Ethical Problems in Evaluation Research

For some time, social scientists have been concerned with ethics in research. Much of what they have written has focused on research in general, but many of the points they raise are applicable to evaluation research in particular. Included among these concerns are informed consent, the right to treatment, the right to refuse treatment, implicit coercion, powerlessness of subjects, and, perhaps most important, external access to confidential data

Methodical Problems in Organic Farming Research

Workshop presentation with particular focus on values, transferability and praxis relevance of organic farming research. Examples from agricultural engineering lead to the conclusion, that prototype farming, goal oriented project management, participative decision making and funding, coaching of co-operation, and coaching of conflict management may enhance long term, holistic and interdisciplinary research

Research of Environmental Problems in Industrial Cities

The current state of the environmental situation requires attention, particularly in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The concentration of industrial facilities in the region exceeds the average for Ukraine more than twice

Critique [of Ethical Problems in Evaluation Research]

“Ethical Problems in Evaluation Research” by Elisabeth J. Johnson summarizes some of the salient ethical concerns in social science research such as the relative positions of power between researcher and subject, confidentiality and privacy, and “political interests” or the use of research findings by sponsors. The author concludes with proposals and cautions; of special relevance to readers of this journal is Kelman’s “participatory research” which enables people being studied to participate in the research design and implementation

Research assessment in the humanities: problems and challenges

Research assessment is going to play a new role in the governance of universities and research institutions. Evaluation of results is evolving from a simple tool for resource allocation towards policy design. In this respect "measuring" implies a different approach to quantitative aspects as well as to an estimation of qualitative criteria that are difficult to define. Bibliometrics became so popular, in spite of its limits, just offering a simple solution to complex problems. The theory behind it is not so robust but available results confirm this method as a reasonable trade off between costs and benefits. Indeed there are some fields of science where quantitative indicators are very difficult to apply due to the lack of databases and data, in few words the credibility of existing information. Humanities and social sciences (HSS) need a coherent methodology to assess research outputs but current projects are not very convincing. The possibility of creating a shared ranking of journals by the value of their contents at either institutional, national or European level is not enough as it is raising the same bias as in the hard sciences and it does not solve the problem of the various types of outputs and the different, much longer time of creation and dissemination. The web (and web 2.0) represents a revolution in the communication of research results mainly in the HSS, and also their evaluation has to take into account this change. Furthermore, the increase of open access initiatives (green and gold road) offers a large quantity of transparent, verifiable data structured according to international standards that allow comparability beyond national limits and above all is independent from commercial agents. The pilot scheme carried out at the university of Milan for the Faculty of Humanities demonstrated that it is possible to build quantitative, on average more robust indicators, that could provide a proxy of research production and productiivity even in the HSS

Space solar cell research: Problems and potential

The value of a passive, maintenance-free, renewable energy source was apparent in the early days of the space program, and the silicon solar cell was pressed into service. Efficiencies of those early space solar arrays were low, and lifetimes shorter than hoped for, but within a decade significant advances had been made in both areas. Better performance was achieved through improvements in silicon single crystal material, better device designs, and a better understanding of the factors that affect the performance of a solar cell in space. Chief among the latter, particularly for the mid-to-high altitude (HEO) and geosynchronous (GEO) orbits, are the effects of the naturally occurring particulate radiation environment. Although not as broadly important to the photovoltaic community at large as increased efficiency, the topic of radiation damage is critically important to use of solar cells in space, and is a major component of the NASA research program in space photovoltaics. A brief overview of some of the opportunities and challenges for space photovoltaic applications is given, and some of the current research directed at achieving high efficiency and controlling radiation damage in space solar cells is discussed