The “New Mind” revisited, or minding the content/vehicle distinction: a response to Manzotti and Pepperell

I argue that Manzotti and Pepperell’s presentation of the New Mind not only obfuscates pertinent differences between externalist views of various strengths, but also, and most problematically, conflates a distinction that cannot, without consequences, be conflated. We can talk about the contents of the mind and/or about the vehicles of those contents. But we should not conflate the two. Conflation of contents and vehicles comes with a price. In Manzotti and Pepperell’s case, it undermines claims they make about the implications of the New Mind.     

Security Maintenance Mediation: a technology for preventing unintended security breaches

Web‐resident information is becoming ‘smarter’, in the sense that emerging technology will support the annotation of it with ontological terms, which will be used to locate and reuse information. This will pose a great security risk in the form of unintended breaches (as distinct from deliberate invasions). Web‐resident information will be far more readily available and relevant, thus causing inadvertent releases of secure information to potentially cause it to be diffusely spread across the Internet. Then as this information is iteratively transformed and integrated with other information, it will become irretrievable and potentially used in a myriad of unpredictable ways. The problem is that ontological annotations, while making information more understandable in its original form, do not provide a means for easily capturing the complex semantics of information that has been transformed via abstraction, aggregation, and integration. This demands the development of a semantically rich way of specifying ‘views’ of Web information, to which security controls can be attached. Also needed is a way for users of secure information to easily and voluntarily blend—and thereby propagate—security controls as information is transformed. Information mediators designed by collaborative teams of experts are proposed as the vehicle for wrapping information, so that at each step of reuse, high‐level views and their corresponding integrity controls can be made easily accessible to trusted users who will then be able to ensure their proper maintenance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mining urban data (part A)

Modern cities are flooded with data. New information sources like public transport and wearable devices provide opportunities for novel applications that will improve citizens׳ quality of life. From a data science perspective, data emerging from smart cities give rise to a lot of challenges that constitute a new inter-disciplinary field of research. This article introduces the first part of a special issue on the topic ‘Mining Urban Data’ published in the journal Information Systems.     

Multimedia information using mobile computers: accessing the digital campus and the digital library

Abstract

It is clear that the role of the information resource is changing. Major publishers have been slow to adapt to the emergence of a global digital medium, but there are now signs that a great deal of information will be delivered on-line, (although at present only about 25 databases account for 80% of usage in UK and optical publishing is still in its early stages). However, digital publishing on the Internet — with services for libraries such as just-in-time purchasing and delivery, for example — will be a driving force in creating the ‘global digital medium’. One issue that will become increasingly relevant is how the individual user accesses rich multimedia data in the most appropriate way. The ‘digital university campus’ and the ‘digital library’ are coming to be important concepts, with the aim that users of information services will receive information on-line supported by a ‘ubiquistructure’ of information technology. For the ‘digital campus’ this means that not only scholarly but also teaching activities are based on interactive access to information, and where not only the digital library but also the digital bookshop and the digital classroom are becoming possible with the development of 140Mb/s SuperJANET links. However, it is recognised that libraries will not be truly digital for the foreseeable future, and that libraries will maintain traditional and digital media side by side. In this paper, reporting on work at the University of Bristol's Educational Technology Service multimedia resources unit MRU, and the University of the West of England's Centre for Personal Information Management (in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard Research Laboratories and the University of Bristol's Centre for Communications Research), we look the ‘digital library’ and ‘digital campus’ from the perspective of the individual user and her information needs. We are particularly interested in the use of small, mobile computers as access points to the global digital medium. We suggest that, in an environment of change — where the traditional campus and the traditional library exist alongside the digital campus and digital library — the most appropriate form of access technology is based on ‘personal technology’ which allows a linking between digital information and traditional paper-based information.     

基于思维导图的团队协作系统

思维导图作为一种高效率的可视化工具,在线下团队协作中的运用也越来越多,而于在线协作工具的运用并不多. 该文针对思维导图在团队协作工具的应用来进行阐述,描述了一个采用B/S架构,以思维导图为重要功能模块的团队协作系统的实现. 阐述了其主要功能、系统结构、关键实现技术以及开发过程中相关的工程方法. 基于测试驱动的开发形式和IOC机制的运用,使其具备较好的扩展、维护和二次开发的能力. 而基于思维导图来展现团队协作中各类任务的相互关系,以图像化交互的形式来管理项目,与传统的协作系统的线性任务管理相比,具备更好的交互和较低的使用门槛.     

Mining Urban Data (Part C)

Modern cities generate a flood of rich and varied data. New information sources like public transport and wearable devices provide opportunities for novel applications that will improve citizens׳ quality of life by reducing transportation time, enhancing city planning, and improving air quality to name a few applications. From a data science perspective, data emerging from smart cities give rise to a lot of challenges that constitute a new interdisciplinary field of research. This article introduces the third part of a special issue on the topic ‘Mining Urban Data’ published in the journal Information Systems.     

Medicoscapes: notes on effects of media ubiquity – The Somaliland Telemedical System for Psychiatry

The article presents theoretical comments on the theme of ‘media ubiquity’, as an introduction to the presentation of an information and communication technology ‘4’ development (ICT4D)project in the Republic of Somaliland: The Somaliland Telemedical System for Psychiatry. This project is based on use of resources of the global civil society emerging in global ‘transformations’ related to migration, media and ‘the social work of the imagination’. Whereas much new media debate departs from the assumption of media ubiquity affecting our notions of reality, the article will attempt a different perspective. It will ponder issues of collective imagination as exerted by way of such effects, i.e. in cultural forms that emerge out of media-roles in the ‘complex connectivity’ in globalisation processes.     

Did I Do That? Brain–Computer Interfacing and the Sense of Agency

Brain–computer interfacing (BCI) aims at directly capturing brain activity in order to enable a user to drive an application such as a wheelchair without using peripheral neural or motor systems. Low signal to noise ratio’s, low processing speed, and huge intra- and inter-subject variability currently call for the addition of intelligence to the applications, in order to compensate for errors in the production and/or the decoding of brain signals. However, the combination of minds and machines through BCI’s and intelligent devices (IDs) can affect a user’s sense of agency. Particularly confusing cases can arise when the behavioral control switches implicitly from user to ID. I will suggest that in such situations users may be insecure about the extent to which the resulting behavior, whether successful or unsuccessful, is genuinely their own. Hence, while performing an action, a user of a BCI–ID may be uncertain about being the agent of the act. Several cases will be examined and some implications for (legal) responsibility (e.g. establishing the presence of a ‘guilty mind’) are discussed.     

Impact of science,technology and innovation on the economic and political power

In my essay, I will give some of my perceptions on the way science, technology and innovation is going to determine the economic and political power of the nations. The rapid paradigm shifts that are taking place in the world as it moves from super power bipolarity to multipolarity, as industrial capitalism gives way to green capitalism and digital capitalism, as information technology creates netizens out of citizens, as aspirations of the poor get fueled by the increasingly easier access to information, as the nations move from ‘independence’ to ‘interdependence,’ as national boundaries become notional, and as the concept of global citizenship gets evolved, we will be full of new paradigms and new paradoxes, there is no doubt that the rapid advance of science and technology will directly fuel many of these.     

Scientific literacy: Charting the terrains of a multifaceted enterprise

Abstract

For over two decades, scientists and science educators have been attempting to redefine science education from the perspective of meeting the pragmatic concerns of everyday life and participation in social decisions. However, as Fensham (2002) points out, the school curriculum is still very much content‐focused, with long lists of content elements. While there have been many claims for the centrality of scientific literacy in science curriculum design, there is no empirical evidence about the ways in which different rationales—personal, social, or cultural—might lead to different curricular emphases and content elements for school science curricula. The study reported in this paper takes as its point of departure four facets of human functioning to which scientific literacy may contribute from a personal, social, and scientific disciplinary perspective: everyday coping, social decision making, working in technological industrial enterprises, and extending the frontiers of science and technology. It explores the qualities a person requires in order to function effectively in each of these facets. Contrary to much conventional wisdom and the practice of specifying lists of content as the key elements of a science curriculum, the study found that habits of mind, attitudes, and values figured more prominently than scientific content knowledge in the attributes identified by ‘societal experts’ as the most distinguishing qualities for success in their particular areas of expertise. The findings have important implications for our considerations and deliberations on the aims, content, and processes of science education.     

Overview of software engineering

It is nearly 17 years since the unofficial birth of ‘software engineering’ as a discipline. Mathematics can now be applied to the task of computer programming — turning it into a science. The techniques developed over the period have now matured to an extent where they can be applied in the ‘real world’, rather than just in an academic environment. Mathematics can be used to specify a computer system at a very high level of abstraction, the resultant specification being the computing equivalent of an engineer's blueprint. Such a specification can be used as the basis for developing a computer system, allowing each design decision to be documented and a clear development path charted; thus making maintenance and improvements easier. The exercise of writing a formal specification frequently reveals misconceptions in the minds of both the developer and his customer.Further, the existence of such a specification will allow the verification of the developed software — a mathematical proof of correctness. The development of computer software using formal methods is reviewed, some indication of future trends will be given, and how the ideas of software engineering can be applied today.     

Parameterized Complexity of Theory of Mind Reasoning in Dynamic Epistemic Logic

Theory of mind refers to the human capacity for reasoning about others’ mental states based on observations of their actions and unfolding events. This type of reasoning is notorious in the cognitive science literature for its presumed computational intractability. A possible reason could be that it may involve higher-order thinking (e.g., ‘you believe that I believe that you believe’). To investigate this we formalize theory of mind reasoning as updating of beliefs about beliefs using dynamic epistemic logic, as this formalism allows to parameterize ‘order of thinking.’ We prove that theory of mind reasoning, so formalized, indeed is intractable (specifically, PSPACE-complete). Using parameterized complexity we prove, however, that the ‘order parameter’ is not a source of intractability. We furthermore consider a set of alternative parameters and investigate which of them are sources of intractability. We discuss the implications of these results for the understanding of theory of mind.     

(Interactive) cinema as a model of mind

(Interactive) cinema is introduced as a model system for describing mind, inspired by Antonio Damasio’s approach (1999, 2002) to emotions and the conscious self. Damasio harnesses ‘movie’ as a metaphor for the integrated, unified composite of sensory images—visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory; the multimedia-show he calls mind. Assuming emotion to be the foundation of any cognitive act, cinema is discussed as a metaphoric externalisation of embodied mind. This discussion creates a novel dialogue between the contemporary philosophy of embodied mind by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999), and the practice-based cinematic thinking of Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein (from the first half of the 20th century). The work Eisenstein did in order to construct an organic unity of cinematic form serves as the point of departure for an attempt to model the (interactive) film research project Obsession.     

Secondary user relations in emerging mobile computing environments

Mobile technologies are enabling access to information in diverse environments, and are exposing a wider group of individuals to said technology. Therefore, this paper proposes that a wider view of user relations than is usually considered in information systems research is required. Specifically, we examine the potential effects of emerging mobile technologies on end-user relations with a focus on the ‘secondary user’, those who are not intended to interact directly with the technology but are intended consumers of the technology's output. For illustration, we draw on a study of a U.K. regional Fire and Rescue Service and deconstruct mobile technology use at Fire Service incidents. Our findings provide insights, which suggest that, because of the nature of mobile technologies and their context of use, secondary user relations in such emerging mobile environments are important and need further exploration.     

Art, consciousness and artificial life

This paper addresses the relationship of consciousness to artificial life set in the context of art. Artificial life is as much a part of our quest for self-definition as an instrument in the construction of reality. In exploring the technology of life we are exploring the possibilities of what we might become. In our hypermediated, telematic culture, the self acquires an essentially non-linear identity. Telepresence and virtual reality, the avatars of Net life, present us with a distributed, multiple identity which in turn is producing a radically new art. This embodies an ‘interstitial practice’ set within the domain of artificial life, and located at the intersections of cognitive science, bio-engineering, telematics and metaphysics. Can artists find in artificial life, nanotechnology, robotics and molecular engineering the means towards a re-materialization of art, after its postmodern, screen-based dematerialization? Just as ideas of the ‘immaterial’ have dominated art discourse for the last 15 years, so questions of emergent form, intelligent structures and artificial life are shaping a new discourse, from which art is moving off the screen and back into the material world. Will the real significance of art's re-materialization be at the level of mind? Will artificial life only gain cultural significance when it gives rise to artificial mind and the construction of consciousness?     

Going back to basics in design science: from the information technology artifact to the information systems artifact

The concept of the ‘information technology (IT) artifact’ plays a central role in the information systems (IS) research community's discourse on design science. We pose the alternative concept of the ‘IS artifact’, unpacking what has been called the IT artifact into a separate ‘information artifact’, ‘technology artifact’ and ‘social artifact’. Technology artifacts (such as hardware and software), information artifacts (such as a message) and social artifacts (such as a charitable act) are different kinds of artifacts that together interact in order to form the IS artifact. We illustrate the knowledge value of the IS artifact concept with material from three cases. The result is to restore the idea that the study of design in IS needs to attend to the design of the entire IS artifact, not just the IT artifact. This result encourages an expansion in the use of design science research methodology to study broader kinds of artifacts.     

The brain in your pocket: Evidence that Smartphones are used to supplant thinking

With the advent of Smartphone technology, access to the internet and its associated knowledge base is at one’s fingertips. What consequences does this have for human cognition? We frame Smartphone use as an instantiation of the extended mind—the notion that our cognition goes beyond our brains—and in so doing, characterize a modern form of cognitive miserliness. Specifically, that people typically forego effortful analytic thinking in lieu of fast and easy intuition suggests that individuals may allow their Smartphones to do their thinking for them. Our account predicts that individuals who are relatively less willing and/or able to engage effortful reasoning processes may compensate by relying on the internet through their Smartphones. Across three studies, we find that those who think more intuitively and less analytically when given reasoning problems were more likely to rely on their Smartphones (i.e., extended mind) for information in their everyday lives. There was no such association with the amount of time using the Smartphone for social media and entertainment purposes, nor did boredom proneness qualify any of our results. These findings demonstrate that people may offload thinking to technology, which in turn demands that psychological science understand the meshing of mind and media to adequately characterize human experience and cognition in the modern era.     

Meaning Making of Precision and Procedures in School Science

Abstract

Fensham's (2001) argument that it is ‘time to change drivers for scientific literacy’ is well made. For too long, the science curriculum has been overloaded with content selected for what he calls ‘a preparatory character'—that is, preparing bright students to become scientists. By organizing the curriculum from the perspective of scientists, such courses have enshrined the notion of the ‘expert,’ confused science with science education, and, of course, catered only for the most academically able. In consequence, as scientific knowledge becomes increasingly esoteric, most people have little choice but blind trust of experts. The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) movement has long been a candidate for remodelling the curriculum to achieve universal scientific literacy, and there are hopeful signs that the inclusion of ‘Science‐and‐Citizenship’ in the National Curriculum for England and Wales will signal the re‐emergence of STS. This article makes a plea for responding to this opportunity by teaching students how to find out about the science underlying current ethical and social issues, and for establishing a strong base for a lifetime of autonomous learning.     

Entrainment and musicality in the human system interface

What constitutes our human capacity to engage and be in the same frame of mind as another human? How do we come to share a sense of what ‘looks good’ and what ‘makes sense’? How do we handle differences and come to coexist with them? How do we come to feel that we understand what someone else is experiencing? How are we able to walk in silence with someone familiar and be sharing a peaceful space? All of these aspects are part of human ‘interaction’. In designing interactive technologies designers have endeavoured to explicate, analyse and simulate, our capacity for social adaptation. Their motivations are mixed and include the desires to improve efficiency, improve consumption, to connect people, to make it easier for people to work together, to improve education and learning. In these endeavours to explicate, analyse and simulate, there is a fundamental human capacity that is beyond technology and that facilitates these aspects of being, feeling and thinking with others. That capacity, we suggest, is human entrainment. This is our ability to coordinate the timing of our behaviours and rhythmically synchronise our attentional resources. Expressed within the movements of our bodies and voices, it has a quality that is akin to music. In this paper, disparate domains of research such as pragmatics, social psychology, behaviourism, cognitive science, computational linguistics, gesture, are brought together, and considered in light of the developments in interactive technology, in order to shape a conceptual framework for understanding entrainment in everyday human interaction.