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Registers of Knowledge: Computation for Close Readings and Close Readings of Computation
No full textA talk at the University of Cambridg
Historical perspective on fire research in East and Southern African grasslands and savannas
No full textThis paper provides a history of attempts to understand and manage fire in the grasslands and savannas of eastern and southern Africa from c. 1900 to 2010. Given the brevity of the paper and the author’s expertise, there is a focus on science and management in South Africa, though wider networks of research and expertise across the region are discussed. There is a focus on a few key figures like Charles Swynnerton, John Phillips and Winston Trollope, with references provided for other important historical figures like John William Bews. The emphasis is on scientific research and expert-led thinking on fire and fire management in vegetation, with brief discussion of African approaches and the extent to which they have been ignored or have influenced scientific thinking. Fire in relation to invasive species is not covered
Wilful blindness: sleeping sickness and Onchocerciasis in Colonial Northern Ghana, 1909–1957
Get PDFAs a contribution to the existing literature on deliberate or unintended neglect, concealment and ignorance regarding significant and enduring public health problems—produced by economic marginality, lack of political power and institutional failures affecting specific places and groups—this article discusses the history of epidemic sleeping sickness and endemic onchocerciasis in colonial northern Ghana from 1909 to 1957. Despite accumulating evidence of their serious impacts on the health of northern communities, and calls to action on the part of some health officials, both diseases were only officially recognised as significant risks when it was no longer politically possible to deny them. The particular histories of each disease, in the same region over the same decades, reveal two comparable and interrelated trajectories of neglect
Crowdsourcing and COVID-19: how public administrations mobilize crowds to find solutions to problems posed by the pandemic
Get PDFWe discuss how public administrations have used crowdsourcing to find solutions to specific problems posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and to what extent crowdsourcing has been instrumental in promoting open innovation and service co-creation. We propose a conceptual typology of crowdsourcing challenges based on the degree of their openness and collaboration with the crowd that they establish. Using empirical evidence collected in 2020 and 2021, we examine the extent to which these types have been used in practice. We discuss each type of crowdsourcing challenge identified and draw implications for public polic
In or against the state? Hospitality and hostility in homelessness charities and deportation practice
Get PDFThis paper examines how deportation became a solution to rough sleeping in pre-Brexit England. It
identifies relationships between the social regulation of vulnerable and marginalised adults, contemporary
governance arrangements and bordering practices characteristic of Britain’s ‘hostile environment’.
Drawing on media reports and grey organisational literature, the focus of discussion is events across
2015–2018 in which three London-based charities were criticised for working with the Home Office to
deport homeless migrants under its European Economic Area Administrative Removal policy. The overall
tenor of criticism was that collaboration with the government compromised the organisations’ independence and charitable missions and aims. This diminished their capacity to both advocate for vulnerable
adults and effectively challenge oppressive state practices. The paper observes how state and nonprofit
relations structure institutional and socio-legal responses to marginalised and ‘othered’ adults through
commissioning and contracting mechanisms. It demonstrates that the social and legal control of homeless
migrants may be differently constituted by institutions delivering services in relation to citizenship, vulnerability and marginalisation. This analysis incorporates a broader appraisal of institutional motivations,
values and beliefs in social welfare delivery, including the historic role of charitable agencies in the
criminalisation of social welfare users. Taken together, the paper offers an interdisciplinary critique of
the relationships between border control, neoliberal governance and the sociocultural and historic
construction of homeless migrants
Visualising the cytoskeletal machinery in neuronal growth cones using cryo-electron tomography
Get PDFNeurons extend axons to form the complex circuitry of the mature brain. This
depends on the coordinated response and continuous remodelling of the microtubule
and F-actin networks in the axonal growth cone. Growth cone architecture remains
poorly understood at nanoscales. We therefore investigated mouse hippocampal
neuron growth cones using cryo-electron tomography to directly visualise their threedimensional
subcellular architecture with molecular detail. Our data show the
hexagonal arrays of actin bundles that form filopodia penetrate and terminate deep
in the growth cone interior. We directly observe the modulation of these and other
growth cone actin bundles by alteration of individual F-actin helical structures.
Microtubules with blunt, slightly flared, or gently curved ends predominate in the
growth cone, frequently contain lumenal particles and carry lattice defects.
Investigation of the effect of absence of doublecortin, a neurodevelopmental
cytoskeleton regulator, on growth cone cytoskeleton shows no major anomalies in
overall growth cone organisation or in F-actin subpopulations. However, our data
suggest that microtubules sustain more structural defects, highlighting the
importance of microtubule integrity during growth cone migration
Astrology, natural magic, and the scientific revolution
No full textHistoriography concerning the relationship (or non-relationship) between magic (or the “occult”) and “science” was dominated in the 1960s-1980s by the “Hermetic” thesis of Frances Yates and its critics (including Robert Westman and Brian Vickers). Vickers in particular argued that the “occult” and the “scientific” are separate “mentalities” or paradigms. This chapter considers an alternative view. By tracing the fortunes of the theory of radiative virtue advanced by the ninth-century Arabic philosopher al-Kindi, which began as a “theory of the magical arts” providing a physical basis for magical operations, we can see that some “magical” ideas connected with the astrological theory of “celestial virtues” influenced later natural philosophy. Al-Kindi’s suggestion that all causation in the elemental world was effected by means of rays was taken up in the medieval perspectiva tradition, and elaborated into a theory of astral magic by John Dee, but continued to provide a model for action at a distance in the mechanist theories of seventeenth-century natural philosophers, such as Kenelm Digby, Walter Charleton, and—ultimately—Isaac Newton, who believed that the corpuscles of all bodies acted at a distance by “certain Powers, Virtues, or Forces” in a similar way to the rays of light
Empowering change for future-making: developing agency by framing wicked problems through design
Get PDFAs the world and its challenges are becoming more complex, students and practitioners alike need to develop a more nuanced understanding of how to navigate problems today for envisioning desirable futures. Design’s inherent focus on future-making and dealing with ill-defined problems has been identified as a potential way forward. Yet, there is a paucity of studies looking at what elements support (or hinder) students developing agency when it comes to framing and identifying problems. By taking the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as an example of ill-defined problems, we studied a multidisciplinary student body in a higher education institution attending a three-week intensive course focusing on how design can serve as a catalyst for social and environmental change. Our findings suggest future-oriented problem framing is dependent on the following aspects: combining theory and practice, engaging with the world and its complexities, reciprocal trust in design teams, self-reflection, changing perspectives, and emotional investment. Based on the findings, a model is crafted to illustrate how agency for future-making can emerge and be developed by engaging with real-life problems through design. Implications for research and practice point towards a more balanced relationship between skill development and ways of engaging with the surrounding world
Assessing the green distribution transformer manufacturing process using a cloud-based q-rung orthopair fuzzy multi-criteria framework
No full textPopularizing green distribution transformers is a viable way to reduce power loss and environmental pollution and improve energy conversion and transmission efficiency, which has become the trend of power equipment manufacturing and market demand. However, due to conflicting multi-criteria and goals and factors, higher standards are required for green distribution transformer manufacturing. High standard manufacturing makes many manufacturers shoddy the internal components of green distribution transformers, resulting in disorderly competition in the market, which poses great challenges to the users’ choice of transformers and the govern- ment’s quality supervision. This paper proposes a cloud-based q-rung orthopair fuzzy multi-criteria framework for assessing the green distribution transformer manufacturing process from the perspective of conflicting re- lationships between criteria. It is applied to rank order four green transformer manufacturers in China based on the twelve mono-criteria under four categories of resource and energy utilization, production process and equipment, environmental coordination, green technology innovation, and their overall performance ranking results. Our analysis revealed that resource and energy utilization and green technology innovation is the motivating factors to improve the quality of green distribution transformer manufacturing and expert recognition, and the production process and equipment and environmental coordination are the inducing factors that reduce the quality of green distribution transformer manufacturing and the recognition of experts. These findings provide the demanders and government quality inspection departments with guidelines on the selection and evaluation of green distribution transformers, also identify the direction for the manufacturers to improve the technology and optimize the production of green distribution transformers
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