Humanities & Social Sciences

This open access book bridges the gap between ethical theory and software practice. It introduces foundational concepts in digital ethics, highlights the distinctive nature of software as a technology, and offers a systematic approach to integrating ethics into the development process. The book is structured in eight chapters: it starts with an Introduction presenting a historical overview that puts the relation between ethics and technology (with software as a special kind of technology) in context. Next, What is (Digital) Technology? explores various philosophical perspectives on technology and underlines why software producers carry a significant ethical responsibility. Why develop Software ethically? thenexplores the ethical imperative for software development and advocates for a dynamic hybrid approach that combines universal ethical principles with context-sensitive, participatory methods, while What is Ethics? introduces the foundational concepts of ethics and explores their relevance for software development. Subsequently, Values and Software explores the central role of values in ethical software development discussions. Spotting the Right - Overcoming Moral Uncertainty then addresses the foundational phase of ethical practice and examines the epistemic challenge of identifying morally significant aspects in software design, and Deciding for the Good - Overcoming Moral Indecisiveness examines the challenges of ethical decision-making in software development and highlights the necessity of ethical deliberation to navigate value conflicts such as usability versus explainability, and safety versus autonomy. Eventually, Organization, People and Processes underlines the crucial role organizational structures play in enabling ethical deliberation within software development. The book offers practitioners a clear orientation in the increasingly bewildering landscape of normative demands, value lists, ethical guidelines, and codes of conduct that have emerged around ethically informed software development. It especially aims at practitioners, product managers, policymakers, and students who wish to understand the ethical dimensions of the software systems they develop or regulate.

Late medieval riflemen's chains were and continue to be carriers of diverse functions, meanings, and interests. They were produced, then modified, damaged, and repaired again; they were dismantled to make room for new pendants or to reposition them. Thus, riflemen's chains served both as an insignia and individual memento of the riflemen's kings and as a representative and publicized 'ruler list' of the riflemen's societies.

Society is full of would-be ‘change agents’—campaigners, government officials, enlightened business people, engaged intellectuals—set on improving public services, reforming laws and regulations, guaranteeing human rights, achieving a fairer deal for those on the sharp end, and greater recognition for any number of issues. It is striking, then, that not many universities have a Department of Change Studies, to which social activists can turn for advice and inspiration. Instead, scholarly discussions of change are fragmented, with few conversations crossing disciplinary boundaries, rarely making it onto the radars of those actively seeking change. This book aims to bridge the gap between academia and practice. Drawing on first-hand examples and numerous new case studies and interviews with grassroots activists and organizations around the world, as well as Oxfam’s unrivalled global experience and the author’s forty years as an activist, teacher, and scholar, this second edition of How Change Happens explores the ‘actors and factors’ that drive change. Its starting point is the importance of understanding complex systems and the nature of power and applying this to the institutions that activists seek to influence—social norms, states, politics, the international system, and transnational corporations. It examines the role of civil society organizations, digital activism, leadership, and advocacy in bringing about change, and how we—governments, organizations, businesses, leaders, campaigners, and ordinary citizens—can make a difference.

After the global financial crisis, investment fell more substantially than it had in the wake of previous recessions. With investment seemingly recovering faster in the United States than in Europe, the fear of a lasting gap emerged in Europe. This detailed analysis compares the investment dynamics and capital accumulation in the United States and the European Union, focusing on 2013-2019. It uses data from Eurostat and EU KLEMS releases to highlight the gaps and variations in investment strategies across different countries and asset types. The working paper provides key insights into the investment rates, growth of real gross fixed capital formation, and accumulation of stocks. It reveals an investment gap primarily due to lower rates in tangible information and communication technology and intangible assets after the global financial crisis, particularly in larger EU Member States. In addition, the report provides an in-depth analysis of diverse asset types and their role in the investment dynamics. It uncovers the European Union’s strength in construction assets and its persistent gaps in information and communications technology and intangible assets, indicating a need to increase investments in these areas. Furthermore, the analysis discloses the heterogeneity within the European Union, with countries like Ireland, Czech Republic, and Sweden leading in investment rates, while others, including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Spain, falling behind. This working paper is a tool for understanding the nuances of global investment trends and for formulating effective strategies to address identified gaps. It offers guidance and insights for policymakers, investors, and businesses operating in the global economic environment.

The relationships, both historical and philosophical, among the Zhuangzi’s Inner, Outer, and Miscellaneous chapters are the subject of ancient and enduring controversy. Liu marshals linguistic, intertextual, intratextual, and historical evidence to establish an objectively demonstrable chronology and determine the philosophical affiliations among the various chapters. This major advance in Zhuangzi scholarship furnishes indispensable data for all students of the great Daoist text. In a lengthy afterword, Liu compares his conclusions with those of A. C. Graham and addresses the relationship between the Zhuangzi and the Laozi.

This open access book presents a new generation multi-criteria, multi-stake holder, decision aide, called an "institutional compass". Based on hard data, the compass tells us what quality-direction we are heading in as an institution, region, system or organisation. The quality is not chosen from the usual scalar qualities of: good, neutral and bad. Instead, it is a quality chosen between: harmony, discipline and excitement. None is good in and of itself. We need some of each. The compass marks a new generation in four respects. 1. The representation of the data is intuitive and simple to understand, and therefore can be used to communicate and justify policy decisions. 2. Any data can be included, i.e., none is excluded. This makes the compass tailored to particular situations, voices and contexts. 3. The data includes different time horizons and different types of value: monetary, use, social, sentimental, religious, intrinsic, existential... 4. The process of compass construction can be made inclusive at several junctions. An institutional compass can be extended to evaluate products, add normativity to a systems analysis, reflect world-views such as that of ecological economists or function as an accounting system to manage scarce resources. There are four parts to the book. The first part introduces the general ideas behind the compass. In the second part, the author presents the method for constructing the compass. This includes data collection, data analysis and a mathematical formula to aggregate the data into a single holistic reading. In the third part, the author extends the methodology: to incorporate it into systems science, adding a normative and quality-direction dimension, to use it as a non-linear accounting method and more thoroughly to reflect the philosophy of ecological economists to give a real measure of sustainability. In the fourth part, we see three case studies: one for the World Health Organisation, a second is the use of the compass to label products in a shop and the third is as a regional compass for Hauts-de-France. The book ends with philosophical conclusions. Throughout the book, we see tight arguments, refreshing ideas and a thorough treatment of objectivity in decision making.

Public administration; Political science

This cutting-edge reference book compiles standard operating procedures, protocols, and applications of next-generation sequencing (NGS). It discusses genomic testing applications through NGS. It pays special focus on the protocols for cataloguing variants of uncertain significance. Over the years, NGS and advanced bioinformatics approaches have allowed the transition of genomic assays into translational practices. The book covers visualisation of NGS datasets, investigation of early development impairment, and metagenome protocols. It also discusses the challenges in NGS methods. Key Points: Includes case studies of application of NGS in different taxa like humans, rodents, plants, and bacteria Compiles protocols from various reputed companies like Illumina, PacBio, and ThermoFisher Discusses the translational applications of NGS methods Reviews machine learning heuristics for NGS data interpretation Discusses emerging genomic assay technologies and characterising mechanisms of disease prevalence The book is meant for researchers and industry experts in genomics, computational biology, and bioinformatics. Chapter 7 and 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at ""http://www.taylorfrancis.com"" "http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Labour Law Utopias: Post-Growth and Post-Productive Work Approaches engages with new socioeconomic ideas, or utopias, that look beyond the current growth-driven competitive market economy. Building on critiques of economic growth and the limits of the logic of human productivity and competitivity for workers and the planet, it explores alternative approaches and what they mean for work in general and labour law in particular. The concept of post-growth is used to rethink the purpose of the economy by looking beyond merely increasing wealth, consumption, and production. Post-productive work is introduced to question the centrality of economically productive work in labour law. The chapters in this book adopt a forward-looking approach and discuss whether and how labour law can contribute to emancipation from the constraints of growth and productivity by revisiting the value, organization, and impact of work on people and the environment.

Situated at the crossroads of author Stacie Selmon McCormick’s lived experiences as a Black birthing person, mother, and scholar, We Are Pregnant with Freedom traces Black sexual and reproductive liberation through the storytelling work of those most marginalized in reproductive justice research and discourse. The book recounts McCormick’s loss of twin sons to stillbirth, her near-fatal experience with preeclampsia, and her subsequent reproductive justice research and advocacy work with the Afiya Center, a Black-led reproductive justice organization in Texas. Its multidisciplinary narrative shatters the silences wrought by stigma and historical erasure, ultimately proposing a new grammar of reproductive justice that can serve the people as a vehicle for community building, healing, and bodily liberation. “Stacie Selmon McCormick’s unique offering is her focus on storytelling, and specifically on Black women’s testimonies about their own reproductive journeys. Her collaboration with the Afiya Center grounds the book in community, weaving together scholarship, theory, and lived experience in service of imagining new futures. A fascinating, engaging, and impeccably researched read.” — DANI McCLAIN, author of We Live for the We: The Political Power of Black Motherhood “We Are Pregnant with Freedom is exquisitely multidisciplinary, using a wide variety of cultural texts to investigate multiple forms of reproductive injustice. McCormick’s work sheds new light on our understanding of disability justice, carcerality, and anti-Blackness and the afterlives of slavery. This is a truly singular book that resists categorization.” — KHIARA M. BRIDGES, author of Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization

Für eine mit einer Universität verbundene Institution wie der Dr. Alfred-Vinzl-Stiftung an der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg lag es nahe, ihre 37. „Atzelsberger Gespräche“ im Jahr 2018 der ein halbes Jahrhundert zurückliegenden 68er Bewegung zu widmen. Sie war von Universitäten ausgegangen, und in ihrem Zentrum standen weltweit immer wieder solche Hochschulen. Allerdings sollte gar nicht erst der Versuch unternommen werden, das gesamte weltgeschichtliche Ereignis der 1960er Jahre unter diesem Gesichtspunkt zu betrachten, aber es war dem Veranstalter wichtig, nach den historischen Kontexten von „1968“ und nach den Auswirkungen der nach diesem Jahr benannten Bewegung im folgenden halben Jahrhundert in bestimmten Bereichen zu fragen. Daher enthält der vorliegende 32. Band der „Atzelsberger Gespräche“ im Anschluß an einen Blick des Universitätsarchivars Dr. Clemens Wachter auf die Ereignisse an der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg vor 50 Jahren die Vorträge des Erlanger Literaturwissenschaftlers Professor Dr. Dirk Niefanger über die Entwicklung der deutschen Literatur nach 1968 sowie des ebenfalls an der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität lehrenden Strafrechtlers Professor Dr. Christoph Safferling über die Folgen von „68“ für das Strafrecht der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Die Schweizer Zeithistorikerin Professor Dr. Christina Späti von der Universität Freiburg im Üechtland behandelt die – oft übersehenen – 1968er Ereignisse in der Schweiz und ihre Auswirkungen in dem halben Jahrhundert darnach, bevor der Münchener Historiker und ehemalige Direktor des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte München–Berlin Professor Dr. Horst Möller das Jahr 1968 in einer weltweit vergleichenden Perspektive in den Blick nimmt.

The Arab Revolutions that began in 2011 reignited interest in the question of theory and practice, imbuing it with a burning political urgency. In Revolution and Disenchantment Fadi A. Bardawil redescribes for our present how an earlier generation of revolutionaries, the 1960s Arab New Left, addressed this question. Bardawil excavates the long-lost archive of the Marxist organization Socialist Lebanon and its main theorist, Waddah Charara, who articulated answers in their political practice to fundamental issues confronting revolutionaries worldwide: intellectuals as vectors of revolutionary theory; political organizations as mediators of theory and praxis; and nonemancipatory attachments as impediments to revolutionary practice. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods and moving beyond familiar reception narratives of Marxist thought in the postcolony, Bardawil engages in "fieldwork in theory" that analyzes how theory seduces intellectuals, cultivates sensibilities, and authorizes political practice. Throughout, Bardawil underscores the resonances and tensions between Arab intellectual traditions and Western critical theory and postcolonial theory, deftly placing intellectuals from those traditions into a much-needed conversation.

Anna Kerkel studierte Neuere deutsche Literatur, Philosophie und Theaterwissenschaft in Bayreuth und Berlin. In diesem Band Und wenn wir Kleist bisher nur durch eine "grüne Brille" betrachtet haben? - Die vorliegende Arbeit wagt, diese Brille abzusetzen, um den Blick auf die verworrene, -- ja absurde Sprengkraft seiner Schriften zu wagen. Hinter der scheinbar blühenden, grün gefärbten Welt offenbart sich so eine rote Wüste. Mit Heinrich von Kleist vollzieht sich der Abschied von der Kunst als Begradigung der Widersprüche. Durch die Analyse des Unstimmigen, Unschönen und Trivialen sowie des Archaischen und Irrationalen in Kleists Werken kann das Phänomen des Absurden unabhängig von der existentialistischen Grundverfassung eines wartenden Godots nachgewiesen werden.

Leviticus 17–26, an ancient law text known as the Holiness Code, prescribes how particular persons are to behave in concrete, everyday situations. The addressees of the law text must revere their parents, respect the elderly, fear God, take care of their fellow, provide for the sojourner, and so on. The sojourner has his own obligations, as do the priests. Even God is said to behave in various ways towards various persons. Thus, the law text forms an intricate web of persons and interactions. There is a growing awareness that ancient law texts were not arbitrary collections of legal paragraphs but articulations of certain world views. The laws were rational in their own respect and were based on the lawgiver’s ethos. However, since the ethical values of the lawgiver rarely—if ever—surface in the text itself, it has proven difficult to grasp with traditional, exegetical methods. This study offers a novel approach to mapping out the ethos of an ancient law text like Leviticus 17–26. By employing social network analysis, the participants and their interactions are mapped to scrutinize the ethical roles embodied by the persons of the law. To accomplish this, the study undertakes meticulous research into both the participants and the interactions of Leviticus 17–26. The book investigates a semi-automatic approach to extracting participant information from a text and offers new methods for analysing Hebrew interactions (realised as verbal predicates) in terms of dynamicity, causation, and agency.

The book examines how the growth of public finance law within the European Union has both influenced and continued to impact the structure of national-level public administration in EU Member States. It assesses whether this regulatory influence has improved public administration or, conversely, negatively impacted civil society. Illustrating how global crises have shaped the formulation of financial regulations in the EU, the book discusses how enforcement of these regulations has influenced various aspects of public administration in EU Member States. The book evaluates not only the consequences stemming from the application of these rules but also those arising from changes within the EU system that ripple down to the national level. Consequently, the book delves into the effects of public finance law on both "static elements" (such as public activities, organization and civil service) and the relationships between public administrations, politics in a broad sense and civil society. The book will be of interest to students, scholars and stakeholders with an interest in the field of public administrative law, banking and finance law and public law more generally.