In this paper, we reflect on the concept of nature that is presupposed in biomimetic approaches to technology and innovation. Because current practices of biomimicry presuppose a technological model of nature, it is questionable whether its claim of being a more ecosystem friendly approach to technology and innovation is justified. In order to maintain the potentiality of biomimicry as ecological innovation, we explore an alternative to this technological model of nature. To this end, we reflect on the (...) materiality of natural systems and explore a natural model of nature, which is found in the responsive conativity of matter. This natural model of nature enables us to conceptualize biomimicry as conative responsiveness to the conativity of the biosphere. (shrink)

In this paper, we reflect on the concept of nature that is presupposed in biomimetic approaches to technology and innovation. Because current practices of biomimicry presuppose a technological model of nature, it is questionable whether its claim of being a more ecosystem friendly approach to technology and innovation is justified. In order to maintain the potentiality of biomimicry as ecological innovation, we explore an alternative to this technological model of nature. To this end, we reflect on the (...) materiality of natural systems and explore a natural model of nature, which is found in the responsive conativity of matter. This natural model of nature enables us to conceptualize biomimicry as conative responsiveness to the conativity of the biosphere. (shrink)

Complex adaptation systems are the main development direction of China’s current green innovation research. New material industry is one of the key entry points to accelerate the construction of modern industrial system and promote innovation, green, and efficient development. Under the requirements of China’s current low-carbon development, China’s green innovation system is developing rapidly. Green innovation complicates traditional innovation models and their functions and improves economic development. The purpose of this paper is to study the (...) theoretical analysis framework of applying complex adaptive systems and to analyze and calculate the characteristics of the current status of green innovation systems in multiple industries in China’s manufacturing industry. Analysis is as follows. The experimental group and the control group are set for comparison, and the data are organized by applying complex adaptive system theory and data analysis methods. Experimental data show that the coordinated development of the green innovation systems in various industries in China is not balanced, with a difference of more than three times; the parameters of the various green innovation systems within the industry are unbalanced, and the difference is more than five times. The experimental results show that the green innovation subject can strategically interact by adjusting the ratio of resource allocation through the constructed green innovation system model. The green innovation system with complex adaptive system theory is conducive to the development of the green system. It can save about 23% of green innovation time and improve efficiency by about 15%, to promote the development of green innovation in China. (shrink)

New Materialisms brings into focus and explains the significance of the innovative materialist critiques that are emerging across the social sciences and humanities. By gathering essays that exemplify the new thinking about matter and processes of materialization, this important collection shows how scholars are reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges. In the introduction, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost highlight common themes among the distinctive critical projects that comprise (...) the new materialisms. The continuities they discern include a posthumanist conception of matter as lively or exhibiting agency, and a reengagement with both the material realities of everyday life and broader geopolitical and socioeconomic structures. Coole and Frost argue that contemporary economic, environmental, geopolitical, and technological developments demand new accounts of nature, agency, and social and political relationships; modes of inquiry that privilege consciousness and subjectivity are not adequate to the task. New materialist philosophies are needed to do justice to the complexities of twenty-first-century biopolitics and political economy, because they raise fundamental questions about the place of embodied humans in a material world and the ways that we produce, reproduce, and consume our material environment. Contributors Sara Ahmed Jane Bennett Rosi Braidotti Pheng Cheah Rey Chow William E. Connolly Diana Coole Jason Edwards Samantha Frost Elizabeth Grosz Sonia Kruks Melissa A. Orlie. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. According to the genre characteristics, the article is a form of publicizing analytical conclusions from the experience of research in the field of the philosophical Chinese studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine from 1991 to the present day. The material for understanding was supplied from the environment of scientific professional activity of prominent figures of Ukrainian philosophical Sinology from the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS (...) of Ukraine and the A. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the NAS of Ukraine. The scientific achievements of academic Sinologists, who are leading researchers of Chinese philosophical education, science and culture from the archaic to modern times, are highlighted. They are, namely: V. Kiktenko, V. Pyrohiv, V. Hamianin, S. Kapranov, Y. Hobova and A. Usyk. M e t h o d s. The article uses an analytical approach based on the study of historical and philosophical sources. The methodological basis of the research is the main methods of historical and philosophical science: problem-categorical analysis, socio-cultural analysis and biographical analysis. At the same time, the methods of situational and contextual analysis of scientific texts are applied. R e s u l t s. Four conditional thematic vectors of the progress of academic philosophical Sinology in modern Ukraine are classified, namely the study of: 1. the history of ancient Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism; 2. the history of Chinese philosophy in the 19th – early 21st centuries; 3) the history of Ukrainian Sinology in the 18th – early 21st centuries; 4. the history of modern foreign Sinology. The director of the A. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the NAS of Ukraine and the head of the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists V. Kiktenko very effectively studies all these vectors, especially the last three of them. His colleagues at the institute V. Pyrohiv, V. Hamianin and Y. Hobova mainly research the first of these vectors, and primarily the history of Confucianism. Employees of the H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the NAS of Ukraine S. Kapranov and A. Usyk are also focused scientific attention on the history of Confucianism, in particular, the second of them studies social ethics and anthropology of Confucius. C o n c l u s i o n s. As a result it was established that modern domestic philosophical academic Sinology is a qualitatively new and innovative direction of Oriental studies in independent Ukraine. This discipline was formed as a result of the two-century progress of Ukrainian Chinese studies from the era of Hetmanshina until now. V. Kiktenko and his colleagues have made a significant and already internationally recognized contribution to the study of both the classical philosophical schools of Ancient China and their ideological heirs, in particular, the leaders of the PRC and the CCP from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping during these thirty years. V. Kiktenko also laid the foundations for the study both of the history of Ukrainian Chinese studies and of modern foreign, primarily Western European and North American, Sinology. (shrink)

_Material Feminisms: New Directions for Education_ provides a range of powerful theoretical and innovative methodological examples to illuminate how new material feminism can be put to work in education to open up new avenues of research design and practice. It poses challenging questions about the nature of knowledge production, the role of the researcher, and the critical endeavour arising from inter- and post-disciplinarity. Working with diffractive methodologies and new materialist ecological epistemologies, the book offers resources for hope which widen the (...) scope for how educational problems are interrogated, and provides a political counter-movement to neo-positivist, outcomes-based approaches within education. Inspired by writers such as Barad, Bennett, and Deleuze and Guattari, the book makes a radical break with cognitive, dualist, and universal conceptions of human subjectivity and intelligence in education. By taking its starting point as the co-consitutiveness of discourse, materiality, corporeality, and place, the book foregrounds educational practices as material enactments of multiple, non-linear, entangled, affective, and relational forces. It offers new insights into how gender, class, and ethnicity are constituted in, and by, material assemblages that are often submerged or ‘unseen’. This book is an essential starting place for those intrigued by what new theoretical accounts of materiality, posthumanism, and affect can offer educational research. Diffractive methodologies challenge readers to take a fuller range of actors into account than in ‘objective’ humanist methodologies, and in so doing to pay closer attention to what data is. It invites researchers to engage with long-standing feminist concerns about power and knowledge production in research processes. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Gender and Education. _. (shrink)

: The economic system of innovative dynamism is often accused of harming the environment. The opposite is true. As economies flourish through innovative dynamism, birth rates decline, new ways to extract old resources are invented, and previously useless materials are turned into useful new resources. Human and nonhuman animals are often adaptable and resilient in the […].

How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence is a collection of 19 essays that take a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring key instances of exemplary practice, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. -/- Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse (...) range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. -/- Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material "things" as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer practitioners within archaeology and well beyond. (shrink)

In our rapidly changing environment, both profit and non-profit organizations confront an increasing demand for technological, economic, and social innovation. In response to this demand, organizations are taking on the role of “change agents” by transforming existing practices into innovative action. Libraries, as centers that accumulate and disperse knowledge, can support these organizations in their “change agent” roles. This paper delineates the way public libraries can help organizations meet the increasing need for external information associated with innovation. Policy (...) issues concerned with efficient information transfer to user organizationss are specified, and two concrete examples of information transfer systems are described. In order to best utilize existing knowledge,personal-professional assistance in selecting potentially innovative,impersonal written materials is recommended. (shrink)

This article sheds new light on Bruno Latour’s sociology of science and technology by looking at his early study of the French writer, philosopher and editor Charles Péguy (1873–1914). In the early 1970s, Latour engaged in a comparative study of Péguy’s Clio and the four gospels of the New Testament. His 1973 contribution to a Péguy colloquium (published in 1977) offers rich insights into his interest in questions of time, history, tradition and translation. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s philosophy of difference, (...) Latour reads Clio as spelling out and illustrating the following argument: ‘Repetition is a machine to produce differences with identity’. However, in contrast to Deleuze’s work (together with Félix Guattari) on the materiality of machines, or assemblages [agencements], Latour emphasizes the semiotic aspects of the repetition/difference process. As in Péguy, the main model for this process is the Roman Catholic tradition of religious events. The article argues that it is this reading of Péguy and Latour’s early interest in biblical exegesis that inspired much of Latour’s later work. In Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar, 1979) and The Pasteurization of France (1988) in particular, problems of exegesis and tradition provide important stimuli for the analysis of scientific texts. In this context, Latour gradually transforms the question of tradition into the problem of reference. In a first step, he shifts the event that is transmitted and translated from the temporal dimension (i.e. the past) to the spatial (i.e. from one part of the laboratory to another). It is only in a second step that Latour resituates scientific events in time. As facts they are ‘constructed’ but nevertheless ‘irreducible’. They result, according to Latour, from the tradition of the future. As a consequence, the Latourian approach to science distances itself from the materialism of Deleuze and other innovative theoreticians. (shrink)

This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 (...) illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself—its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity. (shrink)

BackgroundIn recent years, technological advancements have increased the importance of innovation activities. Therefore, firms invest millions of dollars in innovation activities to ensure long-term business sustainability. Similarly, consumer concerns have increased dramatically over the past years. Thus, brand loyalty has become a top priority for firms and consumers. In this background, this research examines how firms’ innovation activities translate into consumer brand loyalty to assure business sustainability in Asian markets, particularly China, Pakistan, and Indonesia.ObjectivesThis study’s specific objectives (...) are to comprehend the concept of firms’ innovation activities and their effect on the brand prototype. Examine the effect of the brand prototype on global brand preference, recommendation, and loyalty among Asian consumers. Find out the impact of brand preference on brand recommendations and the influence of brand recommendations on brand loyalty among Asian consumers.Materials and methodsA total of 814 consumers from Asian countries participated in this study, and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.ResultsThe findings indicate that firms’ innovation activities, such as processes, products, and store environment, positively influenced the brand prototype, thereby increasing consumer brand knowledge. Likewise, brand prototype contributes to developing brand preference, brand recommendation, and brand loyalty among Asian consumers. Lastly, consumer brand preference significantly influenced brand recommendation, which positively improves consumer brand loyalty in Asia.ConclusionThis study concluded that Asian consumers have favorable perceptions of firms’ innovation activities, which influences their ability to develop brand prototypes to increase consumer brand knowledge. Similarly, brand prototype fosters brand preference, recommendation, and loyalty. Likewise, favorable brand preference encourages consumers to recommend the brand to others, strengthening brand loyalty. Thus, firms should invest in innovation activities to strengthen consumer brand loyalty in Asian markets. Consequently, this study may assist multinational corporations in increasing their business volumes and market shares in Asia.Managerial recommendationsThis study provides important managerial recommendations. The findings revealed that global managers can develop and implement several branding strategies for sustaining their businesses in the Asian environment. (shrink)

There is a thematic unity to these essays on Newton's thought: they are concerned with the central categories of Newton's metaphysics of nature (matter, causation, force, space, time) and the ways in which Newton's work relates to cultural themes such as providence and creation. Focusing on questions of tradition and innovation and Newton's engaged response to the broader patterns of his contemporary culture, they present a unified, interpretive stance that often challenges the scholarly orthodoxies. The essays contain a large (...) body of unpublished manuscript material that is related exegetically to the corpus of Newton's published writings. Accordingly, they provide a fresh basis for understanding and clarifying the inner dynamics of Newton's thought. Audience: Historians, philosophers and sociologists of early modern thought, and those who have an interest in the intellectual achievements of Isaac Newton. (shrink)

Health innovation is mainly envisioned in direct connection to medical research institutions or pharmaceutical and technology companies. Yet, these types of innovation often do not meet the needs and expectations of individuals affected by health conditions. With the emergence of digital health technologies and social media, we can observe a shift, which involves people living with illness modifying and improving medical and health devices outside of the formal research and development sector, figuring both as users and innovators. This (...) patient‐led innovation has been celebrated in innovation studies and economics as a “bottom‐up” type of innovation. In this article, we take a closer look at open‐source patient‐led innovation in the context of type 1 diabetes care. In our inquiry, we pay particular attention to the social and ethical dimensions of this innovation, building on empirical material. Upon exploring the notion of patient‐led innovation and its socio‐political context through the lens of intersectional and global health justice, we argue that a proactive strategy is needed to ensure that open‐source patient‐led innovation will be more globally accessible, center the health needs of the most underserved populations, as well as facilitate equitable and just health benefits. To support this aim, we provide a range of examples of different initiatives addressing the persistent inequalities that have so far inhibited patient‐led innovation from more fully materializing its innovative potential. (shrink)

This article explores the development of ideas in constitutional design. The point of departure is a perspective of constitutions-as-products, and thus, an examination of the invention, innovation, and an uptake of these products. The article conceptualizes constitutional innovation and distinguishes its manifestations with respect to constitutional products, the process of constitution-making, and in supporting institutions. The last two elements, in line with Schumpeter’s approach to innovation, would seem especially important to constitutional development. The article provides several examples (...) from the area of human rights and argues that innovations tend to be found in situations in which there is strong aversion to a prior order. It also shows that innovations tend to come from the periphery rather than the global core of the field. One of the sources of “mixed” constitutions is precisely such innovations, which then form raw material for further mixing. (shrink)

Catherine Malabou's concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contributors to _Plastic Materialities_—whose fields include political philosophy, critical legal studies, social theory, literature, and philosophy—use Malabou's innovative combination of post-structuralism and neuroscience to evaluate the political implications of her work. They address, among other things, subjectivity, science, war, the malleability of sexuality, neoliberalism and economic theory, indigenous and racial politics, and the relationship between the human and non-human. _Plastic Materialities_ also includes three essays by Malabou (...) and an interview with her, all of which bring her work into conversation with issues of sovereignty, justice, and social order for the first time. Contributors. Brenna Bhandar, Silvana Carotenuto, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller, Jairus Victor Grove, Catherine Kellogg, Catherine Malabou, Renisa Mawani, Fred Moten, Alain Pottage, Michael J. Shapiro, Alberto Toscano. (shrink)

The role of speed in innovations needs to be explored more thoroughly. I advocate here that for innovations which rely on scarce materials, research into more abundant substitutes needs to be accelerated while a regulatory-driven extension of the product life should slow down the number of incremental innovations and reduce our overall footprint on scarce resources. Chemical elements need to be established as global commons whose overuse can be regulated if required. Part of the efficiency gains of innovations could (...) be used for research to offset the ‘rebound effect’ and provide the public with a return on early infrastructure investments. (shrink)

Green product innovation has been recognized as one of the key factors to achieve growth, environmental sustainability, and a better quality of life. Understanding green product innovation as a result of interaction between innovation and sustainability has become a strategic priority for theory and practice. This article investigates green product innovation by means of a multiple case study analysis of 12 small to medium size manufacturing companies based in Italy and Canada. First, we propose a conceptual (...) framework that presents three key environmental dimensions of green product innovation such as energy minimization, materials reduction, and pollution prevention as identified in the life cycle phases of products. Based on insights gained from in-depth interviews, we discuss firms' motivations to develop green products, environmental policies and targets for products, different dimensions of green product innovation, and challenges faced during developing and marketing of green products. Results from the study are then synthesized and integrated in a toolbox that sheds light on various aspects of green product innovation and provides solutions to challenges and risks that are faced by firms. Finally, implications for managers, academia and public policy makers are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose is to help college students start their own businesses and protect and develop China’s intangible cultural heritage. The entrepreneurship of college students in the field of intangible culture is studied from the perspective of entrepreneurial psychology. First, the related characteristics, main content, and research status of college entrepreneurship education are described in detail. Entrepreneurial psychology is divided into entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial emotion and entrepreneurial will. Then, the concept and development status of intangible cultural heritage are briefly summarized to (...) illustrate the importance of inheriting and developing intangible cultural heritage. A questionnaire is designed based on intangible cultural heritage development mode to interview local college students randomly. Finally, the results are analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results show that massive students do not understand the entrepreneurial policy, and only 16% of them know it very well. More than 30% of the students think that entrepreneurship will improve personal responsibility. Nearly 50% of the students believe that entrepreneurship can increase their life experience. Almost 50% of the students have the psychological quality of persistence and courage in entrepreneurship. The final results show that there are great differences in entrepreneurial cognition among students of different grades. Regarding entrepreneurial emotion, there are obvious differences among students of different genders, disciplines, and grades. Regarding the entrepreneurial will, there are only differences among students with different grades. In entrepreneurship education, different teaching methods should be adopted for different ages to comprehensively improve the effect of entrepreneurship education for students of all grades and help them obtain good entrepreneurship results. This exploration provides technical support for the inheritance of material and cultural inheritance and contributes to the entrepreneurship education of college students. (shrink)

The recovery after the unprecedented pandemic crisis that Europe has currently been facing is strengthening the strong dependence between social, economic, and environmental fields, maintaining green investments and innovation at the core of the European strategies. Shifting to clean industries is a challenging mission that a complex network of stakeholders and their different interests must take into account. Within this network, the interplay between environmental and financial performance of a company represents a common point with a growing emphasis on (...) the transparency and the materiality capacity of the disclosed information. This paper uses the Structural Equation Modeling and the Gaussian Graphical Models as graphical analysis approaches and offers a first insight about the interaction between environmental materiality measures and financial performance. A preliminary step of the scientific research consisted of a hand-mapping investigation about materiality conditions. Starting from the Materiality Map developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, this paper extends the main concept about materiality and investigates it on three different content ranges, which focus on the general environmental policy of the company, the targets set, and its concrete footprint. The methodology approaches were grounded on a newly compiled dataset provided by the Thomson Reuters database for 194 Economic European Area oil and gas companies. The results provide significant evidences for the manifestation of materiality and emphasize the informational content of the individual environmental measures as an important condition for its financial impact. Adding to the environmental-financial performance relationship, our findings have both practical and academic relevance for the economic field and sustainable growth goals. (shrink)

The starting point of this article is the observation that the emergence of the Anthropocene rehabilitates the need for philosophical reflections on the ontology of technology. In particular, if technological innovations on an ontic level of beings in the world are created, but these innovations at the same time _create_ the Anthropocene World at an ontological level, this raises the question how World creation has to be understood. We first identify four problems with the traditional concept of creation: the anthropocentric, (...) ontic and outcome orientation of traditional concepts of creation, as well as its orientation of material fabrication. We subsequently develop a progressive concept of World creation with four characteristics that move beyond the traditional conceptuality: (1) a materialistic concept of creation that accounts for (2) the ontogenetic process and (3) the ontic and ontological nature of creation, and (4) is conceptualized as semantic creation of the World in which we live and act. (shrink)

The payments industry – the business of transferring value through public and corporate infrastructures – is undergoing rapid transformation. New business models and regulatory environments disrupt more traditional fee-based strategies, and new entrants seek to displace legacy players by leveraging new mobile platforms and new sources of data. In this increasingly diversified industry landscape, start-ups and established players are attempting to embed payment in ‘social’ experience through novel technologies of accounting for trust. This imagination of the social, however, is being (...) materialized in gated platforms for payment, accounting, and exchange. This paper explores the ambiguous politics of such experiments, specifically those, like Bitcoin or the on-demand sharing economy, that delineate an economic imaginary of ‘just us’ – a closed and closely guarded community of peers operating under the illusion that there are no mediating institutions undergirding that community. This provokes questions about the intersection of payment and publics. Payment innovators’ attenuated understanding of the social may, we suggest, evacuate the nitty-gritty of politics. (shrink)

This article reviews empirical and conceptual material from two distinct research traditions: on the science-technology relation and on industrial innovation. It aims both to shed new light on an old debate—the distinction between scientific and technological knowledge—and to refine our conceptualizations of the knowledge used by companies in the course of research and development leading to innovation. On the basis of three empirical studies, a composite categorization of different types of knowledge used in innovation is proposed, as (...) part of a broader framework encompassing two further taxonomic dimensions. It is hoped that this typology and framework might provide useful research tools in furthering our understanding of the knowledge transfers and transformations that occur in the course of innovation. It could also prove useful for organizations and groups facing difficult strategic choices about technology. (shrink)

This article defends Jacques Lacan and Judith Butler against the long-standing but recently reiterated charge that they affirm a linguistic idealism or foundationalism. First outlining the parameters of Lacan’s thinking on this topic through his comments on the materiality inherent in the imaginary, symbolic, real schema to show that he offers an account built around the tension between the real and symbolic, I then move to Butler to argue that she more coherently identifies the parameters of the problem before offering (...) an explanation based on paradox. With this, both offer a forceful rebuttal of linguistic idealism, a far more complex analysis of the materialism–signification relation than their new materialist critics tend to appreciate, and innovative but often-ignored “new” materialisms of their own. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted people and institutions to turn to online virtual environments for a wide variety of social gatherings. In this perspectives article, we draw upon our previous work and interviews with Ghanaian Christian leaders to consider implications of this shift. Specifically, we propose that the shift from physical to virtual interactions mimics and amplifies the neoliberal individualist experience of abstraction from place associated with Eurocentric modernity. On the positive side, the shift from physical to virtual environments (...) liberates people to selectively pursue the most fulfilling interactions, free from constraints of physical distance. On the negative side, the move from physical to virtual space necessitates a shift from material care and tangible engagement with the local community to the psychologization of care and pursuit of emotional intimacy in relations of one’s choosing—a dynamic that further marginalizes people who are already on the margins. The disruptions of the pandemic provide an opportunity to re-set social relations, to design ways of being that better promote sustainable collective well-being rather than fleeting personal fulfillment. (shrink)

This study examines the first two years of a tactical innovation that emerged in 2012 in Egypt, which involved activist groups organizing patrol-type "intervention teams" to combat sexual violence against women in public spaces. Findings reveal that the new tactic took different forms in the two places in which it was deployed, even though the same actors employed it. I argue that the place in which a new tactic emerges shapes the form it takes. When coming up with a (...) new collective action tactic, activists elaborate visions about how to carry out their actions based on their collective identities and taste in tactics. But as they start experimenting with the new tactic on the ground, they learn about the places' material affordances, symbolic valence, and power relations, as well as the constraints and opportunities that they represent. The material properties of places shape activists' possibilities of movement, patterns of communication, field of vision, and capacity to escape repression or reach safe spaces. The configuration of actors in a place shapes the nature of their interactions with others on the ground, possible alliances, and sources of conflict. The symbolic meanings of places shape the resonance of a group’s actions and the degree of resistance that actors face. Place in part determines the ability of activists to develop a tactic in the form that best fits their preferences. (shrink)

This article addresses the serotonin hypothesis of depression, as it was formulated in clinical and laboratory experiments during the 1950s. In the first instance I argue that the `challenge' posed by patients' subjectivities in clinical investigations into the potentially anti-depressant drug iproniazid was not solely due to the tensions generated by the subject/object dichotomy, but to an excess that exceeds the properties of the objects of the experiment, as well as its requirements and conditions. I then suggest that the serotonin (...) hypothesis too is possessed of an excess, and that this can be understood in terms of a real (actual and virtual) existence in duration. By exploiting the notions of the event and of duration, I offer an under-standing of the hypothesis that pertains not to reduction, reproducibility and sameness, but to differentiation, innovation and creation. (shrink)

An idea is a public good. The use of an idea by one person does not hinder others to benefit from the same idea. However in order to generate new life-saving ideas, e.g. inventions in the life sciences, a huge amount of human and material resources are needed. Powerful, but highly criticized tools to speed up the rate of innovation are exclusive rights, most prominently the use of patents and plant breeders’ rights. Exclusive rights leave by nature a number (...) of people empty-handed, with starvation, stuntedness, prevalence of disease and death as preventable and quotidian consequences. To stimulate a human rights compatible use of exclusive rights a wide range of moral frameworks have been developed to condemn current praxes. Most prominent in the debate are theories building on (1) utilitarian calculations of weighing benefits with Peter Singer as a prominent advocate, (2) Pogge’s vindication of compensatory duties for institutional harms, (3) a comprehensive analysis on how the current innovation incentive system fails to secure human rights and human capabilities and lastly (4) showing how the status quo nurtures misrecognition. With help of those theories modest targets as well as a thorough restructure of the innovation incentive system can be justified. Those theories have the mammoth task of restraining well-established ideas supporting the permissibility of a reckless use of property rights that are deeply anchored in the property law discourse. Life sciences raise a range of special problems when justifying pro-poor innovation. Healthy people living in a society with a good sanitary infrastructure need far less resources to tackle health problems than people in places with a poor infrastructure. Patents that involve gene sequences (or part thereof) make inventing around impossible, making the seeking of licenses mandatory for investigators wanting to make follow-up research with the molecule. Speedy sharing of data concerning public health hazards or threats to food security are vital to maintain living standards. (shrink)

It may soon become possible not just to replace, but to re-grow healthy tissues after injury or disease, because of innovations in the field of Regenerative Medicine. One particularly promising innovation is a regenerative valve implant to treat people with heart valve disease. These implants are fabricated from so-called ‘smart’, ‘lifelike’ materials. Implanted inside a heart, these implants stimulate re-growth of a healthy, living heart valve. While the technological development advances, the ethical implications of this new technology are (...) still unclear and a clear conceptual understanding of the notions ‘smart' and ‘lifelike' is currently lacking. In this paper, we explore the conceptual and ethical implications of the development of smart lifelike materials for the design of regenerative implants, by analysing heart valve implants as a showcase. In our conceptual analysis, we show that the materials are considered ‘smart’ because they can communicate with human tissues, and ‘lifelike’ because they are structurally similar to these tissues. This shows that regenerative valve implants become intimately integrated in the living tissues of the human body. As such, they manifest the ontological entanglement of body and technology. In our ethical analysis, we argue this is ethically significant in at least two ways: It exacerbates the irreversibility of the implantation procedure, and it might affect the embodied experience of the implant recipient. With our conceptual and ethical analysis, we aim to contribute to responsible development of smart lifelike materials and regenerative implants. (shrink)

There are warning signs for impending scarcity of certain technology metals that play a critical role in high-tech products. The scarce elements are indispensable for the design of modern technologies with superior performance. Material scarcity can restrain future innovations and presents therefore a serious risk that must be counteracted. However, the risk is often underrated in the pursuit of technological progress. Many innovators seem to be inattentive to the limitations in availability of critical resources and the possible implications thereof. The (...) present shortages in industrial supply with technology metals may be interpreted as a wake-up call for technology developers to tackle the issue with due consideration. The article reviews the materials scarcity phenomenon from the viewpoint of sustainable development ethics. The following questions are discussed: ‘Should preventative actions be taken today in order to mitigate resource scarcity in future?’ and ‘Should technology developers feel responsible to do this?’ The discussion presents arguments for industrial designers and engineers to create a sense of responsibility for the proactive mitigation of material scarcity. Being protagonists of the innovation system, they have the opportunity to lead change towards resource-aware technology development. The paper concludes by outlining ideas on how they can pioneer sustainable management of critical materials. (shrink)

In the main body of colleges and universities, the effect of college teaching psychology management is an important standard to test the quality of college teaching psychology management and its effects on the development of college teaching psychology management. However, the psychology management system used by traditional colleges and universities is challenging to meet the needs of the innovation of the new talent training model of higher vocational education. The construction of the new micro-level teaching organization inevitably requires the (...) psychology management practice, structure, process, and technology at the medium and macro-levels to adapt to it. However, there are many mismatches in Higher Vocational Colleges’ internal and external administrative systems in China, such as low administrative efficiency, generalization of administrative power, low degree of specialization in administrative psychology management, and unreasonable administrative and organizational structure. This paper innovates the psychology management of colleges and universities reforms in combination with the characteristics of the digital age. Based on the collaborative innovation theory of colleges and universities, this paper puts forward the collaborative psychology management innovation network model of colleges and universities. The model combines the psychology management theory with the practical research of collaborative innovation in colleges and universities, expands the application and research field of innovation network theory, constructs the evaluation index system of students’ satisfaction in teaching psychology management in colleges and universities, and discusses it through reading and consulting materials and communication with teachers and students. A questionnaire of college teaching psychology management based on student satisfaction is formed. The experiment shows that teaching satisfaction is improved by nearly 31% compared with before innovation and reform. It can initially get the effect of innovation and reform, meet students’ needs, and promote the improvement of teaching psychology management quality. (shrink)

This paper presents, from the perspectives of both social scientists and microbiologists, a case study of the implementation and practice of Responsible Innovation (RI) in a UK-based synthetic biology project. We highlight the impact of interdisciplinary working and examine the benefits that arise from creating the time and space for shared reflection on research. Our discussions over the course of the project included concerns about the potential escape to the environment of laboratory-constructed genetic material and alternatives to the role (...) that antibiotic resistance genes play in synthetic biology. As a result, the design of a key product of the project was altered in ways that go beyond normal institutional requirements. We highlight our view of the importance of continued interdisciplinary collaboration and the utility of the framework of Responsible Innovation in achieving this. We conclude with observations on the difficulties of sustaining such collaborations. (shrink)

The so-called new economy based on the global network of digitalized communication was welcomed as a platform of innovations and as a vehicle of advancement of democracy. The concept of virtuality captures the essence of the new economy: efficiency and free access. In practice, the new economy has developed into an heterogenic entity dominated by practices such as propagation of trust and commitment to standards and standard-like technological solutions; entrenchment of locally strategic subsystems; surveillance of unwanted behavior. Five empirical cases (...) within the present field of opposing forces serve as fuel for reflection: football hooliganism, sand-boxing, digital vulnerability of nuclear technology, sensitivity of studio projects, and streamlining academic computing. The main argument of the article is that a historic re-materialization is taking place within the new economy. This means cognitive as well as material divisions. Incommensurability in science is comparable with product incompatibility from the point of view of their implications to the users of knowledge and computers. Hype and banal attached to the new media are related to two ways of assessing social capital: as a means of peaceful functionality or a condition for cultural conflicts. The paper ends in proposing that there is a re-materialization of the virtual now taking place especially on the meta-level of the system. (shrink)

In the age of globalization, economic growth and the welfare of nations decisively depend on basic innovations. Therefore, education and knowledge is an important advantage of competition in highly developed countries with high standards of salaries, but raw material shortage. In the twenty-first century, innovations will arise from problem-oriented research, crossing over traditional faculties and disciplines. Therefore, we need platforms of interdisciplinary dialogue to choose transdisciplinary problems and to cluster new portfolios of technologies. The clusters of research during the excellence (...) initiative at German universities are examples of converging sciences. The integration of natural and engineering sciences as well as medicine can only be realized if the research training programs generate a considerable added value in terms of multidisciplinary experience, international networking, scientific and entrepreneurial know-how, and personality development. The Carl von Linde-Academy is presented as an example of an interdisciplinary center of research and teaching at the Technical University of Munich. (shrink)

Transposable elements are no longer considered to be “junk” DNA. Here, we review how TEs can impact gene regulation systematically. TEs encode various regulatory elements that enables them to regulate gene expression. RJ Britten and EH Davidson hypothesized that TEs can integrate the function of various transcriptional regulators into gene regulatory networks. Uniquely TEs can deposit regulatory sites across the genome when they transpose, and thereby bring multiple genes under control of the same regulatory logic. Several studies together have robustly (...) established that TEs participate in embryonic development and oncogenesis. We discuss the regulatory characteristics of TEs in context of evolution to understand the extent of their impact on gene networks. Understanding these features of TEs is central to future investigations of TEs in cellular processes and phenotypic presentations, which are applicable to development and disease studies. We re-visit the Britten–Davidson “gene-battery” model and understand the genetic and transcriptional impact of TEs in innovating gene regulatory networks. Transposable elements are exogenous sequences that have either been co-opted or repurposed for host functions. The vast amounts of TE sequence in the genome provides raw material for gene expression regulation, and still remains to be fully understood; the “gene-battery” model provides the basis for understanding this. (shrink)

Novelties introduced into traditional myths are an essential characteristic of Greek tragedy. Each and every play demonstrates, in different ways, how tragedians were versatile and innovative in handling mythic material. Modern prefaces to individual tragedies often discuss the possible innovations in the dramatization of a myth compared to previous or subsequent versions. Innovations advanced in a play sometimes became so familiar that they came to be regarded as ‘standard’. Such examples include the condemnation and death of the protagonist in Sophocles’ (...) Antigone and, in all likelihood, Medea's filicide in Euripides’ Medea. (shrink)

The development of manufacturing technologies for new materials involves the generation of a large and continually evolving volume of information. The analysis, integration and management of such large volumes of data, typically stored in multiple independently developed databases, creates significant challenges for practitioners. There is a critical need especially for open-sharing of data pertaining to engineering design which together with effective decision support tools can enable innovation. We believe that ontology applied to engineering (OE) represents a viable strategy (...) for the alignment, reconciliation and integration of diverse and disparate data. The scope of OE includes: consistent capture of knowledge pertaining to the types of entities involved; facilitation of cooperation among diverse group of experts; more effective ongoing curation, and update of manufacturing data; collaborative design and knowledge reuse. As an illustrative case study we propose an ontology focused on the representation of composite materials focusing in particular on the class of Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) in particular. The scope of the ontology is to provide information about the components of such materials, the manufacturing processes involved in creation, and diversity of application ranging from additive manufacturing to restorative dentistry. The ontology is developed using Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). (shrink)

Innovation is progressively needed in responding to global challenges. Moreover, the increasing complexity of challenges implies demand for the usage of multisectoral and policy mix approaches. Wicked problems can be tackled by "integrated innovation" that combines the coordinated implementation of social, technological, and health innovation co-created by entities of the public sector, the private sector, the non-governmental sector, and the informal sector. This Research Topic focuses on filling the knowledge gaps about the selected types of innovation. (...) First, regarding social innovation that can be understood as new strategies, concepts, products, services, and organizational forms that allow the satisfaction of human needs. Second, a technological innovation that refers to new or remarkably improved products, goods, or services in terms of their technical specifications, components, materials, software, design, or other functional features. Third, health innovation that focuses on novel or enhanced health policies, systems, products, technologies, services, and care delivery schemes to improve people’s health. Finally, this Research Topic highlights attempts to develop integrated innovation that can add value to social policy, health policy, and environmental policy by improving efficiency, effectiveness, quality, sustainability, safety, and affordability. (shrink)

Many researchers experiment with participatory settings to increase public engagement in research and innovation (R&I). Because of their temporary nature, it often remains unclear how such participatory experiments can contribute to structural change. This paper empirically explores options for bridging this gap. It analyzes how participants can be supported to act as institutional entrepreneurs to actively promote public engagement in R&I. To draw lessons, we analyze empirical material gathered on nineteen Social Labs which were set up to promote the (...) uptake of Responsible Research and Innovation in a European R&I funding program (Horizon 2020). Involvement of motivated participants, insight in their institutional context, and specific methods and management choices that enhance a sense of agency are identified as essential for organizing change. These findings and the resulting framework of interventions may prove valuable for further (action) research into the institutionalization of public engagement in R&I. (shrink)

With the outbreak of the pandemic, general and music education shifted completely to remote learning as the only possible form. The research looks into didactic approaches using digital technology adopted by active teachers and students in the Slovenian music school in asynchronous distance learning. On a sample of 9 active teachers and 16 students, the research study examined 31 interactive learning materials in order to identify innovative didactic approaches using digital tools which were applied to achieve learning objectives within (...) musical activities of the Music Theory and Solfeggio. Based on qualitative-quantitative approach, the research showed a low presence of didactic approaches using digital tools. Even though the results show a higher level of use of digital technology among students, the research focused much more on the presence of e-learning materials as well as predominantly traditional teaching approaches, similar to the classical type of classroom teaching. Opće i glazbeno obrazovanje u situaciji pandemije u potpunosti je prešlo na model učenja na daljinu. Istraživanjem se željelo ustanoviti koje su didaktičke pristupe primjenjivali učitelji i učenici u slovenskim glazbenim školama tijekom asinkronog učenja na daljinu. Na uzorku od 9 aktivnih učitelja i 16 učenika analiziran je 31 interaktivni nastavni materijal kako bi se odredili inovativni didaktički pristupi u korištenju digitalne tehnologije s ciljem ostvarenja ishoda učenja na nastavi Glazbene teorije i Solfeggia. Primjenom kvalitativnih i kvantitativnih metoda došlo se do rezultata koji ukazuju na nisku zastupljenost didaktičkih pristupa koji koriste digitalne tehnologije. Iako su rezultati pokazali visoku učestalost korištenja digitalne tehnologije među učenicima, istaknuta je i prisutnost materijala za e-učenje te tradicionalnih nastavnih pristupa, poput onih korištenih u klasičnom tipu učioničke nastave. (shrink)

Images can be studied in many ways--as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive--they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the (...) divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us. Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents--human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual--become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always describe"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres' work in the context of late 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres' philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers. Simons situates Serres' unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres' work into a promising philosophy (...) of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres' commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres' philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history, and sociology of science. Showing how Serres' philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life. (shrink)

This article compares two cultures of engineering design, one flexible and interactive, the other rigid and hierarchical. It examines the practices of design engineers who use a mixture of paper documents and computer graphics systems and contrasts these with the practices of workers reengineering their own work process and its technological support system, using predesigned software. Based on the idea from actor network theory that objects participate in the shaping of new technologies and the networks that build them, the study (...) reveals that design cultures are intrinsically tied to the way in which their representations are constructed because such representations—sketches, drawings, prototypes—are the heart of design work; such design tools can engage or restrict participation in the design process; politics in the form of management prerogatives can be built into a design tool, influencing the range of creativity allowed and innovation accomplished in a given sociotechnological setting. (shrink)

This review discusses Vincent Blok’s book Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method. Blok’s daring and important argument is that Heidegger has been misunderstood by contemporary philosophers who dismiss his thinking as correlationism; but that at the same time there lies something at the core of Heidegger’s thinking that prevents it from unleashing its true innovative potential; namely a logic of unity. To move beyond this logic of unity, Blok aims to rediscover and redefine the potential of Heidegger’s philosophical method by characterising (...) it along the lines of interrogative intention and creativity of world-interest. This move allows Blok to think about Earth in the age of global warming in a way that was not possible in Heidegger’s work, providing a positive concept of the Earth’s materiality as uncorrelated being that guides the way to a future environmental ethics. The review discusses the main contributions of the book, and also three criticisms, which concern the justification of choices for certain perspectives, the unfulfilled promise of moving from philosophical theory to more practically oriented guidance, and unclarities concerning the alternative that Blok puts forward as an answer to his criticism of Heidegger’s method. (shrink)

The main bioclimatic passive strategies include optimization of the use of natural light, reducing the need for artificial light, maximizing the solar gain using thermal traps and promotion of natural ventilation in order to avoid the need for air conditioning for cooling. The usage of cool air passing through the underground tunnels located in the selected neighborhood in Tirana in order to enhance the cooling process is of huge importance. On the other hand, the building must benefit from the passive (...) solar systems and thermal energy conservation strategies implementing thermal insulation materials. These strategies improve both the indoor comfort and economic aspect. The aim is to be aware of the community for the big benefits of such strategies, increasing the number of passive bioclimatic implementations not only in Albania but also in the region. Through the use of such systems the building can obtain indoor thermal comfort without a traditional cooling system. The passive systems discourage the use of mechanical systems for lighting, cooling, and heating, supporting the natural phenomena such as power of the sun, underground constant temperature, wind direction, and other climate parameters. The selection of the proper thermal insulation materials is complex and sometimes determinant in order to reduce heat gain. The thermal accumulation capacity depends on material width, material type, density, and porosity of the material. The top insulating materials are mostly used in the Tirana. Albania is the expanded polystyrene (EPS). The energy needed for its production is relatively low compared to the other insulating materials. Passive design encourages the application of such kind of materials, reducing the ecological footprint of the buildings. Water recycling is another aspect that bioclimatic design takes into consideration, promoting it. The use of specific materials in order to recycle the rain water through drainage is an important task. The building is faced with significant thermal losses due to the windows. The sizing of the glass area, the orientation, as well as the choice of glass determine the penetration of solar radiation in the building. The selection of the correct type of window is also a complex task. The designer should consider the climate type, the area of the openings, the typology of the window, and the characteristics of the window materials and its thermal performance before implementing it. The usage of the high thermal capacity materials (stone, water) is getting noticed nowadays in bioclimatic and passive building designs. These materials are efficient when having large surfaces and face a strong solar radiation. PCM (phase change materials) are innovative materials that undergo a physical transformation stabilizing the temperature fluctuations in the indoor area of the building archiving and improving thermal comfort parameters inside the building. The typology of such materials and their field of implementation is a very large one. Such materials have resulted to be an added value when implemented and are part of passive systems such as Trombe wall, enhancing its performance. The piezo-electric materials are another group of innovative materials used to gain energy. Their role in energy gaining nowadays is very small but the future belongs to them. The use of such materials is promoted by bioclimatic design benefiting by their mechanical properties, producing electricity. The Empathic house is one of the examples of the future generations. The implementation of some other materials such as ETFE in the building envelope in contrast to glass allows the long-wave penetration inside the building increasing the solar gain capacity. The visibility of such materials is still under examination. (shrink)

Graphene is a nanomaterial with many promising and innovative applications, yet early studies indicate that graphene may pose risks to humans and the environment. According to ideas of responsible research and innovation, all relevant actors should strive to reduce risks related to technological innovations. Through semi-structured interviews, we investigated the idea of graphene as a risk held by two types of key actors: graphene researchers and innovation advisors at universities, where the latter are facilitating the movement of graphene (...) from the laboratory to the marketplace. The most common idea found is that graphene is not a risk due to, e.g., low toxicity, low amounts produced/used, and its similarity to harmless materials. However, some researchers and advisors also say that graphene is a risk, e.g., under certain conditions or due to a lack of risk-related information. We explain the co-existence of these seemingly contradictory ideas through the semantic ambiguity of the word risk and a risk/no-risk rhetoric, where risks are mentioned rhetorically only to be disregarded as manageable or negligible. We suggest that some of the ideas held by the researchers and innovation advisors constitute a challenge to responsible research and innovation regarding graphene. At the same time, we acknowledge the dilemma that the discourse of responsible innovation creates for the actors: denying graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to a lack of risk awareness, while affirming graphene risks makes them irresponsible due to their everyday engagement in graphene development. We therefore recommend more research into what researchers and innovation advisors should do in practice in order to qualify as responsible. (shrink)

This article presents the making of a safe innovation: the application of ice structuring protein (ISP) in edible ices. It argues that safety is not the absence of risk but is an active accomplishment; innovations are not made safe afterward but safe innovations are made. Furthermore, there are multiple safeties to be accomplished in the innovation process. These are financial, public, scientific, and regulatory safety. The negotiations between these safeties determine the material and labeling characteristics of what ISP (...) has become. Not just laboratory researchers but experts from various parts of Unilever, the corporation that produces ISP, participate in accomplishing safety. The safeties they make, interact, overlap, are occasionally in conflict with one another, and continuously connect to outside actors. (shrink)