People Mattered Research Articles

Society 5.0: Internet as if People Mattered

While the primary focus of 5G has been on industry verticals, future 6G mobile networks are anticipated to become more human-centered. Emerging cyber-physical-social systems (CPSSs) aim at functionally integrating human beings into today's cyber-physical systems at the social, cognitive, and physical levels. CPSSs are instrumental in realizing the human-centered Society 5.0 vision. Society 5.0 envisions human beings increasingly interacting with social robots and embodied artificial intelligence in their daily lives. In this article, we build on our recent work on robonomics in the 6G era. Robonomics is an emerging field that investigates social human-robot interaction and its sociotechnical impact as well as blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies, not only coins but - more interestingly - also tokens. Specifically, we study the tokenization process of creating tokenized digital twins of assets and access rights in the physical and digital world, paying close attention to its central role in ushering in the future Web3 and its underlying token economy, the successor of today's information and platform economies. After introducing our CPSS-based bottom-up multilayer token engineering framework for Society 5.0, we experimentally demonstrate how the collective human intelligence of a blockchain-enabled decentralized autonomous organization can be enhanced via purpose-driven tokens.

The Care-ful Reviewer: Peer Review as if People Mattered

Peer review is generally understood as the hallmark of scholarly communication, the point of distinction between serious, research-informed publishing and less-trustworthy, ephemeral, or even spurious sources. And yet, a close examination of peer review practices and the growing literature reveals peer review as a kind of black box concealing a tangle of differing rationales, spectres, and imagined standards, often mutually incompatible. Peer review is not monolithic and indeed scholarly societies and discourses would do well to come to a more explicit agreement about what they mean by peer review and what they exactly want it to do. In the context of open social scholarship as it has been defined by the INKE community, what do we want peer review to be, and to do for us? This essay proposes a version of peer review that places care and care ethics at the centre of its operations, serving a more generous model of scholarship that values people and relationships.

Small Is Beautiful. A Study of Economics as if People Mattered

Small Is Beautiful is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. Hailed as an “eco-bible” by Time magazine, Schumacher‟s well-researched statement on sustainability has become more relevant and popular with each year since its initial publication during the 1973 energy crisis.

Consumerism 4.0, As If People Mattered

Consumerism 4.0, As If People Mattered

Social Systems as If People Mattered Response to the Kühl Critique of Theory U

ABSTRACT In his critique of Theory U, Kühl suggests that this approach resembles a management fashion based on four specific characteristics and claims, namely: (1) The simultaneous transformation of nearly everything, (2) The suspension of the differences between science, economics, politics, and religion, (3) Resolving conflicts of interest according to a community ideology, and (4) Reliance on purposive-rational thinking. The first part of this response to Kühl's critique argues that these four claims are unfounded or misguided and outlines why that is the case. The second part explores the questions not raised by Kühl. Finally, the third part of this response explores the blind spots of the framework that underlies Kühl's critique (Luhmann-inspired autopoietic social systems theory) and ways in which Theory U actually addresses these. Reflecting on the origins of Luhmann's approach in the early work of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela [1987. The tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Shambhala Publications, Inc.], the question is asked what an alternative approach to social systems theory might look like if it were instead grounded in the more evolved and later work of both Maturana and Varela – which in fact turns out to be the case for Theory U.

Human rights violations in medicine: a-to-z action guide by Dr. Pamela Wible

To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence.
 E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
 And don’t make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived, is no badge of honor. Would you call an attempted murder victim resilient?
 Tommy Orange, There There
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E. F. SCHUMACHER AND THE MAKING OF “BUDDHIST ECONOMICS,” 1950 – 1973

Until around 1950, the German émigré Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (1911–1977) was a relatively conventional economist, believing in progress based on economic growth and developments in science and technology. Then, as he turned forty, he went through a period of prolonged self-examination and spiritual quest, which, amongst other things, led him to become critical of Western modernity. Developing a great interest in Buddhist spirituality and culture, in 1955 he travelled to Burma, where he spent three months as a United Nations consultant. His encounter there with the encroachment of Western development upon a traditional society proved pivotal for him, confirming his skepticism about modernity and stimulating him to write a renegade essay, “Economics in a Buddhist Country.” This experience in Burma shaped his work thereafter, as contributor to debates on development both East and West, as promoter of intermediate technology, and as author of the prophetic, popular book of 1973 Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.

Pesticides in agriculture

Pesticides in agriculture

Books: General Practice as if People Mattered: Collected Medical Essays 1998-2017: Humans are Social Creatures.

Gervase Vernon CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018, PB, 202pp, £4.99, 978-1984360168 Over decades working as a GP in Essex, a hospital doctor in Malawi, and a medical examiner for Freedom from Torture in London, Dr Gervase Vernon has used writing as a way of exploring and marshalling his thoughts, and contributing to debate. Many of his essays have been published in the BJGP …

Inclusive Growth: Economics as if People Mattered

This article attempts to fill a gap in the existing literature by providing a holistic working definition of inclusive growth. We measure inclusive growth through a newly proposed index, named as the Inclusive Growth Index (IGI), based on 24 developmental indicator variables (categorized into expansion, sustainability, equity in access, and efficiency of economic activities and institutions) as its components. We have employed two kinds of weighting schemes in constructing the index: an ad hoc weighting scheme and a weighting scheme based on principal component analysis (PCA), performed differently on variables under each dimensions. This index helps one to rank countries or regions according to their respective inclusive growth achievements and to potentially track the time trend of a particular country. In our study, we have calculated IGI for 16 Asian countries and compared the IGI scores across the nations.

Book Review: Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as If All People Mattered (Second Edition)

Book Review: Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as If All People Mattered (Second Edition)

Paying Workers as if People Mattered

This article examines capitalist, socialist, and solidarist wage theories to determine which theory is best suited to our health care system. It argues for solidarist wage theory, which is based on Catholic social teaching, relying on the notion that wages are inexorably entwined with providing for oneself and one’s family as a consequence of the Fall. It then discusses several unique features of health care wages that threaten the sustainability of the system, and explores how application of the solidarist model can address these problems.

Small is Beautiful – A Study of Economics as if People Mattered

No abstract available

Social Business, Business as if People Mattered: Variations on a Theme by Schumacher (1973)

Economic growth is promoted as the solution to enhance the standard of living of the third of the world’s population living below the poverty line. Such growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is unsustainable and predicated on increased production/consumption without sufficient consideration of what is consumed by whom. In essence this is because GDP is a mechanistic measure of quantity that ignores individual human welfare or quality-of-life. To rectify this, affluent consumers need to learn that materialism and selfish self-interest are unsustainable, whereas enlightened self-interest, as assumed by Adam Smith when promoting capitalism and free markets, will benefit everyone. “Social Business” and marketing are proposed as practices that will facilitate this transformation.

Small is Beautiful [AP-S Turnstile

In times of congressional discord over the right size of the government, it is natural to think that the title of the column refers to British economist E. F. Schumacher's classic collection of essays entitled Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered [1]. However, my concern here is not with the size of our budget, but with the size of antennas.

Design Methodology for Appropriate Technology: Engineering as if People Mattered

Since the emerging of its idea circa four decades ago, Appropriate Technology (AT) had been proven as a comprehensive solution in a limited condition. However, practitioners & academia have different opinions with engineers on how an AT must be designed. Researchers had noted the crucial factors in the issue as such, and they gave a notion of the urgency for a dedicated design methodology for AT. This study, therefore, aims to provide it. Such methodology is developed by incorporating AT characteristics, fundamental issues in community empowerment, and the principles of existing design methodologies. The methodology emphasizes combination between bottom-up and top-down design approaches. It means that an AT must be started purely from local conditions rather than given technical specifications, and be given back to local people to be seamlessly integrated into their routines. It also underlines the crucial importance of community involvement throughout design stages. By looking at previous design methodologies that were developed based on pure Engineering Problem Solving (EPS), this study delivers a fresh and comprehensive one that covers surrounding issues and concepts to produce an AT based on the real meaning of technological appropriateness.

Малое прекрасно: экономика, в которой люди имеют значение

Малое прекрасно: экономика, в которой люди имеют значение

Security as if People Mattered

Computer security and usability are challenging problems that are often interrelated. In harmonizing security and usability, it isn't enough to consider how human factors can be leveraged in support of security. Instead, it's important to take a user-centered perspective, and consider how best to support people in attaining their goals when they use computer systems. This article approaches this problem by highlighting some of the psychological factors and human values that must be considered when creating effective security solutions.

Hearing the Voice of the People: Human Rights as if People Mattered

When we study human rights empirically, what do we mean to study? The existence of institutions that enable the realization of rights or the enjoyment of those rights? The absence of flagrant violations of some of the basic individual rights or the sense that one's rights will not be flagrantly violated? What theory of human rights should we use? Most positive theory of human rights—for example, empirical theories about the correlation between political institutions or economic conditions on human rights recognition—are based on the first kind of normative human rights theory, the one that defines rights outside of the struggle for them. This article puts forward a methodology for the empirical study of human rights from the inside: do people enjoy their human rights? Using the Latin American Public Opinion Project democracy survey database, the authors propose a new way to measure human rights.

Investing as if People and Planet Mattered

Investing as if People and Planet Mattered