IMPROVE - Innovative Modelling Approaches for Production Systems to Raise Validatable Efficiency

This open access work presents selected results from the European research and innovation project IMPROVE which yielded novel data-based solutions to enhance machine reliability and efficiency in the fields of simulation and optimization, condition monitoring, alarm management, and quality prediction

Nanotechnology: public engagement with health, environment and social issues

This EPA STRIVE research fellowship report presents a literature review and fieldwork data for a project that investigated how the topic of nanotechnology can be engaged with by both experts on the topic and nonexperts. The first objective was to map out what can be said about knowledge of nanotechnology in contemporary Ireland. All perspectives on nanotechnology were taken on board, analysed and synthesised, including deviations from the accepted truths about nanotechnology. While perspectives on environmental and health implications were of particular interest, they were not the primary focus in discussions, unless raised by participants and commentators. Methods used for this study included an awareness survey and media and document analyses. The second objective was to pilot a series of nanotechnology communication events, which would provide the basis of a future communications/ consultation strategy for policy-makers. The types of activities used in these events included focus groups, a ‘citizens’ jury’, online forums and an installation in the Science Gallery in Dublin. The contributions from these activities also added to the first objective of addressing nanotechnology knowledge. The third and final objective was to report to the EPA, in order to aid future environmental research associated with public communication and wider science communication and technology assessment policy by the Irish government. The following was concluded from this project: • Scientists were the most prominent voices in public discourse about nanotechnology, but mostly in the context of commercial exploitation and innovation. • Environment and health risks and benefits were tied to social and ethical considerations very closely and participants in public engagement activities were at least as concerned about governance and equity issues (in terms of how nanotechnology is controlled) as they were about the environmental and health implication • Scientists were the most prominent voices in public discourse about nanotechnology, but mostly in the context of commercial exploitation and innovation. • Environment and health risks and benefits were tied to social and ethical considerations very closely and participants in public engagement activities were at least as concerned about governance and equity issues (in terms of how nanotechnology is controlled) as they were about the environmental and health implication • Where nanotechnology was described in the media, it tended to be either framed in commercial terms, or in basic, scientific, didactic terms for education and outreach, for example, ‘nanotechnology is …’ Both representations reduce the chances for nanotechnology risks, of any kind, to be discussed, and are at odds with policy measures of nanotechnology public engagement in other countries. • Dialogicality (expressing multiple voices and views on a topic) was weak in many official nanotechnology texts, new media approaches provided more opportunities for dialogue. • The concept of nanotechnology as an ‘entity’ was important – for young participants in particular. • Levels of attendance at public engagement events were low for the open-invitation focus group and the citizens’ jury pilot especially. The following recommendations are made: • Establish a Convergence Technologies Forum; • Ensure that dialogue initiatives are included for future nanotechnology; • Use all communication channels, including new Web 2.0 media; • Learn from the public engagement mistakes of other emerging technology debates, such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs); • Link to global networks already involved in nanotechnology and emerging technology public engagement; • Include social sustainability as a criterion in future EPA- and exchequer-funded research and technology assessment. Even though there is little media or public interest, Nano-Innovation discourses are growing. In any future campaign for nanotechnology, media exposure and public relations require considerable investment. In other countries, dialogue is considered as important as promoting the technology itself. This report offers a ‘menu’ of dialogue models for policy-makers to address the many objectives of nanotechnology strategy, from less dialogic information transfer to public-led dialogue and the public imagining of a future with nanotechnology. If only some of the predictions are accurate, nanotechnology will have many social implications. Much work is necessary to ensure nanotechnology public engagement is taken seriously in Ireland if the technology is an economic priority, or indeed if it has some bearing on progress in health, environment and technology. This report confirms what is found in international studies of science and society – public engagement needs to be about what can be accepted, not what can be sold. This report recommends that, for a more inclusive approach to nanotechnology knowledge – and to avoid another ‘GM scenario’ – dialogue must form the basis of the communication strategy with embedded ‘triple bottom line’ values, that is, where society and environment are given the same level of importance currently granted to the economy

2022-2023 Graduate School Catalog

Graduate students from more than 67 counties are providing outstanding leadership during the pandemic, as they conduct vital research to inform public health, contribute to the greater good, and stimulate the economy. Their scholarship spans 140 programs - from biomedical engineering to business administration, from history to horticulture, and from marine sciences to music performance

Constructing climate risk: how finance governs its relationship with the planet’s climate

This thesis is driven by the question of how finance governs its relationship with the planet’s climate. Structuring this emergent governance experiment is a new type of risk: climate risk. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this thesis problematises climate risk by tracing its construction. Theoretically, the thesis advances debates around the potentials and limits of ANT in the context of financial governance. It goes beyond ANT by formulating a wider conceptual approach to climate risk. Empirically, this research uncovers the genesis of a governance tool pivotal to the construction of climate risk: the disclosure framework developed by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The first paper traces the translation of climate risk from a contested claim into a fact leading to the creation of the TCFD. Novel to the literature, it foregrounds the critical role of face-to-face contact and proposes an extension of ANT’s conception of materiality to account for human interaction. The second paper follows the development of the TCFD’s global disclosure framework. Tracing shifting conflict lines, it draws into question conceptions of industry interest representation and argues for the need to take individuals’ personal interests seriously. The third paper focuses on one of the TCFD’s key recommendations: the conduct of climate scenario analysis. Advancing literatures on the modelling and imagination of futures, the paper argues that the process of designing global reference scenarios produced exclusionary imperatives. These imperatives constrain both the imagination of climate and financial catastrophes, and solution pathways. The final paper contextualises the thesis by proposing an integrative research agenda anchored in the Callonian concept of economization and thus calling for a sociology of climate risk. The thesis as a whole provides a forensic interrogation of the socio-technical politics of defining climate risk. Furthermore, it illuminates the limits and potentials of the climate risk frame and thus of finance’s role in the Anthropocene

Scottish Archaeological Research Framework: Future Thinking on Carved Stones

No abstract available

Unwrapping DIY enquiry: The study of 'enquiry' in DIY practice at individual, community & place levels

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enquiry represents ownership over learning and action: figuring things out by oneself, experimenting, and questioning the state of things to find potential solutions to local concerns. It is an identifiable collective behaviour of self-reliance exhibited throughout our history but in the digital age and in societies with increasing levels of education, the way DIY practice unfolds is little understood. Traditional studies on public engagement in science and technology and perspectives on production of knowledge and technology have focused primarily on institutionally mediated methods of public participation and the validity of public contributions to established fields. This thesis research makes empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions: using a multi-method approach and grounded theory for qualitative data analysis to explore DIY enquiry in practice, community, and place. The three in-depth case studies explore the nature of the production of knowledge, the role of technologies, and the barriers and opportunities to public engagement in DIY enquiry. Participant observation of a community of DIY practice reveals its inner processes, interactions, and framings of science and technology and how DIY practice is performed through DIY tool use and development. The design and facilitation of a DIY workshop series demonstrates the initial stages of engagement in DIY enquiry and reveals that barriers and opportunities to engagement are mediated by frame of mind, setting, facilitation, and interactions. The observation of place-based citizen initiatives of DIY enquiry reveals its range of interconnected actions: development of techniques and strategies for tool development, data interpretation, and leveraging of knowledge and stance for advocacy. Together the cases reveal the transformative power of DIY enquiry, how it builds knowledge, culture, and identity and that engagement requires curiosity, courage, commitment, and foundational competencies. They also reveal an inherent tension between DIY enquiry framed as a means (seeking collective/organised actionable goals) and as an end (enabling personal empowerment). This research facilitates a better understanding of the democratic potential of public engagement in science in our time but it also promotes the leveraging of knowledge production between professional/institutional science and civil society

7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21)

Information and communication technologies together with new teaching paradigms are reshaping the learning environment.The International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd) aims to become a forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange ideas, experiences,opinions and research results relating to the preparation of students and the organization of educational systems.Doménech I De Soria, J.; Merello Giménez, P.; Poza Plaza, EDL. (2021). 7th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'21). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD21.2021.13621EDITORIA