Expert Bodies Research Articles

Stem Cell Science and Its Public: The Case of Singapore

In this paper, we attempt to elucidate a “public” that has emerged in response to the work of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC)—an expert body appointed by the Singapore Government—that culminated in the publication of two reports relating to stem cell science and technology. We follow Annelise Riles in explicating a recursive form from which both the “public” and stem cell science and technology draw reference in their co-production. In this regard, we borrow Sheila Jasanoff's terminology of “civic epistemology” in explicating this form, with focus on the practices institutionalised in the BAC and the ways in which knowledge claims are presented, tested and put to use in the public domain. We further attempt to provide an analysis of particular ethical constructs (such as “embryo” and “egg”) that have emerged. In so doing, we illustrate the development and refinement of a “civic epistemology” since 2001 whilst setting out the current ethical landscape in Singapore.

Stem Cell Science and its Public: The Case of Singapore

In this paper, we attempt to elucidate a “public” that has emerged in response to the work of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC)—an expert body appointed by the Singapore Government—that culminated in the publication of two reports relating to stem cell science and technology. We follow Annelise Riles in explicating a recursive form from which both the “public” and stem cell science and technology draw reference in their co-production. In this regard, we borrow Sheila Jasanoff’s terminology of “civic epistemology” in explicating this form, with focus on the practices institutionalised in the BAC and the ways in which knowledge claims are presented, tested and put to use in the public domain. We further attempt to provide an analysis of particular ethical constructs (such as “embryo” and “egg”) that have emerged. In so doing, we illustrate the development and refinement of a “civic epistemology” since 2001 whilst setting out the current ethical landscape in Singapore.

Trial by market: the Brightstar incubation experiment

Established firms accumulate a significant body of knowledge, expertise and capabilities that are often secondary to their central revenue generating activities. How do they leverage this expertise in non-core technology into future value creation opportunities? In this paper we examine an attempt by the telecommunications firm BT to create value from the accumulated knowledge within its laboratories by setting up an incubator. While conceived by the board as a mechanism for leveraging the value of non-core technology into the workplace, corporate support for the incubator was withdrawn after only three years and prompted the incubator to partner with a venture capital firm, NVP, in the spin-out of ventures. Through analysis of this single case we observe how entering into such a relationship reduces the transaction costs of accessing complementary resources, capabilities and competences, while simultaneously reducing a number of the risks associated with venturing for both parties. Partnering with the venture capitalist allows the established firm to get its intellectual property into the market, for it to be tested by the market and further developed.

Expert Knowledge in Palliative Care on the World Wide Web: Palliativedrugs.Org

ABSTRACT. In my last Internet-related article, I speculated that social networking would be the coming wave in the effort to share knowledge among experts in various disciplines. At the time I did not know that a palliative care site on the World Wide Web (WWW), palliativedrugs.com, already provided the infrastructure for sharing expert knowledge in the field. The Web site is an excellent traditional formulary but it is primarily devoted to “unlicensed” (“off-label”) use of medications in palliative care, something we in the specialty often do with little to support our interventions except shared knowledge and experience. There is nothing fancy about this Web site. In a good way, its format is a throwback to Web sites of the 1990s. In only the loosest sense can one describe it as “multimedia.” Yet, it provides the perfect forum for expert knowledge and is a “must see” resource. Its existing content is voluminous and reliable, filtered and reviewed by renowned clinicians and educators in the field. Although its origin and structure were not specifically designed for social or professional networking, the Web site's format makes it a natural way for practitioners around the world to contribute to an ever-growing body of expertise in palliative care.

Obstetric fistula‐ a new way forward

Obstetric fistula‐ a new way forward

Making an Administrative Trustee Agent Accountable: Reason-Based Decision Making within the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism

Decisions within the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol are made by an expert body that acts as a trustee agent of the member states. Trustee agents help overcome the credible commitment problems of their principals and promise reason-based decisions. In contrast to traditional principal-agent settings, trusteeship relations are typically triadic. Beside the preferences of the principals and the trustee, decision criteria provide an external point of reference. They reflect the principals’ long-term interest and define the trustee’s decision rationale. The triadic structure helps protect the autonomy of trustees and allows for making them accountable for their decisions. Accountability mechanisms intend to ensure that a trustee’s decisions are in line with established decision criteria. Against this backdrop, we explore the incentives created by the existing institutional arrangement for the making of CDM decisions and examine selected cases. We conclude that CDM arrangements provide a model for nonpartisan international regulation.

Legal Regimes and Regimes of Knowledge: Governing Global Services Trade

The starting point of this paper is that if we want to understand the way in which international law structures and mediates the deployment of power in international life, then we need to attend to the relationship between law and knowledge - the relationship between international legal processes and the processes by which we collectively come to know, describe, and imagine the world in which we live. My aim is to explore this relationship empirically by looking in detail at one case study, namely the international legal regime governing international trade in services, and specifically, the World Trade Organisation's General Agreement on Trade in Services. Over the last fifteen years, this new body of international law has developed and evolved alongside a corresponding body of social scientific expertise on the nature and dynamics of the global services economy. I tell a story of the co-evolution of these two systems - the legal regime on the one hand, and the body of knowledge on the other - and try to trace in detail the ways in which law and legal processes have been present in processes of knowledge production, shaping the way the global services economy is collectively imagined and its dynamics understood. I offer four axes along which to think about this relationship, corresponding to the concepts of constitution, transmission, objectification and empowerment.

(Optimal) Governance of Research Support by 'Survey Methodology'

Survey research is an integral element of modern social science. The infrastructure in terms of research institute, surveys, conferences and journals has greatly improved over the past 20 years and recently several initiatives have gained momentum even on a European level. This development has brought about the need for an integrated theoretical concept in order to assess and evaluate the quality of surveys and survey estimates. In our view, survey methodology is an interdisciplinary body of knowledge and expertise that describes the “science of conducting and evaluating surveys”. It is a theory-driven empirical approach to assess the quality of survey research. Thus, it applies the principles of survey research to the development and assessment of this very method. Even though surveys have been conducted in a highly professional manner for decades, survey methodology offers the opportunity to use a universal theoretical approach when planning and assessing surveys and also a joint terminology. Both, the integrated theoretical concept and the joint terminology foster the professionalization of survey methods and stimulates methodological research on the improvement of survey methods.One key element of survey methodology is the total survey error framework. It shall be described in greater detail below (section 1). Afterwards we will discuss some limitations of this concept (section 2) and mechanisms ad organizational issues in order to promote the use of this concept (section 3).

'A Network of Trust': Measuring and Monitoring Air Pollution in British Cities, 1912-1960

Abstract This paper examines the origins and development of the first nationwide air pollution monitoring network of its kind. The Investigation of Atmospheric Pollution was founded in 1912 with less than 30 participating bodies. By the 1960s it had expanded its research activities to involve over 500 cooperating authorities and organisations in almost every major British town and city. The paper is set out in three interrelated parts. Firstly, it explores how central and local government, representatives of industry, and non-governmental organisations worked together to establish an expert body that could gather information on polluted air, despite their different interests and agendas. Secondly, it draws historical attention to the importance (and difficulties) of technical standard-setting in providing reliable and policy-relevant knowledge about environmental pollution. Lastly, it will examine the uses of monitoring in efforts to raise public awareness of the problems caused by coal smoke and its role in supporting action to reduce urban air pollution, particularly after the 1952 London smog disaster.

The Role of Science in the Global Governance of Desertification

The problem of desertification sits at the interface of environmental and developmental concerns. In this article, we examine the institutional relationship between desertification science and policy through focus on the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and its subsidiary body, the Committee on Science and Technology. We argue that the UNCCD’s limited impact on fighting desertification to date may be partly attributed—among other factors—to an inadequate institutional interface between the political convention process and the scientific community. A huge body of international scientific expertise could help to further operationalize the normative provisions of the convention for on-the-ground implementation; yet the institutional architecture for ideational interplay between the UNCCD and scientific community concerned with desertification restricts the extent to which this potential is harnessed. Decisions adopted at the most recent Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD in 2007 seek to rectify this, and although these mark an important step forward, it remains doubtful whether they are sufficient to curb the root causes of the convention’s underlying problems.

Vaccines and vaccination: the principles and the polemics.

The European Advisory Board on Cat Diseases (ABCD) is a body of experts that sees its task as bringing feline health issues to the forefront of companion animal practice. By way of an introduction to this special 'clinical practice' issue of the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery (JFMS), this article attempts a 'helicopter view' of practical, or applied, immunology. It should be viewed as a 'light primer' to vaccines and vaccination, and is very general in nature. It is not intended to replace authoritive immunology textbooks, which abound both in the veterinary and medical fields, and the level of detail in which may discourage the casual reader. By design, therefore, this article is not referenced. The immune response (be it after vaccination or infection) is discussed, as are the issues of duration of immunity, and vaccine safety and efficacy, tests predicting protection, population ('herd') immunity, and the types of vaccine developed and/or available (live, killed, chimaeric, DNA-only products). With day-to-day veterinary practice in mind, practical issues discussed include kitten vaccination, the definition of 'core' versus 'non-core' products, passive immunisation, and prevention strategies in populations and crowded cat communities. Adverse reactions, and factors affecting vaccine efficacy, safety and performance are also summarised.

Does the Market Respond to an Endorsement of Social Responsibility? The Role of Institutions, Information, and Legitimacy

A consensus has emerged in the burgeoning literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) that “virtuous” firms are often rewarded by the marketplace. Unfortunately, the mechanisms through which those rewards materialize are not well understood. Furthermore, it is difficult for managers and investors to know whether a company is actually engaged in responsible behavior. Thus, many stakeholders rely on institutional assessments of a firm’s social practices to inform their own judgments about that company’s CSR reputation. In this article, we draw on institutional theory and research on reputation and legitimacy to investigate the relationship between institutional endorsements (and repudiation) of CSR and firm financial performance. Our empirical results indicate that institutional intermediaries influence market assessments of a firm’s social responsibility and highlight the importance of the legitimacy-conferring function of expert bodies in understanding the relationship between social and financial performance. Our findings also illustrate the delicate interplay among different social performance assessments, reputation, and measures of financial and operating performance such that operating performance may serve as an advanced indicator of social performance and one type of social performance assessment may temper market reactions to another.

Safety regulation for the design approval of special form radioactive sources

Several kinds of special form radioactive sources for industrial, medical applications are being produced in Korea. Special form radioactive sources should meet strict safety requirements specified in the domestic safety regulations and the design of the sources should be certified by the regulatory authority, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST). Several safety tests such as impact, percussion, heating, and leak tests are performed on the sources according to the domestic regulations and the international safety standards such as ANSI N542-1977 and ISO 2919-1999(E). As a regulatory expert body, Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) assesses various types of application documents, such as safety analysis report, quality assurance program, and other documents evidencing fulfillment of requirements for design approval of the special form radioactive sources, submitted by a legal person who intends to produce special form radioactive sources and then reports the assessment result to MEST. A design approval certificate is issued to the applicant by MEST on the basis of a technical evaluation report presented by KINS.

Time for a new start

Summary The National Research Council (NRC), which carries out studies for the U.S. National Academies, released a scathing report in December that highlights the shortfalls of the Bush administration's effort to determine the environment, health and safety (EHS) risks posed by engineered nanomaterials – a backbone of worldwide innovation. The NRC report, which was authored by an independent body of experts, highlights how understanding risks will help foster innovation. The NRC report is – if nothing else – an ideal opportunity for a new start.

Specialist Knowledge Practices of Craftsmen and Clerics in Senegal

This article examines the specialized knowledge practices of two sets of culturally recognized ‘experts’ in Senegal: Islamic clerics and craftsmen. Their respective bodies of knowledge are often regarded as being in opposition, and in some respects antithetical, to one another. The aim of this article is to examine this claim by means of an investigation of how knowledge is conceived by each party. The analysis attempts to expose local epistemologies, which are deduced from an investigation of ‘expert’ knowledge practices and indigenous claims to knowledge. The social processes of knowledge acquisition and transmission are also examined with reference to the idea of initiatory learning. It is in these areas that commonalities between the bodies of knowledge and sets of knowledge practices are to be found. Yet, despite parallels between the epistemologies of both bodies of expertise and between their respective modes of knowledge transmission, the social consequences of ‘expertise’ are different in each case. The hierarchical relations of power that inform the articulation of the dominant clerics with marginalized craftsmen groups serve to profile ‘expertise’ in different ways, each one implying its own sense of authority and social range of legitimacy.

The German ZKBS providing advice for risk mamagers since 1978

The German Central Commission on Biological Safety (ZKBS) is a body of honorary experts, examining genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for possible risks to humans and the environment and is responsible for issuing statements to this end. Statements of the ZKBS constitute recommendations that should be taken into consideration. Any deviation from the recommendations of the ZKBS requires justifying explanations. The office of the ZKBS is in the BVL (Federal Office of Comsumer Protection and Food Safety). Its duties comprise the assessments of the safety of genetic engineering operations and facilities as well as the assessments of the safety of deliberate release into the environment including placing on the market of GMO. With the amendment of theGenetic EngineeringAct inApril 2008, thenumber of experts was raised to twenty members and twenty deputy members representing different scientific fields and public interests. The commission adopts its resolutions either in written proceedings or in closed sessions that are held approximately once in every two months at the BVL, to which the involved authorities and the Federal Ministries are invited. A report of activities is published each year, for the purpose of informing the public.

An Introduction to the IEA GHG International Research Network on Monitoring

The IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme operates the In ternation al Research Network on Monitoring, which is one of a range of collaborative research networks, and has been establis hed since 2004. Over the interven ing years, the network has brought together groups and organizations working around the world to develop monitoring tools and techniques, with those using the tools to conduct monitoring surveys on carbon dioxide capture and storage projects (CCS). The meetings have continually attracted a wide ranging body of experts from aro und the world, as well as those working in academia and regulators alike. This poster will share the advancements made through the network, and will highlight the focus for the future of the network. The network rapidly established that there exists an extensive suite of tools to those interested in monitoring injected CO2, and the range of techniques available allows the user to tailor a monitoring programme to suite specific needs and requirement s applicable to each individual project. The network aims to assess new technologies and mo nitoring techniques as they are developed, and to determine the limitations of their use, their accuracy and the most suitable situations in which they should be deployed. The ultimate aim of th e network is the development of a comprehensive set of guidance documents to be used for new injection projects, to assist in the selection of best suited monitoring techniques and tools from the wide selection available. The subsequent meetings have themselves had specific aims, from engaging regulatory bodies and agencies, to providing updates on new monitoring tool developments. More recently, the network has aimed to provide an integrated set of guidelines for monitoring and verification for wide scale deployment of CCS technologies. The network has achieved much over its life, most notably the development of the Monitoring Selection Tool, allowing users to input relevant data for an int ended storage location, and the database of monitoring techniques then provides a comprehens ive suite of monitoring methods tailored to the specified site. The second notable development is the inclusion of regul atory bodies in the meetings, which has helped to foster better understanding and cooperation. The technical experts and regulatory representatives have worked together to develop realistic yet thorough procedural guidelines for monitoring and verification of injected gasses. The future direction of the network is towards the development of extensive guidelines for each sub-category of geological storage; oil and gas fields, unminable coal seams, and saline aquifers, with specific regard to the different conditions and reservoir properties encountered around the globe. Also, the network intends to maintain the continued development of the Monitoring Selection Tool, with discussions focussing on new monitoring results from projects enabling enhancement o f the tool, and also to assess and integrate new techniques and methodolo gies as they progress through developmental stages into mature monitoring techniques.

5. Costs and Incentives in Promoting Clinical Trials in Japan

Monetary incentives for clinical trials may have only a limited incentive value to promote clinical trials in Japan. The data of clinical trials should be published in Japan. A publication committee, made up of representatives of academic and other institutions participating in the study or other recognized leaders in the field, should be organized before the start of the trial. The publication committee would serve as an independent body of scientific and medical experts. Authorship of the publication should also be considered to belong to the doctors. All publications (e. g., original manuscripts and abstracts of data and information related to the clinical study) will be submitted in advance to the Publication Committee for review according to the procedure. These policies of publication will encourage many Japanese doctors to participate in clinical trials.

THE BODY OF EXPERT AND LICENSED ACCOUNTANTS OF ROMANIA - ORGANISM OF REPRESENTATION AND NORMALIZATION FOR PROFESIONAL ACCOUNTANTS OF ROMANIA

The Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania (CECCAR) is the institution that manages the Romanian accountancy profession. At the same time, by elaborating the professional standards for a whole range of services offered by accountants, standards that are references when it comes to appreciating the quality of the services provided by this professional category, CECCAR fulfilling the role of organism of normalization for its members. This role „is subordinated to the quality of elaborated standards and to the credibility of the organization”.

Allied Against Reform: Pharmaceutical Industry–Academic Physician Relations in the United States, 1945–1970

During the 1960s, the drug industry was the subject of two congressional investigations into its business practices and pricing policies, and in 1962, passage of the Drug Amendments mandated greater Food and Drug Administration authority over pharmaceutical development. In this article, I examine the industry's efforts to circumvent these political challenges by drawing on its longstanding relationship with academic physicians and the American Medical Association. Using the medical profession's shared concern about expanding government oversight over therapeutic practice, the industry called on academic physicians to join forces with it and establish an expert advisory body to guide government officials on pharmaceutical policy. Drawing on research in the archives of the University of Pennsylvania and the National Academy of Sciences and a careful reading of the trade and biomedical literature and congressional documents, I argue that by positioning themselves as pharmaceutical experts, the members of this industry-academic alliance gave industry a seat at the policy table and enabled it to challenge the efforts of pharmaceutical reformers to further increase the government's role in drug development.