20,723 research outputs found
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Skills in Ethics for Engineers
A script of a lecture giving examples of everyday ethical statements made in an engineering context, making a link with the views of the ethicist G.E. Moore and a conclusion about the skills that engineers might acquire to partcipate in ethical debate
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Plato, the designers and engineers
The products or services that designers and engineers
influence as part of their professional work
represent their views. People can elect to adopt
their service or product and thus identify themselves
with particular designers or engineers provided
there is a choice.
Designers can be adventurous but to be successful
must identify themselves with the constituency in
which they hope that their product will become the
popular choice. They must also, if they wish to be
assimilated into a democratic movement, be willing
to paint a picture of the identity that they are striving
for. In doing so they will become representatives
of their designs and be helping to socialise the
non-humans that they value. To participate in democracy,
designers and engineers will have to take
lessons from Plato's Gorgias and tell their stories in the
most compelling way they can. They must design
their products, too, so that they can stand as eloquent
representatives
Re G (Children) (Residence: Same-Sex Partner)
From book synopsis:
While feminist legal scholarship has thrived within universities and in some sectors of legal practice, it has yet to have much impact within the judiciary or on judicial thinking. Thus, while feminist legal scholarship has generated comprehensive critiques of existing legal doctrine, there has been little opportunity to test or apply feminist knowledge in practice, in decisions in individual cases. In this book, a group of feminist legal scholars put theory into practice in judgment form, by writing the 'missing' feminist judgments in key cases. The cases chosen are significant decisions in English law across a broad range of substantive areas. The cases originate from a variety of levels but are primarily opinions of the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords. In some instances they are written in a fictitious appeal, but in others they are written as an additional concurring or dissenting judgment in the original case, providing a powerful illustration of the way in which the case could have been decided differently, even at the time it was heard. Each case is accompanied by a commentary which renders the judgment accessible to a non-specialist audience. The commentary explains the original decision, its background and doctrinal significance, the issues it raises, and how the feminist judgment deals with them differently.
The books also includes chapters examining the theoretical and conceptual issues raised by the process and practice of feminist judging, and by the judgments themselves, including the possibility of divergent feminist approaches to legal decision-making
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Ceremonies and Models
A model is an artefact used by a group of specialists that
inspires a conversation composed of specialised linguistic practices. From their use of their model, specialists will claim to make new, reliable predictions or explanations about some other artefact. While those outside the specialism may be at sea with the explanations, those inside the specialism identify themselves by showing satisfaction. Members of the group use the models because they find the ensuing discussions satisfying. The use of specialist language, by an identifiable group which imputes to objects the group's own special meanings and whose members engage in activities that give them satisfaction turns their activity, the use of the model, into a ceremony
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Technology Games
Technology games are parts of ways of life. The rules of technology games are the customary restrained practices people engage in, in consort with artefacts. Artefacts are not media shaping themselves more closely around human needs but are active participants in technology games which constitute nations, genders, professions and so on. Gradually, the technological ecology changes and consequently self-images change. Engineering is itself a technology game that attempts to turn visions of other technology games into a material form. Engineers are thus cultural leaders who regulate self-images through innovations in artefacts and proposed rules for their use
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Risk: a fiction
Uncertainty creates anxiety so attempts have been made to reduce it using mathematical techniques. In the electronics industry the very large quantities of devices processed have provided reliable statistics and the opportunity to employ statistical methods. However, in fields such as decision-making and risk assessment there are strong criticisms of the probability calculus that have been triggered by discrepancies between the analysis of experts and non-experts. A radically different alternative is to view risk assessment and decision-making as exercises in rhetoric centred on storytelling language games. And to see the risk assessors as part of a political network attempting to influence action
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Assessment of work-based reports: an analysis of assessment frameworks
In Britain engineering professional development has traditionally been seen as a three phase process consisting of a period of engineering formation, a period of training and a period during which engineering responsibilities are demonstrated. An individual could submit evidence of these activities and become registered as a Professional Engineer. Increasing numbers of people employed in the role of engineer do not have formal engineering qualifications and a part or all their engineering formation is carried out within engineering companies or organizations. These people therefore do not have the academically authenticated credentials to register as professional engineers but if they are ignored then the pool of registered engineers will cease to be representative of the profession. The Engineering Council, the body responsible for registering engineers in the UK, has acknowledged the changes in the structure of the profession and has introduced an alternative route for assessing the knowledge and understanding that underpins the competence of a professional engineer. Individual engineers can demonstrate that they have an adequate engineering formation through any combination of academic qualifications and a technical report on some aspect of their professional engineering work. The introduction of the technical report requires the Professional Engineering Bodies to carry out an assessment outside the traditional assessment framework of the Universities. This paper reviews and analyses the requirements of assessment systems and derives the components of such a system that will ensure that the results of the assessment of a work-based technical report will be respected and be seen as assuring comparable standards to the academic routes to engineering formation. By examining assessment separately from the processes of teaching and learning, the paper also reveals the extent of an assessment process and its costs
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Working in the dark
Professional engineers work as experts who influence the work of others. They rarely have direct contact with the products of an enterprise. They work with analogues such as graphs, algorithms and simulations, and engage in discussions in specialized languages, which develop alongside the technological changes they promote or oppose. The engines of linguistic development are metaphors and analogies, however there is no system for creating them. Some metaphors and analogies become so familiar that they are treated as literal terms or literal explanations and become embedded in engineering language games. The field of electrical engineering offers hosts of examples. Students wishing to practice in engineering will need to become fluent in the language games of the profession. The haphazard evolution of language games offer students little help. As with acquisition of any language, repeated rehearsal is vital and practice in playing specialised language games is a primary part of engineering education
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Closure: A response to Miroslav Holub
A response to Miroslav Holub's essay on "Wisdom as a metaphor" related to the professional domain of engineering which concludes that experience and action are needed to transform metaphorical expressions of wisdom into literal tenets
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