Journal articles on the topic 'Electric utilities – history'

AbstractDuring the first half of the 20th century, most electric utilities were owned by foreign companies in Latin America as well as in Argentina, where the electric system was managed by firms of different nationalities and types. After comparing the trajectories of the firms, the article explores the causes of the unsuccessful performance of the electric utilities managed by British and American companies in Argentina. The results show that the life-cycles of electric utility companies greatly diverged according to their style of management and financing, the entry into the market, and the level of capitalization and technology applied to electrical networks.

Abstract In the 1970s, energy conservation was a household idea, but it was also a form of labor discipline. This article shows how one utility, the Pennsylvania Power & Light Company (PP&L), used energy conservation to discipline unwaged workers in the home, upending decades of home economics research that sought to substitute electric energy for human energy in housework. To effectively deploy this strategy, PP&L drew on utilities’ well-established understanding of women's unwaged work in the home as central to balancing the rhythms of power demand. By exploring this history, this article also argues that by adopting a more expansive understanding of labor in energy systems—which I term “energy work”—we can better understand the interrelationship of labor, gender, and power in the operation of energy systems and more fully incorporate the history of unwaged workers into the history of energy.

Historical verdicts on the economic effects of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal have been decidedly mixed. This article examines the New Deal's impact on the electric utility industry. In contrast to Roosevelt's cartel-like policies toward other sectors, his approach to the electric utilities involved the infusion of various forms of direct and indirect competition. Statistical evidence and econometric analysis suggest that Roosevelt's procompetitive strategy produced superior outcomes relative to traditional “natural monopoly” approaches to electric utility regulation.

Was the adoption of state utility regulation the result of a negative-sum competition among special interest groups vying for the monopoly rents created by regulation or a positive-sum elimination of corruption arising from appropriable quasi-rents? Previous empirical studies of the adoption of regulation have assumed the former. Using discrete hazard analysis, this study considers the latter and finds the data more consistent with the positive-sum protection of quasi-rents than the negative-sum creation and appropriation of monopoly rents.

This paper presents a big data analytics-based model developed for electric distribution utilities aiming to forecast the demand of service orders (SOs) on a spatio-temporal basis. Being fed by robust history and location data from a database provided by an energy utility that is using this innovative system, the algorithm automatically forecasts the number of SOs that will need to be executed in each location in several time steps (hourly, monthly and yearly basis). The forecasted emergency SOs demand, which is related to energy outages, are stochastically distributed, projecting the impacted consumers and its individual interruption indexes. This spatio-temporal forecasting is the main input for a web-based platform for optimal bases allocation, field team sizing and scheduling implemented in the eleven distribution utilities of Energisa group in Brazil.

Between 1905 and 1915, as state price regulation became widespread, electric utilities in the United States faced severe competition. The primary source of electricity for industry then was not utilities but self-generation by the user in an “isolated plant.” The demand-charge rate structure first became widespread during this period. The demand-charge rate structure has been interpreted as a misapplication of the peak-load pricing principle, a view which has made its popularity a puzzle. Instead it was adopted as a sophisticated mechanism which institutionalized profit-maximizing price discrimination given the competition from isolated plants.

Signs of improvement in the early twentieth-century Brazilian economy enabled a process of urban renewal. One of the most visible features of Brazilian urban modernization was street and house lighting, as well as electricity for tramways and industry. Conflicts between the Canadian company Light and the Brazilian firm CBEE over the supply of urban electricity to Brazil's main economic centers—Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Salvador—mirror the contradictions in the country's capitalist formation during the first decades of the twentieth century. From an emerging market view, and through political debates, this article addresses the development of electric utilities in major Brazilian cities.

In June, 1897, the electrical utility companies of Ontario launched their first organized offensive against municipal ownership. Their objective was to secure an amendment to the Ontario Municipal Act that would protect the vested interests of local utilities and perhaps slow the reform movement then gathering momentum throughout the province. Two years later, they achieved success in the form of the so-called "Conmee Clauses", requiring municipalities to buy out privately owned local electrical and gas utilities before inaugurating their own systems. The industry united behind the campaign only with difficulty. Its spokesmen expressed a view of the role of the state at once flexible in its conception of the limits of government regulation, and fixed in its perception of government's responsibility to protect fundamental business interests. In the short term, opponents of the legislation were unable to prevent its passage; in the long term, this dispute was but one episode in the conflict over municipal ownership which culminated in the establishment of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario.

Mies's Opaque Cube: The Electric Utilities Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition focuses on the dramatic, opaque, white cube-shaped building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the German electricity industry's display at the exposition. Like many emblematic projects of modern architecture, the pavilion was created for a temporary exhibition and is known only through the photographic and graphic documentation of the era. Mies used the Electricity Supply Company Pavilion to experiment with a variety of ideas, including the use of photo murals and a new expression of structure and space, that featured in his later buildings. Through archival research, Laura Lizondo Sevilla has reconstructed this pavilion, the original plans for which no longer exist, and her article reinterprets the building's contribution to Mies's subsequent architecture.

We provide evidence that the problem of raising capital in the early days of the U.S. electric-utility industry motivated industry leaders to embrace state rate-of-return regulation in return for a secure territorial monopoly. Utility executives anticipated that this would lead to a reduction in borrowing costs. Using firm-level bond data for 1910–1919, we estimate a model and find that state regulation led to lower borrowing costs but that the magnitude of the reduction was small. We also find evidence that output of electric utilities in states with regulation was higher than output in states without regulation.

This paper presents solar PV history in Thailand consisting of installation target, incentive schemes, procurements and barriers for supporting the coming of solar PV. For the barrier viewpoint, one of the most significant barriers is the technical power system problem; especially, voltage violation and system loss increase when high capacity of solar PV is installed in the system. Therefore, electric utilities usually determine the capacity limitation criterion of solar PV for each electrical feeder which can delay the growth of solar PV installation. Consequently, this paper presents the method to solve this barrier in order to maximize the installation of solar PV in Thailand. The method is based on the construction of typical distribution feeders with various levels of solar PV penetration and locations. The three scenarios based on solar PV locations: clustered near the beginning of feeder, clustered near the middle of feeder, and clustered near the end of feeder are simulated. The considered constraints are voltage limitation and system loss. The modified distribution system is used to test the proposed method which is simulated by DIgSILENT PowerFactory software. The results show that the proposed method provides the solution that can support more solar PV installation than capacity limitation criterion determined by distribution utilities.

Prior to 1982, pipe damping values in nuclear plants were prescribed by Regulatory Guide 1.61 and Appendix N to Section III of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code. In the early 1980s, it became clear that piping design was too conservative resulting in systems that had far too many supports, particularly snubbers. These supports were costly to design, install, and inspect; contributed to increased worker radiation exposure; and since snubbers sometimes lock when unloaded causing higher fatigue usage in piping, the safety margin of the systems was reduced. A series of steps was undertaken by the Pressure Vessel Research Committee (PVRC) to propose new damping limits, which culminated in alternate damping allowable values, called PVRC damping. This damping was later adopted as Code Case N-411 to the ASME Code. Code Case N-411 has enabled several utilities to make significant reductions in the number of snubbers on their plants, resulting in lower maintenance costs, lower worker radiation exposure, and greater reliability (since the consequences of snubber malfunction are reduced). More recently, the Electric Power Research Institute sponsored a project by Bechtel to review the damping data, perform a regression analysis, and recommend a permanent change to the ASME Code to replace Code Case N-411.

A summary of the harmonic reduction in FACTS based systems is presented in this survey/review paper. As force electric framework becomes complex and seriously blocked the force conveyance challenge turns out to be progressively perplexing. With the restricted extension in the transmission framework, utilities are continually confronting the test of improving framework security and unwavering quality without a huge interest in new infra-structure. The cutting edge power framework accompanies another age of nonlinear burdens which broadly use power electronic converters. These new nonlinear components with their intrinsic nonlinearity qualities present new and extra test to electric utility frameworks. Then again irregular burdens and their transient effects on the force quality has consistently been a nonstop test.

From 1880 to 1930, Argentina received hundreds of millions of pounds of British investments, making it in an economic sense a British dominion. The world economic crisis of the 1930s forced both Britain and Argentina t o reconsider many of these economic ties. The changing Anglo-Argentine relationship is reflected in the complex relations between a British tramway company, the Anglo Argentine Tramways Co. Ltd., that operated in Buenos Aires and the Argentine national government between the onset of the Great Depression and the early 1960s. The Anglo, as the company was popularly known, was the main tramway concern diat offered public transportation and contributed to the urban development of a cosmopolitan Latin American metropolis until 1914. Second, the history of the company illustrates political and economic problems that plagued the links between foreign public utilities and the host government from the 1930s onwards. Third, since the Anglo belonged to SOFINA, a transnational holding company with worldwide investments in public transportation and electric power stations, our case study shows the limitations of Sofina's political power in Britain and Argentina.

Resumen El presente trabajo explica el por qué los comerciantes colombianos del siglo XIX, en cuyas manos estuvo fundamentalmente el proceso de acumulación de capítal-dínero, se dieron a la tarea de invertir en el sector de servicios públicos. Se restringe el análisis al caso concreto del montaje y operación del servicio de alumbrado eléctrico en las ciudades de Bogotá y Medellín pues en los otros centros urbanos importantes de Colombia este servicio estuvo en manos del capital extranjero. A lo largo de la exposición se puede observar el denso entramado de intereses económicos y políticos que estuvieron presentes en la adjudicación y manejo de estos negocios. En las empresas de alumbrado de ambas ciudades fue muy destacada la participación de la familia Ospina, una de las más influyentes en la historia colombiana. Este trabajo está fundamentado en la consulta y análisis de los archivos privados de dicha familia. Abstract This work explains why the Colombian merchants of the XIX century (the main supporters of the money-capital accumulation] were devotedto invest in the public utilities sector. The author mainly analyses the process of setting up and operation of the electric lighting service in the cities of Bogotá and Medellin given that at the other important urban centers this service was provided by the foreign capital.In the article we can see the complexity of the economic. and political affairs involved in the adjudication and management of these enterprises. In the companies of electricity in both cities there was a very important participation of the Ospina's family, one of the most influential in the Colombian History. The present work is based on the personal files of the family mentionated. Palabras claves: Acumulación capital-dinero, Inversión, alumbrado público, Medellín, Bogotá.

Surface pollution is a major cause of partial discharges in high voltage insulators in coastal cities, leading to degradation of their surface and accelerating their aging process, which may cause visible arcing, flashovers and system faults. Thus, this work provides a methodology for the assessment of the condition of insulators based on an instrument which generates a severity degree to help the electric utility team schedule maintenance routines for the structures that really need it. The instrument uses a Raspberry Pi board as the processing core, a PicoScope oscilloscope for the data acquisition and an antenna as a partial discharge sensor. The algorithms are implemented in Python, and use artificial intelligence tools, such as a convolutional network and a fuzzy inference system. Laboratory test methods for the simulation of the field pollution conditions were successfully used for the validation of the instrument, which showed a good correlation between the pollution level and the severity degree generated. In addition to that, field collected data were also used for the evaluation of the proposed severity degree, which is demonstrated to be consistent when compared with the utility’s reports and the history of the selected areas from where data were collected.

For hundreds of years, water mills have supported the local economies of Piedmont by contributing to the production of flour, textile fibres, timber, and metal agricultural tools. Since the beginning of the last century, and in particular after the 1950s, many artefacts have been abandoned. Nonetheless, hundreds of mills are still present in southern Piedmont, both in the plains and in the mountains, sometimes in an excellent state of conservation. This work presents a hammer forge, the La Pianca mill in Busca, Cuneo, Italy, as a significant, detailed case study. The socio-economic context in which exists is analysed, its history is reconstructed, and the functioning of the machinery, including the water wheels, the motion transmission systems, and the various utilities consisting of tilt hammers, grinding wheels, and drills, is analysed in detail. Beyond the historical interest, concerning both the territory and the architecture, as well as the machines and mechanisms, this work aims to make a contribution to the prefiguration of effective scenarios for the reconversion of similar productive artefacts.

The quality of the electrical energy distribution service has a significant impact on consumer satisfaction and the guarantee of the right of concession for the distribution companies. For the utility that is the object of the case study, the main continuity of service indicators was at levels below the regulatory limits. Still, due to budget constraints, the forecast of the benefit that improvement or expansion projects bring to continuity indicators must be assertive for a proper direction of investments and decision making. In this work, a methodology for evaluating projects to improve the quality of service was proposed, with the realization of the estimated benefit associated with the reduction in continuity indicators (DEC and FEC), using concepts of artificial neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. The results were obtained from a three-year history of execution of the utility’s projects. Based on the correlation analysis, a variable selection procedure was developed, where the historical values of interruptions by cause were considered as input, and the results of the continuity indicators associated with the types of projects studied form the outputs of the model. The model was developed using an artificial neural network of the multilayer perceptron type. The results obtained by simulating the new methodology presented absolute relative errors 100 times smaller for estimating the benefits of the projects compared to the current method used by the electric power distributor.

Water is fundamental for the economy and for our lives. Managing water scarcity remains one of the most pressing challenges across the globe. Smart Water Meter Systems (SWMS) are Internet of Things (IoT) innovations that have been around for over a decade and several studies on the use of smart water metering data for water management have been conducted. However, they are dispersed across various topics. For sustainable implementation of SWMS, it is necessary to review the existing practical adoption of the system. This paper is a review aimed at finding practical evidence on SWMS adoption by water utilities. A systematic literature review search of relevant databases was conducted using relevant search strings. Papers for the study were chosen based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The main findings of the paper show real-world examples of water utilities that have successfully implemented SWMS, the key benefits of SWMS, and the challenges to SWMS adoption. The study identifies areas where future research can be pursued to better realize SWMS's full potential in promoting sustainable water management.

This document provides a thorough overview of the testing protocols and standards for smart meters, which are essential parts of the contemporary smart grid. It emphasizes the switch from analog to digital smart meters, which provide two-way communication and real-time data on electricity consumption. In order to guarantee accuracy, dependability, conformity with international standards such as those from the IEC, NIST, and BIS, and the protection of customer data, the document highlights the significance of conducting thorough testing. In order to evaluate several performance factors including insulation, accuracy, and electromagnetic compatibility, it covers a variety of tests, such as metrology, load switch capability, data exchange protocols, and communicability. Smart meters must be thoroughly tested and validated in order for them to operate effectively, reliably, and safely. This will help utilities minimize revenue losses and encourage good energy management.

The development of technology has made it feasible to switch from mechanical and electromechanical electricity, water, and gas metres to digital ones with more sophisticated functionalities. With these new tools at their disposal, users are transitioning from a totally passive to an active position, where everyone can take control of their consumption patterns and establish their own resource-saving strategy. "Communication" is the essential term. The ability of utilities and users to connect thanks to new technology opens up new possibilities for the wise use of fundamental resources.

Community Development (CD) practitioners across the western U.S. are engaging in new efforts to reduce energy costs and improve resilience for low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities and other populations that face barriers to economic participation and household financial stability. Energy costs and resilience are factors in housing stability, which impacts economic participation. New federal and state funding sources, as well as growing involvement from philanthropy and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)-motivated investors, have prompted growth in energy cost savings and resilience (ECSR) options for LMI households. To help scale this work, CD practitioners are experimenting with partnerships—between workforce development providers and employers, mission-driven lenders and nonprofits, state government and utilities, retrofit companies and the public sector, state government and municipalities, to name a few. These partnerships have led to innovations in lending (for homeowners, renters, and landlords), technical implementation of retrofits, coordination across programs, consumer protection, workforce development, and technical assistance (TA) for CD practitioners. This brief provides descriptive findings from focus groups and interviews about ESCR-related work in the CD field and discusses takeaways for policy and practice.

Community Development (CD) practitioners across the western U.S. are engaging in new efforts to reduce energy costs and improve resilience for low- and moderate-income (LMI) communities and other populations that face barriers to economic participation and household financial stability. Energy costs and resilience are factors in housing stability, which impacts economic participation. New federal and state funding sources, as well as growing involvement from philanthropy and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)-motivated investors, have prompted growth in energy cost savings and resilience (ECSR) options for LMI households. To help scale this work, CD practitioners are experimenting with partnerships—between workforce development providers and employers, mission-driven lenders and nonprofits, state government and utilities, retrofit companies and the public sector, state government and municipalities, to name a few. These partnerships have led to innovations in lending (for homeowners, renters, and landlords), technical implementation of retrofits, coordination across programs, consumer protection, workforce development, and technical assistance (TA) for CD practitioners. This brief provides descriptive findings from focus groups and interviews about ESCR-related work in the CD field and discusses takeaways for policy and practice.

Drawing on government documents as well as the papers of renewable energy advocates, this article looks at debates over alternative energy in West Germany during the 1980s. It shows that because West Germany's monopolistic electricity market was dominated by utilities companies reticent to invest in alternatives, struggles over access to the electric grid and the rates independent producers received for their electricity were essential to efforts to add renewables into the German energy mix after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The legislated ‘feed-in tariff’ for electricity generated by individuals from renewable sources, which emerged from these debates in 1990, cemented the idea that individual Germans, not utilities or the state, were responsible for the fate of renewable energy in Germany and paved the way towards an ‘economically viable’ renewables sector.

Histories of electrification revolve around networks of power developed by “system builders.” These histories, though immensely important, explain the progress of electrification from the perspective of institutions or individuals, rather than through everyday relationships. While the industry pushed the idea that electricity was an obvious must-have for urbanites, vast resources in the 1920s and 1930s went toward cultivating “courteous” relationships among meter readers, electricians, repairmen, billing clerks, and customers. These relationships were pivotal to electrification, especially with complaints about high bills, malfunctioning meters, and “inadequate” wiring, which led to customer curtailment and threatened the prosperity of central power stations. This article expands the notion of who counts as critical actors in the success of electric grids and counters contemporary claims: namely, that grids fail because of bad consumer behavior. By emphasizing the role of everyday relationship-building in the evolution of electric utilities, this study contributes to a history of electricity that examines invisible and mundane networks to expose the relations beneath the grid.

Voltage unstability nowadays is a serious problem, Present day electric power utilities are confronting numerous difficulties because of regularly expanding multifaceted nature in their task and structure. One issue that got wide consideration is voltage instability. One of the significant reasons for voltage instability in the power framework is with its receptive power limit. It can cause different damages to our electrical appliances, and therefore the approach used in this research is for the benefit for these dangerous phenomenon. In this research Voltage control single phase STATCOM using different sources such as Photovoltaic Cell, DC generator, battery and WAPDA used, in such a way to have a backup voltage source to have an untriptable supply, in case of less than 9 V the relay converter used the DC generator as back end source. It is a controller based system, controller on the basis of voltages changes the source to PV to DC and DC generator to Battery depends upon the voltages. Inverter is used which take input of 12 V that are controlled by relay in case of PV it is stabilized by buck converter. 1kVA Transformer then sets the voltage to 230V single phase, STATCOM is used after transformer to set the voltage at 230 V Power and Voltage monitoring system is used to check power and voltages at every point.

The main problem of electric utilities around the world is to ensure continuous power supply to consumers. One of the causes of power outages and blackouts can be geomagnetic storms during periods of the increased solar activity. They arouse geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) flowing in the long-distance high-voltage power grids on Earth’s surface. The history of this phenomenon investigation shows that GICs during strong geomagnetic storms had led to blackouts in certain regions of Canada, Sweden and the USA. To study these phenomena and assess the risks of such accidents for the regional system, a GICs registration system in 330 kV autotransformers neutrals of the Kola-Karelian power transit was developed in northwestern Russia. During 11 years of monitoring numerous cases of the flow of high values of quasi-dc currents with different time durations, induced by variations of the geomagnetic field, have been registered. In order to analyze the currents a wavelet transform was chosen, since this method allows to define not only the frequency composition but also changes in spectral characteristics over time, which is significant in the study of GIC. The paper presents a discussion of GIC scalograms obtained for four events of Solar Cycle 24: 13-14 November 2012, 17-18 March 2015, 7-8 September 2015 and 7-8 September 2017. The analysis showed that the characteristic duration of the peak of the considered GICs is from 4.6 to 11.1 min.

What is a machine? As part of his answer to this, historian and philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford cites a classic definition: "a machine is a combination of resistant bodies so arranged that by their means the mechanical forces of nature can be compelled to do work accompanied by certain determinant motions" (Reuleaux [1876], qtd. in Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 9). Mumford's own definition is focussed on machines as part of a technological continuum between human body and automaton: Machines have developed out of a complex of non-organic agents for converting energy, for performing work, for enlarging the mechanical or sensory capacities of the human body, or for reducing to a mensurable order and regularity the processes of life. The automaton is the last step in a process that began with the use of one part or another of the human body as a tool. (9-10) The tool and the machine can be distinguished along this technological continuum, with the tool more dependent on "the skill and motive power of the operator", subject to "manipulation", and potentially more flexible in its uses, whereas the machine lends itself more to "automatic action" of a specialised kind. However, it is difficult to ultimately separate them, since the embodied skill of the tool-user becomes more mechanical and reflexive with practice (Technics and Civilisation 10), while the machine also evolves along increasingly organic lines (367), and there are common examples of hybrid machine-tools like the lathe or drill, which combine "the accuracy of the finest machine ... with the skilled attendance of the workman" (10). A powerfully attractive feature of the computer is that it is an effective hybrid of machine and tool: like a machine it performs many specialised functions at super-human speed and accuracy on command, but like a tool it is flexible and adaptable (through add-on software and plug-in peripherals) to a seemingly endless variety of users and uses. Fascinating Assemblages The automatic machine ... involves the notion of an external source of power, a more or less complicated inter-relation of parts, and a limited kind of activity. From the beginning the machine was a sort of minor organism, designed to perform a single set of functions. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 11) The autonomy of the machine is perhaps its most fascinating aspect. That the machine is an assemblage of parts and restricted functions -- a "minor organism" as Mumford puts it -- suggests to us a body. There is something ineluctably erotic about scenes of lubricated pistons moving in and out of cylinders, or greased gear wheels moving around each other, and a masturbatory energy seems to be involved in the machine that repetitively and by itself performs the same limited actions over and over and over. While there are parallels between masculine masturbation and machinic repetition, there are also associations with femininity. As Andreas Huyssen pointed out, the modern machine became associated with a dangerous female sexuality and took the place of the early moderns' untamed Mother Nature as the principal representative of non-human forces with autonomy and agency that could evade human control. But arguably, expressed fears of machinic autonomy are the flip side of a wish for it, arising from masculine reproductive fantasies that have been played out in technoscience by generations of fictional and real-life Frankensteins fanatically seeking to create artificial life in the form of technoscientific brainchildren (who are nevertheless often neglected and left to run wild at birth). At a conscious level, machines express what may be interpreted as anal-sadistic desires for order, regularity and control, but unconsciously there is an element of masochistic pleasure in being passive, in yielding up control to the machine, in letting it set the scene and determine the actions and roles for the humans as well as non-humans (Sofia, "Contested Zones", and "Mythic Machine" 44-8). Machinic Zeal What is the use of conquering nature if we fall a prey to nature in the form of unbridled men? What is the use of equipping mankind with mighty powers to move and build and communicate, if the final result of this secure food supply and this excellent organisation is to enthrone the morbid impulses of a thwarted humanity? (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 366) With his emphasis on the social context and drives towards technology, Mumford (Technics and Civilisation 364-5) suggests that while some kinds of machines have existed for thousands of years, what we have come to think of as the mechanical age only arose with the widespread adoption of the machine as a way of securing order, regularity and calculability of physical and human resources, coupled with the ideological shift which made the machine into "a goal of desire" and an object of almost obsessive veneration from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century. Now, he said (writing first in the early 1930s) faith in the machine has been somewhat shaken, and it is no longer seen as "the paragon of progress" but as "merely a series of instruments" to be used when useful; yet despite this loss of faith the machine in capitalist contexts continues to be "over-worked, over-enlarged, over-exploited because of the possibility of making money out of it" (Technics and Civilisation 367). Almost seventy years after Mumford was writing, the obsessive zeal for the machine still has not completely disappeared, but has been displaced from giant smoke-puffing steel assemblages, whirling cogs and gearwheels, or the motors driving trains, cars and planes, and onto the silicon, plastic and light of computers (whose machineries of production and assembly are largely hidden off-shore to the bulk of users, thereby producing the illusion of "post-industrial" societies). The computer is now the paragon of progress and has become the "defining technology" of our age (Bolter), its place reinforced by an actively boosterist popular press (e.g. popular computing magazines; regular computer supplements in newspapers). Sociotechnical Not Posthuman Mumford continually makes the point that questions posed by/in technology are never answerable only technologically. It always comes down to human choices, and even when the results of these "are uncontrollable they are not external" to human culture: Choice manifests itself in society in small increments and moment-to-moment decisions as well as in loud dramatic struggles; and he who does not see choice in the development of the machine merely betrays his incapacity to observe cumulative effects until they are bunched together so closely that they seem completely external and impersonal. (Mumford, Technics and Civilisation 6) In a certain way Mumford's perspective anticipates actor-network theory, which looks at artefacts -- including machines -- as parts of sociotechnical networks that involve human decisions, including about the distribution of agency to non-humans. Even in the most automated machine, Mumford argues "there must intervene somewhere, at the beginning and end of the process ... the conscious participation of a human agent" (10). Actor-network studies of the development of scientific and technological artefacts aim in part to critique the sense of the external, impersonal or inevitable in scientific and technical 'progress' by insisting that "things might have been otherwise" (Bijker & Law 3), not just at the beginning and end, but all the way through the process of an artefact's development and use. The artefact is studied as a particular outcome of a set of decisions and performances made in the midst of contingencies affecting human and non-human actors with conflicting goals and contested powers within a dynamic sociotechnical network. Although actor-network theory is very interested in non-human agents, it does not, as do some recent participants in and theorists of cyberculture, celebrate the so-called post-human. There can be no agentic machines without there having been human competencies downloaded into them; there can be no technical order that is not also social and cultural. As Latour argues, the modernist work of purification has tried vainly to impose a separation between the social and technical, denying their mutual inextricability. From this Latourian perspective, the notion of the "post-human" is not, as it appears to be, post modern, but thoroughly modern. It carries through the quintessentially modernist project of denying after the fact the human agency and capacities that have been invested in producing hybrid artefacts which are then proclaimed as extra-human; it denies the cumulative effects of sociotechnical choices and instead represents the machinic imperative as somehow impersonal and external to human affairs. The notion of the posthuman can readily reinforce the pervasive popular cultural myths of technological inevitability and dominance, conveniently for those humans and corporations who actually do profit from decisions they make about developing and marketing machines of increasing autonomy, intelligence and subtlety. Machines and Provision The role of the machine has been overemphasised in histories of technology, according to Mumford. For aside from tools and machines which perform dynamic actions, there are technologies of containment and supply, which he categorizes as utensils (like baskets or pots), apparatus (such as dye vats, brick kilns), utilities (reservoirs, aqueducts, roads, buildings) and the modern power utility (railroad tracks, electric transmission lines). Some of the most effective adaptations of the environment came, not from the invention of machines, but from the equally admirable invention of utensils, apparatus, and utilities. ... But since people's attention is directed most easily to the noisier and more active parts of the environment, the role of the utility and the apparatus has been neglected ... both [tool and utensil] have played an enormous part in the development of the modern environment and at no stage in history can the two means of adaptation be split apart. Every technological complex includes both: not least our modern one. (Technics and Civilisation, 11-2). The development of various utensils and apparatus for storage (urns, granaries) and flow (irrigation, aqueducts) was essential for the emergence of settled agricultural communities in the neolithic period (Mumford, Technics and Human Development 140-1). As I explore in a related article (Sofia, "Container"), Mumford finds a prudish sexism in the relative neglect of technologies evocative of the female organs of storage, nutrition and transformation, compared with the overemphasis on technologies that are extensions of the muscular masculine body (Technics and Human Development, 140). However, the contrast between dynamic, noisy, active and autonomous machines, and passive, quiet, backgrounded containers cannot be sustained. For one the utensil even in its most basic form, has something machinic about it: a container can perform its function autonomously, without needing manipulation like a tool. Further, it is arguable that holding or containing is not simply a property of a shaped space, but a form of action in itself. Moreover in practice there are many hybrids of machine and utensil or utility, for example in domestic technologies like the food processor, a container with a machine-driven blade, or the washing machine, featuring a tub with mechanical agitation and rotary motion. Although Mumford is primarily interested in the machine, he observes that as modern "neotechnics" proceeds to develop ever more sophisticated machinery, so does it evolve more complex technologies of containment, as described in this passage which depicts both machines and utilities as active agents: Behind the façade [of the crisp lines of steel and glass that define the modern built environment] are rows and rows of machines, weaving cotton, transporting coal ... [etc.], machines with steel fingers and lean muscular arms, with perfect reflexes, sometimes even with electric eyes. Alongside them are the new utilities -- the coke oven, the transformer, the dye vats -- chemically cooperating with these mechanical processes, assembling new qualities in chemical compounds and materials. Every effective part in this whole environment represents an effort of the collective mind to widen the province of order and control and provision. (Technics and Civilisation, 356) Another way of getting the over-emphasised machine back into proportion is to look more closely at what it is used for, what purposes it serves. Mumford writes of the machine as part of the effort to produce "order and regularity" into the processes of life (10); to "widen the province of order and control and provision" (356) or to produce a "secure food supply and ... excellent organisation" (366). In other words, the machine is serving the goals typically associated with utensils, utilities and apparatus: smoothing out fluctuations in supply and distributing resources more evenly. Likewise Mumford suggests that in the back of developments of machine and tool is the effort to adapt by extending the body's powers and/or by altering the environment, so that, for example, instead of a physiological adaptation to cold through hair growth or hibernation, "there is an environmental adaptation, such as that made possible by the use of clothes and the erection of shelters" (10). These technologies are not machines, but container technologies, in the province of what philosopher of technology Don Ihde would call "background technics". We can think of the shift in emphasis here in relation to the example of road works. The large machines for bulldozing a path and laying down layers of road surface are very impressive in their size, power and technical capacity. But the road surface could not be laid down without there being technologies (including hybrids of machine and container, like the pick-up truck) for transporting, storing and mixing the materials used. And when it is done, the big machines lumber off elsewhere, and what we have before us is a road, a utility which facilitates orderly communication, transport and the supply of people and materials. In other words, these machines have served the goal of provisioning. The machine can enthral us with its autonomy, its alterity, its thingness, but as Heidegger has claimed, even such a powerful and seemingly stand-alone machine as a plane on a runway ready for take-off is ultimately just a "completely unautonomous" element when considered as part of a global system ordered "to ensure the possibility of transportation" (17). Like other modern machines, its own objectness and machinic resistance is dissolved as it becomes part of the "standing reserve", which can be understood as a macro-technology of provisioning through a matrix of mobilisable human and non-human resources. In the broader project of which this piece is a fragment, I want to investigate more closely the role and relative importance of machines compared to other kinds of equipment, especially for containment, supply or provisioning in contemporary technoculture, on the suspicion that it is apparatus and utilities rather than machines that define our contemporary lifeworld. References Bijker, Wiebe E., and John Law. General Introduction. Shaping Technology/Building Society: Studies in Sociotechnical Change. Eds. Bijker and Law. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1992. Bolter, Jay David. "The Computer as a Defining Technology." Computers in the Human Context: Information Technology, Production, and People. Ed. Tom Forester. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Heidegger, Martin. "The Question Concerning Technology." The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. Trans. William Lovitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. Andreas Huyssen. "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis." New German Critique 24-25 (1982), 221-37. Also in Huyssen. After the Great Divide. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. Ihde, Don. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990. Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1993. Mumford, Lewis. Technics and Civilisation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962 [1934]. ---. Technics and Human Development. New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1966. Sofia, Zoë. "Container Technologies." Hypatia, Spring 2000 (forthcoming). ---. "Contested Zones: Futurity and Technological Art." Leonardo: Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology 29.1 (1996): 59-66. ---. "The Mythic Machine: Gendered Irrationalities and Computer Culture." Education/Technology/Power: Educational Computing as a Social Practice. Eds. Hank Bromley and Michael W. Apple. Albany NY: SUNY, 1998. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Zoë Sofoulis. "Machinic Musings with Mumford." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.6 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php>. Chicago style: Zoë Sofoulis, "Machinic Musings with Mumford," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 6 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Zoë Sofoulis. (1999) Machinic musings with Mumford. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(6). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9909/mumford.php> ([your date of access]).

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among women worldwide and is often at an advanced stage when clinical diagnosis. Fortunately, mammography could increase the detection rate of early-stage breast cancer. In this study, we conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of breast cancer screening compared with no screening for average-risk women aged 45-69 every two years in China. Parameters about screening, costs, and utilities were taken from previous studies. Compared with no screening, mammography screening cost $1566.12 more with a reduction of 0.0088 Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), which was absolutely dominated. In summary, breast cancer screening by mammography was more recommended to high-risk women rather than average-risk women in China.

Online professional courses have changed the learning methods,especially after covid 19.These professional courses proved to be very useful and broke the geographical boundaries for learning.This research paper aimed to study the preferred attributes of the online professional courses offered by the different institutions and their relative importance from a student's perspective. This paper applied the conjoint method to identify the preferred attributes of online courses. The paper found the highest utility associated with the renowned resource person, with a good research background,etc,and contemporary content.The main aim of joining the courses is to upgrade with new knowledge and skills which makes them employable and improve their earning potential. The utilities for a year duration with reasonable course fee is found positive.The positive reviews from previous students stimulate the chance of opting for the courses and most of the students prefer evening timings and live sessions for these courses.

The burgeoning application of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in agriculture has revolutionized precision farming practices. Intelligent IoT networks equipped with sensors, actuators, and edge computing capabilities offer real-time monitoring and intelligent control over crucial agricultural parameters. However, optimizing resource allocation and network performance in these dynamic environments remains a complex challenge due to competing interests among network devices and potential interference between neighboring farms. This paper proposes a novel approach for optimizing intelligent IoT networks in precision agriculture using game theory. We first model the network as a non-cooperative game where individual devices act as rational players aiming to maximize their own utilities, represented by factors like data transmission success, energy efficiency, and resource utilization. We then employ Nash equilibrium and its refinements to determine stable and efficient network configurations. To address the potential for strategic manipulation and ensure collective benefit, we further introduce cooperative game mechanisms, such as coalition formation and resource sharing protocols, to incentivize collaborative behavior among devices. The efficacy of the proposed approach is evaluated through extensive simulations with realistic agricultural scenarios. Results demonstrate significant improvements in network performance metrics, including higher data throughput, reduced energy consumption, and improved resource utilization compared to traditional non-game-theoretic approaches. We conclude by discussing the real-world implementation challenges and future research directions in game-theoretic optimization of intelligent IoT networks for sustainable and efficient precision agriculture.