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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that cultural relativism is a powerful form, as well as the historical starting point, of rationality. Irrational varieties of relativism represented by Richard Rorty; Emergence of cultural relativism; Distinction between strong and weak relativists.

Discusses the relationship between the practice of science and practice in other fields, in light of the postmodernist challenge to science. Discovery as the first movement of science made in the context of community; Neils Bohr's principle of complementarity.

Traces the so-called science wars of the postmodernist period to an essay by Roman Jacobson on aphasia. Deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida's suggestion that science was mythology; Incorporation of the theories of Jakobson into the humanities; Distortions of Kurt Goldstein as bases of poststructuralist and postmodernist theories.

A conflict over the proposed bulk export of water from Canada is systematically studied using the graph model for conflict resolution in order to illustrate how strategic conflicts of this type can be better understood and managed. The ongoing conflict involving a US company, Sun Belt Water Inc., and the Canadian federal and provincial governments is modeled and analyzed using the graph model methodology. This dispute reflects the kinds of controversies that can arise when international trade laws, which stress competition and profits, are in conflict with environmental and social laws. The Sun Belt conflict is especially interesting because of its evolution over several stages; at each stage of the conflict, the objectives of the disputants, and their strategic implications, can be realistically modeled and thereby investigated using the graph model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes and analyses the development of modern irrigation in Java within the context of the establishment and transformation of the colonial state in the Dutch East Indies / Indonesia. In order to make this relationship comprehensible the concept "large technical system" has been adopted. The colonial socio-technical irrigation system was built between 1830 and 1942. Engineers, civil servants and agricultural experts were the main system builders and they formed specific coalitions practising specific irrigation approaches. After Indonesia gained its independence, the colonial irrigation system remained in existence and, consequently, irrigation engineering remained top-down, large-scale and focused on agricultural-technical management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the role of participatory modeling to generate policy options for water management issues in the U.S. and other countries. Case studies describing the difficulties faced in water management; Innovations in water management; Participatory modeling and gaming exercises.

Water policymaking strongly depends on expert knowledge, and yet there is a gap between policy makers and research professionals. This article addresses this issue by presenting a conceptual framework and method for identification of information needs in a particular policymaking context. The framework deduces information needs not only from pertaining laws and regulations, but also from strategic stakeholder behavior that can be anticipated in this context. The outcome is then matched with empirically observed information needs and available knowledge. Framework and method have been applied to the Dutch groundwater protection policy situation, establishing their effectiveness in exploring strategies to stimulate knowledge development to match stakeholder information needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents some trends and events related to technology and policy, published in the winter 2002 issue of the journal 'Knowledge, Technology & Policy.' Official control imposed by the 1939 Export Control Act implemented by the government of Great Britain on the powers of software, electronic mail and speech; Appointment of John Poindexter to head an agency called the Information Awareness Office.

Focuses on the accommodation of different social interests in the practice of water management and technical design of water works in the Netherlands. Long term view of balancing interests in regimes for wet system building; Research of the Large Technical Systems within the country.

With the evolution of an international free trade regime in telecommunications the economic significance of technical standards has been broadly acknowledged. But their evaluation has remained somewhat diffuse due to the ambivalent nature of standards that can facilitate as well as impede international trade. Focussing on the World Trade Organization (WTO) this article examines the role of technical standards and the principles according to which standards and standardization organizations are assessed. The WTO's view is extremely formal and restricted and remarkably mismatched with the contemporary hybrid international standards regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns the Nordunet project and its"plug."It is a history about how the Internet″ won″ the″ religious war″ about computer communication protocol standards in Scandinavia. It teaches us important lessons about how the Nordic countries (except Denmark) became the leading ones in the adoption and use of the Internet. On a more general level this story also teaches us an important lesson about the importance of gateways in the design and establishment of large scale computer networks and information infrastructures. It is a universal truth that the development of such technologies requires standards. And that gateways are equally important. The main conclusion drawn is that what matters in the development of such technologies is to combine and balance the use of gateways and standards in a proper way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the problem of entrenchment in large technical systems. It explores in what manner standardization could be used as a means to inscribe flexibility into infrastructures and focuses in particular on the role of standardized gateway technologies. Two cases are examined: the Extensible Markup Language (XML) for structured information exchange and the intermodal freight container, also known as the ISO container. The cases indicate that flexibility is a transient characteristic of gateway standards. Where standards do not meet the needs of subsystems and changed circumstances, competing gateways emerge, Flexibility, entrenchment and competition are part of a cyclic movement in gateway evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standardization is a means to achieve software compatibility, and not an end in itself. De facto, compatibility can also be achieved by market dominance—irrespective of the software development process, which may range from a proprietary to an open source approach. This article explores the compatibility strategies which companies use (diversity) and their effectiveness (impact) by means of a case: Sun's strategies regarding Java, a middleware technology where compatibility is crucial. It concludes that, if we focus on de facto compatibility, standardization need not be the most effective strategy. Compatibility policy should address the critical inclusion of proprietary and open source specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To attract complementary assets, firms that sponsor proprietary de facto compatibility standards must trade off control of the standard against the imperative for adoption. For example, Microsoft and Intel in turn gained pervasive adoption of their technologies by appropriating only a single layer of the standards architecture and encouraging competition in other layers. In reaction to such proprietary strategies, the open source movement relinquished control to maximize adoption. To illustrate this, we examine the rise of the Linux operating system from 1995-2001, particularly the motivations of organizational buyers and suppliers of complementary assets, and Microsoft's reaction to its success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a software engineering division of a company, the most important standards are those used for the management of the software engineering projects. While numerous, relevant, de jure, software engineering standards exist, national guidelines, such as the Department of Defense's Capability Maturity Model, and corporate standards, such as the Microsoft Solutions Framework, exert a significant influence on the marketplace. A study of the existing standards shows significant similarity across them. Case studies of the use of the standards suggest that a major factor in determining the adoption of one standard over another is the environment of the adopter. A company that depends on Microsoft in important business ways is more likely to adopt the Microsoft Solutions Framework. Likewise a company that is a major customer of the Department of Defense may be inclined to use the Capability Maturity Model. The review of software engineering management standards also reveals the dearth of explicit guidance on the roles and processes to use in upper management. Financial process and audit practices influence the application and need for standards. An examination of the operation of a major manufacturing firm (referred to as Company X) shows again the challenge of managing software projects well and the remarkable success that can accrue from a systematic and standard approach across projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The game of IS/IT-standard has fundamentally changed its nature. The point we shall make is that standardization on technologies and standardization on business processes are two different games. In the future infocentric corporate environment IS/IT might very well be more motivated towards standardizing their business processes than technologies. Consequently, striving towards interoperability and positioning oneself advantageously in the connected world should be the main concern of business and corporate IS/IT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the different treatments of informational questions regarding the transparency or non-transparency in the management of firms or other human organizations. Economic theory of agency and incentives; External control by the principal; Panoptic theory of information technology; Arguments for limiting the transparency of agent activities.

Studies manipulative tactics in budgetary games. Theories on budgetary processes; Ways in which agents outwit the selective forces in the environment; Funding organizations' search images; Types of manipulative strategies.

Presents news briefs related to computers as of March 2002. Adobe Systems Inc.'s involvement in the arrest of programmer Dmitry Sklyarov who was charged with illegally bypassing the company's copy protection methods; Legal problems facing DeKalb Tech systems administrator David McOwen after installing a screen saver from Distributed.net; European Parliament's report into the Echelon communications interception network.

Introduces articles about economics published in the December 2000 issue of the periodical 'Knowledge, Technology, and Policy.' Evolution of the world income distribution; Role of technology creation; Potential determinants of economic growth; Critiques of the endogenous growth; Effect of political conditions and cultural traits on economic growth; Role of democracies in affecting growth outcomes.

Focuses on the issue related to privacy rights among citizens in the United States. Insufficiency of Bill of Rights to address the issue; Citation on the book 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand; Implications of polarization of American mission and vision on the privacy of an individual.

Focuses on the philosophical and political debate between privacy and public accountability in the United States. Scrutiny on the practices of government surveillance to criminals; Complexities on the balance between individual privacy and public accountability; Insufficiency of Privacy Act of 1974 as directed on the practice.

Examines the Post-War shift of education from one epistemic 'axle' to another. Verification of the reasoning richness of the educational shift; Inference to the move initiated at the Universities of Bologna and Salerno; Details on the epistemological development of teaching.

The article introduces the issue which includes articles about interaction design, design research, and user-centred design (UCD), specifically in an Italian context.

Presents viewpoints of a person about technology as both the source of vulnerabilities and answer to specific problems. Initial response created from the September 11 terrorist attack; Cycle that depicts generation of professionals to forget hard-won lessons of its predecessors' errors; Application of engineering that builds culture.

Comments on the installation of surveillance cameras in Great Britain to prevent crime. Police claims about the usefulness of the system; Study indicating that the closed-circuit television setup had little effect on crime; Arguments of civil rights groups.

Introduces articles related to information technology published in the 2005 issue of the "Knowledge, Technology, & Policy."

Focuses on the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips on consumable and spare parts. Encryption of RFID on products to completely stop aftermarket products; Prevention of competition and enforcement of price fixing on products; Rejection of non-genuine spare parts by the original products.

Introduces the March 2002 issue of 'Knowledge, Technology, and Policy' journal. Reflections on scientific movement; Overview of articles in the issue.

Reports on the opposition of Japanese citizens to the country's computerized ID system. Protest activities; Refusal of some local governments to participate in the system; Worry of critics about loss of privacy and misuse of personal information.

How will the young people born in the 1980s and '90s feel about living in a country whose motto is 'Safety First'--a society of strict federal supervision of vitamin tablets, warning labels on every appliance, new temperance movements to control cigarettes, booze, firearms and fatty foods? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Futurists have imagined the Internet as a separate 'cyberspace' and as a force for an idealized marketplace. Business practice and economic theory, however, lead to a different picture. (1) 'Always-on' connections bring new interface problems and social skills. (2) Reduced transaction costs and increased economies of scale bring outsourcing, concentration, and globalized economy of focused monopolies. (3) The economies of scope inherent in modular computing systems bring 'shallow diversity': processes and products generated by a common underlying framework. This new picture omits many countervailing factors. Even so, the very existence of alternative scenarios should sharpen questions for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interorganizational information systems are information systems that cross organizational boundaries. Information managers and system developers often assume that the more integrated these information systems are, the more successful the system will be. Such an assumption is indeed intuitively appealing, and, from a technological standpoint, readily under-standable. In practice, development and use of integrated information systems that cross organizational boundaries often result in confusing power struggles, politicking, and sometimes manifest sabotage. Based on economic and political organization theory, this article concludes that data ownership and incentives, rather than integration, are of vital importance for the success of interorganizational information systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents several surveys on technological developments. Update on discussions regarding echelon; Development of word-intoxicated hypertext on the Internet; Proposal of industry-wide solution for consumers to receive text messages.

Compares a cross-cultural study involving distance learning collaborative projects with students in France and the United States. Range of abilities, cultures and attitudes; Difference between a horizontal spectrum of ethnicity, religion and race; Problems associated with the use of the Domino technology.

Focuses on the origin and status of high-technology industries in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Geographic description of Tysons Corner; Overview of the development of the area; Relocation of specialized, defense-related firms from other states.

Explores different and opposing trends concerning telecommunication technologies in the United States. Comparison between television and computers; Influence of television on family relationships; Impact of interactive multimedia on the society and culture.

Focuses on the impact of capitalism on the development of the cities in the United States. Comparison between private and public transportation; Difference between economic and political power; Recognition of knowledge as an important commodity in the global society.