Discourses of Danger and the Computer Hacker

This article argues that the hacker is constructed as an information deviant and that this image is helpful in providing rules for appropriate behavior in an information society. The hacker accounts in this article are designed to give the reader an understanding of the types of things being said about hackers. What is more important, however, is how these narratives are used to support a specific notion of property ownership and government secrecy. In making this argument, this article traces the development of the narrative about the hacker from harmless computer nerd to terrorist.     

The (Social) Construction of Information Security

While the philosophical foundations of information security have been unexamined, there is an implicit philosophy of what protection of information is. This philosophy is based on the notion of containment, taken from analogies with things that offer physical security (e.g., buildings, safes, fences). I argue that this implicit philosophy is unsatisfactory in the current age of increased connectivity, and provide an alternative foundation. I do so from a constructionist point of view, where the coevolution of social and technical mechanisms is seen as the source of the security of an information system, rather than rational design choices only. I employ the concept of causal insulation from system theory in order to give an account of the fundamental characteristics of information security research. This generates definitions that can be used for philosophically informed discussions on the protection of information in new systems.     

论我国农村经济组织形式多元化趋势

农村经济组织形式的发展不是用某一种经济组织形式去替代另一种经济组织形式的问题,而是多种经济组织形式如何共生、共利,有效运行的问题。新型农村经济组织形式的发展,不仅受到理念、技术等方面的限制,而且还受到诸如政治、法律等方面的约束,必须建立强有力的支持系统,推进我国农村经济组织形式多元化发展。     

浅析奥巴马胜选演讲话语风格

奥巴马胜选演讲的话语风格具有鲜明特点。他善于用简朴的语言阐释深奥的道理,善于对不同的听众使用不同的话语方式,善于用故事来打动民众。对不当言论,他往往先退一步而后攻之,进而鼓励人民在变革的道路上继续前进。     

Critical Making as Materializing the Politics of Design

The notion of “critical making” suggests a new form of design, through which the political qualities of an issue are materialized by participatory means. In this essay I trace and describe this process through the Growbot Garden project—a design project directed at reimagining agricultural technologies to support small-scale agriculture. Through a discussion of this project I draw out the ways that politics were actively projected onto and through artifacts by the participants. In effect, these artifacts were a material expression of their desires and commitments. By creating these artifacts, the participants enacted a novel mode of “doing” political design as a collaborative and public endeavor of articulation.     

How places matter: telecare technologies and the changing spatial dimensions of healthcare

Dominant discourses on telecare technologies often celebrate the erasure of distance and place. This paper provides a critical intervention into these discourses by investigating how spaces still matter, despite the move from physical to virtual encounters between healthcare professionals and patients. I argue that science and technology studies (STS) research on telecare, as well as other technologies, can be enriched by including a focus on place to understand the dynamic interactions between people and things. Adopting insights of human geographers, I show how places in which technologies are used affect how technologies enable or constrain human actions and identities. Whereas some spaces may facilitate the incorporation of technologies, others may resist technologies. A focus on how places matter is important for understanding how telecare technologies reorder and redefine healthcare. Although other healthcare technologies are also important actors in transforming healthcare, telecare technologies do this in a very specific way: they redefine the spatial dimensions of healthcare. To capture and further explore this changing spatial configuration of healthcare, I introduce the notion of technogeography of care. This concept provides a useful heuristic to study how places matter in healthcare. Although telecare technologies introduce virtual encounters between healthcare providers and patients, the use of telecare devices still largely depends on locally grounded, situated care acts. Based on interviews with users of several cardiac telecare applications, including healthcare professionals and patients in Germany and The Netherlands, the paper shows how patients' homes and public spaces are important for shaping the implementation and use of telecare technologies, and vice versa. Last, but not least, telecare devices are implicated as well. The paper emphasizes the place-dependency of the use and meaning of technical devices by showing how the same technological device can do and mean different things in different places.     

浅谈彝文古籍收集整理面临的问题及人才培养的紧迫性

彝文古籍是彝族历史文化发展的结晶,具有政治、经济、哲学、宗教、历史、文学等方面的研究价值,是彝学研究的主要文献来源。彝文古籍卷帙浩繁,内容包罗万象。但近几年来,彝文翻译人才越来越稀少,彝文古籍的收集整理和翻译工作面临很大困难,培养彝文古籍翻译人才已经刻不容缓。     

腹腔镜下子宫全切除术及两种术式的护理对策

目的探讨腹腔镜下子宫全切除术(LTH)两种术式手术配合及护理对策。方法回顾性总结22例LTH的手术配合。从护理的角度对手术配合进行全方位的阐述。主要包括：对LTH患者的术前准备、心理护理,手术器械、物品准备和术中的配合对策进行探讨。结果全部手术顺利完成,手术配合满意。均无并发症发生。结论熟练掌握腹腔镜仪器和器械的性能及使用方法以及手术步骤是LTH配合的重点,手术的成功离不开充分的术前准备与医护之间的默契配合。     

On thinging things and serving services: technological mediation and inseparable goods

In our high-tech society, the design process involves profound questions about the effects of the resulting goods, and the responsibilities of designers. In the philosophy of technology, effects of “things” on user experience and behaviour have been discussed in terms of the concept of technological mediation. Meanwhile, what we create has moved more and more towards services (processes) rather than products (things), in particular in the context of information services. The question is raised to what extent the concept of technological mediation is adequate to understand effects and responsibilities in information services as well. Therefore, this paper discusses differences between product aspects and service aspects of our creations, and evaluates the applicability of the concept of technological mediation to information services. Specific features of a notion of technological mediation for information services are highlighted, in particular with respect to the different relation between production and consumption. Finally, the paper focuses on the ethical consequences of service impact, and recommendations for service providers, especially in terms of the possibilities for second-order mediation by inviting users to change service properties.     

Battle of the Sexes on E-Mail-Or Is It?

Few studies have attempted to link e-mail use to power and politics. The purpose of this article is to offer some initial evidence and analysis of e-mail's role in organizational power and politics. To frame the discussion, the article reviews the relevant writings on power and politics. The review is concluded with a theoretical critique that suggests that contextual and, particularly, temporal aspects should be incorporated into research on power and politics in organizations. To demonstrate how an analysis based on temporal aspects can be undertaken, a case study that outlines the use of e-mail for power and politics in a university is presented. The discussion and conclusions sections synthesize the analysis by demonstrating that what was interpreted by many organization members at the early stages of the conflict as a ''battle of the sexes'' can be seen (and, indeed, was interpreted by many organization members at the later stages of the conflict) as an elaborate exercise in misinformation created by top management to further its political objectives. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications from this case to e-mail research and practice.     

论知识的存在论化及其问题-以个人知识的视角

目前,多数科学的实践论者主张,对知识的考察不应囿于认识论,而应将其扩张至存在论。由此,劳斯意义上的“地方性知识”引发了广泛的讨论。其中,拉图尔的观点最为激进,主张将知识存在论化,否定认识论的独立地位,以此破除主体性及传统二元论。然而,这种主张的问题也很尖锐：作为有意识的行动者的人的自主性是其他非人行动者并不具有的。而拉图尔却用赋予一切行动者能动性来消除这种本质差异只是在规避问题。早于拉图尔,同为科学的实践论者的波兰尼提出并论证了知识的默会根源,阐明了知识与人自身的内在关联,将作为表象着的主体的人与作为实践着的行动者的人很好地统一起来,实现了同时在认识论和存在论中对知识的考察与讨论,为我们提供了一条反思和批判知识存在论化的理路。     

Uncovering the link between governance as an innovation process and socio-economic regime transition in cities

A major proportion of the world’s population will be located in cities by 2030. With cities globally facing challenges due to the social exclusion of significant proportions of their populace, new thinking is needed on ways to correlate the competing socio-economic goals of various actors. This study sought to uncover the link between governance in cities as an innovation process and socio-economic regime transition towards a more equitable urban society. To do so, we draw on transition management thinking to consider urban regime transitions evolving in a temporal and incremental manner and in a multi-level context. We sought expansion from a delimited focus on socio-technical regimes in transition management literature to incorporate the notion of urban socio-economic regimes. This involved integrating aspects of reflexive governance and politics in a city context with a basic ontology of complex social systems and their evolutionary dynamics that underlies transition management approaches. Our focus is on learning by doing and experimentation as well as participation of citizens with other key city actors in a radically new process of mutual learning that creates social inclusion. The juxtaposition of national, city and community level interactions and their impact on socio-economic regime transition brings into sharp relief the issue of spatial scale and a lack of consideration in transition approaches generally. The study findings reveal a spatial orientation for creating new urban forms of reflexive governance as an innovation process taking place in transition arenas that can trigger new pathways to socio-economic change.     

Is music downloading the new prohibition? What students reveal through an ethical dilemma

Although downloading music through unapproved channels is illegal, statistics indicate that it is widespread. The following study examines the attitudes and perceptions of college students that are potentially engaged in music downloading. The methodology includes a content analysis of the recommendations written to answer an ethical vignette. The vignette presented the case of a subject who faces the dilemma of whether or not to download music illegally. Analyses of the final reports indicate that there is a vast and inconsistent array of actions and underlying feelings toward digital music downloading. The findings reveal inconsistencies between participants’ recommendations (what the subject should do) and their attitudes and opinions on the matter (what they would do in a similar situation). These inconsistencies support the notion that as technology evolves, it creates discrepancies between the way things are and the way the law expects them to be, leaving society in a muddle, trying to reconcile the two. What remains to be seen is whether the discrepancy in the case of music downloading becomes extreme enough that the law changes to accommodate an increasingly prevalent behavior, or whether new business models will emerge to bridge the gap between legality and reality.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Dis</Emphasis>closive Ethics and Information Technology: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Disclosing Facial Recognition Systems</Emphasis>

This paper is an attempt to present disclosive ethics as a framework for computer and information ethics – in line with the suggestions by Brey, but also in quite a different manner. The potential of such an approach is demonstrated through a disclosive analysis of facial recognition systems. The paper argues that the politics of information technology is a particularly powerful politics since information technology is an opaque technology – i.e. relatively closed to scrutiny. It presents the design of technology as a process of closure in which design and use decisions become black-boxed and progressively enclosed in increasingly complex socio-technical networks. It further argues for a disclosive ethics that aims to disclose the nondisclosure of politics by claiming a place for ethics in every actual operation of power – as manifested in actual design and use decisions and practices. It also proposes that disclosive ethics would aim to trace and disclose the intentional and emerging enclosure of politics from the very minute technical detail through to social practices and complex social-technical networks. The paper then proceeds to do a disclosive analysis of facial recognition systems. This analysis discloses that seemingly trivial biases in recognition rates of FRSs can emerge as very significant political acts when these systems become used in practice. Paper prepared for the Technology and Ethics Workshop at Twente     

German politics of genetic engineering and its deconstruction

Policy-making, as exemplified by biotechnology policy, can be understood as an attempt to manage a field of discursivity, to construct regularity in a dispersed multitude of combinable elements. Following this perspective of politics as a textual process, the paper interprets the politicization of genetic engineering in Germany as a defence of the political as a regime of heterogeneity, as a field of 'dissensus' rather than 'consensus', and a rejection of the idea that the framing of technological transformation is an autonomous process. From its beginning in the early 1970s, genetic engineering was symbolically entrenched as a key technology of the future, and as an integral element of the German politics of modernization. Attempts by new social movements and the Green Party to displace the egalitarian imaginary of democratic discourse into the politics of genetic engineering were construed by the political élites as an attack on the political order of post-World War II Germany. The 1990 Genetic Engineering Law attempted a closure of this controversy. But it is precisely the homogenizing idiom of this 'settlement' which continues to nourish the social movements and their radical challenge to the definitions and codings of the politics of genetic engineering.     

关于如何构建高效初中政治课堂的浅见

初中的政治教学,往往是老师付出很多努力,取得的教学成果却不够理想,造成这种现象的原因是什么呢？笔者认为政治课程的内容相对其他学科来说,显得枯燥乏味,学生学习的兴趣比较低,导致政治教学效率低下,因此,本文将讨论如何构建高效的初中政治课堂。     

高职物联网应用技术专业人才培养方案的研究

随着信息技术逐步由"互联网时代"走向"物联网时代"时代,我国物联网产业在短期内迅速崛起,各相关行业对物联网应用技术方面的人才需求量逐年加大,物联网人才供需矛盾日益突出。高职教育作为我国高等教育的重要组成部分,应积极为国家储备物联网技术应用型人才。以典型工作任务分析法为核心,以教学实践和市场需求调研为基础构建符合高等职业教育规律的人才培养方案,为物联网专业教学水平进一步提升提出了建议。     

NEW PRODUCTION CONCEPTS

Flexibilty within a framework of internal labour markets is now widely seen to be an important factor in the ability of manufacturing firms to respond quickly to changes in market conditions — which is increasingly coming to be the form that competitive advantage takes in advanced industrial economies. An emerging and flourishing literature has identified a number of ‘new production concepts’ being developed in manufacturing industries, that depart from time-honoured Taylorist systems of job fragmentation and skill minimisation. The new concepts, such as ‘flexible specialisation’, ‘human-centred production’, and ‘diversified quality production’, are all in one way or another seeking to characterise a form of ‘functional flexibility’, that both enhances productivity and offers workers themselves a greater sense of involvement with their activity. The new concepts rest on the identification of a critical linkage between work organisation, skill formation and advanced manufacturing technology; they point to a convergence between the previously separate worlds of work and of learning.

In this paper the new production concepts are characterised as elements of an emergent ‘post Fordist’ technoeconomic paradigm. The present period of uncertainty can be construed as a transition between the Fordist paradigm centred on mass production, and its successors. There is nothing predetermined about the shape of these successors: this will be the outcome of a prolonged economic, industrial and political process as much as of a technical process. The choices are identified as falling between a continuation and intensification of Fordism, dubbed Computer-Aided Taylorisation; or a break with Fordism, dubbed Skill-Dependent Innovation. The new production concepts are characterised as instances of the latter approach to manufacturing management and technology. It is through this notion of ‘competing paradigms’ that this paper formulates an approach to the ‘politics’ of technological change.     

Climate change, flooding and the media in Britain

The weather is a preoccupation of the British public, and flooding has become a salient feature of their experience. Climate science also has important things to say about the prevalence, distribution and dangers of rainfall and flooding, and what we should expect from global warming. This paper looks at British press coverage of flooding, and at the connections made between this theme and climate change. It aims to expose longitudinal patterning, and assess how common the connection is. From here the analysis moves to specific cases of high profile flooding events for a detailed exploration of the tone and tenor, and discursive contours of reports. The results suggest the media's contribution to genuine debate is mixed, that the connection between common forms of reportage and our scientific understanding of the phenomena is often tenuous. The paper explores the implications for the way the politics of climate change plays out.     

Remembering Things

In an attempt to listen to things, and to unpack the dynamics and particularities of the role of things in constituting memory (and the role of memory in constituting things), we argue four points: that relations between things are crucial; that things provide us with markers of time, place, purpose, and identity; that these markers are historically obdurate; and that things actin ways that transcend semiotics. Each of these four—relations, markers, obduracy, and actions—are significant for and constitutive of memory. The argument is thus antirepresentational, suggesting that the world is perfectly capable of representing itself, and that our understanding of the world is immanent in the world and its relations.