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In this article the authors comments on the papers about the aftermath war in Europe. They emphasize that the papers show reasons to study reconstruction work of the postwar in the region. Also taken into account is the multi-dimensional nature of a history of relief, requiring reference to the directives of great leaders and international relations that the papers are explored.

The transformations in radiology induced by new imaging technology can be understood as instances of 'doing distinctions' by both technology and human actors. This paper combines the analytical frameworks of Gieryn and Bourdieu to understand the reconfigurations engendered by the medical implementation of visualization apparatuses such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It examines the reactions of radiologists to these transformations, which forced them to renegotiate visual expertise and to reconstitute their professional and disciplinary identity. The paper argues that imaging practices are practices of boundary work and distinction, aimed at regaining professional authority and accumulating symbolic capital within the professional field. Boundary work and distinction practices are thus means to improve both the prestige of the profession and the actors' individual status within the scientific or hospital community. The paper further argues that visualization machines and images are not exclusively used for diagnostic and research purposes but are also material and epistemic resources that are deployed in practices of boundary work and distinction. Technology and pictures serve as tools to demonstrate professional skills and power, to increase one's reputation, and to renegotiate identity. Drawing on interviews, documents and fieldwork in several radiology departments and MRI centres in Europe and the USA, the paper reconstructs processes of 'doing distinctions' related to the implementation of MRI and other imaging technologies in medicine. It explores the identity and accumulation strategies of radiologists and other medical specialists through an examination of their boundary work and distinction practices, which are focused on material, social and epistemic resources, and boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Talk of public dialogue and engagement has become fashionable internationally, and particularly within Europe. Building especially upon recent British experience, this paper argues that ‘public talk’ (that is, talk both by and about the public) represents an important site for science and technology studies analysis. The relationship between ‘new’ and ‘old’ approaches to scientific governance is considered. Drawing upon a series of official reports, and also the GM Nation? public debate over genetically modified food, the paper suggests that, rather than witnessing the emergence of a new governance paradigm, the current approach can more accurately be portrayed as an uneasy blend of ‘old’ and ‘new’ assumptions. Eschewing a straightforward normative account, the paper explores the social construction of public talk, the relationship between talk and trust, the search for the ‘innocent’ citizen, and the pursuit of social consensus. Current initiatives should not simply be criticized for their inadequacies, but should also be viewed as symptomatic of the state of science-society relations. In that way, stresses and strains within the politics of public talk assume wider analytical significance than the ‘mere talk’ epithet would suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implications of moisture in building and construction are of interest to the international community because of their huge economical consequences, including effects on health, maintenance and repair, retrofitting and conservation, as well as on common welfare. The present day knowledge offers a potential to tackle such problems, both in the design process and during the service life of building. In 2001, the European Commission initiated the project "HAMSTAD" (Heat Air and Moisture Standards Development) to propose a better modelling methodology than the traditional Glaser method. HAMSTAD focused on the development of draft standardisation procedures on determination methods of moisture transfer properties and a draft methodology for certification of advanced moisture modelling codes. To stimulate competitiveness and progress, the project was carried out following an 'open methodology' instead of a system of deterministic and prescriptive (pre-) standards. This paper outlines the project and highlights the main outputs, serving as an introduction to the following more detailed research papers resulting from that work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out some observations on the making, and use, of contemporary classifications of nature in the context of a simultaneous and on-going 'making' of Europe. It looks in particular at two classifications, one of British vegetation communities and the other of European 'biotopes' (a concept that closely relates to natural or semi-natural 'habitats') — respectively, the UK National Vegetation Classification (NVC) and the EU CORINE Biotopes Classification. It investigates aspects of the relationship between these two classifications which has come about through their use in a European conservation policy. The CORINE Biotopes classification, in particular, represents a new ordering of nature in a very active sense: it is a good example of a 'working archive', and is intimately tied into policy decisions at many levels in Europe. The paper addresses questions as to how contemporary classifications are being made and used, and whether certain tacit understandings and conceptual frameworks 'built in' to them reflect back upon the world at a later stage. It argues that these classifications do not always simply reflect the assumptions and understandings built into them: once in the policy domain, they are not as 'reversible' as that. Their categories quickly become unstable, mutating and interacting in sometimes unpredictable ways. The two classifications, through their relationship with policy, have a jointly evolving history. The continual renewal of meaning attached to classes within these classifications appears to reflect outwards rather than inwards — in chorus with the broader social and political context, rather than reflecting the condition of their making. In their evolving forms, they illustrate very well the complex nature of the dynamic between unity and diversity, centre and periphery, that lies at the heart of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the debate surrounding genetically modified (GM) food, intense controversies pertain over whether, or how, GM food products ought to be labelled. This paper examines how the GM-supportive and GM-sceptical alliances use arguments regarding labelling so as to strengthen their respective positions. It is an examination of conflicting arguments across social coalitions, corporations and policy-makers, mainly in the USA, but with certain European comparisons. The empirical material consists of written statements by the different groups. The paper suggests that the ideological and epistemological tenets are radically transformed, or even 'crossed over', between GM proponents and opponents when the focus is moved from GM per se to labelling. Two types of crossovers are identified: (i) the crossover of ideologies, and (ii) the crossover of epistemologies. The paper concludes that, while implementing mandatory GM labelling may have several democratic advantages, it is more urgent that both alliances become more reflexive and communicative concerning inconsistent or eclectic crossovers — both ideological and epistemological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Social Studies of Science centers on the topic of regulation in medicine and, in particular, on the notion of regulatory objectivity, defined as a new form of objectivity in biomedicine that generates conventions and norms through concerted programs of action based on the use of a variety of systems for the collective production of evidence. The papers in the special issue suggest ways in which the notion of regulatory objectivity can be tested, extended, revised, or superseded by more appropriate notions. They insist on the need to examine more closely clinical-therapeutic (and not just clinical-research) activities, and to pay more attention to the activities of regulatory agencies such as the US Food and Drug Administration and to standard-setting organizations. They call attention to the professional and organizational activities surrounding the mobilization of conventions for regulating clinical practices. Finally, they provide material that can help us to think about how analytical notions such as regulatory objectivity may or may not inform interventionist research projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of bioethicists, policy-makers, legal scholars, patient groups, and other critically involved parties in North America and Europe recently have started calling for a new ethical principle to gather participants into clinical and genetics research. While long-prevailing regimes of consent have held that people participate in the research process out of `altruism' (and hence do not merit more than nominal payment for their participation), the increasingly visible profits accruing to bioscience researchers, companies, and universities suggest that this research contract is producing a stark asymmetry. A move is afoot, therefore, to develop a principle of benefit-sharing through which to guarantee some form of returns to research subjects. This paper tracks some of the implications of the rise of this new ethic, tracing its travels from the world of bioprospecting to clinical and genetics research, and exploring how and why benefit-sharing matters to Latourian notions of science as politics. What might it mean, both for bioscience and for our ideas about politics and publics more generally, to think of research not just as a mode of ‘speaking for’, in Latourian terms, but as a mode of giving back? I argue that in shifting the problem from one of dialogue to one of distribution, benefit-sharing proposals are also implicated in the constitution of the biosciences' publics in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes a more detailed report produced by the Federation of European Laboratory Animal Science Associations (FELASA 2005), which describes and explores a set of principles for the conduct of ethical review of laboratory animal use. It presents a synopsis of results from a questionnaire that elicited information on how each of 20 countries represented in FELASA currently approaches such ethical review. This information suggests that, although local practices differ, there is an emerging consensus on the key elements that any ethical review process should involve. Drawing on the questionnaire findings, this summary also includes a brief discussion to support and amplify a series of recommendations, covering the objectives of ethical review; legal requirements; the scope of work reviewed and the 'level' at which review is approached; general principles for the organization of ethical review processes; the factors considered in the review; needs for ongoing review after initial authorization; participants in the review process; wider impacts of the review process; and strategies that can help to ensure quality and consistency of review outcomes. For further information and examples of current practice, as well as more detailed discussion to support the recommendations, readers are urged to refer to the complete report, available at http://www.lal.org.uk/pdffiles/FELASA_ethics_FULL_Report. pdf or via: http://www.felasa.eu/recommendations.htm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses an intersection between postcolonial studies and science studies, examining the greater colonial context of space exploration. In response to Chakrabarty's call to 'provincialize Europe', I ask what it might mean to 'provincialize' outer space, considering locality relative to extra-planetary distance, and the asymmetries of history next to the symmetrical methodology advocated by Latour. By way of a brief reading of fictional texts that played an important rôle in the technical imagination leading up to spaceflight, I sketch the colonizing impulse that underwrote space exploration through and beyond the age of empire. I then turn to the French/European launch site at Kourou, French Guiana, where a sparsely populated former colony became a preferred launching ground for communication satellites into equatorial orbits. Here the representation of outer space as a final frontier crosses the remains of older colonial projects, uneasily confronting the landscape of their human legacy. In opposition to the space centre's focus on adventure, political focus within French Guiana stresses development and strives to confront the space project with the local legacy of colonial failure. A conflict over the closing of a stretch of road provides a situated moment to illustrate these contrasting understandings of the place of outer space. In this conflict, I suggest, the very length and orientation of the space centre's network affect the locality of its representation, revealing after-effects of earlier formations of geography and history. Thus, in resituating outer space against the ground, it remains important to distinguish between local knowledges and techniques that are more or less expansive, and keep in sight the different spatial and temporal frames within which 'the local' takes shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on how this special issue of the periodical was conceived, planned and executed. The fall of the Berlin Wall catalyzed a crisis for scientists and technologists in the former communist countries so serious as to be without precedent. On 28 to 31 August 1994, in Budapest, the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST) held a Conference under the overall title of "Science, Technology and Change: New Theories, Realities, Institutions." One major theme at this meeting was the presentation of a large number of papers, at several sessions, describing and analyzing the present state, and likely future prospects, of what has become the topic of this Special Issue: "The Research System in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe." Those present were impressed, shocked and moved: the idea now appearing between covers was born. All concerned realized that the enterprise was caught between conflicting priorities: to be done at all, it had to be done both quickly since the situation itself is changing rapidly and well, since its gravity must be matched by the seriousness of its presentation, and the thoroughness of its analysis.