History and Theory of Infrastructure: Distilling Lessons for New Scientific Cyberinfrastructures: University of Michigan, September 2006

通过利用万亿次和千万亿次计算、超大型联合数据库和先进软件组件的力量，新的网络基础设施为科学进步带来了巨大的机遇，但它们也面临着重大挑战，特别是在组织架构和社会实践的设计方面。在网络基础设施发展的这个相对早期阶段，有一个重要的机会来学习过去在基础设施设计方面的挑战。为了探讨这些问题，将于2006年9月在密歇根大学举办一个为期三天的密集讲习班，将基础设施设计人员与技术历史和社会学专家聚集在一起。讲习班将从铁路、自来水厂、高速公路、电话、商业通信系统和因特网等其他基础设施沿着世界气象数据网等“二级”基础设施的经验中寻求网络基础设施的实际经验教训。通过总结社会和历史分析的经验教训，本次研讨会将有助于基础设施研究的发展，作为一个实际参与的研究领域，同时培训领先的学者和从业人员，应对当前网络基础设施发展的新挑战。

By harnessing the power of tera- and petaflop computing, very large federated databases, and advanced software components, new cyberinfrastructures promise dramatic opportunities for scientific advances, but they also face major challenges, particularly in the design of organizational architectures and social practices. At this relatively early phase of cyberinfrastructure development, there is a significant opportunity to learn from past challenges in infrastructure design. To explore these, an intensive 3-day workshop will be held at the University of Michigan in September 2006, bringing infrastructure designers together with experts in history and sociology of technology. The workshop will seek practical lessons for cyberinfrastructure in the experience of other infrastructures, such as railroads, waterworks, highways, telephony, business communication systems, and the Internet, along with 'second-order' infrastructures such as the world weather data network. By generalizing the lessons of social and historical analysis, this workshop will contribute to the development of infrastructure studies as a practically engaged field of study, while at the same time training leading scholars and practitioners in the emergent challenges of current cyberinfrastructure development.