This paper explores the complex relationship between intellectual property (IP) and the transdisciplinary collaborative design (co-design) of new digital technologies for agriculture (AgTech). More specifically, it explores how prioritizing the capturing of IP as a central researcher responsibility can cause disruptions to research relationships and project outcomes. We argue that boundary-making processes associated with IP create a particular context through which responsibility can, and must, be located and cultivated by researchers working within transdisciplinary collaborations. We draw from interview data and (...) situated IP practices from a transdisciplinary co-design project in Aotearoa New Zealand to illustrate how IP is a fluid boundary-requiring-and-producing object that impels researchers into its management, and produces tensions that need to be noticed and skillfully navigated within research relations. We propose located response-ability as a conceptual tool and practice to reposition IP within the relations that make up a transdisciplinary co-design project, as opposed to prioritizing IP by default without recognizing its possible impacts on collaborative relations and other project aims and accountabilities. This can support researchers practicing responsible innovation in making everyday decisions on how to protect potential IP without disrupting the collaborative relations that make the creation of potential IP possible, and the existence of protected IP relevant and beneficial to project collaborators and wider societal actors. This may help to ensure that societal benefits can be generated, and positive science–society relationships prioritized and preserved, in the design of new AgTech. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research needs innovation. As an action-oriented intervention, this Manifesto begins from the authors’ experiences as social scientists working within interdisciplinary science and technology collaborations in agriculture and food. We draw from these experiences to: 1) explain what social scientists contribute to interdisciplinary agri-food tech collaborations; (2) describe barriers to substantive and meaningful collaboration; and (3) propose ways to overcome these barriers. We encourage funding bodies to develop mechanisms that ensure funded projects respect the integrity of social science expertise and (...) incorporate its insights. We also call for the integration of social scientific questions and methods in interdisciplinary projects from the outset, and for a genuine curiosity on the part of STEM and social science researchers alike about the knowledge and skills each of us has to offer. We contend that cultivating such integration and curiosity within interdisciplinary collaborations will make them more enriching for all researchers involved, and more likely to generate socially beneficial outcomes. (shrink)

As the use of AI systems continues to increase, so do concerns over their lack of fairness, legitimacy and accountability. Such harmful automated decision-making can be guarded against by ensuring AI systems are contestable by design: responsive to human intervention throughout the system lifecycle. Contestable AI by design is a small but growing field of research. However, most available knowledge requires a significant amount of translation to be applicable in practice. A proven way of conveying intermediate-level, generative design knowledge is (...) in the form of frameworks. In this article we use qualitative-interpretative methods and visual mapping techniques to extract from the literature sociotechnical features and practices that contribute to contestable AI, and synthesize these into a design framework. (shrink)

If we consider modeling not as a heap of contingent structures, but (where possible) as evolving coordinated systems of models, then we can reasonably explain as "direct representations" even some very complicated model-based cognitive situations. Scientific modeling is not as indirect as it may seem. "Direct theorizing" comes later, as the result of a successful model evolution.

"Ever since the explosion in relationships of power during the 1960s, the humanities have become a battlefield. What had previously been thought of as merely academic concerns have spilled over academic boundaries and attracted the attention of politicians, government officials, members of the media, and, ultimately, the general public. As a way of addressing this turmoil, Karlis Racevskis considers the legacy of the Enlightenment and revaluates modernity's claims for objective knowledge and the traditional model of reason. How relevant, he asks, (...) are the Enlightenment ideals of freedom, democracy, and equality in today's attempts to understand society and gauge the prospects for civilization? What responsibility can or should intellectuals assume in promoting Enlightenment values? What, in the end, constitutes a humanistic education?" "Drawing largely on the work of Foucault, Racevskis elucidates the philosophical and political problems at issue in the debate and the changes taking place in our ways of seeing ourselves and our relations with others. He shows how the theme of enlightenment has been a central component in the conflicts that pit modernists against postmodernists, Marxists against post-Marxists, and liberals against conservatives, and he juxtaposes the arguments in such a way as to place reason and enlightened action in a new perspective. One result of the upheaval, argues Racevskis, is a sense of renewed purpose and intensity in the study of the humanities that constitutes a fundamental reorientation in our ways of understanding society. Viewing the tension between the chaos of current theories and the comfort of traditional values, not with horror but with excitement, he suggests how postmodern criticism can be seen as a dynamic and promising development in the renewal and expansion of the liberal arts." "This wide-ranging book should have general appeal across a broad spectrum of disciplines-among them, literature and the arts, philosophy, social and political theory, and intellectual history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

His paper deals with the concept of Śūnyapuruṣa propounded by Mahima Swami, Bhima Bhoi, and Pañcasakhas. This concept has been compared and contrasted with the concept of quantum reality. It is also contented that comparison with Buddhist conception of reality also may not be apt.

Scholarship flourishes in inclusive environments where open deliberations and generative feedback expand both individual and collective thinking. Many researchers, however, have limited access to such settings, and most conventional academic conferences fall short of promises to provide them. We have written this Field Report to share our methods for cultivating a vibrant intellectual community within the Science and Technology Studies Food and Agriculture Network (STSFAN). This is paired with insights from 21 network members on aspects that have allowed STSFAN to (...) thrive, even amid a global pandemic. Our hope is that these insights will encourage others to cultivate their own intellectual communities, where they too can receive the support they need to deepen their scholarship and strengthen their intellectual relationships. (shrink)

We examined proactive and reactive control effects in the context of task-relevant happy, sad, and angry facial expressions on a face-word Stroop task. Participants identified the emotion expressed by a face that contained a congruent or incongruent emotional word. Proactive control effects were measured in terms of the reduction in Stroop interference as a function of previous trial emotion and previous trial congruence. Reactive control effects were measured in terms of the reduction in Stroop interference as a function of current (...) trial emotion and previous trial congruence. Previous trial negative emotions exert greater influence on proactive control than the positive emotion. Sad faces in the previous trial resulted in greater reduction in the Stroop interference for happy faces in the current trial. However, current trial angry faces showed stronger adaptation effects compared to happy faces. Thus, both proactive and reactive control mechanisms are dependent on emotional valence of task-relevant stimuli. (shrink)

Birçok dini gelenekte mevcut olan mistisizm, Yahudilikte de ‘Kabala’ adı altında öne çıkan bir olgudur. Yahudi geleneğinde tam olarak ne zaman ve nerede ortaya çıktığı hakkında kesin söylemlerde bulunamadığımız bu düşünce sistemi, çeşitli sabitelere sahip olmakla beraber tarihsel süreçte konjonktüre bağlı olarak değişiklik göstermiş dinamik bir yapıyı ifade etmektedir. Bu akımın Yahudilikteki gelişim süreci mercek altına alındığında Orta Çağ, diğer pek çok dini gelenekte olduğu gibi, Yahudi mistisizmi açısından da temayüz eden bir dönem olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Bu hususta araştırmanın da (...) inceleme konusunu teşkil eden Orta Çağ İspanya’sının Yahudi teologlarından Bahya ibn Pakuda’nın (ö. 1120?) önemli mistiklerden biri olduğu görülmektedir. O, mistisizme ilişkin düşüncelerini el-Hidâye ilâ Ferâizi’l-Kulûb eserinde ele almaktadır. Bahsi geçen eserde bedenî ibadet ve eylemlerin yanı sıra kalpteki niyetin de bağlayıcılığını ortaya koyan teolog, ahlak temelli bir din anlayışı formüle etmektedir. Bu minvalde Bahya; kalbin de uyması gereken çeşitli vecibelerin olduğunu; bu vecibeler içerisinde on tanesinin temel kaideleri ifade ettiğini salık vermektedir. Buradan hareketle ibn Pakuda’nın mistik görüşlerinin Tanrı’nın birliği, tefekkür, Tanrı’ya itaat, tevekkül, ihlas, alçakgönüllülük, tövbe, nefis muhasebesi, riyazet ve Tanrı sevgisi prensipleri üzerine inşa edildiği görülmektedir. Bu araştırmada bahsi geçen bu prensipler doğrultusunda Bahya ibn Pakuda’nın mistik teolojisine dair bütüncül bir perspektif sunulması hedeflenmektedir. (shrink)

There has been contemporary disagreement about Aristotle`s substance theory. This disagreement has mainly focused on the problem of whether Aristotelian forms are particular or universal. According to the majority of the criteria which are stipulated by Aristotle in Metaphysics Zeta, forms are substances. However, Aristotle also explicitly outlines in the Zeta, and especially in chapters 13 and 16, that no universal can be a substance. At these points in his work, Aristotle should have been clearer regarding whether forms are universals (...) or particulars. In terms of the conclusion of Chapter 13 of Zeta, as well as some other criteria, one may conclude that, if the substance is form, then it should be particular. There are many instances, however, where Aristotle says that since universals are knowable, particulars cannot be known. It seems that if substances are particulars, it is hard to see how they can be knowable. Furthermore, if they are universal, it is hard to say whether particular forms are substances. Since Aristotle never mentioned whether forms could be both universal and particular, this causes difficulties. To examine this problem in more depth, I will not only analyse some textual evidence which is often used to justify the view that forms are universal, but also some textual evidence which is used to justify the view that forms are particular. In so doing, I will also identify some possible solutions regarding the problem of the status of forms in Aristotle`s substance theory. Lastly, I will suggest that individual forms are substances because they are instances of universals and, hence, may be knowable. I will support my view by employing the neo-Aristotelian substance theory posited by Jonathan Lowe; namely, the “Four-Category Ontology.”. (shrink)

The Iranian government is a theocracy—the only one in the world today. The clergy control all three branches of government. The supreme leader or velayat-e-faqu’ih is also a cleric. In such a political system all legislation and policy making are conducted in accordance with the leaders’ interpretation of Islamic law or Shari’a. In this paper I will examine the extent to which these laws and policies allow the government to intrude into the private sphere of life and intervene in the (...) privacy of individual citizens. I will use specific examples to illustrate my point that since citizens have no control over their government and cannot impact the interpretation of Shari’a, their private sphere is always threatened by government action. (shrink)

This comparative study juxtaposes two celebrated medieval examples of negative speech, apophasis, and theorizes the languages of unsaying in the great medieval thinkers, Maimonides (d.1204) and Ibn ‘Arabī (d.1240). The paper coins a distinction between ‘asymmetrical’ versus ‘symmetrical’ approaches to language as a heuristic to analyze the two philosophical apophatic accounts comparatively. While apophatic thinkers in Neoplatonic traditions generally oscillate between these two poles in their various apophatic moments, the paper argues that Maimonides and Ibn ‘Arabī represented the climax of (...) these two non-linear poles in a visible tension and conversant with each other. I frame philosophical apophasis in the medieval Islamic lands in terms of the problem of God’s transcendence versus imminence. Maimonides celebrates apophasis and claims that negative speech, asymptotically approaching silence, is the only genuine praise to God. As an uncompromising exponent of absolute transcendence, and a severe critic of those who ascribe attributes to God, he privileges apophasis to kataphasis; he presents negative speech as a medium of purification and spiritual progress. Ibn ‘Arabī, on the other hand, is critical of this widespread asymmetry, and defends the gathering together of transcendence and imminence for human perfection. His intricate theory of transcendence and imminence appeals to a dialectical logic, explaining why kataphasis and apophasis are symmetrical in front of the Absolute. The productive tension between two apophatic minds challenges Hegelian habits of reading the history of thought, as well as various scholarly prejudices about medieval intellectual landscapes. (shrink)