The Flourishing Enterprise Strategy Design Method is a robust procedure that helps leaders craft effective enterprise strategies in our increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. Informed by the latest science and practice, it enables leaders to create strategic paths for enterprises and their stakeholders to improve their performance financially, socially and environmentally. The method integrates business design and strategy techniques with vital science-based principles for flourishing. From an overall process perspective, the method employs the backcasting approach. From (...) a strategic planning standpoint, the method hosts a strategic conversation about the stakeholder’s definition of success for the enterprise considering science-based principles. This occurs during an iterative co-creative systemic-design process focused on business modelling. Business modelling is enabled by the Flourishing Business Canvas: an innovative visual design tool aligned with the science-based principles. A case study of a medium-sized manufacturing business illustrates how the method is applied. Finally, the case is made for swift adoption of these innovative strategy methods by enterprises in all sectors and sizes to enable their powerful response to current climate challenges, to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and to go beyond to ensure the conditions for all life to flourish are re-enabled for future generations. (shrink)

A systematic guide to product design and safety from an ethical engineering perspective This hands-on textbook offers a holistic approach to product safety and engineering ethics across many products, fields, and industries. The book shows, step by step, how to “design in” safety characteristics early in the engineering process using design for product safety (DfPS) methods. Written by a P.E. and skilled educator with industry experience, Engineering Ethics and Design for Product Safety addresses all aspects of (...) the product system from the perspective of an active product-safety engineering manager. You will get detailed case studies, real-world examples, and side discussions that provide a deep dive into key topics. Coverage includes: Product safety Engineering ethics Product-safety components Hazards, risks, accidents, and outcomes A product-design process Product-safety engineering Engineering-design guidance Product-safety facilitators Product-safety engineering methods Product-safety defects and recalls. (shrink)

This article seeks to advance ethical dialogue on choosing standards of prevention in clinical trials testing improved biomedical prevention methods for HIV. The stakes in this area of research are high, given the continued high rates of infection in many countries and the budget limitations that have constrained efforts to expand treatment for all who are currently HIV-infected. New prevention methods are still needed; at the same time, some existing prevention and treatment interventions have been proven effective but are not (...) yet widely available in the countries where they most urgently needed. The ethical tensions in this field of clinical research are well known and have been the subject of extensive debate. There is no single clinical trial design that can optimize all the ethically important goals and commitments involved in research. Several recent articles have described the current ethical difficulties in designing HIV prevention trials, especially in resource limited settings; however, there is no consensus on how to handle clinical trial design decisions, and existing international ethical guidelines offer conflicting advice. This article acknowledges these deep ethical dilemmas and moves beyond a simple descriptive approach to advance an organized method for considering what clinical trial designs will be ethically acceptable for HIV prevention trials, balancing the relevant criteria and providing justification for specific design decisions. (shrink)

Explores the acquisition and use of knowledge for human purposes and the extent of our ability to shape the future through the design, regulation, and restructuring of the lives of human systems at all levels.

Autonomous weapons systems, often referred to as ‘killer robots’, have been a hallmark of popular imagination for decades. However, with the inexorable advance of artificial intelligence systems (AI) and robotics, killer robots are quickly becoming a reality. These lethal technologies can learn, adapt, and potentially make life and death decisions on the battlefield with little-to-no human involvement. This naturally leads to not only legal but ethical concerns as to whether we can meaningful control such machines, and if so, then how. (...) Such concerns are made even more poignant by the ever-present fear that something may go wrong, and the machine may carry out some action(s) violating the ethics or laws of war. -/- Researchers, policymakers, and designers are caught in the quagmire of how to approach these highly controversial systems and to figure out what exactly it means to have meaningful human control over them, if at all. -/- In Designed for Death, Dr Steven Umbrello aims to not only produce a realistic but also an optimistic guide for how, with human values in mind, we can begin to design killer robots. Drawing on the value sensitive design (VSD) approach to technology innovation, Umbrello argues that context is king and that a middle path for designing killer robots is possible if we consider both ethics and design as fundamentally linked. Umbrello moves beyond the binary debates of whether or not to prohibit killer robots and instead offers a more nuanced perspective of which types of killer robots may be both legally and ethically acceptable, when they would be acceptable, and how to design for them. (shrink)

Four important and influential policy statements on hunger that have served as national and international standards and guides for action have been reprinted here as a resource. They are (1) the Bellagio Declaration, which was produced by 24 international experts meeting to address the problem of world hunger in 1989 at the Rockefeller Foundation Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy; (2) the Medford Declaration to End Hunger in the U. S., which was designed to be a domestic equivalent of the Bellagio (...) Declaration, was produced in April of 1990 at Tufts University by U. S. organizations concerned with domestic hunger; (3) the position statement of the American Dietetic Association (ADA) that was approved by the House of Delegates in 1990; and (4) the position statement of the Canadian Dietetic Association (CDA) that was approved by the executive of the CDA in 1991. Aiken's brief introduction to these four statements critically examines them to draw attention to some of their strengths and weaknesses and to help clarify some of their implicit normative assumptions and implications. (shrink)

In a book that challenges the most widely held ideas of why individuals engage in collective conflict, Russell Hardin offers a timely, crucial explanation of group action in its most destructive forms. Contrary to those observers who attribute group violence to irrationality, primordial instinct, or complex psychology, Hardin uncovers a systematic exploitation of self-interest in the underpinnings of group identification and collective violence. Using examples from Mafia vendettas to ethnic violence in places such as Bosnia and Rwanda, he describes the (...) social and economic circumstances that set this violence into motion. Hardin explains why hatred alone does not necessarily start wars but how leaders cultivate it to mobilize their people. He also reveals the thinking behind the preemptive strikes that contribute to much of the violence between groups, identifies the dangers of "particularist" communitarianism, and argues for government structures to prevent any ethnic or other group from having too much sway. Exploring conflict between groups such as Serbs and Croats, Hutu and Tutsi, Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants, Hardin vividly illustrates the danger that arises when individual and group interests merge. In these examples, groups of people have been governed by movements that managed to reflect their members' personal interests--mainly by striving for political and economic advances at the expense of other groups and by closing themselves off from society at large. The author concludes that we make a better and safer world if we design our social institutions to facilitate individual efforts to achieve personal goals than if we concentrate on the ethnic political makeup of our respective societies. (shrink)

Management practices are at the heart of most organizations’ sustainability efforts. Despite the importance of values for the design and implementation of such practices, few researchers have analyzed how human values, particularly ethical values, relate to human resource management practices in organizations. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to integrate scholarship on organizational sustainability, human resource practices, and values in delineating how four specific values—altruism, empathy, positive norm of reciprocity, and private self-effacement—support effective human resource practices in organizations. (...) This set of distinct values has sustainability implications, global relevance, and ethical significance. Propositions that indicate relationships among these values, human resource practices, and organizational sustainability, as well as the effects of the resource-based view to potentiate these relationships, are developed. This analysis suggests that ethical and multicultural values are important for planning and implementing effective management practices and organizational sustainability. (shrink)

Although we all learn differently, we all need to be able to engage certain fundamental reasoning skills if we are to manoeuvre successfully through life—however we define success. Peirce's philosophy provides us with a framework for helping students develop and hone the ability for making deliberate and well‐considered choices. For, embedded within Peirce's complete body of work is a design for thinking that provides a sturdy foundation for the development of three important learning capabilities. These capabilities are 1) the (...) ability to identify, compare, and contrast qualities, 2) the ability to perform analyses, and 3) the ability to interpret the meaning of signs. Although these capabilities may seem like the sort of skills that only older and academically inclined students can master, even young children and the intellectually challenged can learn to use them as well. Once teachers learn to develop their own intellectual potential by expanding these capabilities within themselves, they will be able to begin bringing about the development of these capabilities in their students. Once identified, developed, and applied to the mastery of educational skills and subject matter, these three fundamental learning capabilities , can form the foundation of a common‐sense approach to educational reform. Peirce asserts that good reasoning must be informed by ethical considerations, which in turn has been informed by the highest of aesthetic impulses. From this, we can extrapolate the importance that an educational model based upon Peirce's philosophy must place upon aesthetic and ethical considerations, as well as logical ones. Once fully understood, the philosophy of education embedded within Peirce's epistemology can revolutionize educational practices at all levels of learning. (shrink)

Securitization is considered to be one of the biggest financial innovations of the last century. It is also regarded as both a catalyst and a solution to the 2008 financial crisis. Once a popular method of financing the mortgage and consumer credit markets, aspects of the global securitization market are now struggling to revive. In this paper, I discuss the role that ethics played in securitization prior to the 2008 financial crisis and find that it is not an obvious story (...) of moral failures, but rather that it lies in more subtle elements of the financial system. The ethics uncertainty role in the securitization story is one of flawed incentives and the shifting of responsibility for handling risk. The role of securitization and the ethics of risk transfer have rarely been discussed explicitly in the literature. The historical origins of securitization and lessons learned from previous flawed uses of the process are also provided. I also detail the various global institutional reform proposals that have taken place. Moving forward, it is crucial to understand the causes, consequences, and ethical implications of securitization in the financial crisis so as to help individuals and managers better assess risk, align incentives, and design appropriate policy responses. (shrink)

Herein we examine the theory and practical limits of designing a voluntary incentive scheme to protect endangered species on private land. We consider both an ay-ante scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends only on what the landholder reports, and an ay-post scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends on reports from all landowners. Except in special cases, the ex-ante scheme never implements the full information allocation, and can actually set aside too much land. In contrast, (...) expected habitat size under the ex-post scheme is smaller than both the ex-ante and full information allocations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science (USA). (shrink)

The intent of my article is to examine critically the peculiar “forbidden” significance entailed in places designated as the commons. The commons are those places within a particular environment or ecosystem that serve as the essential life-giving resource for its members. Due to both changes in the earth’s climate and the over consumption of resources, the commons are in a state of desperate crisis throughout much of the world. A symptom of this crisis is the rising political and environmental violence (...) specific to those places that harbor the commons. One strategy employed to address the political crisis is the privatization of these life-giving resources. The justification for privatization rests on providing the economic support necessary to secure and gain greater access to the commons. There has been as a result a growing effort from both a human right and environmental standpoint to articulate a global provision that would protect the commons from the industries of privatization and commodification.In this article, I bolster these efforts by specifying the manner by which the commons resist privatization. My focus is on the type of place, or rather, the type of forbidden place the commons are. The commons do not resist by forbidding use or occupation. Quite to the contrary, they resist by giving life, by welcoming all who may sustain themselves through them. Their place is a place for no one precisely because it is a place for all. (shrink)

The present study seeks to expand on research concerning the benefits of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) to work-family facilitation (WFF) by integrating the theoretical framework of the attachment personality perspective (Bowlby, 1982). We hypothesized that OCB would enhance WFF for employees having lower levels of avoidance and anxious orientations but reduce WFF for employees with higher levels of avoidance and anxiety orientations. Two studies were conducted to test these hypotheses. Study 1 adopted a cross-sectional design, and Study 2 implemented (...) a diary procedure. In Study 1, employees from a pharmaceutical company completed attachment orientations and WFF questionnaires, whereas their direct supervisors assessed the participants’ OCB. In Study 2, attachment orientations of 108 participants were assessed, with OCB and WFF measures collected over 10 days. Findings from both studies supported our hypotheses relating to avoidance orientations. Performing OCB can enhance WFF, with the effect stronger for employees having lower avoidance orientations. However, findings regarding anxiety orientations were non-significant. A better understanding of the role that attachment orientations play in the OCB - WFF association may facilitate implementing possible interventions that could benefit both the organization and the family. (shrink)

The role of research ethics consultants in biomedical research has increased to the point that they have an advisory capacity at all research institutes. For such professionals, we have established an educational system, which includes teaching materials, training methods, and nationwide educational workshops. These workshops have served to examine the developed system’s usefulness and to provide realistic training for consultant candidates. In addition, we have used the current workshop to encourage clinical research investigators to participate. Subsequently, we examined its usefulness (...) as an opportunity to provide exposure to research ethics. In October 2019, we held a 1-day pilot workshop in Tokushima, Japan, which included a basic lecture in research ethics. During the lecture, two sets of materials were used for case discussion: case 1, covering issues related to a clinical trial, and case 2, covering issues related to human biological specimens. At the end of the workshop, a 30-item self-reporting anonymous questionnaire was provided. Of the 13 total participants, 9 were clinical research investigators and related personnel, while 6 had no direct intention to act as consultants. Respondents indicated that case 2 was more difficult than case 1. However, both cases were generally accepted as educational materials; thus, satisfaction was expressed in relation to both. As the evaluations of the cases were generally positive, we will further examine the usefulness of participation in the workshop in the cultivation of research ethics in the investigator community. (shrink)

Background:Altering components of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) measures to better suit the purposes of individual studies is a common and oftentimes necessary step. Though the inherent flexibility in EMA has its benefits, no resource exists to provide an overview of the variability in how convergent constructs and symptoms have been assessed in the past. The present study fills that gap by examining EMA measurement design for mood and anxiety symptomatology.Methods:Various search engines were used to identify 234 relevant studies. Items (...) administered, data collection schedules (i.e., beeps per day), response scales (i.e., Likert), data collection platforms (i.e., apps), and psychometric properties (i.e., reliability) were extracted.Results:Study designs varied greatly in all aspects across the identified papers. Over 4,600 extracted items were qualitatively analyzed, resulting in the identification of 12 themes. The most EMA items focused on affect, with categories such as “happiness” and “tension” appearing most frequently. We provide all of our data extraction in the format of an open-source database.Limitations:Despite our best attempts to include as much of the relevant literature as possible, this review and the accompanying database are not exhaustive, but can easily be built upon to include other, newer studies.Conclusions:The fact that the affect theme featured both positive and negative emotional constructs highlights the dichotomous focus on valence and affect within the literature surrounding anxious and depressive symptomatology. We hope that our database will act as a helpful design decision-making resource for researchers studying this kind of symptomatology in the future.Systematic Review Registration:PROSPERO (CRD42019139409). (shrink)

The analysis of penalty kick has played an important role in performance analysis. The study aims are to get formal feedback on the relevance of variables for penalty kick analysis, to design and validate an observational system; and to assess experts’ opinion on the optimum video footage in penalty kick analysis. A structured development process was adopted for content validity, reliability and agreement on video usage. All observational variables included in OSPAF showed Aiken’s V values above the cut-off. Cohen’s (...) Kappa resulted in mean intra- and inter-rater reliability values of 0.90 and 0.86, respectively. It is recommended to combine at least three different viewing angles with standardization of video quality. Changing the viewing angles may influence the observer perception. The aerial and pitch-level viewing angle behind the penalty taker and pitch-level viewing angle behind the goalkeeper were indicated as most appropriate for observational analysis. The OSPAF met all requirements of instrument validation. It may be recommended as basis of future observational systems on penalty kicks. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in unethical work behavior. Several types of survey instruments to collect information about unethical work behavior are available. Nevertheless, to date little attention has been paid to design issues of those surveys. There are, however, several important problems that may influence reliability and validity of questionnaire data on the topic, such as social desirability bias. This paper addresses two important issues in the design of online surveys on unethical work (...) behavior: the response scale for questions regarding the frequency of certain types of unethical work behavior and the location of the background questions in an online survey. We present the results of an analysis of a double split-ballot experiment in a large sample (n = 3,386) on governmental integrity. We found that, when comparing response scales that have labels for all categories with response scales that only have anchors at the end, the latter provided answers with higher validity. The study did not provide support for the conventional practice of asking background questions at the end. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, the epidemic of HIV/AIDS has challenged the public health community to fundamentally rethink the framework for preventing infectious diseases. While much progress has been made on the biomedical front in treatments for HIV infection, prevention still relies on behaviour change. This book documents and explains the remarkable breakthroughs in behavioural research design that have emerged to confront this new challenge: the study of partnership networks.Traditionally, public health research focused on the "knowledge, attitudes, and practices (...) " of individuals, an approach designed for understanding health-related behaviour like seat-belt wearing and cigarette smoking. For HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, however, there are at least two people involved in transmission. This may not seem like a big difference, but in fact it changes everything. First, it means that your risk depends on your partners -- and on their partners, and their partners: it depends on your position in the network of partnerships. Consider, for example, the rise of infections among monogamous women. Second, it means that individuals are not free to simply change their behaviour -- condom use, or abstinence, needs to be negotiated with a partner. both the epidemiology of risk and constraints to behaviour are therefore a function of the partnership network. And our ability to design effective prevention strategies depends on our ability to measure and summarize that network. Using the traditional research designs, you would not see this network at all -- you would only see the unconnected nodes. They key to solving this problem lies in Network Analysis, before now a relatively obscure subfield in Sociology.For empirical studies of networks to become feasible, however, many problems had to be solved. This book documents the rapid progress that has been made. It brings together eight pioneering studies that have sought to map the networks that spread infection around the world. Each chapter reviews the questions that drove the study, the changes in methodology that were needed to implement the network survey, the mistakes and successes encountered, and the central findings that the network design made possible. An introduction provides an overview of network survey design, a glossary provides a summary of network terminology, and example questionnaires from each study provide a template for further research. This is a unique and valuable resource for the international public health research community. (shrink)

Over forty years ago, the American philosopher and educationalist began work on what was to become a series of philosophical novels for children. As time went on, he also constructed accompanying teacher resources together with colleagues. The most popular of these works were designed for primary education and constitute what came to be known as the IAPC Curriculum for the younger years. The influence of Lipman has been immense. He taught us that philosophy is not beyond the reach of primary (...) school children when appropriately presented; that the questions of philosophy are germane to all primary school subjects; and that philosophy can be used to encourage thinking across the curriculum. Influential and instructive as these materials have been, however, they do not constitute a curriculum in the sense in which that is generally understood in school education. This paper explores both the strengths and limitations of Lipman’s pioneering effort from the viewpoint of curriculum construction in order to see what lessons can be leaned. (shrink)

Educational technology is controversial - some see it as essential to providing free global learning, others view it as a dangerous distraction that undermines good education. In both instances, most theories that have previously been applied to educational technology do not account for the distinctive nature and vast potential of technology. This book addresses this issue, exploring how education has been bound up with technology from the beginning, and recognising that educational aims have already been shaped by technologies. Offering a (...) 'dialogic' theory of educational technology, Rupert Wegerif and Louis Major respond to contemporary challenges to education within this book, including, but not limited to, climate change, misinformation on the internet and the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Chapters introduce, discuss, and contextualise key theories and illustrate through case studies their uses within a diverse range of educational contexts, spanning from primary education to adult lifelong learning. Each chapter also concludes with a short summary, demonstrating how these theories translate to practical implications for design. A fascinating response to current developments in educational technology, this is a crucial read for all involved in creating, researching, or making decisions about the use of technologies within educational contexts. (shrink)

In our exposure to weakness, vulnerability, loss, anguish and different forms of impairment, the following pastoral theological questions arises: What is meant by divine almightiness within the human need for spiritual strength, empowerment, encouragement and well-being? The epithet of almightiness (omnipotence, pantokratōr) gave birth to fictitious and speculative associations, even fear and anxiety: The paralyzing fear of God Almighty – divine intoxicating and spiritual pathology. Instead of a pantokratōr-definition of God, a paraklēsis-infinition of God is proposed. This paradigm shift is (...) based on the hermeneutical insight, namely, that the El Shadday of Yahweh is based on the respect in Jewish hermeneutics to render God not as a personified substance, but as an ‘operating verb’ – hjh. In the verbing of God, El Shadday points to encouragement, empowerment and a kind of pity and comfort based on the passio Dei. Contribution: How one perceives the power of God, determines the practice of Christian devotion and spirituality. Therefore, the emphasis on the notion of ‘God Almighty’ (omnipotence of God) and its link to the notion of the ‘weakness of God’ as exposed in the basic outline for a theology of the cross and as a source for hope in pastoral care and compassionate reaching out. (shrink)

The paper addresses the integration of ethics into professional education related to the disciplines responsible for the conception and creation of the artificial (artefactual or technology). The ontological-epistemological paradigm of those disciplines is understood within the frame of the sciences of the artificial as established by Herbert Simon (1969). According to that paradigm, those sciences include disciplines not only related to the production of artefacts (technology), such as engineering, architecture, industrial design, etc, but also disciplines related to devised courses (...) of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, like medicine, law, education, etc. They are centered on intentional action and at their core is the activity of design, which is their common foundation and attitude, or their common culture. The science of design becomes the broader foundational discipline for any professions engaged in the intentional transformation of the world. The main distinction between design disciplines and scientific ones rests on the object-project dichotomy. Indeed, contrary to Science that sees the world as an object to be observed, Design sees the world as a project and acts upon the world through projects, which are grounded in intentions, ends, and values. Design disciplines are meant to transform the world, or part of it, and are teleological. Being so, they are embodied in an act that is ethical and their ontology-epistemology must be addressed also through practical reason to resituate all professional disciplines according to their involved nature. (shrink)

Introduction -- The fundamentals and their role in design -- Underneath it all -- Tiling the plane without gap or overlap -- Symmetry, patterns and fractals -- The stepping stone of Fibonacci and the harmony of a line divided -- Polyhedra, spheres and domes -- Structures and form in three dimensions -- Variations on a theme: modularity, closest packing and partitioning -- Structural analysis in the decorative arts, design and architecture -- A designer's framework.

This paper shows that the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt test of locality of correlations which was originally designed to be used with binary observables can actually be used for any couples of quantum-like bounded continuous observables, and then for any experimental situation describable within the mathematical framework of quantum theory.

As we near a time when robots may serve a vital function by becoming caregivers, it is important to examine the ethical implications of this development. By applying the capabilities approach as a guide to both the design and use of robot caregivers, we hope that this will maximize opportunities to preserve or expand freedom for care recipients. We think the use of the capabilities approach will be especially valuable for improving the ability of impaired persons to interface more (...) effectively with their physical and social environments. (shrink)

The emergence of the need for orientation since the past times led the universities to invent innovative ways to prepare their students for the activities and courses they will face. Hence, various types of orientation have been provided during history. However, today with the outbreak of the Covid-19 and the closure of the schools, most of the students are continuing their studies as distance learning. While this situation is very disappointing for all freshmen students who do not know the university's (...) atmosphere, it is extremely disruptive, specifically for the design ones, which are passing tactile courses, demanding being held face to face. This ascertains the research's problem as a need for an interactive solution for the issue to lessen the consequent problems. Game-based orientation (GBO) is a tool, engaging the freshmen students as players with the provided data in it, which are the essentials for a novel student to know before entering the university. It allows the student to be dealt with the school services, Istanbul Technical University in this case, and use them in terms of the game's tasks. The scoring system, the ultimate certificate, the leaderboard leading them to prizes, and the game's non-linearity will attract the students to use GBO frequently to finish it and experience all the possible scenarios. (shrink)

The 2003 blackout in the northern and eastern U.S. and Canada which caused a $6 billion loss in economic revenue is one of many indicators that the current electrical grid is outdated. Not only must the grid become more reliable, it must also become more efficient, reduce its impact on the environment, incorporate alternative energy sources, allow for more consumer choices, and ensure cyber security. In effect, it must become smart. Significant investments in the billions of dollars are being made (...) to lay the infrastructure of the future Smart Grid. However, the authors argue that we must take great care not to sacrifice consumer privacy amidst an atmosphere of unbridled enthusiasm for electricity reform. Information proliferation, lax controls and insufficient oversight of this information could lead to unprecedented invasions of consumer privacy. Smart meters and smart appliances will constitute a data explosion of intimate details of daily life, and it is not yet clear who will have access to this information beyond a person’s utility provider. The authors of this paper urge the adoption of Dr. Ann Cavoukian’s conceptual model ‘SmartPrivacy’ to prevent potential invasions of privacy while ensuring full functionality of the Smart Grid. SmartPrivacy represents a broad arsenal of protections, encapsulating everything necessary to ensure that all of the personal information held by an organization is appropriately managed. These include: Privacy by Design; law, regulation and independent oversight; accountability and transparency; market forces, education and awareness; audit and control; data security; and fair information practices. Each of these elements is important, but the concept of Privacy by Design represents its sine qua non. When applying SmartPrivacy to the Smart Grid, not only will the grid be able to, for example, become increasingly resistant to attack and natural disasters—it will be able to do so while also becoming increasingly resistant to data leakage and breaches of personal information. The authors conclude that SmartPrivacy must be built into the Smart Grid during its current nascent stage, allowing for both consumer control of electricity consumption and consumer control of their personal information, which must go hand in hand. Doing so will ensure that consumer confidence and trust is gained, and that their participation in the Smart Grid contributes to the vision of creating a more efficient and environmentally friendly electrical grid, as well as one that is protective of privacy. This will result in a positive-sum outcome, where both environmental efficiency and privacy can coexist. (shrink)

Starting from the observation that data sharing in general and sharing of reusable behavioral data in particular is still scarce in psychology, we set out to develop a curation standard for behavioral psychological research data rendering data reuse more effective and efficient. Specifically, we propose a standard that is oriented toward the requirements of the psychological research process, thus considering the needs of researchers in their role as data providers and data users. To this end, we suggest that researchers should (...) describe their data on three documentation levels reflecting researchers’ central decisions during the research process. In particular, these levels describe researchers’ decisions on the concrete research design that is most suitable to address the corresponding research question, its operationalization as well as a precise description of the subsequent data collection and analysis process. Accordingly, the first documentation level represents, for instance, researchers’ decision on the concrete hypotheses, inclusion/exclusion criteria and the number of measurement points as well as a conceptual presentation of all substantial variables included in the design. On the second level these substantial variables are presented within an extended codebook allowing for the linkage between the conceptual research design and the actually operationalized variables as presented within the data. Finally, the third level includes all materials, data preparation and analyses scripts as well as a detailed procedure graphic that allows the data user to link the information from all three documentation levels at a single glance. After a comprehensive presentation of the standard, we will offer some arguments for its integration into the psychological research process. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA conditional is natural if it fulfils the three following conditions. It coincides with the classical conditional when restricted to the classical values T and F; it satisfies the Modus Ponens; and it is assigned a designated value whenever the value assigned to its antecedent is less than or equal to the value assigned to its consequent. The aim of this paper is to provide a ‘bivalent’ Belnap-Dunn semantics for all natural implicative expansions of Kleene's strong 3-valued matrix with two (...) designated elements. (shrink)

Background Over the last decades, the neurosciences, behavioral sciences, and the social sciences have all seen a rapid development of innovative research methods. The field of bioethics, however, has trailed behind in methodological innovation. Despite the so-called “empirical turn” in bioethics, research methodology for project development, data collection and analysis, and dissemination has remained largely restricted to surveys, interviews, and research papers. We have previously argued for a “Design Bioethics” approach to empirical bioethics methodology, which develops purpose-built methods for (...) investigation of bioethical concerns. In this paper we compare a research tool created using a design bioethics approach to a “methods-as-usual” approach in empirical bioethics. Methods Our study compared dimensions of engagement with a digital game we created, called “Tracing Tomorrow,” to a standard vignette survey. The two tools investigated the same subject matter, digital phenotyping for mental health, in a sample of 301 UK adolescents. Results Participants who played the game reported a greater sense of presence, emotional engagement, cognitive absorption, and mental health ethics insight, compared to participants who completed the vignette survey. Perceived authenticity and curiosity/motivation to learn more was equivalent for both methods. Conclusion The results of this study highlights the importance of purpose-built methodology for empirical bioethics research. (shrink)

Packing optimization problems have a wide spectrum of real-word applications. One of the applications of the problems is problem of placement of containers with spent nuclear fuel on the storage platform. The solution of the problem can be reduced to the solution of the problem of finding the optimal placement of a given set of congruent circles into a multiconnected domain taking into account technological restrictions. A mathematical model of the prob-lem is constructed and its peculiarities are considered. Our approach (...) is based on the mathematical modelling of rela-tions between geometric objects by means of phi-function technique. That allowed us to reduce the problem solving to nonlinear programming. Today, an important scientific problem is the problem of creating conditions for safe storage of spent nuclear fuel. In the process of creating any dry spent nuclear fuel storage, the following main stages can be identified: site selection, storage design, construction, operation and decommissioning. A full check for compliance of the repository and its elements with these standards usually begins at the design stage. At the stage of site selection, the inspection for compliance with safety standards is carried out only in terms of the impact of the repository as a whole on the environment. This approach cannot be considered fully appropriate, because, taking into account, for example, all the climatic features of the future storage site, it is possible to adjust the thermal storage regimes of spent nuclear fuel. Similarly, it can be considered necessary to analyze and select the shape of the storage site in order to accommo-date the maximum possible number of spent fuel containers. Such a choice, obviously, should be made taking into ac-count the norms of nuclear, radiation and thermal safety, as well as in compliance with technological limitations. The problem of finding the optimal placement of containers taking into account the given technological limitations can be formulated in the form of the problem of optimization of geometric design. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to build a mathematical model of the problem and study its characteristics to develop effective methods of solution. The proposed approach is based on mathematical modeling of relations between geometric objects using the method of phi-functions. This allowed to reduce the solution of the problem to the problem of nonlinear programming. (shrink)

The Cell Ontology (CL) is designed to provide a standardized representation of cell types for data annotation. Currently, the CL employs multiple is_a relations, defining cell types in terms of histological, functional, and lineage properties, and the majority of definitions are written with sufficient generality to hold across multiple species. This approach limits the CL’s utility for cross-species data integration. To address this problem, we developed a method for the ontological representation of cells and applied this method to develop a (...) dendritic cell ontology (DC-CL). DC-CL subtypes are delineated on the basis of surface protein expression, systematically including both species-general and species-specific types and optimizing DC-CL for the analysis of flow cytometry data. This approach brings benefits in the form of increased accuracy, support for reasoning, and interoperability with other ontology resources. 104. Barry Smith, “Toward a Realistic Science of Environments”, Ecological Psychology, 2009, 21 (2), April-June, 121-130. Abstract: The perceptual psychologist J. J. Gibson embraces a radically externalistic view of mind and action. We have, for Gibson, not a Cartesian mind or soul, with its interior theater of contents and the consequent problem of explaining how this mind or soul and its psychological environment can succeed in grasping physical objects external to itself. Rather, we have a perceiving, acting organism, whose perceptions and actions are always already tuned to the parts and moments, the things and surfaces, of its external environment. We describe how on this basis Gibson sought to develop a realist science of environments which will be ‘consistent with physics, mechanics, optics, acoustics, and chemistry’. (shrink)

This research concentrates on the design and analysis of an algorithm referred to as Virtual Network Configuration (VNC) which uses predicted future states of a system for faster network configuration and management. VNC is applied to the configuration of a wireless mobile ATM network. VNC is built on techniques from parallel discrete event simulation merged with constraints from real-time systems and applied to mobile ATM configuration and handoff. Configuration in a mobile network is a dynamic and continuous process. Factors (...) such as load, distance, capacity and topology are all constantly changing in a mobile environment. The VNC algorithm anticipates configuration changes and speeds the reconfiguration process by pre-computing and caching results. VNC propagates local prediction results throughout the VNC enhanced system. The Global Positioning System is an enabling technology for the use of VNC in mobile networks because it provides location information and accurate time for each node. This research has resulted in well defined structures for the encapsulation of physical processes within Logical Processes and a generic library for enhancing a system with VNC. Enhancing an existing system with VNC is straight forward assuming the existing physical processes do not have side effects. The benefit of prediction is gained at the cost of additional traffic and processing. This research includes an analysis of VNC and suggestions for optimization of the VNC algorithm and its parameters. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to examine an almost universal assumption concerning the structure of Paley’s argument for design. Almost all commentators suppose that Paley’s argument is an inductive argument---either an argument by analogy or an argument by inference to the best explanation. I contend, on the contrary, that Paley’s argument is actually a straightforwardly deductive argument. Moreover, I argue that, when Paley’s argument is properly understood, it can readily be seen that it is no good. Finally---although (...) I do not stress this very much---I note that the points that I make about Paley’s argument can carryover to modern design arguments that are based upon the argument that Paley actually gives. (shrink)

Fear to contamination is an easy-to-provoke, intense, hard-to-control, and extraordinarily persistent fear. A worsening of preexisting psychiatric disorders was observed during the COVID-19 outbreak, and several studies suggest that those with obsessive–compulsive disorder may be more affected than any other group of people. In the face of worsening OCD symptoms, there is a need for mental health professionals to provide the support needed not only to treat patients who still report symptoms, but also to improve relapse prevention. In this line, (...) it is recommended to improve alternative strategies such as online consultations and digital psychiatry. The aim of this study is to develop augmented reality stimuli that are clinically relevant for patients with cleaning OCD and assess their efficiency to obtain emotionally significant responses. Four AR stimuli were developed: a plastic bag full of garbage, a piece of bread with mold, a dirty sports shoe, and a piece of rotten meat. All stimuli were shown to a clinical group and a control group. Relevant results were the design of the AR stimuli. These stimuli were validated with the statistical difference in perceived anxiety in the meat stimuli between the clinical and control groups. Nevertheless, when looking at effect sizes, all stimuli present effect sizes from small to large, with both shoe and bread between small and medium effect sizes. These results are a valuable support for the clinical use of these AR stimuli in the treatment of cleaning OCD. (shrink)

Under what conditions do women create places for women on the Internet? And what kinds of difficulties do they meet if they try to do so? These questions are studied by comparing two groups of women involved in the design of Amsterdam's digital city DDS. The female designers, who were involved as DDS was set up, did not want to pay attention to women's issues. This can be explained by looking at their position in feminist debates in Dutch society, (...) their position in the organization of which they were a part and their personal identity. The second group of women, who were part of a women's organization, differed in all these respects. Thus, they had no problems in wanting to pay specific attention to women in DDS by building a `Women's Square'. The problems of this second group of women were caused by the late stage at which they entered the design process. The ideas on gender and technology of the initial group of women had by then solidified in the script of DDS, making it hard for the second group to design the Women's Square in the way they wanted it. In this article it is argued that designers, women's organizations and subsidizing organizations should stimulate women's groups to get involved in the design of new technology at an early stage. From this case study, one can conclude that leaving women's issues to individual female designers is not an effective strategy. (shrink)

In 2014, the worldwide context is that the population is increasingly both expanding and aging in industrial countries. In contrast, the personal health levels of individuals could decrease. Although retirement homes and health-care centers assume most of the demand, they will most probably overflow in the next few years. One of the current solutions is e-Health, which involves biomedical monitoring but also home automation functions to compensate for disabilities that tend to increase with age. In this context, several domains have (...) to be merged while respecting the entire ecosystem: the users, their needs and environment, but also all the various actors/experts involved in this process. The issue, however, is that enormous effort is required to combine the multiple expert domains because these can be antinomic. Hence, this paper proposes a collaborative workflow that brings together these different actors and generates the control/command application. Applying model-driven engineering, this workflow makes a clear distinction between people’s health requirements, the home automation functions, and the user interface points of view. Thus, it allows experts in each field to adapt their system in terms of the user’s needs, disability, and health state. (shrink)

What ends should designers pursue? To what extent should they care about the societal and environmental impact of their work? And why should they care at all? Given the key influence design has on the way people live their lives, designing is fraught with ethical issues. Yet, unlike education or nursing, it lacks widespread professional principles for addressing these issues. -/- Rooted in a communitarian view of design practice, this lively and accessible book examines design through the (...) lens of professions, offering a critical vision that enables practitioners, academics and students of design in all disciplines to reflect on the practice’s overarching purposes. Considering how these are connected to others' flourishing and moulded by community interactions, "The Goods of Design" argues for a practice-based approach to cultivate professional ethics; it provides a normative direction that can meaningfully guide professional design activity, both individually and collectively. The volume also looks into the implications work has for the designer's self-growth as a person, offering ways to discover and navigate the complex tensions between personal and professional life. (shrink)

This paper is a sequel to ‘Belnap-Dunn semantics for natural implicative expansions of Kleene's strong three-valued matrix with two designated values’, where a ‘bivalent’ Belnap-Dunn semantics is provided for all the expansions referred to in its title. The aim of the present paper is to carry out a parallel investigation for all natural implicative expansions of Kleene's strong 3-valued matrix now with only one designated value.

Purpose: Several accounts like Ernst von Glasersfeld's Who Conceives of Society? (2008) locate empirical research in the social sciences and radical constructivism in almost parallel universes. The main purpose of this paper is to argue for more inter-active relations and to stress the importance of establishing weak, medium and strong ties between radical constructivism and empirical social research in general. Findings: The article shows that that weak, medium and strong ties between radical constructivism and empirical research in the social sciences (...) can be established. Moreover, these weak, medium and strong ties play a crucial role for increasing and maintaining the relevance of radical constructivism within the social sciences and for contributing to the viability of radical constructivism in the long run. Implications: The most important consequence for radical constructivism lies in a new research agenda. In the course of this article weak, medium and strong ties to empirical research have been specified specifically and exclusively for the social sciences. But these specific links cannot be simply generalized or transferred to other disciplinary fields outside the social sciences. Since interactive links between radical constructivism and empirical research are currently missing in practically all disciplines, these weak, medium and strong links, as a new RC-agenda, have to be developed separately for each major scientific research arena. (shrink)

An active engagement with arts in general and visual arts in particular has been hypothesized to yield beneficial effects beyond arts itself. So-called cognitive and socio-emotional “transfer” effects into other domains have been claimed. However, the empirical basis of these hopes is limited. This is partly due to a lack of experimental comparisons, theory-based designs, and objective measurements in the literature on transfer effects of arts education. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to design and experimentally investigate (...) a theory-based visual-arts education program for adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years. The program was delivered in a museum context in three sessions and was expected to yield specific and objectively measurable transfer effects. To conduct a randomized field trial, three strictly parallelized and standardized art courses were developed, all of which addressed the topic of portrait drawing. The courses mainly differed regarding their instructional focus, which was either on periods of art history, on the facial expression of emotions, or on the self-perception of a person in the context of different social roles. In the first and more “traditional” course portrait drawing was used to better understand how portraits looked like in former centuries. The two other courses were designed in a way that the artistic engagement in portrait drawing was interwoven with practicing socio-emotional skills, namely empathy and emotion recognition in one course and understanding complex self-concept structures in the other. We expected positive socio-emotional transfer effects in the two “psychological” courses. We used an animated morph task to measure emotion recognition performance and a self-concept task to measure the self-complexity of participants before and after all three courses. Results indicate that an instructional focus on drawing the facial expressions of emotions yields specific improvements in emotion recognition, whereas drawing persons in different social roles yields a higher level of self-complexity in the self-concept task. In contrast, no significant effects on socio-emotional skills were found in the course focussing on art history. Therefore, our study provides causal evidence that visual-arts programs situated in an art-museum context can advance socio-emotional skills, when designed properly. (shrink)

This book traces and explores the evolution of taste from a design perspective: what it is, how it works and what it does. Karin Tehve examines taste primarily through its recursive relationship to media. This ongoing process changes the relationship between designers and the public, and our understanding of the relationship of individuals to their social contexts. Through an analysis of taste, design is understood to be an active constituent of social life, not as autonomous from it. This (...) book reclaims a term long dismissed from interior design and unveils taste's role as a powerful social and political agent within systems of aesthetics, affecting both its producers and consumers. Each chapter discusses a taste concept or definition, analyzes its reciprocal relationship with media, and explores its implications for interior design. Illustrated with 70 images, taste's relationship to media is viewed through a variety of different lenses, including books, photography, magazines, internet, social media and algorithms. Written for students and scholars of interior design and related design fields, this book will be a helpful resource for all those interested in the question of taste, and is an invitation to produce and consume all media critically. (shrink)

Optogenetics and DREADDs (Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs) are important research tools in recent neurobiology. These tools allow unprecedented control over activity in specifically targeted neurons in behaving animals. Two approaches in philosophy of neuroscience, mechanism and ruthless reductionism, provide explicit accounts of experiments and results using tools like these, but each offers a different picture about how levels of mechanisms relate. I argue here that the ruthless reductionist’s direct mind‐to‐cellular/molecular activities linkages “in a single bound” better fits (...) with both the experimental designs using these tools and some of the scientists’ own judgments about their results than does the mechanist’s “nested hierarchies of mechanisms‐within‐mechanisms.” So at least some important work in current neuroscience appears to be ruthlessly reductive. Mechanism may not correctly characterize all current work in neuroscience, despite its recent popularity. (shrink)

Design for Values (DfV) philosophies are a series of design approaches that aim to incorporate human values into the early phases of technological design to direct innovation into beneficial outcomes. The difficulty and necessity of directing advantageous futures for transformative technologies through the application and adoption of value-based design approaches are apparent. However, questions of whose values to design are of critical importance. DfV philosophies typically aim to enrol the stakeholders who may be affected by (...) the emergence of such a technology. However, regardless of which design approach is adopted, all enrolled stakeholders are human ones who propose human values. Contemporary scholarship on metahumanisms, particularly those on posthumanism, have decentred the human from its traditionally privileged position among other forms of life. Arguments that the humanist position is not (and has never been) tenable are persuasive. As such, scholarship has begun to provide a more encompassing ontology for the investigation of nonhuman values. Given the potentially transformative nature of future technologies as relates to the earth and its many assemblages, it is clear that the value investigations of these design approaches fail to account for all relevant stakeholders (i.e., nonhuman animals). This paper has two primary objectives: (1) to argue for the cogency of a posthuman ethics in the design of technologies; and (2) to describe how existing DfV approaches can begin to envision principled and methodological ways of incorporating non-human values into design. To do this, the paper provides a rudimentary outline of what constitutes DfV approaches. It then takes up a unique design approach called Value Sensitive Design (VSD) as an illustrative example. Out of all the other DfV frameworks, VSD most clearly illustrates a principled approach to the integration of values in design. (shrink)

Within the Cognitive Science of Religion, Justin Barrett has proposed that humans possess a hyperactive agency detection device that was selected for in our evolutionary past because ‘over detecting’ (as opposed to ‘under detecting’) the existence of a predator conferred a survival advantage. Within the Intelligent Design debate, William Dembski has proposed the law of small probability, which states that specified events of small probability do not occur by chance. Within the Fine-Tuning debate, John Leslie has asserted a tidiness (...) principle such that, if we can think of a good explanation for some state of affairs, then an explanation is needed for that state of affairs. In this paper I examine similarities between these three proposals and suggest that they can all be explained with reference to the existence of an explanation attribution module in the human mind. The forgoing analysis is considered with reference to a contrast between classical rationality and what Gerd Gigerenzer and others have called ecological rationality. (shrink)

In the unique educational landscape of small island countries in the Pacific, the University of the South Pacific (USP) has embarked on an innovative approach to augmenting student support services by integrating Generative AI technology. This initiative specifically caters to its diverse and dispersed student body across 12 countries and five time zones, addressing a critical need for accessible and empathetic support systems in higher education. To do so, the Semester Zero, an online preparatory course using GPT 3.5-Turbo, was created. (...) Designed for all incoming students, it showcased the potential of AI to enhance student support services in institutions with far less challenging environments than USP. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design is an approach to engineering that aims to integrate the value of safety in the design and development of new technologies. It does so by integrating knowledge of potential dangers in the design process and developing methods to design undesirable effects out of the innovation. Recent discussions have highlighted several challenges in conceptualizing safety and integrating the value into the design process. Therefore, some have argued to design for the _responsibility_ for safety, instead (...) of for safety itself. However, this idea has not been developed further. In this article, we develop an approach to Safe-by-Design, grounded in care ethics, which builds on the idea of designing for responsibility and can deal with the complexity that is inherent to the conceptualization of safety. We describe five ways in which care ethics contributes to the conceptualization of Safe-by-Design: (1) It suggests the development of ‘circles of care’ in which stakeholders share the responsibility for safety; (2) it recognizes the importance of considering safety as something that is situated in the surroundings of a technology, instead of as a property of the technology itself; (3) it acknowledges that achieving safety is labour that requires an ongoing commitment; (4) it emphasizes that the way in which we relate to technology impacts its safety; and (5) it recognizes the role of emotions in assessing safety. All these elements combined lead to a broader understanding of safety and a philosophically more substantial and practically more appealing conceptualization of Safe-by-Design. (shrink)

The objective of this study was to create and validate an instrument to measure the wellbeing of children in lockdown. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the interest of maintaining social distancing, millions of people have been confined to their homes, including children, who have been withdrawn from school and barely able to leave their homes. Thus, it would be useful to evaluate, from a holistic perspective, the well-being of children under these challenging circumstances. The participants were (...) 1046 children 48.7% of which were boys and 50.7% girls, recruited in the Basque Country (Northern Spain). The survey, entitled, 'Well-being of Children in Lockdown" (WCL) is composed of six sub-scales: Emotions, Playful and creative activities, Education, Addictions, Routine, and Physical Activity. Exploratory factor analyses indicate that all the reliability indices were acceptable. The survey demonstrated adequate reliability (alpha=.804). We were thus able to confirm the validity of this simple instrument for evaluating the well-being of children aged between 4 and 12 years in lockdown situations.2. (shrink)