Labs, Lives, Technoscience

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Talia Dan-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Community Stability ◽  
Successful Career ◽  
Physics Community ◽  
Synthetic Organisms ◽  
Made In ◽  
Experimental Particle ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks at Sharon Traweek's classic study of physicists, which tracks the way the experimental particle physics community reproduces itself through the training of novices. It identifies the patterns through which education and inculcation occur, and by which particle physicists learn the criteria for a successful career. It also examines the images Traweek conveys of community, stability, and gendered reproduction that can be discerned only within a sufficiently entrenched discipline. The chapter describes synthetic biology as an unstable and ambiguously bounded field in which idiosyncratic individual paths are figured prominently, especially for members of the first generation of practitioners whose training took place within the reproductive mechanisms of established disciplines. It explores paths that are embedded with different concepts and logics within the synthetic organisms that were made in different labs.

Memories for the Return? Remembering the Nakba by the First Generation of Palestinian Refugees in Syria

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Keyword(s):  
First Generation ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Oslo Accords ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
Palestinian Refugee ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Realities ◽  
The Way

The 1948 Nakba has, in light of the 1993 Oslo Accords and Palestinian refugee activists' mobilisation around the right of return, taken on a new-found centrality and importance in Palestinian refugee communities. Closely-related to this, members of the ‘Generation of Palestine’, the only individuals who can recollect Nakba memories, have come to be seen as the guardians of memories that are eventually to reclaim the homeland. These historical, social and political realities are deeply rooted in the ways in which the few remaining members of the generation of Palestine recollect 1948. Moreover, as members of communities that were destroyed in Palestine, and whose common and temporal and spatial frameworks were non-linearly constituted anew in Syria, one of the multiples meanings of the Nakba today can be found in the way the refugee communities perceive and define this generation.

Life as a Raw Material: Illusions of Control

Somatechnics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oron Catts ◽  
Ionat Zurr
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Cognitive Engineering ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Short History ◽  
Know How ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The paper discusses and critiques the concept of the single engineering paradigm. This concepts allude to a future in which the control of matter and life, and life as matter, will be achieved by applying engineering principles; through nanotechnology, synthetic biology and, as some suggest, geo-engineering, cognitive engineering and neuro-engineering. We outline some issues in the short history of the field labelled as Synthetic Biology. Furthermore; we examine the way engineers, scientists, designers and artists are positioned and articulating the use of the tools of Synthetic Biology to expose some of the philosophical, ethical and political forces and considerations of today as well as some future scenarios. We suggest that one way to enable the possibilities of alternative frames of thought is to open up the know-how and the access to these technologies to other disciplines, including artistic.

The Mistaken Identification of “The West” with “Modernity”

1996 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
John Obert Voll
Keyword(s):  
World History ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The West ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
Important Impact ◽  
Mistaken Identification ◽  
Nature Ofthe ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

The relationships between Islam and the West are complex. Even theperceptions of those relations have an important impact on the nature ofthe interactions. If the basic images that are used in discussing “Islam andthe West” are themselves ill-defiied or viewed in inconsistent ways, therelationships themselves are affected in sometimes dangerous ways.Inconsistent and contradictory terms of analysis can lead to misunderstandingand conflict.One of the most frequent conceptual mistakes made in discussingIslam and the West in the modem era is the identification of “the West”with “modemity.” This mistake has a significant impact on the way peeple view the processes of modernization in the Islamic world as well as onthe way people interpret the relationships between Islam and the West inthe contemporary era.The basic generalizations resulting from the following analysis can bestated simply: 1) “modernity“ is not uniquely “western”; 2) “the West” isnot simply “modernity”; and 3) the identifixation of “the West” with“modemity” has important negative consequences for understanding therelationships between Islam and the West. Modernity and the West aretwo different concepts and historic entities. To use the terms interchangeablyis to invite unnecessary confusion and create possible conflict’andinconsistency. This article will address the problem of definition and theapplication of the defined terms to interpreting actual experiences andrelationships.Understanding the difficulties raised by the identification of theWest with modernity involves a broader analysis within the frameworkof world history and global historical perspectives. In such an analysis, ...

‘To wise for a woman’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Clark
Keyword(s):  
Marital Problems ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Family ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

While there were clear strategic aims in the way that marriages were made in the Howard dynasty during this period, the family was only unusual in that it operated at the very top of the aristocratic hierarchy and was therefore able to use marital alliances to successfully recover and bolster both status and finances. Where they were different, however, was in the experience of some of these women within marriage. By and large, the marriages made by and for members of the family, including women, seem to have been as successful as others of their class. However, three women close to the core of the dynasty experienced severe marital problems, even ‘failed’ marriages, almost simultaneously during the 1520s and 1530s. The records generated by these episodes tell us about the way in which the family operated as a whole, and the agency of women in this context, and this chapter therefore reconstructs these disputes for this purpose.

Redesigning Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Synthetic Organisms ◽  
The Way

We can now edit genomes. The technique, which involves cutting and pasting DNA code into the genome, is faster and cheaper than traditional genetic engineering and can be used on almost any animal or plant. What will this technology mean for the future? It may pave the way to banishing many diseases, and help feed the burgeoning population of the world. Woolly mammoths may again roam the tundra. But are there also risks? Might a nightmarish world of bioterrorism and rogue synthetic organisms await? John Parrington reports on the astonishing revolution underway in genetic engineering and why it matters to us all.

Analysis and Interpretation of Test Beam Data

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Wigmans
Keyword(s):  
Energy Resolution ◽  
Particle Physics ◽  
Particle Beam ◽  
Test Beam ◽  
Term Energy ◽  
The Many ◽  
Physics Experiment ◽  
The Way

This chapter describes some of the many pitfalls that may be encountered when developing the calorimeter system for a particle physics experiment. Several of the examples chosen for this chapter are based on the author’s own experience. Typically, the performance of a new calorimeter is tested in a particle beam provided by an accelerator. The potential pitfalls encountered in correctly assessing this performance both concern the analysis and the interpretation of the data collected in such tests. The analysis should be carried out with unbiased event samples. Several consequences of violating this principle are illustrated with practical examples. For the interpretation of the results, it is very important to realize that the conditions in a testbeam are fundamentally different than in practice. This has consequences for the meaning of the term “energy resolution”. It is shown that the way in which the results of beam tests are quoted may create a misleading impression of the quality of the tested instrument.

Life as Heroic Effort: Merab Mamardashvili’s Psychological Topology of the Way

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dmitry Leontiev
Keyword(s):  
Lecture Courses ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

The object of the reflections proposed in this paper is Merab Mamardashvili’s system of thought explicated in two books: Lectures on Proust (1995) and Psychological topology of the way (1997). Both books are transcripts of lecture courses read in 1982 and 1984/85. They are devoted to the same subject and have multiple overlaps; however, they are textually quite different. The second text presents a somewhat later version of Mamardashvili’s attempts to treat the same issues in a more elaborate form. Mamardashvili’s ideas, especially ideas and views of the last decade of his life, are extremely difficult to summarize. To extract definitions from his texts is equally impossible. Nevertheless, such an attempt is made in this paper.

Evaluation software for effects produced by MOOC in mediums with different linguistically levels

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-645
Author(s):  
Cornel Samoilă ◽  
Doru Ursuţiu ◽  
Vlad Jinga
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Rapid Assessment ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Strong Negation ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Way

Abstract MOOC appearance has produced, in a first phase, more discussions than contributions. Despite pessimistic opinions or those catastrophic foreseeing the end of the classic education by accepting MOOC, the authors consider that, as it is happening in all situations when a field is reformed, instead of criticism or catastrophic predictions, an assessment should be simply made. MOOC will not be better or worse if it is discussed and dissected but can be tested in action, perfected by results, or abandoned if it has no prospects. Without testing, no decision is valid. A similarity between the MOOC appearance and the appearance of the idea of flying machines heavier than air can be made. In the flight case, the first reaction was a strong negation (including at Academies level) and only performing the first independent flight with an apparatus heavier than air has shifted orientation from denial to contributions. So, practical tests clarified the battle between ideas. The authors of this article encourage the idea of testing–assessment and, therefore, imagined and proposed one software for quickly assess whether MOOC produces changes in knowledge, by simply transferring courses from ‘face-to-face’ environment into the virtual one. Among the methods of statistical analysis for student behavioral changes was chosen the Keppel method. It underpins the assessment method of this work being approached using both the version with one variable and also with three variables. It is intended that this attempts to pave the way for other series of rapid assessment regarding MOOC effects (using other statistical methods). We believe, that this is the only approach that can lead either to improve the system or to renunciation.

Anthropocentrism without a centre?

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Being And Time ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Unusual Structure ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unique Relationship ◽  
Made In ◽  
Number Of Authors ◽  
The Way

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.

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