Thirty years after the collapse of the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979) how do Cambodians cope with the traumatic legacy of Pol Pot’s reign of terror? What forms does witnessing take on in post-socialist and transitional Cambodia as senior Khmer Rouge leaders await prosecution at the Cambodian Tribunal? The paper examines aspects of witnessing in today’s Cambodia, expressing each in its own way the idea of the ‘shifting’ of witnessing: the transformation of testimonies due to time passing and contrasted systems of (...) justice through a comparison of testimonies in the trial of the ‘Pol Pot/Ieng Sary clique’ (1979) and the current Cambodian Tribunal; the complex forms of witnessing emerging from participatory projects developed with Western authors in ‘We want (u) to know’ (documentary movie made by an international film crew with the inhabitants of the village of Thnol Lok in 2009) and ‘Breaking the silence’ (theatre play realised by the Dutch dramaturge Annemarie Prins that premiered in Phnom Penh in 2009 and toured Cambodia in the following years); the relationship between documentary and legal forms of witnessing through the example of Vann Nath, a survivor of S-21/Tuol Sleng, the prison where the Khmer Rouge tortured and killed thousands of their fellow countrymen. The paper analyses the difficulty Western organisers of participatory projects experienced in applying the hybrid model of transitional justice to sociocultural contexts of witnessing. Nevertheless it points out their contribution to processes of ‘recognition beyond recognition’ in which cultural differences in coming to terms with historical trauma are expressed and recorded. (shrink)

The article explores the development of Students’ Quality Circles (SQC) as a major contribution to education in Nepal. The principles of SQCs are introduced, together with a strategy for sustainable development of a national programme. The creation of collaborative advantage has wider educational and social implications.

The article considers relations between the generations, with particular attention given to older workers, who also face the pressures of responsibilities to both parents and children. The situations in Norway and the UK are compared. The case is made for support structures, such as senior quality circles, at the threshold between employment and retirement.

The history of Total Quality in Education and Students’ Quality Circles in Turkish educational institutions is introduced through “İmece Circles (İCs).” The history dates from the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, and industrial quality-focused reforming actions in the 1980s. The Total Quality implications of the Ministry of National Education in 1990s will be discussed, with an account of the efforts of the writer as the Director of the Turkish Center for School of Quality and the Director General for (...) Turkey for the World Council for Total Quality and Excellence in Education. The theory, practices and outcomes of nearly 2,000 ICs will be reported. Among the key innovations has been “Total Quality Management,” and its implementation, through various methods and tools, in different settings such as “Quality Circles.” The article concludes with some recommendations. (shrink)

In recent years, governments, businesses and other organisations have increasingly been forced to attempt to survive by reorganising themselves fundamentally. Although this happens at present on a large scale, it is not unprecedented. In fact, most organisations have had to change their working practises at some time for some reason—for example, when the competition catches up or when technology threatens to make production obsolete. The usual strategy is to fire part of the staff and to redistribute tasks. This tends to (...) put a heavy burden on staff. They have to search for other jobs or attempt re-skilling. Those remaining may face substantial changes in their relations to their managers, who will require changes … ‘or else’. The study reported in the paper focuses on people’s reactions to this approach. Some employees accept and leave. Others become aware of an opportunity to damage their company. Others again see a way to resist and change the way the managers behave and thereby turn around the company and maintain or increase the number of jobs. The study focuses on two questions. The first is how one should model or describe the behaviour of people in the third category, i.e. those wishing to contribute. It does not seem useful to follow one’s first hunch, i.e. to search for quantifiable patterns. People’s behaviour will always be contextualised as a reaction to what managers do. This suggests the use of qualitative methods. The second question is whether the concept of presence may clarify the behaviour and identify ways for employees to contribute positively to changes in their organisations. An obstacle to answering the second question is that qualitative methods focus on people’s experiences in some context, and on the emergence of their behaviour, but do not necessarily lead to suggestions on how to behave with what effect. It is attempted to answer the second question and thereby the first question with the aim of identifying what people may do who are not immediately fired or made redundant when fundamental organisational changes are introduced. Data have been collected from four companies that decided to initiate such changes in 2003–2004. (shrink)

This paper describes a decision model for an autonomous agent that provides an inhabitant with comfort based on information network technologies that connect home electric appliances with household equipment. The inhabitant enjoys the benefit of comfort, while he pays the cost for keeping that comfort. The autonomous agent should decide and control household equipment considering that cost from the inhabitant’s viewpoint. Thus, we utilized a representation scheme called an “influence diagram” that enabled us to model the decision-making process of the (...) agent from the inhabitant’s point of view. First, decision modeling using the influence diagram is presented via an example. The presented model consists of three information-processing modules: a module for estimating the situation of an inhabitant based on information from home networks, a module for evaluating comfort of the inhabitant, and a module for making decisions that maximize the utility of the inhabitant from both the viewpoints of comfort and the cost paid for that comfort. Next, an experiment for verifying whether the presented model is effective or not, and its results are described. Finally, our model of the agent is discussed in relation to social intelligence design by investigating the interactive processes between the agent and the inhabitant. (shrink)

Sometimes, technological solutions to practical problems are devised that conspicuously take into account the constraints to which a given culture is subjecting the particular task or the manner in which it is carried out. The culture may be a professional culture (e.g., the practice of law), or an ethnic-cum-professional culture (e.g., dance in given ethnic cultures from South-East Asia), or, again, a denominational culture prescribing an orthopraxy impinging on everyday life through, for example, prescribed abstinence from given categories of workday (...) activities, or dietary laws. (shrink)

Recently, researchers on organization theory and behavior were challenged by the introduction of cognitive machines in the list of the organization’s participants. Researchers in this field advocated that cognitive machines contribute to improve cognitive abilities in the organization by extending people’s rationality and decision-making capacity and by reducing intra-individual and group dysfunctional conflicts. This paper supports these findings and extends their results to upper layers at managerial and organizational levels of application by proposing the concept of new industrial organizations with (...) structure and processes of Computational Organization Management Networks. In such a new organization type, cognitive machines and cognitive information systems are prominent actors of governance, automation, and control of the whole enterprise. (shrink)

Television is a global, near-ubiquitous technology that has played a unique role in shaping modern society. It is a member of the family household that is regarded, both consciously and subconsciously, as a social actor, in a way that is remarkably similar to that of other members. Individuals, households and broad social groups form complex relationships with television but its underlying technologies have remained relatively simple until now. This paper looks at how new technologies will add intelligence to television and (...) change these relationship for good or ill. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of questionnaire-based research conducted at an exhibition of interactive humanoid robots that was held at the Osaka Science Museum, Japan. The aim of this exhibition was to investigate the feasibility of communication robots connected to a ubiquitous sensor network, under the assumption that these robots will be practically used in daily life in the not-so-distant future. More than 90,000 people visited the exhibition. A questionnaire was given to the visitors to explore their opinions of the (...) robots. Statistical analysis was done on the data of 2,301 respondents. It was found that the visitors’ opinions varied according to age; younger visitors did not necessarily like the robots more than elderly visitors; positive evaluation of the robots did not necessarily conflict with negative evaluations such as anxiety; there was no gender difference; and there was almost no correlation between opinions and the length of time spent near the robots. (shrink)

For a variety of reasons, consciousness and selfhood are beginning once again to be intensively studied in a scientific frame of reference. The notions of each which are emerging are extremely varied: in the case of selfhood, the lack of an adequate vocabulary to capture various aspects of subjectivity has led to deep confusion. The task of the first part of this article is to clear up this terminological confusion, while salvaging whatever is valuable from the contemporary discussion. The more (...) important task of the second part is to discuss the moral issues inevitably involved in any treatment, scientific or otherwise, of the modern identity. (shrink)

Human-computer interaction today has got a touch of magic: Without understanding the causal coherence, using a computer seems to become the art to use the right spell with the mouse as the magic wand — the sorcerer's staff. Goethes's poem admits an allegoric interpretation. We explicate the analogy between using a computer and casting a spell with emphasis on teaching magic skills. The art to create an ergonomic user interface has to take care of various levels of skills for the (...) human operators. The problem of logical discontinuities as opposed to continuous control is the most serious obstacle for human-computer interaction. (shrink)

Value in the British National Health Service have shifted away from patient care towards financial control. However, in the quest for efficiency , huge amounts of NHS money have been wasted on computer system which failed. In this paper, I draw on a case study to explore some of the ethical issues which underlie this kind of waste of resources. Issues include the gap between public pronouncements and personal experience, the chaos of which lies behind the facade of rationality, and (...) the systematic silencing of people, usually women, who question the viability of computer systems which are created for private gain rather than public service. (shrink)

Design can be thought of as a model for such endeavours as are intended to result in industrially manufactured products by means of thinking and other intellectual activity. Familiarity with the thinking involved in the designing process is important, not only for those engaged in training designers, but for anyone desirous of systemizing the endeavour. One procedure for approaching an understanding of the way designers think is to describe it with the help of different metaphors. There are some metaphors for (...) thinking about complicated and interrelated phenomena that should lend themselves to illustrating the thinking involved in design, albeit with reservations — e.g. the difficulty of allowing due consideration for what is unthinkable and indescribable in this context. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that to think of the artificial means to think at the same time of man, nature, culture and society not as separate entities but as elements of one and the same system; since, in its field of action, the artificial articulates its component dimensions, which altogether are natural, human, cultural and social. Usually we call artificial both the procedure through which we project the realisation of something and the product of our project: the realisation of (...) the artefact. The artefact incorporates, in the physical and inanimate dimensions of nature, those dimensions which are proper to the producer. When the artificial imitates and reproduces certain aspects of nature, its action is directed towards achieving an improvement in man's life. In this perspective, we think that the artificial cannot be viewed as a factor external to man and man's social life. (shrink)

In this paper I critically examine the notion of explanation used in artificial intelligence in general, and in the theory of belief revision in particular. I focus on two of the best known accounts in the literature: Pagnucco’s abductive expansion functions and Gärdenfors’ counterfactual analysis. I argue that both accounts are at odds with the way in which this notion has historically been understood in philosophy. They are also at odds with the explanatory strategies used in actual scientific practice. At (...) the end of the paper I outline a set of desiderata for an epistemologically motivated, scientifically informed belief revision model for explanation. (shrink)

Being present in the same room not only enables people to exchange non-verbal communication but also the physical properties of the room offer opportunities for action and thus contribute to the ongoing social process. This paper discusses concepts from social and behavioural sciences to better understand the role of physical environments and artefacts with respect to cooperation among a group of people. Barker's behaviour setting theory is studied and applied to electronic settings. Requirements for ‘electronic behaviour settings’ to enable situated (...) cooperation in CSCW across spatial and temporal distances will be derived. Electronic behaviour settings should embody their own physical behaviour, and thus provide electronic places for cooperation. Adaptation to a particular group process can be achieved through a particular constitution of the setting and its adaptation in the course of practical use. This paper studies how this concept maps to existing groupware systems and outlines from practical experience whether this concept may help users adopt groupware in their work practice. This approach will contribute to the support of situated action in computer-supported cooperative work. (shrink)

The paper introduces the concept of Computer-based Informated Environments (CBIEs) to indicate an emergent form of work organisation facilitated by information technology. It first addresses the problem of inconsistent meanings of the informate concept in the literature, and it then focuses on those cases which, it is believed, show conditions of plausible informated environments. Finally, the paper looks at those factors that when found together contribute to building a CBIE. It makes reference to CBIEs as workplaces that comprise a non-technocentric (...) perspective and questions whether CBIEs truly represent an anthropocentric route of information technology. (shrink)

In a knowledge-based economy of the globalizing economic order, the role of regions is very significant in order to create and to disperse knowledge. Particularly, geographical clusters of firms in a single sub-national region may contribute to transmitting certain kinds of knowledge between and among firms. In addition, markets prefer to favor specialized firms with a coherent body of knowledge when knowledge creation and the use of new knowledge become increasingly important for maintaining and improving a firm’s competitiveness. Therefore, regional (...) policy makers may not interfere directly with markets and firms when the process of globalization pushes national economies into a world of learning and innovation. The reason is that the institutional framework for market exchange favors knowledge exchange in a globalizing economic system. This paper argues how East Asian science cities such as Tsukuba Science City in Japan, Daedeok Innopolis in South Korea, Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park in Taiwan, and Zhongguancun Science Park in China have been developed in order to create technology innovation as well to contribute to national and regional economic growth. Moreover, it also focuses on their competitiveness and the further development strategy that aims to become global science cities. Finally, it also discusses whether their competitiveness as innovative clusters is based on global or local levels. (shrink)

We have carried out a representative survey among more than 1,600 workers, salaried employees and civil servants in industry, services sector and public service asking about types of cooperation in the work process. We have been able to identify eight different work organizations which can be described by the three dimensions of cooperation, participation and autonomy. In all, 6.9% of German employees work according to the organizational principle of group work. However, it is possible to distinguish very different types of (...) group work regarding the group members' opportunities for autonomy and participation. (shrink)

In this paper we give some theoretical links between the wittgensteinian strategy of language-games and the strategy followed by students in Artificial Intelligence in the seventies. We refer also to the interpretation given by Dummett and Prawitz to the Wittgenstein's slogan of "meaning as use", showing the link of this ideas with the needs of Artificial Intelligence. We sustain that the concept of "procedure" as developed in early Artificial Intelligence is still one of the main attempt, realized in that field (...) of research, to give a definition of meaning , which gives good hopes to be a suitable explicatum of the idea of "meaning as use". (shrink)

Many recent developments in technological design are aimed towards the ‘humanisation’ of technology, that is, making technology behave in a way that is more ‘intuitive’, ‘friendly’ or ‘usable’. This assumes, however, that technology is not in itself human but rather some external antagonistic force or object. Contrary to this, I will defend the suggestion that technology is part of what constitutes humanity as a whole, to the extent of embodying some degree of cognition and consciousness. Looking briefly at some proposed (...) mechanical models of self-consciousness, I consider the question: What functions might self-conscious systems perform? (shrink)

A thematic priority of the European Union’s Framework V research and development programme was the creation of a user-friendly information society which met the needs of citizens and enterprises. In practice, though, for example in the case of on-line digital music, the needs of citizens and enterprises may be in conflict. This paper proposes to leverage the appearance of ‘intelligence’ in the platform layer of a layered communications architecture to avoid such conflicts in similar applications in the future. The key (...) idea is that if the intelligence is encapsulated in an agent, then the agents should be organized as a society, and then the rules of the society can be used to ensure ‘responsible’ behaviour. We discuss how an agent society can be used to regulate behaviour in future information trading scenarios, and conclude that this approach offers a ‘third way’ which can satisfy the (reasonable) needs of both citizens and enterprises in the user-friendly information society. (shrink)

Andrew Basden, Philosophical Frameworks for Understanding Information Systems Content Type Journal Article Pages 293-296 DOI 10.1007/s11023-009-9146-6 Authors Roberto Poli, University of Trento Department of Sociology and Social Research 41, Venice sq 38100 Trento Italy Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495 Journal Volume Volume 19 Journal Issue Volume 19, Number 2.

In this article, the author will argue that the act of listening through public soundwalks and other formal and informal exercises builds environmental and social awareness and promotes changes in social and cultural practices. By examining the act of listening as an alternative pathway and comparing the research, writings, and creative work of leaders of the acoustic ecology movement (i.e., R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Bernie Krause), the author hopes to shed light on these potentials. For purposes of comparison, (...) projects that explore the sonification and audification of inaudible signals will be examined, including the work of Christina Kubisch. The process of audification and sonification of these signals will be examined in comparison to soundscape experiences in order to develop a theory of data sonification based on the soundscape. In order to build a community around the urban soundscape, in 2003, the author co-founded the New York Society of Acoustic Ecology. Through this endeavor, she co-created the ongoing NYSoundmap and Sound Seeker projects, which provide some practical research for this article. Thus, by comparing and contrasting theoretical writings with leading listening exercises, public soundwalks, soundscape-related brainstorming sessions, and presenting field recordings in various settings, new methodologies will be documented. (shrink)

Weber-Fechner Law states that the perceived intensity is proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus. Recent experiments suggest that this law also holds true for perception of numerosity. Therefore, the use of a logarithmic scale for the quantification of the perceived intensity may also depend on how the cognitive apparatus processes information. If Weber-Fechner law is the result of natural selection, then the logarithmic scale should be better, in some sense, than other biologically feasible scales. We consider the minimization of (...) the relative error as the target of natural selection and we provide a formal proof that the logarithmic scale minimizes the maximal relative error. (shrink)

Charles Parsons: Mathematical Thought and its Objects Content Type Journal Article Pages 311-315 DOI 10.1007/s11023-010-9181-3 Authors Giuseppe Primiero, University of Ghent Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science Blandijnberg 2 Ghent 9000 Belgium Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495 Journal Volume Volume 20 Journal Issue Volume 20, Number 2.

This article reports on an empirical investigation of long-term use of a groupware system in a spatially and massively distributed network of educators. It is a case study based investigation aimed at understanding the impacts of collaboration technology in supporting social interaction. The paradigm of social constructivism and the perspective of structuration are proposed as frameworks for understanding the impacts of technology on mediating social interaction. Utilizing these perspectives in an empirical investigation, the case study findings demonstrate how collaboration technology (...) can serve as a change agent in transforming the culture and structure of social interaction. This is enacted in two ways: through the various meanings which people construct when interacting with technology and in benefiting from the structural properties of a system through its technical affordances. (shrink)

Through analogy this paper draws attention to hypercapitalism, that is, the profitability of the processes of economic recirculation that are independent of a materialist reality. Since neither materialist ideology nor perception are any longer at stake in hypercapitalism this opens the way for other realities to be revisited. In particular, this paper suggests that this radical shift in the logic of the economy resonates with the values of the Mediaeval period. The paper concludes by suggesting that the study of human (...) consciousness may benefit from a new relationship with reason, particularly as we consider such terms as artificial and intelligent. (shrink)

This paper leads to apply some recent developments in the economic literature dealing with the concept of innovation systems to the problem of economic cohesion in Europe. Starting from a definition of innovation systems, it allows to consider firms and sets of intstitutions as two main but different types of innovation systems. This distinction is the source of a discussion about the nature of the coordination problems which appear when considering the European diversity of innovation systems. The different combinations between (...) innovation systems developed in the paper are a useful means of discussing European policy intervention and its ability to favour (or not) economic cohesion. (shrink)

“Walk on the Sun” is an interactive experience of image as music. As explorers move across images that are data projected onto the floor, their movements are visually tracked and used to select pixels in the images which they immediately hear as musical pitches played by various instruments. The sonification design maps color to one of 9 instruments, brightness to one of 50 pitches, and location in the image to panning position, creating 57,600 differentiable musical events. This high resolution and (...) interactive auditory presentation of pixel data enables the blind to explore images of the Sun from the STEREO space mission, nebula and galactic images from Hubble, as well as art masterpieces. Specifically, the blind can hear when hot spots cross the center of the Sun or the solar winds and corona are changing by sonifying virtual geometric structures, such as lines and circles, to create chords of music reflecting the changing content of the selected pixels within that structure as images are played as movies. Originally funded by a NASA/STSCI Ideas grant, the exhibit has toured to more than 12 cities in the US, visiting blind and science centers in the process and receiving enthusiastic response throughout. Plans for additional work furthering NASA wide image sonification standards are in process. (shrink)

With increasing flexibility of technology and a shift towards competence being the core of competitive edge in worklife, the need for new organizational concepts or models which givejoint optimization across human and technological dimensions has been acknowledged in leading, innovative enterprises. National crossdisciplinary research based productivity programmes are appearing in several countries. Due to internationalization and the general shortcomings of bureaucratic organizational forms, regional networks of enterprises in cooperation with public R&D institutions seem to provide answers to needs of regions (...) to remain competitive. The paper discusses the possible role of social science in a multilevel, participative strategy for developing new, democratic and productive organizational forms in worklife. Aspects of national productivity programmes in Scandinavia, Germany and Australia are discussed in connection with the situation in Italy as analyzed through some recent research projects. (shrink)

Currently there is a clear trend towards questioning the traditional sovereign human self which for two hundred years has had an undisputed central status within European culture and philosophy. This challenges the tradition of anthropocentrism which in a Scandinavian computer science context has had two theoretical foundations: the workoriented design theory represented by the Scandinavian participatory design philosophy, and the idea of the computer to a rather passive medium for human communication. The process, reducing the computer to a rather passive (...) medium for human communication. The paper firstly examines these two theoretical anthropocentric positions. Secondly it outlines the trend towards challenging the status of the human self within different research contexts. This trend represents a challenge for Human-centred systems design. Finally, it discusses the new demands for conceptualising basic IT research phenomena created by this development, with particular focus on the issue of human-centredness as a systems design strategy. (shrink)

Ford’s Helen Keller Was Never in a Chinese Room claims that my argument in How Helen Keller Used Syntactic Semantics to Escape from a Chinese Room fails because Searle and I use the terms ‘syntax’ and ‘semantics’ differently, hence are at cross purposes. Ford has misunderstood me; this reply clarifies my theory.

This paper describes the SNePS knowledge-representation and reasoning system. SNePS is an intensional, propositional, semantic-network processing system used for research in AI. We look at how predication is represented in such a system when it is used for cognitive modeling and natural-language understanding and generation. In particular, we discuss issues in the representation of fictional entities and the representation of propositions from <span class='Hi'>fiction</span>, using SNePS. We briefly survey four philosophical ontological theories of <span class='Hi'>fiction</span> and sketch an epistemological theory (...) of <span class='Hi'>fiction</span> (implemented in SNePS) using a story operator and rules for allowing propositions to migrate into and out of story spaces. (shrink)

Scenarios are flexible means to integrate disparate ideas, thoughts and feelings into holistic images, providing the context and meaning of possible futures. The application of narrative scenarios in engineering, development of socio-technical systems or communities provides an important link between general ideas and specification of technical system requirements. They focus on how people use systems through context-related storytelling rather than abstract descriptions of requirements. The quality of scenarios depends on relevant assumptions and authentic scenario stories. In this article, we will (...) explore how the narrative approach may enrich the scenario ‘skeleton’ with ‘flesh and blood’, that is, living, detailed and consistent storytelling. In addition, criteria are suggested for evaluation of the quality of scenario storytelling. (shrink)

This article focus on paradigms, methods and ethics of action research in the Scandinavian countries. The specific features of the action research paradigm are identified. a historical overview follows of some main action research projects in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The tendency towards upscale action research projects from organisational or small community projects to large-scale, regional based network approaches are also outlined and discussed. Finally, a synthesised approach of the classical, socio-technical action research approach and the large-scale network and holistic (...) approaches is suggested as a promising approach for the future. (shrink)

Identity building in organisations is often viewed as legitimacy of value systems of the organisation. Based on empirical studies the task of this article is to argue that such a legitimacy approach risks failing in the longer perspective, if the proactive capability development is neglected. The participatory scenario method presented in this article is one of the possible methods to enhance identity building based on proactive capability development.

Conclusions As my paper draws to a close, it may seem quite clear that by posing such questions about the organisation of work and labour, one opens up more problems than are actually solved. There is one question in particular that has to be answered. I shall ask that question rhetorically: Can there be a world in which group activities are not started up?

Recent proposals for computer-assisted argumentation have drawn on dialectical models of argumentation. When used to assist public policy planning, such systems also raise questions of political legitimacy. Drawing on deliberative democratic theory, we elaborate normative criteria for deliberative legitimacy and illustrate their use for assessing two argumentation systems. Full assessment of such systems requires experiments in which system designers draw on expertise from the social sciences and enter into the policy deliberation itself at the level of participants.

In this article we present a parameterized model for generating multimodal behavior based on cultural heuristics. To this end, a multimodal corpus analysis of human interactions in two cultures serves as the empirical basis for the modeling endeavor. Integrating the results from this empirical study with a well-established theory of cultural dimensions, it becomes feasible to generate culture-specific multimodal behavior in embodied agents by giving evidence for the cultural background of the agent. Two sample applications are presented that make use (...) of the model and are designed to be applied in the area of coaching intercultural communication. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to analyse technology and social relationships using the concept of knowledge. Therefore technology is not only a means to produce and social relationships a means to interact, but also the result of a whole of elements. The concept of knowledge aims to analyse these elements both from a structural point of view, highlighting their characteristics, and from a dynamic point of view, which considers how subjects interpret and make sense of them. In this framework (...) technologies and social relationships are reinterpreted according to knowledge that characterises each context, suggesting some clues to design technologies, information technologies and social policies. (shrink)

This paper draws upon contemporary feminist philosophy in order to consider the changing meaning of privacy and its relationship to identity, both online and offline. For example, privacy is now viewed by European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as a right, which when breached can harm us by undermining our ability to maintain social relations. I briefly outline the meaning of privacy in common law and under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to show the relevance of (...) contemporary feminist thought, in particular the image of selfhood that stresses its relationality. I argue that the meaning of privacy is in the process of altering as a result of a number of contingent factors including both changes in technology, particularly computer mediated communication (CMC), and changes in the status of women. This latter point can be illustrated by the feminist critique of the traditional reluctance of the liberal state to interfere with violence and injustice within the “privacy” of the home. In asking the question: “how is the meaning of “privacy” changing?” I consider not only contemporary legal case law but also Thomas Nagel’s influential philosophical analysis of privacy. Nagel’s position is useful because of the detail with which he outlines what privacy used to mean, whilst bemoaning its passing. I agree with his view that its meaning is changing but am critical of his perspective. In particular, I challenge his claim regarding the traditional “neutrality of language” and consider it in the context of online identity. (shrink)

Storytelling is a pervasive part of our daily lives and culture. The task of creating stories for the purposes of entertaining, educating, and training has traditionally been the purview of humans. This sets up the conditions for a creative authoring bottleneck where the consumption of stories outpaces the production of stories by human professional creators. The automation of story creation may scale up the ability to produce and deliver novel, meaningful story artifacts. From this practical perspective, story generation systems replicate (...) the creative abilities of humans and can thus be considered instances of computational creativity. Computational systems that are purported to be creative typically utilize one of three general approaches: exploration of a space of concepts, combination of concepts, and transformation of concepts. In this article we present an approach to story generation that utilize exploration, combination, and transformation. Our approach, implemented in the Vignette Based Partial Order Causal Link story planner, is an algorithm that searches through a space of possible story solutions, guided by combinations of existing story fragments called vignettes. The vignettes are made relevant to novel story generation contexts through an automated transformation pre-process. Through these processes, we show that story generation can incorporate multiple perspectives on computational creativity. Our approach is presented at both the theoretical and technical levels. (shrink)

This paper gives an overview of pro-active meeting assistants, what they are and when they can be useful. We explain how to develop such assistants with respect to requirement definitions and elaborate on a set of Wizard of Oz experiments, aiming to find out in which form a meeting assistant should operate to be accepted by participants, and whether the meeting effectiveness and efficiency can be improved by an assistant at all. This paper gives an overview of pro-active meeting assistants, (...) what they are and when they can be useful. We explain how to develop such assistants with respect to requirement definitions and elaborate on a set of Wizard of Oz experiments, aiming to find out in which form a meeting assistant should operate to be accepted by participants, and whether the meeting effectiveness and efficiency can be improved by an assistant at all. (shrink)

Previous research has identified user concerns about biometric authentication technology, but most of this research has been conducted in European contexts. There is a lack of research that has investigated attitudes towards biometric technology in other cultures. To address this issue, data from India, South Africa and the United Kingdom were collected and compared. Cross-cultural attitudinal differences were seen, with Indian respondents viewing biometrics most positively while respondents from the United Kingdom were the least likely to have a positive opinion (...) about biometrics. Multiple barriers to the acceptance of biometric technology were identified with data security and health and safety fears having the greatest overall impact on respondents’ attitudes towards biometrics. The results of this investigation are discussed with reference to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and theories of technology acceptance. It is argued that contextual issues specific to each country provide a better explanation of the results than existing theories based on Hofstede’s model. We conclude that cultural differences have an impact on the way biometric systems will be used and argue that these factors should be taken into account during the design and implementation of biometric systems. (shrink)

How are social relations appearing in computers? How are social relations realised in a different kind of medium, in the hardware and software of computers? How are the organising principles of computer building related to those of the life-worlds in a social system? Following a partly social constructivist and partly hermeneutic line a more general answer will be presented. The basic conclusion of this approach is simple: computers are constructed under the influence of the ideas of modernity and represent its (...) structure, interests and values, in contrast to computer networks, which embody the ideas of postmodernity. (shrink)

In this paper we describe the development of the Interaction Space Theory developed as part of the SANE project. EU framework 5 IST project sustainable accommodation for the new economy, IST 2000-25-257 The EU funded project provided an inter-disciplinary context for the study of interactions in the hybrid workplace where physical work environment is enhanced with information and communication technologies (ICT) which enable collaboration with remote partners. We explain how the theoretical approach, empirical work and methodological strategy employed by SANE (...) researchers contribute toward the social intelligence design approach through the development of the methodology for identification of workplace requirements for mobile knowledge workers. In addition, we demonstrate how empirical findings, based upon our theoretical approach, can lead to development of novel methods and techniques for evaluating the impact of new and emerging technologies in the workplace. (shrink)

The simplistic assumption that replacing humans by intelligent artifacts or introducing such artifacts, or robots, into all aspects of human society will necessarily benefit society at large must be continually re-evaluated. Clearly, contributing factors will involve concerns of efficiency, the role of work as a component in human self-worth, the distribution of wealth generated by advanced technologies, the potential for growing divisions in society resulting from gross inequities in income and from the loss of work as a central fact of (...) life, and of course, the unpredictability of regular and widespread interactions between humans and artificially intelligent programs and devices. The focus of this paper is an exploration of the future relationship between people and their robots and the anticipated role of ethics. (shrink)

Scientific knowledge and mathematical analysis enter into engineering in an indispensable way, and their role will continually increase. But engineering contains elements of experience and judgment, of tacit knowledge, and regard for social considerations and the most effective way of using human labour. If we accept this element of ‘art’ in engineering, we should design our systems, not to reject human skill, but rather to cooperate with it and make it more protective.

A nascent science in the sixteenth century rejected explanations in terms of purpose in favour of causality, and this bias has persisted and grown stronger. It has unfortunate consequences in areas where social and ethical considerations should prevail, and the paper describes a search extending over 20 years for a way in which these consequences could be avoided.

In the paper, three propositions are put forward. First, that intellectual structures of wide scope commonly lead to conclusions which are ethically unacceptable; secondly that the ethically unacceptable consequences of science arise from one particular presupposition which it adopts, namely that of causality; thirdly, that causality is no essential part of science.

In this article we discuss the aspects of designing facial expressions for virtual humans (VHs) with a specific culture. First we explore the notion of cultures and its relevance for applications with a VH. Then we give a general scheme of designing emotional facial expressions, and identify the stages where a human is involved, either as a real person with some specific role, or as a VH displaying facial expressions. We discuss how the display and the emotional meaning of facial (...) expressions may be measured in objective ways, and how the culture of displayers and the judges may influence the process of analyzing human facial expressions and evaluating synthesized ones. We review psychological experiments on cross-cultural perception of emotional facial expressions. By identifying the culturally critical issues of data collection and interpretation with both real and VHs, we aim at providing a methodological reference and inspiration for further research. (shrink)

The switch from the Command-and-Control to Learning Organisation paradigm in the area of organisational theory is well understood. It is less well appreciated that learning organisations cannot operate effectively if supported by centralised data processing systems. The paper argues that there is a need for synergy between organisational structures and organisational information systems. Learning must be supported by the so-called new information technology. To obtain desired synergy it is necessary to design organisations and organisational information systems concurrently.

My goal is to emphasize the way we generally use the word ‘logic’ and the sort of problems related to the definition of logic and the sort of problems related to the definition of logic. I also wish to underline the differences between human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Conceptual knowledge inspires imagination. On the other hand, it is a claim to power as well. Multiple knowledge claims often, therefore, are engaged in a contest. This contest can take the form of several discourses. Extant power structures play a significant role in lending (or not lending) a voice to one or several such discourses. To one with the power to govern, knowledge claims flowing from abstract concepts generated in an elite discourse not only inspires imagination but also often leads (...) to ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ that drive governance in the system which leads to action. Norms and rules define actionability of the conceptual knowledge claim. However, for the one weighed by powerlessness in being governed, knowledge claims often get generated only in action, since an autonomous discourse is often lacking. Yet the sheer powerlessness of the authors of such knowledge claims generated in action leads to its non-celebration. It fails to get elevated. It might also wither away. Such actionable knowledge claims of the powerless often then gets manifested as something like an ‘unvoiced’ or an ‘unvoicable’ discourse, in macabre forms of subversion of ‘norms’ and ‘rules’ of the system that leads to a sense of failure in governance among those with power as well. Power, thus, brings actionable knowledge to the fore, but in two different forms. For the power-holder, it takes the form of a ‘deviation’ from norms and rules in the actionable domain through subversion by the powerless, revealing a gap between knowledge in the conceptual and actionable domain that is reluctantly (often tacitly) tolerated. For the powerless, on the other hand, actionable knowledge is living; negotiating on the ‘deviation’ is an existential requirement. This paper is an attempt to explore these dichotomies, how power (and the lack of it) alters the significance and implications of actionable knowledge. (shrink)

Research on hybrid bionic systems (HBSs) is still in its infancy but promising results have already been achieved in laboratories. Experiments on humans and animals show that artificial devices can be controlled by neural signals. These results suggest that HBS technologies can be employed to restore sensorimotor functionalities in disabled and elderly people. At the same time, HBS research raises ethical concerns related to possible exogenous and endogenous limitations to human autonomy and freedom. The analysis of these concerns requires reflecting (...) on the availability of scientific models accounting for key aspects of sensorimotor coordination and plastic adaptation mechanisms in the brain. (shrink)

Technology design has social as well as technical determinants. These social factors, such as the political context and social philosophy, vary historically and cross-nationally. The work upon which this paper is based addresses the nature of process technology design in the United States and focuses on the underlying assumptions that guide technology design, based on both historical analysis and survey and case studies of current design practices. Central to this work is an analysis of how the US approaches compare to (...) some of the other industrial nations and the assumptions and implications of different social design concepts such as human-centered design, skill-based design, and human factors. (shrink)

Today it is possible to screen for mutated DNA sequences which do not induce any diseases but predispose to develop diseases under certain environmental condition. These latter disorders are called multifactorial since they result from the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. Among multifactorial disorders there are job-related diseases whose genetic component can be identified by genetic screening tests. The use of these tests to predict occupational disorders, to cut down on them, and to save costs—in particular for absenteeism, health (...) care, and lawsuits—is of interest to employers and insurers. As for employees, it could entail an extremely deep invasion of privacy, economic problems and, very likely, a jeopardy of the present position of the individual who may be screened even if his/her potential disease is never developed. (shrink)

The industrial society in Japan is now entering into a new era of an advanced information society or a network society. AI as a knowledge information processing technology is becoming an integral part of the society. This emerging era is being supported by the information industry.

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is faced with issues which are crucial to Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). However, despite the large amount of work on Enterprise Integration and its obvious links to the CSCW field, this domain is almost totally absent in the work of the CSCW community. Therefore, this paper is intended to contribute to the discussion on the relevance of CSCW in manufacturing and to combine new concepts for cooperative work with requirements for information system design in production. (...) Production related models, e.g., an order-driven mode of coordination, can be augmented with mechanisms of interaction for coordination, collaboration and co-decision and the design of customer/supplier chains. It is suggested, as one example, to use workflow management technology in advanced manufacturing for shop-floor production planning and control (PPC). The proposed enterprise model and support technology is especially useful for small-batch production. (shrink)

Many have bowed before the recently acquired powers of ‘new technologies’. However, in the shift from tekhnē to tekhnologia, it seems we have lost human values. These values are communicative in nature as technological progress has placed barriers like distance, web pages and ‘miscellaneous extras’ between individuals. Certain values, like the interpersonal pleasures of rendering service, have been lost as their domain of predilection has for many become fully commercially oriented, dominated by the cadence of profitability. Though the popular cultures (...) of the artificial have surged forth to deliver us from the twentieth century, they have enabled some very superfluous dreaming—Man has succumbed to the Godly role of simulating himself and creating other beings. Communication is replaced by machines, services are rendered via many automated devices, procreation has entered the public sphere, robots and entertainment agents educate our youth and mesmerising screen-integrating ‘forms of intelligence’ even think for us. As such, this so-called culture threatens the very values Man constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to guide himself into the future. But what if the phenomena mentioned just reflect our new values? The author presents an investigation into this cultural shift, its impact on human practices with regards the mind and the body and evokes some pros and cons of generally accepting the ‘Culture of the Artificial’. (shrink)

Computation and the Natural World Content Type Journal Article Pages 451-451 DOI 10.1007/s11023-009-9176-0 Authors C. T. A. Schmidt, Le Mans University and Paris Tech Paris France Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495 Journal Volume Volume 19 Journal Issue Volume 19, Number 4.

Erroneously attributing propositional attitudes (desires, beliefs...) to computational artefacts has become internationally commonplace in the public arena, especially amongst the new generation of non-initiated users. Technology for rendering machines user-friendly is often inspired by interpersonal human communication. This calls forth designers to conceptualise a major component of human intelligence: the sense ofcommunicability, and its logical consequences. The inherentincommunicability of machines subsequently causes a shift in design strategy. Though cataloguing components of bouts between person and machine with Speech Act Theory has (...) been popular, I will endeavour to present thesine qua non for their insertion into a larger unit of discourse — their societal embodiment. I shall argue that the so-called intelligence of the artificial should to be seenas a purposeful act that is socially generated, because it comes of Man,for Man. Designership will provide the forum for evolving user requirements and interface renewal. (shrink)

We address the relationship between a music performer and her instrument as a possible model for re-thinking wearable technologies. Both musical instruments and textiles invite participation and by engaging with them we intuitively develop a sense of their malleability, resistance and fragility. In the action of touching we not only sense, but more importantly we react. We adjust the nature of our touch according to a particular material’s property. In this paper we draw on musical practice as it suggests attitudes (...) of specificity rather than adaptability. This practice exposes the design of generalised multi-use devices, such as the all-in-one electronic organ, as rooted in utilitarian thinking. We argue that this tendency ignores the complexities of musical cultures and thus fails to provide technologies, which provoke creative action rather than aim for the promise of control and efficiency. (shrink)

City councils hold meetings several times a week. There is a need for computer support at certain meetings. This paper examines the potential for group support systems for use in city council meetings and shows in what ways they can be helpful in pre-meeting and post-meeting activities. The study is based on 17 computer-supported city council meetings, carried out in Stuttgart, Kornwestheim and other cities as part of the Cuparla Project between 1996 and 1998. Three of these meetings are described (...) in the paper as brief case studies. Following this, all 17 meeting sequences are evaluated and analysed. Guidelines have been developed from the results of the study for the introduction of group support systems in city council meetings. (shrink)

Giovanni Sommaruga (ed): Formal Theories of Information: From Shannon to Semantic Information Theory and General Concepts of Information Content Type Journal Article Pages 35-40 DOI 10.1007/s11023-011-9250-2 Authors Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson, Department of Theoretical Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Journal Minds and Machines Online ISSN 1572-8641 Print ISSN 0924-6495 Journal Volume Volume 22 Journal Issue Volume 22, Number 1.

This paper explores the treatment of intelligent agents as innovations. Past writings in the area of intelligent agents focus on the technical merits and internal workings of agent-based solutions. By adopting a perspective on agents from an innovations point of view, a new and novel description of agents is put forth in terms of their degrees of innovativeness, competitive implications, and perceived characteristics. To facilitate this description, a series of innovation-based theoretical models are utilized as a lens of analysis, namely (...) Kleinschmidt and Cooper’s (J Prod Innovation Manage 8:240–251, 1991) market and technological newness map, Abernathy and Clark’s (Res Policy 14:3–22, 1985) competitive implications framework, and Moore and Benbasat’s (Inf Syst Res 2:192–222, 1991) list of perceived innovating characteristics. Together, these models provide a theoretical foundation by which to describe intelligent agents, yielding new insights and perceptions on this relatively new form of software application. (shrink)

This paper instigates a discourse on the unplanned effects of intelligent agents in the context of their use on the Internet. By utilizing a social informatics framework as a lens of analysis, the study identifies several unanticipated consequences of using intelligent agents for information- and commerce-based tasks on the Internet. The effects include those that transpire over time at the organizational level, such as e-commerce transformation, operational encumbrance and security overload, as well as those that emerge on a cultural level, (...) such as trust affliction, skills erosion, privacy attrition and social detachment. Furthermore, three types of impacts are identified: economic, policy, and social. The discussion contends that economic impacts occur on the organizational level, social effects transpire on a cultural level, and policy impacts take place on both levels. These effects of the use of intelligent agents have seldom been predicted and discussed by visionaries, researchers, and practitioners in the field. The knowledge of these unplanned outcomes can improve our understanding of the overall impacts that innovative agent technologies may potentially have on organizations and individuals. Subsequently, this may help us develop better agent applications, facilitate the formulation of appropriate contingencies, and provide impetus for future research. (shrink)

The TGarden is a genre of responsive environment in which actor–spectators shape dense media sensitive to their movements. These dense fields of light, sound, and material also evolve according to their own composed dynamics, so the agency is distributed throughout the multiple media. These TGardens explore open-ended questions like the following: what makes some time-based, responsive environments compelling, and others flat? How can people improvise gestures without words, that are individually or collectively meaningful? When and how is a movement intentional, (...) or collectively intentional? This paper introduces what has been at stake behind the experimental work: subjectivation, moving from technologies of representation to technologies of performance, and the potential for ethico-aesthetic novelty. (shrink)