4,253 research outputs found

    Researching animal research: What the humanities and social sciences can contribute to laboratory animal science and welfare

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    Every year around 80 million scientific procedures are carried out on animals globally. These experiments have the potential to generate new understandings of biology and clinical treatments. They also give rise to ongoing societal debate.This book demonstrates how the humanities and social sciences can contribute to understanding what is created through animal procedures - including constitutional forms of research governance, different institutional cultures of care, the professional careers of scientists and veterinarians, collaborations with patients and publics, and research animals, specially bred for experiments or surplus to requirements.Developing the idea of the animal research nexus, this book explores how connections and disconnections are made between these different elements, how these have reshaped each other historically, and how they configure the current practice and policy of UK animal research

    Complementarity: Ensuring that Contracts Are Compatible with Collaborative Relationships

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    AbstractContracts, with their focus on safeguarding a firm’s interests, traditionally, have been considered to be incompatible with collaborative relationships. This chapter explains the basis for this incompatibility and considers how it may be resolved. The key to ensuring that contracts complement collaboration is in the way the coordination function of contracts is aligned with mutuality and consequent trust development. Even dysfunctional relationships may then be repaired.</jats:p

    Curating after world music: Contemporary and experimental practices between Lebanon and Germany

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    Combining ethnographic research and curatorial practice, this thesis is looking at the social and cultural implications of collaborations in the independent performing arts sector across Lebanon and Germany. The project aims to find out how musicians in emerging cross-border networks produce, showcase and experience experimental music in places that facilitate and amplify affective encounters between artists, researchers, administrators, and curators with shared beliefs and value systems marked by an antagonism against narrational strategies of world music productions at European festival sites. Outlining the impact of MultiKulti narratives and world music curation in Berlin since the 1980s and 1990s specifically, I will outline how performative inclusivity, ethics of care, and anti-world music sentiments at German festival sites feed into the affective dimensions of these multidisciplinary networks as well as the content which producers choose to distribute into the public realm. Focusing specifically on trust, shared vulnerability, and uncertainty in collaborative music projects in the cities of Beirut, Berlin and Mannheim, my research aims to shed light on the significant role of location- and friendship-based networks that increasingly establish institutional structures outside of white dominated cultural institutions with a history of world music marketing in Germany. This entails looking at three specific institutional structures, including the Planet Ears festival (Mannheim), the Irtijal festival (Beirut) and associated grassroots organisations and artist-led collectives in Beirut, and Morphine Raum in Berlin. In analysing the sonic profile, aesthetic choices, and the social dynamics within experimenting collectives, this project will demonstrate how networks of collaborating musicians, performance artists, administrators and curators navigate and initiate changing possibilities of instituting experimental music across Germany and Lebanon. I argue that this development is due to adapting cultural policy frameworks, a close social proximity of policy workers and diasporic musicians, and the aims of funding the independent performing art scene based on general turn towards performing anti-racist practises and diversity sensitive curation in Germany specifically

    Forum Selling and Forum Marketing in International Commercial Disputes

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    In recent years, international commercial courts are mushrooming across the world. Examples include the Netherlands Commercial Court or the Singapore International Commercial Court. These courts are national courts specializing in cross-border, commercial disputes. Their multiple innovative features, such as the use of English as the court language or the appointment of foreign nationality judges, distinguish them from ordinary courts and have attracted the attention of academic literature. In addition, commentators have noted that, unlike ordinary courts, international commercial courts are part of broader state policies to attract foreign investment or dispute resolution and therefore aim at attracting cases. However, little is known on how this aim is actually shaping the courts’ practices, rules and case law. This research studies international commercial courts from a novel perspective; that of forum marketing and forum selling. It explores why and how exactly international commercial courts are engaging in forum selling and forum marketing. Drawing from interviews with lawyers and judges, the study of case law as well as academic literature it presents a comparative analysis of how different international commercial courts make themselves more attractive to prospective litigants and identifies forum marketing and forum selling practices. Finally, the research explores how forum marketing and forum selling reshape civil procedure and their implications on access to justice. While acknowledging that international commercial courts may improve international commercial dispute resolution, it highlights that under circumstances the courts’ practices may have negative implications with regard to access to justice and the role of courts as public institutions.<br/

    Exploring the perspectives of academic and senior management staff on the influence of global university rankings in the higher education context of Kazakhstan

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    Global university rankings (GURs) have gained popularity and practical importance in the last few decades as they are used as a proxy indicator of a university's reputation and quality by different stakeholders including governments, funders, and students. Deepening globalisation processes, competition between national university systems and demand for public organisations to be accountable and efficient have enhanced the role of GURs in higher education (HE). Although GURs are exposed to numerous critiques, including methodological limitations, they satisfy a demand for information about the quality of HE by making comparative assessments of thousands of universities globally and are becoming influential in decision-making pertaining to HE reforms and policymaking. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are eager to participate in GURs in building their global brand visibility and reputation, and in recruiting potential students.The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of academic and senior management staff on the impact of GURs at a public university, one of the leading universities of Kazakhstan in major GURs. This study adopted a qualitative exploratory design that included interviews (N = 17) with academic and senior management staff. Institutional theory and a theory of academic imperialism guided the study and provided useful perspectives in explaining the behaviour of HEIs in response to GURs as well as the growinghegemony of GURs in HE, especially in developing countries.The findings suggest that participation in GURs has led to profound changes in the sampled university, especially in terms of the prioritisation of the research performance of HEIs. In particular, this study reveals that GURs play a significant role in Kazakhstan’s HEIs strategies to regulate research activities through accountability and incentivisation policies. The findings indicate that the university focused on improving its ranking position through pressure to publish and via performance-based incentives. However, these measures did not result inimproved research performance. The findings also revealed barriers to enhanced research performance, including limited English language proficiency, a tension between teaching and research, and insufficient funding of research. A major finding is that academics at the university under study employed various gaming techniques such as gift authorship, publishing in predatory journals and exploiting methodological limitations of GURs in order to raise “an impression” of research productivity. Institutional data indicated that HEIs in Kazakhstan mainly improved their ranking position through reputational indicators and the Faculty Student Ratio indicator while citation indicators, which could reflect research productivity, are consistently low across all HEIs. This study makes a timely contribution to understanding the impact of GURs on HEIs of Kazakhstan as a country with ambitious plans for developing its HE sector.<br/

    Multidisciplinary perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and the law

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    This open access book presents an interdisciplinary, multi-authored, edited collection of chapters on Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and the Law. AI technology has come to play a central role in the modern data economy. Through a combination of increased computing power, the growing availability of data and the advancement of algorithms, AI has now become an umbrella term for some of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of this age. The importance of AI stems from both the opportunities that it offers and the challenges that it entails. While AI applications hold the promise of economic growth and efficiency gains, they also create significant risks and uncertainty. The potential and perils of AI have thus come to dominate modern discussions of technology and ethics – and although AI was initially allowed to largely develop without guidelines or rules, few would deny that the law is set to play a fundamental role in shaping the future of AI. As the debate over AI is far from over, the need for rigorous analysis has never been greater. This book thus brings together contributors from different fields and backgrounds to explore how the law might provide answers to some of the most pressing questions raised by AI. An outcome of the Católica Research Centre for the Future of Law and its interdisciplinary working group on Law and Artificial Intelligence, it includes contributions by leading scholars in the fields of technology, ethics and the law.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    Instructional Rounds and Teacher Social/Emotional Wellbeing : Investigating the Regenerative Potential of Peer Observation

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    This study focused on the regenerative potential of peer observation in a post-pandemic educational climate. Teachers shared that the culture of the profession was drastically changed during and after the pandemic partly due to the restrictions put in place that prevented colleague relationships from beginning or continuing and partly due to the negative public perception of teachers. As a result, this study aimed to discern how peer observation and modified instructional round practices might affect teachers’ social/emotional wellbeing. Through interviews, rounds, and focus group meetings, teachers were willing to share their vulnerabilities around their feelings of loneliness and their yearning for more professional collaboration. The instructional rounds process ultimately led teacher participants to gain new instructional practices and to interact with their colleagues more frequently. This combination contributed to the increased teacher morale found in the data analysis. Implications for this study involve adjustments in teacher education programs, administrative and state policies, teacher voice in professional development, and potential future research focusing on teacher morale

    A scramble for value:On the interpretation and application of value-based health care in the Netherlands

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    In many health care systems across the globe, value-based health care has quickly become a remarkably popular concept. Yet, despite its global popularity, the meaning of the concept remains shrouded in ambiguity, and efforts to put value-based health care into practice are characterized by a high degree of local variability. This makes it rather challenging to grasp the essence of this seemingly influential concept, let alone evaluate its effects within health care systems. A Scramble for Value addresses that challenge.The thesis traces the journey of value-based health care from its original conception by Harvard business scholar Michael Porter to its global popularity, and zooms in on its interpretation and application in the Netherlands. As the original set of ideas runs into the historically rooted institutions of the Dutch health care system, the meaning of value-based health care gets moderated, and its application conforms to the very structures it once so boldly set out to reform. It is by overlaying rather than overthrowing those traditional structures that value-based health care has ignited a renewed focus on outcomes that matter to patients, and amplified multidisciplinary efforts to improve those outcomes. All in all, this can be seen as quite an accomplishment..<br/

    Protecting Privacy in Indian Schools: Regulating AI-based Technologies' Design, Development and Deployment

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    Education is one of the priority areas for the Indian government, where Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies are touted to bring digital transformation. Several Indian states have also started deploying facial recognition-enabled CCTV cameras, emotion recognition technologies, fingerprint scanners, and Radio frequency identification tags in their schools to provide personalised recommendations, ensure student security, and predict the drop-out rate of students but also provide 360-degree information of a student. Further, Integrating Aadhaar (digital identity card that works on biometric data) across AI technologies and learning and management systems (LMS) renders schools a ‘panopticon’. Certain technologies or systems like Aadhaar, CCTV cameras, GPS Systems, RFID tags, and learning management systems are used primarily for continuous data collection, storage, and retention purposes. Though they cannot be termed AI technologies per se, they are fundamental for designing and developing AI systems like facial, fingerprint, and emotion recognition technologies. The large amount of student data collected speedily through the former technologies is used to create an algorithm for the latter-stated AI systems. Once algorithms are processed using machine learning (ML) techniques, they learn correlations between multiple datasets predicting each student’s identity, decisions, grades, learning growth, tendency to drop out, and other behavioural characteristics. Such autonomous and repetitive collection, processing, storage, and retention of student data without effective data protection legislation endangers student privacy. The algorithmic predictions by AI technologies are an avatar of the data fed into the system. An AI technology is as good as the person collecting the data, processing it for a relevant and valuable output, and regularly evaluating the inputs going inside an AI model. An AI model can produce inaccurate predictions if the person overlooks any relevant data. However, the state, school administrations and parents’ belief in AI technologies as a panacea to student security and educational development overlooks the context in which ‘data practices’ are conducted. A right to privacy in an AI age is inextricably connected to data practices where data gets ‘cooked’. Thus, data protection legislation operating without understanding and regulating such data practices will remain ineffective in safeguarding privacy. The thesis undergoes interdisciplinary research that enables a better understanding of the interplay of data practices of AI technologies with social practices of an Indian school, which the present Indian data protection legislation overlooks, endangering students’ privacy from designing and developing to deploying stages of an AI model. The thesis recommends the Indian legislature frame better legislation equipped for the AI/ML age and the Indian judiciary on evaluating the legality and reasonability of designing, developing, and deploying such technologies in schools
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