Donald Campbell has long advocated a naturalist epistemology based on a general selection theory, with the scope of knowledge restricted to vicarious adaptive processes. But being a vicariant is problematic because it involves an unexplained epistemic relation. We argue that this relation is to be explicated organizationally in terms of the regulation of behavior and internal state by the vicariant, but that Campbell's selectionist approach can give no satisfactory account of it because it is opaque to organization. We show (...) how organizational constraints and capacities are crucial to understanding both evolution and cognition and conclude with a proposal for an enriched, generalized model of evolutionary epistemology that places high-order regulatory organization at the center. (shrink)

The primary theme of this book is related to library and information science. The book is arranged into several chapters related to specific issues in knowledge organization and information dissemination. Library and Information science is a rapidly growing specialized field which is currently demanding ever more attention due to tremendous growth in data, information, and knowledge across the world. Therefore, to cater the growing need of library science professionals, and increasing demand for knowledge resources, this book has (...) been compiled from the research works undertaken independently and jointly by the authors containing several chapters dedicated to various aspects of LIS. Although most of the chapters have appeared as working papers in pre-print versions available in various public repositories which could be accessed via the internet, the authors have painstakingly undertook the effort to compile their works together in a formidable format for ready reference to current developments in the LIS profession. Some of the chapters have been thoroughly revised and reedited to give a fresh look to the theme and topics under discussion. (shrink)

The introductory essay to this collection correctly observes that there are many “challenges for rapprochement” between anthropology and (the rest of) cognitive science. Still, the possibilities of fruitful interchanges provide some hope for the parties getting back together, at least on an intermittent basis. This response offers some views concerning the “incompatibility” of psychology and anthropology, reviews why cognitive anthropology drifted away from cognitive science, and notes two areas of contemporary interest within cognitive anthropology that may lead to a re-engagement.

This article is a contribution to the critical sociology of science perspective introduced and developed by Pierre Bourdieu. The paper proposes a transversalist theory of science and technology production and diffusion. It is here argued that science and technology are comprised of multiple regimes where each regime is historically grounded, possesses its own division of labour, modes of cognitive and artifact production and has specific audiences. The major regimes include the disciplinary regime, utilitarian regime, transitory regime and research-technology regime. Though (...) each regime is autonomous, they are simultaneously closely interlaced. In science and technology, autonomy is not antithetical to interdependence and reciprocity. This study demonstrates for the four specified regimes of production and diffusion that differentiation is not contrary to interaction. In science, differentiation and interaction comprise two sides of the same coin. All regimes exhibit a measure of transversality. (shrink)

In the survey and criticism of science and philosophy we are considering systems of knowledge and thought rationally developed from coherent human experience. These rational systems are in a definite sense intellectually organized. Where intellectual and social problems are real and urgent the relevant knowledge and thought should be organized socially and purposively to achieve tentative, if not adequate or definitive solutions.

Resumen: La presente investigación tuvo por objetivo analizar los usos del discurso institucional de universidades chilenas autodefinidas como complejas en relación con la organización del conocimiento e iniciativas intertransdisciplinarias relevantes informadas a nivel de estructuras estáticas y noticias en sitios web oficiales de cada una de ellas. En este contexto y mediante un Análisis Crítico del Discurso, se indaga en el despliegue de estrategias comunicativas, la producción y difusión del discurso institucional, como asimismo, su exposición y disposición en las páginas (...) web. Desde esta base se contribuye con información cualitativa a la discusión en torno a los formatos y dispositivos de comunicación social referidos a las nociones de inter y transdisciplina en el contexto de la educación superior en el país. Los resultados dan cuenta de la emergencia, centralidad y valor comunicacional de la prospectiva inter y transdisciplinaria en el contexto universitario chileno, no obstante, también evidencian las condicionantes epistemológicas y metodológicas para su despliegue organizacional crítico y sostenible.: The following investigation had as an objective to analyse the usages of the Institutional Discourse from Chilean universities self-described as complex, in relation to the Knowledge Organization and relevant inter-disciplinaries initiatives that are informed at the level of static structures and pieces of news published on each official website. In this context, and, through a Critical Discourse Analysis, the communicative strategies deployment is explored, as well as the production and broadcasting of their institutional discourse. Likewise, their exposure and disposal on web pages. On this basis, the qualitative information is contributed to the discussion around the formats and social communication devices, referred to the concepts of inter and trans-disciplines in the context of higher education in the nation. The results, reflect the emergency, centrality and communicational value of the inter and trans-disciplinary prospective in the Chilean university context. However, the epistemological and methodological conditions are evidenced for its organizational, critical, and sustainable deployment. (shrink)

Nearly fifty years after the incorporation of the International Society for Knowledge Organization and the introduction of its formal scientific journal Knowledge Organization, a comprehensive encyclopedia of the domain appeared. The practice of domain analysis for knowledge organization, twenty years after its introduction as a core methodology, has created the largest corpus of theoretical knowledge in the domain analysis of knowledge organization itself. A substantial body of research data, therefore, is available in the corpus of (...) articles and conference papers reporting on the epistemological and ontological pillars of the science of knowledge organization. This paper is a report on the evolution of a formal taxonomy of knowledge organization, which is a product of an exhaustive meta-analysis of the KO domain. Our team compiled the corpus of twenty-nine formal published analyses together with key formative historical documents. We then analyzed the corpus thematically, bibliographically, and using co-word analysis to extract key concepts and the underlying faceted conceptual infrastructure. The taxonomy itself is faceted and is linked where possible to published definitions in the KO literature and as well as to the online ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization. A dynamic project, the taxonomy will be maintained as linked open data and will grow as emergent research contributes new concepts or generates new facets. (shrink)

At least since Kuhn’s Structure, philosophers have studied the influence of social factors in science’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. More recently, formal models and computer simulations have allowed philosophers of science and social epistemologists to dig deeper into the detailed dynamics of scientific research and experimentation, and to develop very seemingly realistic models of the social organization of science. These models purport to be predictive of the optimal allocations of factors, such as diversity of methods used in science, (...) size of groups, and communication channels among researchers. In this paper we argue that the current research faces an empirical challenge. The challenge is to connect simulation models with data. We present possible scenarios about how the challenge may unfold. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a consortium that comprises leading informaticians, biologists, clinicians, and ontologists, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Roadmap, to develop innovative technology and methods that allow scientists to record, manage, and disseminate biomedical information and knowledge in machine-processable form. The goals of the Center are (1) to help unify the divergent and isolated efforts in ontology development by promoting high quality open-source, standards-based tools to create, manage, and use ontologies, (2) to (...) create new software tools so that scientists can use ontologies to annotate and analyze biomedical data, (3) to provide a national resource for the ongoing evaluation, integration, and evolution of biomedical ontologies and associated tools and theories in the context of driving biomedical projects (DBPs), and (4) to disseminate the tools and resources of the Center and to identify, evaluate, and communicate best practices of ontology development to the biomedical community. Through the research activities within the Center, collaborations with the DBPs, and interactions with the biomedical community, our goal is to help scientists to work more effectively in the e-science paradigm, enhancing experiment design, experiment execution, data analysis, information synthesis, hypothesis generation and testing, and understand human disease. (shrink)

This collection of essays explores the questions of what counted as knowledge in Victorian Britain, who defined knowledge and the knowledgeable, by what means and by what criteria. During the Victorian period, the structure of knowledge took on a new and recognizably modern form, and the disciplines that we now take for granted took shape. The ways in which knowledge was tested also took on a new form, with oral examinations and personal contacts giving way to (...) formal written tests. New institutions of knowledge were created: museums were important at the start of the period ; by the end, universities had taken on a new prominence. Knowledge exploded and Victorians needed to make sense of the sheer scale of information, to popularize it, and at the same time to exclude ignorance and error - a role carried out by encyclopaedias and popular publications. The concept of knowledge is complex and much debated, with a multiplicity of meanings and troubling relationships. By studying the Victorian organization of knowledge in its institutional, social, and intellectual settings, these essays contribute to our consideration of these wider issues. (shrink)

Since the spectrum of possibilities in linguistic theory construction is much broader and more variegated than students of linguistics have perhaps been led to believe, the Current Issues in Linguistic Theory series has been established in order to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of linguistic opinions of scholars who do not necessarily accept the prevailing mode of thought in linguistic science. CILT is a theory-oriented series which welcomes contributions from scholars who have significant proposals to make towards (...) the advancement of our understanding of language, its structure, functioning, and development. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory is especially designed, by offering an alternative outlet for meaningful contributions to the current linguistic debate, to furnish the community of linguists the diversity of opinion which a healthy discipline must have. (shrink)

Scientometrics has found many applications in describing, explaining and predicting the scientific status of researchers, educational and research groups, universities, organizations and countries in various national and international arenas. By studying the scientific products of different countries, their status in the production of science can be evaluated. Present study was conducted using a scientometrics approach and using co-word analysis and social network analysis (SNA) to investigate relationships in the field of know­ledge organization. In this regard, research indexed in web of (...) science on the topic of “know­ledge organization” has been analyzed using software including VOSviewer, Gephi, Publish or Perish. The findings of the study show that the most frequently used topics and words are know­ledge organization and classification. Also, the most valuable subject areas were identified based on the maps drawn using the closeness and centrality of indexes, taxonomy, ontology and know­ledge organization systems. Co-authorship analysis revealed that the co-authorship network is discrete and has low-density, with a total of 12,491 citations in all articles. Also, the most prolific author is Hjorland, followed by Smiraglia and Dahlberg. using the co-word map of know­ledge organization, policymakers can plan appropriately through the know­ledge of the research and thematic status of know­ledge organization. (shrink)

Some of the fundamental activities of the software development process are related to the discipline of Requirements Engineering. Their objectives are to discover, analyze, document, and verify the system’s requirements. The requirements are the conditions or capabilities that software needs to have or fulfill to meet its users’ needs, and problems in its identification can mean the failure of a software project. This study is part of the research that is being developed to propose a model based on Know­ledge Organization (...) Systems to be used in the Requirements engineering process. This article aims to present the results of an analysis on a set of Know­ledge Organization Systems to identify whether they are likely to be applied in the Requirements engineering process and identify at which stage of this process each one of them can be implemented. The Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed were the authority files, gazetteers, glossaries, subject headings, classification systems, thesauri, semantic networks, and ontologies. Based on the results obtained, it was possible to conclude that the Know­ledge Organization Systems analyzed can be used in the Requirements engineering process and, consequently, contribute to increasing the software requirements’ quality. (shrink)

The ethics of describing and indexing works which have an element of deception is an important topic within the arena of knowledge organization (KO). However, what happens if the unreal element is for artistic purposes and is part of the experience of the document? The focus of this article is on the KO of art documentation. It considers art documents where unreality and mistruth are part of a document’s creative and artistic purpose. Three examples of exhibition documentation for contemporary (...) art are explored. These illuminate the KO implications of unreal elements in artworks, exhibitions and documents, and the interplay between them. Three models are then presented relating to the KO of unreality. Model one shows how the wishes of the creator are a significant part of ethical KO for art and the ethical KO decisions which result from the performative and experiential aspects of art documentation. Model two illustrates how the placement of the unreality in relation to metadata creation can have a critical impact on ethical decisions in KO. Model three posits unreal-ness as a novel type of information about metadata creation, introducing categories such as motive for the deception. It shows how this original way of contemplating applied ethics in KO is vital for all ethically challenging works. Ultimately, considering the KO ethics of art documentation extends our thinking about how to deal with deception and unreality and adds an important aesthetic-ethical dimension to the corpus of work on KO ethics. (shrink)

In the employment relationship, organizational factors are the main factors that affect employee behavior. Especially for knowledge-based workers, it is even more crucial for organizations to give enough attention to their individual needs. Based on Existence, Relatedness, and Growth theory, this study constructs a moderated mediating model to explore how the impact of the employee–organization relationship on work engagement and work well-being of knowledge-based employees. In this study, existence–relatedness–growth need satisfaction is used as a mediator and the perceived (...) symbiotic relationship is used as a moderator. Data collected from 791 knowledge-based employees in higher education institutions from more than 20 provinces and cities in China are used to test the model. The results show that EOR has significant positive effects on WE and WWB. Need satisfaction for relatedness partially mediates the effects of EOR on WE and WWB. Need satisfaction for growth mediates the effect of EOR on WE while the mediating role of need satisfaction for growth between EOR and WWB is unsupported. The mediating role of need satisfaction for the existence of EOR on both WE and WWB is unsupported. The perceived symbiotic relationship moderates the relationship between EOR and WE and WWB. The findings are of theoretical significance in expanding the research field of EOR and providing a basis for organizations to implement EOR strategies. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss how we used institutional ethnography (Institutional ethnography as practice, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD and 2006) to map out powerful ruling relations that organize nurses’ wound care work. In recent years, the growing number of people living with wounds that heal slowly or not at all has presented substantial challenges for those managing the demands on Canada's publicly insured health‐care system. In efforts to address this burden, Canadian health‐care administrators and policy‐makers rely on scientific evidence (...) about how wounds heal and what treatments are most effective. Advanced wound care exemplifies the growing authorization of particular forms of evidence that change the ways in which nurses come to know about and conduct their work. The focus of this paper's nursing inquiry is a critique of registered nurses’ wound work as it arises within the established uptake of scientific evidence. (shrink)

The relationship between perceptual categorization and organization processes in 3‐ to 4‐month‐old infants was explored. The question was whether an invariant part abstracted during category learning could interfere with Gestalt organizational processes. Experiment 1 showed that the infants could parse a circle in accord with good continuation from visual patterns consisting of a circle and a complex polygon. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, this parsing was interfered with by a prior category familiarization experience in which infants were presented with (...) visual patterns consisting of a pacman shape and a complex polygon. Part 1 of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the infants recognized the pacman as familiar, and Part 2 demonstrated that the representation of the pacman blocked the subsequent parsing of the circle. The results suggest that a cognitive system of flexible feature creation can override organizational principles with which a perceptual system may come pre‐equipped. (shrink)

This case study aims to preserve and disseminate cultural heritage information about the North American community folk dance tradition of contra dance through development of a thesaurus of choreographic terms and a domain ontology. A survey of dance resources was conducted, reviewing historic and modern examples of contra dance choreography notation and instructions, records of dance events, and recordings of dance performances. Domain and content analysis were performed on the resources to collect and organize concepts and themes regarding choreographic components (...) and their relationships, the structure and function of cultural works, their creative expressions, and the evidence of those expressions in documents and recordings. Vocabulary used in the description of contra dance choreography was identified, classified, and notated to build a thesaurus, which was used as the basis of a domain ontology. Ontology building methodology and existing conceptual models for cultural heritage domains guided the ontology development and revision phases. The study also seeks to safeguard an intangible cultural heritage by applying knowledge organization and semantic approaches to folk dance in order to model such challenges as multiple, simultaneous modes of communication and forms of representation, modular conceptual components, descriptive sequences, differing levels of structured information, and complex cultural networks found at various levels of domain discourse. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems, the recent literature has still not unravelled what sharing exactly entails from an organizational standpoint. In light of this knowledge gap, this study aims to understand which resources are shared, and how, in a heterogeneous set of sharing economy initiatives in the context of food and agriculture. Specifically, this study compares the organization of various forms of alternative food networks (AFNs), which are recognized to be frugal forms of sharing (...) economy initiatives (i.e., locally based, small-scale and with limited use of information technology), in terms of leadership, bureaucracy, shared resources and participants’ engagement. Data from a comparative case study across 18 AFNs identify five sharing economy models of AFNs with distinctive shared resources and organizational mechanisms: consumer groups; commercial community gardens; as well as network-based, privately owned and publicly owned self-consumption community gardens. These models also display notable differences in terms of their origins, participants’ goals and constraints which, to some extent, may be associated to the nature of their organization. Findings inform policy-makers, AFNs’ leaders and stakeholders—especially those seeking to support innovative models towards sustainable transitions—on how to tailor institutional norms and develop networks to meet the heterogeneous needs of different typologies of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems. (shrink)

ArgumentThe article examines the organizational patterns of nineteenth-century Swiss Alpine geology. It argues that early and middle nineteenth-century Swiss geognosy was shaped in genealogical terms and that the patterns of genealogical reasoning and practice worked as a vehicle of transmission toward the generalization of locally gained empirical knowledge. The case study is provided by the Zurich geologist Albert Heim, who, in the early 1870s, blended intellectual and patrilineal genealogies that connected two generations of fathers and sons: Hans Conrad and (...) Arnold Escher, Albert and Arnold Heim. Two things were transmitted from one generation to the next, a domain of geognostic research, the Glarus Alps, and a research interest in an explanation of the massive geognostic anomalies observed there. The legacy found its embodiment in the Escher family archive. The genealogical logic became visible and then experienced a crisis when, later in the century, the focus of Alpine geology shifted from geognosy to tectonics. Tectonic research loosened the traditional link between the intimate knowledge of a territory and the generalization from empirical data. (shrink)

Within the literature that circulates in the discourses organizing nursing education, there are embedded assumptions that link student performance on maths examinations to safe medication practices. These assumptions are rooted historically. They fundamentally shape educational approaches assumed to support safe practice and protect patients from nursing error. Here, we apply an institutional ethnographic lens to the body of literature that both supports and critiques the emphasis on numeracy skills and medication safety. We use this form of inquiry to open an (...) alternate interrogation of these practices. Our main argument posits that numeracy skills serve as powerful distraction for both students and teachers. We suggest that they operate under specious claims of safety and objectivity. As nurse educators, we are captured by taken‐for‐granted understandings of practices intended to produce safety. We contend that some of these practices are not congruent with how competency actually unfolds in the everyday world of nursing practice. Ontologically grounded in the materiality of work processes, we suggest there is a serious disjuncture between educators' assessment and evaluation work where it links into broad nursing assumptions about medication work. These underlying assumptions and work processes produce contradictory tensions for students, teachers and nurses in direct practice. (shrink)