title: Summary of the diary study: “Please feed the digital parrot”

authors: Schweer, Andrea

subjects: diary study

abstract: This document summarises the findings of the diary study “Please feed the Digital Parrot” conducted in May 2007. The aim of this study was to collect real-world examples of remembering behaviour. We show the most interesting entries we collected, highlighting the kinds of information people wish to remember, the situations in which they wish to remember this information and how they go about remembering information. We discuss in which ways the findings deviate from our expectations and the implications of our observations for context-aware systems research and for future diary studies.

text: Summary of the diary study: “Please feed the digital parrot” This document summarises the findings of the diary study “Please feed the Digital Parrot” conducted in May 2007. The aim of this study was to collect real-world examples of remembering behaviour. We show the most interesting entries we collected, highlighting the kinds of information people wish to remember, the situations in which they wish to remember this information and how they go about remembering information. We discuss in which ways the findings deviate from our expectations and the implications of our observations for context-aware systems research and for future diary studies.

year: 2008-03-04

title: Stepwise refinement of processes

authors: Reeves, Steve

subjects: components

abstract: Industry is looking to create a market in reliable "plug-and-play" components. To model components in a modular style it would be useful to combine event-based and state-based
reasoning. One of the first steps in building an event-based model is to decide upon a set of atomic actions. This choice will depend on the formalism used, and may restrict in quite
unexpected ways what we are able to formalise. In this paper we illustrate some limits to developing real world processes using existing formalisms, and we define a new notion of refinement, vertical refinement, which addresses some of these limitations. We show that using vertical refinement we can rewrite specification into a different formalism, allowing us to move between handshake processes, broadcast processes and abstract data types.

text: Stepwise refinement of processes Industry is looking to create a market in reliable "plug-and-play" components. To model components in a modular style it would be useful to combine event-based and state-based
reasoning. One of the first steps in building an event-based model is to decide upon a set of atomic actions. This choice will depend on the formalism used, and may restrict in quite
unexpected ways what we are able to formalise. In this paper we illustrate some limits to developing real world processes using existing formalisms, and we define a new notion of refinement, vertical refinement, which addresses some of these limitations. We show that using vertical refinement we can rewrite specification into a different formalism, allowing us to move between handshake processes, broadcast processes and abstract data types.

year: 2005-01-01

title: My responsibility in the face of mass extinction

authors: Gray-Sharp, Katarina

subjects: autoethnography

abstract: Extinction is the “irreversible condition of a species or other group of organisms having no living representatives in the wild, which follows the death of the last surviving individual of that species or group” (Hine and Martin 2015g, para. 1). Mass extinctions are extinctions of the greatest magnitude, occurring “when many diverse groups of organisms become extinct over short periods of time” (Condie 2011, 250). These “are not step-events but rather a step into a prolonged alternative global ecosystem state” (Hull 2015, R941). Five mass extinctions have previously been recorded. A sixth has begun. Humans are the cause of the latest episode.

This thesis develops an Indigenous, non-agential conception of responsibility for considering an ethical problem of wide consequence. Founded in mātauranga Māori and recalling the work of Emmanuel Levinas, it applies Kaupapa Māori autoethnography, narrative, and conceptual analyses alongside exegeses and a replication study. Investigations of responsibility across various positions are encountered: those found in place and polity, those made as visitor and the commanded, those gifted as inherited erudition and in the suffering-with. Now facing the last structural violence, what is my responsibility?

text: My responsibility in the face of mass extinction Extinction is the “irreversible condition of a species or other group of organisms having no living representatives in the wild, which follows the death of the last surviving individual of that species or group” (Hine and Martin 2015g, para. 1). Mass extinctions are extinctions of the greatest magnitude, occurring “when many diverse groups of organisms become extinct over short periods of time” (Condie 2011, 250). These “are not step-events but rather a step into a prolonged alternative global ecosystem state” (Hull 2015, R941). Five mass extinctions have previously been recorded. A sixth has begun. Humans are the cause of the latest episode.

This thesis develops an Indigenous, non-agential conception of responsibility for considering an ethical problem of wide consequence. Founded in mātauranga Māori and recalling the work of Emmanuel Levinas, it applies Kaupapa Māori autoethnography, narrative, and conceptual analyses alongside exegeses and a replication study. Investigations of responsibility across various positions are encountered: those found in place and polity, those made as visitor and the commanded, those gifted as inherited erudition and in the suffering-with. Now facing the last structural violence, what is my responsibility?

year: 2021