scholarly journals “By Design” and Risk Regulation: Insights from Nanotechnologies

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Mirella MIETTINEN

Contemporary risk regulation requires an interdisciplinary approach that integrates science, law and socio-political discourses. This calls for new tools in the risk regulation process that enable regulators to adapt to a constantly changing technological realm and help overcome the interdisciplinarity dilemma. In the field of nanotechnologies, tools proposed in the literature include “by design” approaches. In this article, I analyse how the safe-by-design and benign-by-design concepts, emerging in materials science and drug development, could enhance interdisciplinarity in risk regulation. I suggest that further development and implementation of “by design” from a scientific concept to an adaptive regulatory tool could support progressive risk governance of innovative technological developments and enhance the interdisciplinary approach in risk regulation.

Nano Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 101065
Author(s):  
Jerome Rose ◽  
Melanie Auffan ◽  
Camille de Garidel-Thoron ◽  
Sebastien Artous ◽  
Claire Auplat ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Michelle A. Pang ◽  
Carolyn C. Seepersad

The evaluation of design concepts is a time consuming and resource intensive process. Crowdsourcing evaluations has been examined in previous work as a means to reduce the need for expert raters, while achieving similar evaluation results. This paper examines the impact of empathically priming novice raters on their evaluation of alternative design concepts. The rating system is based on a pairwise comparison method that requires minimal training of novice raters. In a pilot study the pairwise method for crowdsourcing evaluations is compared with crowdsourced evaluations using non-pairwise rating scales and with the evaluations of expert raters. The primary study incorporates written and empathic priming strategies to determine their impact on novice raters’ evaluation of concepts. Raters are asked to consider several criteria, including novelty, feasibility, clarity (of the concept), usefulness, ease of use, and overall worthiness of further development. Results offer insight into the criteria that are most relevant to novice raters and whether empathic priming has a significant effect on those evaluations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (12) ◽  
pp. 2321-2333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Kruse ◽  
Thomas Abeling ◽  
Hugh Deeming ◽  
Maureen Fordham ◽  
John Forrester ◽  
...  

Abstract. The level of community is considered to be vital for building disaster resilience. Yet, community resilience as a scientific concept often remains vaguely defined and lacks the guiding characteristics necessary for analysing and enhancing resilience on the ground. The emBRACE framework of community resilience presented in this paper provides a heuristic analytical tool for understanding, explaining and measuring community resilience to natural hazards. It was developed in an iterative process building on existing scholarly debates, on empirical case study work in five countries and on participatory consultation with community stakeholders where the framework was applied and ground-tested in different contexts and for different hazard types. The framework conceptualizes resilience across three core domains: (i) resources and capacities, (ii) actions and (iii) learning. These three domains are conceptualized as intrinsically conjoined within a whole. Community resilience is influenced by these integral elements as well as by extra-community forces comprising disaster risk governance and thus laws, policies and responsibilities on the one hand and on the other, the general societal context, natural and human-made disturbances and system change over time. The framework is a graphically rendered heuristic, which through application can assist in guiding the assessment of community resilience in a systematic way and identifying key drivers and barriers of resilience that affect any particular hazard-exposed community.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 491-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
U. Schuster ◽  
A. Hannides ◽  
L. Mintrop ◽  
A. Körtzinger

Abstract. Highly accurate and precise measurements of marine carbon components are required in the study of the marine carbon cycle, particularly when investigating the causes for its variability from seasonal to interannual timescales. This is especially true in the investigation of the consequences of anthropogenic influences. The analysis of any component requires elaborate instrumentation, most of which is currently used onboard ships, either in manual mode or autonomous mode. Technological developments result in more and more instruments that have long-term reliability so that they can be deployed on surface moorings and buoys, whilst the great technological and operational challenges mean that only few sensors have been developed that can be used for sub-surface in situ measurements on floats, robots, or gliders. There is a special need for autonomous instruments and sensors that are able to measure a combination of different components, in order to increase the spatial and temporal coverage of marine carbon data. This paper describes analytical techniques used for the detection of the marine dissolved carbon components, both inorganic and organic: the fugacity of CO2, total dissolved inorganic carbon, pH, alkalinity, and dissolved organic carbon. By pointing out advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of the techniques employed in the analysis of each component, we aim to aid non-carbon marine scientists, sensor developers and technologists, in the decision where to tackle the challenges of further development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (10) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Ingrida Baranauskiene

<p>Dear authors, members of the editorial board, and readers of the scientific interdisciplinary journal <em>Social Welfare: Interdisciplinary Approach</em>. We present to you one more issue of the journal. As in previous issues, in the present issue, an interdisciplinary approach to social welfare in a national and intercultural context is important to us. In this issue, we present to your attention the works of scientists from three countries in one way or another related to social welfare, the concept of which is constructed and presented in three chapters: <em>Social Challenges</em>, <em>The Development of Professional Competences</em> and <em>Disability Studies</em>. Going deeper into the presented scientific works, it can be seen that in many of them we can name social justice as the main idea. This scientific concept and the starting point of the formation of the concept of life has reached us from ancient times. All of us know Plato, Socrates’ disciple, and his ontological concept of justice related to a virtue of the soul. Justice for Plato is one of the major virtues that encompasses both state governance and human life in general. It can be argued that he saw the benefits of justice in the life of the state and the individual, including the idea that justice unites society (Plato, 2000<a title="" href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>). Aristotle gives justice the meaning of redistribution and sharing. On the other hand, although Aristotle’s justice is restricted to Greek citizens, in any case, the idea of sharing, redistributing, offsetting was spread thanks to Aristotle (Aristotle, 1990<a title="" href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>). Thomas Aquinas not only linked the Christian tradition to the teaching of Aristotle, but also further developed the idea of justice and emphasized the importance of transposing the idea into law (Aquinas, 2015<a title="" href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>). Immanuel Kant developed a moral theory which, in the context of our days, is, in my view, an important duty as the strongest pillar of morality (Kant, 1987<a title="" href="#_ftn4">[4]</a>). Without going into polemic about how much Immanuel Kant’s philosophy influenced John Rawls’ theory of social justice, I will quote the principles of justice defined by him: “a) each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value. b) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity” (Rawls, 2002, p. 61<a title="" href="#_ftn5">[5]</a>). It can be said that Rawls’ idea that we will not achieve social welfare in the state until justice, including social justice, is ensured, has laid the foundations for a modern understanding of social justice. The dialectic of the concept of justice is also reflected in the works of our authors as the emphasis on justice as a value (Arūnas Acus, Liutauras Kraniauskas; Ilona Dobrovolskytė), the disclosure of the meaning of sharing (Jurgita Lenkauskaitė; Olga Kuprieieva, Tetiana Traverse, Liudmyla Serdiuk, Olena Chykhantsova, Oleksandr Shamych), the construct of the concept of law (Daiva Malinauskienė, Aistė Igorytė; Ingrida Baranauskienė, Alla Kovalenko, Inna Leonova), the understanding of a theory of civic morality, a duty that is a pillar of morality (Svitlana Kravchuk; Elena Kuftyak; Asta Volbikienė, Remigijus Bubnys; Simas Garbenis, Renata Geležinienė, Greta Šiaučiulytė). And it does not matter at all whether this is analyzed in the context of social challenges, disability studies or professional competences. It can be stated that the idea of social justice is the driving force behind the scientific works of this journal.</p><p>Wishing everyone to stay healthy, both physically and spiritually, I place social justice as a fundamental value in these turbulent times of a global pandemic. But life does not stand still, so we look forward to your new research works. There will be no us without you.</p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /></div>


2020 ◽  

In recent years, digitisation has significantly changed the media industry. Today, digital business models are at home in almost all forms of the media. But what will come next? Will new technological developments in the field of AI or block chain, for example, have an impact? And above all: Where does media economic research go from the debate about business models? Are these developments happening so fast that we hardly have time to develop real (new) theories? This volume seeks answers to these pressing questions. The further development of media economics as an academic field will depend on whether and how this is achieved. With contributions by Harald Rau; Daniela Marzavan & Anke Trommershausen; Henriette Heidbrink; Tassilo Pellegrini & Michael Litschka; Britta M. Gossel, Andreas Will & Julian Windscheid, Christian Zabel, Sven Pagel, Verena Telkmann & Alexander Rossner; Sibylle Kunz, Sven Pagel & Svenja Hagenhoff; Jonas D. Bodenhöfer, Christopher Buschow & Carsten Winter and Jörg Müller-Lietzkow.


1998 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 179-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Motohiro Kihara

Many third-generation light sources have been commissioned over the past ten years, and the soundness of the principal design concepts has been well recognized through experiences at these facilities. Also, technological developments concerning third-generation light sources have been remarkable. With the emittance and current of the beams far exceeding the previous levels, stability requirements of the beams have become much more stringent. In this report the present status of light sources, operational and projected, is summarized, and developments and future prospects of synchrotron radiation storage rings in view of accelerator physics and technology are reviewed.


2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith B. Gertler ◽  
James Carter ◽  
Swamidas Punwani

Improving the survivability of a locomotive crew in the event of an accident has been a concern of the Federal Railroad Administration in the past decade. Locomotive crashes can injure the crew as well as deform the locomotive cab. Exiting from a deformed cab can be difficult, particularly for injured crewmembers. Egress becomes an even greater challenge if the locomotive is toppled. From an initial list of emergency egress concepts, the following three were chosen for further development: 1) hand/footholds to aid climbing inside a toppled locomotive, 2) roof-mounted escape hatch, and 3) externally removable windshield. As the potential users of the egress system, train crews and emergency rescue workers were interviewed to provide feedback on the design concepts. Focus groups with locomotive engineers and conductors provided information about train crew perceptions of the three concepts. Interviews with rescue personnel provided a perspective on the concerns of emergency rescue operations. Based on the user feedback, the roof-mounted escape hatch with hand/footholds was selected as the preferred concept. Construction of a system mockup facilitated evaluation of this concept. The utility of the overall concept was evaluated using untrained personnel in the full-scale mockup of a toppled road locomotive cab. A preliminary examination of the cost implications of incorporating the hatch system into new locomotives indicated that the initial engineering costs, rather than the recurring manufacturing costs, are the issue. As such, the overall cost for implementing the hatch is likely to be low.


2002 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Schram

Plasma deposition and plasma conversion can be characterized by five steps: production by ionization, transfer of chemistry to precursors, transport of radicals to the surface, surface interactions with deposition, recirculation and generation of new monomers. For very fast deposition, large flows of radicals are needed and a regime is reached, in which monolayer coverage is reached in a very short time. Such large flows of radicals can be obtained by ion-induced interactions, as the C2H radical from acetylene for a-C:H deposition, or by H atom abstraction as the SiH3 radical from SiH4 for a-Si:H deposition. These radicals with intermediate sticking coefficient are advantageous as they are mobile and have a finite dwelling time at the surface. By such a pure radical mechanism, good layers can be formed with very high growth rates, if large radical fluxes can be reached. This regime of high fluence is also interesting for conversion, of which ammonia formation from hydrogen and nitrogen atoms is given as an example. These new approaches offer new possibilities for further development of the field in close connection with surface science, catalysis, and materials science.


Author(s):  
Retno Supriyanti ◽  
Alfin Chrisanty ◽  
Yogi Ramadhani ◽  
Wahyu Siswandari

Hematology tests are examinations that aim to know the state of blood and its components, one of which is leukocytes. Hematologic examinations such as the number and morphology of blood generally still done manually, especially by a specialist pathologist. Despite the fact that today there is equipment that can identify morphological automatically, but for developing countries like Indonesia, it can only be done in the capital city. Low accuracy due to the differences identified either by doctors or laboratory staff, makes a great reason to use computer assistance, especially with the rapid technological developments at this time. In this paper, we will emphasize our experiment to screen leucocyte cell nucleus by identifying the contours of the cell nucleus, diameter, circumference and area of these cells based on digital image processing techniques, especially using the morphological image. The results obtained are promising for further development in the development of computer-aided diagnosis for identification of leukocytes based on a simple and inexpensive equipment.


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