citizenship. In this sense, concerns, anxieties, and fears about health cannot be disentangled from the experience of anti-fat stigma and discrimination. Again, anti-fat bias, for these participants, was more than discursive: it operated through the circulation of emotion and was experienced in a very material sense. The decision to have weight loss surgery can thus be seen as occurring at the interface of emotion, flesh, space, place, and time, and in ways that are fundamentally shaped by the broader social context of neoliberal healthism. AcknowledgmentI am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful feedback on earlier version. References Adams, Vincanne, Michelle Murphy, and Adele E. Clarke. “Anticipation: Technoscience, Life, Affect, Temporality.” Subjectivity 28.1 (2009): 246-265. Ahmed, Sara. “Affective Economies.” Social Text 22.2 (2004): 117-139 Boero, Natalie. Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American "Obesity Epidemic". New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2012. Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge, 2004. Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1999. Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. National Endowment for the Humanities. Washington, DC, 1999. Cahnman, Werner J. “The Stigma of Obesity.” The Sociological Quarterly 9.3 (1968): 283-299. Chang, Virginia W., and Nicholas A. Christakis. “Medical Modeling of Obesity: A Transition from Action to Experience in a 20th Century American Medical Textbook.” Sociology of Health & Illness 24.2 (2002): 151-177. Coleman, Rebecca. “Dieting Temporalities: Interaction, Agency and the Measure of Online Weight Watching.” Time & Society 19.2 (2010): 265-285. Colls, Rachel. “‘Looking Alright, Feeling Alright:’ Emotions, Sizing, and the Geographies of Women’s Experience of Clothing Consumption.” Social & Cultural Geography 5.4 (2004): 583-596. Crawford, Robert. “You Are Dangerous to Your Health: The Ideology and Politics of Victim Blaming.” International Journal of Health Services 7.4 (1977): 663-680. ———. “Health as a Meaningful Social Practice.: Health 10.4 (2006): 401-20. Dedoose. Computer Software. n.d. Franko, Debra L., Emilie J. Coen, James P. Roehrig, Rachel Rodgers, Amy Jenkins, Meghan E. Lovering, Stephanie Dela Cruz. “Considering J. Lo and Ugly Betty: A Qualitative Examination of Risk Factors and Prevention Targets for Body Dissatisfaction, Eating Disorders, and Obesity in Young Latina Women.” Body Image 9.3 (2012), 381-387. Fikken, Janna J., and Esther D. Rothblum. “Is Fat a Feminist Issue? Exploring the Gendered Nature of Weight Bias.” Sex Roles 66.9-10 (2012): 575-592. Fraser, Suzanne, JaneMaree Maher, and Jan Wright. “Between Bodies and Collectivities: Articulating the Action of Emotion in Obesity Epidemic Discourse.” Social Theory & Health 8.2 (2010): 192-209. Garland Thomson, Rosemarie. “Misfits: A Feminist Materialist Disability Concept.” Hypatia 26.3 (2011): 591-609. Goffman, Erving. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963. Grabe, Shelly, and Janet S. Hyde. “Ethnicity and Body Dissatisfaction among Women in the United States: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 132.2 (2006): 622. Greenhalgh, Susan. “Weighty Subjects: The Biopolitics of the U.S. War on Fat.” American Ethnologist 39.3 (2012): 471-487. Grosz, Elizabeth A. “Bodies-Cities.” Feminist Theory and the Body: A Reader, eds. Janet Price and Margrit Shildrick. New York: Routledge, 1999. 381-387. Guthman, Julie. “Teaching the Politics of Obesity: Insights into Neoliberal Embodiment and Contemporary Biopolitics.” Antipode 41.5 (2009): 1110-1133. Kassirer, Jerome P., and M. Marcia Angell. “Losing Weight: An Ill-Fated New Year's Resolution.” The New England Journal of Medicine 338.1 (1998): 52. Kirkland, Anna. “Think of the Hippopotamus: Rights Consciousness in the Fat Acceptance Movement.” Law & Society Review 42.2 (2008): 397-432. Lewis, Sophie, Samantha L. Thomas, R. Warwick Blood, David Castle, Jim Hyde, and Paul A. Komesaroff. “How Do Obese Individuals Perceive and Respond to the Different Types of Obesity Stigma That They Encounter in Their Daily Lives? A Qualitative Study.” Social Science & Medicine 73.9 (2011): 1349-56. López, Julia Navas. “Socio-Anthropological Analysis of Bariatric Surgery Patients: A Preliminary Study.” Social Medicine 4.4 (2009): 209-217. McPhail, Deborah. “What to Do with the ‘Tubby Hubby?: ‘Obesity,’ the Crisis of Masculinity, and the Nuclear Family in Early Cold War Canada. Antipode 41.5 (2009): 1021-1050. Mann, Traci, A. Janet Tomiyama, Erika Westling, Ann-Marie Lew, Barbara Samuels, and Jason Chatman. “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments.” American Psychologist 62.3 (2007): 220-233. Metzl, Jonathan. “Introduction: Why ‘Against Health?’” Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality, eds. Jonathan Metzl and Anna Kirkland. New York: NYU Press, 2010. 1-14. Puhl, Rebecca M. “Obesity Stigma: Important Considerations for Public Health.” American Journal of Public Health 100.6 (2010): 1019-1028.———, and Kelly D. Brownell. “Psychosocial Origins of Obesity Stigma: Toward Changing a Powerful and Pervasive Bias.” Obesity Reviews 4.4 (2003): 213-227. ——— and Chelsea A. Heuer. “The Stigma of Obesity: A Review and Update.” Obesity 17.5 (2009): 941-964. Schafer, Markus H., and Kenneth F. Ferraro. “The Stigma of Obesity: Does Perceived Weight Discrimination Affect Identity and Physical Health?” Social Psychology Quarterly 74.1 (2011): 76-97. Schwartz, H. Never Satisfied: A Cultural History of Diets, Fantasies, and Fat. New York: Anchor Books, 1986. Wadden, Thomas A., David B. Sarwer, Anthony N. Fabricatore, LaShanda R. Jones, Rebecca Stack, and Noel Williams. “Psychosocial and Behavioral Status of Patients Undergoing Bariatric Surgery: What to Expect before and after Surgery.” The Medical Clinics of North America 91.3 (2007): 451-69. Wilson, Bianca. “Fat, the First Lady, and Fighting the Politics of Health Science.” Lecture. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. 14 Feb. 2011.

Soft materials have attracted considerable interest in recent years for predicting the characteristics of phase separation and self-assembly in nanoscale structures. A popular method for demonstrating and simulating the dynamic behaviour of particles (e.g. particle tracking) and to consider effects of simulation parameters is cell dynamic simulation (CDS). This is a cellular computerisation technique that can be used to investigate different aspects of morphological topographies of soft material systems. The acquisition of quantitative data from particles is a critical requirement in order to obtain a better understanding and of characterising their dynamic behaviour. To achieve this objective particle tracking methods considering quantitative data and focusing on different properties and components of particles is essential. Despite the availability of various types of particle tracking used in experimental work, there is no method available to consider uniform computational data. In order to achieve accurate and efficient computational results for cell dynamic simulation method and particle tracking, two factors are essential: computing/calculating time-scale and simulation system size. Consequently, finding available computing algorithms and resources such as sequential algorithm for implementing a complex technique and achieving precise results is critical and rather expensive. Therefore, it is highly desirable to consider a parallel algorithm and programming model to solve time-consuming and massive computational processing issues. Hence, the gaps between the experimental and computational works and solving time consuming for expensive computational calculations need to be filled in order to investigate a uniform computational technique for particle tracking and significant enhancements in speed and execution times. The work presented in this thesis details a new particle tracking method for integrating diblock copolymers in the form of spheres with a shear flow and a novel designed GPU-based parallel acceleration approach to cell dynamic simulation (CDS). In addition, the evaluation of parallel models and architectures (CPUs and GPUs) utilising the mixtures of application program interface, OpenMP and programming model, CUDA were developed. Finally, this study presents the performance enhancements achieved with GPU-CUDA of approximately ~2 times faster than multi-threading implementation and 13~14 times quicker than optimised sequential processing for the CDS computations/workloads respectively.

A Modular Power Management System (MPMS) is an energy management system intended for highly modular applications, able to adapt to changing hardware intelligently. There is a dearth in the literature on Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA), which has previously not addressed the implications for software operating within this architecture. Namely, the adaptation of control laws to changing hardware. This work proposes some approaches to address this issue. Control laws may require adaptation to overcome hardware degradation, or system upgrades. There is also a growing interest in the ability to change hardware configurations of UASs (Unmanned Aerial Systems) between missions, to better fit the characteristics of each one. Hardware changes in the aviation industry come with an additional caveat: in order for a software system to be used in aviation it must be certified as part of a platform. This certification process has no clear guidelines for adaptive systems. Adapting to a changing platform, as well as addressing the necessary certification effort, motivated the development of the MPMS. The aim of the work is twofold. Firstly, to modify existing control strategies for new hardware. This is achieved with generalisation and transfer earning. Secondly, to reduce the workload involved with maintaining a safety argument for an adaptive controller. Three areas of work are used to demonstrate the satisfaction of this aim. Explanation-Based Learning (EBL) is proposed for the derivation of new control laws. The EBL domain theory embodies general control strategies, which are specialised to form fuzzy rules. A method for translating explanation structures into fuzzy rules is presented. The generation of specific rules, from a general control strategy, is one way to adapt to controlling a modular platform. A fuzzy controller executes the rules derived by EBL. This maintains fast rule execution as well as the separation of strategy and application. The ability of EBL to generate rules which are useful when executed by a fuzzy controller is demonstrated by an experiment. A domain theory is given to control throttle output, which is used to generate fuzzy rules. These rules have a positive impact on energy consumption in simulated flight. EBL is proposed, for rule derivation, because it focuses on generalisation. Generalisations can apply knowledge from one situation, or hardware, to another. This can be preferable to re-derivation of similar control laws. Furthermore, EBL can be augmented to include analogical reasoning when reaching an impasse. An algorithm which integrates analogy into EBL has been developed as part of this work. The inclusion of analogical reasoning facilitates transfer learning, which furthers the flexibility of the MPMS in adapting to new hardware. The adaptive capability of the MPMS is demonstrated by application to multiple simulated platforms. EBL produces explanation structures. Augmenting these explanation structures with a safetyspecific domain theory can produce skeletal safety cases. A technique to achieve this has been developed. Example structures are generated for previously derived fuzzy rules. Generating safety cases from explanation structures can form the basis for an adaptive safety argument.

When an astronomical observer discovers a transient event in the sky, how can the information be immediately shared and delivered to others? Not too long time ago, people shared the information about what they discovered in the sky by books, telegraphs, and telephones. The new generation of transferring the event data is the way by the Internet. The information of astronomical events is able to be packed and put online as an Internet feed. For receiving these packed data, an Internet feed listener software would be required in a terminal computer. In other applications, the listener would connect to an intelligent robotic telescope network and automatically drive a telescope to capture the instant Astrophysical phenomena. However, because the technologies of transferring the astronomical event data are in the initial steps, the only resource available is the Perl-based Internet feed listener developed by the team of eSTAR. In this research, a Java-based Internet feed listener was developed. The application supports more features than the Perl-based application. After applying the rich Java benefits, the application is able to receive, parse and manage the Internet feed data in an efficient way with the friendly user interface. Keywords: Java, socket programming, VOEvent, real-time astronomy

Of all of the desktop software available, that for the implementation of a database is some of the most complex. With the increasing number of computer users having access to this sophisticated software, but with no obvious way to learn the rudiments of data modelling for the implementation of a database, there is a need for a simple, convenient method to improve their understanding. The research described in this thesis represents the first steps in the development of a tool to accomplish this improvement. In a preliminary study using empirical research a conceptual model was used to improve novice end users’ understanding of the relational concepts of data organisation and the use of a database software package. The results showed that no conclusions could be drawn about either the artefact used or the method of evaluation. Following the lead of researchers in the fields of both education and information systems, a design research process was developed, consisting of the construction and evaluation of a training artefact. A combination of design research and a design experiment was used in the main study described in this thesis. New to research in information systems, design research is a methodology or set of analytical techniques and perspectives, and this was used to develop a process (development of an artefact) and a product (the artefact itself). The artefact, once developed, needed to be evaluated for its effectiveness, and this was done using a design experiment. The experiment involved exposing the artefact to a small group of end users in a realistic setting and defining a process for the evaluation of the artefact. The artefact was the tool that would facilitate the improvement of the understanding of data modelling, the vital precursor to the development of a database. The research was conducted among a group of novice end users who were exposed to the artefact, facilitated by an independent person. In order to assess whether there was any improvement in the novices’ understanding of relational data modelling and database concepts, they then completed a post-test. Results confirmed that the artefact, trialled through one iteration, was successful in improving the understanding of these novice end users in the area of data modelling. The combination of design research and design experiment as described above gave rise to a new methodology, called experimental design research at this early juncture. The successful outcome of this research will lead to further iterations of the design research methodology, leading in turn to the further development of the artefact which will be both useful and accessible to novice users of personal computers and database software. This research has made the following original contributions. Firstly, the use of the design research methodology for the development of the artefact, which proved successful in improving novice users’ understanding of relational data structures. Secondly, the novel use of a design experiment in an information systems project, which was used to evaluate the success of the artefact. And finally, the combination of the developed artefact followed by its successful evaluation using a design experiment resulted in the hybrid experimental design research methodology. The success of the implementation of the experimental design research methodology in this information systems project shows much promise for its successful application to similar projects.

Summary This thesis explores how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), as an exemplary new media form, disrupt practices associated with more conventional media. These intensely social games exploit the interactivity and networks afforded by new media technologies in ways that generate new challenges for the organisation, control and regulation of media. The involvement of players in constituting these games – through their production of game-play, derivative works and strong social networks that drive the profitability of the games – disrupts some of the key foundations that underlie other publication media. MMOGs represent a new and hybrid form of media – part publication and part service. As such they sit within a number of sometimes contradictory organising and regulatory regimes. This thesis examines the negotiations and struggles for control between players, developers and publishers as issues of ownership, governance and access arise out of the new configurations. Using an ethnographic approach to gather information and insights into the practices of players, developers and publishers, this project identifies the characteristics of the distributed production network in this experiential medium. It explores structural components of successful interactive applications and analyses how the advent of player agency and the shift in authorship has meant a shift in control of the text and the relations that surround it. The integration of social networks into the textual environment, and into the business model of the media publishers has meant commerce has become entwined with affect in a new way in this medium. Publishers have moved into the role of both property managers, of the intellectual property associated with the game content, and community managers. Intellectual property management is usually associated with the reproduction and distribution of finished media products, and this sits uneasily with the performative and mutable form of this medium. Service provision consists of maintaining the game world environment, community management, providing access for players to other players and to the content generated both by the developers and the other players. Content in an MMOG is identified in this project as both the ‘tangible’ assets of code and artwork, rules and text, and the ‘intangible’ or immaterial assets of affective networks. Players are no longer just consumers of media, or even just active interpreters of media. They are co-producing the media as it is developed. This thesis frames that productiveness as unpaid labour, in an attempt to denaturalise the dominant discourse which casts players as consumers. The regulation of this medium is contentious. Conventional forms of media regulation – such as copyright, or content regulation regimes are inadequate for regulating the hybrid service/publication medium. This thesis explores how the use of contracts as the mechanism which constitutes the formal relations between players, publishers and developers creates challenges to some of the regimes of juridical and political rights held by citizens more generally. This thesis examines the productive practices of players and how the discourses of intellectual property and the discourses of the consumer are mobilised to erase the significance of those productive contributions. It also shows, using a Foucauldian analysis of the power negotiations, that players employ many counter-strategies to circumvent the more formal legal structures of the publishers. The dialogic relationship between players, developers and publishers is shown to mobilise various discursive constructions of the role of each. The outcome of these ongoing negotiations may well shape future interactive applications and the extent to which their innovative capacities will be available for all stakeholders to develop.

The objective of research is to develop a computer simulation modeltoprovide a means to effectively and efficiently reduce medication errors associated with points of distribution sitesby identifying and manipulating screeners with a high probability of generating errors.Points of distribution sites are used to rapidly distribute chemoprophylaxis to a large population in response to a pandemic event or a bioterrorism attack. Because of the nature of therapid response, points of distribution sites require the use of peer-trained helpers who volunteer their services.The implications are that peer-trained helperscould have a variety of experience or education levels. Thesefactors increase the risk of medical errors. Reducing medical errors is accomplished through changing the means in which healthcare providers are trained and focusing on a team approach to healthcare delivery. Computer simulations have been used in the past to identify sources of inefficiency and potential of error. Data for the model werecollected over the course of two semesters. Of the 349 data points collected from the first semester, only 137 data points were usable for the purposes of modelbuilding. When the experiment was conducted again for the second semester, similar results werefound. The control simulation was run 20 times with each screener generating errors with a probability of 0.101 following a Bernoulli distribution. The variable simulation was run 30 times with each screener generating the same probability of errors; however, the researcher identified the screeners generating the errors and immediately stopped them from processing additional agents once they reached five errors. An ANOVA was conducted on the percent errors generated from each simulation run. The results of the ANOVA showedsignificant difference between individuals within the groups. A simulation model wasbuilttoreflect the differences in medical error rates between screeners. By comparing the results of the simulation as the screeners are manipulated in the system, the model can be used to show how medical errors can be reduced in points of distribution sites

In animated film production, a great bulk of work goes into animating and scene layout. Currently, the industry is centered around flat screens and keyboard and mouse interfaces, which require a substantial amount of time to lay out scene sets and animate shots, resulting in high production costs and lengthy production schedules. This study was designed to determine whether immersive VR interfaces could reduce the time taken to lay out 3D scene sets and animate those scenes compared to traditional interfaces. More specifically, this study compared the time 38 participants took to set up and animate a 3D scene by using two different interfaces, e.g. a VR immersive interface and a traditional mouse and keyboard interface. Further, the study investigated subjects’ interface preference. Findings show that the virtual reality interface was about twice as fast for laying out the scene as the traditional interface. When surveyed, participants preferred the virtual reality interface by a large margin over the provided traditional interface.

Appendix D, CD content can be found with print thesis held at Turitea library, Palmerston North. Content: Empty APCG program Empty RSLogix5000 l5k file Empty RSLogix5000 ACD file Real Life project - APCG program (only partial) Real Life project - RSLogix5000 l5k file (only partial) Real Life project - RSLogix5000 ACD file (only partial)
A competitive edge is one of the requirements of a successful business. Tools, which increase an engineer s productivity and minimize cost, can be considered as a competitive edge. The objective of this thesis was to design, create, and implement Automatic PLC Code Generator (APCG) software. A secondary objective was to demonstrate that the use of the APCG software will lead to improved project efficiency and enhanced profit margin. To create the APCG software, the MS Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs were used as the platform. MS Excel sheets were used as a user interface, while VBA creates the PLC code from the information entered by the engineer. The PLC code, created by the APCG software, follows the PLC structure of the Realcold Milmech Pty. Ltd, as well as the research Automatic generation of PLC code beyond the nominal sequence written by Guttel et al [1]. The APCG software was used to design and create a PLC code for one of the projects undertaken by Realcold Milmech Pty. Ltd. By using APCG software, time to design, create, and test the PLC code was improved when compared to the budgeted time. In addition, the project's profit margin was increased. Based on the results of this thesis it is expected that the APCG software will be useful for programmers that tend to handle a variety of projects on a regular basis, where programming in a modular way is not appropriate.

International research has shown that in most countries, there are few women studying towards information technology (IT) careers (Galpin, 2002), and there is much research, particularly in the United States (U.S.), United Kingdom (UK) and Australia into why this is the case (Gürer & Camp, 2002). This article considers the situation in sub-Saharan Africa and focuses on women’s involvement in the generation and creation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in sub-Saharan Africa, as opposed to ICT use in sub-Saharan Africa, which is considered elsewhere in this volume. There are a number of aspects to the generation and creation of ICTs: how women are involved in this process as IT professionals and how they are educated for these careers, as well how technology can be used appropriately within the specific conditions of sub-Saharan Africa. ICTs will be considered in the broadest sense of the word, covering all electronic technologies, from computers and networking to radio and television. Women’s participation is important: The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Gender Caucus (www.genderwsis.org) has identified women’s involvement in the design and development of technology as well as technology management policy, as key principles for the information society. Marcelle (2001) emphasizes the necessity for African women to become involved in technological and scientific areas, including “computer science, software engineering, network design, network management and related disciplines” (Marcelle, 2001, para. 15) to create an information society appropriate for African women. The diversity of those involved in design leads to higher-quality and more appropriate technological solutions (Borg, 2002; Lazowska, 2002). Background Sub-Saharan Africa has a population of 641 million, young (almost half under 15) and rural (35% urban). Significant problems are undernourishment, poverty and HIV/AIDS (United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 2004). All the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are classified as developing countries. Some countries are relatively wealthy, such as Mauritius, South Africa, and Nigeria, but have large wealth disparities within their populations. Women in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to focus on the home, they have less access to education and health, and their contribution to family and community is not valued (Huyer, 1997).