Circular literacy. A knowledge-based approach to the circular economy

ABSTRACT

This paper applies a knowledge-based approach to study the role of circular economy (CE) for sustainable development. An analysis of publications from practice-oriented CE advocates is deployed to study the types of knowledge actors foster when they pursue the transition towards a CE. With the proposed term ‘circular literacy’ (CL), an analytical framework is provided to differentiate between different types of knowledge relevant for a transition towards the CE: system, target, and transformation knowledge. The main emphasis is on identifying knowledge-related prerequisites that prevent or stimulate the transformative potential of CE thinking and practices for sustainable development. The analysis reveals how the CL in the sample is confined by a narrow economic vision of the CE, lacking a reflection of political and sociocultural aspects that are needed to be addressed in future research to gain a robust concept of a CE-driven systemic transition towards sustainability.     

知识城市：中心城市发展与转型的选择

在知识经济的兴起和城市危机发生的宏观背景下，知识城市的发展模式诞生并迅速在世界范围内推广。本文首先介绍知识城市的先进理念，引进知识城市的完整框架，在此基础上，以国外著名的中心城市墨尔本、伦敦、曼彻斯特等为案例介绍其向知识城市转型的成功经验，并结合我国大城市的实际情况和发展阶段，讨论我国大城市转型和可持续发展的道路，并提供相应的对策建议。     

知识经济时代的城市布局——以澳洲城市为例

在知识经济时代,知识的产出、产地、生产方式与生产者是一座城市的生活质量和竞争力的最主要决定因素之一。在世界各个角落,作为知识产出中心的那些城市有着各式各样的称谓,譬如：知识城市、创意城市、泛生态城市、智能城市等。本文主要研究这些城市的核心建筑群——“知识区”,它是指对知识生产既有“催化”作用又有“磁铁”作用的基础设施。作者首先在知识经济的范畴内探讨以知识为基础的城市发展的重要性,以及为知识生产奠定根基的知识社区的角色;其次研究以知识为基础的城市发展,尤其是知识社区的发展,并以波士顿为参照,分析悉尼、墨尔本和布里斯班三座城市的潜力。文章最后还就以知识为基础的发展问题为其他城市总结规律并提出建议。     

Knowledge Management in Social Work–Towards a Conceptual Framework

SUMMARY

Knowledge management (KM) is receiving increasing attention in the human services such as social work. Social service organizations have started to use information and communication technology for knowledge management purposes with the aim of improving service efficiency and effectiveness. Existing KM studies, particularly in the commercial or industrial sectors, mainly focus on the reductionistic “knowledge-as-object” view, while other perspectives such as “knowledge-as-process” are less discussed. This paper argues that these mainstream conceptions of knowledge in KM do not fully fit with that of social work knowledge, and that a spectrum view may be more useful for future practice and inquiry in the area.     

环同济知识经济圈发展知识服务业的战略思考

发展知识服务业是环同济知识经济圈优化产业结构、完善创新体系、提升区域竞争力的主要抓手。知识资源丰富、商业服务发达、区位交通便捷、人居环境和谐为环同济知识经济圈发展知识服务业奠定了坚实基础。环同济知识经济圈应紧紧抓住上海创新型城市建设的大好机遇,以科技服务业、教育服务业和创意设计产业为重点,发展知识服务业。     

对"广州知识城"创建成"知识经济特区"的建议

本文从全球经济发展的历程出发，对知识经济与“硅谷”奇迹、知识决定企业剩余分配、创建“通用型知识经济”等问题进行了分析，同时在分析广东创建“通用型知识经济”的基础上，提出了要把中新合作的“广州知识城”项目创建成制度先行的全球第一个“知识经济特区”的建议。     

Modes of Cognitive Praxis in Transnational Alternative Policy Groups

Abstract

Transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) are networks and centres within and around which counter-hegemonic knowledge is produced and mobilized among subaltern communities and critical social movements. Based on in-depth interviews with practitioners at 16 TAPGs, this article presents eight modes of cognitive praxis and discusses how they appear in the work of alternative policy groups. The eight modes are not sealed off from each other, but overlap and interpenetrate. In combination, these modes of cognitive praxis strive to produce transformative knowledge concomitantly with knowledge-based transformation. The analysis evidences tracings of a double dialectic in the cognitive praxis of alternative policy groups: a dialectic of theory and practice, and one of dialogue. It is in a forward movement—fostering solidaristic dialogue among counterpublics in combination with the iterative integration of theory and practice—that alternative knowledge makes its indispensable contribution to counter-hegemony.     

Human Services and the Information Economy

SUMMARY

This article discusses the impact of the information economy on human services. The major topics discussed include: the changing nature of work, the impact of the cost of adoption of technology by the human services, the changing expectations the public has for agency use of technology, the move to electronic record keeping and data management, the need for developing a data integrity management process, and the impact of the Internet and intranets on software development.     

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation in Personality: Assessing Knowledge Profiling and the Work Preference Inventory in a Thai Population

Abstract

Personality trait theories are often used to identify particular personality or behavioural characteristics of potential employees by human resource management departments. However, this can be enhanced by understanding how motivation plays a role in personality, and particularly within the context of knowledge-based personality processes. The paper draws on knowledge management theory called Knowledge Profiling (KP) in which a theoretical construct has been developed representing personality through a set of three traits and their polar values. This model has previously been linked to the trait theory of personality called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This research adopts KP, develops its linkage with MBTI, and elaborates on its connection with motivation. The resulting model, referred to as Knowledge Profiling Motivational (KPM) model, is developed by connecting it with the Work Preference Inventory (WPI), which assesses individual differences in Intrinsic and Extrinsic motivational orientations. Analysis indicates that KPM is an improvement on the KP model in representing personality. Moreover, the research suggests that personality traits are not limited to a bipolar relationship but that there are relationships between traits as well.     

Knowledge cybernetics: a new metaphor for social collectives

Abstract

Knowledge cybernetics is principally concerned with the development of agents like autonomous social collectives that survive through knowledge and knowledge processes. Deriving from epistemological antecedents created by Stafford Beer and explored through notions of ontology by Eric Schwarz, a new form of knowledge management arises that is connected with the notions of Marshall and her new radical classifications for knowledge. These ideas can be closely associated with concepts of lifeworld and the ideas of communicative action by Habermas, and leads to a useful knowledge cybernetic framework. This has the capacity to relate to and develop a variety of what might be thought of as otherwise disparate theories that can ultimately be expressed in terms of knowledge.     

Backing Australia's Future: Teaching and Learning in Social Work

Abstract

It is universally expected that universities will strive for quality in teaching and learning. Over the past 25 years, massive changes to higher education have impacted on these institutions. We now have a mass higher education system, a knowledge-based economy, increased technology, and the internationalization of education accompanied by increased student enrolments and political expectations of enhanced graduate outcome measures. These changes pose challenges to developing, updating, and improving the quality of teaching and learning. This new policy environment confronts social work educators as they determine how best to deliver quality professional education. The present paper discusses the concepts underpinning the Australian government's paper Our Universities: Backing Australia's Future as a background to exploring the tensions arising in current professional expectations and criteria for social work programs as they make the transition from old to new paradigms in classroom teaching and field education.     

SOFTWARE REVIEWS

ABSTRACT

This report outlines the components of wiki technology and its possible applications in the human services. Wikis have the potential to manage the detailed internal and external information and knowledge that is ubiquitous in the human services. For example, a wiki would be an ideal tool to store the knowledge of how things actually work in agencies with high staff turnover or many retiring of baby boomers. Wikis offer the opportunity for veteran staff to disseminate their expertise by hyperlinking knowledge about a certain operation to other operations or procedures. Furthermore, since wikis can be updated by all users, the knowledge can be easily and instantly updated as the human services environment changes. Wikis also offer the capacity to track and manage user changes. The report describes a specific external wiki application for capturing and disseminating community referral information.     

Teaching Information Technology to Human Service Students

Summary

This article specifies the knowledge and skills needed by human service professionals in order to utilize the potential of information technology for better care delivery. The conceptual foundation proposes an integrative approach that views management, case management and treatment as one integrated process in the human service agencies and which must be reflected in the information system design. A course for graduate students that incorporates this concept was developed in two schools of social work during a three-year period and is presented in details.     

Knowledge,Attitudes, and Informational Behaviors of College Students in Regard to the Human Papillomavirus

Abstract

Objective: To assess students’ human papillomavirus (HPV) knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Participants/ Methods: Students (N = 1,282) at a large, public university in the Northeast United States completed a questionnaire during February 2008 assessing HPV knowledge, prevalence, transmission, cervical cancer risk and stigma; sexual behavior, vaccination status, as well as past and preferred sources of information about HPV and sexual health. Results: A majority of respondents know of HPV. However, understanding was insufficient in several important areas. Overwhelmingly, respondents heard about HPV via television commercials yet preferred to obtain sexual health information from physicians. Hearing about HPV on a TV commercial was associated with increased knowledge. More knowledge of HPV was associated with less stigma. Men exhibit a higher level of stigma and less knowledge than women. Conclusions: Publicly funded health campaigns aimed at increasing knowledge about HPV are overdue and necessary. This is especially true for efforts targeting young adults about this extremely common sexually transmitted infection (STI).     

Performance appraisal for Chinese state-owned banking industry

Abstract

Performance appraisals, which are used to assist individual development and organisational planning, are considered an important part of effective human resource management. Studies of performance appraisal are invariably based on western theories, which can create issues when they are applied in different cultures, with China being identified as one such area. With China's WTO accession and the entry of foreign banks, the Chinese banking sector has become an extremely sensitive area of development for the nation's economy. It is important, therefore, to understand the factors surrounding performance appraisal and what does the process add to the efficiencies in the Chinese state-owned banking industry. This article is based on the data collected from the employees of Chinese state-owned banks from 2005 to 2007. The findings suggest that the employees' perception of justice has a positive relationship to their overall satisfaction with both the performance appraisal process and its outcomes. However, statistically significant differences were found in relation to whether employees had received training in performance appraisal or not.     

Recognizing experiential knowledge in the process of qualification of peer helpers: an analysis of an educational program for service users in France

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes an innovative training program enabling the qualification of peer carers, working within the sector of ‘social inclusion’. Since the French national debate on social work conducted within the ‘Estates General’ of 2015, peer workers have become key players in training programs in virtue of their experiential knowledge and their understanding of issues related to the process of social exclusion. This article addresses the role of peer helpers’ experiential knowledge in the training process. Because of their ‘experiential’ and ‘empirical’ knowledge about questions linked to the process of exclusion, peer helpers have become key players in social work teams and within social institutions, thus contributing to new methods of socio-educational intervention. What impact will this recognition of peer helpers’ and service users’ experiential knowledge have on education in social work? This article gives an account of an 8-month training program for peer helpers examined on the methodological level through a process of Participant observation, and based on data from comprehensive interviews carried out with a panel of peer helpers.     

Developing Expert Systems

Summary

This article provides an overview of the general procedure and steps involved in developing expert systems. The first consideration is to select a suitable problem. Actual development of the expert system begins with formulating and representing the knowledge base. Then a programming tool is selected for use in developing the expert system and a working prototype is developed. After a period of evaluation and reformulation the full expert system is completed. Finally, the performance of the expert system is formally evaluated, final modifications are made, and the expert system is put into everyday use. Additional resources are provided for further reference.     

The learning camera: A personalized learning model for online pedagogy in human services education

Abstract

This article describes the development of a personalized learning approach to human services online education that utilizes a “learning camera” as a metaphorical tool for undergraduate students’ development of knowledge, skills, and dispositions required for successful transition to professional practice. By highlighting students’ ongoing development as knowledge builders and constructivist learners, the online curriculum is enacted within each student’s area of interest and in their home communities. This “learning camera” model of online pedagogy for human services education is intended to serve as a resource for other institutions interested in praxis-oriented approaches to personalized online teaching and learning.     

Knowledge and perception of female nursing students about human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical cancer,and attitudes toward HPV vaccination

Objective: The researchers aimed to evaluate the knowledge and perceptions of first-year female nursing students about human papillomavirus (HPV), cervical cancer (CC), and HPV vaccination. Participants: The sample included 690 female nursing students from sampled universities between April and June 2015. Methods: Students were surveyed by using a pretested HPV and CC awareness questionnaire. Results: More than half of the students (65.1%) answered questions incorrectly with a mean HPV knowledge score of 6.085?±?3.38. The majority of students (82.6%) did not hear HPV vaccine. Only, 2.8% of the students had been vaccinated. A statistically significant relationship was found between HPV knowledge score and hearing about HPV vaccine (U?=?28280.500, p?=?.015), and believing HPV vaccine protectiveness (χ²?=?14.153, p?=?.001). Conclusions: This study highlights the lack of knowledge and low level of awareness about HPV, CC, and HPV vaccination among first-year nursing college students.     

知识城市与知识资本的管理研究

知识城市是21世纪城市可持续发展的一种全新理念。知识经济时代的到来引发对知识城市以及知识资本的研究,知识资本的管理以及知识城市的塑造将是未来城市发展的重要问题。本文主要研究知识资本的概念范畴以及管理城市知识资本的框架,借鉴并扩展了知识资夯导航系统以及CICBS模型,为我国未来知识城市的构建提供参考。