Pervasive computing is an emerging concept that thoroughly brings computing devices and the consequent technology into people's daily life and activities. Most of these computing devices are very small, sometimes even "invisible", and often embedded into the objects surrounding people. In addition, these devices usually are not isolated, but networked with each other through wireless channels so that people can easily control and access them. In the architecture of pervasive computing systems, these small and networked computing devices form a wireless infrastructure layer to support various functionalities in the upper application layer.;In practical applications, the wireless infrastructure often plays a role of data provider in a query/reply model, i.e., applications issue a query requesting certain data and the underlying wireless infrastructure is responsible for replying to the query. This dissertation has focused on the most critical issue of efficiency in designing such a wireless infrastructure. In particular, our problem resides in two domains depending on different definitions of efficiency. The first definition is time efficiency, i.e., how quickly a query can be replied. Many applications, especially real-time applications, require prompt response to a query as the consequent operations may be affected by the prior delay. The second definition is energy efficiency which is extremely important for the pervasive computing devices powered by batteries. Above all, our design goal is to reply to a query from applications quickly and with low energy cost.;This dissertation has investigated two representative wireless infrastructures, sensor networks and RFID systems, both of which can serve applications with useful information about the environments. We have comprehensively explored various important and representative problems from both algorithmic and experimental perspectives including efficient network architecture design and efficient protocols for basic queries and complicated data mining queries. The major design challenges of achieving efficiency are the massive amount of data involved in a query and the extremely limited resources and capability each small device possesses. We have proposed novel and efficient solutions with intensive evaluation. Compared to the prior work, this dissertation has identified a few important new problems and the proposed solutions significantly improve the performance in terms of time efficiency and energy efficiency. Our work also provides referrable insights and appropriate methodology to other similar problems in the research community.

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The following essay or thesis is a study over scientific endeavors in the fringe. It is a study of Riksorganisationen UFO-Sverige, whose proponents aim to make the UFO phenomenon (or phenomena) a subject of scientific scrutiny. To achieve this, the ufologists first have to redefine common concepts of ufology as pseudo science or religion, mainly by challenging definitions given by scientific sceptics on the one hand, and proponents of conspiracy theories or the new age environment on the other. Thus UFO-Sverige seeks to construct an alternative scientific identity in contrast to adversaries on both sides, each unwilling to give the UFO phenomenon any further examination. Following the work of Tomas Gieryn's sociological grip on questions of epistemology, especially concerning the social boundaries of science from other cultural categories through what has been labelled as epistemic boundary work, during which proponents of a particular field aim to achieve epistemic authority and thus the legitimate right to define what is and what is not science, I seek to analyze how questions of science and legitimacy are actualized in an intellectual environment or culture not broadly accepted as scientific. The essay is a case study of a given organization in the ufologic subculture, analyzing material mainly from the 1990's, and the manner in which epistemic boundary work is made explicit. I further hint at the end to which the boundary work is means, which is mainly the hope of a growing professionalization of the ufologic field. Through this I further argue that the study points at something general, namely the importance of questions of science and legitimacy outside the boundaries of conventional science, not the least for those who are usually denied the recognition of scientific legitimacy and its fruits.

The purpose of the study is to analyse an interdisciplinary research (IDR) project in order to identify whatconstitutes a strategy of integration of disciplinary insights. Through interviews, observations andanalysis of scientific articles produced by the researchers, the study explores the processes of IDR andrelates them to psychological and sociological theories of group research. The results show thatresearchers employ an emergent strategy which they design ad hoc, and which consists of certain patternsof behaviour that allow them to navigate conflict and partially integrate their insights into the problem.The study offers a number of recommendations that might be useful to take into consideration whendesigning an IDR project.

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This dissertation research project examines how contemporary academic bioethics in the U.S. balances the aspiration to guide biomedical research and practice with the need to become an institutionally legitimate influence in society. Since its inception three decades ago, to what extent has bioethics made biomedicine more socially accountable? At the same time, to what extent has bioethics been rendered a public-relations tool for academic and corporate biomedicine? This project investigates the co-production of the legitimacy and the logic of the academic field of bioethics by examining the activities of bioethicists in three professional arenas: the establishment of an academic bioethics unit, discourse on the legal liability of institutional review boards and health care ethics consultants, and the deliberations and recommendations of a federal bioethics commission.Bioethicists' efforts to legitimate their field are viewed as competition and collaboration with other professional groups to stake out an emblematic expertise, which is then tendered to various societal clients. A case study of an academic bioethics unit was conducted to reveal how the unit's efforts to secure material resources and organizational legitimacy shape the center's intellectual output, drawing on the unit's archival documents and interviews with the unit's director, faculty, staff, and graduate students. Discourse analysis was used to explore what anticipated legal liability reveals about the legitimacy of expertise claims and the shaping of those claims. The proceedings of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission related to the human stem cell research debate were used to examine the boundary-work conducted by the commission at the borders between science and ethics, and between ethics and public policy.The research described here shifts attention in the budding sociology of bioethics from clinical to academic bioethics, and highlights the institutional and power relationships amongst bioethics, biomedicine, and public policy. This study also contributes to the fields of higher education studies and science and technology studies, where ethics, and the relationship between legitimacy and expertise, have not been fully explored. The findings presented here provide useful insight into the challenges and opportunities bioethicists face in cultivating socially responsible biomedical science and technology.

Uppsatsen syftar till att analysera politiska aktörers agerande för att framställa sin hållning inför folkomröstningen om kärnraften 1980 som trovärdig och rationell. Studien undersöker historiska källor i form av informationstätt opinionsmaterial samt statliga utredningar och propositioner med anknytning till folkomröstningen. Undersökningen är baserad på den teoribildning inom teknik- och vetenskapssociologi som kallas science and technology studies – STS. Det analytiska verktyg som källmaterialet analyseras utifrån är begreppet energisäkerhet. Undersökningen visar att en stor del av debatten som förs i opinionsmaterialet kan förklaras i termer av energisäkerhet. Aktörernas argumentation angående kärnkraften och de alternativa energikällornas fördelar och nackdelar tydliggörs och förklaras. Dessutom visar studien hur opinionsmaterialet förhåller sig till de av staten framtagna beslutsunderlagen.

'Wearables' and 'self-quantifying technologies' are becoming ever more popular and normalised in society as a means of 'knowing' the self. How are these technologies implicated in this endeavour? Using insights from a four year multi-sited ethnography of the 'Quantified Self', I explore how the self is 'done' in the context of using technologies that purport to quantify the self in some way. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) sensibilities, I conduct a four- pronged investigation into 'self-making' by drawing upon, and expanding, existing theories of agency and performativity, number, data-visualisation, and enactment. I find that self-quantifying technologies are productive in the doing of the self and are implicated in the process of making boundaries around that which comes to be known as the 'self' in a particular moment. The numbers and visualisations that result from practices of self-quantification enable a new way of 'seeing' the self, and provide a way of communicating this self with others. The self is thus not a pre-existing entity that simply requires these technologies as a means to 'know' it. Rather, the self is constantly being done with these technologies and within the surrounding practices of self-quantification. In order to highlight the different parts of this process, I proffer the term 'entractment'. This term explains how these different elements come together to culminate in the production of a momentarily constant self in a particular context. It is a way of simultaneously encapsulating the processes of intra-action, extra-action and enactment with/in a community. In sum, it captures the conclusion that, in the context of self-quantification, we must understand the self as a collective enactment, achieved, at least in part, through the use of self-quantifying technologies that produce numerical data which facilitate visualisations that are imperative to the doing of the self.

Orientador: Renato Peixoto Dagnino / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Geociências / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T15:16:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lima_MarciaMariaTait_M.pdf: 1555790 bytes, checksum: 9231ac8c84dd06895dd5ddd500eb7017 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: O enlace atual entre ciência, tecnologia e mercado - referido pela palavra tecnociência - tem como exemplo paradigmático as novas biotecnologias. A engenharia genética e o desenvolvimento de organismos geneticamente modificados (OGMs) constituem temas-chave de diversas controvérsias que se estabelecem entre as dimensões tecnocientífica, econômica e social. A pesquisa utilizou o discurso de cientistas brasileiros para mostrar como se constroem e difundem suas concepções de tecnociência. Esses discursos se referem à Comissão Técnica Nacional de Biossegurança (CTNBio), responsável pelos pareceres técnicos sobre OGMs e por assessorar o governo na definição da política de biossegurança. A pesquisa apontou que a política de biossegurança brasileira e a forma como a CTNBio se constituiu e atua não foram determinadas por opções de caráter estritamente "científico". Também permitiu entender como as concepções de tecnociência estão presentes neste contexto. No capítulo conclusivo foi incluída uma proposta de abordagem construtivista engajada para o tratamento das novas biotecnologias. / Abstract: The current link between science, technology and the market - referred to as technoscience - has as an emblematic example the new biotechnologies, among which those related to genetics and the development of genetically modified organisms may be considered key issues for scientific and environmental controversies. Speech fragments from the Brazilian research community are extracted from the current debate to show how those conceptions of technoscience on which they are based are constructed, propagated and legitimized. They refer to the National Biosafety Technical Commission (CTNBio) presented as electronic news by Science Journal (Jornal da Ciência) and as letters, lectures and other public documents. At the end of this dissertation, a relationship between the views of the research community, technoscientific practices and biosafety policies are established. The research points out that the Brazilian biosafety policy and the way that CTNBio was constituted and acts were not determined strictly scientific choices or by the end of uncertainty and clear and consensual boundaries regarding technological risks. Additionally, a normative constructivist approach is suggested as a form of understanding the new biotechnologies. / Mestrado / Mestre em Política Científica e Tecnológica

This thesis conducts a critical investigation into digital literature—a genre of literary expression that is integrated with, and articulated using, digital computing systems and infrastructures. Specifically, it presents a framework for evaluating the expressive capacities of this genre as it relates to particular conceptions of knowledge-making in the contemporary technocultural environment. This framework reveals how the generation of critical knowledge concerning digital literature, as crystallised through a reader’s material engagements with specific works, enacts a ‘performative’ conception of knowing and being, in which the observable world is treated as emerging in the real time of practice—as being articulated through the entanglement of human and nonhuman agencies, rather than existing as a fixed array of passive, unchanging primitives. Digital literature is presented subsequently as a model of this greater performative vision—as a means of evaluating the structures and processes that manifest it, particularly within digital systems, and for assessing its practical and political implications for art and culture more broadly. In so doing, this thesis aims to justify the value of engaging digital literature from a standpoint that is more expressly political, contending not only that these texts are revealing of key processes shaping digital activities, artefacts, and environments, but are enacting alternative vectors of thought and practice concerning them.