Dissertation Research: Visualization and Representation in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Scientific Research in the United States and India

论文研究：磁共振成像 (MRI) 的可视化和表示：美国和印度科学研究的跨文化比较

• 批准号: 0135300
• 负责人: Andrew Pickering
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-02-01 至 2003-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0135300&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Visualization; Representation; Magnetic

In the last thirty years medical practice has undergone a profound technological change. Imaging technologies like MRI that emerged in this period are shifting medicine's vision to a domain in which the body seems to have lost its materiality and become a visual medium (Balsamo 1996). Apart from offering vast diagnostic possibilities, medical imaging technologies like MRI are also radically reconfiguring the human body and contributing to new enunciations of individual and social selves. This dissertation research grant attempts to contextualize this new visuality by analyzing the socio-economic and technical contexts of the development of MRI. The study has two purposes. First, through a comparative cross-cultural study to highlight the social/cultural factors contributing to the making of this new digitalized visibility, the project will attempt to uncover the socio-technical network within which visualization by technologies like MRI is located and continues to develop. Further, the project will attempt to show in what ways this computer-based visualization is re-mapping spaces and bodies in different societies in the present era of globalization. Second, MRI research since its birth in the 1970s has been located at the interface of different disciplines, institutions, and nations. The transnational cooperation has been further accelerated with the recent development of information/communication technologies. Yet these cooperations are not unhindered flows of information and technology. They are embedded in the social, political, and economic interests of nations, education/research institutions, multinational companies, and individuals. This study seeks to use MRI as a case study to explore the nature of interaction and exchange of a non-western country with the west in the development of sophisticated technologies. Funding for this project supports research at two laboratories, one in the US and the other in India. The research at these laboratories will entail combining the "thick description" of the laboratory work through participant observation, and interviews of scientists with textual analysis of scientific papers, policy documents, lay articles, biographical, and autobiographical notes.

在过去的三十年里，医疗实践经历了一场深刻的技术变革。在这一时期出现的像磁共振成像这样的成像技术正在将医学的视野转移到一个身体似乎已经失去其物质性并成为一种视觉媒介的领域(Balsamo 1996)。除了提供巨大的诊断可能性外，像MRI这样的医学成像技术也在从根本上重新配置人体，并为个人和社会自我的新表达做出贡献。本论文试图通过分析磁共振成像发展的社会经济和技术背景，对这种新的可视化进行语境化。这项研究有两个目的。首先，通过比较跨文化研究，突出促成这种新的数字化能见度的社会/文化因素，该项目将试图揭示磁共振成像等技术的可视化所在的社会技术网络，并继续发展。此外，该项目将试图展示在当今全球化时代，这种基于计算机的可视化是如何重新绘制不同社会中的空间和身体的。第二，核磁共振研究自20世纪70年代诞生以来，一直处于不同学科、机构和国家的交界处。近年来，随着信息/通信技术的发展，跨国合作进一步加快。然而，这些合作并不是畅通无阻的信息和技术流动。它们根植于国家、教育/研究机构、跨国公司和个人的社会、政治和经济利益中。本研究试图以核磁共振为个案，探讨非西方国家与西方国家在尖端科技发展过程中互动与交流的本质。该项目的资金支持两个实验室的研究，一个在美国，另一个在印度。这些实验室的研究将需要通过参与观察和对科学家的采访，将对实验室工作的“详细描述”与对科学论文、政策文件、非正式文章、传记和自传笔记的文本分析相结合。