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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (3 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
LBL Publications (2020)
This paper considers sensemaking as it relates to everyday software engineering (SE) work practices and draws on a multi-year ethnographic study of SE projects at a large, global technology company building digital services infused with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. Our findings highlight the breadth of sensemaking practices in AI/ML projects, noting developers' efforts to make sense of AI/ML environments (e.g., algorithms/methods and libraries), of AI/ML model ecosystems (e.g., pre-trained models and "upstream"models), and of business-AI relations (e.g., how the AI/ML service relates to the domain context and business problem at hand). This paper builds on recent scholarship drawing attention to the integral role of sensemaking in everyday SE practices by empirically investigating how and in what ways AI/ML projects present software teams with emergent sensemaking requirements and opportunities.
    Cover page: Sensemaking Practices in the Everyday Work of AI/ML Software Engineering
    • Thesis
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2017)

    I introduce narrative assembly as a novel conceptual lens to understand the nature of technological meaning making in organizations. This lens extends prior knowledge on technological framing in three ways. First, it offers insight into how narrative making both draws on and seeks to intervene in existing organizational and cultural meaning systems, conceptualizing influence in technological framing as strategic, yet improvised. Second, it demonstrates the dialogue between broader cultural and industrial discourses and everyday practices within an organization, challenging previous views of technological framing as bounded organizationally or by specific platforms. Third, it provides conceptual language to understand the repercussions of technological framing practices on workplace subjectivity, going beyond previous literature that focuses on formal roles and occupations and instead articulating “narrator,” “narrated,” and “audience” as dynamic positions emergent in unfolding technological encounters.

    I draw on an ethnographic study of a high-tech firm in the process of an organizational change campaign to include data analytics capabilities in their products. In conceptualizing technological framing as narrative making, I examine a number of ways that the emergent technical capabilities known as “data analytics” came to be understood and situated within the firm’s organizational life. In doing so, my empirical analysis articulates narrative assembly as a lens that captures how technological framing is strategic, yet improvised, relates to broader socio-cultural life, and reveals the contingency of social relations. I discuss how this lens extends prior knowledge and its implications for future studies of technological framing.

      Cover page: Narrative Assembly: Technological Framing, Storytelling, and the Situating of “Data Analytics” in Organizational Life
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Francisco Previously Published Works (2014)

      Objective

      The purpose of this study was to investigate the side effect risks from using one or more psychiatric medications (including antipsychotics, antidepressants, α-2 agonists, benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers, and stimulants) among a national cohort of children and adolescents.

      Methods

      A questionnaire survey was administered to parents who filled a prescription for a psychiatric medication for their child at a large national retail pharmacy chain. Primary outcome variables were the total count of side effects from a list of 12 problem areas, as well as parent-reported side effect intensity (mild/moderate/severe). Modifiers investigated included specific medication and number of medications utilized, demographics, and difficulties with access to care.

      Results

      A total of 1347 parents of study subjects ages 3-17 years from 30 U.S. states who were taking psychiatric medications for any indication purchased at one retail pharmacy chain enrolled following a single mail invitation (7.5% response). Of the study subjects, 80% were white/non-Hispanic, 64% were male, 63% had private health insurance, and 67% had used a current medication for >1year. Most (84%) had one or more parent-reported side effect. After adjusting for covariates, subjects with two medications reported 17% (p<0.001) and with three or more medications reported 38% (p=0.002) increases in their average number of side effects than did children taking one medication. Parental reporting of difficulties in accessing care also predicted a 42% (p<0.001) greater number of side effects than for those who had no access difficulties. Side effects were particularly more common in medication combinations including either selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (77% higher odds, p<0.001) or antipsychotics (99% higher odds, p<0.001).

      Conclusions

      Side effects from psychiatric medications appear to be both more common and more severe overall with increasing numbers of medications utilized, and with perceived difficulty in accessing care. Polypharmacy regimens including either SSRIs or antipsychotics were especially associated with experiencing side effects, within this study sample.
        Cover page: Side Effects from Use of One or More Psychiatric Medications in a Population-Based Sample of Children and Adolescents
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