The Aviation Paradox: Why We Can ‘Know’ Jetliners But Not Reactors

Publics and policymakers increasingly have to contend with the risks of complex, safety-critical technologies, such as airframes and reactors. As such, ‘technological risk’ has become an important object of modern governance, with state regulators as core agents, and ‘reliability assessment’ as the most essential metric. The Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature casts doubt on whether or not we should place our faith in these assessments because predictively calculating the ultra-high reliability required of such systems poses seemingly insurmountable epistemological problems. This paper argues that these misgivings are warranted in the nuclear sphere, despite evidence from the aviation sphere suggesting that such calculations can be accurate. It explains why regulatory calculations that predict the reliability of new airframes cannot work in principle, and then it explains why those calculations work in practice. It then builds on this explanation to argue that the means by which engineers manage reliability in aviation is highly domain-specific, and to suggest how a more nuanced understanding of jetliners could inform debates about nuclear energy.     

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

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.     

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

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.     

Nudging museums attendance: a field experiment with high school teens

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.     

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

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.     

Economics of cultural tourism: issues and perspectives

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.     

体育赛事风险指标的构建及模糊综合评价研究

体育赛事的举办存在着各种风险,因而对其进行科学的评价具有重要作用.本文在借鉴其他领域相关指标体系的基础上,运用了文献资料法、特尔斐法、模糊综合评判等方法构建了体育赛事风险评价指标体系,结合江苏省第十八届运动会某一项目比赛的情况和对该项目比赛的数据分析,建立了一个包括7 个一级指标,31 个二级指标的指标体系,通过确定体育赛事风险指标权重,进而确定了该项目比赛的风险评价矩阵,并进行风险程度分析,发现该项目比赛的风险等级为一般.结论:在关注赛事整体风险的同时,更要关注赛事的部分风险,以降低赛事风险对赛事造成的损失.     

体育解说评论的本质特征与主体角色

文章针对新媒体背景下体育解说评论领域的概念争议与现实困惑,通过对行业实践的观察与理论层面的梳理,提出体育解说评论是一种直播的体育新闻报道,其本质是一种建立在体育新闻报道基础上的观赏服务,其主体是一种集报道者、评论者和娱乐者于一身的"三位一体"角色。     

传统运动养生文化对城镇社区体育锻炼的影响

在中国几千年的历史发展中,运动养生文化能滋生繁衍、常青不衰,有其自身的存在价值.着重探讨中国传统运动养生文化对现代社会社区体育锻炼的影响,是为了更好地继承与弘扬中国传统运动文化,继而为社区居民体质的提高和体育锻炼发展,提供宝贵的运动养生资源.讨论在城镇化进程加快的过程中,社区居民单一的生活和休闲方式,还有社区体育锻炼缺乏等方面,运用运动养生进行体育锻炼能有效增强社区居民的体质健康和丰富居民的生活方式.     

里约奥运周期女子跳马技术发展新趋势

采用文献资料法、录像观察法、数理统计等方法,以参加里约奥运会周期女子跳马决赛的运动员所完成的两跳动作为研究对象,系统分析总结里约奥运周期女子跳马技术发展的新动向.结果表明:1)当今世界优秀女子跳马选手所选用的两跳动作以“踺子后手翻类”、“前手翻类”和“踺子转体180°类”为主,且多以“直体”来完成不同类型的动作,动作集中化发展,“前手翻类”动作难度的选择和“踺子后手翻类”动作的完成质量有一定的提升空间;2)当今世界优秀跳马选手两跳动作组合主要倾向于“踺子后手翻类”结合“踺子后手翻转体180°类”;3)高难度依旧是跳马技术发展的主旋律,优质的完成动作将倍受关注,2者恰当结合是女子跳马选手取得优异成绩的关键.