Reproductive freedom, self-regulation, and the government of impairment in utero

This article critically examines the constitution of impairment in prenatal testing and screening practices and various discourses that surround these technologies. While technologies to test and screen (for impairment) prenatally are claimed to enhance women's capacity to be self-determining, make informed reproductive choices, and, in effect, wrest control of their bodies from a patriarchal medical establishment, I contend that this emerging relation between pregnant women and reproductive technologies is a new strategy of a form of power that began to emerge in the late eighteenth century. Indeed, my argument is that the constitution of prenatal impairment, by and through these practices and procedures, is a widening form of modern government that increasingly limits the field of possible conduct in response to pregnancy. Hence, the government of impairment in utero is inextricably intertwined with the government of the maternal body.     

ADOPTION OF INNOVATIONS FROM APPLIED BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH: “DOES ANYBODY CARE?”

Applied behavioral researchers develop useful innovative technologies experimentally, and yet few of these technologies enjoy widespread adoption by our society. This paper analyzes several instances in which government agencies adopted behavioral technology, identifies 10 manipulable variables that could increase the rate of adoption of such technological innovations, and relates them to the field of knowledge diffusion. Unifying theory and experimental analysis are lacking in that field, yet an implicit technology may exist.     

Governing Nanotechnology in a Multi-Stakeholder World

This article contributes to the debate on governance of emerging technologies, focusing in particular on the international level and taking into account the fact that these technologies are developed through a common effort of different stakeholders including governments, research communities, industry and civil society actors. These issues are explored from the perspective of communitarian ethical criticism of liberal social contract thinking, in order to enhance visibility of the influence collective non-state actors exercise on the development of these technologies. In particular, the effect of different values in the discussion on emerging technologies on the perceived governance options is explored. A paradigm shift from defensive values such as security, risk and human rights to more optimistic values like peace, justice and integrity of creation is proposed and discussed.     

Security Technologies Versus Citizen Roles?

The idea of securitization holds that perceived threats and the ensuing need for security measures are mobilized in speech acts to legitimate bypassing of normal practices of democratic politics and justification. Citizens, as members of the political community, are thus effectively deprived of their agency. Attempts at securitization gain clout from the severity of the mobilized threat: the more convincingly a threat is argued to cause disruptions in the functioning of society and ultimately the loss of human life, the more acceptable it will become to bypass democratic governance in order to prevent the threat. Accordingly, security technologies can be conceived of as those technologies that are constructed and mobilized in such attempts at securitization and depoliticization. However, security technologies can also be thought of as technologies that are mobilized in face of existential threats more generally, regardless of whether their mobilization has a depoliticizing effect or not. Yet, as case studies on airport security scanners and security in smart grids show, not all implementations of security, even against existential threats, show this tendency of depoliticization as essential in securitization and in technologies of security. This article further demonstrates that the agency of citizens in the governance of these technologies importantly depends on whether or not the threat is perceived as internal or external to the referent object of the security programme.     

Religion and Reproductive Genetics: Beyond Views of Embryonic Life?

Advances in new reproductive genetic technologies have spawned a very polarized public and political debate. As with the abortion debate, most formal opposition to these technologies comes from religious organizations that are concerned about embryonic and fetal life. In this article we conduct an analysis of the first nationally representative opinion survey on religion and reproductive genetics. We find, as in the abortion debate, that evangelicals, fundamentalists, and traditionalist Catholics are more opposed than more liberal religious groups. When we compare respondents with the same views on embryonic life, we find that differences remain in the level of approval for genetic technologies, suggesting that there is more to this debate than concern about embryos. We also find that religious conservatives are more distinct from the religious nonattenders in their views of health objectives of reproductive genetic technologies and less distinct in their views of improvement objectives.     

Technology: A fundamental structure?

Because technology plays such an important part in our daily lives, in our businesses, and in government policy, we need to understand it better. But technology has not undergone the elegant simplification that marks the development of most fields of knowledge as they grow to maturity. To achieve simplification we need first to discover the fundamental structure that underpins all technologies. Such a structure may well turn out to be one of the more significant conceptual foundations of the new century. What is the state of knowledge in this area? Beginning with Babbage early in the nineteenth century, many attempts have been made to create such a structure. The history of these attempts is poorly recorded with no well-documented central theme. One approach, called Strategic Technology Analysis (STA), seems to have advanced a little further than most others. It focuses on the intrinsic characteristics of technologies. Based on these characteristics, the field offers a set of frameworks for analyzing individual technological entities as well as entire technological landscapes. These frameworks cover the (1) anatomy, (2) taxonomy, (3) evolution, and (4) ecology of technology. This article traces the development of these frameworks. It recommends that they be scrutinized anew and evaluated as part of a revitalized search for fundamental structure.     

Locating Responsible Research and Innovation Within Access and Benefit Sharing Spaces of the Convention on Biological Diversity: the Challenge of Emerging Technologies

This paper reviews the location of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) approaches within the access and benefit sharing (ABS) policy spaces of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Nagoya Protocol. We describe how a range of dialogues on ethical research practices found a home, almost inadvertently, within the ABS policy process. However, more recent RRI dialogues around emerging technologies have not been similarly absorbed into ABS policy, due in part to the original framing of ABS and associated definitional and scope issues. Consideration is given to the challenges posed to these policy processes by the transformative and rapid nature of scientific and technological change today, including the emerging field of synthetic biology. Drawing on experiences from regulating ABS, we emphasize that the integration of RRI into policies for new, emerging, or poorly understood activities such as synthetic biology faces deficiencies such as limits to government capacity, jurisdictional confusion, shortages in funds, and an absence of strategic approaches. We conclude that a coordinated combination of diverse policy processes within the CBD might provide an invaluable space for RRI dialogues on social justice, sustainability, biosafety, and other issues raised by emerging technologies.     

Do Active Labour Market Policies Promote the Subjective Well-Being of the Unemployed? Evidence from the UK National Well-Being Programme

In the past 5 years, the UK government has expanded its efforts to understand, measure and incorporate indicators of subjective well-being (SWB) into the policy-making process. Utilizing the new data collected as part of the government’s well-being agenda, this paper investigates whether active labour market programmes (ALMPs) are associated with increased SWB amongst the unemployed. Unemployment has long been shown to be detrimental to mental health and happiness. In recent years, ALMPs have been increasingly proposed as potential mechanisms to improve the SWB of the unemployed. Using multiple linear regression models, the findings suggest that ALMPs do improve the SWB of the unemployed. However, there are three caveats. First, the effect of ALMPs appears to be far stronger for evaluative measures of SWB over affective measures. Second, the effect of ALMPs is larger for men than for women. Third, the impact of an ALMP is dependent upon the type of intervention: work-oriented ALMPs are more effective than employment-assistance ALMPs. In light of these findings, the theoretical and policy consequences are discussed.     

Culture Marker Versus Authority Marker: How Do Language Attitudes Affect Political Trust?

Is public trust in government representatives (i.e., bureaucrats, police, public servants) affected by the language they use? The conventional theory holds that, in a multilingual society, people favor government representatives who speak the listeners' dialects because it indicates a shared cultural identity, that is, the “culture-marker” effect. This article offers an alternative mechanism in which people's attitudes can be affected by the government designating the official language as a marker of political authority. Listeners will then project their respect for the political authority to the government representatives who speak this marker language. This mechanism is named an “authority marker” effect. Using a set of adjusted matched-guise experiments in China, this study examines the culture-marker and authority-marker effects. The results support the authority-marker effect by showing that listeners have significantly more trust in the bureaucrats who speak the official language than in those who speak the dialects of the listeners. The study also finds that this is a unique effect for speakers when they represent the government. Without that political identity, listeners will still respond more positively to speakers of their own dialects.     

Emerging Medical Technologies and Emerging Conceptions of Health

Using ideas gleaned from the philosophy of technology of Martin Heidegger and Hans Jonas and the philosophy of health of Georges Canguilhem, I argue that one of the characteristics of emerging medical technologies is that these technologies lead to new conceptions of health. When technologies enable the body to respond to more and more challenges of disease, we thus establish new norms of health. Given the continued development of successful technologies, we come to expect more and more that our bodies should be able to respond to ever-new challenges of environment and disease by establishing ever-new norms of health. Technologies may aim at the prevention and treatment of disease, but they also bring about modifications of what we consider normal for the human being. Thus, new norms of health arise from technological innovation.     

Internet and computer technology hazards: perspectives for family counselling

Families are increasingly integrating computing technologies into their everyday activities, expanding the range of external influence upon them. For many families, basic notions of 'home' are undergoing shifts as large-scale cultural and economic changes occur that are related to the 'Information age' and as family members spend more time on the Internet and with advanced communications technologies. The Internet is also providing the backdrop for a number of critical family problems, as many counsellors are discovering in their therapy efforts. This article explores the social construction of the various computer hazards that households are encountering, such as computer addiction and children's access to on-line pornography. For example, some parents label deep-seated family issues as 'technological' problems because of the involvement of the computer, while others overlook or deny the possible influences of technologies. The article discusses these issues in terms of constructivist counselling perspectives that are sensitive to cultural and environmental contexts. It outlines some of the specific strategies for countering these problems that counsellors can utilise with their clients (such as solution-focused approaches). It also discusses how counsellors can help household heads to define and deal with their rapidly changing responsibilities in these new realms.     

Les autorisations d’équipements lourds d’imagerie médicale : un désordre organisé

Medical imaging is essential for all medical specialties and it is natural that the government wants to create a real healthcare provision policy in this area. Medical imaging and particularly the “heavy” equipment are subject to a regulatory and legal framework. This framework results in respect of administrative authorization mechanism. These authorizations are a major tool for development of medical imaging on French territory. This mechanism is an important instrument of economic regulation in controlling health costs. However, the access to this kind of equipment raises various issues in governance and administration but also in matter of economic regulation, distribution of healthcare supply in medical imaging in health territories and respect of public health issues. The authorization mechanism raises questionings, not only at national and regional level in terms of unequal access, but also at European and international level. Indeed, France is among the last countries in the ranking of CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) equipment rates in comparison with many OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. Now, these authorizations will integrate much more the concepts of accessibility and quality of patient care. The legal and regulatory framework of these authorizations will have to evolve and to adapt to new technologies and practices, which today should be a source of significant cost savings.     

Why Do White Americans Oppose Race‐Targeted Policies? Clarifying the Impact of Symbolic Racism

Measures of symbolic racism (SR) have often been used to tap racial prejudice toward Blacks. However, given the wording of questions used for this purpose, some of the apparent effects on attitudes toward policies to help Blacks may instead be due to political conservatism, attitudes toward government, and/or attitudes toward redistributive government policies in general. Using data from national probability sample surveys and an experiment, we explored whether SR has effects even when controlling for these potential confounds and whether its effects are specific to policies involving Blacks. Holding constant conservatism and attitudes toward limited government, SR predicted Whites' opposition to policies designed to help Blacks and more weakly predicted attitudes toward social programs whose beneficiaries were racially ambiguous. An experimental manipulation of policy beneficiaries revealed that SR predicted policy attitudes when Blacks were the beneficiary but not when women were. These findings are consistent with the claim that SR's association with racial policy preferences is not due to these confounds.     

When Self Is the Source: Effects of Media Customization on Message Processing

Customization of media technologies enables users to become active sources in the communication process. But, does this sense of “self-as-source” alter the way users process information received via customized interfaces? A between-subjects experiment (N = 146) was conducted to answer this question. Data indicate that the effect of self-driven customization (high vs. low self-as-source) on persuasive message processing is mediated by perceived identity. Those who experience high self-as-source tend to process messages less systematically, but perceive the message topic as more important and show greater intention to follow the suggestions of messages than those with a low sense of self-as-source, an effect that is mediated by perceived identity. Theoretical implications for persuasive technologies, dual process models, and the agency model of customization are discussed, followed by practical implications for communicators who wish to incorporate new media technologies into their social influence campaigns.     

Some promising dimensions for behavioral community technology

In recent years, the search for effective and replicable approaches to planned change in communities has escalated. Applied behavior analysts have participated in these efforts to remedy existing community problems and to increase the capacities of community residents to meet their goals. Examples of behavioral technologies for community settings are described and their advantages are noted. Criteria for more contextually appropriate community technologies are suggested and strategies for developing behavioral methods according to these criteria are described. This paper outlines some promising dimensions for behavioral community technology and discusses several possible limitations to a behavioral approach to addressing societal problems.     

人类辅助生殖技术中的诊疗策略及伦理

人类辅助生殖技术是医学领域的一门新兴学科,随着此项技术的逐步成熟,也伴随着出现了各种诊疗及伦理问题。探讨对不孕症夫妇诊疗过程中的心理关怀与策略、人类辅助生殖技术治疗过程中的诊疗策略及其引起的伦理及相关法律等问题,认为在实施此项技术的过程中需要更规范、合理和人性化的诊疗策略。     

A study of experiential technology and scientific technology, exemplified by Chinese and western medicine

Experience and science, being the two sources of technology, have different focuses. In experiential technology, techniques and skills are emphasized while in scientific technology tool or equipment. Experiential technology is generally regarded as local knowledge, and scientific technology universal. Traditional Chinese medicine is an experiential technology. In contrast, Western medicine is set up as a scientific technology with great efforts. Through the comparison of these two medicines, this paper attempts to illustrate the difference between the two technologies and in turn, the difference between these two medicines by defining these two technologies. Finally, this paper further investigates the special values of Chinese medicine. Making use of the SSK theory, this paper deconstructs the idea of universality of science, and argues that, the universality is the feature that science pursues, but not what it already has. With more historical evidence, experiential technology is more stable, while scientific technology is less stable because it updates quickly, and often changes reversely.     

Self‐tracking in effortful activities: Gender differences in consumers' task experience

Despite the increasing use of self‐tracking technologies, surprisingly little empirical research has examined the effect of self‐tracking in effortful activities on consumers' task experience. Accordingly, the present research examined the moderating role of gender in the effect of self‐tracking in effortful activities on perceived competence and task experience (namely, enjoyment and subjective vitality). Across three experiments, results suggested that self‐tracking in effortful activities increases the perceived competence, enjoyment, and subjective vitality of females more than males, and that perceived competence explains these interaction effects. Interestingly, an experimental manipulation designed to prompt overestimation of abilities attenuated these positive effects among females. As such, the present research contributes to the literatures on self‐tracking and feedback instrumentality, and offers important practical implications for marketers.     

Brain imaging: Applications in psychiatry

For more than a century psychiatrists have suspected neuropathology in patients with mental illness. In the last decade there have been developed several technologies that are capable of looking at both neuroanatomy and neurophysiology in the brains of living humans. First, x-ray computerized axial tomography led the way in visualizing the living brain, and now magnetic resonance imaging allows brain structure to be shown with even more clarity. Brain electrical activity mapping allows computerized maps of electrophysiological activity to be visualized in a way never before possible. Nuclear medicine has provided the means of looking at various metabolic and neurochemical parameters in the living brain. These include regional cerebral blood flow studies using xenon¹³³, single photon emission tomography, and positron emission tomography. Psychiatrists are cautiously optimistic that these various brain imaging technologies will be important new tools in continued exploration of the causes of mental illness and ultimately may lead to more effective treatments.     

The debate over food biotechnology in the United States: is a societal consensus achievable?

Unless the public comes to agree that the benefits of food biotechnology are desirable and the associated risks are acceptable, our society may fail to realize much of the potential benefits. Three historical cases of major technological innovations whose benefits and risks were the subject of heated public controversy are examined, in search of lessons that may suggest a path toward consensus in the biotechnology debate. In each of the cases—water fluoridation, nuclear power and pesticides—proponents of the technology gathered scientific evidence that they believed established that the innovations were safe. In each case, the federal government was heavily involved in oversight, safety regulation, and in the first two cases, active promotion of the technology. Supporters of the technologies employed a variety of communications strategies, ranging from massive “educational” campaigns (e.g. “Our Friend The Atom”) to vituperative ad hominem attacks on leading opponents. None of these strategies succeeded in achieving broad societal acceptance of the technologies. Fluoridation today is opposed as vigorously by activist groups as it was when first introduced around 1950; it has not been universally adopted even in the U.S., and it has been rejected in most other countries. The American nuclear power industry is moribund, and the public has essentially rejected the technology. The pesticide industry is thriving, with new generations of products succeeding older more hazardous chemicals in a constant cycle. However, strong regulation has failed to prevent adverse health and ecological effects, which have been empirically associated with pesticide uses after the chemicals were dispersed in the environment. Debate over whether risks of such effects are acceptable has been heated for four decades, with scientists and the public divided. None of these cases offers an ideal model for the biotechnology revolution, though they do reveal many strategies that have not worked. The biotechnology debate is also taking place at a time when our concepts of risk communication have improved, and when many consumers are more actively concerned with buying products perceived to be less likely to harm the environment. Based on the three case histories and more recent trends, some characteristics of a process for seeking a societal consensus are described. They include explicitly defining the subjects for consensus; including all stakeholders in a respectful dialogue; confronting value issues, such as acceptability of risks and ethical perceptions; listening to others’ perspectives, and being willing to change one’s own point of view. If activists on all sides of the food biotechnology debate are willing to commit to such a consensus-building process, there is hope that the U.S. national debate can be resolved in a manner satisfactory to essentially all parties.