Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, June 2002. / "May 2002." Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-205). / This thesis examines the historical conditions that have contributed to high rates of vaccine innovation in the U.S. during the twentieth century. Empirical analysis of vaccine license data demonstrates that the highest rates of innovation were achieved during the 1940's. Historical analysis of this data indicates that a large percentage of these innovations were the product of World War II vaccine development programs. Participation in these programs fostered a uniquely productive culture of collaboration between military and industrial vaccine developers that persisted through the postwar era, maintaining innovation rates through the 1960's and early 1970's. By the mid-1970's, however, the historical circumstances and cultural factors that engendered and sustained military-industrial collaboration began to change, causing rates of vaccine innovation to fall and vaccine stocks to dwindle. Poor economic incentives for vaccine development are often cited as the reason for falling rates of innovation. This explanation is correct but incomplete, because, for example, economic incentives for vaccine development were poor during the 1940's and 1950's, when innovation rates were high. I demonstrate that vaccine innovation is tied to levels of military-industrial collaboration and that declining rates of innovation in recent decades are associated with the disruption of this military-industrial culture of collaboration. Finally, drawing on lessons from this history of military-industrial relations, I examine the opportunities and challenges that the new "war on terrorism" presents for efforts to improve vaccine innovation and supplies. / Kendall L. Hoyt. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology, and Society, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-237). / by Roberta E. Bivins. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 399-410). / This dissertation is a two-theme ethnography focusing on the early history of one company within the context of the turbulent business environment of the 1990's. One theme is the control exercised by a corporation to mold its people to achieve certain productive ends, focusing on three areas: culture, physical environment and technology. The second theme is the ability of a corporation to be flexible. Taken together, the two themes form the self-contradictory notion of trying to control a group to increase its ability to be flexible. Many writers who focus on organizations have found the biological metaphor of evolution a useful way to conceptualize some aspects of a successful firm. In contrast I find the biological metaphor of genetic manipulation best illustrates the kind of control exercised by the leadership of this particular firm. From its inception, the leadership team wanted to create a flexible firm, one that could thrive in a turbulent environment. Rather than rely on a multiplicity of heterogeneous experiments, they actively manipulated specific aspects of the firm. The early results, the formation of a successful company, suggested that those controls and the decision to actively mold the firm using such controls were the right choices. When faced with a radical change in the marketplace, the arrival of the Internet economy, the leaders of this firm responded with the same technique and once again were able to mold a successful firm. To the extent that the Internet economy requires companies to change at Internet speed, this firm's ability to manipulate its own "DNA" may well be a model for success for other firms in this environment. / by Patricia Peterson Bentley. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D. in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-223). / This dissertation investigates the role of software in institutional transformation using the example of Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. It ethnographically tracks the development of the software infrastructure being built for MOOCs, focusing on three communities-programmers, instructors, and researchers-who centrally participate in the MOOC start-ups' stated mission of reinventing higher education. It argues that MOOC infrastructures are best viewed as an example of a heterogeneous software assemblage that I call the "software-as-platform," that is today being widely deployed and used in a number of industries and institutions. The software-as-platform consists primarily of software that holds together a variety of normative logics: open-endedness; fast, iterative, production processes; data-driven decision-making; governance for emergent effects; scalability; and personalization. Of these, the most important is that its creators give to it an open-endedness as to its ultimate purpose: thus, the assemblage is often framed using the language of "tools" or "platform." I then argue that the software-as-platform is a vehicle through which the norms and practices of Silicon Valley are making their way into other institutions, a process I call "platformization." Finally, I suggest that the software-as-platform enables the emergence of a new form of expertise: tool-making. Tool-makers see themselves as building software tools, whose ultimate purpose comes from their users. The tools themselves draw on many other kinds of expert knowledge chosen at the discretion of the tool-builders. The dissertation consists of four chapters bookended by an Introduction and a Conclusion. Chapter 2 is an analysis of the public discourse around MOOCs. Chapter 3 describes MOOC infrastructures, showing how a cluster of institutions, software, and people are organized to produce the plethora of courses as well knowledge about education. Chapter 4 tells the story about how edX, a MOOC start-up, turned itself from an educational organization into a software organization by deploying the software-as-platform, thereby transforming and displacing particular institutional roles. In Chapter 5, I analyze the practices of a rising class of tool-makers, computer scientists, and describe how they are able to draw on other kinds of expertise, and intervene in new domains, while still presenting themselves as neutral system-builders. / by Shreeharsh Kelkar. / Ph. D. in History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology and Society (HASTS)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, February 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [312]-323). / This dissertation uses the Ames Family of Easton, Massachusetts as a case study on development of business and industry in early nineteenth century America. From English iron-working roots transplanted to America in 1635 the artisan tradition of blacksmithing dominated the Ames family for generations. Oliver Ames was trained as a smith, but when he came to Easton in 1803 to focus on the manufacture of shovels, he made an important step in the evolution from artisan and craftsman to industrialist, a common transition well exemplified by Oliver Ames's life. The Ames story demonstrates that the "Industrial Revolution" was no revolution at all. It was a gradual and fluid evolution from one way of doing business to another, an evolution in which many older methods and beliefs (the importance of farming, the dependence on kin, devotion to the community, conservative capital investments...) served men like Oliver Ames well. Common mischaracterizations of industrial development as revolutionary slights the importance of early nineteenth century industry; encourages an inaccurate focus on the romantic nature of small, rural mills; and discourages any impulse to examine in detail the ways in which early industry operated and played a part in industrial development. In fact, the management and operation of many of these facilities was far more complex than is typically recognized. Many of the earliest industrialists struggled to understand and manage complicated issues such as labor, raw materials, shipping, sales, international trade, economics, technological and scientific understanding, and the impact of business on family and community. / (cont.) We can learn much about later business practice by exploring these earlier industries. The thesis discusses Oliver Ames's operations in Easton, West Bridgewater, and Canton, Massachusetts including joint waterpower development. Later management by Oliver's sons Oakes and Oliver is also studied as are merchant houses in New York and blast furnaces in Franklin and Wawayanda, New Jersey managed by Old Oliver's son William and the puddling and heavy forging shop run by his son Horatio in Falls Village, Connecticut. Later family investments are briefly discussed including Oakes's involvement with the Credit Mobilier Construction Company which built the Union Pacific Railroad. / by Gregory J. Galer. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-95). / A plant can be considered to be capture-ready if, at some point in the future it can be retrofitted for carbon capture and sequestration and still be economical to operate. The concept of capture-ready is not a specific plant design; rather it is a spectrum of investments and design decisions that a plant owner might undertake during the design and construction of a plant. Power plant owners and policymakers are interested in capture-ready plants because they may offer relatively low cost opportunities to bridge the gap between current coal-fired generation technologies without CO2 capture to future plants that may be built from the start to capture CO2, and reduce the risks of possible future regulations of CO2 emissions. This thesis explores the design options, technologies and costs of capture-ready coal-fired power plants. The first part of the thesis outlines the two major designs that are being considered for construction in the near-term - pulverized coal (PC) and integrated gasification/combined cycle (IGCC). It details the steps that are necessary to retrofit each of these plants for CO2 capture and sequestration. Finally, for each technology, it provides a qualitative assessment of the steps that can be taken to reduce the costs and output de-rating of the plant after a retrofit. / (cont.) The second part of the thesis evaluates the lifetime (40 year) net present value (NPV) costs of plants with differing levels of pre-investment for CO2 capture. Three scenarios are evaluated - a baseline supercritical PC plant, a baseline IGCC plant and an IGCC plant with pre-investment for capture. This analysis evaluates each technology option under a range of CO2 tax scenarios and determines the most economical choice and year of retrofit. The results of this thesis show that a baseline PC plant is the most economical choice under low CO2 tax rates, and IGCC plants are preferable at higher tax rates. Little difference is seen in the lifetime NPV costs between the IGCC plants with and without pre-investment for CO2 capture. The third part of this thesis evaluates the concept of CO2 "lock-in". CO2 lock-in occurs when a newly built plant is so prohibitively expensive to retrofit for CO2 capture that it will never be retrofitted for capture, and offers no economic opportunity to reduce the CO2 emissions from the plant, besides shutting down or rebuilding. The results of this analysis show that IGCC plants are expected to have significantly lower lifetime CO2 emissions than a PC plant, given moderate (10-35 $/ton CO2) initial tax rates. / (cont.) Higher (above $40) or lower (below $7) initial tax rates do not result in significant differences in lifetime CO2 emissions from these plants. Little difference is seen in the lifetime CO2 emissions between the IGCC plants with and without pre-investment for CO2 capture. / by Mark Bohm. / S.M.

Conventional polymer composites are highly demanding due to their high strength and stiffness, low weight, easy processing and corrosion resistance. However, their weak out of plane properties restricts their use in high performance applications, such as aerospace, military and automotive components. The exceptional mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of carbon nanotubes offer great potential to improve out of plane properties of the fibre reinforced composites and imparts multifunctionality. This thesis work focuses on investigating different properties of multiscale composite such as, electrical conductivity and mechanical properties under cyclic loading conditions. One important aim of this project work is to study  relationship between the nanotube concentration and the resulting properties of the multiscale composites. The multiscale composites characterized in this thesis work are manufactured by two different ways, (1) by depositing MWCNTs on carbon fibre via Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) process and then the final manufacturing by resin transfer moulding and (2) by mixing MWCNTs in resin and manufacturing multiscale composite by hand lay-up.  The electrical conductivity of multiscale composites was tested at different lengths, currents, nanotube content and alignment voltages. The electrical conductivity measurements performed at different sample lengths showed that the conductivity strongly depends on length along which it is measured. All samples showed lower conductivity values at longer lengths and higher at smaller lengths. The matrix doped multiscale composites did not show any enhancement in conductivity due to improperly dispersed nanotubes whereas in fibre doped multiscale composites, the enhancement in conductivity was insignificant compared to the reference sample. However, a percolation threshold is observed at 0.005% MWCNTs content. This sample showed highest conductivity among multiscale composites. The results from mechanical characterization showed that thin 90°ply composite perform better under cyclic loading conditions by delaying matrix microcracking. Among the multiscale composites, the sample with 0.005% nanotubes showed enhanced interfacial shear strength by delaying microcracking.

<p> The iSocial 3D CVLE is an innovative design for addressing special needs at a distance that require social and active learning. This exploratory retrospective case study explored innovative methods of analyzing co-occurrences of behavior to gain insight into understanding and evaluating student performance and 3D CVLE design. Visualization techniques were employed to model student behavior within similarly structured activities. Linear mixed models revealed that student performance significantly differed across environments. In addition, environmental design attributes were identified through qualitative memos. General behavior patterns were associated with design environment attributes, warranting further study.</p><p>

No description available.

Uppsala Vatten, which is the water supply provider in Uppsala Municipality, has a leakage of 14 percent in their water distribution network. This amounts to a yearly loss of 2.4 million cubic meters of processed drinking water and 1.8 GWh of wasted energy. Uppsala Vatten has a set goal of lowering the leakage from 14 to 10 percent by 2022.  The company has around 40 wireless flow meters and is interested in using data analysis on flow data collected by these to find leaks more rapidly and thus decrease water loss. In this paper five algorithms for change detection were implemented and evaluated for the application of identifying leaks in water flow data. Implementation and testing of these algorithms on both real flow data and artificially created data was conducted to determine their suitability for the application and for relative comparison. Successful identification of leaks in real data was achieved for all five algorithms although the performance varied among them.