The value(s) of a Story: Theories, Models and Cognitive Values

This paper aims 1) to introduce the notion of theoretical story as a resource and source of constraint for the construction and assessment of models of phenomena; 2) to show the relevance of this notion for a better understanding of the role and nature of values in scientific activity. The reflection on the role of values and value judgments in scientific activity should be attentive, I will argue, to the distinction between models and the theoretical story that guides and constrains their construction. The aim of scientific activity is to develop understanding of phenomena, and something that serves this aim and contributes to the development of understanding has a cognitive value. Cognitive values are the features that something that plays a role in scientific activity should have so that it can serve its aim. I will focus my attention on the features of the theoretical story and of the models

Seed Activism

How lawsuits around intellectual property in Brazil and India are impacting the patentability of plants and seeds, farmers' rights, and the public interest. Over the past decade, legal challenges have arisen in the Global South over patents on genetically modified crops. In this ethnographic study, Karine E. Peschard explores the effects of these disputes on people's lives, while uncovering the role of power—material, institutional, and discursive—in shaping laws and legal systems. The expansion of corporate intellectual property (IP), she shows, negatively impacts farmers' rights and, by extension, the right to food, since small farms produce the bulk of food for domestic consumption. Peschard sees emerging a new legal common sense concerning the patentability of plant-related inventions, as well as a balance among IP, farmers' rights, and the public interest. Peschard examines the strengthening of IP regimes for plant varieties, the consolidation of the global biotech industry, the erosion of agrobiodiversity, and farmers' dispossession. She shows how litigants question the legality of patents and private IP systems implemented by Monsanto for royalties on three genetically modified crop varieties, Roundup Ready soybean in Brazil and Bt cotton and Bt eggplant in India. Peschard argues that these private IP systems have rendered moot domestic legislation on plant variety protection and farmers' rights. This unprecedented level of corporate concentration in such a vital sector raises concerns over the erosion of agricultural biodiversity, farmers' rights and livelihoods, food security, and, ultimately, the merits of extending IP rights to higher life forms such as plants

Manufacturing Performance in Automotive Engine Plants

The results presented in this paper are preliminary. Please do not cite or quote. All comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.In 1994, the International Motor Vehicle Program launched the Engine Plant Study with the goal of analyzing the drivers of performance in engine manufacturing. We have collected data from 18 plants worldwide and have found that there is a very large variation in performance across plants. Half of the variation seems to be attributable to factors that do not fall under the direct control of the plant such as the characteristics of the engine, the level of product variety, or the level of capacity utilization. Moreover, we found some statistically significant relations among workers, investment, and efficiency, which reinforces the idea that automotive companies should not put so much emphasis on labor productivity, and that these tradeoffs should be taken into account when making decisions about plant design

Activation of hydrocarbons and the octane number

This report presents an examination of the history of research on engine knocking and the various types of fuels used in the investigations of this phenomenon. According to this report, the spontaneous ignition of hydrocarbons doped with oxygen follows the logarithmic law within a certain temperature range, but not above 920 degrees K. Having extended the scope of investigations to prove hydrocarbons, the curves of the mixtures burned by air should then be established by progressive replacement of pure iso-octane with heptane. Pentane was also examined in this report

Scattering processes could distinguish Majorana from Dirac neutrinos

It is well known that Majorana neutrinos have a pure axial neutral current interaction while Dirac neutrinos have the standard vector-axial interaction. In spite of this crucial difference, usually Dirac neutrino processes differ from Majorana processes by a term proportional to the neutrino mass, resulting in almost unmeasurable observations of this difference. In the present work we show that once the neutrino polarization evolution is considered, there are clear differences between Dirac and Majorana scattering on electrons. The change of polarization can be achieved in astrophysical environments with strong magnetic fields. Furthermore, we show that in the case of unpolarized neutrino scattering onto polarized electrons, this difference can be relevant even for large values of the neutrino energy.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Modification of cement hydration at early ages by natural and heated wood

International audienceHeat treatments of wood are widely used for the reduction of wood swelling and dimensional instability of wood-cement composites. The effect of natural and heated wood on the hydration of cement at early ages was investigated by isothermal calorimetry, thermogravimetry (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The addition of wood strongly delays and inhibits the hydration of the silicate phases. Consequently, the amount of portlandite is lower in composites than in neat cement. Approximately 30% of the inhibition of portlandite precipitation is due to an increase of calcium carbonate content in cement paste. The absorption of a part of water by wood produces a decrease in gypsum consumption. Nevertheless, the ettringite formation is not significantly affected since a diffusion of sulfate ions from wood occurs

Cost Performance of Automobile Engine Plants

This paper analyzes the basic performance of 27 automobile engine lines operated by 18 companies on three continents, based on questionnaire data gathered in the Spring and Fall of 1995. Engine plants differ from assembly plants in being very capital-intensive. Thus a traditional ?hours/engine? metric of performance is inappropriate. Here a composite cost comprising labor and amortization of capital, accounting for downtime, is used to compare plant performance. We find that performance varies widely, even for similar engines. Cost drivers comprise number of workers, capital invested, and efficiency (fraction of scheduled time actually used for production). The drivers are in turn driven by external factors out of the plant?s control and internal factors that are under its control to some degree. We find that about half the variance in cost is due to the external factors, such as number of cylinders, utilization of scheduled time, and number of variants of engine made (the last loosely related to age of the engine family). Internal factors such as work in process inventory (strongly) and age of the workers (somewhat) drive cost. Downtime, the reverse of efficiency, is itself divided into scheduled and unscheduled downtime; the former is driven largely by number of variants while the latter is driven to some degree by the age of the family. The results of this study include a methodology to estimate the cost of variety. Statistical analyses are used to calculate the additional cost of machining blocks ($4.92 more per block,$15 million extra investment, 9 additional workers and -4?40 operating efficiency associated with one additional square root of number of variants). This methodology can be extended to create a cost of variety for an entire engine.This study was sponsored by the International Motor Vehicle Program. The authors gratefully acknowledge its support