Este trabalho analisa, a partir dos pontos de vista conceitual e sociocultural, o fenômeno de sobrecarga de informação. Este termo designa uma situação em que os indivíduos, tendo em vista uma tarefa, não se sentem capazes de lidar com certa quantidade de informação, a qual, assim definida por critérios pessoais, profissionais e societais, lhes parece necessária para seus objetivos. Assim sendo, se assimila a outros, como multitudo librorum, explosão da informação, fadiga da informação e infobesidade. Para abordar esse objeto, o método usado é o da pesquisa exploratória, isto é, estruturam-se e aprofundam-se os debates presentes na literatura. O material de base do estudo são referências sobre a história da produção da informação e do conhecimento e uma seleção de artigos com os termos \"information overload\" e \"sobrecarga de informação\" encontrados em bases de dados na área da Ciência da Informação. Com tal apanhado, elencamos na pesquisa ocorrências da sobrecarga -- ou de casos análogos -- desde a Antiguidade à Idade Contemporânea, de modo a substanciar uma exposição das características do conceito e esclarecer as relações entre ele e as várias expressões (como as citadas acima) que o manifestam. Com esse estudo, torna-se claro que precisam ser repensadas as perspectivas que entendem os danos advindos do excesso de informação como produtos únicos da contemporaneidade -- é preciso compreender esses acontecimentos nas interrelações de fatores em cada momento e recuperar aprendizados possivelmente esquecidos. Portanto, destacamos o vínculo entre as situações de sobrecarga e o desenvolvimento de novos recursos de tratamento informacional, principalmente no que se refere à Ciência da Informação. / This work analyses, conceptually and socioculturally, the phenomenon of information overload. The term designates a situation in which individuals, having a task in mind, don\'t feel capable of dealing with a certain amount of information that is deemed necessary to their assignment, based on personal, professional and social criteria. Therefore, \"information overload\" is comparable to others notions as multitudo librorum, information explosion, information fatigue and infobesity. To understand this subject, the exploratory research method is used, that is, we structure and deepen previous debates concerning the theme. Our basic material are references in the history of the production of information and knowledge and a selection of articles with the incidence of the terms \"information overload\" and \"sobrecarga de informação\", found in Information Science databases. By these means, we compile instances of overload -- or analogous cases -- since Antiquity to the Contemporary Age, so as to be able to expose the concept\'s characteristics and clarify the relations between it and the various expressions (as the ones cited above) around it. Considering what we found, it becomes clear that it is necessary to rethink perspectives which believe that the damages caused by the information excess are an exclusive product of our days -- it is necessary to understand these circumstances from the point of view of the interrelations of factors in each moment and retrieve possibly forgotten learnings. Hence, we underline the conection between the situations of overload and the development of new informational tools, principally regarding Information Science.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T18:22:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Isabel Aparecida Pereira Amancio.pdf: 11554423 bytes, checksum: 6d69c37b867a3ac44df3034b1967de3c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-10-18 / The objective of this research is to critically analyse and understand which speeches about childhood are stablished in portfolios as an instrument for educational documentation In elementary school The study aims to comprehend under a Social- Cultural-Historical perspective with basis on the Activity Theory and through the concrete proposition Bahkitinians concepts, and ideologic sign, how these discourses reveal the conception of a child and the teaching-learning process starting from the dialogic understanding of language. Two teachers from elementary school participated in this research, one from pre-school and the other from the first year from a private school in the eastern area from São Paulo City. The data interpretation was made with basis on two activities from the portfolios produced by these teachers in 2010. It is a critical research of cooperation which had as objective to observe, analyse and understand and cooperate with transformations in the teaching practice. The results show changes in the role of different individuals as well as in the teaching practice. Thus, with the portfolio as an instrument one can visualize better children s voices, opinions and perceptions as active people in the learning process, but this change is strictly linked to a more comprehensive process of teachers education on the portfolio usage and about the teaching-learning conception on which it is based / O objetivo desta pesquisa é analisar e compreender criticamente quais discursos sobre infância são instaurados nos portfólios, como documentação pedagógica, de educação infantil. O estudo pretende abranger a partir da perspectiva da Teoria da Atividade Sócio-Histórico-Cultural e, por meio dos conceitos bakhtinianos de enunciado concreto e signo ideológico, entender como esses discursos revelam a concepção de criança e o processo de ensino-aprendizagem a partir da compreensão dialógica da linguagem. São participantes desta pesquisa duas professoras de educação infantil, de turmas de Pré e 1º ano, de um colégio particular da zona oeste da cidade de São Paulo. A interpretação de dados foi realizada a partir da análise de duas atividades selecionadas dos portfólios produzidos por essas professoras, no ano de 2010. Trata-se de uma pesquisa crítica de colaboração que procurou analisar, compreender e colaborar para transformações nas práticas educativas. Os resultados apontam mudanças iniciais tanto nos papéis desempenhados pelos diferentes sujeitos quanto na prática educativa, pois, por meio do portfólio, foi possível perceber uma maior visualização das vozes, opiniões e percepções das crianças como sujeitos ativos no processo de aprendizagem

Around 1900 an interest towards non-Christian spirituality could be observed in Swedish society. There have been studies in spirituality, but little attention has been given in considering the circulation and transcultural exchange of knowledge production. The aim of this thesis is to show how knowledge of alternative spiritualty was constructed by the press’ description of encounters between spiritual go-betweens from India and America and the Swedish public between 1899 and 1926. By studying articles from daily papers, I propose that actors from diverse cultures, Swedish institutional arenas, and the public had a crucial part in the knowledge production of alternative spirituality. I argue that in the process of circulating and reformulating knowledge, a narrative was created: a mediation of alternative spirituality, custom-made and conducive for the Western audiences and their needs.

Calls continually are made to provide economic assessments of research program achievements and efficiency. Yet little effort has been given to develop an assessment framework that would focus on the research discovery itself, treating the research manager as a producer and the research technology as a knowledge production function. The present dissertation develops such a framework and uses it, with a variety of analytical approaches, to evaluate a two-phase international aquacultural research program consisting of 55 distinct studies. A Bayesian knowledge measure is developed for this purpose, allowing close examination of each of two knowledge creation pathways ��� the extent of new findings (mean surprise) and the extent of uncertainty reduction (precision). Factors affecting each of these two pathways are estimated in decomposed form, their total effects on knowledge achievement then combined to form an aggregate knowledge production function. Team workload, education level, and scientist travel distance strongly affect knowledge creation as postulated, although exhibiting varying effect magnitudes and significances across the two program phases. A research study's analytical approach significantly affects its knowledge acquisition pathways, accounting partially for the newness of its scientific discoveries. Survey studies tend, in contrast, to have greater potential for new findings, but yield greater uncertainty than do experimental studies. In each of the two program phases, fish market trading and water quality are, in my output-elasticities-based approach, respectively the least productive topic area and research-outcome dimension. Asian researchers appear ��� compared to their colleagues in South America and Africa ��� to achieve the highest predictive precision but the least mean surprise, probably because of the greater maturity of their projects. In both program phases, estimated output elasticities imply increasing knowledge returns to scale, although the elasticities decline from 3.52 in Phase I to 1.07 in Phase II. The dual cost function approach provides indirect insight into the program manager���s investment decisions and to the returns to knowledge output, complementing the primal approach. In my cost-based approach, knowledge cost elasticities are below unity, estimated at 0.49 in Phase II and 0.37 in Phase I, consistent with the increasing returns to scale found in the output-elasticities-based approach. Given the increasing returns to scale estimated with both approaches, the aquacultural program appears to have a substantial incentive to enlarge its knowledge investments. Also consistent with duality, the least-output-productive fish-trade topic area, water-quality outcome, and Asian research are found in my cost analysis to be the most cost-consuming. The technical efficiencies of the aquacultural program's individual studies are also examined, relative to both one another and to their own potentially best practices. The examination is conducted using, successively, the Farrell input technical efficiency measure and the directional sum-distance measure. Results are consistent across these two efficiency instruments, confirming the conclusions about output and cost elasticities in the previous chapters and providing a completeness to the overall research evaluation. / Graduation date: 2013 / Access restricted to the OSU Community at author's request from Dec. 27, 2012 - Dec. 27, 2014

Using critical feminist theories and methodologies, my research investigates the power relations and influences at play within the field of children's environmental health. I begin with the research question of how a parent's everyday purchase of a toy or other children's product is "hooked into" extra-local governance (agenda-setting, rule-making and monitoring). Focusing on Bisphenol A and phthalates as an example, in-depth interviews were conducted with six government officials (three federal and three municipal), three non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives, a politician, six higher education faculty members and a parent, as well as two focus groups of 23 parents. Legislation and other relevant documents from governments, NGOs, industry and media were analyzed together with reports of their activities and attitudes to theorize "how things work" in the identification and management of toxic substances in products for sale, with a special interest in how this affects children's environmental health. My research revealed the influence of neo-liberalism, corporate power and over-reliance on strictly evidence-based biomedical reductionism in slowing down assessment and regulation of chemicals while many health professionals and grassroots activists have called for swifter responses based on the precautionary principle, as favoured by European governments. That is, politics and bureaucracy, with the approval of industry, over the past two decades, have clung to reductionist science as the only paradigm for understanding toxicity, thus slowing down regulatory processes. Although the historical and epistemological power relations mapped in my research work together to legitimize scientific certainty rather than the precautionary principle, I argue that the resulting regulatory logjam has been and could be addressed by reference to European examples, knowledge produced by collectives and the establishment of upstream and equity-based public health strategies with public input into the process.

Using critical feminist theories and methodologies, my research investigates the power relations and influences at play within the field of children's environmental health. I begin with the research question of how a parent's everyday purchase of a toy or other children's product is "hooked into" extra-local governance (agenda-setting, rule-making and monitoring). Focusing on Bisphenol A and phthalates as an example, in-depth interviews were conducted with six government officials (three federal and three municipal), three non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives, a politician, six higher education faculty members and a parent, as well as two focus groups of 23 parents. Legislation and other relevant documents from governments, NGOs, industry and media were analyzed together with reports of their activities and attitudes to theorize "how things work" in the identification and management of toxic substances in products for sale, with a special interest in how this affects children's environmental health. My research revealed the influence of neo-liberalism, corporate power and over-reliance on strictly evidence-based biomedical reductionism in slowing down assessment and regulation of chemicals while many health professionals and grassroots activists have called for swifter responses based on the precautionary principle, as favoured by European governments. That is, politics and bureaucracy, with the approval of industry, over the past two decades, have clung to reductionist science as the only paradigm for understanding toxicity, thus slowing down regulatory processes. Although the historical and epistemological power relations mapped in my research work together to legitimize scientific certainty rather than the precautionary principle, I argue that the resulting regulatory logjam has been and could be addressed by reference to European examples, knowledge produced by collectives and the establishment of upstream and equity-based public health strategies with public input into the process.

In this paper we estimate space-time impacts of the embeddedness in R&D networks on regional knowledge production by means of a dynamic spatial panel data model with non-linear effects for a set of 229 European NUTS-2 regions in the period 1999-2009. Embeddedness refers to the positioning in networks where nodes represent regions that are linked by joint R&D endeavours in European Framework Programmes. We observe positive immediate impacts on regional knowledge production arising from increased embeddedness in EU funded R&D networks, in particular for regions with lower own knowledge endowments. However, long-term impacts of R&D network embeddedness are comparatively small.(authors' abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Climate change has often been framed as a global issue but slow progress in the global climate negotiations and an increasing need to plan for local adaptation have made it increasingly salient to also discuss the potential of other arenas for climate policy and knowledge production. This dissertation analyzes the interplay between science and policy at the international regional level based on a study of an assessment of the impacts of climate change in the Arctic. In this case, the regional arena brought new actors into climate knowledge production and policy with an increased emphasis on the complexity of social and cultural impacts of climate change among indigenous peoples. The dissertation also shows how the structure of regional political cooperation played a role in highlighting the Arctic as a bellwether for global change. Meanwhile, the political negations that were linked to the regional climate impact assessment were ruled by the same political dynamics and policy positions as the global climate negotiations. The process illustrates how the structure of international cooperation can influence knowledge production about climate change. The dissertation emphasizes the role of vertical interplay among political regimes and how new arenas can make an assessment salient, credible, and legitimate to different actors. It also highlights the political dimensions of focusing on particular spatial scales and governance levels in climate knowledge production and policy. / Klimatförändringarna har ofta gestaltats som en global fråga, men bristen på politiska åtgärder och ett ökande behov att anpassa samhället efter nya klimatförhållanden har gjort det alltmer angeläget att även undersöka vilka möjligheter ett regionalt perspektiv kan öppna för såväl klimatpolitik som kunskapsproduktion. Med utgångspunkt från en studie av en kunskapssammanställning av hur klimatförändringarna påverkar Arktis, analyserar avhandlingen samspelet mellan vetenskap och politik i ett internationellt regionalt samarbete. Studien visar att det regionala sammanhanget gav nya aktörer möjlighet att delta i både den internationella klimatpolitiken och kunskapsproduktionen om klimatförändringar. Det ledde bland annat till en betoning på att det fysiska klimatet är en av många faktorer som påverkar hur Arktis urbefolkningar kommer att drabbas av klimatförändringarna och att även kulturella och sociala faktorer spelar stor roll. Avhandlingen visar också på hur bilden av Arktis som en väckarklocka för de globala klimatförändringarna har vuxit fram ur strukturen för det politiska regionala samarbetet. De politiska förhandlingar som var kopplade till kunskapssammanställningen var däremot färgade av samma intressekonflikter som de globala klimatförhandlingarna. Processen illustrerar hur strukturerna för internationellt samarbete kan påverka kunskapen om klimatförändringar. Avhandlingen lyfter särskilt fram hur nya arenor för politiskt samarbete och det vertikala samspelet mellan politiska regimer på olika nivåer kan göra kunskap om klimatet angelägen, trovärdig och legitim för olika aktörer. Avhandlingen betonar också det finns politiska dimensioner i den skala man väljer för att studera klimatförändringarna.

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This thesis is about the historical geography of scientific knowledge production at sea. It focuses on three expeditions of exploration and discovery undertaken, respectively, by France, the United States of America, and Britain, that in the late 1830s sailed into the southern oceans. These voyages marked the last such expeditions to travel by sail alone and came before an acknowledged period of specialized interest in investigating the oceans and the marine environment, exemplified by the sailing of HMS Challenger in 1872. The expeditions share a commonality of period and of destination: their study together provides a hitherto overlooked opportunity to analyse practices of experimentation on, and investigation of, the natural history and physical properties of the marine environment that were integral to the construction of scientific knowledge about the oceans at that time. By attention to archival records, personal correspondence, diaries, published travel narratives and representations of marine phenomena in the form of illustrations, sketches, preserved specimens and displays of numerical material, this thesis examines quotidian shipboard practices to show how the production of scientific ‘facts’ was a matter of constant negotiation between people, weather, instruments and vessels – that occurred as a by-product of the running of the ship as well as of more defined programmes of study by civilian naturalists and naval staff. Informed by work in the history of science, Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this thesis highlights how attending to practice in the ambiguous, heterotopic space that was the expedition vessel can reveal the origins of a new, specialized, discipline: what I call here a proto-oceanography. This covers those scientific practices undertaken primarily at sea and from the ship: depth measurement, sea temperature and chemistry, the height of waves, collection of marine specimens and coastal topography, but not those primarily land-based activities such as astronomy, meteorology and terrestrial magnetism. By focusing on work carried out on board ship rather than on land, this thesis offers new insights into the practices of marine investigation and experimentation and the complexities of interrogating a space which was visualised primarily through instruments. This thesis examines how at-sea cultures of collection, measurement and representation can inform geographically nuanced analyses of the production of scientific knowledge.