The Owner of the Right over Nature, or Expert Mediators in the Modern Era and at Present

F. Bacon in his work New Organon proposes a project of a new science, which ensures the desire of human race “to recover its right over nature”. The article examines the work on the universal owner of “the right over nature” in two historical contexts. The first context determines the emergence of modern science. Here Bacon plays the role of an expert mediator who introduces the new scientific method in its broader social meaning. His work on the universal owner of “the right over nature” combines and intersects the cognitive and political aspects of scientific endeavor. The second context covers the present situation after the Scientific-Technical Revolution, when the use of the “right over nature” becomes actual, and not only possible. The contradictions revealed in the first context in the activities of the expert mediator serve as the basis for analyzing the present situation of interaction between science and society. The author describes the expert mediator, corresponding to the modern context of uncertainty and conflict of values, through the concept of “honest broker of policy alternatives” by R. Pielke, as well as through the palette of expert knowledge types presented by the STS researchers. She shows why the presented differentiation of expert knowledge types is not enough to organize the work of an expert mediator as an “honest broker”. In conclusion, she puts forward the hypothesis about distributed expertise, which can represent contemporary work on the owner of the “right over nature” and describes some aspects of this work. The author associates the significance of the hypothesis of distributed expertise with the preservation of the openness of the project of Bacon's new science.

What Does It Mean to Say Coaching Is Relational?

This metasynthesis presents the collective findings based on a small corpus of studies ( n = 28) that examined literacy coaching in elementary and secondary settings from a relational perspective. We frame our analysis using Lysaker’s notions of relational teaching and theorize that, like classroom teaching, powerful literacy coaching is grounded in dialogic, co-constructive interactions in which the coach and teacher jointly develop new knowledge and skills. Our analysis indicates that the realization of co-construction may be influenced by differential patterns related to positioning and dispositions toward coaching: (a) knowledge flow, (b) distributed expertise, and (c) vulnerability. To explicate these patterns, we present evidence of opportunities that enhanced co-construction and obstacles that reduced co-construction. We conclude by discussing how coaches and teachers can develop reciprocity in coach–teacher relationships and move toward more relational coaching approaches. Finally, we provide directions for future research.

Supporting Advances in Human-Systems Coordination through Simulation of Diverse, Distributed Expertise

Distributed expertise task environments represent a critical, but challenging, area of team performance. As teams work together to perform complex tasks, they share much information and expertise to efficiently and effectively coordinate activities. Information coordination and alignment is affected by many factors, including communication styles and distributions of domain and interaction expertise. This study was part of a series of work performed in the authors’ lab to explore feasibility of using software simulation methods as a complement to other human factors methods to explore information alignment in teams. More specifically, this study aimed to operationalize specific parameters identified in group dynamics, management, and cognitive psychology literatures. Such research can provide an operationalized model that incorporates some of these key factors in information alignment and how these factors impact overall task performance of teams in complex environments. Simulation methods were applied to explore time-based performance outcomes. Model convergence and functionality were established through a series of model-based statistical analyses, which can be later validated with supplementary field studies. Results indicate that this style of simulation modeling is feasible, and provides directions for additional examination of factors affecting team configuration, process, and performance in complex systems.