Are all ‘research fields’ equal? Rethinking practice for the use of data from crowd-sourcing market places

New technologies like large-scale social media sides (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) and crowdsourcing services (e.g., Amazon Mechanical Turk, Crowdflower, Clickworker) impact social science research and provide many new and interesting avenues for research. The use of these new technologies for research has not been without challenges and a recently published psychological study on Facebook led to a widespread discussion on the ethics of conducting large-scale experiments online. Surprisingly little has been said about the ethics of conducting research using commercial crowdsourcing market places. In this paper, I want to focus on the question of which ethical questions are raised by data collection with crowdsourcing tools. I briefly draw on implications of internet research more generally and then focus on the specific challenges that research with crowdsourcing tools faces. I identify fair-pay and related issues of respect for autonomy as well as problems with power dynamics between researcher and participant, which has implications for ‘withdrawal-withoutprejudice’, as the major ethical challenges with crowdsourced data. Further, I will to draw attention on how we can develop a ‘best practice’ for researchers using crowdsourcing tools

Somatosensory processing in neurodevelopmental disorders

The purpose of this article is to review the role of somatosensory perception in typical development, its aberration in a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, and the potential relations between tactile processing abnormalities and central features of each disorder such as motor, communication, and social development. Neurodevelopmental disorders that represent a range of symptoms and etiologies, and for which multiple peer-reviewed articles on somatosensory differences have been published, were chosen to include in the review. Relevant studies in animal models, as well as conditions of early sensory deprivation, are also included. Somatosensory processing plays an important, yet often overlooked, role in typical development and is aberrant in various neurodevelopmental disorders. This is demonstrated in studies of behavior, sensory thresholds, neuroanatomy, and neurophysiology in samples of children with Fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorders (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and cerebral palsy (CP). Impaired somatosensory processing is found in a range of neurodevelopmental disorders and is associated with deficits in communication, motor ability, and social skills in these disorders. Given the central role of touch in early development, both experimental and clinical approaches should take into consideration the role of somatosensory processing in the etiology and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders

The development of qualification and employment structures in non-R&D-intensive industry sectors – the case of Germany

In the course of changes within the economic structure in many modern economies, there has been a trend towards more knowledge-, research- and innovation-intensive sectors. These changes were very much in favour of highly skilled employees, while the share of employment of less qualified personnel has decreased. Within this chapter, we aim to provide empirical evidence for the structural changes in the German economy that have occurred since the mid-1990s and try to shed some light on the current and future demand for highly qualified labour, especially in non-R&D-intensive sectors. With the help of data from the German Microcensus, we performed a structural decomposition (“shift-share analysis”) of the employment changes among highly skilled workers in Germany. Although there has been a shift in employment towards the service sectors over the years, 22 % of the German workforce remains in the manufacturing sectors, with the majority of people being employed within non-R&D-intensive parts of the industry. Employment in non-R&D-intensive manufacturing industries has slightly decreased over the years, while there has been increasing demand for highly qualified personnel, which is especially true for university graduates. The non-R&D-intensive sector is increasingly dependent on highly skilled workers to maintain or even increase its innovative potential, which is critical with regard to its competitiveness