TESTIMONIALS, a novella and other stories, is set within the Bay Area — deep in the districts long removed from the municipal budget — and delves into the lives of men, women, and adolescents longing for acknowledgment, reinvention, and peace amongst the many spirits, past and present. In ‘Yard Range,’ a woman finds a surrogate in her Senator’s child and wonders what it would take to change one man’s vote. ‘Body Known’ follows a masseuse treating clients whose bodies archive stories, songs, jokes, and confessions. In ‘Height Marks,’ an elder passes on survival tips to a nephew ostracized from the family. ‘Spirit Per Capita’ chronicles one woman's desperate search for the woman who changed her life. In ‘Autofiction,’ a man must negotiate the cruelest of requests: tell us a story. And in the novella ‘The Snow,’ a child and a night janitor navigate the worst summer camp in San Francisco, where strange messes happen overnight, and where words must be stolen. Utilizing first, second, and collective narrations, these stories explore lives not defined by victimhood or race but by irretrievable and fleeting choices, unforgivable compromises, and loyalty to one’s people and one’s self. Here, history doesn’t repeat: it echoes, couplets, and yearns for you.

The term "science fiction" has in itself a contradiction: if science is truth, and fiction is make-believe, how can the two come together? The authors, readers, and fans of science fiction have come together to create a set of informal rules for how to deal with this contradiction, allowing fictional science when it is realistic, rigorous, backed up by evidence (which I call empiricism), and free of any obvious bias (which I call objectivity). There are areas, though, where these rules break down. Some of these areas are tied to genre, centered on works that may or may not be science fiction or the larger umbrella genre of speculative fiction, including fantasy. But some of these areas seem not to have a clear cause, causing friction within the larger speculative fiction community. Studies of science and engineering, I argue, offer an explanation: realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are frequently used to hold women and people of color to higher standards than other community members and epistemologically privilege white and male experiences. Women and people of color in science and engineering are told that their work is incorrect or unrealistic without basis; they are told that their work is insufficiently rigorous; they are told that their evidence is not as good as it is, or their work is attributed to someone else entirely; and they are told that they are not capable of being unbiased and producing unbiased work. I argue that these expectations have been translated into science fiction, potentially contributing to arguments and disputes that have caused significant conflict in the community. I look at novels that were nominated for a major speculative fiction award, the Hugo Award, between 2008 and 2012 to see how authors establish made-up facts in their texts. I then analyze online book reviews of those same texts to see if there are patterns in how readers respond to these speculations. Lastly, I look at statements by the authors themselves to document their experiences of both writing and how readers have interacted with them about the reception of their texts. I find that, much like in science and engineering, the rules about realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are enforced differently against women and people of color, which potentially indicates that the cultural view of science has these inequitable norms embedded into it. / Doctor of Philosophy / The term "science fiction" has in itself a contradiction: if science is truth, and fiction is make-believe, how can the two come together? The authors, readers, and fans of science fiction have come together to create a set of informal rules for how to deal with this contradiction, allowing fictional science when it is realistic, rigorous, backed up by evidence (which I call empiricism), and free of any obvious bias (which I call objectivity). There are areas, though, where these rules break down. Some of these areas are tied to genre, centered on works that may or may not be science fiction or the larger umbrella genre of speculative fiction, including fantasy. But some of these areas seem not to have a clear cause, causing friction within the larger speculative fiction community. Studies of science and engineering, I argue, offer an explanation: realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are frequently used to hold women and people of color to higher standards than other community members. Women and people of color in science and engineering are told that their work is incorrect or unrealistic without basis; they are told that their work is insufficiently rigorous; they are told that their evidence is not as good as it is, or their work is attributed to someone else entirely; and they are told that they are not capable of being unbiased and producing unbiased work. I argue that these expectations have been translated into science fiction, potentially contributing to arguments and disputes that have caused significant conflict in the community. I look at novels that were nominated for a major speculative fiction award, the Hugo Award, between 2008 and 2012 to see how authors establish made-up facts in their texts. I then analyze online book reviews of those same texts to see if there are patterns in how readers respond to these speculations. Lastly, I look at statements by the authors themselves to document their experiences of both writing and how readers have interacted with them about the reception of their texts. I find that, much like in science and engineering, the rules about realism, rigor, empiricism, and objectivity are enforced differently against women and people of color.

Janelle Monáe’s multi-part, multi-media work Metropolis can be read as a speculative fiction text. In my work, I examine the ways in which Monáe uses the structure of her second album The ArchAndroid and the music, lyrics, and dance of her video "Tightrope" to contribute to her underlying narrative. The ArchAndroid creates an auditory experience of time travel by varying the beat and musical style and through the use of specific production techniques. The accompanying video "Tightrope" delineates its titular metaphor through its music, dance, and visuals. These elements, as part of the central narrative of Cindi and Janelle, demonstrate the ways in which Monáe plays with the concept of selfhood by continually recontextualizing identity in time and space. / Master of Arts

Since the Spectre family of attacks were made public knowledge in January of 2018, researchers, manufacturers and interested individuals have experimented a lot with creating defences against it. But there have also been a lot of research aimed at circumventing these defences and finding alternative side-channels and mechanisms for performing Spectre-type attacks. This thesis implements and demonstrates a proof of concept of one of these newfound attacks known as a Speculative interference attack. This is done in a simulated environment, which to our knowledge has not been done before at the time of writing this report. After the 'basic' version of a Spectre attack has been explained, the thesis will explain how the more advanced interference attack works and how it is implemented in the simulated environment. In the end the results gained with the attack will be presented, which should convince the reader of the relevance and possibilities of the attack. / Efter att säkerhetsattackerna kända som Spectre offentliggjordes i Januari 2018 har bådeforskare, utvecklare och intresserade individer experimenterat med att ta fram försvar mot dem. Det har också spenderats mycket resurser och tid på att finna sätt att kringgå dessa försvar och att hitta alternativa sido-kanaler och mekanismer som kan utnyttjas för att genomföra en Spectre-attack. Den här uppsatsen demonstrerar en fungerande implementation av en av dessa nyfunna attacker, känd som en ’Speculative interference attack’. Detta görs i en simulerad miljö, vilken enligt vår kännedom inte tidigare har gjorts vid genomförandet av detta arbete. Efter att en mer grundläggande version av en Spectre-attack har förklarats kommer uppsatsen att gå igenom hur den mer avancerade ’interference’ attacken fungerar och hur den är implementerad. I slutändan kommer de resultat attacken tagit fram att redogöras, vilket bör övertyga läsaren om attackens relevans och möjligheter.

No description available.

The papers included in the thesis, and summarized in this covering document, were selected, in discussion with my supervisor, Dr. Roessler, from papers I have published in the philosophy of psychiatry. In parallel to this philosophical work, I have worked clinically as a psychiatrist and academically as a research psychiatrist. My clinical work has largely been working with Early Intervention Services, both in South London and in Coventry and Warwickshire, and this work has been acting as a psychiatrist in clinical teams who work with young people who may either be at risk of developing a psychotic illness, or are in the earliest stages of such an illness. My empirical work has been in the same clinical group and has used functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuropsychology to characterize those at risk of psychosis and to chart the onset of psychosis and the formation of delusions. As required by the university guidelines, a full list of publications, both empirical and philosophical, is detailed in appendix 1. The papers included in the thesis hence parallel many of these clinical and empirical interests: papers 2 and 4, in particular, examine the role neuroimaging may play in studying delusions and relate the prodromal phase of psychosis to both the neurodevelopmental and continuum models of psychosis. Paper 3 is one of two papers written with Lisa Bortolotti drawing on Richard Moran’s work and examining delusions. Paper 1 is perhaps the paper least connected to my empirical and clinical work as has a wider focus and tries to examine what mental illnesses are and to begin to describe a position Lisa Bortolotti and I later expanded on and referred to as ‘psychological realism’, with Paper 2 being a case example of this account being applied to a particular area of psychopathology, namely delusions. The papers form a progression with Paper 1 outlining a general conception of mental disorder, Paper 2 being a case study of this approach specifically in the area of delusion. Paper 3 takes the example of thought insertion and develops ideas from Paper 2 that reason giving is a crucial feature that helps highlight what is pathological about certain experiences. Paper 4 brings together the philosophical concerns regarding a wholly neuroscientific conception of psychopathology, and how this is of clinical and scientific relevance when we use psychopathology to demarcate the various stages of psychotic experience and illness.

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2045 a progressive European city is banning driving and BMW has to respond. Technological evolution, and a culture used to new interfaces leads to the option to recreate the relationship between human and car. But how to interact with our new friends? Talking to experts in the fields of science fiction, environmentalism, horse riding and piloting helped in first constructing a future and then tailoring an interface-vision for its inhabitants and their autonomous cars. The result is a tactile bond connecting driver and machine. Working together with your car doesn't have to mean loosing control, it's just another quality of control.

What can cinema as an industry and medium teach us about the roles and parameters that define a “body” within a contemporary and globalised climate of interwoven flows of exchanges and practices? How does cinema make visible and tangible otherwise invisible transsensorial and affective modes of interactions that a body actively engages with other bodies, to create meanings beyond the limitations and capacities of a single body’s subjectivity and materiality? I address these areas of inquiry by examining four case studies of film examples produced from Singapore, Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and America that feature ethnic “Chinese” bodies on screen. This thesis sets out to illustrate how meaning is easily imposed on bodies—whether tied to the ethnic, visual, or tangible—rendering them passive where they are mere products of social construction with no individual agency or autonomy. However, contemporary practices of filmmaking and new ways of thinking about film experiences reveal that the body is in fact an active-affective producer of meanings. As such, the body can no longer be approached as a passive central locus where its meaning is defined solely by transnational, transcultural, or other grand narratives. This thesis posits a “transsensorial” object-oriented, and new-materialist approach within the field of transnational Chinese cinemas studies that regards bodies on-screen beyond audiovisual signs to consider the materiality and immateriality of their production and productivity. Bodies are reframed as “body-without-organs” to consider the affective processes that produce them within specific ecologies—and their productive affective potentials to interrelate and encounter other bodies not-yet-formed. Through which, this thesis makes a case for cinema’s potential to produce thinking active-bodies and how bodies make sense of the worlds they are part of beyond subjective notions of lived experiences whether construed through different various inflections of social constructed identities based on trans-national, or trans-cultural discourses.

Orientador: Ubirajara Rancan de Azevedo Marques / Banca: Marco Aurélio Werle / Banca: Clélia Aparecida Martins / Mestre