Статті в журналах з теми "Southeastern Massachusetts Technical Institute"

Paul Rudolph worked at the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute from 1963 to 1991. Despite not being one of his most popular designs at that time, recent publications have revalued this work by evidencing the coherence between thought and design in a case of large-scale construction. This new campus allowed Rudolph to conceive an 'open work' that ranged from its urban planning to its construction. Other new universities addressed this way of proceeding, but Rudolph was a pioneer in his land in the approach of a design system based on a unique strategy. Thanks to documentary sources of earlier research, this work graphically reconstructs the Arts and Humanities building, the first group to be built and considered the germ of the project. The compositional pattern and the use of a prefabricated concrete block are revealed as basic tools which allow the design flexibility. In the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute, Rudolph focused his attention on the design process under the belief that it would become a product itself, thus joining the ideology of the third-generation architects.

This article discusses how Singapore is amassing a brain trust to compensate for resources that nature didn’t provide to it. CREATE or “Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise” is one of the most ambitious projects of Singapore’s National Research Foundation. CREATE seeks to unite Singapore’s universities with world-class research institutions to study issues ranging from urban planning to medical treatment. The organization has partnerships with 10 foreign universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Technical University of Munich, Cambridge University, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. There are five research groups in CREATE’s partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The research areas are infectious diseases, environmental sensing and modeling, biosystems and micromechanics, urban mobility, and low-energy electronic systems. The University of California, Berkeley, has two research programs with CREATE. One aims to improve the efficiency of buildings in the tropics, and the other is working on raising the electrical output of photovoltaic devices.

Adrien has a PhD from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (both MA, USA) in biomedical engineering and biophysics, with a specific focus on cardiovascular devices, fiber optic sensing and optical coherence tomography. After his PhD, he led technical developments in an internal venture at Philips Research (Eindhoven, Netherlands) to develop devices with integrated optical sensors and brought this technology from benchtop prototypes to in vivo human studies. In addition to his responsibilities at Echopoint Medical (London, UK) where he is Chief Technology Officer, Adrien is also is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at University College London (London, UK), where he leads the interventional devices group with a vision to develop novel methods for performing physiological measurements and imaging with minimally invasive devices. He has over 52 patent applications and granted patents.

The author, Chairman of Omokhodion Associates Ltd and Omokhodion Group, has received his academic degrees in architecture and city planning from the University of Science and Technology Kumasi, Ghana; the Athens Center of Ekistics, Athens, Greece; Yale University, New Haven, CO, USA ; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA; and the University of Lagos, Nigeria. In his long career, he has held key posts as Technical Officer in Training and as architect in the Federal Ministry of Works & Housing; as Physical Planning Assistant to Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos, and has been director and chief designer of major architectural, landscape, urban design and urban planning projects in Nigeria at a broad range of scales. He has been a member of the Landuse and Allocation Committee, Bendel State; the Presidential Committee on the Accelerated Development of Abuja; the UNESCO Commission for Nigeria; Director of the Western Textile Mills Ltd; and is currently a member on the Panel on the Reorganization of NNPC. Dr Omokhodion is also a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the World Society for Ekistics. The text that follows is a slightly edited version of a paper presented at the international symposion on "Globalization and Local Identity, " organized jointly by the World Society for Ekistics and the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005.

Studying past examples of successful technical communication may offer insight into strategies that worked with technologies and audiences in an earlier time. This article examines the texts documenting a controversy before and during the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Ellen Swallow Richards, chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Bertha Honore Palmer, president of the Fair's Board of Lady Managers, had distinctly different visions of how cooking technology should be presented. Palmer invited Richards to create a Model Kitchen in the Woman's Building, but Richards wanted to avoid gendering the new knowledge of nutrition and she fought to control her exhibit. The multimedia Richards used in her resulting Rumford Kitchen exhibit reminds us that sometimes an entertaining but familiar atmosphere might be the best way to introduce threatening new knowledge and technology, particularly to our increasingly international and intergenerational audiences.

International Journal of Chemistry wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal is greatly appreciated. Many authors, regardless of whether International Journal of Chemistry publishes their work, appreciate the helpful feedback provided by the reviewers.Reviewers for Volume 10, Number 2 Abdul Rouf Dar, University of Florida, USAAhmad Galadima, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, NigeriaAhmet Ozan Gezerman, Yildiz Technical University, TurkeyAna Silva, National Institute of Health Dr Ricardo Jorge, PortugalFarkhondeh Fathi, University of Toronto, CanadaJuan Rafael Garcia, INCAPE, FIQ, UNL-CONICET, ArgentinaLeiming Wang, Konica Minolta Laboratory, USAMaolin Lu, Yale University, USAMeriem Belhachemi, University of Bechar, AlgeriaMustafa Oguzhan Kaya, Siirt University, TurkeyPriyanka Singh, University of Iowa, USAR. K. Dey, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), IndiaRabia Rehman, University of the Punjab, PakistanRodrigo Vieira Rodrigues, University of São Paulo, BrazilSeverine Queyroy, Aix-Marseille Université, FranceSitaram Acharya, Texas Christian University, USASyed A. A. Rizvi, Nova Southeastern University, USAThirupathi Barla, Harvard University, USAVijay Ramalingam, Columbia University, USAWaseem Hassan, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, BrazilZhixin Tian, TONGJI UNIVERSITY, CHINA Albert JohnOn behalf of,The Editorial Board of International Journal of ChemistryCanadian Center of Science and Education

International Journal of Chemistry wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal is greatly appreciated. Many authors, regardless of whether International Journal of Chemistry publishes their work, appreciate the helpful feedback provided by the reviewers.Reviewers for Volume 10, Number 3 Abdul Rouf Dar, University of Florida, USAAhmad Galadima, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, NigeriaAhmet Ozan Gezerman, Yildiz Technical University, TurkeyAsghari Gul, Comsats IIT, PakistanAyodele Temidayo Odularu, University of Fort Hare, South AfricaGreg Peters, University of Findlay, USAK. Ishara Silva, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USAKhaldun Mohammad Al Azzam, Batterjee Medical College for Sciences and Technology, Saudi ArabiaLaila A. Abouzeid, Mansoura University, EgyptMadduri Srinivasarao, Purdue University, USAMaolin Lu, Yale University, USAMohamed Abass, Ain Shams University, EgyptMustafa Oguzhan Kaya, Siirt University, TurkeyNanda Gunawardhana, Saga University, JapanNejib Hussein Mekni, Al Manar University, TunisiaNisha Saxena, Galgotias College of Engineering and Technology, IndiaPrathapan Sreedharan, Cochin University, IndiaPraveen Kumar, Texas Tech University, USAPriyanka Singh, University of Iowa, USAQun Ye, Institute of Materials Reseach and Engineering, SingaporeR. K. Dey, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), IndiaRodrigo Vieira Rodrigues, University of São Paulo, BrazilSyed A. A. Rizvi, Nova Southeastern University, USAThirupathi Barla, Harvard University, USAVijay Ramalingam, Columbia University, USA Albert JohnOn behalf of,The Editorial Board of International Journal of ChemistryCanadian Center of Science and Education

AbstractThis article explores an early computer algebra system called MACSYMA – a repository of automated non-numeric mathematical operations developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from the 1960s to the 1980s, to help mathematicians, physicists, engineers and other mathematical scientists solve problems and prove theorems. I examine the extensive paper-based training materials that were produced alongside the system to create its users. Would-be users were told that the system would free them from the drudgery of much mathematical labour. However, this ‘freedom’ could only be won by adapting to a highly disciplined mode of problem solving with a relatively inflexible automated assistant. In creating an automated repository of mathematical knowledge, MACSYMA developers sought to erase its social context. However, looking at the training literature, we see that the social operates everywhere, only recoded. This article uses the paper-based training materials to uncover the codes of conduct – both social and technical – that coordinated between the users, developers and machines that constituted the system.

ArgumentThis paper is the first part of a two-part examination of computer modeling practice and philosophy. It discusses electrical engineer Jay Forrester's work on Industrial Dynamics, later called System Dynamics. Forrester developed Industrial Dynamics after being recruited to the newly-established School of Industrial Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which had been seeking a novel pedagogical program for management for five years before Forrester's arrival. We argue that Industrial Dynamics should be regarded in light of this institutional context. Unlike economics, as well as operations research and management science (twin fields which were also gaining traction at that time), Industrial Dynamics was not meant to be applied by mathematicians and technical specialists in consultation with managers, but by managers themselves. This concern shifted the emphasis in modeling from the specialist act of analysis of a crucial problem to the managerial act of choosing which problems were crucial and developing effective policies around them.

Opening in 1976 with the exhibition, “Through the Looking Glass”, the Museum of Holography (MOH) emphasized from the beginning the importance of artistic holography with the inclusion of several holograms by artists whose primary practice was holography, articulating for the first time a distinction between artists, scientists and technicians. While the scientific and engineering principles underlying the technology could educate a public, holograms made by artists provided the visual syntax for the creative possibilities holography could offer. The MOH continued to encourage and support artists’ work throughout its history, amassing a large collection of holograms representative of the most prolific period of artistic activity from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum (MIT Museum) in Boston acquired the entire archive including artistic and technical holograms as well as all related materials when the MOH closed in 1992. This paper will seek to explore whether the medium of holography within the visual arts has led to fine art museum acquisitions in the intervening decades.

In the rural Terai region of Nepal, many tubewell drinking water sources are microbially and/or arsenic contaminated and consequently, millions lack access to “safe” water. Those who drink contaminated water may suffer from preventable water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, stunting, skin lesions, and cancer. To combat this problem, a team comprising researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), together with two local partners, Environment & Public Health Organization (ENPHO), and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Support Programme (RWSSSP), have developed an award-winning household water filter, the Kanchan™ Arsenic Filter (KAF), for simultaneous arsenic and pathogen removal. The KAF is constructed using locally available labour and materials and is optimised based on the local socio-economic conditions. The first part of this paper explains the technology development process and the technical details of this innovation. The second part of this paper describes the dissemination activities since 2004. This dissemination model not only built capacity in local people towards long-term, user-participatory safe water provision, but also made a contribution to the local economy. As of January 2006, over 25,000 people have gained access to safe water as a result of the implementation of the KAF.

Imaging diagnostic methods in pulmonology originate from the discovery of X-rays. Radiography is the first-line tool for chest imaging, but in many cases its capabilities are limited. The aim was to study the history of the invention of computed tomography. Since the radiogram is a two-dimensional summation image of a three-dimensional anatomical structure, there was a need to visualize separate layers of the pathological process. Since 1913, many technical solutions of tomography have been tested. Linear tomography for some time served for the diagnosis of lung pathology, helped to determine the localization more accurately, examine a prevalence, nature and structure of the pathological process, to detect small pathological formations and cavities. But the quality of tomography was not satisfactory. The two outstanding inventors of computed tomography who were awarded the 1979 Nobel Prize in Medicine were not the physicians. Allan McLeod Cormack (Professor and Head of the Institute of Physics at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA) was the first to outline the principles of cross-sectional tissue reconstruction in an organ based on X-ray projections in 1963. Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (Head of Medical Research at Electric and Musical Industries, Middlesex, England) not only reproduced the mathematical algorithms of the technique, but also designed the tomograph and directly participated in its clinical implementation in 1971. Among the developers of the idea of three-dimensional X-ray tomography in 19571958 were the scientists of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute Semyon Tetelbaum and Boris Korenblyum. Key words: radiology, computed tomography, history of pulmonology.

The application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to clinical settings for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and the improvement of clinical care have been demonstrably cost-effective. However, current clinical AI (cAI) support tools are predominantly created by non-domain experts and algorithms available in the market have been criticized for the lack of transparency behind their creation. To combat these challenges, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Critical Data (MIT-CD) consortium, an affiliation of research labs, organizations, and individuals that contribute to research in and around data that has a critical impact on human health, has iteratively developed the “Ecosystem as a Service (EaaS)” approach, providing a transparent education and accountability platform for clinical and technical experts to collaborate and advance cAI. The EaaS approach provides a range of resources, from open-source databases and specialized human resources to networking and collaborative opportunities. While mass deployment of the ecosystem still faces several hurdles, here we discuss our initial implementation efforts. We hope this will promote further exploration and expansion of the EaaS approach, while also informing or realizing policies that will accelerate multinational, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral collaborations in cAI research and development, and provide localized clinical best practices for equitable healthcare access.

Up to 1920 processors of a cluster of distributed shared memory machines at the NASA Ames Research Center are being used to simulate ocean circulation globally at horizontal resolutions of 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16-degree with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model, a finite volume code that can scale to large numbers of processors. The study aims to understand physical processes responsible for skill improvements as resolution is increased and to gain insight into what resolution is sufficient for particular purposes. This paper focuses on the computational aspects of reaching the technical objective of efficiently performing these global eddy-resolving ocean simulations. At 1/16-degree resolution the model grid contains 1.2 billion cells. At this resolution it is possible to simulate approximately one month of ocean dynamics in about 17 hours of wallclock time with a model timestep of two minutes on a cluster of four 512-way NUMA Altix systems. The Altix systems' large main memory and I/O subsystems allow computation and disk storage of rich sets of diagnostics during each integration, supporting the scientific objective to develop a better understanding of global ocean circulation model solution convergence as model resolution is increased.

According to an anonymous obituary in The Times newspaper on 12 March 2001, Claude Shannon was [a] playful genius who invented the bit, separated the medium from the message, and laid the foundations for all digital communications. … [He] single-handedly laid down the general rules of modern information theory, creating the mathematical foundations for a technical revolution. Without his clarity of thought and sustained ability to work his way through intractable problems, such advances as e-mail and the World Wide Web would not have been possible. the great breakthroughs in understanding which heralded the convergence of computing and communications. To colleagues in the corridors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who used to warn each other about the unsteady advance of Shannon on his unicycle, it may have seemed improbable that he could remain serious for long enough to do any important work. Yet the unicycle was characteristic of his quirky thought processes, and became the topsy-turvy symbol of unorthodox progress towards unexpected theoretical insights. The ability to make astonishing leaps beyond the intellects of his colleagues (all the more remarkable at MIT, the forcing house of technological theory) had to be acknowledged as genius, and Claude Shannon was recognised as a giant throughout the industry.

Introduction: When the term artificial intelligence comes to mind, most people intuitively relate it to science fiction, especially those who are older and who had access to books, comics and impactful films on these topics, especially the film based on the story by Brian Aldiss and directed by Spielberg.Methods: A review of the literature was carried out in the month of January 2024 through access to the databases Scopus, PubMed, Dialnet, Scielo, and the search engine Google Scholar version 2022, with the strategies: ((health mental) AND (augmented reality)), ((mental health) AND (technological advances)) and ((medicine) AND (mental health) AND (augmented reality) AND (virtual reality) AND (technology)) and their translations into English language, limited the search to the last 5 years.Results: Virtual reality has its origins in the Second World War, as a precedent for a request from the United States of America to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for it to create a flight simulator that would allow ground training for the navy; which gave birth to virtual reality. In 1960, the first multi-sensor simulator created by Morton Heilin was called Sensorama.Conclusions: Virtual reality has positively influenced the restoration of mental health; Therefore, this development of technology has been a fundamental factor in many moments of scientific and technical development in the health sciences.

Nir is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at Imperial College London and a founding fellow of the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK-DRI). The long-term goal of his research is to develop neuromodulatory interventions for neurodegenerative diseases by direct modulation of the underlying aberrant network activity. Nir received a BSc in Physics from the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion), an MSc in Electromagnetic Engineering from the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, and a PhD in Neuroscience from Imperial College London. He then completed a postdoc training, as a Wellcome Trust Fellow, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. Nir was recently awarded the prestige prize for Neuromodulation from the Science magazine for describing how temporal interfering of kHz electric fields can non-invasively stimulate focal neural structures deep in the brain.Electrical brain stimulation is a key technique in research and clinical neuroscience studies, and also is in increasingly widespread use from a therapeutic standpoint. However, to date all methods of electrical stimulation of the brain either require surgery to implant an electrode at a defined site, or involve the application of non-focal electric fields to large fractions of the brain. We report a noninvasive strategy for electrically stimulating neurons at depth. By delivering to the brain multiple electric fields at frequencies too high to recruit neural firing, but which differ by a frequency within the dynamic range of neural firing, we can electrically stimulate neurons throughout a region where interference between the multiple fields results in a prominent electric field envelope modulated at the difference frequency. We validated this temporal interference (TI) concept via modeling and physics experiments, and verified that neurons in the living mouse brain could follow the electric field envelope. We demonstrate the utility of TI stimulation by stimulating neurons in the hippocampus of living mice without recruiting neurons of the overlying cortex. Finally, we show that by altering the currents delivered to a set of immobile electrodes, we can steerably evoke different motor patterns in living mice.

International Business Research wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal are greatly appreciated.International Business Research is recruiting reviewers for the journal. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, we welcome you to join us. Please find the application form and details at http://recruitment.ccsenet.org and e-mail the completed application form to ibr@ccsenet.org.Reviewers for Volume 11, Number 3 Alireza Athari, Eastern Mediterranean University, IranAnna Paola Micheli, Univrtsity of Cassino and Southern Lazio, ItalyAntônio André Cunha Callado, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernmabuco, BrazilAtallah Ahmad Alhosban, Aqaba University of Technology , JordanAurelija Burinskiene, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, LithuaniaClaudia Isac, University of Petrosani, RomaniaEunju Lee, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USAFederica Caboni, University of Cagliari, ItalyFlorin Ionita, The Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, RomaniaGiuseppe Granata, University of Cassino and Southen Lazio, ItalyGuillaume Marceau, University of Aix-Marseille, FranceHanna Trojanowska, Warsaw University of Technology, PolandHerald Monis, Milagres College, IndiaHung-Che Wu, Nanfang College of Sun Yat-sen University, ChinaImran Riaz Malik, IQRA University, PakistanIsam Saleh, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan, JordanKaren Gulliver, Argosy University, Twin Cities, USALadislav Mura, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, SlovakiaMarcelino José Jorge, Evandro Chagas Clinical Research Institute of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, BrazilMichaela Maria Schaffhauser-Linzatti, University of Vienna, AustriaModar Abdullatif, Middle East University, JordanMohamed Abdel Rahman Salih, Taibah University, Saudi ArabiaMohsen Malekalketab Khiabani, University Technology Malaysia, MalaysiaMuath Eleswed, American University of Kuwait, USAOnur Köprülü, Mersin University, TurkeyÖzcan IŞIK, Cumhuriyet University, TurkeyPascal Stiefenhofer, University of Brighton, UKRaphaël Dornier, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, FranceRiccardo Cimini, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, ItalyRoberto Campos da Rocha Miranda, University Center Iesb, BrazilSumathisri Bhoopalan, SASTRA Deemed to be University, IndiaValerija Botric, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, CroatiaYan Lu, University of Central Florida, USA

Developing countries often struggle to conduct laboratory-based water quality testing programs due to a lack of financial and technical resources. However, inexpensive, accurate, field-based tests are being developed which have the potential to overcome this barrier. This paper provides the results of an initiative by the Provincial Health Office in Capiz, Philippines, to conduct a first-ever, provincial, microbiological water quality test program. The effort was a collaboration with students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which aimed to identify sources most at risk, to test field-based analytical methods against standard methods, and to make recommendations for improving supplies in the short and long term. The microbiological, chlorine residual, and sanitary survey results are described in this paper. The results showed that there was an increasing trend in water quality from ‘unimproved’ to treated and/or piped supplies, but that many ‘improved’ point sources were contaminated. Less than 20% of the samples tested for chlorine residual were above the World Health Organization guideline. Sanitary surveys identified potential sources of contamination and were used to recommend priorities for remedial action. The implications of this work for other resource-limited areas are that microbiological testing and sanitary surveys are two essential components to assessing water safety and they should both be consistently applied in drinking water quality test programs.

This thesis studies the way in which economists have sought to establish the scientific authority of their discipline during the period before and after World War II in the United States. The research shows how the quest for scientific authority by economists gave rise to new concepts and notions, instruments of control, and calculation methods. Such developments contributed material and symbolic advantages to the discipline in the academic world and the broader academic sphere. By establishing itself as a type of knowledge which is at once abstract, technical and empirical, economics consolidated as a discipline capable of producing universal knowledge, of articulating the academic world and the practical sphere, and of establishing its qualifications as an applied domain for policy-making. The analysis focuses on three of the institutions at the pinnacle of the discipline in the American academic world: the Cowles Commission, the Economics department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Economics department of the University of Chicago. By studying the standardization of the PhD program in economics, this research also studies the process of reaching a consensus within the discipline as related to the quest for the special status of 'science'. Rooted in the social history of science, this study contributes to the analysis of standards which influence today’s research, teaching, and professional activity of economists.

International Journal of Chemistry wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal is greatly appreciated. Many authors, regardless of whether International Journal of Chemistry publishes their work, appreciate the helpful feedback provided by the reviewers. Reviewers for Volume 10, Number 4   Abdul Rouf Dar, University of Florida, USA Ahmad Galadima, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Nigeria Ahmet Ozan Gezerman, Yildiz Technical University, Turkey Asghari Gul, Comsats IIT, Pakistan Ayodele Temidayo Odularu, University of Fort Hare, South Africa Binod P Pandey, The Pennsylvania State University, USA Di Cui, Temple University, USA Elnaz Rostampour, Islamic Azad University, Iran Fatima Tuz Johra, Kookmin University, Bangladesh Han Zhang, TP Therapeutics, USA Hesham G. Ibrahim, Al-Mergheb University, Libya Ho Soon Min, INTI International University, Malaysia Juan R. Garcia, Research Institute on Catalysis and Pertrochemistry (INCAPE), Argentina Khaldun M. Al Azzam, Batterjee Medical College for Sciences and Technology, Saudi Arabia Madduri Srinivasarao, Purdue University, USA Mohamed Abass, Ain Shams University, Egypt Mustafa Oguzhan Kaya, Siirt University, Turkey Nejib Hussein Mekni, Al Manar University, Tunisia Praveen Kumar, Texas Tech University, USA Qun Ye, Institute of Materials Reseach and Engineering, Singapore R. K. Dey, Birla Institute of Technology (BIT), India Rabia Rehman, University of the Punjab, Pakistan Rodrigo Vieira Rodrigues, University of São Paulo, Brazil Saurav Sarma, University of Columbia Missouri, USA Sitaram Acharya, Texas Christian University, USA Syed A. A. Rizvi, Nova Southeastern University, USA Vijay Ramalingam, Columbia University, USA Zhixin Tian, Tongji University, China         Albert John On behalf of, The Editorial Board of International Journal of Chemistry Canadian Center of Science and Education

Purpose – This article, a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal, aims to impart the combined technological, business, and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization, and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach – The interviewee is Dr Rodney Brooks, the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab; Founder, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and Chairman of Rethink Robotics. Dr Brooks shares some of his underlying principles in technology, academia and business, as well as past and future challenges. Findings – Dr Brooks received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a PhD in computer science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He is also a Founder, Board Member and former CTO (1991-2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT). Dr Brooks is the former Director (1997-2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He founded Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics) in 2008. Originality/value – While at MIT, in 1988, Dr Brooks built Genghis, a hexapodal walker, designed for space exploration (which was on display for ten years in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.). Genghis was one of the first robots that utilized Brooks’ pioneering subsumption architecture. Dr Brooks’ revolutionary behavior-based approach underlies the autonomous robots of iRobot, which has sold more than 12 million home robots worldwide, and has deployed more than 5,000 defense and security robots; and Rethink Robotics’ Baxter, the world’s first interactive production robot. Dr Brooks has won the Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, the 2008 IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production, the 2014 Robotics Industry Association’s Engelberger Robotics Award for Leadership and the 2015 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award.

Based on the archival data set of the Institute of Natural and Technical Systems from 1955 to 2015 the intra-annual variability of temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and PH in the surface layer of the waters of the northwestern shelf of the Black Sea, including the Danube estuary area, is analyzed. The temperature of surface waters on the NW shelf of the Black Sea and the Danube waters differ significantly on a seasonal scale. The Danube waters considerably cool down the surface layer of the estuarine zone during the winter months. Seasonal changes in salinity are associated not only with large seasonal fluctuations in the river flow, precipitation and evaporation, but also with seasonal variability of the wind field. In the autumn period in the spatial distribution there is an increased oxygen content off the coast of Romania, which is related to the prevailing northwestern wind in this region, which leads to the drift of the transformed Danube waters along the western coast. Due to the prevalence of southeastern winds off the Romanian coast, the Danube waters are blocked in the coastal region, which is clearly seen from the spatial distribution of oxygen. The seasonal dynamics of the pH value corresponds to the development of production processes. From winter to summer, an increase in the pH value is noted in both water areas, and then its decrease by autumn. The absolute predominance of the annual harmonic in the seasonal variability of most of the analyzed hydrological and hydrochemical characteristics in most of the examined shelf water area was confirmed. The exception is the salinity in the estuary area of the Danube. The semiannual harmonic describes more than 60% of the total variance due to the seasonal variability of salinity, which is related to the peculiarities of the wind regime in the region.

Electrochemical models at different scales and varying levels of complexity have been used in the literature to study the evolution of the anode surface in lithium metal batteries. This includes continuum, mesoscale (phase-field approaches), and multiscale models.1-5 Thermodynamics-based equations have been used to study phase changes in lithium batteries using phase-field approaches. However, grid convergence studies and the effect of additional parameters needed to simulate these models are not well-documented in the literature. In this talk, using a motivating example of a moving boundary model in one- and two-dimensions, we show how one can properly formulate phase-field models using the immersed interface/domain approach, implement robust and efficient algorithms for the same and analyze the results (Figure 1). An open-access code with no restrictions is provided as well. The talk concludes with some thoughts on the computational efficiency of phase-field models for simulating dendritic growth. Acknowledgements The authors would like to express gratitude to Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Vehicle Technologies of the DOE through the Advanced Battery Material Research (BMR) Program (Battery500 consortium). This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. Supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Sandia National Laboratories, a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525. VS acknowledges interactions with Dr. Srikanth Vedantam from IIT Madras, India and Dr. Daniel Wheeler from National Institute of Standards and Technology for early discussions on phase-field and level-set methods. VS also acknowledges Richard Braatz from Massachusetts Institute of Technology for pointing out the poor results from standard algorithms because of the convective nature of the models. References 1. Q. Wang, G. Zhang, Y. Li, Z. Hong, D. Wang and S. Shi, NPJ Comput. Mater., 6, 176 (2020). 2. Z. Hong and V. Viswanathan, ACS Energy Lett., 3, 1737 (2018). 3. L. Liang and L.-Q. Chen, Appl. Phys. Lett., 105, 263903 (2014). 4. D. A. Cogswell and M. Z. Bazant, ACS Nano, 6, 2215 (2012). 5. Y. Zeng and M. Z. Bazant, SIAM J. Appl. Math., 74, 980 (2014). Figure 1

Despite the proliferation of eHealth interventions, such as web portals, for health information dissemination or the use of mobile apps and wearables for health monitoring, research has shown that underserved groups do not benefit proportionately from these eHealth interventions. This is largely because of usability issues and the lack of attention to the broader structural, physical, and psychosocial barriers to technology adoption and use. The objective of this paper is to draw lessons from a decade of experience in designing different user-centered eHealth interventions (eg, web portals and health apps) to inform future work in leveraging technology to address health disparities. We draw these lessons from a series of interventions from the work we have done over 15 years in the Viswanath laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, focusing on three projects that used web portals and health apps targeted toward underserved groups. The projects were the following: Click to Connect, which was a community-based eHealth intervention that aimed to improve internet skills and health literacy among underserved groups by providing home access to high-speed internet, computer, and internet training classes, as well as a dedicated health web portal with ongoing technical support; PLANET MassCONECT, which was a knowledge translation project that built capacity among community-based organizations in Boston, Lawrence, and Worcester in Massachusetts to adopt evidence-based health promotion programs; and Smartphone App for Public Health, which was a mobile health research that facilitated both participatory (eg, surveys) and passive data (eg, geolocations and web-browsing behaviors) collection for the purpose of understanding tobacco message exposure in individuals’ built environment. Through our work, we distilled five key principles for researchers aiming to design eHealth interventions for underserved groups. They are as follows: develop a strategic road map to address communication inequalities (ie, a concrete action plan to identify the barriers faced by underserved groups and customize specific solutions to each of them), engage multiple stakeholders from the beginning for the long haul, design with usability—readability and navigability—in mind, build privacy safeguards into eHealth interventions and communicate privacy–utility tradeoffs in simplicity, and strive for an optimal balance between open science aspirations and protection of underserved groups.

International Business Research wishes to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance with peer review of manuscripts for this issue. Their help and contributions in maintaining the quality of the journal are greatly appreciated. International Business Research is recruiting reviewers for the journal. If you are interested in becoming a reviewer, we welcome you to join us. Please find the application form and details at http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ibr/editor/recruitment and e-mail the completed application form to ibr@ccsenet.org. Reviewers for Volume 11, Number 10   Andrea Carosi, University of Sassari, Italy Anna Paola Micheli, Univrtsity of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy Antônio André Cunha Callado, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernmabuco, Brazil Ashford C Chea, Benedict College, USA Aurelija Burinskiene, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania Benjamin James Inyang, University of Calabar, Nigeria Bruno Ferreira Frascaroli, Federal University of Paraiba, BrazilBrazil, Celina Maria Olszak, University of Economics in Katowice, Poland Cheng Jing, eBay, Inc. / University of Rochester, USA Chokri Kooli, International Center for Basic Research applied, Paris, Canada Claudia Isac, University of Petrosani, Romania Dea’a Al-Deen Al-Sraheen, Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan , Jordan Eunju Lee, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA Federica De Santis , University of Pisa , Italy Foued Hamouda, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce, Tunisia Francesco Ciampi, Florence University, Italy Gilberto Marquez-Illescas , University of Rhode Island, USA Giuseppe Granata, University of Cassino and Southen Lazio, Italy Giuseppe Russo, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy Guo Zi-Yi, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., USA Imran Riaz Malik, IQRA University, Pakistan Janusz Wielki, Opole University of Technology, Poland Jerome Kueh, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia Joseph Lok-Man Lee, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Ladislav Mura, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Trnava, Slovakia Luisa Pinto, University of Porto School of Economics, Portugal Manuel A. R. da Fonseca, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil Manuela Rozalia Gabor, “Petru Maior” University of Tîrgu Mureş, Romania Marcelino José Jorge, Evandro Chagas Clinical Research Institute of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil Maria-Madela Abrudan, University of ORADEA, Romania Maryam Ebrahimi, Azad University, Iran Mithat Turhan, Mersin University, Turkey Modar Abdullatif, Middle East University, Jordan Mohamed Abdel Rahman Salih, Taibah University, Saudi Arabia Ozgur Demirtas, Turkish Air Force Academy, Turkey Pascal Stiefenhofer, University of Brighton, UK Rafiuddin Ahmed, James Cook University, Australia Riaz Ahsan, Government College University Faisalabad, Pakistan Sumathisri Bhoopalan, SASTRA Deemed to be University, India Valeria Stefanelli, University of Salento, Italy Valerija Botric, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia Wanmo Koo, Western Illinois University, USA Wejdene Yangui, Institute of High Business Studies of Sfax _ Tunisia (IHEC), Tunisia Yasmin Tahira, Al Ain University of Science and Technology, Al Ain, UAE

Introduction Reversible solid oxide cells (r-SOCs) enable both power generation and steam electrolysis, and have attracted attention as a solid state electrochemical energy device for a decarbonized society (1). R-SOCs have the advantage of high efficiency due to high temperature operation, but there exist various technical issues remained in materials selection, start-up and shutdown, and long-term durability. Therefore, reducing operating temperature is desirable for practical applications (2,3). Electrode-supported cells, in which the electrode acts as a structural support, enable lower temperature operation by reducing the thickness of the electrolyte, which has certain electrical resistivity. Here in this study, the current-voltage characteristics and reversible cycle durability under r-SOC operating conditions are evaluated using fuel-electrode-supported cells, with the aim of developing r-SOCs capable of highly efficient fuel cell power generation and steam electrolysis. Experimental For the experiments, fuel-electrode-supported cells were fabricated using fuel electrode-supported half-cells (Japan Fine Ceramics, Japan), schematically shown in Fig. 1. The half-cell consists of scandia-stabilized zirconia (ScSZ: 10 mol%Sc2O3-1mol%CeO2-89 mol%ZrO2) or yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ: 8 mol%Y2O3-92 mol%ZrO2) electrolyte and a Ni-cermet fuel electrode, such as Ni-ScSZ or Ni-YSZ. (La0.6Sr0.4)(Co0.2Fe0.8)O3 (LSCF) was applied for the air electrode, and Gd0.1Ce0.9O2 (GDC) was inserted between the electrolyte and the air electrode to suppress interdiffusion and chemical reactions. Four types of cells were used with different combinations of the electrolyte component (YSZ or ScSZ) in the electrolyte layer or the supporting fuel electrode. In electrochemical tests, 50%-humidified hydrogen (100 ml min-1) was supplied to the fuel electrode, and air (150 ml min-1) was supplied to the air electrode. R-SOC initial performance tests were conducted using an electrochemical analyzer (1255B, Solartron). Cell voltage and impedance were measured at 700-800°C at current densities ranging from -0.5 A cm-2 to +0.5 A cm-2. Positive current density means the value in SOFC mode, while negative current density means the value in SOEC mode. In r-SOC 1,000 cycle durability tests, cycles of switching between SOFC and SOEC operation were repeated 1,000 times by varying current density. The range of current density in the cycle tests was between -0.2 A cm-2 and +0.2 A cm-2. The cell impedance was measured before the cycling test and every 100 cycles. After each test, the cells were analyzed by using a focused-ion beam scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) to observe and evaluate the electrode microstructure. Results and discussion Figure 2 (a) shows the r-SOC initial performance of each fuel-electrode-supported cell. The cell with the Ni-YSZ fuel electrode and the YSZ electrolyte showed better current voltage characteristics than other cells. Figure 2 (b) shows the r-SOC 1000-cycle durability of the cell with the Ni-YSZ fuel electrode and the YSZ electrolyte. The results showed a decrease in power generation and electrolysis performance with increasing the number of cycles in both SOFC and SOEC modes. Possible degradation mechanisms will be discussed. Acknowledgments This paper is based on results obtained from a project (Research and Development Program for Promoting Innovative Clean Energy Technologies Through International Collaboration), JPNP20005, commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). Collaborative support by Prof. H. L. Tuller and Prof. B. Yildiz at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is gratefully acknowledged. References (1) Venkataraman, M. Pérez-Fortes, L. Wang, Y. S. Hajimolana, C. Boigues-Muñoz, A. Agostini, S. J. Mcphail, F. Mar échal, J. V. Herle, and P. V. Aravind, J. Energy Storage, 24, 100782 (2019). (2) Subotić, S. Pofahl, V. Lawlor, N. H. Menzler, T. Thaller, and C. Hochenauer, Energy Proc., 158, 2329 (2019). (3) B. Mogensen, Current Opinion Electrochem., 21, 265 (2020). Figure 1

Abstract The 2023 IUPAC-Zhejiang NHU International Award for Advancements in Green Chemistry was announced and presented during the 49th IUPAC World Chemistry Congress in The Hague, The Netherlands. We congratulate Xile Hu from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland as the experienced chemist award winner, and Mirabbos Hojamberdiev from Technical University Berlin, Germany, Jiayu Peng from Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, and Zhe Zhuang, Department of Chemical and Systems Biology, Stanford University, USA as the young award winners.

AbstractThis paper explores the way in which computer scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) constructed visions of the future in 1960s America to direct the AI and computing research agendas. It argues that MIT computer scientists resisted attempts by the state to control the future of computing by fabricating imaginaries to covertly exert influence over the research environment. The paper examines the impact of the Cold War military–industrial complex on academia, which provided opportunities for research to take place whilst introducing challenges to autonomy. It makes the case that computer scientists such as Marvin Minsky and Fernando J. Corbato carefully shaped narratives across film, television and the media to promote desirable futures centering their own technical approaches. Acknowledging that instruments of the state appealed to the future to guide research towards strategically sensitive areas in the context of Cold War technoscientific contest, it asserts that intensifying ties between military and academic institutions afforded researchers both the latitude and motivation to construct independent visions of the future. In doing so, the paper aims to complicate assumptions about imaginaries as solely tools of governance by highlighting scientists' creativity in navigating institutional constraints to wrest back control of the future.

AbstractThe National Science Foundation created the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) in order to establish a technical, communal, and organizational framework for access to high quality resources and tools that support innovations in teaching and learning at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. As part of the NSDL, the Materials Digital Library (MatDL) Pathway focuses specifically on serving the materials science (MS) community with a target audience that includes MS undergraduate and graduate students, educators, and researchers. MatDL is a collaborative effort involving the Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Kent State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Iowa State University, and Purdue University. Our network of collaborations also includes a Nanoscience Interdisciplinary Research Team, Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, and International Materials Institute. A primary goal of MatDL is to bring materials science research and education closer together. MatDL provides innovative uses of digital libraries and the web as educational media in the MS community with particular emphasis on providing: 1) tools to describe, manage, exchange, archive, and disseminate scientific data 2) workspace for open access development of modeling and simulation tools 3) services and content for virtual labs in large undergraduate introductory science courses, and 4) workspace for collaborative development of core undergraduate MS teaching resources for emerging areas. This paper will provide an overview of the NSDL MatDL Pathway, details about specific aspects of the project, as well as interactions between research and education.

Abstract Objectives To identify international and periodically updated models of the COVID-19 epidemic, compile and visualize their estimation results at the global, regional, and country levels, and periodically update the compilations. This compilation can serve as an early warning mechanism for countries about future surges in cases and deaths. When one or more models predict an increase in daily cases or infections and deaths in the next one to three months, technical advisors to the national and subnational decision-makers can consider this early alarm for assessment and suggestion of augmentation of preventive measures and interventions. Data description Five international and periodically updated models of the COVID-19 pandemic were identified, created by: (1) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, (2) Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, (3) Imperial College, London, (4) Los Alamos National Laboratories, Los Alamos, and (5) University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Estimates of these five identified models were gathered, combined, and graphed at global and two country levels. Canada and Iran were chosen as countries with and without subnational estimates, respectively. Compilations of results are periodically updated. Three Github repositories were created that contain the codes and results, i.e., “CovidVisualizedGlobal” for the global and regional levels, “CovidVisualizedCountry” for a country with subnational estimates–Canada, and “covir2” for a country without subnational estimates–Iran.

In a context of increased competition on the job market, soft skills have become as important as the technical skills for employability of Moroccan engineers. Reactive and innovative engineering schools orient their learning process towards the job market requirements. This study aims at examining the soft skills required by accreditation bodies in some developing countries, namely ABET (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), ENAEE (European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education), ABEEK (Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea), JABEE (The Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education) et EA (Engineers Australia). These skills are subsequently correlated with the Syllabus of the CDIO initiative founded by MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) In the United States. This syllabus represents a model of engineering program. It has been developed in collaboration with the industry, the government and the university community. In this study we highlight a set of soft skills which we compared with those developed in Moroccan engineering education programs in order to detect their shortcomings and key success factors.

Recently convergence science was proposed and promoted in a large report from US National Science Foundation and Department of Commerce (NSF/DOC). The report was entitled “converging technologies for improving human performance. “It was dealing with converging of four technologies as: Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science (NBIC). The report has gained tremendous popularity throughout the academia and scientific world. On Dec 2015 in a monthly meeting of the department of basic science of Iran Academy of Medical Science, the report of NSF/DOC on NBIC has been discussed. A working group has been established for more discussion and application in Iran. Several seminars in this regard have been performed, and presently this technology has been started as pilot in some technical universities in Iran. After US National Research Council (NCR) in the year 2014 and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on convergence in biomedicine, the concept opened a new gate to approach solving medical and health care problems; the convergence technology in biomedical sciences has become interested and gained great popularity among the working group of convergence science in academy of medical science. This technology can lead to advances in fighting chronic diseases such as cancer, dementia, psychiatric disorders, disease of aging and others. The following is summary of proposed discussions in several gathered groups of scientists in this field.

Chaired by G. Slade Cargill, III (IBM Watson Research Center), D. Wayne Goodman (Texas A & M University), and J. Francis Young (University of Illinois), the 1988 MRS Fall Meeting was the largest on record. A strong and varied program of 24 technical symposia attracted over 3,700 participants from Monday, November 28 to Friday, December 4. Rounding out the meeting program were the lunchtime tutorial lectures of Symposium X, Frontiers of Materials Research; a forum on the Materials Science and Engineering Study, which previewed the forthcoming National Research Council report; the Plenary Address by Prof. Lester C. Thurow (Dean of the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) on “Maintaining Technological Leadership in a World Economy”; and the presentation of the 1988 Von Hippel Award to Prof. Jacques Friedet (Professor of Solid State Physics, University of Paris).The lectures by Thurow and Friedel were both excellent presentations, although quite different in style. Thurow confounded the scientists' cynical view of economists by giving a lucid and cogently argued presentation of the societal problems underlying the loss of United States dominance in technological developments. Readers will be able to peruse the text in an upcoming issue of the MRS BULLETIN but will miss the flavor of the oral presentation. Prof. Friedel gave a delightful personal account of his scientific career, which illustrated so well the unity of materials research despite the apparent diversity of approach. His account is published elsewhere in this issue.

This plenary session began with a focus on cutting edge research into the role of the immune system in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Firstly, Chiara Giannerelli, New York University (NYU) Langone Health and NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, USA, emphasised the value of deep phenotyping of atherosclerotic disease to understand the immune mechanisms involved in cardiovascular (CV) risk. She presented data demonstrating an enrichment of phenotypically distinct cluster of differentiation (CD) 4+ and CD8+ T cells in advanced atherosclerotic plaque compared with paired blood and explained how this data can be used to identify drugs with the potential to be repurposed to reduce CV risk. Secondly, Eicke Latz, Institute of Innate Immunity, University of Bonn, Germany, presented data from his research team that begins to explain how the Western diet might lead to chronic inflammation and atherogenesis, implicating cholesterol crystals and short-chain sphingomyelins in the reprogramming of granulocyte-monocyte precursor cells (GMP) in this process. The arguments for greater use of imaging and molecular biomarkers in clinical practice were presented by Wolfgang Koenig, German Heart Center Munich, Technical University of Munich, Germany, who speculated that the assessment of CV risk in the future is likely to harness big data and machine learning to achieve accurate risk assessment in individual patients. Finally, Amit Khera, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA, covered the role of genetic factors in the prediction of CV disease (CVD), explaining that a combination of traditional risk factors and polygenic scoring techniques provides the most accurate estimation of CVD risk.

Abstract This volume of proceedings is a compilation of thirty-four accepted papers submitted to the 10th Global Conference on Materials Science and Engineering (CMSE 2021). This conference was held in the online mode on August 1-4, 2021, and attended by over a hundred researchers, scholars, academic and industry experts in materials science and engineering from 35 countries. During the four-day online conference, three keynote speeches with topics on biomaterials, semiconductor materials, and powder metallurgy were delivered by Prof. Seeram Ramakrishna (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Prof. Qixin Guo (Saga University, Japan), and Prof. José M. Torralba (The Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain). Sixty-four oral and invited presentations were presented and discussed in-depth in six technical sessions, followed by a poster session on the conference website, with interactive communication among the attendees. Despite the inhibiting factor of Covid19, the conference successfully promoted exchanging new ideas and perspective discourse among the participants in their respective fields. The conference was brilliantly chaired by the Conference Chairman, Prof. Sigitas Tamulevičius from the Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania, and a team of Session Chairs: Dr. Yanli Lu (Northwestern Polytechnical University, China), Prof. Yaovi Gagou (Université de Picardie Jules Verne, France), Dr. Stefan Siebert (Brockhaus Measurements, Germany), Dr. Marianna Marciszko-Wiąckowska (AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland), Dr. Hasan Koten (Istanbul Medeniyet University, Turkey), Dr. P.E. Markovsky (Kurdyumov Institute for Metal Physics NASU, Ukraine), and Assoc. Prof. Jun Yan (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA). All participants highly appreciated the online support and facilitation of Conference Secretaries: Ms. Ling Li and Ms. Kelly Feng (Bosen, China). List of Conference Committee Members are available in this pdf.

The Lagos State University 7th bi-annual Faculty of Science International Conference 2020 tagged LASU FOSIC2020 was held virtually from 2nd-4th December, 2020. The theme of the conference was Science and Technology in combating current and future global challenges. To justify the theme, different sub-themes were combined cutting across biological/medical, chemical and physical sciences including: global ecology and challenges of combating infectious human and zoonotic diseases, emerging perspectives on epidemiology of infectious diseases, post COVID-19 effects on fisheries and aquaculture, molecular approaches in curtailing the scourge of diseases, chemistry of natural resources for sustainable product development, medicinal plants as antidotes, dynamical system analysis, modelling and optimization, artificial intelligence in the 4th industrial revolution, and demystifying 5G technology: the role of physics in tackling global health challenges. This summary therefore presents some of the observations raised at the conference. Topical models and practical strategies at flattening the curve of COVID-19 pandemic in African most populous city, Lagos was presented by the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, while Director General of the Nigerian Institute for Medical Research delivered the keynote address followed by the special guest speaker from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General hospital, USA amongst others. To the best of our knowledge, FOSIC2020 was the first free and 100% virtual international conference organised by any Nigerian University to date. Overall, a total of 130 papers were presented by researchers out of the 334 registered participants representing 36 institutions from 14 countries across the world. FOSIC2020 was declared closed with a free technical workshop focusing on V2V global partnership from vulnerability to viability project by the team leaders from the University of Waterloo Canada and Lagos State University with members of panel as postgraduate students across different countries. Free electronics book of abstracts and certificates were given to all the participants.

Nanotechnology, robotics, genomics are considered to be scientific areas that will change the world. Today, nanotechnologies allow the manufacture of touch screens for which a disappearing Indium is used and effective batteries. Graphene, which conductivity is 3.5 times higher than that of silicon, is already used to make ultra high-frequency transistors. Lithium-metal batteries will increase the mileage of electric cars up to 600 km. Hydrogen power sources are already replacing lithium-ion batteries and are used in trams and cars, in the future on airplanes and electronic devices. The subject of dispute at the scientific and technical level of the countries is supercomputers. Today, the leaders of the direction are China and the United States. China plans in 2020 to create a supercomputer with record performance-1 exaflops (1018 operations/s). Ilon Mask has received the US approval to launch several thousand mini satellites to provide Internet services to all people on Earth. Developed by South Korean scientists of a solar cell with a thickness of 1 micron opens up the prospect of creating a giant electro-battery around the Earth. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have brought out a breed of trees that shine. Scientists introduce special nanoparticles into plants - a chemical that forces plants to shine, the same one used by fireflies. In the future, a pot with a light plant will be able to replace a table lamp. In the future, such trees can light up streets instead of lights that spend an estimated 20% energy consumption.Ukrainian scientists are encouraged to use pseudo-random sequences based on chaos to ensure high confidentiality of information transmission in telecommunication systems. The main task in the development of infocommunications should be considered the creation using the latest technologies and materials of multi service networks to provide mobile communication services and the Internet for all people on Earth.

Seminar.Net is approaching its 10th anniversary. The journal continues to practise a free and open access policy of no costs for contributors. We are still committed to publishing research articles to promote studies on the subject of media in education media in education. We operate in a rapidly changing environment of academic publishing. While conventional newspapers are forced to close and are recreated as online newspapers, academic publishing houses appear to survive such threats of extinction. Traditional media are seeking alternative sources to finance their activities. Academic publishing has quite rightly been accused of squeezing higher education institutions with extortionate costs for journal subscriptions. While the profits gained by the publishing houses have been enormous the costs of doing much editorial work, as well as all peer-reviewing have been graciously covered by higher institution staff without incurring expenses. Open Access publishing has gained much attention lately, and is a great deal more common now than it was in 2005, when Seminar.Net was launched. There are a number of hybrid publishing formats offered to authors, with and without a price tag forwarded to the author. For example, the Norwegian Research Council has recently established a foundation for academic writers who face the challenge of financing publication of an article. All editorial work, including reviewing, of Seminar.net is done in our free time. Copy-editing and language checks are carried out by experts, as well as the technical processing of posting videos and texts on the website. We thank you all for doing this at a reasonable price and with such enthusiastic commitment. This is our way of sharing!The subject of sharing is at the heart of the majority of the papers in the current issue, the first four of which were presented at a conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. The last paper is an investigation into the matter of how some elderly members of the public resist and refrain from using the Internet.

SAMUEL C. COLLINS AWARD 2023 Prof. Dr. Ir. H.J.M (Marcel) ter Brake University of Twente, Faculty of Science and Technology The Netherlands In 1965 the Cryogenic Engineering Conference (CEC) established an award in honor of the late Samuel C. Collins, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of Professor Collins’ most notable works is his invention of the modern helium liquefier. The Collins Award is awarded to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the identification and solution of cryogenic engineering problems and has additionally demonstrated a concern for the cryogenic community through service and leadership. The award is open to persons regardless of national origin. The CEC Awards Committee reviewed multiple nomination packages for highly qualified individuals and selected Marcel ter Brake as the recipient of the 2023 Samuel C. Collins Award. Marcel ter Brake received his PhD in 1986 at the University of Twente (UT) for his work on a SQUID-based horizontal-access rock magnetometer. Following his PhD, he became member of the Low Temperature Division at UT. Focus of his work was the realization of a Biomagnetic Center equipped with a magnetically shielded room and home-made multichannel SQUID-based neuromagnetometers. These magnetometers were all liquid-helium cooled. The advent of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986 allowed the use of small cryocoolers that were available on the market. The interfacing of these coolers to ultra-sensitive devices such as SQUIDs became an important field of ter Brake’s research. In this ongoing research, MEMS technologies were applied to fabricate cryocooler components. In addition to microcooling he also researched sorption-based compressors combined with Joule-Thomson coolers. These sorption coolers are essentially vibration free and are of interest specifically for optical instruments in scientific space missions but can also be beneficial in terrestrial applications. Marcel ter Brake was appointed Associate Professor at UT in 2000, and Full Professor and chair holder of Energy, Materials and Systems at UT since January 1st, 2010. Next to cryogenic technologies, this research chair investigates the use of superconductivity in high-current applications, focusing on systems to be applied in future energy chains. Marcel’s recent work is on ejectors to achieve lower temperatures and higher system efficiency in JT coolers. His work on the fundamental understanding of counter flow heat exchangers (CFHXs) and the associated mechanisms of flow maldistribution for two-phase flow in JT microcoolers. He has done excellent work on the heat-triggered switching of two-phase flow maldistribution in the heat exchanger of JT microcoolers by using both microscopic and temperature measurements that led to solutions to the challenge. Marcel ter Brake had a 10% Professor appointment at the Technological University of Eindhoven (TUE) from September 2004 to September 2010. He founded the Cryogenics Society of Europe in 2015 and until present he chairs the Board of that Society. Furthermore, he is lifetime member of the Cryogenic Society of America, chairs the International Cryogenic Engineering Committee and is board member of the International Cryocooler Conference. He has supervised and (co)-promoted 19 PhD students, has published more than 200 papers, of which 115 in refereed journals, and written 5 book chapters. Based on Marcel ter Brake’s impact in terms of technical achievement, leadership, and service to the cryogenics community, in the opinion of the awards committee, Marcel is a perfect example of what the Sam Collins Award is meant to recognize. THE RUSSELL B. SCOTT MEMORIAL AWARDS The Russell B. Scott Memorial Awards honor the first head of the Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory of the Boulder Laboratories of the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Mr. Scott was the founder of the Cryogenic Engineering Conference (CEC), the first of which was held in 1954 in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of the book Cryogenic Engineering, published by the Princeton press in 1959. Mr. Scott retired in 1965 after 37 years at NBS and died in 1967. The Scott Memorial Awards provide an incentive for the production and presentation of high-quality papers at the Cryogenic Engineering Conferences, and recognition of authors who, in the judgment of the CEC Board of Directors, presented the best papers at the proceeding conference. The papers are nominated by the reviewers and editors of the conference proceedings. In 2023, two awards for the best papers delivered at the 2021 CEC Virtual Conference, and published in the IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 1240, 2022, were presented at the 2023 Honolulu conference to the following: Best Paper for Cryogenic Engineering Research A Anand, A S Gour, T S Datta and V V Rao for their paper “50 kJ SMES magnet design optimization using real coded genetic algorithm” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 1240, 2022; 012137 Best Paper for Cryogenic Engineering Applications I Wells, J Bussey, N Swets, L Reising, C Butikofer, G Wallace, S Kulsa and J Leachman for their paper “Liquid nitrogen removal of lunar regolith simulant from spacesuit simulants” IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 1240, 2022; 012003

IntroductionIn his now-seminal book, Pilgrim in the Microworld (1983), David Sudnow details his process of learning to play the game Breakout on the Atari 2600. Sudnow develops an account of his graduation from a novice (having never played a videogame prior, and middle-aged at time of writing) to being able to fluidly perform the various configurative processes involved in an acclimated Breakout player’s repertoire.Sudnow’s account of videogame skill-development is not at odds with common-sense views on the matter: people become competent at videogames by playing them—we get used to how controllers work and feel, and to the timings of the game and those required of our bodies, through exposure. We learn by playing, failing, repeating, and ultimately internalising the game’s rhythms—allowing us to perform requisite actions. While he does not put it in as many words, Sudnow’s account affords parity to various human and nonhuman stakeholders involved in videogame-play: technical, temporal, and corporeal. Essentially, his point is that intertwined technical systems like software and human-interface devices—with their respective temporal rhythms, which coalesce and conflict with those of the human player—require management to play skilfully.The perspective Sudnow develops here is no doubt important, but modes of building competency cannot be strictly fixed around a player-videogame relationship; a relatively noncontroversial view in game studies. Videogame scholars have shown that there is currency in understanding how competencies in gameplay arise from engaging with ancillary objects beyond the thresholds of player-game relations; the literature to date casting a long shadow across a broad spectrum of materials and practices. Pursuing this thread, this article addresses the enterprise (and conceptualisation) of ‘skill building’ in videogames (taken as the ability to ‘beat games’ or cultivate the various competencies to do so) via the invocation of peripheral objects or practices. More precisely, this article develops the perspective that we need to attend to the impacts of ancillary objects on play—positioned as hybrid assemblage, as described in the work of writers like Sudnow. In doing so, I first survey how the intervention of peripheral game material has been researched and theorised in game studies, suggesting that many accounts deal too simply with how players build skill through these means—eliding the fact that play works as an engine of many moving parts. We do not simply become ‘better’ at videogames by engaging peripheral material. Furthering this view, I visit recent literature broadly associated with disciplines like post-phenomenology, which handles the hybridity of play and its extension across bodies, game systems, and other gaming material—attending to how skill building occurs; that is, through the recalibration of perceptual faculties operating in the bodily and temporal dimensions of videogame play. We become ‘better’ at videogames by drawing on peripheral gaming material to augment how we negotiate the rhythms of play.Following on from this, I conclude by mobilising post-phenomenological thinking to further consider skill-building through peripheral material, showing how such approaches can generate insights into important and emerging areas of this practice. Following recent games research, such as the work of James Ash, I adopt Bernard Stiegler’s formulation of technicity—pointing toward the conditioning of play through ancillary gaming objects: focusing particularly on the relationship between game skill, game guides, and embodied processes of memory and perception.In short, this article considers videogame skill-building, through means beyond the game, as a significant recalibration of embodied, temporal, and technical entanglements involved in play. Building Skill: From Guides to BodiesThere is a handsome literature that has sought to conceptualise the influence of ancillary game material, which can be traced to earlier theories of media convergence (Jenkins). More incisive accounts (pointing directly at game-skill) have been developed since, through theoretical rubrics such as paratext and metagaming. A point of congruence is the theme of relation: the idea that the locus of understanding and meaning can be specified through things outside the game. For scholars like Mia Consalvo (who popularised the notion of paratext in game studies), paratexts are a central motor in play. As Consalvo suggests, paratexts are quite often primed to condition how we do things in and around videogames; there is a great instructive potential in material like walkthrough guides, gaming magazines and cheating devices. Subsequent work has since made productive use of the concept to investigate game-skill and peripheral material and practice. Worth noting is Chris Paul’s research on World of Warcraft (WoW). Paul suggests that players disseminate high-level strategies through a practice known as ‘Theorycraft’ in the game’s community: one involving the use of paratextual statistics applications to optimise play—the results then disseminated across Web-forums (see also: Nardi).Metagaming (Salen and Zimmerman 482) is another concept that is often used to position the various extrinsic objects or practices installed in play—a concept deployed by scholars to conceptualise skill building through both games and the things at their thresholds (Donaldson). Moreover, the ability to negotiate out-of-game material has been positioned as a form of skill in its own right (see also: Donaldson). Becoming familiar with paratextual resources and being able to parse this information could then constitute skill-building. Ancillary gaming objects are important, and as some have argued, central in gaming culture (Consalvo). However, critical areas are left unexamined with respect to skill-building, because scholars often fail to place paratexts or metagaming in the contexts in which they operate; that is, amongst the complex technical, embodied and temporal conjunctures of play—such as those described by Sudnow. Conceptually, much of what Sudnow says in Microworld undergirds the post-human, object-oriented, or post-phenomenological literature that has begun to populate game studies (and indeed media studies more broadly). This materially-inflected writing takes seriously the fact that technical objects (like videogames) and human subjects are caught up in the rhythms of each other; digital media exists “as a mode or cluster of operations in consort with matter”, as Anna Munster tells us (330).To return to videogames, Patrick Crogan and Helen Kennedy argue that gameplay is about a “technicity” between human and nonhuman things, irreducible to any sole actor. Play is a confluence of metastable forces and conditions, a network of distributed agencies (see also Taylor, Assemblage). Others like Brendan Keogh forward post-phenomenological approaches (operating under scholars like Don Ihde)—looking past the subject-centred nature of videogame research. Ultimately, these theorists situate play as an ‘exploded diagram’, challenging anthropocentric accounts.This position has proven productive in research on ‘skilled’ or ‘high-level’ play (fertile ground for considering competency-development). Emma Witkowski, T.L. Taylor (Raising), and Todd Harper have suggested that skilled play in games emerges from the management of complex embodied and technical rhythms (echoing the points raised prior by Sudnow).Placing Paratexts in PlayWhile we have these varying accounts of how skill develops within and beyond player-game relationships, these two perspectives are rarely consolidated. That said, I address some of the limited body of work that has sought to place the paratext in the complex and distributed conjunctures of play; building a vocabulary and framework via encounters with what could loosely be called post-phenomenological thinking (not dissimilar to the just surveyed accounts). The strength of this work lies in its development of a more precise view of the operational reality of playing ‘with’ paratexts. The recent work of Darshana Jayemanne, Bjorn Nansen, and Thomas Apperley theorises the outward expansion of games and play, into diverse material, social, and spatial dimensions (147), as an ‘aesthetics of recruitment’. Consideration is given to ‘paratextual’ play and skill. For instance, they provide the example of players invoking the expertise they have witnessed broadcast through Websites like Twitch.tv or YouTube—skill-building operating here across various fronts, and through various modalities (155). Players are ‘recruited’, in different capacities, through expanded interfaces, which ultimately contour phenomenological encounters with games.Ash provides a fine-grained account in research on spatiotemporal perception and videogames—one much more focused on game-skill. Ash examines how high-level communities of players cultivate ‘spatiotemporal sensitivity’ in the game Street Fighter IV through—in Stiegler’s terms—‘exteriorising’ (Fault) game information into various data sets—producing what he calls ‘technicity’. In this way, Ash suggests that these paratextual materials don’t merely ‘influence play’ (Technology 200), but rather direct how players perceive time, and habituate exteriorised temporal rhythms into their embodied facility (a translation of high-level play). By doing so, the game can be played more proficiently. Following the broadly post-phenomenological direction of these works, I develop a brief account of two paratextual practices. Like Ash, I deploy the work of Stiegler (drawing also on Ash’s usage). I utilise Stiegler’s theoretical schema of technicity to roughly sketch how some other areas of skill-building via peripheral material can be placed within the context of play—looking particularly at the conditioning of embodied faculties of player anticipation, memory and perception through play and paratext alike. A Technicity of ParatextThe general premise of Stiegler’s technicity is that the human cannot be thought of independent from their technical supplements—that is, ‘exterior’ technical objects which could include, but are not limited to, technologies (Fault). Stiegler argues that the human, and their fundamental memory structure is finite, and as such is reliant on technical prostheses, which register and transmit experience (Fault 17). This technical supplement is what Stiegler terms ‘tertiary retention’. In short, for Stiegler, technicity can be understood as the interweaving of ‘lived’ consciousness (Cinematic 21) with tertiary retentional apparatus—which is palpably felt in our orientations in and toward time (Fault) and space (including the ‘space’ of our bodies, see New Critique 11).To be more precise, tertiary retention conditions the relationship between perception, anticipation, and subjective memory (or what Stiegler—by way of phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, whose work he renovates—calls primary retention, protention, and secondary retention respectively). As Ash demonstrates (Technology), Stiegler’s framework is rich with potential in investigating the relationship between videogames and their peripheral materials. Invoking technicity, we can rethink—and expand on—commonly encountered forms of paratexts, such as game guides or walkthroughs (an example Consalvo gives in Cheating). Stiegler’s framework provides a means to assess the technical organisation (through both games and paratexts) of embodied and temporal conditions of ‘skilled play’. Following Stiegler, Consalvo’s example of a game guide is a kind of ‘exteriorisation of play’ (to the guide) that adjusts the embodied and temporal conditions of anticipation and memory (which Sudnow would tell us are key in skill-development). To work through an example, if I was playing a hard game (such as Dark Souls [From Software]), the general idea is that I would be playing from memories of the just experienced, and with expectations of what’s to come based on everything that’s happened prior (following Stiegler). There is a technicity in the game’s design here, as Ash would tell us (Technology 190-91). By way of Stiegler (and his reading of Heidegger), Ash argues a popular trend in game design is to force a technologically-mediated interplay between memory, anticipation, and perception by making videogames ‘about’ a “a future outside of present experience” (Technology 191), but hinging this on past-memory. Players then, to be ‘skilful’, and move forward through the game environment without dying, need to manage cognitive and somatic memory (which, in Dark Souls, is conventionally accrued through trial-and-error play; learning through error incentivised through punitive game mechanics, such as item-loss). So, if I was playing against one of the game’s ‘bosses’ (powerful enemies), I would generally only be familiar with the way they manoeuvre, the speed with which they do so, and where and when to attack based on prior encounter. For instance, my past-experience (of having died numerous times) would generally inform me that using a two-handed sword allows me to get in two attacks on a boss before needing to retreat to avoid fatal damage. Following Stiegler, we can understand the inscription of videogame experience in objects like game guides as giving rise to anticipation and memory—albeit based on a “past that I have not lived but rather inherited as tertiary retentions” (Cinematic 60). Tertiary retentions trigger processes of selection in our anticipations, memories, and perceptions. Where videogame technologies are traditionally the tertiary retentions in play (Ash, Technologies), the use of game-guides refracts anticipation, memory, and perception through joint systems of tertiary retention—resulting in the outcome of more efficiently beating a game.To return to my previous example of navigating Dark Souls: where I might have died otherwise, via the guide, I’d be cognisant to the timings within which I can attack the boss without sustaining damage, and when to dodge its crushing blows—allowing me to eventually defeat it and move toward the stage’s end (prompting somatic and cognitive memory shifts, which influence my anticipation in-game). Through ‘neurological’ accounts of technology—such as Stiegler’s technicity—we can think more closely about how playing with a skill-building apparatus (like a game guide) works in practice; allowing us to identify how various situations ingame can be managed via deferring functions of the player (such as memory) to exteriorised objects—shifting conditions of skill building. The prism of technicity is also useful in conceptualising some of the new ways players are building skill beyond the game. In recent years, gaming paratexts have transformed in scope and scale. Gaming has shifted into an age of quantification—with analytics platforms which harvest, aggregate, and present player data gaining significant traction, particularly in competitive and multiplayer videogames. These platforms perform numerous operations that assist players in developing skill—and are marketed as tools for players to improve by reflecting on their own practices and the practices of others (functioning similarly to the previously noted practice of TheoryCraft, but operating at a wider scale). To focus on one example, the WarCraftLogs application in WoW (Image 1) is a highly-sophisticated form of videogame analytics; the perspective of technicity providing insights into its functionality as skill-building apparatus.Image 1: WarCraftLogs. Image credit: Ben Egliston. Following Ash’s use of Stiegler (Technology), quantifying the operations that go into playing WoW can be conceptualised as what Stiegler calls a system of traces (Technology 196). Because of his central thesis of ‘technical existence’, Stiegler maintains that ‘interiority’ is coincident with technical support. As such, there is no calculation, no mental phenomena, that does not arise from internal manipulation of exteriorised symbols (Cinematic 52-54). Following on with his discussion of videogames, Ash suggests that in the exteriorisation of gameplay there is “no opposition between gesture, calculation and the representation of symbols” (Technology 196); the symbols working as an ‘abbreviation’ of gameplay that can be read as such. Drawing influence from this view, I show that ‘Big Data’ analytics platforms like WarCraftLogs similarly allow users to ‘read’ play as a set of exteriorised symbols—with significant outcomes for skill-building; allowing users to exteriorise their own play, examine the exteriorised play of others, and compare exteriorisations of their own play with those of others. Image 2: WarCraftLogs Gameplay Breakdown. Image credit: Ben Egliston.Image 2 shows a screenshot of the WarCraftLogs interface. Here we can see the exteriorisation of gameplay, and how the platform breaks down player inputs and in-game occurrences (written and numeric, like Ash’s game data). The screenshot shows a ‘raid boss’ (where players team up to defeat powerful computer-controlled enemies)—atomising the sequence of inputs a player has made over the course of the encounter. This is an accurate ledger of play—a readout that can speak to mechanical performance (specific ingame events occurred at a specific time), as well as caching and providing parses of somatic inputs and execution (e.g. ability to trace the rates at which players expend in-game resources can provide insights into rapidity of button presses). If information falls outside what is presented, players can work with an Application Programming Interface to develop customised readouts (this is encouraged through other game-data platforms, like OpenDota in Dota 2). Through this system, players can exteriorise their own input and output or view the play of others—both useful in building skill. The first point here—of exteriorising one’s own experience—resonates with Stiegler’s renovation of Husserl's ‘temporal object’—that is, an object that exists in and is formed through time—through temporal fluxes of what appears, what happens and what manifests itself in disappearing (Cinematic 14). Stiegler suggests that tertiary retentional apparatus (e.g. a gramophone) allow us to re-experience a temporal object (e.g. a melody) which would otherwise not be possible due to the finitude of human memory.To elaborate, Stiegler argues that primary memories recede into secondary memory (which is selective reactivation of perception), but through technologies of recording, (such as game-data) we can re-experience these things verbatim. So ultimately, games analytics platforms—as exteriorised technologies of recording—facilitate this after-the-fact interplay between primary and secondary memory where players can ‘audit’ their past performance, reflecting on well-played encounters or revising error. These platforms allow the detailed examination of responses to game mechanics, and provide readouts of the technical and embodied rhythms of play (which can be incorporated into future play via reading the data). Beyond self-reflection, these platforms allow the examination of other’s play. The aggregation and sorting of game-data makes expertise both visible and legible. To elaborate, players are ranked on their performance based on all submitted log-data, offering a view of how expertise ‘works’.Image 3: Top-Ranking Players in WarCraftLogs. Image credit: Ben Egliston.Image 3 shows the top-ranked players on an encounter (the top 10 of over 100,000 logs), which means that these players have performed most competently out of all gameplay parses (the metric being most damage dealt per-second in defeating a boss). Users of the platform can look in detail at the actions performed by top players in that encounter—reading and mobilising data in a similar manner to game-guides; markedly different, however, in terms of the scope (i.e. there are many available logs to draw from) and richness of the data (more detailed and current—with log rankings recalibrated regularly). Conceptually, we can also draw parallels with previous work (see: Ash, Technology)—where the habituation of expert game data can produce new videogame technicities; ways of ‘experiencing’ play as ‘higher-level’ organisation of space and time (Ash, Technology). So, if a player wanted to ‘learn from the experts’ they would restructure their own rhythms of play around high-level logs which provide an ordered readout of various sequences of inputs involved in playing well. Moreover, the platform allows players to compare their logs to those of others—so these various introspective and outward-facing uses can work together, conditioning anticipations with inscriptions of past-play and ‘prosthetic’ memories through other’s log-data. In my experience as a WoW player, I often performed better (or built skill) by comparing and contrasting my own detailed readouts of play to the inputs and outputs of the best players in the world.To summarise, through technicity, I have briefly shown how exteriorising play shifts the conditions of skill-building from recalibrating msnesic and anticipatory processes through ‘firsthand’ play, to reworking these functions through engaging both games and extrinsic objects, like game guides and analytics platforms. Additionally, by reviewing and adopting various usages of technicity, I have pointed out how we might more holistically situate the gaming paratext in skill building. Conclusion There is little doubt—as exemplified through both scholarly and popular interest—that paratextual videogame material reframes modes of building game skill. Following recent work, and by providing a brief account of two paratextual practices (venturing the framework of technicity, via Stiegler and Ash—showing the complication of memory, perception, and anticipation in skill-building), I have contended that videogame-skill building—via paratextual material—can be rendered a process of operating outside of, but still caught up in, the complex assemblages of time, bodies, and technical architectures described by Sudnow at this article’s outset. 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Aligning protein-protein interaction networks from different species is a useful mechanism for figuring out orthologous proteins, predicting/verifying protein unknown functions or constructing evolutionary relationships. The network alignment problem is proved to be NP-hard, requiring exponential-time algorithms, which is not feasible for the fast growth of biological data. In this paper, we present a novel protein-protein interaction global network alignment algorithm, which is enhanced with an extended large neighborhood search heuristics. Evaluated on benchmark datasets of yeast, fly, human and worm, the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art. Furthermore, the complexity of ours is polynomial, thus being scalable to large biological networks in practice. Keywords Heuristic, Protein-protein interaction networks, network alignment, neighborhood search References [1] R.L. Finley, R. Brent, Interaction mating reveals binary and ternary connections between drosophila cell cycle regulators. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 91 (1994) 12980-12984.[2] R. Aebersold, M. Mann, Mass spectrometry-based proteomics, Nature. 422 (2003) 198-207.[3] C.S. Goh, F.R. Cohen, Co-evolutionary analysis reveals insights into protein-protein interactions, J. Mol. Biol. 324 (2002) 177-192.[4] J.D. Han et al, Evidence for dynamically organized modularity in the yeast proteinprotein interaction network, Nature. 430 (2004) 88-93.[5] G.D. Bader, C.W. Hogue, Analyzing yeast protein-protein interaction data obtained from different sources, Nat. Biotechnol. 20 (2002) 991-997.[6] H.B. Hunter et al, Evolutionary rate in the protein interaction network, Science. 296 (2002) 750-752.[7] J. Dutkowski, J. Tiuryn,J, Identification of functional modules from conserved ancestral protein-protein interactions, Bioinformatics. 23 (2007) i149-i158.[8] B.P. Kelley et al, Conserved pathways within bacteria and yeast as revealed by global protein network alignment, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 100 (2003) 11394-11399.[9] O. Kuchaiev, N. Przˇ ulj, Integrative network alignment reveals large regions of global network similarity in yeast and human, Bioinformatics. 27 (2011) 1390-1396.[10] M. Remm et al, Automatic clustering of orthologs and in-paralogs from pairwise species comparisons, J. Mol. Biol. 314 (2001) 1041-1052. [11] L. Chindelevitch et al, Local optimization for global alignment of protein interaction networks, In: Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, Hawaii, USA, 2010, pp. 123-132.[12] E. hmet, Aladağ, Cesim Erten, SPINAL: scalable protein interaction network alignment, Bioinformatics. Volume 29(7) (2013) 917-924. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btt071.[13] B.P. Kelley et al, Pathblast: a tool for alignment of protein interaction networks, Nucleic Acids Res. 32 (2004) 83-88.[14] R. Sharan et al, Conserved patterns of protein interaction in multiple species, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 102 (2005) 1974-1979.[15] M. Koyuturk et al, Pairwise alignment of protein interaction networks, J. Comput. Biol. 13 (2006) 182-199.[16] M. Narayanan, R.M. Karp, Comparing protein interaction networks via a graph match-and-split algorithm, J. Comput. Biol. 14 (2007) 892-907.[17] J. Flannick et al, Graemlin: general and robust alignment of multiple large interaction networks, Genome Res. 16 (2006) 1169-1181.[18] R. Singh et al, Global alignment of multiple protein interaction networks. In: Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, 2008, pp. 303-314.[19] M. Zaslavskiy et al, Global alignment of protein-protein interaction networks by graph matching methods, Bioinformatics. 25 (2009) 259-267.[20] L. Chindelevitch, Extracting information from biological networks. PhD Thesis, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, 2010.[21] Do Duc Dong et al, An efficient algorithm for global alignment of protein-protein interaction networks, Proceeding of ATC15, 2015, pp. 332-336.[22] S. Ropke, D. Pisinger, An Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search Heuristic for the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows. Transportation Science. 40 (2006) 455-472. https:// doi.org/10.1287/trsc.1050.0135.[23] P. Shaw, A new local search algorithm providing high quality solutions to vehicle routing problems, Technical report, Department of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde, Scotland, 1997.[24] Roman Lutz, Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search, Bachelor thesis, Ulm University, 2014.[25] M.A. Trick, A linear relaxation heuristic for the generalized assignment prob-lem, Naval Research Logistics. 39 (1992) 137-151.[26] J.Y. Potvin, M. Rousseau, Parallel Route Building Algorithm for the Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Problem with Time Windows, European Journal of Operational Research. 66(3) (1993) pp. 331-340.[27] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Network-alignment-a-A-dashed-arrow-from-a-node-i-V1-from-the-first-network-G1-V1-E_fig1_24017968[28] J.M. Peter, Van Laarhoven, H.L. Emile, Aarts. Simulated annealing. Springer, 1987.

Digital culture, as we know it, owes much to space exploration. The technological pursuit of outer space has fuelled innovations in signal processing and automated computing that have left an impact on the hardware and software that make our digital present possible. Developments in satellite technologies, for example, produced far-reaching improvements in digital image processing (Gonzalez and Woods) and the demands of the Apollo missions advanced applications of the integrated circuit – the predecessor to the microchip (Hall). All the inventive digital beginnings in space found their way back to earth and contributed to the development of contemporary formations of culture composed around practices dependent on and driven by digital technologies. Their terrestrial adoption and adaptation supported a revolution in information, mediation and communication technologies, increasing the scope and speed of global production, exchange and use of data and advancing techniques of imaging, mapping, navigation, surveillance, remote sensing and telemetry to a point that could only be imagined before the arrival of the space age. Steadily knotted with contemporary scientific, commercial and military endeavours and the fabric of the quotidian, digital devices and practices now have a bearing upon all aspects of our pursuits, pleasures and politics. Our increasing reliance upon the digital shaped the shared surfaces of human societies and produced cultures in their own right. While aware of the uneasy baggage of the term ‘culture’, we use it here to designate all digitally grounded objects, systems and processes which are materially and socially inflecting our ways of life. In this sense, we consider both what Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri describe as “those results of social production that are necessary for social interaction and further production, such as knowledges, languages, codes, information, affects, and so forth” (viii), and the material contexts of these products of the social. The effects of digital technologies on the socio-material ambits of human life are many and substantial and – as we want to suggest here – evolving through their ‘extraterrestrial’ beginnings. The contemporary courses of digital cultures not only continue to develop through investments in space exploration, they are themselves largely contingent on the technologies that we have placed in outer space, for instance, global telecommunications infrastructure, GPS, Google maps, weather and climate monitoring facilities and missile grids all rely on the constellation of satellites orbiting the earth. However, we have been increasingly witnessing something new: modes of social production that developed on earth from the technical demands of the space age are now being directed, or rather returned back to have new beginnings beyond the globe. Our focus in this paper is this outward momentum of digital cultures. We do not aim to overview the entire history of the digital in outer space, but instead to frame the extraterrestrial extension of human technologies in terms of the socio-material dimensions of extra-planetary digital cultures. Hannah Arendt described how the space age accelerated the already rapid pace of techno-scientific development, denying us pause during which to grasp its effects upon the “human condition”. Our treacherously fast technological conquest of outer space leaves in its wake an aporia in language and “the trouble”, as Arendt puts it, is that we will “forever be unable to understand, that is, to think and speak about the things which nevertheless we are able to do” (3). This crisis in language has at its core a problem of ontology: a failure to recognise that the words we use to describe ourselves are always, and have always been, bound up in our technological modes of being. As thinkers such as Gilbert Simondon and Bernard Stiegler argued and Arendt derided (but could not deny), our technologies are inseparably bound up with the evolutionary continuum of the human and the migration of our digital ways of life into outer space still further complicates articulation of our techno-logic condition. In Stiegler’s view the technical is the primordial supplement to the human into which we have been “exteriorising” our “interiors” of social memory and shared culture to alter, assert and advance the material-social ambits of our living milieu and which have been consequently changing the idea of what it is to be human (141). Without technologies – what Stiegler terms “organised inorganic matter” (17), which mediate our relationships to the world – there is no human in the inhuman extraterrestrial environment and so, effectively, it is only through the organisation of inert matter that culture or social life can exist outside the earth. Offering the possibility of digitally abstracting and processing the complexities and perils of outer space, space technologies are not only a means of creating a human milieu ‘out there’, but of expediting potentially endless extra-planetary progress. The transposition of digital culture into outer space occasions a series of beginnings (and returns). In this paper, we explore extra-planetary digital culture as a productive trajectory in broader discussions of the ontological status of technologies that are socially and materially imbricated in the idea of the human. We consider the digital facilitation of exchanges between earth and outer space and assign them a place in an evolving discourse concerned with expressing the human in relation to the technological. We suggest that ontological questions occasioned by the socio-material effects of technologies require consideration of the digital in outer space and that the inhuman milieu of the extraterrestrial opens up a unique perspective from which to consider the nascent shape of what might be the emerging extra-planetary beginnings of the post human. Digital Exurbias The unfolding of extra-planetary digital cultures necessitates the simultaneous exteriorisation of our production of the social into outer space and the domestication of our extraterrestrial activities here on earth. Caught in the processes of mediated exploration, the moon, Mars, Pluto and other natural or human-made celestial bodies such as the International Space Station are almost becoming remote outer suburbs – exurbias of earth. Digital cultures are reaching toward and expanding into outer space through the development of technologies, but more specifically through advancing the reciprocal processes of social exchanges between terrestrial and extraterrestrial space. Whether it be through public satellite tracking via applications such as Heavens-Above or The High Definition Earth Viewing system’s continuous video feed from the camera attached to the ISS (NASA, "High Definition") – which streams us back an image of our planetary habitat from an Archimedean point of view – we are being encouraged to embrace a kind of digital enculturation of extraterrestrial space. The production of social life outside our own planet has already had many forms, but perhaps can be seen most clearly aboard the International Space Station, presently the only extraterrestrial environment physically occupied by humans. Amongst its many landmark events, the ISS has become a vigorous node of social media activity. For example, in 2013 Chris Hadfield became a Twitter phenomenon while living aboard the ISS; the astronaut gathered over a million Twitter followers, he made posts on Facebook, Tumblr and Reddit, multiple mini-vids, and his rendition of David Bowie’s Space Oddity on YouTube (Hadfield) has thus far been viewed over 26 million times. His success, as has been noted, was not merely due to his use of social media in the unique environment of outer space, but rather that he was able to make the highly technical lives of those in space familiar by revealing to a global audience “how you make a sandwich in microgravity, how you get a haircut” (Potter). This techno-mediation of the everyday onboard ISS is, from a Stieglerian perspective, a gesture toward the establishment of “the relation of the living to its milieu” (49). As part of this process, the new trends and innovations of social media on earth are, for example, continuously replayed and rehearsed in the outer space, with a litany of ‘digital firsts’ such as the first human-sent extraterrestrial ‘tweet’, first Instagram post, first Reddit AMA and first Pinterest ‘pin’ (Knoblauch), betraying our obsessions with serial digital beginnings. The constitution of an extra-planetary milieu progresses with the ability to conduct real-time interactions between those on and outside the earth. This, in essence, collapses all social aspects of the physical barrier and the ISS becomes merely a high-tech outer suburb of the globe. Yet fluid, uninterrupted, real-time communications with the station have only just become possible. Previously, the Iinternet connections between earth and the ISS were slow and troublesome, akin to the early dial-up, but the recently installed Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPAL), a laser communications system, now enables the incredible speeds needed to effortlessly communicate with the human orbital outpost in real-time. After OPAL was affixed to the ISS, it was first tested using the now-traditional system test, “hello, world” (NASA, "Optical Payload"); referencing the early history of digital culture itself, and in doing so, perhaps making the most apt use of this phrase, ever. Open to Beginnings Digital technologies have become vital in sustaining social life, facilitating the immaterial production of knowledge, information and affects (Hardt and Negri), but we have also become increasingly attentive to their materialities; or rather, the ‘matter of things’ never went away, it was only partially occluded by the explosion of social interactivities sparked by the ‘digital revolution’. Within the ongoing ‘material turn’, there have been a gamut of inquiries into the material contexts of the ‘digital’, for example, in the fields of digital anthropology (Horst and Miller), media studies (Kirschenbaum, Fuller, Parikka) and science and technology studies (Gillespie, Boczkowski, and Foot) – to mention only a very few of these works. Outside the globe material things are again insistent, they contain and maintain the terrestrial life from which they were formed. Outer space quickens our awareness of the materiality underpinning the technical apparatus we use to mediate and communicate and the delicate support that it provides for the complex of digital practices built upon it. Social exchanges between earth and its extra-planetary exurbias are made possible through the very materiality of digital signals within which these immaterial interactions can take place. In the pared down reality of contemporary life in outer space, the sociality of the digital is also harnessed to bring forth forms of material production. For example, when astronauts in space recently needed a particular wrench, NASA was able to email them a digital file from which they were then able print the required tool (Shukman). Through technologies such as the 3D printer, the line between products of the social and the creation of material objects becomes blurred. In extra-planetary space, the ‘thingness’ of technologies is at least as crucial as it is on earth and yet – as it appears – material production in space might eventually rely on the infrastructures occasioned by the immaterial exchanges of digital culture. As technical objects, like the 3D printer, are evolving so too are conceptions of the relationship that humans have with technologies. One result of this is the idea that technologies themselves are becoming capable of producing social life; in this conception, the relationships and interrelationships of and with technologies become a potential field of study. We suggest here that the extra-planetary extension of digital cultures will not only involve, but help shape, the evolution of these relationships, and as such, our conceptions and articulations of a future beyond the globe will require a re-positioning of the human and technical objects within the arena of life. This will require new beginnings. Yet beginnings are duplicitous, as Maurice Blanchot wrote – “one must never rely on the word beginning”; technologies have always been part of the human, our rapport is in some sense what defines the human. To successfully introduce the social in outer space will involve an evolution in both the theory and practice of this participation. And it is perhaps through the extra-planetary projection of digital culture that this will come about. In outer space the human partnership with the objects of technology, far from being a utopian promise or dystopian end, is not only a necessity but also a productive force shaping the collective beginnings of our historical co-evolution. Objects of technology that migrate into space appear designed to smooth the ontological misgivings that might arise from our extra-planetary progress. While they are part of the means for producing the social in outer space and physical fortifications against human frailty, they are perhaps also the beginnings of the extraterrestrial enculturation of technologies, given form. One example of such technologies is the anthropomorphic robots currently developed by the Dextrous Robotics Laboratory for NASA. The latest iteration of these, Robotnaut 2 was the first humanoid robot in space; it is a “highly dexterous” robot that works beside astronauts performing a wide range of manual and sensory activities (NASA, "Robonaut"). The Robonaut 2 has recorded its own series of ‘firsts’, including being the “first robot inside a human space vehicle operating without a cage, and first robot to work with human-rated tools in space” (NASA, "Robonaut"). One of the things which mark it as a potential beginning is this ability to use the same tools as astronauts. This suggests the image of a tool using a tool – at first glance, something now quite common in the operation of machines – however, in this case the robot is able to manipulate a tool that was not designed for it. This then might also include the machine itself in our own origins, in that evolutionary moment of grasping a tool or stealing fire from the gods. As an exteriorisation of the human, these robots also suggest that a shared extra-planetary culture would involve acknowledging the participation of technologic entities, recognising that they share these beginnings with us, and thus are participating in the origins of our potential futures beyond the globe – the prospects of which we can only imagine now. Identifiably human-shaped, Robonauts are created to socialise with, and labour together with, astronauts; they share tools and work on the same complex tasks in the same environment aboard the International Space Station. In doing so, their presence might break down the separation between the living and the nonliving, giving form to Stiegler’s hypothesis regarding the ontology of technical objects, and coming to represent a mode of “being” described as “organized inert matter” (49). The robonaut is not dominated by the human, like a hand-held tool, nor is it dominating like a faceless system; it is engineered to be conducted, ‘organised’ rather than controlled. In addition to its anthropomorphic tendencies – which among other things, makes them appear more human than astronauts wearing space suits – is the robonaut’s existence as part of an assemblage of networked life that links technical objects with wet bodies into an animate system of information and matter. While this “heralds the possibility of making the technical being part of culture” (Simondon 16), it also suggests that extra-planetary digital cultures will harness what Simondon formulates as an “ensemble” of “open machines” – a system of sensitive technologies toward which the human acts as “organizer and as a living interpreter” (13). In the design of our extra-planetary envoys we are evolving toward this openness; the Robonaut, a technical object that shares in digital culture and its social and material production, might be the impetus through which the human and technological acquire a language that expresses a kind of evolutionary dialectic. As a system of inclusions that uses technologies to incorporate/socialise everything it can, including its own relationship with technical objects, digital culture in outer space clarifies how technologies might relate and “exchange information with each other through the intermediacy of the human interpreter” (Simondon 14). The Robonaut, like the tweeting astronaut, provides the test signals for what might eventually become points of communication between different modes of being. In this context, culture is collective cumulative memory; the ‘digital’ form of culture suggests an evolution of both technologic life and human life because it incorporates the development of more efficient means of storing and transmitting memory as cultural knowledge, while recognising the experience of both. Social learning and memory will first define the evolution of the Robonaut. Digital culture and the social expressed through technology – toward a shared social life and cultural landscape established in outer space – will involve the conservation, transmission and setting of common patterns that pool a composite interplay of material, neurobiologic and technologic variables. This will in turn require new practices of enculturation, conviviality with technologies, a sharing, incorporation and care. Only then might this transform into a discussion concerning the ontologies of the ‘we’. (Far from) Conclusions Hannah Arendt wrote that technologic progress could not find full expression in “normal” (3) language and that we must constantly be aware that our knowledge, politics, ethics and interactions with regard to technologies are incomplete, unformulated or unexpressed. It could be said then that our relationship with technologies is constantly beginning, that this need to keep finding new language to grasp it means that it actually progresses through its rehearsal of beginnings, through the need to maintain the productive inquisitive force of a pleasant first meeting. Yet Arendt’s idea emerges from a kind of contempt for technology and her implied separation between ‘normal’ and what could be called ‘technical’ language suggests that she privileges the lay ‘human’ tongue as the only one in which meaningful ideas can be properly expressed. What this fails to acknowledge is an appreciation of the potential richness of technical language and Arendt instead establishes a hierarchy that privileges one’s ‘natural’ language. The invocation of the term ‘normal’ is itself an admission of unequal relations with technologies. For a language to develop in which we can truly begin to express and understand the human relationship with ever-changing but ever-present technologies,, we must first allow the entrance of the language of technology into social life – it must be incorporated, learnt or translated. In the future, this might ultimately give technology a voice in a dialogue that might be half-composed of binary code. Digital culture is perhaps a forerunner of such a conversation and perhaps it is in the milieu of outer space that it could be possible to see advances in our ideas about the mutually co-constitutive relationship between the human and technical. 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Cultural Studies has tended to prioritise the domain of leisure and consumption over work as an area for meaning making, in many ways defining everyday life in opposition to work. Greg Noble, a cultural researcher who examined work in the context of the early computerisation of Australian universities made the point that "discussions of everyday life often make the mistake of assuming that everyday life equates with home and family life, or leisure" (87). This article argues for the need within Cultural Studies to focus on work and media as a research area of everyday life. With the growth of flexible and creative labour and the widespread uptake of an array of new media technologies used for work, traditional ways to identify and measure the space and time of work have become increasingly flawed, with implications for how we account for work and negotiate its boundaries. New approaches are needed to address the complex media environments and technological practices that are an increasing part of contemporary working life. Cultural Studies can make a significant impact towards this research agenda by offering new ways to analyse the complex interrelations of space, time and technology in everyday work practice. To further this goal, a new material practices account of work termed Officing is introduced, developed through my doctoral research on professionals' daily use of information and communication technology (ICT). This approach builds on the key cultural concepts of "bricolage" and "appropriation" combined with the idea of "articulation work" proposed by Anselm Strauss, to support the analysis of the office workplace as a contingent and provisional arrangement or process. Officing has a number of benefits as a framework for analysing the nature of work in a highly mediated world. Highlighting the labour that goes into stabilising work platforms makes it possible to assess the claims of productivity and improved work-life balance brought about by new mobile media technologies; to identify previously unidentified sources of time pressure, overwork and intensification and ultimately, to contribute to the design of more sustainable work environments. The Turn Away from Work Work held a central position in social and cultural analysis in the first half of the twentieth century but as Strangleman observed, there was a marked shift away from the study of work from the mid 1970s (3.1). Much of the impulse for this shift came from critiques of the over-emphasis on relations of production and the workplace as the main source of meaning and value (5.1). In line with this position, feminist researchers challenged the traditional division of labour into paid and unpaid work, arguing that this division sustained the false perception of domestic work as non-productive (cf. Delphy; Folbre). Accompanying these critiques were significant changes in work itself, as traditional jobs literally began to disappear with the decline of manufacturing in industrialised countries (6.1). With the turn away from work in academia and the changes in the nature of work, attention shifted to the realm of the market and consumption. One of the important contributions of Cultural Studies has been the focus on the role of the consumer in driving social and technological change and processes of identity formation. Yet, it is a major problem that work is largely marginalised in cultural research of everyday life, especially since, in most industrialised nations, we are working in new ways, in rapidly changing conditions and more than ever before. Research shows that in Australia there has been a steady increase in the average hours of paid work and Australians are working harder (cf. Watson, Buchanan, Campbell and Briggs; Edwards and Wajcman). In the 2008 Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) Skinner and Pocock found around 55 per cent of employees frequently felt rushed or pressed for time and this was associated with long working hours, work overload and an overall poor work–life interaction (8). These trends have coincided with long-term changes in the type and location of work. In Australia, like many other developed countries, information-based occupations have taken over manufacturing jobs and there has been an increase in part-time and casual work (cf. Watson et al.). Many employees now conduct work outside of the traditional workplace, with the ABS reporting that in 2008, 24 per cent of employees worked at least some hours at home. Many social analysts have explained the rise of casual and flexible labour as related to the transition to global capitalism driven by the expansion of networked information processes (cf. Castells; Van Dijk). This shift is not simply that more workers are producing ideas and information but that the previously separated spheres of production and consumption have blurred (cf. Ritzer and Jurgenson). With this, entirely new industries have sprung up, predicated on the often unpaid for creative labour of individuals, including users of media technologies. A growing chorus of writers are now pointing out that a fragmented, polarised and complex picture is emerging of this so-called "new economy", with significant implications for the quality of work (cf. Edwards and Wajcman; Fudge and Owens; Huws). Indeed, some claim that new conditions of insecure and poor quality employment or "precarious work" are fast becoming the norm. Moreover, this longer-term pattern runs parallel to the production of a multitude of new mobile media technologies, first taken up by professionals and then by the mainstream, challenging the notion that activities are bound to any particular place or time. Reinvigorating Work in Social and Cultural Analysis There are moves to reposition social and cultural analysis to respond to these various trends. Work-life balance is an example of a research and policy area that has emerged since the 1990s. The boundary between the household and the outside world has also been subject to scrutiny by cultural researchers, and these critically examine the intersection between work and consumption, gender and care (cf. Nippert-Eng; Sorenson and Lie; Noble and Lupton, "Consuming" and "Mine"; Lally). These responses are examples of a shift away from what Urry has dubbed "structures and stable organisations" to a concern with flows, movements and the blurring of boundaries between life spheres (5). In a similar vein, researchers recently have proposed alternative ways to describe the changing times and places of employment. In their study of UK professionals, Felstead, Jewson and Walters proposed a model of "plural workscapes" to explain a major shift in the spatial organisation of work (23). Mobility theorists Sheller and Urry have called for the need to "develop a more dynamic conceptualisation of the fluidities and mobilities that have increasingly hybridised the public and private" (113). All of this literature has reinforced a growing concern that in the face of new patterns of production and consumption and with the rise of complex media environments, traditional models and measures of space and time are inadequate to account for contemporary work. Analyses that rely on conventional measures of work based on hourly units clearly point to an increase in the volume of work, the speed of work and to the collision (cf. Pocock) of work and life but fall down in accounting for the complex and often contradictory role of technology. Media technologies are "Janus-faced" as Michael Arnold has suggested, referring to the two-faced Roman god to foreground the contradictory effects at the centre of all technologies (232). Wajcman notes this paradox in her research on mobile media and time, pointing out that mobile phones are just as likely to "save" time as to "consume" it (15). It was precisely this problematic of the complex interactions of the space, time and technology of work that was at stake in my research on the daily use of ICT by professional workers. In the context of changes to the location, activity and meaning of work, and with the multiplying array of old and new media technologies used by workers, how can the boundary and scope of work be determined? What are the implications of these shifting grounds for the experience and quality of work? Officing: A Material Practices Account of Office Work In the remaining article I introduce some of the key ideas and principles of a material practices account developed in my PhD, Officing: Professionals' Daily ICT Use and the Changing Space and Time of Work. This research took place between 2006 and 2007 focusing in-depth on the daily technology practices of twenty professional workers in a municipal council in Sydney and a unit of a global telecommunication company taking part in a trial of a new smart phone. Officing builds on efforts to develop a more accurate account of the space and time of work bringing into play the complex and highly mediated environment in which work takes place. It extends more recent practice-based, actor-network and cultural approaches that have, for some time, been moving towards a more co-constitutive and process-oriented approach to media and technology in society. Turning first to "bricolage" from the French bricole meaning something small and handmade, bricolage refers to the ways that individuals and groups borrow from existing cultural forms and meanings to create new uses, meanings and identities. Initially proposed by Levi-Strauss and then taken up by de Certeau, bricolage has been a useful concept within subculture and lifestyle studies to reveal the creative work performed on signs and meaning systems in forming cultural identities (cf. O'Sullivan et al.). Bricolage is also an important concept for understanding how meanings and uses are inscribed into forms in use rather than being read or activated off their design. This is the process of appropriation, through which both the object and the person are mutually shaped and users gain a sense of control and ownership (cf. Noble and Lupton; Lally; Silverstone and Haddon). The concept of bricolage highlights the improvisational qualities of appropriation and its status as work. A bricoleur is thus a person who constructs new meanings and forms by drawing on and assembling a wide range of resources at hand, sourced from multiple spheres of life. One of the problems with how bricolage and appropriation has been applied to date, notwithstanding the priority given to the domestic sphere, is the tendency to grant individuals and collectives too much control to stabilise the meanings and purposes of technologies. This problem is evident in the research drawing on the framework of "domestication" (cf. Silverstone and Haddon). In practice, the sheer volume of technologically-related issues encountered on a daily basis and the accompanying sense of frustration indicates there is no inevitable drift towards stability, nor are problems merely aberrational or trivial. Instead, daily limits to agency and attempts to overcome these are points at which meanings as well as uses are re-articulated and potentially re-invented. This is where "articulation work" comes in. Initially put forward by Anselm Strauss in 1985, articulation work has become an established analytical tool for informing technology design processes in such fields as Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Workplace Studies. In these, articulation work is narrowly defined to refer to the real time activities of cooperative work. It includes dealing with contingencies, keeping technologies and systems working and making adjustments to accommodate for problems (Suchman "Supporting", 407). In combination with naturalistic investigations, this concept has facilitated engagement with the increasingly complex technological and media environments of work. It has been a powerful tool for highlighting practices deemed unimportant but which are nevertheless crucial for getting work done. Articulation work, however, has the potential to be applied in a broader sense to explain the significance of the instability of technologies and the efforts to overcome these as transformative in themselves, part of the ongoing process of appropriation that goes well beyond individual tasks or technologies. With clear correspondences to actor-network theory, this expanded definition provides the basis for a new understanding of the office as a temporary and provisional condition of stability achieved through the daily creative and improvisational activities of workers. The office, then, is dependent on and inextricably bound up in its ongoing articulation and crucially, is not bound to a particular place or time. In the context of the large-scale transformations in work already discussed, this expanded definition of articulation work helps to; firstly, address how work is re-organised and re-rationalised through changes to the material conditions of work; secondly, identify the ongoing articulations that this entails and thirdly; understand the role of these articulations in the construction of the space and time of work. This expanded definition is achieved in the newly developed concept of officing. Officing describes a form of labour directed towards the production of a stable office platform. Significantly, one of the main characteristics of this work is that it often goes undetected by organisations as well as by the workers that perform it. As explained later, its "invisibility" is in part a function of its embodiment but also relates to the boundless nature of officing, taking place both inside and outside the workplace, in or out of work time. Officing is made up of a set of interwoven activities of three main types: connecting, synchronising and configuring. Connecting can be understood as aligning technical and social relations for the performance of work at a set time. Synchronising brings together and coordinates different times and temporal demands, for example, the time of "work" with "life" or the time "out in the field" with time "in the workplace". Configuring prepares the space of work, making a single technology or media environment work to some planned action or existing pattern of activity. To give an example of connecting: in the Citizens' Service Centre of the Council, Danielle's morning rituals involved a series of connections even before her work of advising customers begins: My day: get in, sit down, turn on the computer and then slowly open each software program that I will need to use…turn on the phone, key in my password, turn on the headphones and sit there and wait for the calls! (Humphry Officing, 123) These connections not only set up and initiate the performance of work but also mark Danielle's presence in her office. Through these activities, which in practice overlap and blur, the space and time of the office comes to appear as a somewhat separate and mostly invisible structure or infrastructure. The work that goes into making the office stable takes place around the boundary of work with implications for how this boundary is constituted. These efforts do not cluster around boundaries in any simple sense but become part of the process of boundary making, contributing to the construction of categories such as "work" and "life". So, for example, for staff in the smart phone trial, the phone had become their main source of information and communication. Turning their smart phone off, or losing connectivity had ramifications that cascaded throughout their lifeworld. On the one hand, this lead to the breakdown of the distinction between "work" and "life" and a sense of "ever-presence", requiring constant and vigilant "boundary work" (cf. Nippert-Eng). On the other hand, this same state also enabled workers to respond to demands in their own time and across multiple boundaries, giving workers a sense of flexibility, control and of being "in sync". Connecting, configuring and synchronising are activities performed by bodies, producing an embodied transformation. In the tradition of phenomenology, most notably in the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and more recently Ihde, embodiment is used to explain the relationship between subjects and objects. This concept has since been developed to be understood as not residing in the body but as spread through social, material and discursive arrangements (cf. Haraway, "Situated" and Simians; Henke; Suchman, "Figuring"). Tracing efforts towards making the office stable is thus a way of uncovering how the body, as a constitutive part of a larger arrangement or network, is formed through embodiment, how it gains its competencies, social meanings and ultimately, how workers gain a sense of what it means to be a professional. So, in the smart phone trial, staff managed their connections by replying immediately to their voice, text and data messages. This immediacy not only acted as proof of their presence in the office. It also signalled their commitment to their office: their active participation and value to the organisation and their readiness to perform when called on. Importantly, this embodied transformation also helps to explain how officing becomes an example of "invisible work" (cf. Star and Strauss). Acts of connecting, synchronising and configuring become constituted and forgotten in and through bodies, spaces and times. Through their repeated performance these acts become habits, a transparent means through which the environment of work is navigated in the form of skills and techniques, configurations and routines. In conclusion, researching work in contemporary societies means confronting its marginalisation within cultural research and developing ways to comprehend and measure the interaction of space, time and the ever-multiplying array of media technologies. Officing provides a way to do this by shifting to an understanding of the workplace as a contingent product of work itself. The strength of this approach is that it highlights the creative and ongoing work of individuals on their media infrastructures. It also helps to identify and describe work activities that are not neatly contained in a workplace, thus adding to their invisibility. The invisibility of these practices can have significant impacts on workers: magnifying feelings of time pressure and a need to work faster, longer and harder even as discrete technologies are utilised to save time. In this way, officing exposes some of the additional contributions to the changing experience and quality of work as well as to the construction of everyday domains. Officing supports an evaluation of claims of productivity and work-life balance in relation to new media technologies. In the smart phone trial, contrary to an assumed increase in productivity, mobility of work was achieved at the expense of productivity. Making the mobile office stable—getting it up and running, keeping it working in changing environments and meeting expectations of speed and connectivity—took up time, resulting in an overall productivity loss and demanding more "boundary work". In spite of their adaptability and flexibility, staff tended to overwork to counteract this loss. This represented a major shift in the burden of effort in the production of office forms away from the organisation and towards the individual. Finally, though not addressed here in any detail, officing could conceivably have practical uses for designing more sustainable office environments that better support the work process and the balance of work and life. Thus, by accounting more accurately for the resource requirements of work, organisations can reduce the daily effort, space and time taken up by employees on their work environments. In any case, what is clear, is the ongoing need to continue a cultural research agenda on work—to address the connections between transformations in work and the myriad material practices that individuals perform in going about their daily work. References Arnold, Michael. "On the Phenomenology of Technology: The 'Janus-Faces' of Mobile Phones." Information and Organization 13.4 (2003): 231–56. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 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"Consuming Work: Computers, Subjectivity and Appropriation in the University Workplace." The Sociological Review 46.4 (1998): 803-27. –––. "Mine/Not Mine: Appropriating Personal Computers in the Academic Workplace." Journal of Sociology 38.1 (2002): 5-23. O'Sullivan, Tim, John Hartley, Danny Saunders, Martin Montgomery, and John Fiske. Key Concepts in Communication and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1994. Pocock, Barbara. The Work/Life Collision: What Work Is Doing to Australians and What to Do about It. Sydney: The Federation P, 2003. Ritzer, George, and Nathan Jurgenson. "Production, Consumption, Prosumption." Journal of Consumer Culture 10.1 (2010): 13-36. Sheller, Mimi, and John Urry. "Mobile Transformations of 'Public' and 'Private' Life." Theory, Culture & Society 20.3 (2003): 107-25. Silverstone, Roger, and Leslie Haddon. "Design and the Domestication of Information and Communication Technologies: Technical Change and Everyday Life." Communication by Design: The Politics of Information and Communication Technologies. Eds. Roger Silverstone and Robin Mansell. Oxford: U of Oxford P, 1996. 44-74. Skinner, Natalie, and Barbara Pocock. "Work, Life and Workplace Culture: The Australian Work and Life Index (AWALI) 2008." Adelaide: The Centre for Work and Life, Hawke Research Institute, University of South Australia 2008 ‹http://www.unisa.edu.au/hawkeinstitute/cwl/default.asp›.Sorenson, Knut H., and Merete Lie. Making Technology Our Own? Domesticating Technologies into Everyday Life. Oslo: Scandinavian UP, 1996.Star, Susan L. "The Sociology of the Invisible: The Primacy of Work in the Writings of Anselm Strauss." Social Organization and Social Process: Essays in Honor of Anselm Strauss. New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991. 265-83. Star, Susan L., and Anselm Strauss. "Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work." Computer Supported Cooperative Work 8 (1999): 9-30. Strangleman, Timothy. "Sociological Futures and the Sociology of Work." Sociological Research Online 10.4 (2005). 5 Nov. 2005 ‹http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/4/strangleman.html›.Strauss, Anselm. "Work and the Division of Labor." The Sociological Quarterly 26 (1985): 1-19. Suchman, Lucy A. "Figuring Personhood in Sciences of the Artificial." Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. 1 Nov. 2004. 18 Jun. 2005 ‹http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/sociology/papers/suchman-figuring-personhood.pdf›–––. "Supporting Articulation Work." Computerization and Controversy: Value Conflicts and Social Choices. Ed. Rob Kling. San Diego: Academic P, 1995. 407-423.Urry, John. Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century. London: Routledge, 2000. Van Dijk, Jan. The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media. London: Thousand Oaks, 2006. Wajcman, Judy. "Life in the Fast Lane? Towards a Sociology of Technology and Time." 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Introduction Decision making on the fireground is a complex activity reflected in the cultural image of fire in contemporary Western societies, the expertise of firefighters and the public demand for response to fire. The split second decisions that must be made by incident commanders on the fireground demonstrate that the dominant models of rational, logical argument and naturalistic decision making are incapable of dealing with this complexity. Twelve senior ranking Australian fire officers participated in the investigation from which I propose that fireground incident commanders are relying on aesthetic awareness and somatic responses, similar to those of an artist, and that due to the often ineffable nature of their responses these sources of information are usually unacknowledged. As a result I have developed my own theory of decision making on the fireground, termed ‘Multimodal Decision Making’, which is distinguished from formal rationality and informal sense-based rationality in that it approaches art, science and practice as a complex and irreducible whole. Fire – Complex Decision Making The complex reality of a fireground incident is not effectively explained by decision making models based on logic. These models understand decision making in terms of a rational choice between various options (Dowie) and tend to oversimplify decision making. Grouped together they are commonly described as ‘traditional’. Recent research and the development of an alternative understanding, termed naturalistic decision making, has demonstrated that under the pressures of an emergency situation there is just not time enough to weight up alternatives (Flin, Salas, Strub and Martin; Klein). Naturalistic decision making draws on the cognitive sciences to explain how incident commanders make decisions when they are not using probability theory or rational logic (Montgomery, Lipshitz and Brehmer). Although I appreciate various aspects of the naturalistic models of decision making (Cannon-Bowers and Salas; Flin and Arbuthnot; Zsambok and Klein), the problem for me is that the research has been conducted from a cognitive task analysis perspective where typically each decision has been broken down into its supposed constituent parts, analysed and then reassembled. I understand this process to be counterproductive to appreciating complex and interrelated decision making. I propose an alternative explanation which I call Multimodal Decision Making. Multimodal Decision Making recognises that probability theory or rational logic does not adequately explain how incident commanders balance feelings of contradictory information in parallel, and by the very clash or strangeness of the juxtaposition, see a way forward. This is reasoning by similarity rather than calculation. I suggest that the mechanistic rational processes do not necessarily disappear, but that they are assimilated into a dynamic, as opposed to inflexible and rigid, approach to decision making. The following excerpt from a country Inspector is provided to illustrate the role of aesthetic awareness and somatic perception in fireground decision making. The Trembling Voice Early one morning a country Inspector is called out to a factory fire in a town, normally one hour’s drive away. It takes him 40 minutes to drive to the fire, and on the way he busies himself receiving two updates from the communications centre and talking by radio to the first arriving officer at the incident. Nothing the first arriving officer said was unusual or alarming. What was alarming, said the Inspector, was the very slight tremor in the first arriving officer’s voice. It contained a hint of fear. …so I got the message from the first pump that was on the scene. I could hear in his voice that he was quivering, so I thought ‘I am not too sure if he is comfortable, I’d better get him some help’ so I rang up the communications centre, and I said ‘Listen, I know you have got these two trucks coming from A., you’ve got the rural fire service’, I said ‘you need to send U. up now…I may have waited another 10 or 15 minutes before I said ‘Ok you better get G. there’ – it’s only another 40km maybe, I said ‘get them on the road as well.’ V – This is all while you are in the car? All while I am in the car driving to the incident, I am building a mental picture of what’s happening, and from hearing his voice, I felt that he was maybe not in control because of the quivering in it. V – Did you know him well already? Yeah I knew him sort of well enough… I could just tell, he sounded like he was in trouble…I felt once I arrived, he more or less – I could feel a weight come off his shoulders, ‘You’re here now, I don’t have to deal with this anymore, its all yours.’ The Inspector deduced the incident was possibly more serious than the communications centre had so far anticipated. He organised backup appliances, and these decisions, maintained the Inspector, were prompted by the “quivering” in the officer’s voice. On arrival he saw immediately that his call for backup was indeed necessary, because the fire was moving out of control with the possibility of spreading. Although the Inspector in this incident was not physically present, he relied on his aesthetic awareness and somatic perception to inform his decision making. He would have been justified if he acted only on the basis of incoming communications, which were presented in scientifically measurable terms: “factory well alight, two appliances in attendance…” and so on; nothing out of the ordinary, a straightforward incident. In fact, what he responded to was not the information he received as a verbal message, but rather the slight tremor in the first arriving officer’s voice. That is, the Inspector’s aesthetic awareness and somatic perception informed his decision to call for backup, overriding the word-information contained in the verbal report. Fire – Complex Cultural Image Fire is a complex object in itself and in a threatening context, such as the engulfment of an inhabited building, creates a complex environment which in turn, for me as a researcher, requires a complex method of inquiry. As a result I have been obliged to draw on theories of art and art criticism as part of my own method of enquiry and I have adopted Eisner and Powell’s application of aesthetics: It may be that somatic forms of knowledge – the use of the physical body as a source of information – play an important role in enabling scientists to make judgements about alternative courses of action or directions to pursue. It might be that qualitative cues are difficult to articulate, indeed clues that may themselves be ineffable, are critical for doing productive scientific work. (134) That is, sometimes the physical body is used as a source of information, and sometimes it is difficult to express in words how this happens. The following incident illustrates the importance of somatic awareness in decision making from an Inspector’s perspective. A Smell of Petrol In this incident a country Inspector was called to a row of factory units. The smell of petrol had been happening on and off over a period of 18 months, but now in the toilet of one shop it had become unbearable. The Inspector set his crew to work with a device that detects levels of petrol in the air, that he called a ‘sniffer’. When the ‘sniffer’ did not register a high value for petrol the Inspector considered the machine to be faulty and trusted his own sense of smell and that of his crew, over the ‘sniffer’. Decisions in this incident were informed by somatic response to the situation. In the Smell of Petrol, the Inspector considered his nose a more reliable source of information than a mechanised ‘sniffer’. Burning Ears Continuing the theme of mechanisation and technology, personal protective equipment, one Inspector informed me, has become so effective that firefighters are able to move much deeper into a fire than ever before. The new technology comes with a price. Previously firefighters perceived the sensation of their ears burning to be a warning sign. This somatic response has now been effectively curtailed. Technology in the form of increasing personal protective equipment, complex communication systems and sophisticated firefighting equipment is usually understood as increasing the opportunity to prevent and control an incident. Perhaps an alternative perspective could be that increasingly sophisticated technology is replacing somatic response with dangerous implications? Somatic awareness is developed within a cultural context. On the fireground, I understand the cultural context to be the image, as a fire is a moving, alive image demanding an immediate response. An arsonist may look for a fire to spiral out of control, enjoying the spectacle of an entire building being engulfed and spreading to the next office block. What is it that firefighters are looking for? What do they see? What directs their attention? Firefighters invariably see what they have been trained to see – smoke escaping from under the eaves, melting rubber between clip-lock walls, cracks in structural concrete, the colour and density of the smoke and so on. Their perception of signs, indicating their appreciation of the situation, and they way they perceive these signs – they look for them, gauge and measure their progress and act in response, are all intensified by time pressure and the imperative and means to do something. This is in sharp contrast to an arsonist or even the general public watching the fire’s progress on the TV news. The ability to comprehend and act on the visual is called aesthetics in the discipline of art criticism. I use the words ‘aesthetic awareness’ to mean the way an activity of perception is organised and informed to unspoken, but shared, principles for recognising fire features and characteristics; being able to share these principles helps with the building of an identity of expertise. In firefighting, as in other emergency service work, an aesthetic appreciation of the scene it is technically termed situational awareness (Banbury and Tremblay; Craig; Endsley and Garland) and sometimes colloquially known as a size-up. This is when incident commanders appraise the fireground and on the basis of their judgement, make decisions involving, for example, the placement of personnel and resources, calling for backup and so on. It is at this stage that the expertise of the incident commander is fore grounded and I suggest that a linear approach to decision making does not fully explain the complexities involved when a small input or adjustment can lead to very dramatic consequences. In fact, a small input leading to dramatic consequences is likely to indicate a non-linear system (Lewin). In a non-linear dynamic system, such as a fireground, some things may appear random, but they are known equations. Pink heralds a visual and non-linear approach, “perhaps some of the problems we face when we write linear texts with words as our only tool can be resolved by thinking of anthropology and its representations as not solely verbal, but also visual and not simply linear but multilinear” (Pink 10). With linear thinking there is a beginning and an end, which leads naturally to the supposition of cause and effect. This is because there is no looping back into the whole; it is as if there are many beginnings, leading to a fragmented sort of perception. Language shapes the way we perceive issues by virtue of the words we have to create our impressions with. Unfortunately, English and Western languages in general are not equipped for a multimodal communication. We are, by the structure of our language, almost squeezed into the position of talking linearly in terms of cause and effect for understanding what is happening. Fire – Complex Experience Creative decision making occurs when the person has a deep knowledge of the discipline. Great flashes of insight rarely come to the inexperienced mind. People who don’t understand rhythm, melody and harmony will not be able to compose complex pieces of music. Creative and innovative decision making on the fireground will not be possible without prior experience regarding how various materials react on combustion, the structure of the organisational hierarchy, crew configurations and the nature of the fire being fought. There is beginner’s luck of course, but this will not be a consistent approach to an otherwise fearful and dangerous situation, because knowing what to expect means feeling less danger and less fear, freeing up more energy to respond creatively. For example, consider a junior firefighter trembling in fear prior to their first incident, compared with an experienced firefighter who feels anticipation and exhilaration. We live in a world of specialisation and expert opinion, even if there is a certain cynicism creeping in over what makes someone an expert. Taylorism has ultimately produced people with high technical skills in one area and a lack of ability to see the whole picture (Konzelmann, Forrant and Wilkinson).As a counterbalance there is a current push towards multi-skilling and flattened hierarchies. For firefighting organisations this creates an interesting challenge. On the one hand there is a concentration on highly technical skill development which involves acknowledging the importance of team work; on the other, the demands of a time critical situation in which the imperative is to act quickly and decisively for the best possible outcome. Ultimate decision making responsibility lies with the incident commander who must be able to negotiate the complexity of the scene in its entirety, balancing competing demands rather than focusing solely on one aspect. The ease with which incident commanders move through the decision making process, perceiving the situation, looking at the fire and sizing it up, is not reliant on eyesight alone. It involves their ability to adjust, reframe, and move through the incident without losing their bearings, no matter how or where they are physically situated in relation to the fire. Seeing does not involve only eyesight, it sums up the experience of becoming so familiar and integrated with the aspects of fire behaviour that expert incident commanders do not lose their bearings in the process of changing their physical location. Often they rely on incoming intelligence to develop a three dimensional perspective of the fireground. They have a multimodal perspective, a holistic vista, because their sensory relationship with the fire is so thorough and extensive. Just looking at the fire for the incident commander, is not just looking at the fire, it is an aesthetic experience in which there is a shared standard for recognising what is happening, if not what should be done to mitigate it. Participating in the knowledge of these standards, these ways of seeing, is recognised as part of the identity of the group member. Nelson (97), who specialised in visually reading the man-made environment, wrote “we see what we are looking for, what we have been trained to see by habit or tradition.” Firefighters are known and respected within their cultural context by their depth of understanding of these shared standards. These shared standards may or may not be a reflection of the ideal or organisationally endorsed standard operating guidelines. I suggest that a heightened situational awareness and consequent decision making may be a visible indication of contribution and inclusion within the cultural practices of firefighting. Thus seeing involves not only eyesight, but also being a part of a cultural context; for example interpreting individualised body movements and gestures. Standard operating guidelines place rules and constraints on incident commanders. These guidelines provide a hierarchy of needs, and prescribe recommended approaches for various fireground contingencies. This does not mean that incident commanders are not creative. “Play and art without rules is uninteresting. Absolute liberty is boring” (Karlqvist 111). Within the context of the fireground, creative experience is deliberate as opposed to random. The creation of innovative approaches does not happen in a vacuum; rather it is the result of playing with the rules, stretching them, moving and testing them. It is essential to maintain common operating guidelines, or rules, because they form a stock body of common knowledge, but it is also essential to break the rules and play around with them. Karlqvist (112) writes “mastery reveals itself as breaking rules. The secret of creativity hinges on this insight, to know the right moment when you can go too far”. There are experts who are trained to be mechanical, and there are experts, such as the incident commanders I interviewed, who integrate and sometimes override the mechanical list of rules. Multimodal Decision Making is not primarily about an objective representation of the ‘truth’, but rather the unpredictable and complex conditions which incident commanders must negotiate. Conclusion When dealing with a complex and dynamic system, cause and effect are not sufficient explanation for what is happening. Instead of linear progression we are looking at a feedback or circular system, in which a small act may produce a larger reaction. Decision making on the fireground is a complex and difficult activity. Its complexity stems from the uncertain variables, the immediate threat to life and property, the safety of the crew, trapped victims, observing public, the perceptions reported by the media and the statutory obligations that motivate firefighters to their tasks are intricately interwoven. This melting pot of variable contingencies creates a complex working environment which I suggest is negotiated by a little acknowledged ability to integrate somatic and aesthetic awareness into decision making in time critical situations. When dealing with a complex and dynamic system, cause and effect are not sufficient explanation for what is happening. Instead of linear progression we are looking at a feedback or circular system, in which a small act may produce a larger reaction. Decision making on the fireground is a complex and difficult activity. Its complexity stems from uncertain variables which include the immediate threat to life and property, the safety of the crew, trapped victims, and observing public, the perceptions reported by the media and the statutory obligations that motivate firefighters to their tasks, all of which are intricately interwoven. This melting pot of variable contingencies creates a complex working environment which I suggest is negotiated by a little acknowledged ability to integrate somatic and aesthetic awareness into decision making in time critical situations. References Banbury, Simon, and Sebastian Tremblay, eds. A Cognitive Approach to Situational Awareness: Theory and Application. Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2004. Cannon-Bowers, Janis, and Eduardo Salas. Making Decisions under Stress. Washington: American Psychological Association, 1998. Craig, Peter. Situational Awareness: Controlling Pilot Error. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001. 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Konzelmann, Suzanne, Robert Forrant, and Frank Wilkinson. “Work Systems, Corporate Strategies and Global Markets: Creative Shop Floors or ‘a Barge Mentality’?” Industrial Relations Journal 35.3 (2004). Lewin, Roger. Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos. 2nd ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999. Montgomery, Henry, and Raanan Lipshitz, and Berndt Brehmer, eds. How Professionals Make Decisions. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005. Nelson, George. How to See: A Guide to Reading Our Manmade Environment. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977. Pink, Sarah. “Introduction: Situating Visual Research.” In Working Images, eds. Sarah Pink, Laszlo Kurti, and Ana Isabel Afonso. New York: Routledge, 2004. Zsambok, Caroline, and Gary Klein. Naturalistic Decision Making. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Ingham, Valerie. "Decisions on Fire." M/C Journal 10.3 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/06-ingham.php>. APA Style Ingham, V. (Jun. 2007) "Decisions on Fire," M/C Journal, 10(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/06-ingham.php>.

IntroductionThe Sydney Opera House is Australia’s, if not the world’s, most recognisable building. It is universally recognised as an architectural icon and as a masterpiece of the built environment, which has captured the imagination of many (Commonwealth of Australia 4). The construction of the Sydney Opera House, between 1959 and 1973, utilised many ground-breaking methods and materials which, together, pushed the boundaries of technical possibilities to the limits of human knowledge at the time (Commonwealth of Australia 36, 45). Typical investigations into the Sydney Opera House focus on its architects, the materials, construction, or the events that occur on its stages. The role of the illumination, in the perception and understanding of Australia’s most famous performing arts centre, is an under-investigated aspect of its construction and its use today (Dwyer Backstage Biography 1; Dwyer “Utzon’s Use” 131).This article examines the illumination of the Sydney Opera House from the perspective of light as a construction material, another element that is used to ‘build’ the structure on Bennelong Point. This article examines the illumination from an historical view as Jørn Utzon’s (1918-2008) concepts for the building, including the lighting design intentions, were not all realised as he did not complete the project. The task of finishing this structure was allocated to the architectural cooperative of Hall, Todd & Littlemore who replaced Utzon in 1966. The Danish-born Utzon was appointed in January 1957 having won an international competition, from a field of over 230 entries, to design a national opera house for Sydney. He quickly began the task of resolving his design, transforming the roughly-sketched concepts presented in his competition entry, into detailed drawings that articulated how the opera house would be realised. The iteration of these concepts can be most succinctly identified in Utzon’s formal design reports to the Opera House Committee which are often referred to based on the colour of their cover design. The first report, the ‘red book’ was issued in 1958 with further developments of the architectural and services designs outlined in the ‘yellow book’ which followed in 1962. The last of the original architects’ publications was the Utzon Design Principles (2002) which was created as part of the reengagement process—between the Government of New South Wales and the Sydney Opera House with the original architect—that commenced in 1999.As with many modern buildings (such as Eero Saarinen’s TWA Flight Center, Richard Meier’s Jubilee Church or Adrian D. Smith’ Burj Khalifa), concrete was selected to form the basic structural element of the Sydney Opera House. Working with the, now internationally-renowned, engineering firm Ove Arup and Partners, Utzon designed some of the most significant shapes and finishes that have become synonymous with the site. The concrete elements range from basic blade walls with lustrous finishes to the complex, shape-changing beams that rise from under the monumental stairs and climb to terminate in the southern foyers. Thus, demonstrating the use of concrete as both a structural element and a high quality architectural finish. Another product used throughout the Sydney Opera House is granite. As a hardwearing stone, it is used in a crushed form as part of the precast panels that line the walls and internal flooring and as setts on the forecourt. As with the concrete the use of the same material inside and out blurs the distinction between interior and exterior. The forecourt forms a wide-open plaza before the building rises like a headland as it meets the harbour. The final, and most recognisable element is that of the shell (or roof) tiles. After many years of research Utzon settled on a simple mix of gloss and matt tiles of approximately 120mm square that, carefully arranged, produced a chevron shaped ‘lid’ and results in an effect likened to snow and ice (Commonwealth of Australia 51).These construction elements would all remain invisible if not illuminated by light, natural or artificial. This paper posits that the illumination reinforces the architecture of the structure and extends the architectural and experiential narratives of the Sydney Opera House across time and space. That, light is—like concrete, granite and tiles—a critical component of the Opera House’s build.Building a Narrative with LightIn creating the Sydney Opera House, Utzon set about harnessing natural and artificial illumination that are intrinsic parts of the human condition. Light shapes every facet of our lives from defining working and leisure hours to providing the mechanism for high speed communications and is, therefore, an obvious choice to reinforce the structure of the building and to link the built environment with the natural world that enveloped his creation. Light was to play a major role in the narrative of the Sydney Opera House starting from a patron’s approach to the site.Utzon’s staged approach to a performance at the Sydney Opera House is well documented, from the opening passages of the Descriptive Narrative (Utzon 1-2) to the Lighting Master Plan (Steensen Varming). The role of artificial light in the preparation of the audience extends beyond the simple visibility necessary to navigate the site. Light provides a linking element that guides an audience member along their ‘journey’ through several phases of transformation from the physicality of the city on the forecourt to “another world–a make believe atmosphere, which will exclude all outside impressions and allow the patrons to be absorbed into the theatre mood, which the actors and the producers wish to create” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2) in the theatres. Utzon conceived of light as part of the storytelling process, expressing the building’s narrative in a way that allows illumination is to be so much more than signposts to points of activity such as cloaking areas, theatre entries and the like. The lighting was intended to delineate various stages on the ‘journey’ noted above, to reinforce the transition from one world to another such that the combination of light and architecture would provide a series of successive stimuli that would build until the crescendo of the performance itself. This supports the transition of the visitor from the world of the everyday into the narrative of the Sydney Opera House and a world of make believe. Yet, in providing a narrative between these two ‘worlds’ the lighting becomes an anchor—or an element held in suspension – a mediator in the tension between the city at the beginning of the ‘journey’ and the ‘other world’ of the performance at the end. There is a balance to be maintained between illuminating the Sydney Opera House so that it remains prominent in its harbour location, easily read as a distinct sculptural structure on the peninsular separate from, but still an essential part of, the city that lies beyond Circular Quay to the south. Utzon alludes to the challenges of crafting the illumination so that it meets these requirements, noting that the illumination of the broardwalks “must be compatible with the lighting on the approach roads” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 68) while maintaining that “the floodlit building will be the first and last impression for [… an audience] to receive” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1). These lighting requirements are also tempered by the desire that the “night time [...] view will be all lights and reflections, [that] stretch all along the harbour for many miles” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1) reinforcing the use of light as an anchor that provides both a point of reference and serves as a mediator of the Sydney Opera House’s place within the city.The narrative of the materials and elements that are combined to give the final, physical form its striking sensory presence is also told through light, in particular colour. Or, perhaps more precisely in an illumination sense, the accurate reproduction of colour and by extension accurate presentation of the construction materials used in the creation of the Sydney Opera House. Expression of the ‘truth’ in the materials he used was important for Utzon and the faithful representation of details such as the fine grains in timber and the smooth concrete finishes required careful lighting to enhance these features. When extended to the human occupants of the Sydney Opera House, there is a short, yet very descriptive instruction: the lighting is to give “life to the skin and hair on the human form in much the same way as the light from candles” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Thus, the narrative of the materials and their quality was as important as the final structure and those who would occupy it. It is the role of light to build upon the story of the materials to contribute to the overall narrative of the Sydney Opera House.Building an Experience through IlluminationUtzon envisaged that light would do much more than provide illumination or tell the narrative of the materials he had selected – light was also to build a unique architectural experience for a patron. The experience of light was to be subtle; the architecture was to retain a position of centre stage, reinforced by, rather than ever replaced by, the illumination. In this way, concealed lighting was proposed which would be “designed in close collaboration with the acoustical engineers as they will become an integral part of overall acoustic design” and “installed in carefully selected places based on knowledge gleaned from experimental work” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Through concealing the light source, the architecture did not become cluttered or over powered by a dazzling array of fixtures and fittings that detracted from the audience’s experiences. For instance, to illuminate the monumental steps, Utzon proposed that the fittings would be recessed into the handrails, while the bar and lounge areas would be lit from discreet fittings installed within the plywood ceiling panels (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 16) to create an experience of light that was unified across the site. In addition to the aesthetical improvements gained from the removal of the light sources from the field of view, unwanted glare is also reduced reinforcing the ‘whole’ of the architectural experience.During the time that Utzon was conceptualising the illumination of the Sydney Opera House, the Major Hall (what is now known as the Concert Hall) was envisaged as what might be considered as a modern multipurpose venue, one that could accommodate among other activities: symphonic concerts; opera; ballet and dance; choral concerts; pageants and mass meetings (NSW Department of Local Government 24). The Concert Hall was the terminus for the ‘journey’—where the actors and audience find themselves in the same space, the ‘other world’—“a make believe atmosphere, which will exclude all outside impressions and allow the patrons to be absorbed into the theatre mood, which the actors and the producers wish to create” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2). This other world was to sumptuously explode with rich colours “which uplift you in that festive mood, away from daily life, that you expect when you go to the theatre, a play, an opera or a concert” (Utzon Utzon Design Principles 34). These highly decorated and colourful finishes contrast with the white shells further highlighting the ‘journey’ that has taken place. Utzon proposed to use the illumination to reinforce this distance and provide the link between the natural colours of the raw materials used outside the theatre and highly decorated colours of the performance spaces.The lighting treatment of the theatres extended into the foyers and their public amenities to ensure that the lighting design contributed to the overall enhancement of a patron’s visit and delivered the experience of the ‘journey’ that was envisaged by Utzon (Dwyer “Utzon’s Use” 130-32). This standardised approach was in concert with Utzon’s architectural philosophy where repetitive systems of construction elements were utilised, for instance, in the construction of the shells. Utzon clearly articulated this approach in The Descriptive Narrative, noting that “standard light fittings will be chosen […] to suit each location” (67), however the standardisation would not compromise other considerations of the space such as the acoustical performance, with Utzon noting that the “fittings for auditoria and rehearsal rooms must be of necessity, designed in close collaboration with the acoustical engineers as they will become an integral part of over acoustic design” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). Another parallel between the architectural development of the Sydney Opera House and Utzon’s approach to the lighting concepts was, uncommon at the time, his preference for prototyping and experimentation with lighting effects and various fittings (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 67). A sharp contrast to the usual practices of the day which relied upon more straightforward procurement processes with generic rather than tailored solutions. Peter Hall, of Hall, Todd & Littlemore, discussed the typical method of lighting design which was prevalent during the construction of the Sydney Opera House, as a method which “amounted to the electrical engineers laying out on a plan sufficient off-the-shelf light fittings to achieve the desired illumination levels […] the resulting effects were dull even if brightly lit” (Hall 180). Thus, Utzon’s careful approach to ensure that light and architecture were in harmony as “nothing is introduced into the scheme, before it has been carefully investigated and has proved to be the right solution to the problem” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 2) was highly innovative for its time.The use of light to provide an experience was not necessarily new, for example RSL Clubs, theme parks and department stores all used light to attract attention to their products and services, however the scale and proposed execution of these concepts was pioneering for Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Utzon’s concepts provided a highly experiential unified design to provide the patron with a unique architectural experience built through the careful use of light.Building the Scenery with LightArchitecture might be considered set design on a grand scale (for example see Raban, Rasmuseen and Read). Both architects and set designers are concerned with the relationship between the creative designs and the viewers and both set up opportunities for interactions between people (as actors or users) and structure. However, without light, the scene remains literally, in the dark, isolated from its surroundings and unperceetable to an audience.Utzon was acutely aware of the relationship between the Sydney Opera House and the city in which it stands. The positioning of the structure on the site is no accident and the interplay between the ‘sails’ and the sun is perhaps the most recognised lighting feature of the Sydney Opera House. By varying the angle of the shells, the reflections and the effects of the sunlight are constantly varying depending on the viewer’s position and focus. More importantly, these subtle variations in the light enhance the sculptural effect of the direct illumination and help create the effect of “matt snow and shining ice” (Commonwealth of Australia 51): the ‘shimmer of life’ so desired by Utzon as the sunlight strikes the ceramic tiles. This ‘shimmer’ is not the only natural lighting effect. The use of the different angles ensures variation in the light, clouds and resulting shadows to heighten interest and create an ever-changing scene that plays out on the shells as the sun moves across the sky, as Utzon notes, “something new goes on all the time and it is so important–this interplay is so important that together with the sun, the light and the clouds, it makes it a living thing” (Utzon Sydney Opera House 49). This scene is enhanced by the changing quality of the sunlight; the shells appear to be deep amber at first light their shadows long and faint before becoming shorter and stronger as the sun moves towards its midday position with the colour changing slowly to ‘pure’ white before the shadows change sides, the process reverses and they again disappear under the cover of darkness. Although the scene replays daily, the relative location of the sun and changing weather patterns ensure infinite variation in the effect.This changing scene, on a grand scale, with light as the central character is just as important as the theatrical performances taking place indoors on the stages. With a mobile audience, the detailing of the visual scene that is the structure becomes more important. The Sydney Opera House competes for attention with shipping movements in the harbour, the adjacent bridge with the ant-like procession of climbers and the activities of the city to the south. Utzon foresaw this noting that the “position on a peninsular, which is overlooked from all angles makes it important to maintain an all-round elevation. There can be no backsides to the building and nothing can be hidden from the view” (Utzon Descriptive Narrative 1). The use of natural light to enhance the sculptural form and reinforce isolation of the structure on the peninsular, centre stage on the harbour is therefore not a coincidence. Utzon has deliberately harnessed the natural light to ensure that the Sydney Opera House is just as vibrant a performer as its surroundings. In this way, Utzon has used light to anchor the Sydney Opera House both in the city it serves and for the performances it houses.It is not just the natural light that is used as such an anchor point. Utzon planned for artificial lighting of the sails and surrounding site to ensure that after dark the ‘shimmer’ of the white tiles would be maintained with an equivalent, if manufactured, effect. For Utzon, the sculptural qualities of structure were important and should be clearly ‘read’ at night, even against a dark harbour on one side and the brighter city on the other. Through the use of artificial lighting, Utzon set the scene on Bennelong Point with the structure clearly centred in the set that is the Sydney skyline. This reinforced the notion that a journey into the Sydney Opera House was something special, a transition from the everyday to the ‘other’ world.ConclusionFor Utzon light was just as essential as concrete and other building materials for the design of the Sydney Opera House. The traditional bright lights of the stage had no place in the architectural illumination, replaced instead by a much more subtle, understated use of light, and indeed its absence. Utzon planned for the lighting to envelope an audience but not to smother them. Unfortunately, he was unable to complete his project and in 1968 J.M. Waldram was eventually appointed to complete the lighting design. Waldram’s lighting solutions—many of which are still in place today—borrowed or significantly drew upon Utzon’s original illumination concepts, thus demonstrating their strength and timeless qualities. In this way light builds on the story of the structure, reinforcing the architecture of the building and extending the narratives of the construction elements used to build the Sydney Opera House.AcknowledgementsThe author acknowledges the assistance of Rachel Franks for her input on an early draft of this article and thanks the blind peer reviewers for their generous feedback and suggestions, of course any remain errors or omissions are my own. ReferencesCommonwealth of Australia. Sydney Opera House Nomination by the Government of Australia for Inscription on the World Heritage List. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2006.Cleaver, Jack. Surface and Textured Finishes for Concrete and Their Impact upon the Environment. 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