Internet and the flow of knowledge: Which ethical and political challenges will we face?

The term “knowledge” is used more and more frequently for the diagnosis of societal change (as in “knowledge society”). According to Bell (1973), since the 1970s we have been experiencing the ?rst phase of such a change towards a knowledge society, consisting of a rapid expansion of the academic system and a growth of investments in research and development in many countries. In this phase, as Castells (1996) points out, information technology has been rapidly changing the workplace as well as the composition of social organisations. In this first phase, the focus has been on scienti?c knowledge, its production and application in expert cultures. Since the Mid-1990s, however, this focus has been widening, such that one can speak of a second phase of the knowledge society (Drucker 1994a, 1994b; Stehr 1994; see also Knorr-Cetina 1998; Krohn 2001). Now it is no longer only scientific knowledge that is seen as driving the change, but also ordinary knowledge and practical knowledge, as know-how. The change is, as I would put it, autocatalytic, for typical of knowledge societies is “not the centrality of knowledge and information, but the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of innovation“ (Castells 1996: 32). Science has also been changing to be part of this loop, as shown in the rise of applied sciences and in the acknowledgement of uncertainty and ignorance issues (cf. Heidenreich 2002: 4 ff.; see also Hubig 2000 and Böschen & Schulz-Schaeffer 2003). The most significant change in this second phase however is the popularization of the Internet, that is seen as a key factor that governs societal change today. So what exactly is this “knowledge” that is driving present knowledge societies? Can we rely on the philosophical analysis of the term to get some insight here

Commodity futures price behaviour following large one-day price changes

This study examines individual commodity futures price reactions to large one-day price changes, or “shocks”. The mean-adjusted abnormal return model suggests that investors in 6 of the 18 commodity futures examined in this study either underreact or overreact to positive surprises. It also detects underreaction patterns in 8 commodity future prices following negative surprises. However, after making appropriate systematic risk and conditional heteroskedasticity adjustments, we show that almost all commodity futures react efficiently to shocks

The Logic of Collective Action and Australia's Climate Policy

We analyse the long-term efficiency of the emissions target and of the provisions to reduce carbon leakage in the Australian Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as proposed in March 2009, and the nature and likely cause of changes to these features in the previous year. The target range of 5-15% cuts in national emission entitlements during 2000-2020 was weak, in that on balance it is too low to minimise Australia's long-term mitigation costs. The free allocation of outputlinked, tradable emission permits to Emissions-Intensive, Trade-Exposed (EITE) sectors was much higher than proposed earlier, or shown to be needed to deal with carbon leakage. It plausibly means that EITE emissions can rise by 13% during 2010-2020, while non-EITE sectors must cut emissions by 34-51% (or make equivalent permit imports) to meet the national targets proposed, far from a cost-effective outcome. The weak targets and excessive EITE assistance illustrate the efficiencydamaging power of collective action by the 'carbon lobby'. Resisting this requires new national or international institutions to assess lobby claims impartially, and more government publicity about the true economic importance of carbon-intensive sectors. Published in the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, volume 54, pages 185-202.Environment

دور الإعلام البيئي المطبوع في حماية البيئة – دراسة تحليلية –

يسعى هدا البحث إلى معرفة الدور الذي يقوم به الإعلام البيئي من خلال رسالته المطبوعة في حماية البيئة وذلك عن طريق محاولة معرفة ما إذا كان هذا الإعلام مسايرا لمختلف التحولات والتطورات البيئية من خلال تغطية الأحداث البيئية وتحليل الوقائع لنقل المعلومة إلى الجمهور وإفادته بمختلف التطورات ، وكذا محاولة معرفة ما إذا كان هذا الإعلام يأخذ بعين الإعتبار تشكيل رأي عام حول قضايا البيئة وتوجيهه لحمايتها كهدف مسطر من خلال المادة المطروحة للجمهور معتمدين على منهج تحليل المحتوى

Effect of urban morphology on thermal comfort in outdoor spaces: the case of the red village-El Kantara-Biskra

Climate urban design is today a topical issue dealt with in many recent studies. This paper aims to test the influence of urban morphology on external climatic conditions and the urban microclimate by dealing with the quantitative aspects of thermal comfort and the assessment of the thermal environment from an objective point of view. This is based on an on-site investigation based on the correlation between the geometry of the street, its orientation and the evolution of the physical variables (Ta, Tg, HR, Va). The measures were the subject of a campaign carried out in the urban fabric of the Ksar of Dachra El- Hamra (the red village), the first nucleus of the city of El Kantara in the wilaya of Biskra. The objective is to define the most efficient urban geometry in terms of summer thermal comfort by studying the true impacts of urban form on solar control and microclimatic conditions in arid regions. The evaluation of the thermal comfort in these external spaces is carried out by analyzing the calculated physiological temperature (PET) values based on the measured microclimatic parameters. The analysis of the results obtained from the investigation enabled us to demonstrate the considerable effect of the sky view factor, calculated by Rayman Pro 2.1 software, on the thermal fluctuations in the street

Monitoring of the calibration constants of the DVCS calorimeter

Radiation exposure of the DVCS calorimeter during data taking has degraded the optical properties of the cristals in a time dependent way. This note presents a method which allows to determine the effective gain of each single block all along data taking, relying on the two absolute elastic calibrations performed at the beginning and at the end of the experiment. Consideration of time dependent gain is shown to improve the missing mass resolution, allowing for a better identification of DVCS events

Analysis of legibility in urban public spaces. Case of El-Alia North-East neighborhood in Biskra, Algeria

The Algerian city faces serious problems related to various dysfunctions, a planned urban structure and a social structure suffering from various social ills. This has a noticeable effect on urban public spaces. The latter are the receptacle of a typology of behaviors, of ways of consuming space that seem to depend on the spatial conformation, the legibility, the identification and the orientation of the user. The present work seeks to explain the relation between legibility and dysfunction in the urban public space and to characterize the influence of space on the movement of pedestrians therefore on their behavior. The selected case study is urban public spaces in the spontaneous neighborhoods of El Alia North-east of the city of Biskra. As a model of analysis, we proposed the combination of two methods obtained from the literature, namely the method of the responsive environments and the method of space syntax. We confronted the results of the analysis of the space syntax and the results of the investigation by the technique of the direct observation "Gate counts". We have shown that the quality of urban public spaces in terms of legibility affects their functioning and their stability

Numerical study of the horizontal shading devices effect on the thermal performance of promotional apartments: Case of El-Alia-Biskra

The aim of this research is to evaluate the impact of horizontal shading devices on the thermal performance of promotional apartments in the city of Biskra. In this regard, various sizes of horizontal shading devices which allow making an adequate choice were proposed to guarantee the best thermal comfort level for this apartment type. The simulations were performed by using the TRNSYS© software to estimate objectively the indoor thermal comfort of studied apartments. The comparative analysis between the simulation results of the existing apartments and the shading scenarios shows that the promotional apartments appear to be unsuited to the desert climate and the analysis shows the effectiveness of the horizontal shading devices on the thermal performance of the space by reducing the indoor air temperature during the summer period

The Effect of Low-Density Polyethylene Addition and Temperature on Creep-recovery Behavior of Hot Mix Asphalt

Industrial and domestic plastic waste is second harmful products to the environment. Considering the technological development and the current way of life, this non-biodegradable waste and its enormous quantities threaten the balance of the ecosystem and human health. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of Low-density polyethylene “LDPE” plastic waste, used us asphalt additive, on creep-recovery behavior of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). This technique is a contribution to the improvement of the quality and cost of HMA, for alternate materials. In this experimental study, two mixes of asphalts were prepared, basic and modified asphalts, and tested in four points bending test at two different temperatures, medium (20°C) and high temperature (50°C). The use of 5 % of LDPE gave a better thermo-mechanical performance. As well as, a decrease in total deformation by 51 % and 13 % at 20°C and 50°C respectively. A clear improvement of the resistance to the creep permanent deformation, rigidity and lasted in life. This modification serves a powerful, economic and environmental solution for road construction of hot Saharan areas at medium and high temperature of service