Recent writings on Robert K Merton : a listing and some observations

Abstract: Death and the advent of a variety of anniversaries are occasions when a discipline reflects on the accomplishments of its members, propounded by host universities, scholarly associations, focused conferences, journals, as well as the more normal course of the unfolding of a scholar’s influence. The paper attempts to assemble Robert K Merton’s posthumous publications together with the array of works directly relating to his body of sociological work. While it might be expected that particular themes would continue and this indeed occurs, there is also a wide range of attention to a large variety of Merton’s work, including the launching of his emergent inte4rest in sociological semantics. The assemblage of material suggests that Merton’s work will continue to play an important role in inspiring sociological research

The inhibiting factors that principal investigators experience in leading publicly funded research

Securing public funding to conduct research and leading it by being a principal investigator (PI) is seen as significant career development step. Such a role brings professional prestige but also new responsibilities beyond research leadership to research management. If public funding brings financial and infrastructure support, little is understood about the inhibiting factors that publicly funded PIs face given the research autonomy offered by publicly funded research. Our study finds that there are three key PI inhibiting factors (1) political and environmental, (2) institutional and (3) project based. Traditional knowledge, skills and technical know-how of publicly funded PIs are insufficient to deal with the increasing managerial demands and expectations i.e. growing external bureaucracy of public funding agencies. Public funding is no longer the 'freest form of support' as suggested by Chubin and Hackett (Peerless science: peer review and US science policy. Suny Press, New York, 1990) and the inhibiting factors experienced by publicly funded PIs limits their research autonomy. We also argue that PIs have little influence in overcoming these inhibiting factors despite their central role in conducting publicly funded research

Urban Squatting: An Adaptive Response to the Housing Crisis

From introduction: Urban squatting is the unauthorized occupation of empty buildings. Squatting is usually thought to be a Third World phenomenon associated with urbanization, poverty, and rural-urban migration. However, there is a history of squatting in the US and Europe as well. Squatting has been reported in New York, San Francisco, Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Since World War II and particularly in the last thirty years, urban squatting has received much attention in Europe. The major European centers for squatting have been London, Amsterdam, and Berlin.\u27 In Britain, the squatting of buildings scheduled for renovation or demolition became an organized and public movement. In the United States, squatting is a criminal offense and has not been widely publicized. Squatting has a dual purpose. It can provide immediate shelter while being a political tactic to draw attention to neighborhood neglect, the lack of available and affordable. low-cost housing, the dwindling stock of housing, and homelessness. This direct-action technique serves to empower its participants who are usually people disempowered through their participation in the housing system. Squatting has a long history in the United States. It was a common form of tenure during the pioneer and settler days of this country. The homesteading acts of the nineteenth century institutionalized it. Since then we have had different terms for the same actions. Whereas homesteading is a legal and institutionalized means of taking over and rehabilitating an abandoned building, squatting is not. Squatting is most common during periods of economic recession or depression. During the Great Depression, many squats or shantytowns appeared in towns all over the country. These Hoovervilles protested the lack of government response to the financial crisis. Additionally, they were organized and focused on mutual aid

Urban Squatting: An Adaptive Response to the Housing Crisis

From introduction: Urban squatting is the unauthorized occupation of empty buildings. Squatting is usually thought to be a Third World phenomenon associated with urbanization, poverty, and rural-urban migration. However, there is a history of squatting in the US and Europe as well. Squatting has been reported in New York, San Francisco, Newark, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Since World War II and particularly in the last thirty years, urban squatting has received much attention in Europe. The major European centers for squatting have been London, Amsterdam, and Berlin.\u27 In Britain, the squatting of buildings scheduled for renovation or demolition became an organized and public movement. In the United States, squatting is a criminal offense and has not been widely publicized. Squatting has a dual purpose. It can provide immediate shelter while being a political tactic to draw attention to neighborhood neglect, the lack of available and affordable. low-cost housing, the dwindling stock of housing, and homelessness. This direct-action technique serves to empower its participants who are usually people disempowered through their participation in the housing system. Squatting has a long history in the United States. It was a common form of tenure during the pioneer and settler days of this country. The homesteading acts of the nineteenth century institutionalized it. Since then we have had different terms for the same actions. Whereas homesteading is a legal and institutionalized means of taking over and rehabilitating an abandoned building, squatting is not. Squatting is most common during periods of economic recession or depression. During the Great Depression, many squats or shantytowns appeared in towns all over the country. These Hoovervilles protested the lack of government response to the financial crisis. Additionally, they were organized and focused on mutual aid

Order Without Intellectual Property Law: Open Science in Influenza

Today, intellectual property (IP) scholars accept that IP as an approach to information production has serious limits. But what lies beyond IP? A new literature on intellectual production without IP (or IP without IP ) has emerged to explore this question, but its examples and explanations have yet to convince skeptics. This Article reorients this new literature via a study of a hard case: a global influenza virus-sharing network that has for decades produced critically important information goods, at significant expense, and in a loose-knit group-all without recourse to IP. I analyze the Network as an example of open science, a mode of information production that differs strikingly from conventional IP, and yet that successfully produces important scientific goods in response to social need. The theory and example developed here refute the most powerful criticisms of the emerging IP without IP literature, and provide a stronger foundation for this important new field. Even where capital costs are high, creation without IP can be reasonably effective in social terms, If it can link sources of funding to reputational and evaluative feedback loops like those that characterize open science. It can also be sustained over time, even by loose-knit groups and where the stakes are high, because organizations and other forms of law can help to stabilize cooperation. I also show that contract law is well suited to modes of information production that rely upon a supply side rather than demand side model. In its most important instances, order without IP is not order without governance, nor order without law. Recognizing this can help us better ground this new field, and better study and support forms of knowledge production that deserve our attention, and that sometimes sustain our very lives

Young scientists and their work

The idea that academically trained scientists have difficulty in adjusting to the demands of industrial employment is a commonplace both in sociological literature and public debate. Sociologists, following the influential work of Robert Merton, have developed the theory that scientists are socialised at university into a set of values — the 'ethos of science'. These stress the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and are held to conflict with the utilitarian and competitive values of industry. As research has accumulated, the evidence for this value conflict had become increasingly sparse. Recent studies of B.Sc. graduates, in particular, have led to a radical questioning of this picture of the effects of scientific education. Nevertheless, overall, the evidence is not clear cut. The possibility remains that value conflict would be observed if studies were confined to Ph.D. scientists, because of their more prolonged exposure to the 'ethos of science'. Hence the present study. It was in two stages. At stage one, 357 final year Ph.D. students in 34 different university departments of physics and chemistry returned a questionnaire on their attitudes to science and industry and their own employment preferences. A subsample of 25 of these were also interviewed. At stage two, 40 of the scientists who took industrial jobs were interviewed at length. The details of their jobs and their locations in the country varied widely, but they had all been at work for about one year. The results ran totally counter to the 'value conflict' theory. Detailed examination of the second stage interviews showed that the scientists were not attached to the 'ethos of pure science' and did not experience value conflicts. Instead they completely accepted industrial norms. They were eager to make a useful contribution to industry and took for granted its pragmatic, commercial and utilitarian values. Not only did they have the right values for industry, they also seemed to have the right skills. Their descriptions of their work and its relation to their Ph.D. research suggested that their training had endowed them with appropriate problem solving skills, which they were capable of deploying independently and flexibly. The evidence from the first stage questionnaires indicated that these industrial scientists had not been attached to the 'ethos of science' even while at university and hence had not had to change their values on entering industry. This raised the question of whether they were an especially industrially orientated group. Had they perhaps resisted or rejected the 'ethos of pure science' ? The answer was negative. Comparison with the eventual academics showed that the two groups were very similar in all respects except their personal career preferences. Eventual academics were no more attached to the 'ethos of science' than the industrialists. The two main conclusions of the study are thus: (l) that the gap in the evidence against Merton's value conflict thesis can now he closed; and (2) that scientific training is best seen as the transmission of cognitive factors rather than values. These are of two kinds: (a) the skills and knowledge of the scientist's trade; and (b) a 'cognitive map' of his social environment with a sense of the behaviour that is appropriate in different places. Insofar as values enter at all, the picture is the reverse of Merton's. The dominant values of industrial scientists are everyday utilitarian ones and these remain intact throughout academic training. Value conflict is possibly more of a danger for those who stay in academic life than for those who go into industry

An application of an option pricing model to evaluate the cost of a government loan guarantee : an hypothetical case based on Eskom

Bibliography: pages 78-81.In the late 1930s, the Great Depression and its consequences led to the U.S federal government's intervention in credit assistance and insurance programmes. The main reason for this intervention was that there was a general desire to rescue individuals and businesses which were unable to repay their debts when due. Considerable debate has focused on the determination of the magnitude of the government liabilities resulting from guaranteed loan re-payments. Today, most nations, including South Africa, employ such government guarantees, but they are often improperly valued; that is, one has no idea whether such guarantees are 'good ' or 'bad' policy tools. This paper illustrates how Put option pricing models may be used to estimate the 'real' cost to the South African government of a loan guarantee to Eskom, which is investing a large hydroelectric project in Mozambique, hypothetically assuming that Eskom has been privatized. While the paper recognises the importance of the insurance premium which could be charged by the government for its loan guarantee, the results under the hypothetical case show that the Eskom is able to readily repay the promised payment and, thus, the loan guarantee provides value to Eskom's owners. In this regard, one can argue that parties involved in such a project, such as the South African government, Eskom and the European agencies may benefit from the loan guarantee programme. Thus, a loan guarantee programme may be seen as a 'good' policy tool to resolve conflicts between lenders and borrowers, to encourage investment and to meet a broader public interest