From a fossil-fuel to a biobased economy : the politics of industrial biotechnology

Industrial biotechnology involves the replacement of petrochemical processes and inputs with more energy-efficient and renewable biological ones. It is already being used in the production of biofuels and bioplastics and has been touted as a means by which modern economies can be shifted toward a more competitive, low-carbon growth model. This paper does two things. First, it outlines the policy framework established in the European Union and the narrative of a knowledge-based bioeconomy (KBBE) underpinning this. Second, it argues that the ‘win – win’ rhetoric contained within the KBBE narrative is misleading. Among the different groups commenting on the use of industrial biotechnology, the paper locates cleavages between farmers and agribusiness, between those convinced and those sceptical of environmental technofixes, and between procorporate and anticorporate NGOs. Taken together, they show the purported transition from a fossil-fuel to a bio-based economy to be a resolutely political one

Viking Afterbody Heating Computations and Comparisons to Flight Data

Computational fluid dynamics predictions of Viking Lander 1 entry vehicle afterbody heating are compared to flight data. The analysis includes a derivation of heat flux from temperature data at two base cover locations, as well as a discussion of available reconstructed entry trajectories. Based on the raw temperature-time history data, convective heat flux is derived to be 0.63-1.10 W/sq cm for the aluminum base cover at the time of thermocouple failure. Peak heat flux at the fiberglass base cover thermocouple is estimated to be 0.54-0.76 W/sq cm, occurring 16 seconds after peak stagnation point heat flux. Navier-Stokes computational solutions are obtained with two separate codes using an 8-species Mars gas model in chemical and thermal non-equilibrium. Flowfield solutions using local time-stepping did not result in converged heating at either thermocouple location. A global time-stepping approach improved the computational stability, but steady state heat flux was not reached for either base cover location. Both thermocouple locations lie within a separated flow region of the base cover that is likely unsteady. Heat flux computations averaged over the solution history are generally below the flight data and do not vary smoothly over time for both base cover locations. Possible reasons for the mismatch between flight data and flowfield solutions include underestimated conduction effects and limitations of the computational methods

Everyday Diplomacy: UKUSA Intelligence Cooperation and Geopolitical Assemblages

This article offers an alternative to civilizational thinking in geopolitics and international relations predicated on assemblage theory. Building on literature in political geography and elsewhere about everyday practices that produce state effects, this article theorizes the existence of transnational geopolitical assemblages that incorporate foreign policy apparatuses of multiple states. Everyday material and discursive circulations make up these assemblages, serving as conduits of affect that produce an emergent agency. To demonstrate this claim, I outline a genealogy of the UKUSA alliance, an assemblage of intelligence communities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I then trace the circulation of materialities and affects—at the scales of individual subjects, technological systems of mediation, and transnational processes of foreign policy formation. In doing so, I offer a bottom-up process of assemblage that produces the emergent phenomena that proponents of civilizational thinking mistakenly attribute to macroscaled factors, such as culture

Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh’s Media

Muslims have been the primary targets of Daesh’s attacks since 2014 in different countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. These attacks were based on its takfiri ideology. As Daesh official media and documents indicate, kufr (unbelief, infidelity) in Daesh’s approach is not limited to non-Muslims (original disbelievers), but Muslims are the most significant parts of kuffar (unbelievers) in its view and defined as incidental disbelievers. Through studying Daesh’s official documents and various Arabic, English, and Persian media productions, in an explanatory research, this article attempts to display Daesh’s takfiri approach toward Muslims and explains its historical and ideological roots, difference with Al-Qaeda’s takfiri approach, different approaches to takfir inside Daesh, main targets of Daesh’s takfir, and the reasons behinds its takfiri view. This article displays that for Daesh, the Muslims are limited only to Sunni Muslims who are accepting and following its approach. Other Sunni and non-Sunni Muslims are thus kuffar. This study also shows that the assertion of takfir has become a method for Daesh to discredit its opponents, such as Shi’a Muslims and other Muslim groups

Technikgenese: Einflußfaktoren der Technisierung jenseits traditioneller Technikfolgenforschung

Ausgehend davon, daß das Verhältnis von Technikgeneseforschung zu Technikfolgenforschung komplementär sein muß, werden in dem Beitrag die strukturellen, institutionellen und organisatorischen, die kognitiven wie perzeptiven Voraussetzungen dafür untersucht, welche Technikfolgen wie systematisch und rational in frühen Phasen der Technikentstehung wahrgenommen, berücksichtigt und technisch umgesetzt werden und welche nicht, um in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Rekonstruktion der Bedingungen technischer Innovationen die gesellschaftlichen und organisatorischen Einflußparameter, die Selektionsprozesse bei der Neueinführung von Techniken prägen, manifest werden zu lassen. Ziele und Grundlagen der sozialwissenschaftlichen Technikgeneseforschung werden dargestellt. Indem Technikgenese in organisationskulturellen Kontexten analysiert wird, wird ein neuer Forschungsansatz konzipiert, der im Kern beansprucht, das Selektions- und Entscheidungsverhalten von Organisationen mit Hilfe von Erklärungskategorien zu erfassen. Der zentrale Beitrag des organisationskulturellen Forschungsansatzes der Technikgenese liegt in der Möglichkeit, diejenigen Faktoren herauszukristallisieren, die eine Organisation dazu befähigen, innovative Impulse selbst zu generieren oder entsprechende Stimuli aus ihrer Umwelt aufzunehmen und umzusetzen. Abschließend wird das weitere Vorgehen sozialwissenschaftlicher Forschung zur Technikgenese skizziert. (ICA