Expertise,Regulatory Science and the Evaluation of Technology and Risk: Introduction to the Special Issue     

David Demortain 《Minerva》2017,55(2):139-159

Regulating technologies, innovations and risks is an activity that, as much as scientific research needs proofs and evidence. It is the site of development of a distinct kind of science, regulatory science. This special issue addresses the question of the standards of knowledge governing how we test, assess and monitor technologies and their effects. This topic is relevant and timely in the light of problematics of regulation of innovation, regulatory failure and capture. Given the enormous decisions and stakes regulatory science commends, it becomes crucial to ask where its standards come from and gain credibility, but also what valuations of technology and appreciations of their risks or benefits do they embed, and who controls them? This paper introduces the four contributions comprising the special issue, and outlines a perspective from which to question the construction of regulatory science or, in the terminology adopted here, the authorization and standardization of regulatory knowledge, particularly the role of networks of scientific experts therein.  相似文献   

Stretching and Challenging the Boundaries of Law: Varieties of Knowledge in Biotechnologies Regulation     

Alex Faulkner  Lonneke Poort 《Minerva》2017,55(2):209-228

The paper addresses the question of adaptation of existing regulatory frameworks in the face of innovation in biotechnologies, and specifically the roles played in this by various expert knowledge practices. We identify two overlapping ideal types of adaptation: first, the stretching and maintenance of a pre-existing legal framework, and second, a breaking of existing classifications and establishment of a novel regime. We approach this issue by focusing on varieties of regulatory knowledge which, contributing to and parting of political legitimacy, in principle enable the making of legally binding decisions about risks and benefits of technologies. We base the discussion around two case studies, one of animal biotechnology ethical regulation, the other of ‘advanced therapy’ medicinal product regulation, both in the context of European Union frameworks. Specifically, we explore the knowledge configurations constituting expert committees and other institutional formations of expert regulatory knowledge in their political context. We show that where sectoral and moral boundaries are challenged, different modes of regulatory knowledge beyond scientific forms – legal, procedural, moral, economic and industrial – can shape regulatory innovations either by maintenance of regimes through commensuration and stretching, or through differentiation and separation creating new frameworks. We conclude that establishing an essential techno-scientific difference between pre-existing and novel technologies does not in itself require new regulatory structures, and that the regulatory strategy that is followed will be determined by a combination of different forms of knowledge.  相似文献   

Nudging museums attendance: a field experiment with high school teens     

Patrizia Lattarulo  Marco Mariani  Laura Razzolini 《Journal of Cultural Economics》2017,41(3):259-277

This paper reports results from a field experiment conducted to study the effect of incentives offered to high school teens to motivate them to visit art museums. A vast literature exists on the design of incentives to modify the behavior of firms and consumers, but not much is known about incentives offered to adolescents and young adults to affect their cultural consumption behavior. Students in the first treatment receive a flier with basic information and opening hours of a main museum in Florence, Italy—Palazzo Vecchio. Students in the second treatment receive the flier and a short presentation conducted by an art expert about the exhibit; students in the third treatment, in addition to the flier and the presentation, receive also a non-financial reward in the form of extra-credit points toward their school grade. The analysis yields two main findings. First, non-financial reward is more effective at inducing the students to undertake the encouraged visit than either the simple presentation or the basic information with the flier. Second, over a longer time horizon the non-financial reward does not induce a significant change in behavior with respect to the simple presentation.  相似文献   

On the role of cultural participation in tourism destination performance: an assessment using robust conditional efficiency approach     

Calogero Guccio  Domenico Lisi  Marco Martorana  Anna Mignosa 《Journal of Cultural Economics》2017,41(2):129-154

The relationship between culture and tourism has been widely investigated from different perspectives. A large strand of literature studies the role of cultural heritage to attract tourists, while a rich bulk of studies on cultural participation investigates the impact of tourism flows on the demand for culture. Another aspect worth investigating relates to the link between cultural participation and the performance of tourism destinations (TDs), as a higher cultural participation in an area could boost the performance in the management of tourism resources. However, so far, this issue has been disregarded in the literature, and this paper aims at filling this gap. Specifically, it studies the effect of cultural participation on TDs’ performance using a conditional efficiency approach that ensures robust inference on the role of environmental factors. We employ data on the Italian regions for the period 2004–2010, and we explore the role of cultural participation for tourism by using several indicators. Our findings offer empirical support to the positive role of cultural participation and, thus, suggest that public cultural policies might also boost the efficiency of the tourism sector.  相似文献   

Economics of cultural tourism: issues and perspectives     

Douglas S. Noonan  Ilde Rizzo 《Journal of Cultural Economics》2017,41(2):95-107

The special issue aims at exploring, with an economic perspective, the interconnections between cultural participation, in all its expressions, and tourism organization and patterns with the purpose of understanding economic effects, emerging trends and policy implications. The expanding notion of the cultural consumption of tourists makes the definition of cultural tourism increasingly elusive. Empirical investigations of the relationships between cultural participation and cultural heritage and tourism offer interesting hints in many directions. This introduction briefly overviews the premise of this special issue, the literature and the several perspectives taken by the included articles. Aside from their cultural topics—general, intangible or temporary—these essays all tackle some important economic dimensions of tourism. We encourage cultural economists to invest more in these fascinating areas as more than just intellectual tourists.  相似文献   

Development of a markerless optical motion capture system for daily use of training in swimming     

Ferryanto Ferryanto  Motomu Nakashima 《Sports Engineering》2017,20(1):63-72

The main objective of this research was to develop a markerless optical motion capture system that can be used for daily use in swimming training. The butterfly stroke was targeted since it is considered bilaterally symmetric in motion. The system consisted of a segmentation process to obtain the participant’s silhouettes and a matching process to estimate the pose of the participant. A variable thresholding method was used to extract the silhouettes to solve non-uniform illumination in the recorded swimming video. Prior to the matching process, the human body was modeled as a series of nine segments to help the matching process. The model was then mapped so that it aligned with the silhouettes, which were investigated by similarity of intensity value. To minimize the degree of freedom in image matching, the available joint motion in the swimming human simulation model was used as a priori information for kinematics data of the swimming motion. As a result, the rotation angle’s correlation coefficients between the references and result of the matching process were around 0.95 for trunk, thigh, shank, upper arm, forearm, hand and 0.78 for head, hip and foot. The rotation angle and the velocity of the center of mass were put into the swimming human simulation model for a dynamics analysis. The simulation results show that the velocity obtained in the experiment corresponded to the fluid force exerted on the lower and upper limbs. Consequently, the proposed system of obtaining the joint motion of the butterfly stroke is suitable for daily training and coaching.  相似文献   

The effect of acceleration signal processing for head impact numeric simulations     

Andrew Post  J. Michio Clark  D. G. E. Robertson  T. Blaine Hoshizaki  Michael D. Gilchrist 《Sports Engineering》2017,20(2):111-119

Brain injury research in sport employs a variety of physical models equipped with accelerometers. These acceleration signals are commonly processed using filters. The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of applying filters with different cutoff frequencies to the acceleration signals used as input for finite element modeling of the brain. Signals were generated from reconstructions of concussion events from American football and ice hockey in the laboratory using a Hybrid III headform. The resulting acceleration signals were used as input for the University College Dublin Brain Trauma Model after being processed with filters. The results indicated that using a filter with a cutoff of 300 Hz or higher had little effect on the resulting strain measures. In some cases there was some effect of the filters on the peak linear (8–30g) and rotational measures (1000–4000 rad/s²), but little effect on the finite element strain result (approximately 2–6 %). The short duration and high magnitude accelerations, such as the puck impact, were most affected by the cutoff frequency of different filters.  相似文献   

Designing,building, measuring,and testing a constant equivalent fall height terrain park jump     

Nicola Petrone  Matteo Cognolato  James A. McNeil  Mont Hubbard 《Sports Engineering》2017,20(4):283-292

Previous work has presented both a theoretical foundation for designing terrain park jumps that control landing impact and computer software to accomplish this task. US ski resorts have been reluctant to adopt this more engineered approach to jump design, in part due to questions of feasibility. The present study demonstrates this feasibility. It describes the design, construction, measurement, and experimental testing of such a jump. It improves on the previous efforts with more complete instrumentation, a larger range of jump distances, and a new method for combining jumper- and board-mounted accelerometer data to estimate equivalent fall height, a measure of impact severity. It unequivocally demonstrates the efficacy of the engineering design approach, namely that it is possible and practical to design and build free style terrain park jumps with landing surface shapes that control for landing impact as predicted by the theory.  相似文献   

Skating start propulsion: three-dimensional kinematic analysis of elite male and female ice hockey players     

Jaymee R. Shell  Shawn M. K. Robbins  Philippe C. Dixon  Philippe J. Renaud  René A. Turcotte  Tom Wu 《Sports biomechanics / International Society of Biomechanics in Sports》2017,16(3):313-324

The forward skating start is a fundamental skill for male and female ice hockey players. However, performance differences by athlete’s sex cannot be fully explained by physiological variables; hence, other factors such as skating technique warrant examination. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the body movement kinematics of ice hockey skating starts between elite male and female ice hockey participants. Male (n = 9) and female (n = 10) elite ice hockey players performed five forward skating start accelerations. An 18-camera motion capture system placed on the arena ice surface captured full-body kinematics during the first seven skating start steps within 15 meters. Males’ maximum skating speeds were greater than females. Skating technique sex differences were noted: in particular, females presented ~10° lower hip abduction throughout skating stance as well as ~10° greater knee extension at initial ice stance contact, conspicuously followed by a brief cessation in knee extension at the moment of ice contact, not evident in male skaters. Further study is warranted to explain why these skating technique differences exist in relation to factors such as differences in training, equipment, performance level, and anthropometrics.  相似文献   

Relationship between foot strike pattern,running speed,and footwear condition in recreational distance runners     

Roy T. H. Cheung  Rodney Y. L. Wong  Tim K. W. Chung  R. T. Choi  Wendy W. Y. Leung  Diana H. Y. Shek 《Sports biomechanics / International Society of Biomechanics in Sports》2017,16(2):238-247

Compared to competitive runners, recreational runners appear to be more prone to injuries, which have been associated with foot strike patterns. Surprisingly, only few studies had examined the foot strike patterns outside laboratories. Therefore, this study compared the foot strike patterns in recreational runners at outdoor tracks with previously reported data. We also investigated the relationship between foot strike pattern, speed, and footwear in this cohort. Among 434 recreational runners analysed, 89.6% of them landed with rearfoot strike (RFS). Only 6.9 and 3.5% landed with midfoot and forefoot, respectively. A significant shift towards non-RFS was observed in our cohort, when compared with previously reported data. When speed increased by 1 m/s, the odds of having forefoot strike and midfoot strike relative to RFS increased by 2.3 times and 2.6 times, respectively. Runners were 9.2 times more likely to run with a forefoot strike in minimalists compared to regular running shoes, although 70% of runners in minimalists continued to use a RFS. These findings suggest that foot strike pattern may differ across running conditions and runners should consider these factors in order to mitigate potential injury.  相似文献