Academics

The page below contains presentations and papers by Lea Ann and stephanie. Where possible, we have tried to include presentations that we have given at conferences. If you recall a particular presentation, but cannot find it here, please feel free to contact us:
Lea Ann
or
stephanie

Lea Ann's research

Document	Description
Multiple Births and Medical Risk -Taking Completed: December 4, 2008 Type: Research Paper	Abstract Multiple births continue to increase in the U.S., in some part as a result of Assisted Reproductive Technologies and advances in Reproductive Medicine. While twins and triplets are increasingly considered "normal," higher order multiples are frequently the result of reproductive medicine. For example the famous and highly covered McCaughey septuplets born in 1997 are the first known live septuplets and were the result of the efforts of reproductive medicine. These extreme reproductive outcomes seem to raise a number of questions. Why did science evolve to extremes that have such associated medical risks (especially in the context of the fabled, "first do no harm")? Despite the difficulties and risks for mother and child, reproductive science had continued to develop "treatments" that are more and more extreme but by no medical definition imperative. What is the imperative that drives us to these extremes? Why, in the face of significant medical risks, do people continue to undertake higher order pregnancies and births? What societal and cultural forces impact these decisions? I will discuss the popular media coverage of the McCaughey septuplets and consider the rhetoric around reproductive medicine in light of a "successful" outcome. In addition, I will look at medical literature surrounding the trend in multiple births in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) and Reproductive medicine. Finally, I will investigate the discussions of extremes and reproductive medicine in STS literature.
The Strong Completeness Theorem for n-Valued Sentential Logic April 17, 2006 Type: Honors Thesis	"It is from Rosser and Turquette's paper, 'Axiom Schemes for M-Values Propositional Calculi' that a cornerstone of the argument we will explore comes. In 1974, H. Goldberg, H. Leblanc, and G. Weaver published a paper, 'A Strong Completeness Theorem for 3-Valued Logic.' This will provide the structure for the argument here, which blends the process of the latter article with some generalizations of the former." Defended at the University of Maryland College Park, 2006

stephanie's research

Document	Description
Technosectarianism: Applying Religious Metaphors to Programming Presented: 4 April 2014 Type: Conference Paper (published) Associated Conference Presentation	Conference Paper & Presentation published in the proceedings of and presented at The 2nd Symposium on the History and Philosophy of Programming (HaPoP), London, UK Abstract Technosectarianism is a new term presented and discussed in this paper, and intended to represent the group definition actions taken by programmers through their supposedly purely objective and technical interactions, which are driven more by religious-like concepts including orthodoxy, partisanship, apostasy, and heresy. Paper Published in the Conference Proceedings: "Technosectarianism: Applying Religious Metaphors to Programming". Proceedings of the 50th Anniversary Convention of the AISB (Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour), 2nd Symposium on the History and Philosophy of Programming (2014). Available online at http://doc.gold.ac.uk/aisb50/AISB50-S13/AISB50-S13-Mawler-paper.pdf.
Technical Interaction Analysis Framework Presented: 10 April 2010 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 10th Annual Science, Technology, & Society, Graduate Research Symposium, Washington, DC Abstract Through this conference presentation, I will explore and demonstrate my proposal for an Interaction Analysis Framework intended to illuminate the uses to which communities put 'mundane' social interactions and what these interactions say about the communities and their members. I premise this framework on the idea that, within technical communities, many frequently-used interaction types (for example, newsgroup posts) have normative form and function that is tacitly understood by the community and its members. However, the accepted norms for form and function are continually 'violated' in a process of identity creation and maintenance. This framework plots each interaction instance on two separate axes for form and function, across a spectrum from normative to identity-oriented. I will assert the generalized applicability of the framework to both individual interaction instances and to the collected instances that make up a given discourse community. Further, I will argue not only for the descriptive uses of the framework, but I will present broader predictive capabilities, with potential applicability outside of academia. The generalized applicability of the framework will be demonstrated through examples from two different interaction types across four different technical communities.
Modes of Participation, Identity Creation, and Group Maintenance in Different Technical Discourse Communities Presented: 30 October 2009 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 2009 4S Conference, Washington, DC This presentation was part of a panel for which i was the organizer and chair. The panel proposal is included with the paper abstract. Abstract This paper investigates the ways in which group- and self-identity are maintained within technical community interactions. The paper takes the unusual stance of defining newsgroups devoted to specific programming languages as communities, using the concepts of "discourse communities" and "communities of practice", and further applying the notion of orthodoxy to those communities. Based on the idea that newsgroup postings are "literary artifacts", which help to build the community of practice, the paper is a case study comparing interactions in comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.lisp-two different newsgroups devoted to significantly different programming languages-identifying the differences in the interaction styles, tropes, and genres of the two communities. Additionally, the paper proposes a categorization structure for interactions, based on a matrix of normativity and identity-orientation, requiring a hypothesis of what would define a "normative" post within programming language-oriented newsgroups. The conclusions are that a relatively few participants dominate the discussions, and boundary maintenance is high in both, though much higher in C++, where orthodoxy is much easier to determine. Importantly, while the purpose of the newsgroups is to discus issues regarding the language to which the group is devoted, it is a small sub-set of posts that actually contain code. This lack of actual example code indicates a far more important identity creation and maintenance roles for newsgroups for technical community newsgroups. The concept of "communities of practice" derives from the work of Etienne Wenger, and the subsequent expansions of the concept in Beyond Communities of Practice (David Barton and Karen Tustig, editors), as well as the notion of "epistemic cultures", as detailed by Karin Knorr Cetina. The discourse analysis, owes much to recent methodological work by Norman Fairclough. Panel Proposal Session Title: Technology: Users, Designers, & IdentityTechnology & Identity With each successive shift in communications technologies, there seems a trend toward greater reliance on increasingly "virtual" communities. At the same time, many practices of such communities are seen as narrowly functional-determined purely by the needs of the technology and/or the business / governmental objective. In this context, it seems imperative for the STS community to investigate the ways in which various groups establish and use epistemic cultures and communities of practice (or even "epistemic communities of practice") to create and maintain group and self-identities for technology designers and users. Important to this panel will be the ways in which much of this identity work happens within normatively identity-neutral interactions, particularly within technical communities. In addition, this panel may begin a dialog between the researchers who discuss markedly different ways that technologies are used to create and maintain community identitiesdiscussion of scientific communities and technological communities. Some goals for the panel include: Exposing the unique ways different discourse communities address the needs of identity; Providing examples of normatively identity-neutral interactions ("narrowly functional") that are guideposts for much more identity-oriented purposes; Examining the way technologically mediated identities intersect (and conflict) with "real world" identities; and Investigating the degree to which technologically mediated identities are as "real" as "real world" identities (if not more so). All the papers in this panel are thoroughly engaged with technological practice, relying on detailed case studies that include first-person accounts and other primary source materials, with some including ethnographic work and detailed discourse analysis. The critical resources for this panel will include concepts arising from communities of practice, epistemic cultures, discourse communities, symbolic interactions-based identity theory, inflated technological expectations, and other identity theories.
Modes of Participation, Identity Creation, and Group Maintenance in Different Technical Discourse Communities Presented: 28 March 2009 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 9th Annual Science, Technology, & Society, Graduate Research Symposium, Washington, DC This presentation received an award for best presentation within its session. Abstract This paper investigates the ways in which group- and self-identity are maintained in interactions within technical communities. The paper takes the unusual stance of defining newsgroups devoted to specific programming languages as communities, using the concepts of "discourse communities" and "communities of practice", and further applying the notion of orthodoxy to those communities. The paper is based on a case study comparing interactions in comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.lisp—two different newsgroups devoted to significantly different programming languages, identifying the differences in the interaction styles, tropes, and genres of the two communities. Additionally, the paper proposes a categorization structure for interactions, based on a matrix of normativity and identity-orientation, requiring a hypothesis of what would define a "normative" post within programming language-oriented newsgroups. The conclusions are that a relatively few participants dominate the discussions, boundary maintenance is high in both, but much higher in C++, where the orthodoxy is much easier to determine. Importantly, the purpose of the newsgroups is to discus issues regarding the language to which the group is devoted, however, it is a small sub-set of posts that actually contain code, pointing to the far more important role of self- and group-identity creation and maintenance of the newsgroups for technical communities.
Programming Languages as Designed Objects Presented: 22 August 2008 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 2008 4S Conference (in combination with EASST), Rotterdam, NL Abstract What motivates the design of a new programming language (or the extension of an existing language)? One might reasonably assume that technical considerations form the primary motivations in such a design task; however, there are a host of non-technical factors that might be just as important to a designer. This paper investigates the degree to which a variety of written resources address the relevance of non-technical factors in design decisions for programming language creation and extension, as a means to assess the health of STS-related research into the black box of programming languages. Of particular interest is the extent to which resources address power dynamics in some way, be that in terms of labor, community, personal, or other aspects. The conclusion is that social forces are critically under-analyzed with respect to the design of programming languages. Primary source and computer science literatures all point toward the importance of social forces in the shaping of programming language design, though often un-reflexively. Instead of delving into programming languages like the any other activity or artifact, social scientists have seemed to approach languages simply as technical tools, black boxing them without concern to unpack the power struggles and cultural assumptions that go into their creation. While many fields have seen increasingly detailed involvement by STS researchers at detailed levels, the technical nature of programming language design seems to have resulted in a severe dearth of empirical research in this area. This paper hopes to conclude by pointing to areas in which understanding the social forces at work in programming language design is relevant to society at large.
Programming Languages as Designed Objects Presented: 5 April 2008 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 8th Annual Science, Technology, & Society, Graduate Research Symposium, Washington, DC Abstract What motivates the design of a new programming language (or the extension of an existing language)? One might reasonably assume that technical considerations form the primary motivations in such a design task; however, there are a host of non-technical factors that might be just as important to a designer. This paper investigates the degree to which a variety of written resources address the relevance of non-technical factors in design decisions for programming language creation and extension. Of particular interest is the extent to which resources address power dynamics in some way, be that in terms of labor, community, personal, or other aspects. The conclusion is that social forces are critically under-analyzed in the design of programming languages. Primary source and computer science literatures all point toward the importance of social forces in the shaping of programming language design, though often un-reflexively. Instead of delving into programming languages like the any other activity or artifact, social scientists have seemed to approach languages simply as technical tools, black boxing them without concern to unpack the power struggles and cultural assumptions that go into their creation.
Executable Texts: Programs as Communications Devices and Their Use in Shaping High-tech Culture Published: 2008 Type: Peer-Reviewed Journal Article	This is a much-shortened version of the thesis, exactly as published in The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society, Vol. 4, Nbr. 4, 2008. Abstract This paper takes a fresh look at software, treating it as a document, manuscript, corpus, or text to be consumed among communities of programmers and uncovering the social roles of these texts within two specific sub-communities and comparing them. In the paper, the social roles of the texts are placed within the context of the technical and cultural constraints and environments in which programs are written. Within that context, the social roles of the comments are emphasized, and are combined with the normative intentions for each comment, creating a dynamic relationship of form and function for both normative and identity-oriented purposes. The relationship of form and function is used as a unifying concept for a more detailed investigation of the construction of comments, including a look at a literary device that relies on the plural pronoun “we” as the subject. The comments used in this analysis are derived from within the source code of the Linux kernel and from a Corporate environment in the US.
Executable Texts: Programs as Communications Devices and Their Use in Shaping High-tech Culture Presented: 18 January 2008 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 4th International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society, Boston, MA This is (probably the final) presentation of the material in my Master's Thesis, this time placing greater emphasis on the social aspects of comments in the texts and the developer identity in particular.
Executable Texts: Programs as Communications Devices and Their Use in Shaping High-tech Culture Presented: 19 October 2007 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 2007 SHOT Conference, Washington, DC This is a presentation of the material in my Master's Thesis, with particular emphasis on the use of Executable Texts as historial archives, and how they can be used in that context.
Executable Texts: Programs as Communications Devices and Their Use in Shaping High-tech Culture Presented: 13 October 2007 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 2007 4S Conference, Montreal, PQ This is a presentation of the material in my Master's Thesis. The presentation emphasizes the social aspects uncovered in my research.
Executable Texts: Programs as Communications Devices and Their Use in Shaping High-tech Culture Defended: 19 January 2007 Final Format Approval: 1 May 2007 Type: Master's Thesis	Abstract This thesis takes a fresh look at software, treating it as a document, manuscript, corpus, or text to be consumed among communities of programmers and uncovering the social roles of these texts within two specific sub-communities and comparing them. In the paper, the social roles of the texts are placed within the context of the technical and cultural constraints and environments in which programs are written. Within that context, the comments emphasize the metaphoric status of programming languages and the social role of the comments themselves. These social roles are combined with the normative intentions for each comment, creating a dynamic relationship of form and function for both normative and identity-oriented purposes. The relationship of form and function is used as a unifying concept for a more detailed investigation of the construction of comments, including a look at a literary device that relies on the plural pronoun "we" as the subject. The comments used in this analysis are derived from within the source code of the Linux kernel and from a Corporate environment in the US. As stored in the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation libraries. Please note that you can also buy this as a book from Amazon.com.
Open Source Labor: FLOSS As Union? Presented: April 2007 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 7th Annual Science, Technology, & Society, Graduate Research Symposium, Washington, DC
Open Source Community Through Comments in Code Presented: March 2007 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at the 6th Annual William & Mary Graduate Research Symposium, Williamsburg, VA
High-tech Labor and Open Source Completed: January 2007 Type: Research Paper	Abstract In this research paper, I explore issues surrounding the labor of open source programming. I explore the nature of open source as an alternative to traditional management / labor relations as well as an organizing principle, functioning in some ways like a labor union for many of those in the field. The increasing use of software and labor that is termed "open source" by industry and entire governments warrants a close analysis of the nature of the labor that goes into its production. I build on literature regarding high-tech workers (particularly contract workers), as well as labor literature that deals with relationships that strain the traditional Marxist management / labor dichotomy, and sociological research on the motivations of open source programmers. These sources are cast against the self-descriptions of the open source community by leading members and groups. My analysis reveals problems of compensation, elitism, and overbearing ideology. I also find that open source is significantly in flux as a community and as an industry, with deep divisions in the movement’s ideological goals and an increasing corporate influence, which will change the movement over time, requiring this type of analysis to be revisited in the future. However, open source remains a powerful organizational strategy and community for programming labor.
Elitist Language in Physics: The Self-Image of Physics Presented: November 2006 Type: Conference Presentation	Presentation given at 4S, Vancouver, BC
Open Source Community in Code Comments Completed: November 2006 Type: Research Paper	Abstract This paper takes a fresh look at software, treating it as a document, manuscript, corpus, or text to be consumed among communities of programmers and uncovering the social roles of these texts within a specific open-source sub-community. In the paper, the social roles of the texts are placed within the context of the technical and cultural constraints and environments in which programs are written. Within that context, the comments emphasize the metaphoric status of programming languages and the social role of the comments themselves. These social roles are combined with the normative intentions for each comment, creating a dynamic relationship of form and function for both normative and identity-oriented purposes. The relationship of form and function is used as a unifying concept for a more detailed investigation of the construction of comments, including a look at a literary device that relies on the plural pronoun "we" as the subject. The comments used in this analysis are derived completely from within the source code of the Linux kernel.
Elitist Language in Physics: The Self-Image of Physics Completed: December 2005 Type: Research Paper	Abstract Physics has long been accused of elitism in its dealings with other sciences and those outside of science. This paper looks for evidence of such elitism in the language used by members of the American Institute of Physics during the immediate post-WWII period of approximately 1945-55, when the physics profession was feeling the affects of atomic weapons and the perceived communist threat. The archival research uncovers clearly elitist language used by the physicists in three general categories: 1) professional-scientist elitism (scientists versus outsiders and the uninitiated); 2) inter-disciplinary elitism (e.g., physics versus biology or chemistry); and 3) intradisciplinary elitism (e.g., an elite cadre of physicists directing the future of the physics discipline). This paper relies on the archives of the Physical Sciences Division collection at the National Academies.

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