4,286 research outputs found
Trust, regulatory processes and NICE decision-making: Appraising cost-effectiveness models through appraising people and systems.
This article presents an ethnographic study of regulatory decision-making regarding the cost-effectiveness of expensive medicines at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in England. We explored trust as one important mechanism by which problems of complexity and uncertainty were resolved. Existing studies note the salience of trust for regulatory decisions, by which the appraisal of people becomes a proxy for appraising technologies themselves. Although such (dis)trust in manufacturers was one important influence, we describe a more intricate web of (dis)trust relations also involving various expert advisors, fellow committee members and committee Chairs. Within these complex chains of relations, we found examples of both more blind-acquiescent and more critical-investigative forms of trust as well as, at times, pronounced distrust. Difficulties in overcoming uncertainty through other means obliged trust in some contexts, although not in others. (Dis)trust was constructed through inferences involving abstract systems alongside actors’ oral and written presentations-of-self. Systemic features and ‘forced options’ to trust indicate potential insidious processes of regulatory capture
Groups, organizations, families and movements: The sociology of social systems between interaction and society
Kühl S. Groups, organizations, families and movements: The sociology of social systems between interaction and society. Systems Research and Behavioral Science. 2020;37(3):496-515.In enhancing a proposal by Luhmann, this contribution shows that it is possible to locate different types of systems between ‘face‐to‐face‐interaction’ and ‘society’: groups, organizations, families and protest movements. The common ground of these is that they use membership to attribute persons to the system or not. However, they differ fundamentally in regard to how they understand membership. In contrast to Luhmann's differentiation between interaction, organization and society, it is not only possible to imagine different types of interlocking systems but also coequal combinations of and transitions between the different types of social systems
Online Popularity and Topical Interests through the Lens of Instagram
Online socio-technical systems can be studied as proxy of the real world to
investigate human behavior and social interactions at scale. Here we focus on
Instagram, a media-sharing online platform whose popularity has been rising up
to gathering hundred millions users. Instagram exhibits a mixture of features
including social structure, social tagging and media sharing. The network of
social interactions among users models various dynamics including
follower/followee relations and users' communication by means of
posts/comments. Users can upload and tag media such as photos and pictures, and
they can "like" and comment each piece of information on the platform. In this
work we investigate three major aspects on our Instagram dataset: (i) the
structural characteristics of its network of heterogeneous interactions, to
unveil the emergence of self organization and topically-induced community
structure; (ii) the dynamics of content production and consumption, to
understand how global trends and popular users emerge; (iii) the behavior of
users labeling media with tags, to determine how they devote their attention
and to explore the variety of their topical interests. Our analysis provides
clues to understand human behavior dynamics on socio-technical systems,
specifically users and content popularity, the mechanisms of users'
interactions in online environments and how collective trends emerge from
individuals' topical interests.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 201
Short-scale turbulent fluctuations driven by the electron-temperature gradient in the national spherical torus experiment
Measurements with coherent scattering of electromagnetic waves in plasmas of the National Spherical Torus Experiment indicate the existence of turbulent fluctuations in the range of wave numbers k(perpendicular to)rho(e)=0.1-0.4, corresponding to a turbulence scale length nearly equal to the collisionless skin depth. Experimental observations and agreement with numerical results from a linear gyrokinetic stability code support the conjecture that the observed turbulence is driven by the electron-temperature gradient.X1155sciescopu
Special features of the CLUSTER antenna and radial booms design, development and verification
CLUSTER is a scientific space mission to in-situ investigate the Earth's plasma environment by means of four identical spin-stabilized spacecraft. Each spacecraft is provided with a set of four rigid booms: two Antenna Booms and two Radial Booms. This paper presents a summary of the boom development and verification phases addressing the key aspects of the Radial Boom design. In particular, it concentrates on the difficulties encountered in fulfilling simultaneously the requirements of minimum torque ratio and maximum allowed shock loads at boom latching for this two degree of freedom boom. The paper also provides an overview of the analysis campaign and testing program performed to achieve sufficient confidence in the boom performance and operation
A Comprehensive View of the 2006 December 13 CME: From the Sun to Interplanetary Space
The biggest halo coronal mass ejection (CME) since the Halloween storm in
2003, which occurred on 2006 December 13, is studied in terms of its solar
source and heliospheric consequences. The CME is accompanied by an X3.4 flare,
EUV dimmings and coronal waves. It generated significant space weather effects
such as an interplanetary shock, radio bursts, major solar energetic particle
(SEP) events, and a magnetic cloud (MC) detected by a fleet of spacecraft
including STEREO, ACE, Wind and Ulysses. Reconstruction of the MC with the
Grad-Shafranov (GS) method yields an axis orientation oblique to the flare
ribbons. Observations of the SEP intensities and anisotropies show that the
particles can be trapped, deflected and reaccelerated by the large-scale
transient structures. The CME-driven shock is observed at both the Earth and
Ulysses when they are separated by 74 in latitude and 117
in longitude, the largest shock extent ever detected. The ejecta seems missed
at Ulysses. The shock arrival time at Ulysses is well predicted by an MHD model
which can propagate the 1 AU data outward. The CME/shock is tracked remarkably
well from the Sun all the way to Ulysses by coronagraph images, type II
frequency drift, in situ measurements and the MHD model. These results reveal a
technique which combines MHD propagation of the solar wind and type II
emissions to predict the shock arrival time at the Earth, a significant advance
for space weather forecasting especially when in situ data are available from
the Solar Orbiter and Sentinels.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures. 2008, ApJ, in pres
Sociological and Communication-Theoretical Perspectives on the Commercialization of the Sciences
Both self-organization and organization are important for the further
development of the sciences: the two dynamics condition and enable each other.
Commercial and public considerations can interact and "interpenetrate" in
historical organization; different codes of communication are then
"recombined." However, self-organization in the symbolically generalized codes
of communication can be expected to operate at the global level. The Triple
Helix model allows for both a neo-institutional appreciation in terms of
historical networks of university-industry-government relations and a
neo-evolutionary interpretation in terms of three functions: (i) novelty
production, (i) wealth generation, and (iii) political control. Using this
model, one can appreciate both subdynamics. The mutual information in three
dimensions enables us to measure the trade-off between organization and
self-organization as a possible synergy. The question of optimization between
commercial and public interests in the different sciences can thus be made
empirical.Comment: Science & Education (forthcoming
Electron gyroscale fluctuation measurements in National Spherical Torus Experiment H-mode plasmas
A collective scattering system has measured electron gyroscale fluctuations in National Spherical Torus Experiment [M. Ono et al., Nucl. Fusion 40, 557 (2000)] H-mode plasmas to investigate electron temperature gradient (ETG) turbulence. Observations and results pertaining to fluctuation measurements in ETG-stable regimes, the toroidal field scaling of fluctuation amplitudes, the relation between fluctuation amplitudes and transport quantities, and fluctuation magnitudes and k-spectra are presented. Collectively, the measurements provide insight and guidance for understanding ETG turbulence and anomalous electron thermal transport. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3262530]X116sciescopu
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