Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Rqf Publication Quality Measures: Methodological Issues, John Lamp, Simon Milton, Linda Dawson, Julie Fisher

Associate Professor Linda Dawson

The Research Quality Framework uses Thomson-ISI citation benchmarks as its main set of objective measures of research quality. The Thomson-ISI measures rely on identifying a core set of journals in which the major publications for a discipline are to be found. The core for a discipline is determined by applying a nontransparent process that is partly based on Bradford's Law (1934). Yet Bradford was not seeking measures about quality of publications or journals. How valid then is it to base measures of publication quality on Bradford's Law? We explore this by returning to Bradford's Law and subsequent related research asking …

Similarity-Based Search For Model Checking: A Pilot Study With Java Pathfinder, Elmin Ibrahimov, Jixing Wang, Zhiquan Zhou

Dr Zhiquan Zhou

When a model checker cannot explore the entire state space because of limited resources, model checking becomes a kind of testing with an attempt to find a failure (violation of properties) quickly. We consider two state sequences in model checking: (i) the sequence in which new states are generated, and (ii) the sequence in which the states generated in sequence (i) are checked for property violation. We observe that neighboring states in sequence (i) often have similarities in certain ways. Based on this observation we propose a search strategy, which generates sequence (ii) in such a way that similar states …

On The Correlation Between The Effectiveness Of Metamorphic Relations And Dissimilarities Of Test Case Executions, Yuxiang Cao, Zhi Quan Zhou, Tsong Yueh Chen

Dr Zhiquan Zhou

Metamorphic testing (MT) is a property-based automated software testing method. It alleviates the oracle problem by testing programs against metamorphic relations (MRs), which are necessary properties among multiple executions of the target program. For a given problem, usually more than one MR can be identified. It is therefore of practical importance for testers to know the nature of good MRs, that is, which MRs are likely to have higher chances of revealing failures. To address this issue we investigate the correlation between the faultdetection effectiveness of MRs and the dissimilarity (distance) of test case execution profiles. Empirical study results reveal …

The Future Prospects Of Embedded Microchips In Humans As Unique Identifiers: The Risks Versus The Rewards, Katina Michael, M G. Michael

M. G. Michael

Microchip implants for humans are not new. Placing heart pacemakers in humans for prosthesis is now considered a straightforward procedure. In more recent times we have begun to use brain pacemakers for therapeutic purposes to combat illnesses such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, and severe depression. Microchips are even being placed inside prosthetic knees and hips during restorative procedures to help in the gathering of post-operative analytics that can aid rehabilitation further. While medical innovations that utilize microchips abound, over the last decade we have begun to see the potential use of microchip implants for non-medical devices in humans, namely for …

Social Implications Of Technology: The Past, The Present, And The Future, Karl Stephan, Katina Michael, M. G. Michael, Laura Jacob, Emily Anesta

M. G. Michael

The social implications of a wide variety of technologies are the subject matter of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT). This paper reviews the SSIT’s contributions since the Society’s founding in 1982, and surveys the outlook for certain key technologies that may have significant social impacts in the future. Military and security technologies, always of significant interest to SSIT, may become more autonomous with less human intervention, and this may have both good and bad consequences. We examine some current trends such as mobile, wearable, and pervasive computing, and find both dangers and opportunities in these trends. …

Speculative Tech: The Bitcoin Legal Quagmire & The Need For Legal Innovation, Paul H. Farmer Jr.

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Emerge, Tammi M. Owens

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Lightning talk presented at the 2014 LITA Forum. This inspire talk was for my early-career colleagues with titles like "Emerging Technologies Librarian," especially those who are at smaller institutions. Created on the fly on the iPad Mini with Haiku Deck.

Let’S Play: Understanding The Role And Significance Of Digital Gaming In Old Age, Julie A. Skalsky Brown

Theses and Dissertations--Gerontology

Despite a marked increase in the use of digital games among older persons, there is insufficient research that provides insight into the gaming experiences of this population. A major demographic shift within the senior gaming market has ushered in a new perspective on the use of digital games as a tool for physical and cognitive health, and improved socialization. It is proposed that individual notions of play, which are developed over the life course, influence digital game play engagement and interaction preferences, and contribute to well-being. This study explored how self-perceptions of play over the course of the senior gamer’s …

Toward A Formalism Of Modeling And Simulation Using Model Theory, Saikou Y. Diallo, Jose Padilla, Ross Gore, Heber Herencia-Zapana, Andreas Tolk

VMASC Publications

This article proposes a Modeling and Simulation (M&S) formalism using Model Theory. The article departs from the premise that M&S is the science that studies the nature of truth using models and simulations. Truth in models and simulations is relative as they seek to answer specific modeling questions. Consequently, truth in M&S is relative because every model is a purposeful abstraction of reality. We use Model Theory to express the proposed formalism because it is built from the premise that truth is relative. The proposed formalism allows us to: (1) deduce formal definitions and explanations of areas of study in …

Stolen Future, Broken Present: The Human Significance Of Climate Change, David A. Collings

Bowdoin Scholars' Bookshelf

This book argues that climate change has a devastating effect on how we think about the future. Once several positive feedback loops in Earth’s dynamic systems, such as the melting of the Arctic icecap or the drying of the Amazon, cross the point of no return, the biosphere is likely to undergo severe and irreversible warming.

Nearly everything we do is premised on the assumption that the world we know will endure into the future and provide a sustaining context for our activities. But today the future of a viable biosphere, and thus the purpose of our present activities, is …

Agriculture And Natural Resource Scientists' Biodiversity Information Needs: Barriers And Facilitators To Use And Access In The Us Southeast, Miriam Davis, Carol Tenopir, Suzie Allard

DataONE Sociocultural and Usability & Assessment Working Groups

In a study funded by the United States Geological Survey, a leading provider of biodiversity information, the University of Tennessee Center for Information and Communication Studies assessed the biodiversity information needs of south eastern US agriculture, natural resource management and other life scientists. Results reveal that 30% of agriculture and resource management scientists describe finding the biodiversity information they need as difficult. In addition, while agriculture and resource management scientists are better than other life scientists at searching for, finding and knowing where to find the biodiversity information they need to do their work, they experience significantly greater difficulty accessing …

Location Prediction Of Twitter Users Using Wikipedia, Revathy Krishnamurthy, Pavan Kapanipathi, Amit P. Sheth, Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan

Kno.e.sis Publications

The mining of user generated content in social media has proven very effective in domains ranging from personalization and recommendation systems to crisis management. The knowledge of online users locations makes their tweets more informative and adds another dimension to their analysis. Existing approaches to predict the location of Twitter users are purely data-driven and require large training data sets of geo-tagged tweets. The collection and modelling process of tweets can be time intensive. To overcome this drawback, we propose a novel knowledge based approach that does not require any training data. Our approach uses information in Wikipedia, about cities …

Model For Acid-Mediated Tumour Invasion With Chemotherapy Intervention I: Spatially Homogeneous Populations, Andrew Brett Holder, Marianito R. Rodrigo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

The acid-mediation hypothesis, that is, the hypothesis that acid produced by tumours, as a result of aerobic glycolysis, provides a mechanism for invasion, has so far been considered as a relatively closed system. The focus has mainly been on the dynamics of the tumour, normal-tissue, acid and possibly some other bodily components, without considering the effect of an external intervention such as a cytotoxic treatment. This article aims to examine the effect that a cytotoxic treatment has on a tumour growing under the acid-mediation hypothesis by using a simple set of ordinary differential equations that consider the interaction between normal-tissue, …

Commons At The Intersection Of Peer Production, Citizen Science, And Big Data: Galaxy Zoo, Michael J. Madison

Book Chapters

The knowledge commons research framework is applied to a case of commons governance grounded in research in modern astronomy. The case, Galaxy Zoo, is a leading example of at least three different contemporary phenomena. In the first place Galaxy Zoo is a global citizen science project, in which volunteer non-scientists have been recruited to participate in large-scale data analysis via the Internet. In the second place Galaxy Zoo is a highly successful example of peer production, sometimes known colloquially as crowdsourcing, by which data are gathered, supplied, and/or analyzed by very large numbers of anonymous and pseudonymous contributors to an …

Governing Knowledge Commons -- Introduction & Chapter 1, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Katherine J. Strandburg

Book Chapters

“Knowledge commons” describes the institutionalized community governance of the sharing and, in some cases, creation, of information, science, knowledge, data, and other types of intellectual and cultural resources. It is the subject of enormous recent interest and enthusiasm with respect to policymaking about innovation, creative production, and intellectual property. Taking that enthusiasm as its starting point, Governing Knowledge Commons argues that policymaking should be based on evidence and a deeper understanding of what makes commons institutions work. It offers a systematic way to study knowledge commons, borrowing and building on Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize-winning research on natural resource commons. It …

Trumping Communitarianism: Crime Control And Forensic Dna Typing And Databasing In Singapore, Victor Toom

victor toom

Liberalism and communitarianism have figured prominently in discussions of how to govern forensic DNA practices (forensic DNA typing and databasing). Despite the prominence of these two political philosophies and their underlying values, no studies have looked at the governance of forensic DNA practices in a nondemocratic country governed by a communitarian logic. To fill this lacuna in the literature, this article considers Singapore as an authoritarian state governed by a communitarian philosophy. The article highlights basic innovations and technologies of forensic DNA practices and articulates a liberal democratic version of “biolegality” as described by Michael Lynch and Ruth McNally. It …

Hidden In Full Sight: Kinship, Science And The Law In The Aftermath Of The Srebrenica Genocide, Erica Haimes, Victor Toom

victor toom

Terms such as “relationship testing,” “familial searching” and “kinship analysis” figure prominently in professional practices of disaster victim identification (DVI). However, despite the dependence of those identification technologies on DNA samples from people who might be related to the dead and despite also the prominence of the notion of “relatedness” as a device for identifying the dead, the concepts of “relatedness” and “kinship” remain elusive both in practice and in analyses of the social and ethical aspects of DVI by DNA; they are hidden in full sight. In this article, we wish to bring kinship more to the fore. We …

The Security Culture Of A Global And Multileveled Cyber Security, Zenonas Tziarras

Zenonas Tziarras

This paper seeks to argue for the development of a global and multileveled management of cybersecurity. To do so we first define cybersecurity by situating it within the broader framework of the changing concept of security. To this end we look at the evolution of the security concept, mainly since the end of the Cold War, and its relationship to cybersecurity in today’s global affairs. Then we identify the referent object of security, the importance of cyberthreats, and the need for a multileveled management of cybersecurity and cyberthreats. For such a management to be possible and effective, this paper argues …

Connecting Research On Social Issues In Nanotechnology: The Center For Nanotechnology In Society At Arizona State University, Jan Youtie, Philip Shapira

Philip Shapira

Central to the emergence of new research topics is the creation of a research network. This paper looks at the creation of a network of researchers of social issues in nanotechnology and the role of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University (CNS-ASU) in the creation of this network. While there has been US investment in societal research on nanotechnology, a debate exists about the extent to which a research community has been created through these investments. This paper uses three approaches to examine the extent to which CNS-ASU is associated with the development of a research …

L’Investimento Nelle Reti Nga A Larga Banda: La 'Questione Settentrionale', Nicola Matteucci

Nicola Matteucci

Current developments of DAE (digital agenda for Europe) emphasize investments in NGA broadband networks as a main step to promote public and private eServices and transform public administrations. We focus on Northern Italy, where fast diffusion of NGAN is currently perceived as a fundamental ingredient for increasing competitiveness and curb the economy’s decline. In particular, this work investigates the widespread market failures characterizing Italian NGAN roll-out, the possible solutions and the technical and financial feasibility of the proposed plans – both private and public. Together, it connects the issue of NGAN financing with the current debate on the efficient and …