Local Invention Research Articles

The form and function of Ovambo arrows: Exploring agro-pastoralist hunting technology

In this paper we describe a single sample of nineteenth and twentieth century bows and arrows of the Ovambo, Namibia. Unlike some other southern African bow-hunting groups, there is a paucity of literature describing the traditional hunting weapons of the Ovambo. Two types of bows and two broad types of arrows were observed, the latter each with multiple variants. The varied arrow designs reflect different types of prey and hunting techniques. There is apparently greater design affiliation with several Angolan tribes, such as the Ovimbundu, than with the Hei//om hunter-gatherers, with whom the Ovambo also interacted. We argue that the basic Ovambo weapon designs and hunting techniques were well established prior to their entrance into Namibia and was not affected tangibly by contact with the Hei//om. There are several features of the arrows that seem unique to the Ovambo material and are probably of local invention. We postulate probable functions of some of the arrow designs, although others remain ambiguous.

Seeking Social Inventions to Improve the Transition to Adulthood

Social inventions are new ways of solving human problems. This article reports on an action research project designed to find social inventions to reduce structural lag in four programs that support the transition to adulthood of marginalized youth in Latin America. The investigators engaged youth and staff members in identifying important questions, collecting and interpreting data, and using findings to improve their practices. Their issues aligned with social setting features: activities, resources, roles, and norms. Among their social inventions were “the life project,” the role of mentor, youth responsibility, and new norms of reflection introduced by action research, which not only revealed social inventions but generated them as well. Interaction with external parties contributed to this process: the investigators, “local researchers” engaged as part of the project, participants in conferences convened for participants. Rather than recommending social inventions for adoption in other locations, we recommend using action research to generate local social inventions.

Local innovation for improving primary care cardiology in resource-limited African settings: an insight on the Cardio Pad(®) project in Cameroon.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an emerging threat to the health of populations in Africa. With the inadequate health infrastructures, understaffed and underfunded health systems, African countries are ill-prepared to cope with the increasing demand for care for CVD, particularly for populations in remote and underserved rural areas, where 60% of the population currently reside. Task shifting and telehealth have been suggested as strategies to overcome the current health workforce shortage in African countries, and to increase access to prevention and curative services for emerging CVD. However, strategies for promoting their incorporation into the existing health systems, have yet to be developed. The Cardio Pad(®) initiative (originating from Cameroon) seeks to provide appropriate solutions to improve the application of telemedicine for CVD prevention and control in remote African settings. The Cardio Pad(®) is a tele-cardiology device which provides a number of advantages in terms of cost, ease of use, autonomy and reduced technology requirements. It is a fully touch screen medical device which enables cardiac tests such as electrocardiograms (ECG) to be performed in remote underserved areas (rural areas for instance), while the test results are transferred wirelessly via mobile phone connection, to specialist physicians who can interpret them and provide assistance with case management. While most of the current telemedicine clinical services on the African continent receive most expertise from developed countries, the Cardio Pad(®), a local invention by a 26-year-old Cameroon-trained engineer demonstrates how much innovative solutions to combat CVD and other health issues could and should be developed locally in Africa.

The Roman–Irish Bath: Medical/health history as therapeutic assemblage

The invention of a new form of hot-air bath in Blarney, Ireland in 1856, variously known in its lifetime as the Roman–Irish or Turkish Bath, acted as the starting point for a the production of a globalised therapeutic landscape. Tracking the diffusion of the Roman–Irish bath template from its local invention in Ireland to a global reach across the Victorian world and recognizing its place within a wider hydrotherapeutic history, this paper frames that diffusion as a valuable empirical addition to assemblage theory. The specific empirical history of the spread of the Roman–Irish/Turkish bath idea is drawn from primary archival and secondary historical sources. It is then discussed and, drawing from work on assemblage theory, analyzed against three broad themes: mobile networks, socio-material practices and contested emergence. The emergent relational geographies of the Roman–Irish Bath identify important roles for the diffusion and transformation of specific medical settings, identities and functions. These were linked in turn to competing social-healing pathways wherein bodies were technologically and morally managed, to produce a more inhabited form of therapeutic assemblage. In all cases the differential diffusion of the bath idea, it's shifting and fractured material forms and multiple inhabitations and discourses were contested and mobile and spoke to an assemblage approach which has ripe potential for exploration across a range of medical/health geography settings.

Relocating Low-to-Medium Tech Manufacturing Activities to Developing Countries: Empirical Analysis of Taiwanese and South Korean Manufacturing Outsourcing to Bangladesh

The aim of this study is to identify factors influencing the offshore outsourcing decision of manufacturing firms from emerging countries to developing countries like Bangladesh. The theoretical framework is developed with three categories of factors namely reduce operating cost, improve company focus, and access to world class capability. The data collected through a survey questionnaires from a total of 227 Taiwanese (131) and Korean manufacturing firms (96) operating in Bangladesh. The main tools used are factor analysis, correlation analysis and linear regression analysis. The findings reveal that some factors like capital investment, fixed cost, entering new (third) markets, and access to local capabilities, invention and innovation influence Taiwanese and Korean low and mid-tech manufacturing firm's outsourcing decision to low labor cost country like Bangladesh with preferential access to the developed country markets for manufacturing goods.

Was Race thinking invented in the modern West?

The idea that genuinely racial thinking is a modern invention is widespread in the humanities and social sciences. However, it is not always clear exactly what the content of such a conceptual break is supposed to be. One suggestion is that with the scientific revolution emerged a conception of human groups that possessed essences that were thought to explain group-typical features of individuals as well the accumulated products of cultures or civilizations. However, recent work by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists suggests that such essentialism is a product of culturally canalized, domain-specific, and species-typical features of human psychology. This suggests that one common explanation of the content of a break in racial thinking is wrong, and casts some doubt on the thesis that genuinely racial thinking is a culturally and historically local invention.

New guidelines for health care for alcohol and drug users and the real work: possible contributions of ergonomics to the restructuring of work and competence development

The study investigated, through a literature review, how the research community has addressed the difficulties experiences by the teams in front of new prescriptions for the treatment of alcohol and drug users in Centers of Psyco-social Attention and discusses the relevance of the conceptual and methodological references of Ergonomics for understand and transform work situations. Such studies tend to do an analysis that does not account for variability present in both the workers and work organization and prioritize the analysis of final results of the, disqualifying local inventions due to tasks imposed by policy guidelines. It is estimated that the Ergonomics, considering the diversity of training, learning and experience, contributes to the implementation of media to promote the continued development of competences that can meet the demands of production and expands knowledge about the problems experienced and the possibilities of overcoming them.

Profile and influence of the successful fisher-Inventor of marine conservation technology

Anecdotally it is often said that fi shers are the best inventors of marine conservation technologies. In this paper I describe case studies of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) and dolphin conservation technology, offering empirical evidence that fi shers are successful inventors of marine conservation technology. I describe the Local Inventor Effect, in which adoption of a technology is disproportionately high in the geographic area near the inventor’s home. In one case, the adoption of a local invention was 600% higher than that of the next most popular device. Further, I present the Successful Inventor Profi le for inventors of marine conservation technologies. This profi le consists of three characteristics (1) a successful conservation technology inventor will have extensive experience relevant to the problem and potential solutions, (2) he or she will have extensive experience in fabrication, and (3) he or she will have the ability and tendency to employ mental and/or physical models, to assemble and refi ne inventions.

What Explains the Quantity and Quality of Local Inventive Activity?

We geocode a data set of patents and their citation counts, including citations from abroad. This allows us to examine both the quantity and quality of local inventions. We also refine our data on local academic R&D to explore effectsnfrom different fields of science and sources of R&D funding. Finally, we incorporate data on congressional earmarks of funds for academic R&D. With one important exception, results using citation weighted patents are similar to those using unweighted patents. For example, estimates of the returns to density (jobs per square mile) are only slightly changed when using citation weighted patents as the dependent variable. But stimates of returns to city size (urbanization effects) are quite sensitive to the choice of dependent variable. Local human capital is the most important determinant of per capita rates of patenting. A 1 percent increase in the adult population with a college degree increases the local patenting rate by about 1 percent. With few exceptions, there is little variation across fields of science in them contribution of academic R&D to patenting rates. The exceptions are computer and life sciences, where the effects are smaller. There is greater variation in the contribution of R&D funded by different sources - academic R&D funded by the federal government generates smaller increases in patenting rates than R&D funded by the university itself. This effect is somewhat stronger for federally funded applied R&D than for basic R&D. We also find small negative effects for cities with greater exposure to academic R&D allocated by congressional earmarks. We discuss the implications of these results for policy and future research.

Yoga between Indo‐Aryan Nationalism and Multisited FieldworkYoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy. By Joseph S. Alter. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004.Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts across Cultures. By Sarah Strauss. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005.

Yoga between Indo‐Aryan Nationalism and Multisited Fieldwork<i>Yoga in Modern India: The Body between Science and Philosophy</i>. By Joseph S. Alter. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004.<i>Positioning Yoga: Balancing Acts across Cultures</i>. By Sarah Strauss. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005.

Visionary Middle Schools: Signature Practices and the Power of Local Invention

Visionary Middle Schools: Signature Practices and the Power of Local Invention

Clinical Governance and the role of the lecturer/practitioner in education in one British National Health Service (NHS) Trust.

Meeting the Clinical Governance agenda is dependent fundamentally on staff education. When examined within and supported by the role of the Lecturer/Practitioner, a model of education for Clinical Governance begins to emerge. In order to implement this model and to simultaneously embrace the organizational change necessary to create a knowledgeable workforce, it is necessary to examine those factors that generate excellence in education on the ground. This paper will argue that the key determinant in developing excellence in the quality care is the presence of a rigorous system of staff education. It will argue through a short case study concerning one particular National Health Service (NHS) Trust that the role of the Lecturer/Practitioner can become instrumental in planning, assessing, maintaining and delivering quality education to clinical nurses for their roles in Clinical Governance. The paper will proceed to elucidate the interrelated factors underlying this assumption. The paper will conclude that Clinical Governance requires the recognition that service cultures and organization and styles are key to its growth. Yet although national action to support change and development are needed, there is no substitute for local inventiveness and backing. In this regard an exemplar of good practice is provided whereby the Lecturer/Practitioner role is being used as the vehicle to successfully address the issue of Clinical Governance by initiating the step change needed for excellence to occur.

A history of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific

Introduction. Part I: Foundations of Contemporary Identities 1. Representations of Regional, National and 'Ethnic' Identities. Naming Rights. European Frameworks. Anthropology. Development Economics. History. Not a Self-Evident Region. 2. Patterns of Pre-European Settlement and Interaction. 'Indigenous' Communities. Austronesians, Lapita, Polynesians: Chronologies and Charters. Fragmentation. What Held Societies Together? Dealing with Outsiders. 3. Intersecting Worlds. 'Scientific Discoveries' and Conceptual Maps. Captain Cook. Du Fresne. Encounters in the Twentieth Century. Maori Discovery of Aborigines. 4. Depopulation and Immigration. Depopulation. Dying Races. Displacement. Colonization and Settlement. Part II: New Societies and Economies 5. New Social Forms. Convicts and Settlers. Protestants and Polynesians. The Catholic Revival. The New Laws. Tensions Between Empires. Sport and Civilization. 6. Struggles for Land. Maori and Pakeha. Australian Squatters and Selectors. Island Plantations and Cooperatives. Land, Sovereignty and War. Land and Destinies. 7. Mining. Eldorado v. Arcadia. Digger Democracy. Types of Mining Enterprise. Other Minerals. Mining in the Islands. 8. Labour Relations. The Convicts in Australia. Women Convicts. Free Settlement. Assisted Labour. A French Australia? Segregated Labour Markets. Plantations. Part III: New States and Social Identities 9. New States. An Imagined Region. The Entrepreneurial States. Kingitanga. Australian Federation and Manifest Destinies. 10. New Settler Societies. Men's Countries, Women's Rights. Whom to Exclude. Settler Societies and Cultural Expressions. The Bulletin. Bush Mythologies. Urban Australia. 11. Capital and Labour: Resisting Globalization Boom and Bust. Arbitration and Protection. The Family and the Gender Division of Labour. 12. Be Prepared! Defence. Social Preparations. Populate or Perish. Measures. Part IV: Wars and Reconstructions 13. The Great War. Anzac Legends. Mothers, Sisters and Wives. Women's War Service. Pacifists. The Odd Woman Out: Ettie Rout. 14. Anxious Peace. Financial Insecurity. The Great Depression. Welfare. Eugenics and King Baby. For Art and Country: The Literature of Nation-Building.The Island Dependencies. Maori and Aboriginal Initiatives. 15. War in Europe, and in the Pacific. Storm Clouds. War in Europe. War in the Pacific. Taking Part. Women and Men. Plans and Visions of Reconstruction. New Zealand: Equality of Opportunity. Bringing the Australian Intelligentsia to Heel. 16. Inter-dependencies. Cold War, the American Alliance and Nuclear Politics. Colonial Administrations Restored. Migration from Europe, Polynesia, Asia. Maori and Aboriginal Urbanization. Suburbia. Decentralization. Part V: Reflections on Contemporary Identities 17. Expanding Citizenship. Aboriginal Australians. Torres Strait Islanders. South Sea Islanders. Maori Revival and the Waitangi Tribunal. Women's Liberation and Feminist Politics. 18. Decolonization? Colonial Contexts. British Withdrawal. French Dependencies. Anglo-French Condominium. New Zealand and Australian Dependencies. Island Independence. 19. Globalization and National Identities. The Closer Economic Relationship. Muldoon and Douglas. Australia and APEC. Mining. Global or Regional? 20. Popular Culture. Cultural Globalization. An Australian Hoax. Youth Revolution. Popular Culture. American Influence and Local Invention. From Bush to Beach Australia. Clean, Green New Zealand. Film. Sport. Expatriates. Globalism and Parochialism. 21. Contemporary Identities. Regional Crises and Security. New Caledonia. Wallace's Other Line. Defining Aotearoa/New Zealand. Defining Australia. A Coherent Region. Appendix. Bibliography. Index.

Kalgoorlie as the Global Centre for Gold Metallurgical Innovation 1902-1907

Faced with the problem of how to process valuable refractory sulphide ore in the early 1900s, Kalgoorlie mining engineers and metallurgist, and their consultants, borrowed ideas from a variety of international sources to develop new equipment and new procedures. This paper examines the sources of these innovations and how they spread with remarkable speed through the medium of the tight-knit group of international metallurgical consultants. The inter-relationship between international technological transfer and increased local inventiveness, stimulated by the rapid changes in technology, and the opportunities and limitations experienced by Australian metallurgical inventers in the 1900s are also examined.

Kalgoorlie as the Global Centre for Gold Metallurgical Innovation 1902-1907

Faced with the problem of how to process valuable refractory sulphide ore in the early 1900s, Kalgoorlie mining engineers and metallurgist, and their consultants, borrowed ideas from a variety of international sources to develop new equipment and new procedures. This paper examines the sources of these innovations and how they spread with remarkable speed through the medium of the tight-knit group of international metallurgical consultants. The inter-relationship between international technological transfer and increased local inventiveness, stimulated by the rapid changes in technology, and the opportunities and limitations experienced by Australian metallurgical inventers in the 1900s are also examined.

The TRIPS Agreement: benefits and costs for developing countries

The likely impact of the TRIPS Agreement on developing countries is considered in comparison with higher and lower levels of intellectual property protection. Human resource development, university technology transfers, venture capital formation, agricultural development, and six other areas are examined under these three levels of protection. Trade facilitation is expected under TRIPS, while local invention will be fostered by private investment stimulation at more robust levels of protection. The impact of TRIPS on public administration is assessed. Judicial system ability to support intellectual property is considered.

Le spectacle historique de Meaux (1982-2000) : l'invention locale d'un modèle national

The Historical Show Of Meaux (1982- 2000): The Local Invention of A National Mode Supported by a context of increasing municipal and national heritage involvement in culture, the Left-wing municipal government of Meaux, elected in 1977, decided to put on an historical show in 1982 which has continued up to the present. At the time, dramatising history in the courtyard of the Episcopal . city with the participation of hundreds of volunteer extras was an innovative event : compared to open-air shows mainly involving sound and light. The Meaux event caught on and has taken part in turning this new national model of local culture - the historical show - into an institution, which has since become a - "product" exported throughout France by its specialists. Historical shows, which are products , resulting from , political investment in local cultural and the historical world, are redefining history and the memory of places in keeping with the requirements of tourists, showmanship and marketing. .

Patching up evidence for ironworking in the horn

Archaeological research on ironworking in the Horn of Africa is meager and patchy. This paper offers hypotheses for the origins of ironworking in the region. Two conventional schools of thought are analyzed. The first school favors an external origin and the second advocates local invention. The two viewpoints are critically examined and their weaknesses exposed. A third alternative, which, in principle, combines the two, is provided in their place. This looks at the history of the Horn in a broad spatial and integrating perspective. It attempts to show that the current physical barriers such as the Red Sea, the Nile Valley, and the cataracts of the Nile River have not always been as impenetrable as we tend to think. There is evidence that sometimes in the past, people from the opposite sides of these “barriers” shared language, commerce, religion, and politics. The paper also discusses the impact of ironworking in the region and the technological influence of the Horn on sub-Saharan Africa. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions for future directions toward a more comprehensive understanding of Iron Age culture and the socioeconomic history of the region.

The Kenya Patent Law: Promoting Local Inventiveness or Protecting Foreign Patentees?

African countries, in particular Kenya, have recognized the role of science and technology in long-term economic adaptation and development. Consequently, they have turned to national planning with emphasis on science and technology. In this respect, the goals of national planning are geared towards enhancing the transfer and acquisition of foreign technology and the promotion of local inventive capacity. In Kenya, the importance of these goals is reflected in the enactment of a new patent law embodied in the Industrial Property Act of 1989.

Quality Assurance in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit: Where It Came From and Where It’s Going

The early history of QA is one of stunning achievements. Men and women led by a vision of what hospital health care should be brought about fundamental changes in the structure of hospitals and medical schools. These successes required lifetimes of work and enormous capital (Flexner's war chest would have amounted to billions of 1990 dollars). A second wave of reform included the creation of credentialing committees, tissue committees, and infection control efforts. Although less dramatic in their impact, these efforts have had measurable influence on the outcome of health care and, under the joint administration of local hospitals and the JCAHO, continue to guarantee excellence in health care. The most recent attempts at quality assurance, driven at least in part by a federal mandate to control costs, have been much more modest in their success. Committed groups working within a sound theoretical framework have had great difficulty monitoring and evaluating centrally a process as decentralized as health care. The regularity with which new fashions in QA have appeared underscores the frustration felt with this approach. If the quality of health care is to be monitored centrally, reliable measures of quality will be required. No one knows if such measures actually exist. The absence of objective evidence that quality has been improved by these efforts suggests that little has been accomplished, perhaps because all easily attainable improvements had already been implemented. The basic concept of a centrally monitored hospital structure within which provision is made for ongoing observation and innovation by those actually involved in the care of patients retains the advantages of central monitoring and local invention. It is a model that will be hard to improve on. We should persist in our efforts, but fundamental advances are unlikely. In the end, quality is only doing everything the best it can be done. The best quality assurance requires an excellent hospital in which a well-trained and committed staff has a central mandate and local purview to do the best possible job. Two thousand years after Hammurabi's minions busied themselves determining the appropriate punishment for various medical misadventures, the Greek Hippocrates advocated a less complex approach to the same problem. He suggested that the quality of health care could be best guaranteed by administering an oath to physicians, exhorting them simply to do what was best for their fellow men. This approach has seen us through two millennia and, however variable its results, may not be easily improved on.