Abortion: Models of responsibility

My focus within the topic of abortion is on several models that are used to support the position that a woman has a responsibility to sustain the fetus she carries because she brought about its existence. I consider the following models: a creator, strict liability, fault, and a contract. Although each of these models has been used by opponents of abortion to support the position that women should accept the consequences of engaging in sexual intercourse, I argue that none of the models is adequate.This paper grew out of research begun during the 1979 Summer Seminar of the National Endowment for the Humanities led by Richard Wasserstrom. He and other participants in the Seminar contributed to my thinking then and commented later on drafts of this paper. Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the Society for Women in Philosophy and to colloquia at California State University, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. I appreciate the good suggestions made during these discussions. I also want to thank Sharon Bishop, Donald Burrill, E. M. Curley, Barbara Herman, and Miles Morgan for their helpful comments.     

Technology transfer legislation: An overview

This article provides an overview of the Federal legislation on technology transfer beginning with the Bayh-Dole and Stevenson-Wydler acts of 1980 and ending with the 1987 Executive Order, “Facilitating Access to Science and Technology.” The legislation and Executive Order provide the context for Federal laboratory technology transfer activities. The article covers the historic development of transfer legislation, the authorities given to laboratories, incentives for technology transfer provided by legislation, and the mandated duties and responsibilities of ORTAs, organizations, and agencies.     

A systems analysis of youth in acute and subacute therapeutic residential care

The Arkansas Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) has reduced the use of therapeutic residential care (e.g., group homes, residential treatment centers) for youth placed in child welfare. Youth in acute or subacute congregate care for 30 or more days without Medicaid now are of particular interest. This is a longer-term psychiatric program, typically 3 to 6 months. The project team conducted a systems analysis to determine the specific characteristics and levels of need for 42 youth so that DCFS can more effectively serve these youth in the least restrictive form of treatment possible.     

Fact,fiction and method in the early history of social research: Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness as case-studies

The development of social science research methods by women reformers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a largely buried history. This article examines the work of Clementina Black and Margaret Harkness, two British reformers who conducted many social investigations using a wide range of research methods. They also crossed genres in writing fiction, which was an accepted method at the time for putting forward new ideas about social conditions. Black and Harness were part of a vibrant network of women activists, thinkers and writers in late nineteenth century London, who together contributed much to the growing discipline of social science and to imaginative forms of writing about social issues.     

The Loneliness of the Feminist Historian

Abstract

Feminist historians in Australia have achieved the critical mass that means that they no longer need to be the sole woman's voice pleading to get women into the history corridors and inside the books. By looking back at recent history reflexively, this article celebrates the achievement of feminist historians over the past four decades in making profound impacts on mainstream historical writing and understanding. Engaging in particular with the work of feminist historians Joan Scott and Joy Damousi, ‘The Loneliness of the Feminist Historian’ considers whether feminist history has a future. It also reflects upon the author's memories of the feminist history movement from the 1970s and 1980s—its aims, its achievements and its significant successes, especially compared with other social science disciplines. It explains how certain ‘great (female) historians’ made courageous efforts to internationalise and pluralise feminist history. It also probes the meaning and relevance of ‘professional masculinities’, pointing out that feminist historians were supported by key male historians, who backed them in gaining career and publishing opportunities. Additionally, the challenges of Indigenous scholars led to a sharpening of critical approaches to colonialism. This article argues, however, that feminist historians cannot afford to cling to the excitement of the early conferences of the 1970s and 1980s, for if they expect their practice to thrive, they must constantly critique it, using the most innovative and best tools of our era, including the empirical, the reflexive, the whimsical and the theoretical.     

The significance of signs

In Camera Lucida, Barthes makes a distinction between a semiological approach and a phenomenological approach to the sign. While semiotic theory has usually focused on signs that work through mediation and representation, in this article we investigate the possibility of a sign that is immediate, experienced as a presence. This is not a sign of, or even the impossibility of a sign of; rather, it is a sign that just is, without an elsewhere to refer or defer to. This form of sign means nothing and is gratuitous, yet it has significance ? or, more accurately, it is significance. We investigate these ideas through Buber's account of the religious sign.     

Evaluating academic technology transfer performance by how well access to knowledge is facilitated––defining an access metric

Why should research institutions engage in technology transfer? Some say it is about the money. Others say it is about public service and benefit. In the end, we measure what we value. If we only measure money, we confound the non-profit mission of the research institution. If we measure economic impact, the non-profit technology transfer office is often expected to become the economic developer, confusing real estate and business development with technology transfer, often without additional funding. These mission strains lead to overwhelm, fatigue, service shortcomings, and unhappy customers across all classes of stakeholders. This article suggests a return to center for academic technology transfer offices (TTOs) by focusing on a most important question for drivers of our present global knowledge economy––how well does a TTO facilitate access to knowledge protected by intellectual property of its faculty and institution? This article proposes that academic technology transfer performance should be evaluated by how well a TTO avails access to knowledge. Given that performance measures are also referred to as “metrics,” we call this preferred outcomes orientation an access metric.