79 research outputs found
Territorial Violence and Design, 1950-2010: A Human-Computer Study of Personal Space and Chatbot Interaction
No full textPersonal space is a human’s imaginary system of precaution and an important concept for exploring territoriality, but between humans and technology because machinic agencies transfer, relocate, enact and reenact territorially. Literatures of territoriality, violence and affect are uniquely brought together, with chatbots as the research object to argue that their ongoing development as artificial agents, and the ambiguity of violence they can engender, have broader ramifications for a socio-technical research programme. These literatures help to understand the interrelation of virtual and actual spatiality relevant to research involving chatrooms and internet forums, automated systems and processes, as well as human and machine agencies; because all of these spaces, methods and agencies involve the personal sphere.
The thesis is an ethical tale of cruel techno-science that is performed through conceptualisations from the creative arts, constituting a PhD by practice. This thesis chronicles four chatbots, taking into account interventions made in fine art, design, fiction and film that are omitted from a history of agent technology. The thesis re-interprets Edward Hall’s work on proxemics, personal space and territoriality, using techniques of the bricoleur and rudiments (an undeveloped and speculative method of practice), to understand chatbot techniques such as the pick-up, their entrapment logics, their repetitions of hateful speech, their nonsense talk (including how they disorientate spatial metaphors), as well as how developers switch on and off their learning functionality. Semi-structured interviews and online forum postings with chatbot developers were used to expand and reflect on the rudimentary method.
To urge that this project is timely is itself a statement of anxiety. Chatbots can manipulate, exceed, and exhaust a human understanding of both space and time. Violence between humans and machines in online and offline spaces is explored as an interweaving of agency and spatiality. A series of rudiments were used to probe empirical experiments such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Tucker, 1950). The spatial metaphors of confinement as a parable of entrapment, are revealed within that logic and that of chatbots. The ‘Obedience to Authority’ experiments (Milgram, 1961) were used to reflect on the roles played by machines which are then reflected into a discussion of chatbots and the experiments done in and around them. The agency of the experimenter was revealed in the machine as evidenced with chatbots which has ethical ramifications. The argument of personal space is widened to include the ways machinic territoriality and its violence impacts on our ways of living together both in the private spheres of our computers and homes, as well as in state-regulated conditions (Directive-3, 2003). The misanthropic aspects of chatbot design are reflected through the methodology of designing out of fear. I argue that personal spaces create misanthropic design imperatives, methods and ways of living. Furthermore, the technological agencies of personal spaces have a confining impact on the transient spaces of the non-places in a wider discussion of the lift, chatroom and car. The violent origins of the chatbot are linked to various imaginings of impending disaster through visualisations, supported by case studies in fiction to look at the resonance of how anxiety transformed into terror when considering the affects of violence
Jubilee, Alice Springs
No full textOn back of photo: "Trot Kunoth (Hidden), Billie Liddle Snr., Little miss Windle (later Pt Elliot of Hong. Far right - wm. Liddle.Date:195
Benzodiazepine prescribing in elderly Australian general practice patients
No full textThe definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.comObjective: The use of benzodiazepines by elderly people is of limited therapeutic benefit and increases the risk of adverse events. This study aimed to examine the extent to which benzodiazepines are prescribed for elderly Australians. Methods: Data for 3,970 individuals aged 65 years or more were extracted from a general practice database. Benzodiazepine prescriptions for 2002 were reviewed. Results: Overall, 16% (95% CI 11–21%) of elderly patients had at least one benzodiazepine prescription. Females were almost twice as likely as males to be prescribed a benzodiazepine and prescription prevalence increased with age. Conclusions: Despite risks, benzodiazepines are widely prescribed for the elderly. Limited availability and cost of alternative therapies and pressures on the primary care system in Australia may contribute to their continued overuse. Implications: The prescribing of benzodiazepines for elderly Australians needs to be reduced by better managing sleep and anxiety problems.Alice Windle, Elizabeth Elliot, Katherine Duszynski, Vivienne Moor
Research-policy engagement activities and research impact: Nursing and health science researcher perspectives (Appendices)
No full textResearch-policy engagement activities and research impact: Nursing and health science researcher perspectives (Appendices)
No full textResearch-policy engagement activities and research impact: Nursing and health science researcher perspectives (Appendices)
No full textInscribing Complexity: Diagrammatic Interventions
No full textConference: ‘Visualisation in the Age of Computerization’, Saïd Business School, Oxford Universit
Numerical modelling on super-diffusion of carbon-dioxide in coal
No full textCase II (super)-diffusion is characterized by a diffusion like process that goes faster than the square root of time. Superdiffusion can occur in polymeric structures if a stress gradient enhances the diffusion process. In such a case the part of the polymer invaded by the penetrant, e.g. CO2, undergoes a transition in structure from the glass state to a rubber like state. In ideal cases the transition zone can propagate proportional to time. The Thomas & Windle model, a model that describes anomalous diffusion behavior in polymers, was also proposed to describe diffusion of CO2 in coal. The proposal was due to the similarities in structure between coal and glassy polymers. Coal has a molecular structure of carbon-carbon bonds with ‘open holes’ between the chains. If these holes are smaller in volume than the volume of a CO2-molecule, the uptake of CO2 leads to a geometric problem. The CO2 molecules will squeeze themselves into the structure, resulting into a swollen rubbery coal. This phenomenon is happening due to the fact that a carbon-carbon dioxide bond is thermodynamically favored above the carbon-carbon bond and is more stable than the other. Analysis of the Thomas & Windle model shows there is a time where diffusion is much faster than conventional diffusion. The results also show that super-diffusion is only a transitional effect, i.e., there is an initial phase where relaxation dominates, a transitional phase that exhibits anomalous diffusion and a long time phase that shows the typical square root of time behavior of an ordinary diffusion process. This study gives details of a numerical model used to solve the stress induced diffusion equation using the Finite Element Method implemented in Matlab. The numerical results show that for some favorable set of parameters diffusion can indeed be faster than Fickean diffusion during an intermediate stage. For other parameters the diffusion can be slower. A comparison to a laboratory result shows an example where diffusion appears to be slower.Petroleum EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Nabokov, “the Wretched Aksakov”, and Early English Translations of Sergei Aksakov’s Autobiographical Prose. Problems of Natural History
No full textThis article considers English translations of Sergei Aksakov‟s pastoral trilogy (1856-58), or parts of it, by „a Russian lady‟ (1871), James Duff (1916-24), and M. C. Beverley (1924), in the light of Vladimir Nabokov‟s pronouncements about literary translation in general and his dismissive statements about Aksakov as a writer. Particular attention is devoted to Aksakov‟s descriptions of the flora and wild life of the province of Ufa and the difficulties this posed for the translators. It concludes with selected passages from the trilogy in which these matters are especially prominent, in the author‟s English translation
Curriculum, democracy and pedagogies for justice: a collective futures dialogue
No full textPublished online: 20 March 2024This collaborative paper by members of the Pedagogies for Social Justice Research Group responds to the question of how curriculum and pedagogy can be with and for democracy. Our introduction takes Alice Rigney’s and Dewey’s insights on education and democracy as our point of departure for learning together. As a collective, we have gathered together multiple ways of perceiving and enacting a curriculum for democracy in a context of de-democratisation. We approach tensions, intersections, limits and possibilities of curriculum and democracy from the frames of ‘woven’ curriculum and critical Indigenous pedagogies; racially, religiously and culturally responsive pedagogies; dialogic and relational approaches; agentic, embodied, activist and rights-based pedagogies; and everyday praxis. Kalkadoon scholar Mikayla King’s opening paper on the woven curriculum provides both a point of departure and a grounding site for weaving together our collaborative insights into curriculum, democracy and pedagogies for justice. Garrett and Windle draw attention to how afective and embodied pedagogies can challenge mind/body binaries and activate rights-based modes of being and learning. Memon observes how religion shapes the lifeworlds of learners and proposes a move towards learning from religion. Wrench, Carter, Paige and O’Keefe advocate for the embedding of eco-justice principles, sociologically informed curriculum, and culturally responsive and story-sharing pedagogies. Lovell and Schulz claim racial literacy as an essential component of a pluralistic democracy that honours First Nations’ sovereignty. Soong suggests that ‘everyday pedagogy’ might enable educators to relate with pre-service teachers as critical and empathetic humanists beyond the role of neoliberalised technicians. Colton and McDonald highlight possibilities within the curriculum for learners to act with the pluralities of the world. McDonald and Schulz argue that gender equity is a necessary foundation for a peaceful, democratic world. We conclude with Hattam’s reiteration of how schooling as a key site for social formation re-produces the nation. He urges us to defy the monologue of authoritarian governing and ‘live together through dialogue’.Katie Maher, Lester-Irabinna Rigney, Mikayla King, Robyne Garrett, Joel Windle, Nadeem Memon, Alison Wrench, Jenni Carter, Kathryn Paige, Lisa O'Keefe, Margaret Lovell, Samantha Schulz, Hannah Soong, Jill Colton, Sarah McDonald, Robert Hatta
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