Technological change as a trade-off between social construction and technological paradigms

The theory of social construction of technology (SCOT) and the theory of technological paradigms (TTP) are normally regarded as competing or even incompatible perspectives on technological change. In this paper, we show how and when the perspectives are complementary by comparing how the theories conceptualise technology development, understand stakeholders, and determine driving forces for technological change. When stakeholders have different relations to the innovation process, and when the outcome of the innovation process is open, we argue that the two theories could be complementary tools for analysing the process. When using SCOT and TTP as complementary analytical tools, it becomes easier to understand and design innovation processes in which different stakeholders are attached to roles where they are able to contribute in the most productive ways.     

From Artefacts to Infrastructures

In their initial articulation of the direction of the CSCW field, scholars advanced an open-ended agenda. This continuing commitment to open-ness to different contexts and approaches is not, however, reflected in the contents of the major CSCW outlets. The field appears to privilege particular forms of cooperative work. We find many examples of what could be described as ‘localist studies’, restricted to particular settings and timeframes. This focus on the ‘here and now’ is particularly problematic when one considers the kinds of large-scale, integrated and interconnected workplace information technologies—or what we are calling Information Infrastructures—increasingly found within and across organisations today. CSCW appears unable (or unwilling) to grapple with these technologies—which were at the outset envisaged as falling within the scope of the field. Our paper hopes to facilitate greater CSCW attention to Information Infrastructures through offering a re-conceptualisation of the role and nature of ‘design’. Design within an Information Infrastructures perspective needs to accommodate non-local constraints. We discuss two such forms of constraint: standardisation (how local fitting entails unfitting at other sites) and embeddedness (the entanglement of one technology with other apparently unrelated ones). We illustrate these themes through introducing case material drawn on from a number of previous studies.     

Impacts of altimeter corrections on local linear sea level trends around Taiwan

Multi-mission altimeter measurements from TOPEX, Jason-1, and Jason-2 satellite altimetry over the 1993–2009 time span are used to characterize the local linear sea level trend (LSLT) around Taiwan. The results show that the long-term changes of default geophysical and range corrections, i.e. the inverted barometer correction, wet tropospheric correction, and sea state bias correction, have significant impacts on the determination of local LSLT. The trend of default corrections contribute more than 1.4 mm year^?1 along the coastline of China mainland and 2.1 mm year^?1 to local LSLT in the Taiwan Strait. The default-corrected altimetric data exhibit highest and lowest local LSLTs in the southeast and northwest of Taiwan, respectively. The regional LSLTs of 3.8 mm year^?1 and 4.6 mm year^?1 are estimated from the default-corrected and uncorrected altimetric data in the study area, respectively.     

Progress report from Denmark

Space heating is seen in Denmark as the area where there is greatest potential for saving in energy use; why and how is explained in this article from the Danish Building Research Institute. It summarises the new building code regulations for insulation, heating and ventilation as well as more recent rules for existing buildings. Further action planned for the future is also outlined and examples are given of the many R & D activities in the country.     

Perceived Air Quality,Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) Symptoms and Productivity in an Office with Two Different Pollution Loads

Abstract Perceived air quality, Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms and productivity were studied in an existing office in which the air pollution level could be modified by introducing or removing a pollution source. This reversible intervention allowed the space to be classified as either non-low-polluting or low-polluting, as specified in the new European design criteria for the indoor environment CEN CR 1752 (1998). The pollution source was a 20-year-old used carpet which was introduced on a rack behind a screen so that it was invisible to the occupants. Five groups of six female subjects each were exposed to the conditions in the office twice, once with the pollution source present and once with the pollution source absent, each exposure being 265 min in the afternoon, one group at a time. They assessed the perceived air quality and SBS symptoms while performing simulated office work. The subject-rated acceptability of the perceived air quality in the office corresponded to 22% dissatisfied when the pollution source was present, and to 15% dissatisfied when the pollution source was absent. In the former condition there was a significantly increased prevalence of headaches (P= 0.04) and significantly lower levels of reported effort (P=0.02) during the text typing and calculation tasks, both of which required a sustained level of concentration. In the text typing task, subjects worked significantly more slowly when the pollution source was present in the office (P=0.003), typing 6.5% less text than when the pollution source was absent from the office. Reducing the pollution load on indoor air proved to be an effective means of improving the comfort, health and productivity of building occupants.     

An investigation of governance frameworks for public projects in Norway and the UK

This paper describes four case studies which formed a key part of an investigation into public investment project governance frameworks in Norway and the UK. The studies looked at how the embedded governance principles worked out in practice, how they affected PM, and how consistent their effects were with their aims. Conclusion is made about the actual effects of the frameworks, and various areas for improvement or further study are highlighted.     

Reference values of the chronoamperometric response at cylindrical and capped cylindrical electrodes

This work provides accurate solutions of the cylinder flux function I(0,1;T), first solved by Jaeger and Clarke, which can serve as reference values for electrochemical amperometric diffusion limited currents at a cylinder, as well as heat fluxes under equivalent conditions (fixed temperature at the cylinder surface). For the capped cylinder of varying lengths, reference values of time-dependent electrochemical currents are provided. Steady state currents at capped cylinders are presented and a function is provided that fits the simulated values to within 1%. All of these are more accurate than in previous works.     

A constructive speed observer design for general Euler–Lagrange systems

Astolfi, Ortega, and Venkatraman (2010) recently proved the existence of a globally exponentially convergent speed observer for general Euler–Lagrange systems. Key to their result, is a function defined by certain integrals which cannot be solved a priori, and may not have explicit analytic solutions. In this paper, this obstacle to a constructive design is removed and equations that solve the speed observer problem are given in closed form. The design is further simplified by removing up to one third of the observer states used in Astolfi et al. (2010). With the significant reduction in complexity, the new observer is easily applied to estimate the angular velocities in a Furuta pendulum example.     

Supercritical wood impregnation

The use of supercritical fluids for delivering biocides into wood and wood composites is an attractive technique because of the high penetration capacity of these solvents compared to the liquids used in conventional treatment methods. During the past two decades supercritical wood impregnation has moved from lab scale to commercial scale.This review presents an overview of the main research efforts that has been carried out within the field of supercritical wood impregnation. Results and conclusions of research within four main categories, i.e. (1) effects of impregnation on physical properties of samples, (2) retention and distribution of biocide in impregnated samples, (3) biological performance of impregnated samples, and (4) mathematical modeling of supercritical impregnation are reviewed and discussed.     

Remote sensing of phytoplankton functional types

The principal goal in early missions of satellite-borne visible spectral radiometry (ocean colour) was to create synoptic fields of phytoplankton biomass indexed as concentration of chlorophyll-a. In the context of climate change, a major application of the results has been in the modelling of primary production and the ocean carbon cycle. It is now recognised that a partition of the marine autotrophic pool into a suite of phytoplankton functional types, each type having a characteristic role in the biogeochemical cycle of the ocean, would increase our understanding of the role of phytoplankton in the global carbon cycle. At the same time, new methods have been emerging that use visible spectral radiometry to map some of the phytoplankton functional types. Here, we assess the state of the art, and suggest paths for future work.