scholarly journals Fictional Expectations and the Constant Taming of a Spreading Technology

Author(s):  
Jakob Erichsen

This essay argues that expectations about the future are a central category for understanding the paradoxical dynamics of the ongoing digitalization of schools. To do so, it outlines how to understand expectations about the future and which complementary concepts are particularly relevant. To illustrate the theoretical considerations, the essay uses empirical examples from a current research project focusing on the role of expectations in the debate on the digitalization of schools in Germany. The essay shows that looking at actors’ expectations helps to understand the continuous spread of new technology, as well as its constant taming.

Antibiotics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lenhard ◽  
Bulman ◽  
Tsuji ◽  
Kaye

The manuscripts contained in this special edition of Antibiotics represent a current review of the polymyxins as well as highlights from the 3rd International Polymyxin Conference, which was held in Madrid, Spain, April 25 to 26, 2018. The role of the polymyxin antibiotics has evolved over time based on the availability of alternative agents. After high rates of nephrotoxicity caused the drug class to fall out of favor, polymyxins were once against utilized in the 21st century to combat drug-resistant pathogens. However, the introduction of safer agents with activity against drug-resistant organisms has brought the future utility of polymyxins into question. The present review investigates the future niche of polymyxins by evaluating currently available and future treatment options for difficult-to-treat pathogens. The introduction of ceftazidime-avibactam, meropenem-vaborbactam and plazomicin are likely to decrease polymyxin utilization for infections caused by Enterobacteriaceae. Similarly, the availability of ceftolozane-tazobactam will reduce the use of polymyxins to counter multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In contrast, polymyxins will likely continue be an important option for combatting carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii until better options become commercially available. Measuring polymyxin concentrations in patients and individualizing therapy may be a future strategy to optimize clinical outcomes while minimizing nephrotoxicity. Inhaled polymyxins will continue to be an adjunctive option for pulmonary infections but further clinical trials are needed to clarify the efficacy of inhaled polymyxins. Lastly, safer polymyxin analogs will potentially be an important addition to the antimicrobial armamentarium.


2019 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 1390-1392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Barange

Abstract It is common to assume that climate change impacts on future fish catches, relative to current levels of catch, are directly proportional to changes in the capacity of the ocean to produce fish. However, this would only be the case if production was optimized, which is not the case, and continues to do so in the future, which we do not know. It is more appropriate to see changes in the ocean’s productive capacity as providing an upper limit to future fish catches, but whether these catches are an increase or a decrease from present catch levels depends on management decisions now and in the future, rather than on the ocean’s productive capacity alone. Disregarding the role of management in driving current and future catches is not only incorrect but it also removes any encouragement for management agencies to improve performance. It is concluded that climate change provides one of the most powerful arguments to improve fisheries—and environmental—management, and thus fisheries sustainability globally.


2021 ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
Maurits Kaptein

AbstractBy Wednesday, July 22, 2020, the coronavirus had killed over 611,000 people and infected over fourteen million globally. It devastated lives and will continue to do so for a long time to come; the economic consequences of the pandemic are only just starting to materialize. This makes it a challenging time to write about the new common. However, we need to start somewhere. At some point, we need to reflect on our own roles, the roles of our institutions, the importance of our economy, and the future fabric of everyday life. In this chapter, I will discuss one minor—and compared to the current crisis seemingly inconsequential—aspect of the new common: I will discuss my worry that we are on the verge of missing the opportunity to properly (re-)define the role of the sciences as we move from our old to our new common.


Botany ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 95 (10) ◽  
pp. 971-982 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.L. Chagnon ◽  
J. Brisson

There is a growing interest in using plants to provide low-cost ecosystem services in a diversity of environments (e.g., polluted, degraded, urban). These utilizations of plants are collectively referred to as phytotechnologies. Many plants used in phytotechnological applications are naturally found to associate with mycorrhizal fungi. These fungal associates can provide numerous ecosystem services, or help plants to do so. There is thus an obvious incentive to better understand how mycorrhizal symbioses can assist phytotechnologies. For some phytotechnological applications, the benefits of using mycorrhizal fungi seem well-established, while for others, these benefits are either uncertain or simply unexplored. In all cases, a trait-based, mechanistic understanding of what allows mycorrhizal fungi to provide any benefit/service is urgently needed. This will help to develop reliable, mycorrhiza-assisted phytotechnologies in the future, while also improving our fundamental understanding of the evolution of stress tolerance in these important plant-associated symbionts.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Åse Gilje Østensen

This article explores the role of private security and military companies within the wider confinements of peace operations governance. To do so, the paper looks at the roles that pmscs play within two different us peace support initiatives as well as within un peace operations. Using theory lenses derived from the governance literature, the article finds that private military and security companies are already established actors within what it calls ‘the peace operations network’. By training forces, by building or reforming institutions, by supplying security and advisory services, or by being technological experts, private providers of military and security services carry out key tasks in the planning and implementation of peace operations. In the process, the paper argues, they ultimately exercise authority, make decisions and establish practices that often lay the foundations for the future management of security of local populations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Paolo CANAVESE

The aim of this paper is to present LEX.CH.IT, a corpus for micro-diachronic linguistic investigations of Swiss normative acts in Italian. Italian has a peculiar position as an official minority translation language within the Swiss institutional system. Until now, few studies have focused on Swiss legal Italian, but the academic interest has been growing over the last two decades. In order to further expand on research in this field, resources such as corpora are fundamental. This is why LEX.CH.IT has been compiled. This corpus was originally created in the context of a doctoral research project, which will be briefly outlined in this paper. The main goals of the project are to determine whether clarity is a feature of Swiss legislation in Italian, whether there have been relevant evolutions over the last five decades and to assess the role of translation for a clear legislation. In the future, LEX.CH.IT could also be useful for a number of other projects aiming to shed light on the features of this language variety.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Anna Maria Zaluczkowska

This research explores the role of the writer in interactive transmedia production through a research project that has been primarily designed to take place within contemporary Northern Ireland. Red Branch Heroes was created, in association with Bellyfeel Productions1, as a prototype for a more extensive fictional interactive web series that will be known as The Eleven. The author developed a game-like scenario where, through their play, the audience influenced and developed character and story elements. The research asks if interactive forms such as transmedia offer any new storytelling potentials to the people of Northern Ireland and how such projects can contribute to debates about e-politics and e-democracy in post-conflict societies. Evidence is presented in this article to suggest that the ‘negotiated narratives' formulated in this prototype offer further creative community-building possibilities, in neutral spaces that can facilitate discourses about the future.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-79
Author(s):  
Muhammad Akhyar Adnan

This is basically a conceptual paper. It discusses and proposes the need of establishment of the so-called Professional Amil Zakat. The remarkable development of zakat in Muslim countries so far has to be appreciated highly. However, several things must be done, since the achievement is still far below the potential power available.Among many factors that contribute to the development of zakat is that the existence and the role of Amil Zakat. Needless to say, Zakat development will be hopeless without them. However, there is not much attention has been paid to them.The paper argues that the development of Amil Zakat will in turn enhance the successfulness of zakat practices in the future. A way to do so is by establishing the official professional body of Amil Zakat, locally, nationally, or globally. The establishment of such body is believed that it will enhance the professionalism, which finally supports the practices of Zakat. Keywords: Zakat, Amil, Assocation, Professionalism, Future Development


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. VC42-VC54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnthorunn Gudmundsdottir

Online self-expression has proliferated in the last decade or so to such an extent that more people now than ever before engage in some sort of autobiographical activity. Social networking sites are the main gateways for this expression and their framework and rules and restrictions influence the type of narrative told there. This essay examines this given framework, the role of memory and forgetting in this process and how the story is told in words and images. What is remembered and forgotten online and in turn our digital traces must influence our sense of identity. Constantly telling one’s story in words and pictures online opens up new autobiographical practices, some of which in one way or another hark back to earlier practices, such as the diary or the use of the family album in autobiography, others are strictly the result of the new technology. What influence this will have in the long term is difficult to envisage, as the future use of these traces seems to be out of our control. THis article was submittted on May 1st, 2014 and published on November 3rd, 2014.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (English Version) ◽  
pp. 235-239
Author(s):  
Jan Zieliński

A personal review of the book version of Ewangelina Skalińska’s doctoral thesis devoted to Norwid and Dostoevsky. It discusses the threefold composition of the dissertation and underlines the dashing comparative analysis of Norwid’s Assunta and Dostoevsky’s A Gentle Creature. The open character of the research project is stressed. The reviewer discusses in detail another parallel, between two London texts: Norwid’s The Larva and Dostoevsky’s Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. In conclusion there is a passage on the inspiring role of Skalińska’s book, which fills an important gap and draws a horizon for the future comparative research.


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