Torben Elgaard Jensen

The good, the bad and the perfect: Criticizing engagement practice

Criticism seems to be a recurring and significant characteristic of public engagement exercises – as reflected both in general political discussion and in the academic literature on public engagement with science. This article suggests that rather than being a distraction from the main business of ‘technical democracy’, criticism lies at the heart of public engagement and in that way should be seen not simply as an unwelcome and unanticipated by-product but rather as a key constituent. Taking inspiration from previous science and technology studies’ treatments of ‘bottom line’ moves and also from Boltanski and Thévenot’s sociology of critical capacity, this article adopts an approach to radical critique that explores its ‘dynamic-yet-patterned’ character. Building upon a ‘translation’ model, but also a framework taken from the martial arts, a reconstruction is offered of one empirical study of lay membership on scientific advisory committees. Conclusions are drawn concerning not only the analysis of critical dialogue around engagement but also the implications for democratic practice.

Isolation and partial characterization of prochymosin and chymosin from cat

Extracts of cat gastric mucosa contain a zymogen that after activation shows partial immunochemical identity with chymosin (EC 3.4.23.4) from calf. Cat prochymosin has been purified by column chromatography and gel filtration, and cat chymosin was obtained after acid activation of the zymogen. The enzyme showed the optimum of general proteolytic activity at pH 2.5. The amino acid compositions of cat prochymosin and chymosin were similar to those of the corresponding proteins from calf. The first 27 residues of both cat prochymosin and chymosin have been sequenced. Among these 54 positions only 13 differences have been observed between the proteins from cat and calf. The results support the hypothesis that the chymosins form a group of neonatal gastric proteases with high milk-clotting activity, but with such weak general proteolytic activity that postnatal uptake of IgG is not hindered.

THAPS: automated vulnerability scanning of PHP applications

In this paper we describe the THAPS vulnerability scanner for PHP web applications. THAPS is based on symbolic execution of PHP with specialised support for scanning extensions and plug-ins of larger application frameworks. We further show how THAPS can integrate the results of dynamic analyses, generated by a customised web crawler, into the static analysis. This enables analysis of often used advanced dynamic features such as dynamic code load and reflection. To the best of our knowledge, THAPS is the first tool to apply this approach and the first tool with specific support for analysis of plug-ins. In order to verify our approach, we have scanned 375 WordPress plug-ins and a commercial (monolithic) web application, resulting in 68 and 28 confirmed vulnerabilities respectively.

Making consultations run smoothly: An analysis of doctors' skilful use of time inspired by science and technology studies

This article investigates the skilful use of time in general practice consultations. It argues that consultation work involves social and material interactions, which are only partially conceptualized in existing medical practice literatures. As an alternative, this article employs ideas from the field of science and technology studies (STS), including notions of relationality, multiplicity and otherness. Through this lens, and based on extensive fieldwork, it describes the daily work of arranging time before, during and after consultations. In conclusion, it suggests that a STS-inspired analysis opens up a wider discussion of time as a complex resource and problem in general practice.

Future and Furniture : A Study of a New Economy Firm's Powers of Persuasion

This article explores the differences between two strategies of persuasion. The first strategy, called drawing things together, is Actor-Network Theorys classic analysis of how modern science has gained tremendous persuasive powers through systematic inscription and centralized accumulation of information traces. The second strategy, called drawing contrasts together, is derived from the authors empirical analysis of the rhetorics and materialities of a Scandinavian New Economy firm. The persuasive powers of this firm, it is argued, are based on its ability to evoke and articulate a series of pointed contrasts between the attractive working life within the firm and the ordinary and problematic work life elsewhere. The article argues that both persuasive strategies work in a pragmatic sense. But where “drawing things together” enacts a relatively stable and knowable world, the persuasive strategy of “drawing contrasts together” depends on, and enacts, a world of dramatic epochal changes.