Showing papers in "Technology in Society in 1998"

TL;DR: The case of agricultural biotechnology illustrates how a technological choice reifies its own problem definition, i.e., the inherent socio-agronomic problems of intensive monoculture are reified as genetic defects, which therefore must be corrected at the molecular level as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed a set of performance-based indicators, based on discrete attributes of successful public involvement, for use in evaluating public participation programs and activities in the Office of Environmental Management (EM), with special emphasis on activities implemented in the field offices of DOE.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors identify and describe criteria to predict and influence the success or failure of new technological applications to meet needs or solve problems in developing countries, including educational needs, by identifying and examining the social contexts of a given culture along with its existing level of technological development.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider a scenario where a developing country is in a commercial partnership with a company in an advanced country that can supply, in addition to the technology, the marketing know-how to guide screening efforts and the capacity to develop the market for the eventual new product and to manufacture and distribute it.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the concern that computers will dehumanize education, one aspect of the general concern over possible threats to social and ethical values resulting from the computerization of schools, and devise an alternative approach, called a grounded analysis, which addresses core concerns of practicing educators and administrators in their own terms.

TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual framework for a more structured understanding of SI based on four building blocks: technological regime, institutional set-up, market, and pre-market selection environments is proposed.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the rapid introduction of information technology into the classroom currently serves the interests of the private sector rather than the public sector, and suggest that, without interventions to save it, public education as a shared social responsibility will become a casualty of the current pressures to deregulate and disconnect economic interests from geography and a democratically defined set of social responsibilities.

TL;DR: In this article, it is concluded that developing undergraduate distance degree programs is at best premature and that faculty bear primary responsibility for the impact of distance technology on higher education, and there is currently a wide gulf between faculty attitudes toward this technology.

TL;DR: In this paper, the economic environment is cast as the nexus of market structure and government intervention, and the cultural environment is highlighted the differences in culture among firms that desire to transfer technology.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide some explanations as to why modern technology originated in the West and why firms in the United States and Western Europe lead in technological innovation, including the desire to control and bend nature to serve human needs; reliance on reason as the sole means of understanding the world as well as for the solution of problems relating to the material universe; emphasis on individualism and change; and acceptance of happiness as the supreme good.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that risks need to be evaluated in terms of their political and social consequences, rather than exclusively in the possible effects on human health and environment, and that the presence of modern risks heightens the necessity of rights-based democracy, and requires a renewed commitment to equal rights in public dialogue and enhanced citizenship rights within a participatory, communal, and cooperative decision-making environment.

TL;DR: In this article, two major forms of technological innovations (operating and information technologies) have taken place in the grocery industry, with particular emphasis on the period from the 1970s until the present day.

TL;DR: Our ability to manipulate natural processes is doubly constrained by the attainable efficiencies of our devices with which we manipulate natural process and by the characteristics of the natural processes with which our appropriation of nature interferes as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this paper, a macro-level analytical framework for the study of technological systems in a social context is proposed, which allows the broadest spectrum of choice (i.e., the "technological regimes" concept proposed by Mumford, Winner, and others) is formulated as a coherent theory.

TL;DR: The research and development (RD Korea, with industrial entrepreneur skills; and India, with its scientific base) each has used Science and Technology in a distinctive manner to attain increased economic growth.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss systems of good environmental management, adopted by industry, which go beyond compliance with laws and regulations, as part of the quality revolution impacting both global and local companies and plants.

TL;DR: A series of face-to-face interviews with over two dozen of Mexico's leaders in science, industry, and government regarding biotechnology was conducted by as discussed by the authors, revealing the pattern of development of biotechnology in Mexico, the reasons behind the longstanding chasm behind science and industry, some hard-won lessons in attempts at commercializing the technology, and the seeds of change that have been accelerated by recent economic and political turmoil.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify three modes of technology targeting in three main theaters (i.e., military applications, civilian applications, and generic technology without specific applications) and consider the strategic issues pertaining to the role of government in these targeting modes.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that ethics and action theory are two philosophical branches of technology and that they, just like mechanical engineering and management science, are concerned with human action, but there are differences between the philosophical technologies and the others, among them their degree of generality.

TL;DR: In this article, a number of factors call into question the type of agriculture currently practised in France: the economic, political, ecological, and social limitations; changing demand; changes in international regulations; and scientific and technological progress.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors sketch the contours of the evolving international/monetary system and examine the various roles of the intemediation mechanisms and the extent to which the financial system is independent from the real economy and various ways in which it impacts it.

TL;DR: In this article, it is shown that government environmental policies, which are strongly guided by public acceptability in many Western countries, seem to be in conflict with scientific arguments and evidence concerning the immediate need to address the world's major environmental problem of global warming.

TL;DR: A program of developmental "catch-up" began in earnest with the aim of building a digital network and increasing national telephone density as discussed by the authors, with the goal of increasing the number of mobile phone users.

TL;DR: The authors examines the general executive policy processes that were in place in 1984 and examines how presidential leadership is exercised in the science and technology policy arena which is normally viewed as peripheral to the president's major policy interests.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed some strategies for removing potential obstacles to the goal of higher-level regional economic integration via the Internet, and also suggested some strategies to speed up regional economic cooperation in Asia-Pacific region.

TL;DR: In this article, a critical examination of what we should want from contemporary high-tech education and what we are in fact likely to get is carried out, and the conclusion is that what we might get may well transform our view of what education should be.

TL;DR: In this paper, the author analyzes the soft power propaganda of the New World Order which seeks to unify the world not through force, but coercion, and the creation of a French and English encyclopedia on the Internet for the common good of humanity as an example of soft opposition to soft power.

TL;DR: There is a strong drive to increase computer technology in the classroom as discussed by the authors and this drive is backed by desires to create equity of educational opportunity through the standardization of facilities, and to discover a "magic pill" to cure what ails an educational system that is less than globally competitive.

TL;DR: The European Employment Trust as mentioned in this paper is an inter-sectoral instrument to accelerate job creation within the European Economic Community (EEC), which was proposed to end the persistent unemployment in the fifteen countries comprising the EEC.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the specific problem of how Basque culture confronts technological change and propose a plan for the future of telecommunications and education based on the oral tradition known as "bertsolaria".