Improvements of the happiness of the rural population are an essential sign of the effectiveness of relative poverty governance. In the context of today’s digital economy, assessing the relationship between digital literacy and the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups is of great practicality. Based on data from China Family Panel Studies, the effect of digital literacy on the subjective well-being of rural low-income groups was empirically tested. A significant happiness effect of digital literacy on rural (...) low-income groups was found. Digital literacy promotes the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups through income increase and consumption growth effects. The observed happiness effect is heterogeneous among different characteristic groups, and digital literacy significantly positively impacts the subjective happiness of rural low-income groups. Decomposition of subjective happiness into life satisfaction and job satisfaction shows that digital literacy significantly positively affects the job and life satisfaction of rural low-income groups. This paper demonstrates that digital literacy induces a practical happiness effect. To further strengthen the subjective welfare effect of digital literacy in the construction of digital villages, the government should focus on cultivating digital literacy among low-income groups from the demand side. The construction of digital infrastructure should be actively promoted from the supply side. (shrink)

Before COVID-19, dementia singing groups and choirs flourished, providing activity, cognitive stimulation, and social support for thousands of people with dementia in the UK. Interactive music provides one of the most effective psychosocial interventions for people with dementia; it can allay agitation and promote wellbeing. Since COVID-19 has halted the delivery of in-person musical activities, it is important for the welfare of people with dementia and their carers to investigate what alternatives to live music making exist, how these alternatives (...) are delivered and how their accessibility can be expanded. This community case study examines recent practice in online music-making in response to COVID-19 restrictions for people with dementia and their supporters, focusing on a UK context. It documents current opportunities for digital music making, and assesses the barriers and facilitators to their delivery and accessibility. Online searches of video streaming sites and social media documented what music activities were available. Expert practitioners and providers collaborated on this study and supplied input about the sessions they had been delivering, the technological challenges and solutions they had found, and the responses of the participants. Recommendations for best practice were developed and refined in consultation with these collaborators. Over 50 examples of online music activities were identified. In addition to the challenges of digital inclusion and accessibility for some older people, delivering live music online has unique challenges due to audio latency and sound quality. It is necessary to adapt the session to the technology's limitations rather than expect to overcome these challenges. The recommendations highlight the importance of accessibility, digital safety and wellbeing of participants. They also suggest ways to optimize the quality of their musical experience. The pandemic has prompted innovative approaches to deliver activities and interventions in a digital format, and people with dementia and their carers have adapted rapidly. While online music is meeting a clear current need for social connection and cognitive stimulation, it also offers some advantages which remain relevant after COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed. The recommendations of this study are intended to be useful to musicians, dementia care practitioners, and researchers during the pandemic and beyond. (shrink)

Crowdfunding entails small funds or contributions collected from the public to support and develop certain services or products. It has been widely adopted as an alternative method to fund social, cultural, and technological projects. Crowdfunding platforms can capitalize the social and digital networks, making them more efficient in targeting funders with minimum operational costs. The emergence of crowdfunding platforms as social information systems attracts researchers and academicians to study their increasing acceptance. In complement to qualitative and big-data analyses, behavioral (...) models can offer robust insights into why individuals like to participate in the activities generated on these platforms. Prior research focuses on the user's acceptance of these platforms, but less attention has been given to users' engagement in crowdfunding-based social welfare projects. The study highlights people's crowdfunding intentions to fund social welfare projects based on the elaboration likelihood model. The study hypothesizes argument quality and technical advantage as central signals and shared value and reputation as peripheral signals, where outcome efficacy and social consciousness directly affect intentions to participate and moderate the relationship between signals and intentions. We collect data from 467 potential donors from China's 30 online crowdfunding platforms. The results indicate a more significant peripheral route effect on donation participation in social welfare crowdfunding. Social consciousness significantly predicts donation intentions where outcome efficacy and social consciousness strengthen the relationship between argument quality, shared values, and donation intentions to participate in socially responsible crowdfunding. The study provides implications for social collaboration for welfare projects through these platforms in light of these dynamic factors. (shrink)

The recent and dramatic emergence of digital and other electronic technology in social work?such as online counseling, video counseling, avatar therapy, and e-mail therapy?has tested and challenged the profession's longstanding and widely accepted perspectives on the nature of both clinical relationships and core ethics concepts. These developments have transformed key elements of social work practice and require critical examination of the meaning and application of relevant ethical concepts in diverse cultures. This article explores pertinent ethical implications related to social (...) workers' commitment to clients; privacy/confidentiality; client self-determination and professional paternalism; informed consent; and professional?client boundaries and dual relationships. The author discusses the need for social workers to re-examine time-honored ethics concepts and explore their implications for the profession's ethical standards pertaining to the practitioner?client relationship. (shrink)

Growing social inequalities represent a major concern associated with the Digital Revolution. The article tackles this issue by exploring how welfare regulations and redistribution policies can be rethought in the age of digital capitalism. It focuses on the history and enduring crisis of social citizenship rights in their connection with technological changes, in order to draw a comparison between the industrial and the digital scenario. The first section addresses the link between the Industrial Revolution and the (...) genesis of social rights. It describes the latter as a legal ‘machine’ designed to offset the imbalances produced by the technological movement of industrialization. The second and third sections introduce the notion of ‘industrial citizenship’ to describe the architecture of social rights in mature industrial societies and to contend that European systems of welfare are still largely modeled on an industrial standard. The fourth part investigates the impact of the Digital Revolution on this model of social citizenship. It identifies debates on basic income as a major trajectory for redesigning welfare regulations in a post-industrial era, and the digital user as a crucial emerging subject of rights. The final part explores how digital users could be entitled to social rights as data suppliers. To this end, it introduces the idea of ‘digital-social rights’ resulting from the incorporation of welfare and redistribution principles into emerging digital rights. Hence, it proposes a legal-political framework for the redistribution of the revenues generated by data in the form of a ‘digital basic income’ for citizens of cyberspace. (shrink)

Surveys are used extensively in social research and, despite a lack of conclusive evidence of their ‘representativeness,’ probability internet panel surveys are being increasingly used to make inferences about knowledge, attitude and behavior in the general population regarding a range of socially relevant issues. A large-scale survey of Australian public attitudes and behavior toward the red meat industry was undertaken. Samples were obtained using a random digit dialing telephone survey and a PIP survey to examine differences between the two samples (...) regarding attitudes and behavior relating to livestock use and welfare. There was little difference in demographics between the CATI and the PANEL surveys apart from highest level of education. However, there were differences between the two samples in both attitudes and behavior toward the red meat industry after controlling for education levels. The PANEL respondents gave generally more conservative responses than did the CATI respondents in the sense that they were more positive toward the livestock industries and animal welfare within these industries. Differences were also found between the respondents of the two samples regarding behavior that relates to the red meat industry, both community and consumer behavior. PANEL respondents were less engaged in community behaviors performed in opposition of the red meat industry when compared with the CATI sample. The majority of CATI and PANEL respondents were red meat eaters and there was no difference between respondents of the two samples in relation to red meat consumption, however, there were fewer vegetarians and vegans in the PANEL survey. Possible reasons for the observed differences are discussed, however, a definitive answer will depend on further research to identify the specific psychological factors that differ between samples derived from different survey methodologies. (shrink)

Digital health and welfare technologies and artificial intelligence are proposed to revolutionise healthcare systems around the world by enabling new models of care. Digital health and welfare technologies enable remote monitoring and treatments, and artificial intelligence is proposed as a means of prediction instead of reaction to individuals’ health and as an enabler of proactive care and rehabilitation. The digital transformation not only affects hospital and primary care but also how the community meets older people's (...) needs. Community care is often provided by informal and formal care‐givers, most of whom are women. Gender equality is at the heart of many national strategies, but do all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities when it comes to community care and its digital transformation? The digital transformation of community care is entangled with how care is provided to older people and the working conditions of community‐care professionals. Current and, even more so, future community‐care systems are and will be partly constituted by networks of technological artefacts. These health and welfare technological artefacts and the discourse surrounding them mediate and constitute social relations and community care. This article looks into how health and welfare technology and artificial intelligence‐based devices and systems mediate and constitute gender relations in community care and presents an argument for reflexivity, embodiment, pluralism, participation and ecology as an alternative strategy to treating community care as one‐size‐fit‐all and being blind to gender‐related issues. (shrink)

Societal concerns dictate the need for animal welfare standards and legislation. The public and livestock producers often differ on their views of livestock welfare, and failure to meet public expectations may threaten the “social license to operate” increasing the cost of production and hampering the success of the industry. This study examined public and producer attitudes toward common practices and animal welfare issues in the Australian red meat industry, knowledge of these practices, and public and producer trust (...) in people working the red meat industry using an Australia-wide survey of both the general public and red meat producers. Public participants were recruited using a random digit dialing telephone survey while the red meat producers were randomly selected within a curated database of Australian red meat producers. After controlling for gender and age, there were marked differences between public and producer respondents in 20 of the 27 attitude, trust and knowledge variables studied. Producers reported more positive beliefs in the conditions provided for sheep and beef cattle during sea and land transport, the husbandry practices used in the red meat industry, and red meat attributes regarding human health, environmental impact, animal use and animal welfare. Both public and producers reported similar levels of trust in conventional and commercial media and had similar beliefs about animal rights, prevention of animal cruelty and balancing the welfare of people and animals. The results indicate a polarization between the public and livestock producers in their attitudes toward animal welfare, knowledge of husbandry practices and trust in livestock people. (shrink)

COVID-19 has hit a world in which social protection schemes are increasingly augmented with digital measures. Digital identity schemes are especially being adopted to match citizens’ data with social protection entitlements, enabling authentication through demographic and, increasingly, biometric data at the point of access. In this commentary, I discuss three sets of implications that COVID-19 has yielded on digital social protection, whose central trade-off – increasing the probabilities of accurate user identification, at the cost of greater exclusions (...) – has become even more problematic during the crisis. I argue that three forms of data injustice – legal, informational and design-related, previously identified in datafied social protection schemes, will need to be monitored in the post-pandemic scenario. I finally observe that the crisis exposes the long-term need to place digitality within social protection schemes that expand user entitlements rather than constraining them. Implications of such reflections are drawn for the study of data-based social welfare interventions. (shrink)

Public resistance to environmental and health safety risks from radiations emanating from cell phone towers has been sporadic but spatially and temporally widespread in India. Civic actions have been led by civic activists, resident welfare associations, gram panchayats, lawyers, scientists and even an actor from the Bombay film industry. Large scale technical systems like cell-phone towers are remarkably resilient to public criticism. Industry response to such resistance is usually in the form of aesthetic tinkering to hide structures from public (...) gaze, incremental regulation and science communication to assuage public doubt. The legislature rather than Courts has been more responsive to such civic actions. Courts due to their overreliance on risk discourses have continued to defer to State experts. Faced with incrementalism from formal institutional actors, resistance movements have become localized and used site requirements to stymie such developments. Drawing on Beck's idea of subpolitics, this study explores the disaggregated nature of the resistance movement against cell tower radiation in India. It is based on a multi-sited ethnography based on field research and 35 interviews with activists, journalists, regulators, lawyers, industry representatives, doctors and scientists, conducted between November 2017 to December 2019. Jurisprudential developments, parliamentary committee and scientific reports were also reviewed. Subpolitics as a category has purchase in STS studies because it allows us to focus on the disaggregated nature of affected publics and interrogate public engagement with State institutions and new social expectations and solidarities with reference to technology. (shrink)

Emergent digital technologies provide cultural heritage spaces with the opportunity to reassess their current user journey. An immersive user experience can be developed that is innovative, dynamic, and customised for each attendee. Museums have already begun to move towards interactive exhibitions utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IOT), and more recently, the use of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) has become more common in cultural heritage spaces to present items of historical significance. VR concentrates (...) on the provision of full immersion within a digitised environment utilising a headset, whilst AR focuses on the inclusion of digitised content within the existing physical environment that can be accessed through a medium such as a mobile phone application. Machine learning techniques such as a recommender system can support an immersive user journey by issuing personalised recommendations regarding a user’s preferred future content based on their previous activity. An ethical approach is necessary to take the precautions required to protect the welfare of human participants and eliminate any aspect of stereotyping or biased behaviour. This paper sets out a human-centred manifesto intended to provide guidance when inducing smart digital immersion in cultural heritage spaces. A review of existing digital cultural heritage projects was conducted to determine their adherence to the manifesto with the findings indicating that Education was a primary focus across all projects and that Personalisation, Respect and Empathy, and Support were also highly valued. Additionally, the findings indicated that there were areas with room for improvement such as Fairness to ensure that a well-balanced human-centred system is implemented. (shrink)

Increasingly, social media platforms are understood by researchers to be valuable sites of politically-relevant discussions. However, analyses of social media data are typically undertaken by focusing on ‘snapshots’ of issues using query-keyword search strategies. This paper develops an alternative, less issue-based, mode of analysing Twitter data. It provides a framework for working qualitatively with longitudinally-oriented Twitter data, and uses an empirical case to consider the value and the challenges of doing so. Exploring how Twitter users place “everyday” talk around the (...) socio-political issue of UK welfare provision, we draw on digital ethnography and narrative analysis techniques to analyse 25 user-timelines and identify three distinctions in users’ practices: users’ engagements with welfare as TV entertainment or as a socio-political concern; the degree of sustained engagement with said issues, and; the degree to which users’ tweeting practices around welfare were congruent with or in contrast to their other tweets. With this analytic orientation, we demonstrate how a longitudinal analysis of user-timelines provides rich resources that facilitate a more nuanced understanding of user engagement in everyday socio-political discussions online. (shrink)

The magnitude of public concerns about agricultural innovations has often been underestimated, as past examples, such as pesticides, nanotechnology, and cloning, demonstrate. Indeed, studies have proven that the agricultural sector presents an area of tension and often attracts skepticism concerning new technologies. Digital technologies have become increasingly popular in agriculture. Yet there are almost no investigations on the public acceptance of digitalization in agriculture so far. Our online survey provides initial insights to reduce this knowledge gap. The sample represents (...) the German population in terms of gender, age, education and size of place of residence. Results showed that if the potential of digital farming technologies regarding animal welfare and environmental protection was described, respondents reacted positively. Thus, the general attitudes of respondents toward the benefits of DFT were mostly positive. The approval to increasing adoption rates of particular DFT by providing subsidies was also high. Linear regression models showed that the dominant positive influences on respondents’ attitudes toward the benefits of DFT were a generally positive attitude toward farming and a strong trust in farmers in Germany. Confronting respondents with pictures showing DFT resulted in many spontaneous negative associations and general criticism of agricultural production. The latter holds true for DFT in animal husbandry in particular. However, as agriculture as a whole is criticized by many groups in Germany, it is unlikely that benefits from digitalization will significantly increase the public acceptance of agriculture as a whole. (shrink)

In this commentary, we respond to the editorial letter by Professor Luciano Floridi entitled “AI as a public service: Learning from Amsterdam and Helsinki.” Here, Floridi considers the positive impact of municipal AI registers, which collect a limited number of algorithmic systems used by the city of Amsterdam and Helsinki. We question a number of assumptions about AI registers as a governance model for automated systems. We start with recent attempts to normalize AI by decontextualizing and depoliticizing it, which is (...) a fraught political project that encourages what we call ‘ethics theater’ given the proven dangers of using these systems in the context of the digital welfare state. We agree with Floridi that much can be learned from these registers about the role of AI systems in municipal city management. The lessons we draw, on the basis of our extensive ethnographic engagement with digital wellfare states, are distinctly less optimistic. (shrink)

There are two opposite ways of interpreting the web: one Ptolemaic and one Copernican. The first analyzes the web starting from the concept of information, as in the case of Luciano Floridi. The latter recognizes the importance of information, and as a consequence Floridi’s work, but it takes a step forward. Indeed, it highlights the importance of documents and the relationship between information and human life. In this way, it makes it possible to comprehend the human way of being and (...) the revolution we are witnessing. (shrink)

LARSEN A‐C. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 334–344 Trappings of technology: casting palliative care nursing as legal relationsCommunity palliative care nurses in Perth have joined the throng of healthcare workers relying on personal digital assistants (PDAs) to store, access and send client information in ‘real time’. This paper is guided by Heidegger’s approach to technologies and Habermas’ insights into the role of law in administering social welfare programs to reveal how new ethical and legal understandings regarding patient information add (...) to nursing’s professional responsibilities. This qualitative research interprets data from interviews with twenty community palliative care nurses about clients’ legal rights to informational privacy and confidentiality. It explores nurses’ views of their nursing responsibilities regarding clients’ legal rights, liability issues, bureaucratic monitoring and enforcement procedures. It concludes that nurses and clients are construed as legal subjects entrenched in legal relations that have magnified since these nurses began using PDAs in 2005/2006. (shrink)

This article analyses the ethical aspects of multistakeholder recommendation systems (RSs). Following the most common approach in the literature, we assume a consequentialist framework to introduce the main concepts of multistakeholder recommendation. We then consider three research questions: who are the stakeholders in a RS? How are their interests taken into account when formulating a recommendation? And, what is the scientific paradigm underlying RSs? Our main finding is that multistakeholder RSs (MRSs) are designed and theorised, methodologically, according to neoclassical (...) class='Hi'>welfare economics. We consider and reply to some methodological objections to MRSs on this basis, concluding that the multistakeholder approach offers the resources to understand the normative social dimension of RSs. (shrink)

Assembling a distinctive genealogy of cybernetic thought situated in relation to Progressive Era technocracy, industrial capitalism, (de)colonial relations, and eugenic machinery, Code uncovers the vital interdependence of informatics, the humanities, and the human sciences in the 20th century. Rather than figuring cybernetics as emerging from Second World War military technologies and post-war digital computing, Code argues that liberal technocrats’ inter-war visions of social welfare delivered via ‘neutral’ communication techniques shaped the informatic interventions of both the Second World War (...) and the Cold War. Tracing how an organizing concept of code linked the work of diverse structurally-minded thinkers, such as Norbert Wiener, Warren Weaver, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roman Jakobson, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Luce Irigaray, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan reconstructs the cybernetic apparatus that spawned new fields, including structural anthropology, family therapy, and literary semiology – and grapples with the unfolding implications of such socio-technical dynamics for 21st-century critical theory, digital media, and data analytics. (shrink)

Given demonstrated global knowledge inequality, this article attempts to draw out the connection between tertiary education and research (TER), economic development and infrastructure, and human development. We first explore the connection between knowledge and economic development by tracing a short history of the emergence of knowledge in economic analysis and by introducing the concept of a ‘knowledge economy’. The World Bank’s ‘Knowledge Assessment Methodology’ (2000) attempted to evaluate such ‘knowledge economies’ through a number of proposed variables. We describe relationships between (...) such TER-variables, economic development, and infrastructure building, especially in the shift towards digital economies. We will show that there is a tangible, negative human impact from disparities in knowledge production, and significant improvement in human welfare when knowledge production capacities improve. Finally, we will illustrate how these relationships play out in two case studies, in Montenegro and Bangladesh. (shrink)

Members of modern, digital societies experience a tremendous number and diversity of stimuli from sources such as computers, televisions, other electronic media, and various forms of advertising. In this paper, I argue that the presence of a wide range of stimulating items in modern societies poses a special risk to the welfare of members of modern societies. By considering the set of modern stimuli in a more comprehensive way than normative theorists have done so far—as part of a (...) complex system with which members of modern societies cannot reasonably avoid interacting—we can see why the perceptual and informational spaces in which modern life occurs can be sources of disvalue for members of modern societies. This seems true even though the technological innovations that produce these stimuli add great value to the lives of members of modern societies. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in finding stronger means of securitising identity against the various risks presented by the mobile globalised world. Biometric technology has featured quite prominently on the policy and security agenda of many countries. It is being promoted as the solution du jour for protecting and managing the uniqueness of identity in order to combat identity theft and fraud, crime and terrorism, illegal work and employment, and to efficiently govern various domains and services (...) including asylum, immigration and social welfare. In this paper, I shall interrogate the ways in which biometrics is about the uniqueness of identity and what kind of identity biometrics is concerned with. I argue that in posing such questions at the outset, we can start delimiting the distinctive bioethical stakes of biometrics beyond the all-too-familiar concerns of privacy, data protection and the like. I take cue mostly from Cavarero’s Arendt-inspired distinction between the “what” and the “who” elements of a person, and from Ricoeur’s distinction between the “idem” and “ipse” versions of identity. By engaging with these philosophical distinctions and concepts, and with particular reference to the example of asylum policy, I seek to examine and emphasise an important ethical issue pertaining to the practice of biometric identification. This issue relates mainly to the paradigmatic shift from the biographical story (which for so long has been the means by which an asylum application is assessed) to bio-digital samples (that are now the basis for managing and controlling the identities of asylum applicants). The purging of identity from its narrative dimension lies at the core of biometric technology’s overzealous aspiration to accuracy, precision and objectivity, and raises one of the most pressing bioethical questions vis-à-vis the realm of identification. (shrink)

Through the exponential growth in digital devices and computational capabilities, big data technologies are putting pressure upon the boundaries of what can or cannot be considered acceptable from an ethical perspective. Much of the literature on ethical issues related to big data and big data technologies focuses on separate values such as privacy, human dignity, justice or autonomy. More holistic approaches, allowing a more comprehensive view and better balancing of values, usually focus on either a design-based approach, in which (...) it is tried to implement values into the design of new technologies, or an application-based approach, in which it is tried to address the ways in which new technologies are used. Some integrated approaches do exist, but typically are more general in nature. This offers a broad scope of application, but may not always be tailored to the specific nature of big data related ethical issues. In this paper we distil a comprehensive set of ethical values from existing design-based and application-based ethical approaches for new technologies and further focus these values to the context of emerging big data technologies. A total of four value lists were selected for this. The integrated list consists of a total of ten values: human welfare, autonomy, non-maleficence, justice, accountability, trustworthiness, privacy, dignity, solidarity and environmental welfare. Together, this set of values provides a comprehensive and in-depth overview of the values that are to be taken into account for emerging big data technologies. (shrink)

Firms are increasingly personalising their offers and services, leading to an ever finer-grained segmentation of consumers online. Targeted online advertising and online price discrimination are salient examples of this development. While personalisation's overall effects on consumer welfare are expectably ambiguous, it can lead to concentration in the distribution of advertising and commercial offers. Constellations are possible in which a market is generally open to competition, but the targeted consumer is only made aware of one possible seller. For the consumer, (...) such a market could effectively resemble a monopoly. We call such extreme cases ‘targeting pockets’. Competition-law metrics such as the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and traditional means of public oversight of adverts would not detect this concentration. We, therefore, suggest a novel metric, the Concentration-after-Personalisation Index (CAPI). The CAPI treats every consumer as a separate ‘market’, computes a measure of concentration for personalised adverts and offers for each individual consumer separately, and then averages the result to measure the exposure experienced by an average consumer. We demonstrate how the CAPI can serve as a monitoring tool for regulators and auditors and thus help to enforce existing consumer law as well as proposed new regulations such as the European Union's Digital Services Act and its Artificial Intelligence Act. We further show how adding noise via randomly distributed non-personalised adverts can dilute the potential harm of overly concentrated personalisation. We demonstrate how the CAPI can identify the optimal degree of added noise, balancing the protection of consumer choice with the economic interests of advertisers. (shrink)

Precision livestock farming (PLF) is the management of livestock using the principles and technology of process engineering. Key to PLF is the dense monitoring of variegated parameters, including animal growth, output of produce (e.g. milk, eggs), diseases, animal behaviour, and the physical environment (e.g. thermal micro-environment, ammonia emissions). While its proponents consider PLF a win-win strategy that combines production efficiency with sustainability goals and animal welfare, critics emphasise, inter alia, the potential interruption of human-animal relationships. This paper discusses the (...) notion that the objectification of animals by PLF influences the developmental pathways of conventional industrial farming. We conduct a conceptual analysis of objectification by comparing discussions in feminist ethics and animal ethics. We find that in animal ethics, objectification includes deontological arguments regarding instrumentalisation, de-animalisation, alienation, commodification and quantification of animals. The focus on socio-political context and relationality connects these debates to central ideas in care ethics. We adopt a care ethics perspective to assess the implications of the objectification of animals in livestock farming. The basic claim is that sensory knowledge symbolised by the farmers’ unity of hand, head and heart would make it harder to objectify animals than abstract and instrumental reasoning where the pursuit of knowledge is intertwined with the pursuit of control, as in mainstream PLF. Despite of what can be considered as a good caring relationship between farmers and animals that is mediated by PLF, people involved in conventional industrial farming still seem to become further detached from farmers and animals, because the PLF system itself is objectifying. PLF redefines the notion of care, in terms of data transparency, standardisation of methods for analysis, real-time collection and processing of data, remote control, and the use of digital platforms. This creates new expectations and requires a redistribution of responsibilities within a wider scope of relations in the value chain. (shrink)

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, gene editing, nanotechnology, neurotechnology and robotics, which were originally unrelated or separated, are becoming more closely integrated. Consequently, the boundaries between the physical-biological and the cyber-digital worlds are no longer well defined. We argue that this technological convergence has fundamental implications for individuals and societies. Conventional domain-specific governance mechanisms have become ineffective. In this paper we provide an overview of the ethical, societal and policy challenges of technological convergence. Particularly, we scrutinize the adequacy (...) of domain-specific governance mechanisms in the face of such integrated technologies and highlight their growing ineffectiveness. Furthermore, we propose a comprehensive governance framework that is anticipatory, inclusive, and resilient. Central to this framework is the principle of participatory governance, which calls for a proactive engagement of all stakeholders, including those from marginalized and vulnerable populations, ensuring that their voices and concerns shape the trajectory of technological development. The framework emphasizes the need for protective measures that preemptively address potential risks and inequities that may arise from the adoption and integration of emerging technologies. Based on a detailed analysis of case studies and current governance models, we present and discuss a set of ten actionable recommendations. These are designed to facilitate the transition towards a governance approach that not only respects individual autonomy and privacy, but also fosters a collective responsibility towards sustainable and fair technological progress. By placing human dignity, societal welfare and the protection of the most vulnerable at the center of technological innovation, we advocate for a future where convergence is synonymous with progress that is both ethically grounded and universally beneficial. (shrink)

_The Limits of Utilitarianism _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Many philosophers have argued that utilitarianism is an unacceptable moral theory and that promoting the general welfare is at best only one of the legitimate goals of public policy. Utilitarian principles seem to place no limits on the extent to which society may legitimately (...) interfere with a person's liberties - provided that such actions can be shown to promote the long-term welfare of its members. These issues have played a central role in discussions of utilitarianism since the time of Bentham and Mill. Despite criticisms, utilitarianism remains the most influential and widely accepted moral theory of recent times. In this volume contemporary philosophers address four aspects of utilitarianism: the principle of utility; utilitarianism vis-à-vis contractarianism; welfare; and voluntary cooperation and helping others. The editors provide an introduction and a comprehensive bibliography that covers all books and articles published in utilitarianism since 1930. (shrink)

Talent and Education was first published in 1960. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The problem of identification, development, and utilization of talented young people is a matter of prime concern to all who are interested in the welfare of the individual and the future of the nation. This book, constituting a progress report on research related to the problem, will (...) be of particular value to educators, psychologists, social workers, community leaders, and others who are engaged in the effort to make the most of our human resources.The volume contains chapters by a number of contributors drawn from various fields in elementary, secondary, and higher education. The contributors include John E. Anderson, Robert H. Beck, Florence N. Brumbaugh, Walter W. Cook, Willis E. Dugan, Dale B. Harris, Arthur J. Lewis, Catherine Cox Miles, Mary Pilch, Maynard C. Reynolds, Anne Roe, Merrill F. Roff, Paul C. Rosenbloom, Audrey Shechtman, and E. Paul Torrance. Orville L. Freeman, governor of Minnesota, writes an indtroduction.Among the topics discussed are the nature and scientific measurement of talent, the effects of life experiences on the development of talent, the enrichment of school curricula, special grouping and acceleration in the schools, psychological aspects of some of the problems, and Russian methods of dealing with individual differences. The volume is based on papers from an Institute on Exceptional Children held at the University of Minnesota. (shrink)

Gandhi scholars agree that he was a critic of capitalism, if not capital or capitalists. Nevertheless, they disagree about his relationship to socialism. Some emphasize Gandhi’s claim that the modern Western canon of socialism is incompatible with the philosophy of nonviolence. Others emphasize his occasional affirmation that he is a socialist, regarding socialism as a beautiful ideal of equality. Gandhi moves back and forth between conditional endorsements of capitalists and socialism’s beautiful ideal. In this article, I ask why Gandhi never (...) specifies any clear economic preference for the philosophy of nonviolence. Is he confused and incapable of reaching practical judgments about what nonviolence demands in terms of economics? I answer this question in two ways. First, I argue that passing back and forth over the partial and fallible viewpoints of capitalists and socialists of various stripes is consistent with Gandhi’s method of experiments in truth. The passing-over method extends from experiments in devotion to constructive experiments in economics, laying the foundation for integrating distinctively human life goals or puruṣārthas. Second, and perhaps more surprisingly, I consider the background to Gandhi’s use of this method as applied to economics in Kauṭilya’s classical Arthaśāstra. Scholars often characterize Kauṭilya as both a socialist and a realist. While establishing the world’s first welfare state, his Arthaśāstra is also tied deeply into the material-spiritual concerns of the puruṣārthas, combining economics with duty, earthly pleasure, and transcendence. In this latter respect, however, Kauṭilya’s realism concedes too much to the contextual realities of his time concerning imperial conquest and caste. Gandhi emerges from this inquiry as another kind of realist in his constructive experiments with diverse economic perspectives, equally attuned to the contextual realities of his age. Gandhi succeeded—where Kauṭilya failed—to integrate economics with the spiritual goals of the puruṣārthas. I contend that Gandhi’s back and forth method in economics provides contemporary Gandhians with a way to address new contextual realities of the digital or “gig” economy through techno-satyagraha. (shrink)

This paper examines the use of language in the legal processes established by Law 4921/2022 through a social lens, focusing on the digital transformation of the Greek Public Employment Service (DYPA) and the enactment of rigorous active labor market policies (ALMPs). By analyzing relevant documents, the study reveals a neoliberal orientation that prioritizes individual responsibility over traditional state welfare activities. While the advantages of digitalization—such as improved efficiency in job placement and streamlined administrative processes—are acknowledged, the paper also (...) raises significant concerns about the implications of digital literacy disparities, data privacy issues, and the ethical considerations surrounding the profiling of job seekers. Ultimately, the paper provides a detailed analysis of these legislative changes, situating them within the broader socio-economic context of Greece, and highlights the insufficient protection of the unemployed. It further demonstrates that active labor market policies are inextricably linked to the integration of technology, with this relationship anticipated to intensify in the future, particularly given the rapid expansion of Artificial Intelligence (AI). (shrink)

At the center of contemporary discourse on technology — or the digital discourse — is the assertion that network technology ushers in a new phase of capitalism which is more democratic, participatory, and de-alienating for individuals. Rather than viewing this discourse as a transparent description of the new realities of techno-capitalism and judging its claims as true (as the hegemonic view sees it) or false (a view expressed by few critical voices), this article offers a new framework which sees (...) the digital discourse as signaling a historical shift in the technological legitimation of capitalism, concurrent with the emergence of the post-Fordist phase of capitalism. Technology discourse legitimated the Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology and technique to mitigate exploitation. It hence legitimated the interventionist welfare state, the central planning in businesses and the economy, the hierarchized corporation, and the tenured worker. In contrast, contemporary technology discourse legitimates the post-Fordist phase of capitalism by stressing the ability of technology to mitigate alienation. It hence legitimates the withdrawal of the state from markets, the dehierarchization and decentralization of businesses, and the flexibilization of production and the labor process. (shrink)

Recent changes in service environments have changed the preconditions of their production and consumption. These changes include unbundling services from production processes, growth of the information-rich economy and society, the search for creativity in service production and consumption and continuing growth of digital technologies. These contextual changes affect city governments because they provide a range of infrastructure and welfare services to citizens. Concepts such as ‘smart city’, ‘intelligent city’ and ‘knowledge city’ build new horizons for cities in undertaking (...) their challenging service functions in an increasingly cost-conscious, competitive and environmentally oriented setting. What is essential in practically all of them is that they paint a picture of cities with smooth information processes, facilitation of creativity and innovativeness, and smart and sustainable solutions promoted through service platforms. This article discusses this topic, starting from the nature of services and the new service economy as the context of smart local public services. On this basis, we build an overall framework for understanding the basic forms and dimensions of smart public services. The focus is on conceptual systematisation of the key dimensions of smart services and the conceptual modelling of smart service platforms through which digital technology is increasingly embedded in social creativity. We provide examples of real-life smart service applications within the European context. (shrink)

Intellectual property has traditionally been a matter for the legal professions, but with the shift to evidence-based policy, the global economic upheaval, and the advent of the digital age, intellectual property is increasingly informed by economic perspectives. This book provides a clear and practical guide to economic approaches to intellectual property, written for a legal audience. It introduces basic concepts in economics and finance that inform the law of intellectual property. Topics discussed offer additional perspectives include the economics of (...) innovation, development, crime, law, industrial organisation and welfare. Next, it considers the economics of specific intellectual property rights, including copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, geographical indicator and design rights, as well as a section on competition. Finally, a section on applied approaches to the valuation of IP will help readers to understand the use of these topics in practice.This practical text offers readers a better understanding of economic debates in intellectual property, as well as tools to enhance their ability to critique evidence-based policy. (shrink)

Introduction. Cities play a key role in the development of countries and regions. The authors of the article emphasize the importance of the largest cities’ development, which is based on an industrial model that has not exhausted its potential. The authors show possibilities of urban development on the basis of the industrial sector effective functioning in order to improve the citizens’ welfare, meet their needs and improve the life quality. In this regard, the authors formulate a hypothesis that the (...) largest Russian cities developing according to the industrial model have and are able to realize their potential in order to improve the life quality, preserve and increase the population on their territory. The authors set a goal: to identify the possibilities for developing industrial-type megalopolises to improve the population’s life quality of the (PLQ). Methods. The authors use the following information base: strategic documents of different levels, statistical data, scientific literature, analytical documents, and expert assessments of the megalopolises’ development. The authors also use an industrial model for developing the largest cities; they determine conditions under which the potential of megacities can be realized to improve the citizens’ life quality and carry out an analysis of the demographic and social situation in the largest Russian industrial cities. The authors evaluate some approaches and theses of the study as exemplified by the following cities with a million-plus population: Yekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Chelyabinsk, and Omsk and they group the cities according to the signs of growth and decline, which is illustrated by favorable or unfavorable demographic trends. To confirm the identified trends and problems of the largest cities, the authors provide the results of expert assessments on the population’s life quality and the state of the urban environment and emphasize the need for a systemic integrated development of the largest cities of industrial type to improve the life quality of the population of megalopolises. The scientific novelty of the study consists in substantiating the prospects for the socio-economic development of the largest industrial cities of Russia on the basis of an industrial model that provides for the technological transformation of the economy, the use of agglomeration effects, the formation of a friendly urban environment for residents and the achievement of socialization of urban space. Results and conclusions. As a result of the analysis and typology of the largest cities by functional specialization, two groups of cities were identified: one group with signs of demographic growth, the second with signs of decline. The cities of the first group have a greater economic potential, opportunities for agglomeration, provide more comfortable living and consolidation of the population on their territory. On the contrary, cities with signs of decreasing have fewer opportunities (resources), are less diversified, the urban environment in them is less comfortable, which is reflected in the citizens’ life quality and is accompanied by the population’s outflow. At the same time, it was revealed that all analyzed cities actively use digital technologies, realizing, in particular, the concept of a «smart city». At the same time, cities with signs of decreasing show high IQ indicators of cities. Taking into account the identified problems, the authors propose promising directions for the development of industrial megalopolises with signs of decline. (shrink)

As a result of the developments in science and technology, humanity began to experience a digital transformation after the 19th century. With this digital transformation, it is seen that a serious change has occurred in human beings biologically, socially, and, more specifically, religiously. One could say that different trends have emerged at many points where human relations, the relationship of the human with the environment and with God are also affected. Among the most comprehensive and prominent of these (...) trends is transhumanism because of its aims for humanity and the world. Transhumanism, which views technology as the main point of reference for the future of humanity, is also considered a cultural, social, and ideological human movement with its statements intended for society. It considers immortality as a goal, along with such claims as improving welfare, extending human life, and wiping out diseases by using technology in every aspect of human life. Transhumanists, who claim that they can achieve immortality thanks to technology, argue that this will happen in two ways. The first is biological immortality. It will be achieved by eliminating all kinds of biological factors that lead to humans aging and death. The second is digital or virtual immortality, which is achieved by transferring human consciousness from the biological body to computer interfaces and installing it in any desired entity. This perspective must be critically examined as it can be considered an attempt to challenge death, which is the basic doctrine of classical religions. In the present study, human immortality, considered the most important claim made by transhumanists, is criticized within kalām, Islamic theology. Of course, transhumanists’ account of human immortality is impossible, according to kalām. It can be said that transhumanists view of immortal human can be considered in the category of created beings, which is defined in kalām as "the being created later and needs another being in order to exist and to continue its existence". Given that transhumanists base the idea of the immortal being upon biological healing or digital transmission, it is clear that both types of beings need someone else. Therefore, one could say that it would be more reasonable to define transhumanists’ notion of immortality as the act of prolonging human life. It is because the life of immortal beings, accepted as biological or digital entities, is shaped by many factors. If these factors disappear, so does the being. On the other hand, the attribute of immortality, which belongs to the eternal being only, according to kalām, must come from itself without needing any other being. Therefore, the notion of immortal being suggested by the transhumanists must be reexamined within kalām and be redefined as the extension of life. The redefined immortality as the extension of life hardly poses kalāmī (or theological) problems. In fact, Islam encourages using all types of tools and equipment to enable humans to have a healthy and blissful life. (shrink)

Advances in information and communication technologies enable more decentralized and individualized mechanisms for coordination and for managing societal complexity. This has important consequences for the role of conditionality and the idea of individual responsibility in two seemingly unrelated policy areas. First, the changing information infrastructure enables an extension of conditionality in the area of welfare through greater activation, enhanced self-management, and a personalization of risks. Second, conditionality and personal responsibility also form an important ideational template and a legitimatory basis (...) for facilitating value creation that is based on data as a raw material. This argument is illustrated looking at the trajectories of the digital strategies in the United Kingdom and Germany. In both cases, data protection is depicted as a question of individual responsibility and tied to certain forms of individual conduct. (shrink)

Several studies have lately revealed that social media conceal at least three dangerous pitfalls. Firstly, social media can negatively impact sociopolitical processes in advanced liberal democracies by becoming vehicles for the spread of false information that augments political polarization (Lee et al. 2017; Ostillio 2018). Secondly, as a result of the first point, social mediacan rapidly become a source of incorrect beliefs for those subjects with low digital literacy (Guess et al. 2019). Thirdly, because of the first and second (...) points, intentionally deceitful manipulations of social media content are potent generators of information cascades that increase group polarizations across groups of vulnerable social media users (Jang and Kim2018, Wang et al. 2018, Colliander 2019). These findings support the claim that the circulation of biased content on social media potentially threatens sociopolitical stability in liberal Western democracies (Duffy 2018; Sunstein 2018). Although this claim is far from being speculative, as shown by the FacebookFile investigations (Wall Street Journal 2019) and the center for humane technology’s recen tresearch, it introduces a thorny dilemma regarding the founding principles of liberal Western democracies. Namely, should Western legislators limit free speech by introducing severe penalties for those who spread fake news and the likes on social media? Or should they let the free market autonomously produce efficient technology allowing people to identify biased social media content?In other words, is a libertarian solution to the plight of online fake news and the like preferable to adequate legislation that punishes those who spread such content? Though appealing, it is unrealistic to believe that the free market can resolve this problem. On the other hand, it is realistic to suppose that Western governments should engage in a merciless battle against biased social media content. For instance, following the publication of the Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation in 2018, the European Union introduced new directives to limit the spread of fake news online in 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic started fading. Although initiatives as such might look like limitations of free speech, there is solid philosophical ground to defend such initiatives. To prove this contention, we resort to Hobbes’s (1651, Part II, §18 and §29) argument that humans can avoid falling back into the Hobbesian state of war only if they stipulate a covenant. Specifically, we appeal to Hobbes’s (1651) argument in favor of bestowing the sovereign the right to ban those seditious doctrines that might undermine peace and sociopolitical stability in the Hobbesian Commonwealth. In this regard, we show that the Hobbesian covenant resolves conflict among humans in the same way a correlated equilibrium limits noncooperation in game theory. Namely, like game theory players, citizens enjoy greater welfare whenever they observe rules that mitigate conflict (Slomp 2010). Accordingly, we argue that citizens would be better off only if Western governments introduced severe penalties for those who intentionally spread fake news. Notably, we argue that effective regulation would create disincentives for spreading biased content and incentives for spreading truthful content. Furthermore, we argue that effective regulation against online fake news would assuage the polarizing effects of online availability cascades on social networks. Importantly, we provide empirical evidence supporting these claims by showing that the lack of effective regulation led the American government to miserably fail to contain the devasting effects of the online infodemic (i.e., the epidemic of false online information)that took place during the first two waves of the Covid19 pandemic (Evanega et al. 2020, Milosh et al. 2020). (shrink)

Intellectual property has traditionally been a matter for the legal professions, but with the shift to evidence-based policy, the global economic upheaval, and the advent of the digital age, intellectual property is increasingly informed by economic perspectives. This book is a comprehensive, critical analysis of economic interpretations of intellectual property, written for researchers, practitioners and policymakers. It analyses the interface between economics, finance, accountancy and intellectual property law. Commencing with a critical analysis of the economics of innovation, law, industrial (...) organisation and welfare, the book then critiques the economics of specific intellectual property rights, including copyright, patents, trade marks, geographical indications and design rights. It further assesses the interaction between economics, IP and competition. Finally, it examines why, when and how IP generates value, reviewing contemporary approaches to valuation and accounting, and the emerging use of IP to facilitate business finance. This analytical text offers readers a better understanding of IP's contribution to macro- and microeconomics, as well as insights that inform the debate on evidence-based IP policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cancel Culture and the Trope of the ScapegoatA Girardian Defense of the Importance of Contemplative ReadingJoakim Wrethed (bio)What unfolds in this article encompasses violence, language/reading, and ethics. René Girard addresses these topics primarily in terms of mimesis, its potential violence, and the trope of the scapegoat. Still, toward the end of his career and life, he relentlessly pointed out the dangers implicated in the dynamism of these forces. He (...) addressed it clearly in his "apocalyptic book" Battling to the End (2010):I have been accused of repeating myself too often, of turning my theory into a fetish, of using it to explain everything. Yet it has described mechanisms that recent discoveries in neuroscience confirm: imitation is the initial and essential means of learning; it is not something acquired later on. We can escape mimetism only by understanding the laws that govern it. Only by understanding the dangers of imitation can we conceive of authentic identification with the Other. However, we are becoming aware of the primacy of moral relationship at the very time when the atomization of humanity is being realized, and when violence has increased in intensity and unpredictability.1[End Page 15] It is this thin line between necessary/harmless imitation and its dangerous versions that will be the central theme in the analysis. As Girard states, a vast amount of established research confirms that the mimetic impulse is innate.2 We should pay specific attention to "the atomization of humanity," since it zooms in on our contemporary epoch's paradoxical "mass-individualism," evidently tremendously enhanced by information and communication technology (ICT). In order to contribute to Girard's lifework and to extend it beyond his own writing, we outline a few contemporary phenomena that clearly exhibit the primordial dangers of human violence that Girard draws attention to. These phenomena are initially only roughly sketched, but subsequent sections give them sharper relief. The central phenomena are cancel culture, speed, and the reading of literature. Just to be clear, the intended mode of reading should be construed in a broad sense, thus potentially including philosophy and theology, if one is inclined to emphasize the differences between these disciplines and the reading of literature.3Cancel culture in certain ways makes manifest a social welfare society version of escalating violence, indicating that "violence has increased in intensity and unpredictability."4 A succinct definition of cancel culture will initially suffice:Cancel culture refers to ending (or attempting to end) an individual's career or prominence to hold them accountable for immoral behavior. Driven primarily by young progressives, often through social media, cancel culture has attracted controversy since it swept into the national conversation.5This definition can easily be extended into larger historical patterns in which, for instance, colonial crimes are highlighted and demands are raised for contemporary acts of atonement. As Rob Henderson points out, the obvious flip side is that "the swift and decisive nature of cancel culture can stifle debate, and some believe that dialogue is a more productive way to foster change."6 The "swiftness" and the immediate collectable consequences are decisive in their functions as social punishment and exclusion; in other words, digitalized speed accomplishes verdict and punishment in a very short time span, which is a reflection of desire pure and simple. The rapidity from intention to anticipated effect rather resembles an instinctive and violent action more than the forwarding of a carefully thought through argument or statement. The present becomes an invincible ivory tower bristling with power to finally mete out the justice that the erroneous ethics of earlier times were incapable of conceiving and achieving. An always already accelerating modernity speeded up immensely through [End Page 16] the fast growth of information and communication technology (ICT). To be sure, the whole evolution of computer technology is defined primarily in terms of processing speed, together with the quantity of information that can be contained in as small a spatial entity as possible. The present-day reality of having almost everything only one or a few clicks away on a screen—as a modern day realization of the library in Alexandria—enhances the relevance of a phenomenon historians have referred to... (shrink)

Societal attitude acceptance can influence the digital transformation in agriculture. Digital technologies, such as robots in dairy farming, can lead to more sustainable, animal welfare-friendly and consumer-oriented milk production. This study used the example of the milking and feeding robots to investigate whether society accepts the use of robots in dairy farming and whether there are differences in society based on perceived risks and opportunities of digitalization in dairy farming and acceptance. To this end, an online-based study (...) was conducted with a total of 1007 citizens in Germany. Overall, the respondents in this study suspect that the use of robots in dairy farming is associated with various risks but also with opportunities for society and for farmers in particular. However, these attitudes are quite heterogeneous. Four clusters could be identified: “proponents of robots”, “indifferent citizens”, “skeptical citizens”, and “critical supporters of robots”. Proponents of robots see only opportunities and little risks, whereas the critical citizens perceive not only opportunities but also many risks of using robots in dairy farming. The indifferent citizens show a rather indifferent attitude, in contrast to the skeptical citizens, who reject the opportunities at the societal level, while they agree with the opportunities of robots for farmers. This research contributes to understanding societal attitudinal acceptance and highlights differences in society that can help inform future decisions about the development and adoption of robots in dairy farming. (shrink)

Gerontology together with its subfields, such as social gerontology, geragogy, educational gerontology, political gerontology, environmental gerontology, and financial gerontology, is still a relatively new academic discipline that is currently intensively developing, expanding research fields and combining various theoretical and practical perspectives. The interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and multidisciplinarity of research on ageing and old age, despite its vast thematic, methodological and theoretical diversity, have a common denominator, which is the focus of research work on improving the quality of life of older people. (...) It is the concern for the components of quality of life such as welfare and well-being as well as focus on learning about phenomena conditioning successful ageing that has become motivators and premises hidden or visible in many texts included in the Research Topic “Perspectives and Theories of Social Innovation for Ageing Population.” The Research Topic that we are presenting to our readers is unique not only because of its size but above all because of its novelty and social involvement, visible in the content of individual chapters. The presented collection includes 17 articles prepared in total by 76 authors from the following countries: China, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Two journals were combined with this Research Topic: “Frontiers in Public Health” and “Frontiers in Sociology.” The presented Research Topic contains seven types of articles covering: two community case studies, eight original research articles, two perspective articles, one hypothesis and theory paper, one policy and practice review, one methods article, and two book reviews. The rationale to start work on this set of texts was the desire to continue and deepen the research analyses of the editors of this set, which concern the development of social innovations for the ageing population as well as changes of public policy on ageing. This Research Topic deals with topics covering issues such as social learning, intergenerational transmission, senior entrepreneurship, creative content creation by older adults, care services, raising the independence of older people in their living environments, dementia challenges, the image of the older generation in local social policies, new trends in qualitative research on old age, strategies for dealing with chronic diseases, the use of digital tools in health education, the silver economy/longevity economy, age-friendly environments, the diversity of structures and social services, preparation for old age, and food safety. The wide variety of submitted texts shows several selected and, according to the authors, current challenges that contemporary seniors have to face. The articles comprising this Research Topic are organized according to five themes. (shrink)

October 6–20, 2023. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, hosted RSD12—Emerging from Entanglement. In addition to an online programme of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, and a culminating in-person gathering in DC, RSD12 featured 12 in-person Hubs events, each lasting 1–3 days, and livestreamed sessions to the online platform. The 12 regional hubs and topical areas were: Bogota, Colombia: Design Research; Pittsburgh, United States: Transgenerational Collaboration; Kingston, United Kingdom: Cyber and Digital; Ahmedabad, India: Hopeful Futures; Monterrey, Mexico: Participatory Ecosystems; kihcihkaw askî: Indigenous (...) Knowledge and Wisdom; Amsterdam, Netherlands: Co-Design; Nordmarka Forest, Norway: Reflexivity, Ecocentrism, Regenerative; Loughborough, Great Britain: Synergy Between Sciences; Toronto, Canada: Futuring; Vancouver, Canada: Climate Justice; Turin, Italy: Localising Systemic Change. (shrink)

Mourning exists at the nexus between individual experience, professional discourses, research, and culture, making it a complex issue for health services that has shown vibrant change in recent years. By contrast, bereavement discourse in intellectual disability is suffused by dogmatic assertions about correct intervention: we describe four vignettes to illustrate bereavement issues in intellectual disability. Suggestions concerning issues and management are made, but the article focuses primarily on the conceptual issues that underpin clinical intervention. The analysis shows how challenges to (...) the meaning of the disabled life, and to the understandings carers and staff draw on, tend to be resisted. We hypothesize this is most likely to surround issues that evoke cultural uncertainty, such as bereavement. The thesis is that the field of intellectual disability tends to be isolationist because meaning is difficult to create and easily dissolved, especially when addressing culturally contested topics. Dialogue with other disciplines is necessary to stop the field from atrophying, but needs to be carried out in ways that enable carers and clinicians to continue providing the support that people with intellectual disability require. (shrink)

An important debate in the reasoning literature concerns the extent to which inference processes are domain-free or domain-specific. Typically, evidence in support of the domain-specific position comprises the facilitation observed when abstract reasoning tasks are set in realistic context. Three experiments are reported here in which the sources of facilitation were investigated for contextualised versions of Raven's Progressive Matrices (Richardson, 1991) and non-verbal analogies from the AH4 test (Richardson & Webster, 1996). Experiment 1 confirmed that the facilitation observed for the (...) contextualised matrices was in part due to extraneous aspects of commentaries originally intended to activate domainspecific processes. Experiments 2 and 3 indicated that the remainder of the facilitation for the matrices, and all of the facilitation for the analogies, could be explained by visual salience: Converting the item elements into realistic objects had enabled them and their transitions to be identified more easily. Hence, performance at simplified abstract items was as good as, or better than, at contextualised items. It is concluded that facilitation effects cannot be interpreted as showing that domain-specific processes constitute a self-contained system separate from domain-free processes. In turn, this means that domain-free processes cannot be dismissed as being unimportant for reasoning. (shrink)

Throughout Iran and various countries, the recent calls of the “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (in Persian), “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (in Kurdish), or “Woman, Life, Freedom” (in English) movement call for change to acknowledge the importance of women. While these feminist protests and demonstrations have been met with brutality, systematic oppression, and internet blackouts within Iran, they have captured significant social media attention and coverage outside the country, especially among the Iranian diaspora and various international organizations. This article, grounded in feminist urban (...) theories of the Global South, analyzes the digital feminist placemaking movement in Iran. As the first counter‐revolution led by women, the movement utilizes digital art, graffiti, and protest movements to embody women’s solidarity groups and sympathy rallies. Our analysis employs various digital research methods, including social media scrutiny and the study of protest illustrations. Analyzing the digital feminist placemaking in Iran will enable us to compare the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between the minorities and majorities in the world’s countries. The outcomes of this research can help international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), as well as policymakers, institutions, academics, and NGOs, to highlight the various ways in which broader public participation could be encouraged in the process of digital feminist insurgent placemaking. (shrink)