54,944 research outputs found
Toward Multi-Level, Multi-Theoretical Model Portfolios for Scientific Enterprise Workforce Dynamics
Development of theoretically sound methods and strategies for informed science and innovation policy analysis is critically important to each nation's ability to benefit from R&D investments. Gaining deeper insight into complex social processes that influence the growth and formation of scientific fields and development over time of a diverse workforce requires a systemic and holistic view. A research agenda for the development of rigorous complex adaptive systems models is examined to facilitate the study of incentives, strategies, mobility, and stability of the science-based innovation ecosystem, while examining implications for the sustainability of a diverse science enterprise.Agent-Based Model, Complexity, Innovation, Science Studies, Diversity
From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design
As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain
"ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in
socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a
network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run
all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback
and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the
reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying
models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy
decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of
Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but
they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of
society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The
results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into
informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis
Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources,
environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected
with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make
complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and
the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c
Emerging Search Regimes: Measuring Co-evolutions among Research, Science, and Society
Scientometric data is used to investigate empirically the emergence of search
regimes in Biotechnology, Genomics, and Nanotechnology. Complex regimes can
emerge when three independent sources of variance interact. In our model,
researchers can be considered as the nodes that carry the science system.
Research is geographically situated with site-specific skills, tacit knowledge
and infrastructures. Second, the emergent science level refers to the formal
communication of codified knowledge published in journals. Third, the
socio-economic dynamics indicate the ways in which knowledge production relates
to society. Although Biotechnology, Genomics, and Nanotechnology can all be
characterised by rapid growth and divergent dynamics, the regimes differ in
terms of self-organization among these three sources of variance. The scope of
opportunities for researchers to contribute within the constraints of the
existing body of knowledge are different in each field. Furthermore, the
relevance of the context of application contributes to the knowledge dynamics
to various degrees
The Economics & Psychology of Inequality and Human Development
Recent research on the economics of human development deepens under- standing of the origins of inequality and excellence. It draws on and contributes to personality psychology and the psychology of human development. Inequal- ities in family environments and investments in children are substantial. They causally aect the development of capabilities. Both cognitive and noncognitive capabilities determine success in life but to varying degrees for dierent out- comes. An empirically determined technology of capability formation reveals that capabilities are self-productive and cross-fertilizing and can be enhanced by investment. Investments in capabilities are relatively more productive at some stages of a child's life cycle than others. Optimal child investment strategies dier depending on target outcomes of interest and on the nature of adversity in a child's early years. For some congurations of early disadvantage and for some desired outcomes, it is ecient to invest relatively more in the later years of childhood than in the early years.inequality, capabilities, noncognitive traits, human development, technology of capability formation, policy targeting
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Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL
Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N
Endogenous space in the Net era
Libre Software communities are among the most interesting and advanced socio-economic laboratories on the Net. In terms of directions of Regional Science research, this paper addresses a simple question: “Is the socio-economics of digital nets out of scope for Regional Science, or might the latter expand to a cybergeography of digitally enhanced territories ?” As for most simple questions, answers are neither so obvious nor easy. The authors start drafting one in a positive sense, focussing upon a file rouge running across the paper: endogenous spaces woven by socio-economic processes. The drafted answer declines on an Evolutionary Location Theory formulation, together with two computational modelling views. Keywords: Complex networks, Computational modelling, Economics of Internet, Endogenous spaces, Evolutionary location theory, Free or Libre Software, Path dependence, Positionality.
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Pulling all the pedagogic pieces together to provide good electronic feedback: an example from science education
The aim of Nefreduca project was to develop digital science materials for chronically ill children and to assist them to cope more rationally with their illness. The Nefreduca system was developed in 2 stages.The first was a teaching-learning sequence about nutrition and kidney function, which was tested with the students and their teachers from the hospital school. The second phase was the construction of an automatic feedback system for Nefreduca. This paper reports the findings from both phases and makes the case that good feedback models must build upon on a good learning design that addresses students' misconceptions and introduces well structured e-activitie
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