To be successful citizen science projects need to do two key things: (1) they need to meaningfully engage the public and they must also provide people with the tools, expertise, and/or training needed to participate in rigorous research that can be used by the scientific community. In some ways, these requirements are potentially at odds. Emphasis on rigor and expertise risks excluding members of the public who do not feel qualified to participate in esoteric or technically difficult scientific research. Conversely, projects that eschew rigorous methods in favor of wider participation might lead to bad data that cannot be used to draw any meaningful conclusions to expand scientific understanding. How then do those who are aiming to design successful citizen science programs create tools and processes that facilitate both active engagement and meaningful scientific results for perceived non-expert researchers? This paper uses a case study of the Outsmart Invasive Species Project (Outsmart) to explore how visual media shape the experiences of citizen scientists participating in a data collection project. Outsmart uses visual media such as photographs and videos to train users in identifying invasive species, and asks them to submit their own location-tagged pictures to a central database for review by a trained research team. Using ethnographic field observation, we focused on how visual media serve to improve engagement in non-expert Outsmart users by building confidence and expertise. Our work can provide guidance to other citizen science projects in how to best use visual media to empower citizens and improve scientific outcomes.

Les technologies de captage, transport et stockage du CO2 ont pour finalité de capter le CO2 issu des industries afin de le stocker géologiquement et ainsi, réduire l impact de ces activités sur le réchauffement climatique. L Axe-Seine (Paris Le Havre) est un territoire très industrialisé et fortement émetteur de CO2. Dans ce territoire, les décideurs locaux envisagent l utilisation des technologies de CTSC afin de réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre. L objectif de notre recherche est de comprendre les futurs possibles de ces technologies dans l Axe-Seine. Dans cette perspective, cette thèse analyse tout d'abord le fonctionnement des technologies de CTSC dans une approche de sociologie des sciences et des techniques et les promesses technoscientifiques initiales associées à ce dispositif technique. Ensuite, cette recherche examine les dynamiques socio-spatiales de la vallée de la Seine concernant l'environnement. Enfin, cette thèse par une exploration des récits relatifs aux technologies de CTSC par les promoteurs de ce dispositif technique et des parties prenantes locales, identifie les hybridations potentielles entre ce dispositif technique et les dynamiques socio-spatiales de l'Axe-Seine. Ainsi est-il possible de décrire les futurs possibles des technologies dans l'Axe-Seine. Par ailleurs, dans cette recherche nous questionnons également la place des sciences sociales au côté des sciences de la vie et de la matière dans la dynamique de l'innovation technologique. / Carbon Capture and Storage enables industrial facilities to capture their CO2 emissions in order to geologically store it and then reduce their impact on global warming. The Seine Waterway Axis (from Paris to Le Havre) counts a lot of industrial facilities emitting huge quantities of CO2. From 2006 local stakeholders of this territory are willing to develop CCS to a commercial scale in order to reduce CO2 emissions.In our research we aim to understand potential futures of CCS technology in the Seine Waterway Axis. In this Phd thesis we first analyse initial technoscientific promises related to Carbon Capture and Storage in using Science and Technology Studies theoretical framework. Then we focus on the Seine Waterway Axis territorial dynamics regarding sustainable development. Finnaly, we focus on narratives related to Carbon Capture and Storage in the Seine Waterway Axis in order to identify hybridations between CCS implementations and territorial dynamics. These cross analysis will enable us to describe potential future of CCS establishment in the Seine Waterway Axis.

At the turn of the millennium, the most developed countries began to take interest in nanotechnology, that is, technologies defined by their precise nanometer-level functionality, but also by their substantial, realised, or anticipated changes in industry and medicine. At the European policy level, nanotechnology has become part of the pan-national governance principle, accompanied however by low public awareness of the benefits and risks. Nanotechnology engenders gradual, albeit very controversial transformations where actors adopt various communication strategies. The dissertation presents an analysis of the relationship between metaphor and nanotechnology. Neither metaphor nor nanotechnology is a neutral resource to be freely exploited, but both have significant implications for the strategic efforts of actors who use them. The study has the objective of exploring the social representations of nanotechnology in the various local (cultural) contexts of their medialisation and investigating the isomorphism which exists between metaphorical structures and the evolution of nanotechnology controversies. The theoretical part considers the role of metaphors in constructing social representations of nanotechnology and in translating between there and then and here and now. These representations and...

Fluctuation in the demand for electrical power and the intermittent nature of the supply of energy from renewable sources like solar and wind have made the need for energy storage a dire necessity. Current storage technologies like batteries and supercapacitors fall short either in terms of power output or in their ability to store sufficient energy. Pseudocapacitors combine features of both and offer an alternative to stabilize the power supply. They possess high rates of charge and discharge and are capable of storing much more energy in comparison to a supercapacitor. In the quest for solutions that are economical and feasible, we have investigated Prussian Blue in aqueous electrolytes for its use as a pseudocapacitor. Two different active materials based on Prussian Blue were prepared; one that has just Prussian Blue and the other that contains a mixture of Prussian Blue and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Four electrolytes differing in the valence of the cation were employed for the study. Cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge were used to characterize the electrodes. Our experiments have shown specific capacitances of Prussian Blue electrodes in the range of 140-720 F/g and that of Prussian Blue-CNT electrodes in the range of ~52 F/g. The remarkable capacity of charge storage in Prussian Blue electrodes is attributed to its electrochemical activity ensuring surface redox and its tunnel-like structure allowing ease of entry and exit for ions like Potassium. Simple methods of synthesis have yielded specific capacitances of the order of hundreds of Farads per gram showing that Prussian Blue has promise as an electrode material for applications needing high rates of charge-discharge.

Rapid technological advancements in digital cameras and widespread public access to the internet have inspired many researchers to consider alternative methods for collecting, analyzing, and distributing scientific data. Two emerging fields of study that have capitalized on these developments are “citizen science” and photo-id in wildlife capture-mark-recapture (CMR) studies. Both approaches offer unprecedented flexibility and potential for acquiring previously inconceivable datasets, yet both remain dependent on data collection by human observers. The absence of rigorous assessment of observer error rates causes many scientists to resist citizen science altogether or to fail to incorporate citizen-collected data into ecological analyses. This same need for consistent measurement and documentation of the type and frequency of errors resulting from different observers is mirrored in numerous ecological studies employing photographic identification. The driving question of interest behind this thesis rests at the intersection of these two fields: can citizen scientists provide an effective alternative to commonly utilized computer-assisted programs used with large photo-id databases from wildlife studies? To address this question we reviewed the history of wildlife photo-id in order to gain a better understanding of knowledge gaps caused by a failure to consistently report human error rates (Chapter 1). We then piloted a crowdsourcing approach to distributed photographic analysis by soliciting responses to image comparisons from a large number of untrained observers (Chapter 2). We found that observers correctly assessed 99.6% of all comparisons, but that the predictor variables for the two types of error (false positive and false negative) differed. Building upon a deeper understanding of the history, limitations, key issues, and recommendations for researchers considering using photo-id, we recommend the expanded use of citizen science methods as an effective alternative to computer-assisted approaches with large image libraries. Error rate improvements should allow scientists to more readily accept data collected by untrained observers as valid, and will also contribute to improved accuracy of ecological estimates of population size, vital rates, and overall conservation management of threatened or endangered species. Additionally, the general public will benefit from expanded opportunities to engage with and learn about the scientific process.

This study examined how much access African American adults 25 years and older, living in Johnson City, Tennessee had to computers, and the factors that most influenced such access. Data was collected from 271 persons living in the area. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software to determine how certain demographics would contribute to the level of computer access. Results from the study revealed that a digital divide existed within the African American community, with income being a strong determinant of access to computers. The highest level of access for the sample was in the salary range of $50,000-74,999. Computer access at home was 95.2% and 97.3% at work. Computer access at home showed a decline as participants' ages increased. Email usage was the number one activity reported, at close to 75%, followed by research at 60.5%. Gender did not influence computer access in this study.

Despite significant efforts at improving requirements engineering in the development of military systems, defense procurement is still plagued by expensive, well-publicized failures. Central to requirements engineering is the concept of rationality – more reason is assumed to eventually ‘solve’ the problem of defense requirements engineering. This thesis suggests that rationality, instead of being an objective standard, might be part of a socially constructed framework for action. Leaning on Science and Technology Studies for a theoretical framework, it is suggested that rationality and irrationality is part of a larger sociotechnical imaginary which outlines desirable outcomes, actions, and values in military systems development. This thesis presents an interview study of requirements analysts in the Swedish defense sector to outline if and how rationality relates to the narrative of this potential imaginary. The results indicate that a Swedish defense requirements engineering imaginary consists of a rationality/irrationality dichotomy which sets the stage for action in a state of chaos, and that the narrative associated with that imaginary enables the

Why are non-communicable diseases (NCDs) near the bottom of the list in terms of global health funding and political priority when together they account for the most death and suffering globally, particularly amongst the world’s poorest populations? The dissertation engages this puzzle by analyzing the work and impact of two model public health programs, one which succeeded in making legible the problem of NCDs as understood and experienced by citizens in the Global North in Finland and one which is challenging that understanding, based on the experiences of the poor in the Global South in Sierra Leone. The North Karelia Project, launched in eastern Finland in the early 1970s, generated science and practice that was taken up by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Puska 2002) and has become hegemonic, dominating global NCD public health discourse and rendering understandings of alternative causes and potential interventions invisible (Weisz and Vignola-Gagné 2015). The integrated NCD clinic at Koidu Government Hospital is the first clinical program to treat ongoing chronic illnesses—an issue that is frequently assumed to be too expensive for poor governments to address—in post-conflict and post-Ebola Sierra Leone, which hosts one of the weakest health systems in the world but which is part of a broader movement to challenge the dominant WHO NCD policy (PIH 2019; NCD Synergies 2015). Drawing on theories from medical sociology, science and technology studies, and global and transnational sociology, I use this comparison to explore how and why some understandings of NCDs prevail and why others fail. I also use it to gain leverage on three important related questions: (1) How are depictions of the burden of NCDs and their severity constructed in different material and social settings? (2) How do those depictions become stabilized (or not) in the global discourse about global health priorities? And, (3) What are the implications of such contrasting stabilization processes? I approach these questions by using a triangulated qualitative comparative case study research design (Bartlett and Vavrus 2016; Rihoux 2006), building on existing models of comparative research in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) (Knorr-Cetina 1999; Crane 2013). I conducted participant observation at organizational headquarters and clinical settings; semi-structured interviews with leaders, researchers, and clinical staff; and critical discourse analysis of the scientific literature, reports, and other historical and organizational materials generated by the actors. Each component compares the two cases (North Karelia Project, Finland and Koidu Government Hospital, Sierra Leone) along the lines of material setting, discourse, and science-making practices. Differences in epistemic practices reveal how power and politics are enacted and reproduced through public health science. I find that public health scientists in both cases must work to quell, or neutralize, persistent sociological ambivalence – irreconcilable tensions in values, interests, and politics – to solve local public health problems and produce science that can travel beyond the local. Ambivalences inherent in local public health science-making are quelled in patterned ways, shaped by an institutional field of struggle and strategies of accumulation of scarce symbolic and material capital. The North Karelia Project exemplified a public health social epistemology that I term “UHC-Insulated Population Optimization” which deployed three tactics for quelling persistent ambivalence such as offloading obligations, epistemic normality, and utilitarian construction. Conversely, the integrated NCD clinic at Koidu Government Hospital’s public health social epistemology, characterized as “Attending to Undone Care”, utilized other strategies for quelling ambivalence: making preferential option for the poor obligations, hybrid methods, and polar distinctions. The field of global health struggle, and the doxa on which it rests, is rooted in principles of distinction and hierarchy built from the legacies of extractive colonialism which remain powerful today in maintaining enormous health inequalities between the Global North and South. This dissertation and the comparison on which it rests opens new ground on the material conditions for epistemic justice and the material reparations necessary to ‘decolonize global’ health. / 2025-09-21T00:00:00Z

In recent years, scholars of science and technology studies (STS) have increasingly turned their attention to the role of collective imagination in shaping sociotechnical futures. This scholarship leaves open the question of how the collectives involved in bringing these futures to life come into being. Starting with one episode in the ongoing conflict over the construction of Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory in settler-colonial Canada, this discourse analysis draws on scholarship in feminist, anticolonial, and co-productionist STS to study this process of collective formation in relation to sociotechnical futures. It does so by examining how oil and gas workers become enrolled into a sociotechnical imaginary I call Canadian resource techno-nationalism. Comparing media and politicians’ representations of oil and gas workers with White workers’ representations of themselves indicates that they can end up participating in this imaginary regardless of their affinity to it. Examining policy documents and scholarly literature about the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in impact assessment, as well as political debates and mainstream media coverage about the conflict over the Coastal GasLink pipeline, draws attention to how elites’ active construction and protection of the boundary between knowledge and politics works to enroll Indigenous people into oil and gas jobs and, therefore, into the collective performing Canadian resource techno-nationalism. In both cases, elite actors deploy the resources at their disposal in ways that help funnel oil and gas workers into lives imagined for them, securing the power of the settler state in the process. This dynamic illustrates the importance of disentangling participation in the collective performance of sociotechnical imaginaries from freely given consent. Residents of liberal states can end up performing dominant imaginaries less out of any sense of affinity to them than as a response to the disciplinary power these imaginaries help sustain.

In 1987, statistics transformed rape from a rare and personal concern into an epidemic in popular consciousness. Mary Koss and colleagues conducted victimization surveys with thousands of college women, 1 in 4 of whom reported completed or attempted rape. This finding received tremendous attention in the 1980s, and continues to influence activists and state officials. Notwithstanding the importance of this and other scientific facts, scholars have rarely explored the role of scientists in shaping perceptions of and responses to sexual violence. This project addresses that gap in the literature, via the following questions: (1) how have scientists conceptualized sexual violence among adults; and (2) what social mechanisms enable, constrain, and otherwise influence scientific research on sexual violence? Drawing on insights from feminist science studies, I approach sexual violence as an intra-active phenomenon, and regard objects of study (sexual violence) as inseparable from agencies of observation (research instruments, researchers). Data came from three sources: content analysis of journal abstracts (N=1,313), in-depth assessment of texts in different subfields (N=84), and interviews with researchers (N=31). Ultimately, I argue that sexual violence research has been dominated by psychological inquiries, as well as gendered assumptions regarding who is most capable of perpetrating and experiencing rape. Scientists have produced a tremendous body of knowledge regarding the individual-level causes, individual-level outcomes, and prevalence of men’s sexual aggression toward women. Systemic forces and sexual violence that deviates from this particular gendered pattern remain underexamined. I further argue that scientific research on sexual violence is shaped by a range of social mechanisms that are particular to fields associated with questions of social morality and social movements including feminism(s). / Sociology