Showing papers on "Ingenuity published in 1987"

Paradigms and Ferrets

Abstract: Protecting endangered species is a very complicated scientific task, requiring ingenuity and imagination. Yet the organizations to which we have given this task may be little suited to it. Examining the ecology of black-footed ferrets and their near-extinction under government management, the authors question the adequacy of traditional wildlife management approaches whose calculative rationality fails to respond to the often rapidly changing and precarious situation of an endangered species. They argue that a different, generatively rational approach is needed if species like the ferret are to survive. Such an approach would use available cognitive resources better than does the highly centralized approach which wildlife bureaucracies seem to favour. Such organizational checks and balances would provide less danger for blind spots in our perception of the environment.

On the nature of Holbein's portraits

Abstract: To say that Hans Holbein's portraits are one of the glories of Western art is a commonplace It also follows naturally that much critical ingenuity has been expended in trying to understand what makes these works so compelling Holbein's portraits have been said to surround the sitters with intriguing symbolic objects, to convey penetrating psychological insights, and to witness the stylistic predicament (commonly referred to as ‘mannerist’) of later sixteenth-century art While doing all these things, the works at the same time clearly reflect the historical context in which most of them were created, the court of the English king, Henry VIII

Swords to Ploughshares--improving the world's health.

Abstract: Unemployment and war are the greatest threats to world health. Arms conversion industries and alternative technology developments create socially‐useful products using skills and ingenuity which are otherwise wasted by unemployment or in armaments industries. Arms conversion decreases our capacity for destruction, provides worthwhile employment and produces goods for which there is a real social need.

Values, Design and Development of Strategic Organizations

Abstract: This paper explores the connotations of concepts of social development, Organizations and values in the Indian society. Social Development has so many meanings that no coherent action seems to emerge. The Indian scene, in recent decades, is also animated by an unprecedented effloresce of all varieties of organizations : governmental, non-governmental and private voluntary ones. Some of these are definitely engaged in social development. These organizations tend to operate more as structures held together by leaders with charisma who good, cajole, tempt, reward and punish the organization members for producing outputs and results. A fully functioning organization involves two modalities – the institutional and structural, with their support systems. The institutional modality (representing coherence of philosophy, mission, and direction) requires sentient systems to sustain the process of meaning-making in organization. The structural modality (representing the congruence of concepts of business, strategy goals, etc.) requires management and administrative systems to make organizations functionally effective. In the second section, the paper provides a brief narrative on the values (normative, phenomenological, and existential) that get internalized in organizations through various mechanisms and interfaces. Thereafter, a comparative analysis of the different ethos (Indian and western) at inter-play in Indian organizations is provided. These illustrations highlight the cultural context of Indian organizations wherein both the ethos and the design are neither congruent nor convergent with the values operative in role taking processes. Hence, greater ingenuity, innovativeness and adaptiveness are needed for designing strategic organizations, Particularly for social development. It is necessary to identify the institutions needed to foster the sentient – investment of the community for initiating new organizations. Furthermore, there is a need for creating institutions of debriefing to create a shared, concrete concept of organizational reality in terms of demands and policies. The organizational model being outlined in our paper endeavours to harmoniously blend the value considerations and structural exigencies in the design of developmental organizations.

Executive Information Systems:: Marketing Hype or Invaluable Management Aid?

Abstract: Executive Information Systems(EIS) are examined, revealing that although they may be able to deliver information without requiring computer literacy, they have, as yet, several limiting features. Clever marketing and ingenuity in developing personalised applications for micro‐computers have opened new markets of which EIS is one. The characteristics of an “ideal” EIS and the shortfalls of many computer systems produced to date are summarised. Attempts made to meet executive requirements are discussed and criteria set for future technology, such as the use of a combination of in‐house information libraries and outside management reporting systems.

Generating Answers from a Linguistically Coded Knowledge Base

Abstract: The computational processing of natural language data is sometimes approached as a purely practical problem, for which ‘anything goes’ as long as the results are reasonably acceptable. Given sufficient ingenuity of the analyst, this approach may yield short-term successes, which will, however, be of limited theoretical interest. As a theoretical linguist, I am more interested in attempts at finding more principled, linguistically and psychologically motivated solutions to the problems involved. I also believe that such more principled solutions will yield better long-term practical results in any attempt to attack anything more complicated than the simplest natural language processing puzzles.