Attempting neutrality: Disciplinary and national politics in a Cold War scientific controversy

The first of the transfermium elements—those elements with an atomic number greater than 100—were discovered in the 1950s, largely by the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) in California and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. After each new element was claimed to have been discovered by one lab, the claim was contested by the other. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) formed a joint working group to end the controversies, the Joint Neutral Group (JNG). When that group failed to resolve the discovery disputes, another was formed, the Transfermium Working Group (TWG). Neutrality was a value important to both groups, giving them the credibility necessary to act as mediators. For the JNG in the 1970s, and the TWG in the late 1980s, neutrality had different meanings and was attempted in different ways. The extensive use of archival collections in this paper provides a more complex and nuanced look at the geopolitical and disciplinary tensions surrounding these discovery disputes and the attempts at neutrality, in its different forms, to resolve them.     

Development of annulus fibrosus tissue construct with hydrogel coils containing pre-conditioned mesenchymal stem cell

Low back pain associated with degenerative disc diseases has been a major health concern that brings suffering to the patients physically and economically.Many existing therapeutic strategies provide shortterm relief of symptoms rather than treatment of the underlying cause.Development of an engineered tissue for disc regeneration is still in its infancy due to the limited autologous healthy disc cell source from the patients.It is also challenging to mimic the complexity of micro-architecture in the native disc tissue that determine their unique structural properties.To date,simple tissue models that mimic the annulus fibrosus(AF)micro-environment for understanding the potential of mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs)in AF tissue engineering are still lacking.In this study,the assembly of a coiled hydrogel microfiber has shown its capability to encapsulate MSCs and create an engineered tissue model that mimics the multiple lamellae of native AF.Using this model,we investigated the potential of MSCs that were previously induced by ascorbic acid(AA).Compared to non-induced MSCs,AA-induced MSCs exhibited significant increase in AF-associated biomarkers during later development in the engineered AF tissue model and also encouraged collagen accumulation through the down-regulated catabolic gene MMP1 and upregulated anti-catabolic gene TIMP1.Furthermore,AA-induced MSCs exhibited a Col2/Col1 ratio closer to that of a native AF tissue.These results suggested that AA-induced MSCs could be a potential cell source for AF tissue engineering and this established tissue model may provide a simple tool for successful AF tissue engineering strategies in the future.     

Property titles and the urban poor: from informality to displacement?

An extensive literature opposes the provision of property titles for the residents of informal settlements. One concern is that titling leads to commodification and the market-driven displacement of the original inhabitants. Another is that it propagates the ideology of private ownership, undermines collective solidarity and demobilises social movements. This article, based on observations from Mexico City and Guadalajara, finds little evidence of displacement but highlights the importance of location. It supports the view that formalisation undermines resistance, but argues that titling does so by meeting rather than creating the desire of the urban poor for private property and homeownership.     

Integration of human factors and ergonomics during medical device design and development: It's all about communication

Manufacturers of interactive medical devices, such as infusion pumps, need to ensure that devices minimise the risk of unintended harm during use. However, development teams face challenges in incorporating Human Factors. The aim of the research reported here was to better understand the constraints under which medical device design and development take place. We report the results of a qualitative study based on 19 semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in the design, development and deployment of interactive medical devices. A thematic analysis was conducted. Multiple barriers to designing for safety and usability were identified. In particular, we identified barriers to communication both between the development organisation and the intended users and between different teams within the development organisation. We propose the use of mediating representations. Artefacts such as personas and scenarios, known to provide integration across multiple perspectives, are an essential component of designing for safety and usability.     

Using Personas to Support Augmentative Alternative Communication Device Design: A Validation and Evaluation Study

Interactive computing devices are increasingly being deployed to support individuals in improving and managing health, aging in place, and as assistive devices for those with functional limitations. Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) aids are devices that help individuals with speech impairments communicate. They are typically prescribed by clinicians (speech–language pathologists) based on a specific individual’s physical needs and disease classification. While personas have been used in the design of other consumer technologies, they have not been frequently deployed in the design of clinically oriented technologies, including AAC devices. Instead, a clinical/rehabilitation engineering approach to AAC design is typically used, focusing on the physical and symptomatic needs of a diverse group of individuals, and involving the consumer on the level of making feature recommendations and/or testing the technology near the end of the design and production process. To address this challenge, three personas of individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were developed, intended for use in AAC device design. This article presents results from two studies which evaluated the personas. In the first study, personas were validated using an online survey of eight speech–language pathologists, and interviews of seven individuals with ALS that were not involved in the development of personas. In the second study, AAC device designers were asked to assess the potential utility of the personas for AAC device design. Results showed that developed personas had validity in representing individuals with ALS and that the personas would be useful for AAC device designers. The methods used can be extended for validation and assessment of personas developed for other purposes.     

Coping with complexity in home hemodialysis: a fresh perspective on time as a medium of Distributed Cognition

The existing literature on Distributed Cognition (DCog) mostly presents the temporal distribution of cognition in terms of system evolution that happens over time. In this paper, we illustrate how cognition can also be distributed through time in more immediate ways, through four principles we developed while studying how renal patients cope with the complexity of home hemodialysis. These principles are temporal assignments to tasks to aid prospective remembering; temporal arrangement of tasks to help deal with anticipated problems; temporal distribution of a task plan to avoid omission of steps; and temporal re-arrangement of tasks to reduce peak complexity. Like the physical environment, the time continuum is an external medium that can support distributed cognitive processes, serving as a representation for task reminders and allowing actors to organize the order, duration, and spacing of tasks to reduce complexity in cognitive work. These principles can highlight problems and opportunities in the design of socio-technical systems, by explicitly considering time as another medium that can be used to support DCog in short-term activity.