How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

FORECASTING ETHICS AND THE ETHICS OF FORECASTING: THE CASE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY

Abstract This paper argues that social foresight and technological forecasting are essentially fraudulent activities which at best are temporarily delusive but at worst may constitute a waste of valuable resources. Futurists conceive of forecasting as a contribution to ethical debate about the future impacts of technology. This paper makes forecasting itself the focus of ethical attention. I use nanotechnology as a paradigm case of a technology about which many and often conflicting claims are made regarding its future impacts. Nanotechnology follows in a long tradition of technologies which are claimed to be fundamentally transformative being described as 'revolutionary' in their social, economic and political implications. It is suggested that we ought to anticipate the kinds of moral problems and dilemmas that such transformations may produce. I challenge the view that there can be any such moral obligation to foresee such transformations. I argue that given that we cannot in fact know the eventual outcomes of current social and technological changes then we cannot be under any such obligation to anticipate them. Those who make large scale claims about the future can have no reasonable warrant for doing so. I reinforce my position by arguing the essential unknowability of the kinds of values and choices future generations will make

Ethical problems for e-Government: An Evaluative Framework

Abstract: This paper assesses the assertion that there is a lack of well understood and developed rules and models for ethical behaviour in e-Government. A framework is proposed to evaluate the extent to which types of moral wrongdoing are related specifically to the technologies used. It identifies four categories of ethical issues: those related to electronic environments; those dependent on electronic environments; those determined by electronic environments; and those specific to electronic environments. Furthermore, it suggests the policy perspectives, which governments may need to consider

La Région bruxelloise, son ressort et ses institutions

SOMMAIRE : I. Le statut de la région bruxelloise / l. Les groupes linguistiques / 2. La parité ministérielle / 3. Considérations générales / II. Les limites de la région bruxelloise / III. Trois préceptes méthodologiques / l. Le précepte démocratique / 2. Le précepte fonctionnaliste / 3. Le précepte participatif / IV. Trois pistes de réflexion à l'intérieur de la région bruxelloise / 1. La piste wallonne / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Inconvénients / 2. La piste germanophone / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Les inconvénients / 3. La piste de la cooptation / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Inconvénients / V. Trois pistes de réflexion à l'extérieur de la région bruxelloise / l. Bruxelles et les six communes périphériques / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Inconvénients / 2. La piste de l'arrondissement électoral de Bruxelles-Hal-Virvorde / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Inconvénients / 3. La piste dite 02 / A. La technique / B. La procédure / C. Avantages / D. Inconvénients / [VI]. Pistes à l'intérieur et à l’extérieur de la région bruxelloise / [VII]. Conclusions // La présente étude a été réalisée dans le cadre des travaux du groupe "Avenir" que l'Université catholique de Louvain a constitué en 1997 aux fins de réfléchir aux questions que soulève, notamment en termes institutionnels, l'organisation de l'Etat fédéral, des communautés et des région