Showing papers in "Technology in Society in 1990"

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and characterize the major phases in the biotechnology debates that have taken place in the United States and Denmark and attempt to delineate the general contours of the historical development of the new biotechnology.

TL;DR: In a work environment filled with computers, telephones, fax machines, and other telecommunications equipment, scientists can engage in a new way of conducting their research: telescience.

TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of university-industry interactions on academic structure and attitudes over the last decade reveal a variety of subtle impacts, including issues concerning multiple faculty roles, intellectual property rights, and research goals, and with respect to Centers, Industrial Liaison Offices and University Associated Venture Firms.

TL;DR: A comprehensive model of the issues that require managing if a project is to successfully initiated and accomplished is provided and it is implicitly made that the Macro-Engineering and Major Project Societies have a central role to play in developing a strategic view of the management of projects.

TL;DR: The author criticises the view that Parallelism is simply concerned with performance and argues that parallelism should be seen as raising fundamental questions about the relationship between processor and memory and about the nature of programming.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors set out the peculiar features which distinguish mega projects from lesser projects, and discussed the solutions that experience has shown can lead to a successful accomplishment, and concluded that despite these difficulties, they can be successfully accomplished if their difficulties are recognized, understood, and handled by well proven methods.

TL;DR: The Brazilian Pro-Alcohol Program as mentioned in this paper was an early effort to replace imported gasoline with ethyl alcohol derived from domestically grown sugar cane, which was an economic white elephant when world energy prices unexpectedly plunged in the mid-1980s.

TL;DR: The foreign policy aspect of inter-governmental S&T makes federalism more difficult to predict, create internal division, heighten vulnerability, and exacerbate already difficult coordination problems as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: A previous emphasis on unitary types is shifting to encompass also distributed forms as mentioned in this paper, which indicate a potentially reinvigorated and new role for major projects in worldwide economic and social development, such as enhanced competitiveness, regional revitalization, technological innovation, and building state-of-the-art telecommunication/information systems.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the 1923 candlestick telephone as a model for human interaction with telecommunication technology, and the model's form provided reassurance that touch was possible, even at a distance.

TL;DR: In this article, a detailed analysis of the interactions between introduced information technology and the culture of an insurance corporation in Australia is presented, where the authors identify the way that information technology has a hidden impact on communication systems and the technical stocks of knowledge that are required to make a productive organisation work.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied job design and work organization practices in the United States and Europe and concluded that regardless of the political influence of organized labor or corporate policies stressing quality of working life or productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness, the growing complexity of workplace technology and the invisible nature of the logic embodied in computer-based systems mean that the design of work has become more than ever the province of technical experts.

TL;DR: In this paper, a new analytical framework is applied to NASA's development and management of the US space program, and the authors propose scenarios under which the US can either regain a position of world leadership in space exploration, or cede leadership by default to the European and/or Soviet space programs.

TL;DR: In the mall, our senses are dulled by the muffled light and sound as well as by the rhythms of effortless movement and shopping as discussed by the authors, and our thinking and imagining are restricted by the deluge of commodities.

TL;DR: This article reviewed the elements of Canada's national technology debate as well as assessments of the country's performance in science and technology and concluded that the Canadian experience offers some lessons for nations pursuing technology niche strategies.

TL;DR: The US engineers' share of the new investment work is shrinking because of declining technological advantage and increased foreign competition with aggressive pricing and imaginative financing as discussed by the authors, and the US response must be a more sophisticated, flexible, global management approach; continuous development of technology; innovative risk management, enhanced project development skills, greater use of joint ventures, alliances, and partnering; creation of global financing networks; and improved work processes.

TL;DR: The authors examines precedents in several critical technological fields, namely, information technology, new biotechnology, advanced materials, nuclear power, and aerospace in industrialized countries, and reaches a number of particular, but preliminary, conclusions that are discussed in detail.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the space programs of two countries, Brazil and Argentina, that are the leaders in Latin America space development and evaluate the relationship of those activities to each state's social, economic, and political conditions and goals.

TL;DR: In this article, past, current and prospective examples of large-scale technology are reviewed and analyzed, and suggestions are offered for the future guidance of public policy on the international deployment of technological resources.

TL;DR: For many years the US government and private organizations have carried out highly structured programs of scientific exchanges with counterpart organizations in Eastern Europe as discussed by the authors, which has been highly successful in promoting significant research, improving scientific techniques, and diffusing research experience.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest a shift in emphasis from traditional modes of technology assessment to therapeutic ones, which parallels to some extent the shift from technology assessment, a quantitative analysis of "facts" to integrated impact assessment, which is a qualitative interpretation of a multiplicity of expressions concerning these same "facts".

TL;DR: The attitude a reunified Germany takes toward space, short-term and long-term, will clearly also have ramifications for European space efforts as a whole as discussed by the authors, and the high economic price for reunification that West Germany will have to pay may make implementation of expanded space activity plans impossible, at least in the short term.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the recording industry's arguments about lost sales of currently available products, consumer copying, and commercial piracy do not justify withholding new recorders and tapes from the public.

TL;DR: An alternative to conventional instrumentalist views of technology is put forward to show that pattern-based theories of technology permit a more faithful description of certain effects of technological change as discussed by the authors, arguing that the instrumentalist view of technology misrepresents the character of modern planning and seriously underestimates its power to damage community life.

TL;DR: The Japanese economy has experienced a period of unprecented growth since the Second World War; enormous trade surpluses and the strength of the Tokyo Stock Market have propelled Japan center stage financially, yet it is the global ascendency of Japanese technology in key strategic industries that has provided the underpinning for the economic boom.

TL;DR: A methodology for overcoming transnational mega-water project hurdles lies in advancing global citizenship, appointing a responsible organization to facilitate execution of trans-national mega water projects; revising traditional project economic evaluations to allow for exceptional projects; and acknowledging water as a global commodity as discussed by the authors.