The INTERNORM project : bridging two worlds of expert- and layknowledge in standardization

This paper presents a pilot project to reinforce participatory practices in standardization. The INTERNORM project is funded by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. It aims to create an interactive knowledge center based on the sharing of academic skills and the experiences accumulated by the civil society, especially consumer associations, environmental associations and trade unions to strengthen the participatory process of standardization. The first objective of the project is action-oriented: INTERNORM provides a common knowledge pool supporting the participation of civil society actors to international standard-setting activities by bringing them together with academic experts in working groups and by providing logistic and financial support to their participation to meetings of national and international technical committees. The second objective of the project is analytical: the standardization action initiated through INTERNORM provides a research field for a better understanding of the participatory dynamics underpinning international standardization. The paper presents three incentives that explain civil society (non-)involvement in standardization that try to overcome conventional resource-based hypotheses: an operational incentive, related to the use of standards in the selective goods provided by associations to their membership; a thematic incentive, provided by the setting of priorities by strategic committees created in some standardization organization; a rhetorical incentive, related to the discursive resource that civil society concerns offers to the different stakeholders.

The structural nature of perceptual experiences

Intuitively, we think of perception as providing us with direct cognitive access to physical objects and their properties. But this common sense picture of perception becomes problematic when we notice that perception is not always veridical. In fact, reflection on illusions and hallucinations seems to indicate that perception cannot be what it intuitively appears to be. This clash between intuition and reflection is what generates the puzzle of perception. The task and enterprise of unravelling this puzzle took, and still takes, centre stage in the philosophy of perception. The goal of my dissertation is to make a contribution to this enterprise by formulating and defending a new structural approach to perception and perceptual consciousness. The argument for my structural approach is developed in several steps. Firstly, I develop an empirically inspired causal argument against naïve and direct realist conceptions of perceptual consciousness. Basically, the argument says that perception and hallucination can have the same proximal causes and must thus belong to the same mental kind. I emphasise that this insight gives us good reasons to abandon what we are instinctively driven to believe - namely that perception is directly about the outside physical world. The causal argument essentially highlights that the information that the subject acquires in perceiving a worldly object is always indirect. To put it another way, the argument shows that what we, as perceivers, are immediately aware of, is not an aspect of the world but an aspect of our sensory response to it. A view like this is traditionally known as a Representative Theory of Perception. As a second step, emphasis is put on the task of defending and promoting a new structural version of the Representative Theory of Perception; one that is immune to some major objections that have been standardly levelled at other Representative Theories of Perception. As part of this defence and promotion, I argue that it is only the structural features of perceptual experiences that are fit to represent the empirical world. This line of thought is backed up by a detailed study of the intriguing phenomenon of synaesthesia. More precisely, I concentrate on empirical cases of synaesthetic experiences and argue that some of them provide support for a structural approach to perception. The general picture that emerges in this dissertation is a new perspective on perceptual consciousness that is structural through and through.

Working with Persons with Disabilities: Title I of The Americans with Disabilities Act: A Guide for State Supervisors and Managers, 2003

What are a supervisor’s responsibilities when it comes to interviewing, hiring, and retaining persons with disabilities? First and foremost, do not discriminate against persons with disabilities. What this means is that you are required to provide the same level of employment consideration and supervision for a disabled employee that you would for an able-bodied employee. No more – no less. State of Iowa management personnel must be proactive with regard to Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and managers and supervisory personnel should have an operational knowledge of the significant aspects of The Americans with Disabilities Act. This manual is for Iowa management personnel to use.

A influência do e-learning no capital humano

Na Europa e nas últimas décadas do Século XX, a emergência da Sociedade de Informação veio impor às organizações a necessidade de que, para além das inovações tecnológicas, haja uma preocupação relativamente aos bens intangíveis como a informação, as novas metodologias de trabalho e o know how (Batista, 2002). Paralelamente a estas inovações, as Instituições de Ensino Superior têm contribuído para a evolução do Capital Humano, como ativo intangível intrínseco ao Homem. Em Portugal e no contexto do Ensino/Formação a Distância parecem continuar a existir, ainda, em algumas instituições, problemas de identificação, e de descriminação das vantagens no que concerne à estrutura aberta e flexível, com o estudante/formando a ter algumas dificuldades em adaptar o seu perfil e interesses profissionais ao tipo de aprendizagem que mais se lhe adequa. O e-learning surge como um método de Ensino/Formação a Distância, só possível com a especificidade dos processos pedagógicos e em complementaridade com as Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), uma vez que são estas que lhe dão o suporte necessário à sua concretização. O e-learning ao proporcionar novas formas de comunicação, de interação e de confronto de ideias, permite uma aprendizagem baseada na partilha de saberes, tendo em consideração as experiências e os objetivos profissionais dos formandos. Dentro destes pressupostos, achámos importante fazer uma investigação a partir de Instituições de Ensino Superior Portuguesas, de modo a percebermos qual o papel e a influência que o e-learning desempenha nos objetivos das organizações académicas em geral e no Capital Humano dos seus Estudantes/Formandos em particular. A partir da questão da investigação foram definidos os objetivos e hipóteses de investigação de modo a que ao ser enunciada uma metodologia esta englobe fatores que foquem os elementos necessários à confirmação, ou não, dos pressupostos enunciados. Foi analisada documentação diversa, criado um questionário e conduzidas entrevistas, de modo a obter e potenciar a informação necessária e suficiente para o efeito. A recolha de dados para posterior análise e os resultados depois de interpretados, permitirão responder aos propósitos expressos desde o início da investigação.

Going Public in the European Union: Action Repertoires of Western European Collective Political Actors

As a result of the Europeanization of politics and the increasing role of the public sphere, political actors in Western Europe are currently facing a double strategic challenge. Based on data from seven West European countries and the European Union, the authors analyze how state actors, political parties, interest groups, and social movement organizations cope with this double challenge at both the national and the supranational level. Results indicate that the classic repertoire of inside strategies at the national level is still the most typical for all actors, but media-related strategies are also prominent at the national level. The Europeanization of repertoires is mainly determined by institutional factors and by the actors' power, whereas the public arena plays an equally important role for all types of actors, in all countries and at both the national and the EU level.

Identifications multiples à des groupes de statut différent et changement social

Le but de cette thèse est d'étudier l'impact d'une appartenance groupale jouissant d'un supérieur dans la hiérarchie sociale sur la volonté de participer à des actions collectives en faveur d'une appartenance groupale désavantagée. Selon la Théorie de l'Identité Sociale, les individus sont en effet membres de plusieurs groupes simultanément, qui constituent autant d'identités sociales potentielles. Comme l'ont montré les recherches en sociologie du genre s'inscrivant dans le courant intersectionnel, les diverses catégories sociales auxquelles une personne appartient peuvent se trouver dans des positions différentes dans la hiérarchie sociale, plaçant ainsi les individus à l'intersection de divers rapports de domination. Toutefois, ces rapports ne sont pas indépendants les uns des autres, mais interagissent et contribuent conjointement à construire une façon spécifique de vivre et de percevoir l'expérience de la domination. Globalement, notre thèse montre que lorsque deux endogroupes dotés de statuts différents sont simultanément saillants, les individus tendent à agir prioritairement en accord avec les intérêts de l'endogroupe dont le statut est le plus élevé, au détriment de l'endogroupe dont le statut est le plus bas : les individus tendent en effet à adhérer à des idéologies qui contribuent à légitimer le maintien des inégalités intergroupes, ce qui a pour conséquence de réduire leur volonté de participer à des actions collectives en faveur de leur endogroupe de statut inférieur. - This thesis focuses on the impact of a high status ingroup on willingness to participate in collective action in favour of a low status ingroup. According to Social Identity Theory, individuals are members of various groups, each of which is a potential social identity. Moreover, the feminist sociological theory of intersectionality suggests that these various ingroups can occupy different positions in social hierarchies, placing individuals at the intersection of various relations of domination. However, these relations do not act independently of one another, but interrelate, and shape a specific way to live and perceive the experiences of domination. On the whole, our thesis shows that when two ingroups with different statuses are salient, people tend to acts uppermost in compliance with the higher status group interest, to the detriment of the lower status group : Indeed, people tend to agree with ideologies that contribute to legitimate the perpetuation of intergroup inequalities. Consequently their willingness to participate in collective action in favor of their low-status group is reduced.

Working with Iowans building a culture of conservation, Program Summary, November 2008

Over 94% of Iowa ’ s land is held in private ownership, and the programs of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Division of Soil Conservation (IDALS-DSC) have been established to work with these landowners. Over 90% of the landscape is used for agricultural production so much of our focus is in rural communities, but we haven’t overlooked the importance of land management in urban areas. It is crucial to understanding of both conservation and hydrology issues, that what happens on the landscape has immense consequences to the environmental health of our state and the quality of life we enjoy. IDALS-DSC is striving to integrate our programs with other agencies and local concerns to improve water and local concerns to improve water and soil quality throughout the state and nation.