Through artistic interventions into the computational backbone of maternity services, the artists behind the Body Recovery Unit explore data production and its usages in healthcare governance. Taking their artwork The National Catalogue Of Savings Opportunities. Maternity, Volume 1: London (2017) as a case study, they explore how artists working with ‘live’ computational culture might draw from critical theory, Science and Technology Studies as well as feminist strategies within arts-led enquiry. This paper examines the mechanisms through which maternal bodies are rendered visible or invisible to managerial scrutiny, by exploring the interlocking elements of commissioning structures, nationwide information standards and databases in tandem with everyday maternity healthcare practices on the wards in the UK. The work provides a new context to understand how re-prioritisation of ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ births, breastfeeding, skin-to-skin contact, age of conception and other factors are gaining momentum in sync with cost-reduction initiatives, funding cuts and privatisation of healthcare services.
MULTIFILE
The number of Electric Vehicles (EVs) is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. The growing presence of charging points generates a multitude of interactions between EV users, particularly in metropolitan areas where a charging infrastructure is largely part of the public domain. There is a current knowledge gap as to how current decisions on charging infrastructure deployment affect both current and future infrastructure performance. In the thesis an attempt is made to bridge this knowledge gap by creating a deeper understanding of the relation between charging behavior, charging infrastructure deployment, and performance.The results demonstrate shown how both strategic and demand-drive deployment strategies have an effect on performance metrics. In a case study in the Netherlands it was found that during the initial deployment phase, strategic Charging Points (CPs) facilitate EV users better than demand driven deployment. As EV user adoption increased, demand-driven CPs show to outperform strategic CPs.This thesis further shows that there are 9 EV user types each with distinct difference distinct behavior in terms of charging frequency and mean energy uptake, both of which relate to aggregate CP performance and that user type composition, interactions between users and battery size play an important role in explaining performance of charging infrastructure.A validated data-driven agent-based model was developed to explore effects of interactions in the EV system and how they influence performance. The simulation results demonstrate that there is a non-linear relation between system utilization and inconvenience even at the base case scenario. Also, a significant rise of EV user population will lead to an occupancy of non-habitual charging at the expense of habitual EV users, which leads to an expected decline of occupancy for habitual EV users.Additional simulations studies support the hypothesis that several Complex Systems properties are currently present and affecting the relation between performance and occupation.
This project researches risk perceptions about data, technology, and digital transformation in society and how to build trust between organisations and users to ensure sustainable data ecologies. The aim is to understand the user role in a tech-driven environment and her perception of the resulting relationships with organisations that offer data-driven services/products. The discourse on digital transformation is productive but does not truly address the user’s attitudes and awareness (Kitchin 2014). Companies are not aware enough of the potential accidents and resulting loss of trust that undermine data ecologies and, consequently, forfeit their beneficial potential. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica-situation, for instance, led to 42% of US adults deleting their accounts and the company losing billions. Social, political, and economic interactions are increasingly digitalised, which comes with hands-on benefits but also challenges privacy, individual well-being and a fair society. User awareness of organisational practices is of heightened importance, as vulnerabilities for users equal vulnerabilities for data ecologies. Without transparency and a new “social contract” for a digital society, problems are inevitable. Recurring scandals about data leaks and biased algorithms are just two examples that illustrate the urgency of this research. Properly informing users about an organisation’s data policies makes a crucial difference (Accenture 2018) and for them to develop sustainable business models, organisations need to understand what users expect and how to communicate with them. This research project tackles this issue head-on. First, a deeper understanding of users’ risk perception is needed to formulate concrete policy recommendations aiming to educate and build trust. Second, insights about users’ perceptions will inform guidelines. Through empirical research on framing in the data discourse, user types, and trends in organisational practice, the project develops concrete advice - for users and practitioners alike - on building sustainable relationships in a resilient digital society.
