Ratings and rankings are criticized for being simplistic, obscurantist, inaccurate, and subjective, yet they are becoming an increasingly influential social form. We elaborate the criticisms of ...ratings and rankings in various fields but go on to argue that analysis should shift its target. The problem that ratings deal with is not observation of an independent world. Instead, the challenge they face is the circularity of second-order observation in which observations must take into account the observations of others. To this purpose they function well enough not because they mirror how things are but because they offer a highly visible reference point to which others are attentive and thereby provide an orientation to navigate uncertainty. The concluding section places the problem of ratings and rankings in a broader historical perspective, contrasting the ranked society to the society of rankings. Responding to uncertainty, ratings and rankings perpetuates rather than eliminates anxiety.
In this article, I inquire into Facebook’s development as a platform by situating it within the transformation of social network sites into social media platforms. I explore this shift with a ...historical perspective on, what I refer to as, platformization, or the rise of the platform as the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web and its consequences. Platformization entails the extension of social media platforms into the rest of the web and their drive to make external web data “platform ready.” The specific technological architecture and ontological distinctiveness of platforms will be examined by taking their programmability into account. I position platformization as a form of platform critique that inquires into the dynamics of the decentralization of platform features and the recentralization of “platform ready” data as a way to examine the consequences of the programmability of social media platforms for the web.
Cet article traite de la prévention des surdoses par L’Association québécoise pour la promotion de la santé des personnes utilisatrices de drogues. Nous présentons sommairement l’organisme d’une ...perspective historique. Cela nous mène aux défis rencontrés en temps de pandémie et aux forces de l’approche, qui a été plus qu’essentielle. L’approche et les pratiques sont par la suite éclairées par une conception de la proximité articulée à même l’expérience de l’organisme et ses principes fondateurs. Un regard critique est posé et expose les enjeux éthiques de respects des droits et de care que la pandémie est venue exacerber.
Data Visualization and Evaluation Azzam, Tarek; Evergreen, Stephanie; Germuth, Amy A. ...
New directions for evaluation,
09/2013, Letnik:
2013, Številka:
139
Journal Article
Este artículo identifica tres etapas en la evolución de la perspectiva del diseño en políticas públicas. Tras una fase de exploración y descubrimiento, el diseño se volvió objeto de teorización ...explícita a partir de la década de 1980. Este desarrollo teórico se desplegó en torno a cuatro grandes perspectivas. Aunque en los últimos años el diseño ha entrado en una fase de consolidación, caracterizada por mayor desagregación teórica, reflexión metodológica e intercambio intra e interdisciplinario, esta escisión ha persistido. Al respecto, se propone una agenda de cinco dimensiones que, a modo de ejes convergentes, conforman un terreno de discusión común adecuado para facilitar el diálogo y precisar las diferencias.
This feature article covers the recent applications of metal‐organic framework nanoparticles (MOF NPs) in photodynamic therapy (PDT) of cancer. It aims at giving the reader an overview about these ...two current research fields, i.e., MOF and PDT, and at highlighting the potential synergistic effect that could result from their association. After describing the general photophysics and photochemistry that underlie PDT, the relationship between photosensitizer (PS) properties and PDT requirements is discussed throughout the PSs historical development. This development reveals the advantages of using nanotechnology platforms for the creation of the ideal PS and leads us to define the fourth generation of PSs, which includes NPs built from the PS itself as porphysomes or PS‐based MOF NPs. Especially, the precise spatial control over the PS assembly into well‐defined MOF NPs, which keeps the PS in its monomeric form and prevents PS self‐quenching, appears as a notable feature to solve PS solubility and aggregation issues and therefore improves the PDT efficiency. Finally, we discuss the future perspectives of MOF NPs in PDT and shed light on how promising these nanomaterials are.
A new generation of photosensitizers, which includes metal‐organic framework nanoparticles built from the photosensitizer itself as organic building unit, is described. The precise spatial control over the photosensitizer assembly into well‐defined metal‐organic framework scaffolds resolve the current solubility and aggregation issues and should therefore potentiate the outcome of nanoparticles‐based cancer photodynamic therapy and allow for opening new perspectives in the field.
In recent years, the term precarity has proliferated in the social sciences at the risk of losing its analytical purchase. This review considers the value and limitations of precarity in the various ...ways it has operated as both a theoretical and political concept. It first traces the historical development of the term in sociology and cognate fields, ultimately arguing for a relational approach to the concept rooted in the analysis of specific labor conditions. It then examines emergent critiques of the (often hidden) political work that the concept of precarity performs. That is, the denunciatory discourse of precarity, ironically, has the potential to uphold normative forms of work and life, including the ideal of full‐time wage labor. Instead, a critical politics of precarity leaves open the question of how precarious labor relates to precarious life and attends to ruptures that offer alternatives to the valorization of waged work.
The goal of this introductory article to the Special Issue on Corporate Foresight is to provide an overview of the state of the art, major challenges and to identify development trajectories. We ...define corporate foresight as a practice that permits an organization to lay the foundation for a future competitive advantage. Historically we distinguish and discuss four main phases: 1) birth of the field (1950s), 2) the age of scenarios (1960s–1970s), 3) professionalization (1980s–1990s), and 4) organizational integration (2000–). A systematic literature search revealed 102 articles on foresight, 29 of them on corporate foresight. Based on these articles and those in this Special Issue, we identify four main themes. Two more mature themes, namely ‘organizing corporate foresight’, and ‘individual and collective cognition’, and two emerging themes ‘corporate foresight in networked organizations’, and ‘quantifying value contributions’. In the conclusion we make a plea for establishing corporate foresight as a separate research stream that can adopt various theoretical foundations from a number of general management research traditions. To help the field move forward we identify three areas in which corporate foresight research can build on theoretical notions in general management, and can contribute to such on-going debates.
•Defining corporate foresight as an integrative organizational practice•Four phases in the historical development of corporate foresight•Current studies: organizing, cognition, network organizations, and value assessment•Corporate foresight as a separate research stream•Connections with and contributions to general management areas
This paper is a tribute to researchers who have significantly contributed to improving and advancing structural equation modeling (SEM). It is, therefore, a brief overview of SEM and presents its ...beginnings, historical development, its usefulness in the social sciences and the statistical and philosophical (theoretical) controversies which have often appeared in the literature pertaining to SEM. Having described the essence of SEM in the context of causal analysis, the author discusses the years of the development of structural modeling as the consequence of many researchers’ systematically growing needs (in particular in the social sciences) who strove to effectively understand the structure and interactions of latent phenomena. The early beginnings of SEM models were related to the work of Spearman and Wright, and to that of other prominent researchers who contributed to SEM development. The importance and predominance of theoretical assumptions over technical issues for the successful construction of SEM models are also described. Then, controversies regarding the use of SEM in the social sciences are presented. Finally, the opportunities and threats of this type of analytical strategy as well as selected areas of SEM applications in the social sciences are discussed.
By taking an historical perspective, and by drawing on our own empirical work from the UK in the 1980s and more recently, we argue three main things. First, we need to understand the particular ...conditions of ‘the gig economy’ as a concentrated form of a more general de-standardisation of employment that has brought multiple forms of insecure work. Second, although there is clamour and excitement about ‘the gig economy’ in fact it shares strong parallels with earlier forms of insecure enterprise. Third, while not uniform nor as yet fully empirically demonstrated, young adults’ encounters with the ‘gig economy’ and other aspects of the contemporary labour market (such as the ‘low-pay, no-pay’ cycle, self-employment, ‘zero-hours contracts’) appear to be typified by a lack of choice and control, and experiences of disempowerment, low pay, degraded work conditions, alienation, anxiety and insecurity. This stands at odds with more celebratory proclamations about ‘the gig economy’.
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