Category — other research

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1397&date=20050509

China “suspected of spying at Swedish universities”

(AFP/The Local) China is suspected of hiring scientists to spy and steal unpatented research from Swedish universities, Swedish public radio reported on Monday.

Quoting an unnamed detective within Sweden’s security service, Säpo, radio news program Ekot reported that guest scientists from China were suspected of stealing unpublished and unpatented research from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

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wow! just wow. this is the sort of thing i just don’t expect to come from Sweden. Oh, I can see it happening… that is not an issue, knowledge is ’stolen’ or more precisely ’shared’ all the time. That is the nature of science, it is communal and shared. It is not personal/private and owned. However, when states stop underwriting knowledge generation and knowledge producers have to turn to profit and guarantee mechanisms to ensure their future livelihood and the continued existence of their institutions, traditional understandings start to fade awy.

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Two-thirds of world’s resources ‘used up’

The human race is living beyond its means. A report backed by 1,360 scientists from 95 countries – some of them world leaders in their fields – today warns that the almost two-thirds of the natural machinery that supports life on Earth is being degraded by human pressure.

The study contains what its authors call “a stark warning” for the entire world. The wetlands, forests, savannahs, estuaries, coastal fisheries and other habitats that recycle air, water and nutrients for all living creatures are being irretrievably damaged. In effect, one species is now a hazard to the other 10 million or so on the planet, and to itself.

“Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted,” it says.

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it won’t be long now.

Wikimedia Commons:

Not sure why I hadn’t run accross the Wikimedia Commons site before today, but I’m glad I finally did. Every time I find another wiki site like this I just find the concept very powerful. I just think it’s so cool that people would put their work into the public domain without the normal restrictions that copyright imposes. There are pictures, paintings, maps, drawings, audio files…and it appears new submissions are coming fast and furious.

On a side note, it’s actually pretty impressive the way the Wikimedia Foundation seems to be growing. If people start to really accept the idea of sharing content for the greater good, we may very well be on our way to a better place.

Looking at some of the premium photos, I think a masthead redesign here just may be in order…

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this is really great…..

roanoke.com – New River Valley Current -First companies prepare to occupy new incubator

Jim Flowers, director of VT KnowledgeWorks, the incubator now under construction, said he is working with 11 companies that could eventually become tenants. He said he expects four of them will be ready to take possession of space in the 45,000-square-foot building once it is ready. Flowers said some of the companies he is courting are from as far away as Ohio, Wisconsin and Toronto, Canada.

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the shock…..

Leiter Reports: The Horowitz Attack on Academic Freedom Arrives in Ohio

The Horowitz Attack on Academic Freedom Arrives in Ohio

The bill introduced in the state legislature is here.  (Thanks to Joshua Smith for the pointer.)  As one news story (for which I could not locate a URL) stated, the bill would regulate what professors can say in class, and that’s exactly right.  Here’s some illustrative provisions:

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gack! this is fake academic freedom, it is meant to allow ideological freedom, not academic freedom and they are not the same thing. my students in political economy for instance generally can’t pass if all they demonstrate is an understanding of work not presented in the course, likewise, i’ll mark students down for having fundamental misunderstandings or ideological understandings of economic systems, but that is what most of them want to do, they want to say ‘market freedom is good’ and never say why or even acknowledge market failure…. education isn’t about ideological freedom, i’m sorry. this bill needs to fail.

News Release – New partnership supports open source publishing software development – January 20, 2005:
The University of British Columbia’s Public Knowledge Project (PKP), the Simon Fraser University Library and SFU’s Canadian Center for Studies in Publishing (CCSP) have formed a partnership to support the maintenance and ongoing development of the internationally acclaimed open source software developed by PKP.

Under the direction of John Willinsky (PKP), Rowland Lorimer (CCSP) and Lynn Copeland (SFU Library), the software development will remain focused on improving the scholarly and public quality of published research, supporting the efforts of those with little experience with scholarly publishing and publishing technologies, reducing costs associated with publishing, and supporting a variety of publishing and economic models, including various forms of open access to the contents of journals.

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cool, this is good news….

Prospect – article_details:
To be concerned today with the Enlightenment ideals of freedom, democracy and reason, one needs to think about their entrenchment in an era in which political communities and states matter, but not solely and exclusively. States are hugely important vehicles for aiding the delivery of effective public regulation, equality and social justice, but they should not be thought of as occupying a privileged level of politics.

Ethics for the Robot Age:
Jordan Pollack argues that the ethical questions surrounding robotics ŠŠ should robots carry weapons, how closely should humans and robots be integrated, etc. ŠŠ should receive much more attention now before the robot revolution hits.

interesting…. some of the questions are central to our consideration of what constitutes an ethical subject, combined with our notions of control.

Ethics for the Robot Age:
Jordan Pollack argues that the ethical questions surrounding robotics ŠŠ should robots carry weapons, how closely should humans and robots be integrated, etc. ŠŠ should receive much more attention now before the robot revolution hits.

interesting…. some of the questions are central to our consideration of what constitutes an ethical subject, combined with our notions of control.

eScholarship Editions: University of California Press:
University of California Press and the California Digital Library’s eScholarship program. More than 400 of the titles are available to the general public; the rest are for University of California faculty, staff, and students only.