Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1522827
Richard Joseph
{"title":"Autonomous Learning in the Workplace","authors":"Richard Joseph","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1522827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1522827","url":null,"abstract":"Autonomous learning in the workplace is an edited book that explores the shifting world of workplace learning. The editors’ interest in their topic was derived from two insights (p. 2). First, appr...","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"48 1","pages":"244 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83503898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1472361
Joanne Greenland
{"title":"Marginalising homœopathy: an Australian case study","authors":"Joanne Greenland","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1472361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1472361","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Homœopathy, once an accepted form of medicine, is currently under attack in Australia, so much so that its very existence is threatened. To illustrate techniques of marginalisation of homœopathy in Australia, the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) report of 2015 is examined. As there is no standard framework or classification of marginalisation techniques, boundary work ideas were used to suggest techniques used in the process of marginalisation. To condemn homœopathy, the NHMRC used at least eight techniques: authority, asserting protection of autonomy, exclusion, double standards, normalisation, denigration, censorship, expansion and diversion. The NHMRC report is a revealing example of how biomedicine uses various tactics to marginalise alternative therapies, thereby maintaining biomedicine’s dominant position.","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"7 1","pages":"171 - 192"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78424237","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1522824
P. Jandrić
{"title":"Will robots take your job?","authors":"P. Jandrić","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1522824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1522824","url":null,"abstract":"Human nature finds the threat of robots taking our jobs strikes deeply disturbing. As a young scholar, I enjoyed reading stories about the mythical Ned Ludd; I have a neighbour, who is seriously co...","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"45 1","pages":"240 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76723741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1522822
Mariska Thalitha Bosschaert
{"title":"Innovation and its enemies: why people resist new technologies","authors":"Mariska Thalitha Bosschaert","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1522822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1522822","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"175 1","pages":"237 - 246"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75098909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1522829
Tomas Hellström, C. Hellström
{"title":"Achieving impact: impact evaluations and narrative simplification","authors":"Tomas Hellström, C. Hellström","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1522829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1522829","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study is concerned with how impact from research and innovation (R&I) programmes is accounted for in impact evaluation reports. Establishing causal links between a research funding instrument and different effects, poses well known methodological difficulties. In the light of such challenges, textual accounts about causal links ought to be carefully written. Nevertheless, impact evaluation reports have a tendency towards unwarranted simplification as far as impact inferences are concerned. In this study, we illustrate how such simplifications – versions of the narrative device ellipsis – are accomplished. Using examples from three Swedish impact evaluation reports, we focus on the constituent components of longer impact accounts, that of the impact argument, to analyze the various ways that impact is narratively achieved through simplification. We believe this analysis can contribute to the methodology of impact evaluation, as well as spread light on some the difficulties in the historiography of innovation in general.","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"28 1","pages":"215 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81300577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1504867
Chris Seijger, G. Ellen, Stephanie Janssen, E. Verheijen, G. Erkens
{"title":"Sinking deltas: trapped in a dual lock-in of technology and institutions","authors":"Chris Seijger, G. Ellen, Stephanie Janssen, E. Verheijen, G. Erkens","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1504867","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1504867","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In delta areas, flood protection structures and large-scale land reclamation are preferential water management strategies to cultivate soft delta soils. Over the past decades, river embankments, upstream dams, land reclamation, and groundwater use have intensified, and increasingly contribute to subsidence. In addition, the influence of institutions implementing these strategies has strengthened as they have acquired technical skills, knowledge, and vast financial resources. Sinking deltas are therefore trapped in a dual lock-in as dominating technology and institutions act as constraints to moving into a more long-term sustainable direction. Nine factors for the lock-in are introduced and illustrated for delta regions in Asia, Europe, and the US. To gain a better understanding of what researchers and practitioners can do to address the dual lock-in, a practical case is presented of Gouda, a Dutch subsiding city in search of more sustainable strategies and institutions. The paper ends with three steps to change the configuration of a dual lock-in: (1) getting to know the lock-in; (2) temporarily bypassing it; and (3) constituting a new, more sustainable lock-in. These steps should be further investigated in action-oriented research programmes with local experts, and targeted to policy processes and human behaviour in the sinking deltas.","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"9 1","pages":"193 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84202162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1518694
K. Scally
{"title":"Research handbook on intellectual property and the life sciences","authors":"K. Scally","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1518694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1518694","url":null,"abstract":"Research handbooks aim to give an overview and insight into the current themes for research in a subject area, as conceived by a subset of its current scholars. The typical parameters are: topics regarded as prominent or newsworthy, the network of academic contacts within the editors’ frame of reference, andwhatevermay be regarded as the normative set of principles and ideologies of that group. As far as its biomedical and product-oriented focus permits, this handbook fulfils its role as a snapshot of those topics current in the discussion of intellectual property (IP) and the life sciences, particularly biogenetic research. Eight of the 27 articles have been authored by female scholarswhich,whilewell short of the natural gender distribution, at least demonstrates progress of some kind. The more technical articles provide a good summary of recent changes in legislation, and useful comparisons between the EU and the USA. From an international perspective, Part IV is a concise survey of the status and impact of current IP law in a selection of seven countries: Brazil, China, India, Japan, Kenya, South Africa and Thailand. Functional aspects of the local IP regimes are addressed as well as the key political, social and ethical implications, such as the HIV problem in South Africa. The effect of the TRIPs agreement is not neglected. These articles are hardly exhaustive, or definitive, but provide a cross section and a set of references for those wishing to engage further. A research handbook authored by scholars of the lawmust be expected to approach a subject from a different perspective from that of a group of economists, historians, philosophers, political academics, and scientists. ‘Intellectual property’ as a term gained momentum only in the late twentieth century to help steer the status of ownership of ideas in the direction of the long-standing legal framework around property rights. Yet, perhaps because the concept of property ownership remains at heart a controversial topic, discussion of intellectual property sways back and forth in journals as much as in court. The dynamic, political nature of this discussion is compounded in the case of IP for the life sciences, where the ground constantly shifts and technological advances are likely to raise new points of reference and bury others. It will probably not be long before some of the material in this book, and some of the commentary in this review, is rendered redundant. As this review was being prepared, a paper published in Science (Hirota et al., 2017) describes a significant breakthrough in the editing of embryo DNA by the Francis Crick Institute in London. As we get closer to the point of gene editing, ethical issues are likely to become even more prominent in the legal discussion of life sciences","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"39 1","pages":"231 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77578989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-07-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2018.1522826
M. Coman
{"title":"Media anthropology for the digital age","authors":"M. Coman","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2018.1522826","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2018.1522826","url":null,"abstract":"wide range of arguments and provides a grand view of problems of technological unemployment. I strongly recommend the book to anyone who wants to learn more about the topic quickly, and to read about the main theories in the field without looking at (too many) primary sources. When it comes to solutions, however, Cameron is much more cautious. While some people may argue that we need more radical, or more straightforward, strategies and action plans, Cameron’s approach is in line with an important point made by Brian Sudlow: ‘nobody is quite sure what a world increasingly run by artificial intelligence will actually look like, or indeed how fast that world could evolve into something else entirely different’ (Sudlow, 2018). This is why Will Robots Take Your Job? is refreshing and relevant. From his experience as a technology writer and think-tank director, Cameron makes an important point that we need to build (social) consensus before we start acting. This does not indicate lack of vision; rather, it signals a democratic and open-minded view of the future. In line with this view, the book starts with a warning: ‘A short book on a complex and controversial topic is a rather dangerous thing to write.’ The author continues: ‘the questions addressed here, at the meeting point of science, technology, and society, are questions for all of us’. In my opinion, this sentence is the key to the reading of Cameron’s book because the chosen format – succinct, wide, and well researched – is an appropriate base point for reaching consensus. Cameron has managed to position his work in the wide spectrum of literature on technological unemployment as a succinct, powerful call to democratic action. Within a rapidly growing body of literature where authors develop this or that imaginary future to their own liking, this modest but hugely important volume should be taken very seriously.","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"37 1","pages":"241 - 244"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88185771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prometheus (Italy)Pub Date : 2017-04-03DOI: 10.1080/08109028.2017.1396751
M. Lindberg, Cecilia Nahnfeldt
{"title":"Idealistic incentives in non-governmental organization innovativeness: bridging theoretical gaps","authors":"M. Lindberg, Cecilia Nahnfeldt","doi":"10.1080/08109028.2017.1396751","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/08109028.2017.1396751","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper bridges the theoretical gap between traditional innovation studies and more recent studies of innovation among civil society actors and contexts. The paper presents a study of the nature and function of idealistic incentives in innovativeness of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based on case studies of two national NGOs in Sweden, the Sensus Study Association and the Church of Sweden. The results show that the idealistic incentives of a basic view of human beings focusing on dignity and solidarity in the studied cases are closely related to various forms of NGO innovativeness, including the identification of challenges and needs, the aspired change at individual, organizational and societal levels, the involvement of concerned groups, and in cross-organizational and cross-sectoral cooperation. This contributes new knowledge not only of what NGO innovation entails and how it is brought about, but also of why such processes are initiated and thus why individual, organizational and societal transformation is essential in such processes. As part of this, the probable impact of beliefs, norms, ideologies and identities on all innovation processes, regardless of sectoral context, is highlighted.","PeriodicalId":38494,"journal":{"name":"Prometheus (Italy)","volume":"93 7 1","pages":"110 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87666772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}