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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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Learning from People, Things, and Signs

2006-11-15 , Hoffmann, Michael H. G.

Starting from the observation that small children can count more objects than numbers—a phenomenon that I am calling the "lifeworld dependency of cognition"—and an analysis of finger calculation, the paper shows how learning can be explained as the development of cognitive systems. Parts of those systems are not only an individual’s different forms of knowledge and cognitive abilities, but also other people, things, and signs. The paper argues that cognitive systems are first of all semiotic systems since they are dependent on signs and representations as mediators. The two main questions discussed here are how the external world constrains and promotes the development of cognitive abilities, and how we can move from cognitive abilities that are necessarily connected with concrete situations to abstract knowledge.

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Policy Considerations for States Supporting Stem Cell Research: Evidence from a Survey of Stem Cell Scientists

2006-10 , Levine, Aaron D.

Five states now provide funding for stem cell research and numerous states are developing or debating stem cell research policies. Yet despite this interest, few data exist to help policymakers design policies or forecast their impact. This article reports novel data from two surveys: one directed at those most affected by these policies - stem cell scientists themselves - and one at a group of biomedical researchers from less contentious fields. These data identified relatively high mobility among stem cell scientists, particularly those in states with restrictive policies, and a strong preference for states with permissive policies. These findings suggest state-specific policies may prove to be effective recruiting tools. They also suggest specific recruitment strategies and highlight the importance of first-mover advantage as several states compete to recruit from the same limited pool of mobile scientists. This research aims to provide a factual basis to support ongoing policy formulation in the area.

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Mitigating Climate Change Through Green Buildings and Smart Growth

2006-05 , Brown, Marilyn A. , Southworth, Frank

Energy-efficient buildings are seen by climate change experts as one of the least-cost approaches to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper summarizes a study done for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change that takes a broader look at the potential role of a climate-friendly built environment including not only considerations of how buildings are constructed and used, but also how they interface with the electric grid and where they are located in terms of urban densities and access to employment and services. In addition to summarizing mechanisms of change (barriers and drivers), the paper reviews a set of policies that could bring carbon emissions in the building sector in 2025 back almost to 2004 levels. By mid-century, the combination of green buildings and smart growth could deliver the deeper reductions that many believe are needed to mitigate climate change.

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Searching for Patterns of Competitive and Relational Contracting over Time: Do Prime and Subcontractor Networks Follow Similar Patterns?

2006-11 , Kingsley, Gordon , Ponomariov, Branco Leonidov

This paper explores and compares two sets of contractual relationships over a twelve-year period: the patterns of contracting between a state transportation agency and its prime contractors providing engineering design services, and between the prime- and sub-contractors. We find evidence that patterns of relational and competitive contracting may co-exist in the same contracting context. While the patterns of agency-prime contracting are indicative or relational contracting, the patterns of prime-sub contracting imply relatively more competitive processes. Implications for policy and theory of outsourcing are discussed.

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Seeing problems, seeing solutions. Abduction and diagrammatic reasoning in a theory of scientific discovery

2006-08-28 , Hoffmann, Michael H. G.

This paper sketches a theory of scientific discoveries that is mainly based on two concepts that Charles Peirce developed: abduction and diagrammatic reasoning. Both are problematic. While abduction describes the process of creating a new idea, it does not, on the one hand, explain how this process is possible and, on the other, is not precisely enough defined to distinguish different forms of creating new ideas. Diagrammatic reasoning, the process of constructing relational representations of knowledge areas, experimenting with them, and observing the results, can be interpreted, on the one hand, as a methodology to describe the possibility of discoveries, but its focus is limited to mathematics. The theory sketched here develops an extended version of diagrammatic reasoning as a general theory of scientific discoveries in which eight different forms of abduction play a central role.

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Superfund, Hedonics, and the Scales of Environmental Justice

2006 , Noonan, Douglas S.

The environmental justice (EJ) movement now occupies a prominent position in environmental policy. EJ is a core principle for thousands of grassroots environmental organizations, is the subject of a Presidential executive order and an office in the EPA, and recently served to frame how the nation viewed the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This paper contributes to the research on environmental equity by (a) improving on traditional environmental justice research by incorporating results from economic analyses, and (b) presenting new evidence on the distributional equity of Superfund site locations at multiple scales. Choosing the correct spatial scale for analysis continues to vex empirical EJ researchers. The modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP), often simplified as a matter of aggregation bias, has resisted solutions to date. The approach taken here turns to the well-established hedonic price literature to identify appropriate scales of analysis. Linking these two literatures holds the promise of practically addressing one of the larger obstacles to advancing empirical EJ claims. The utility of hedonic analyses for EJ research is demonstrated on a comprehensive, nationwide dataset of Superfund sites at four (nested) geographic scales. The results add to the EJ literature by performing multi-scale analyses nationally as well as focused on a specific site.

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Beyond Value Neutrality: An Alternative to Monetary Monism in Ecological Economics

2006-10 , Norton, Bryan G.

Ecological Economics has developed as a "transdisciplinary science," but it has not taken significant steps toward a truly integrated process of evaluating anthropogenic ecological change. The emerging dominance within ecological economics of the movement to monetize "ecological services," when combined with the already well-entrenched dominance of contingent pricing as a means to evaluate impacts on amenities, has created a "monistic" approach to valuation studies. It is argued that this monistic approach to evaluating anthropogenic impacts is inconsistent with a sophisticated conception of ecology as a complex science that rests on shifting metaphors. An alternative, pluralistic and iterative approach to valuation of anthropogenic ecological change is proposed

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From Experts' Beliefs to Safety Standards: Explaining Preferred Radiation Protection Standards in Polarized Technical Communities

2006-06 , Barke, Richard P. , Silva, Carol L. , Jenkins-Smith, Hank C.

Public policy debates often involve complex, high-stakes issues in which the views of experts within scientific and technical communities play a prominent role. Disputes over appropriate governmental actions concerning global climate change, genetically modified organisms, nuclear waste disposal, cloning, and stem cell research highlight the political importance that can be attached to debates within scientific communities. Not only do these debates influence the kinds of assumed causal relationships that underlie policy alternatives (e.g., the link between CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and global temperatures, or the dispersal patterns of pollens from genetically modified corn), but also those appointed to advisory and technical policy making positions are often chosen from the participating scientific communities. The appointment to such positions has become an increasingly contentious process; some critics contend that experts’ policy positions have trumped their scientific standing in determining appointments to important science policy boards (Revkin 2004; Mooney 2005).

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Urban Environments and Neighborhood Change: Exploring Urban Sorting Beyond the Featureless Plain

2006 , Noonan, Douglas S.

This paper introduces environmental features explicitly into the analysis of urban residential sorting where geographic barriers can mitigate neighbor externalities. Borders between groups in equilibrium will be more stable when supported by barriers. The hypothesis that racial disparity between neighboring tracts is greater when a barrier separates them is tested for Atlanta in 1990 and 2000 and compared to previous results for Chicago. The econometric estimation accounts for spatial dependence in the data. Significant barrier effects are found for certain types of geographical features (e.g., railroads, landmarks). The effect on local racial dissimilarity of the major extension of the mass transit rail lines in Atlanta in the mid-1990s is also estimated. There is little evidence suggesting that the new MARTA construction significantly affected racial dissimilarity in the areas it bissected. Limitations in the analysis and implications for policy and future are also discussed.

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