| 1. |
- Kaiserfeld, Thomas, et al.
(författare)
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Changing the System Culture : Mobilizing the Social Sciences in the Swedish Nuclear Waste System
- 2021
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Ingår i: Nuclear Technology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0029-5450 .- 1943-7471. ; 207:9, s. 1456-1468
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The purpose of this paper is to analyze how competence in the humanities and social sciences has been introduced into the system culture of the Swedish nuclear waste system (SNWS) traditionally dominated by scientists and engineers. In the spring of 1980, fierce local protests were directed against drilling teams sent out to investigate the geology of potential locations for a repository of spent nuclear fuel. This demonstrated the political and ethical dimensions of the waste issue and the limitations of the technocratic approach that had hitherto dominated the system culture of the SNWS. In order to counter this tendency, the government established an advisory board, Samrådsnämnden för kärnavfall (abbreviated KASAM), in 1985 with the task to widen the perspectives on the nuclear waste issue. KASAM engaged social scientists and humanists and started organizing annual workshops inviting engineers and scientists working with the waste issue to discuss its ethical and political dimensions. In the early 1990s, SKB, the Swedish implementer organization responsible for the management of nuclear waste, changed its strategy for finding suitable locations for a repository of spent nuclear fuel. Approval from the local population became a key condition. In the early 2000s, only two municipalities remained, both of them already housing nuclear power plants. After careful investigations and many deliberations, one of them was eventually chosen. The combination of KASAM’s activities to broaden the discussion and the local protests in many communities initiated a gradual change of the system culture within the SNWS. The initial technocratic approach was broadened to encompass ethical, social, and political aspects, and the main organizations now acknowledge that not only technical and scientific skills but also competence from social science and the humanities were of essence.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
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Cold War Civil Defence in Western Europe : Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Survival and Preparedness
- 2022
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- This open access edited collection brings together established and new perspectives on Cold War civil defence in Western Europe within a common analytical framework that also facilitates comparative and transnational dimensions. The current interest in creating disaster-resilient societies demands new histories of civil defence. Historical contextualization is essential in order to understand what is at stake in preparing, devising, and implementing forms of preparedness, protection, and security that are specifically targeted at societies and citizens. Applying the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to civil defence history, the chapters of this volume cover a range of new themes, from technology and materiality to media, memory, and everyday experience. The book underlines the social embeddedness of civil defence by detailing how it both prompted new forms of social interaction and reflected norms and visions of the ‘good society’ in an age where nuclear technology seemed to hold the key to both doom and salvation.
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| 4. |
- Cronqvist, Marie, 1973-
(författare)
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Domedagen har aldrig varit lika nära
- 2023
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Ingår i: Svenska Dagbladet. - : Svenska Dagbladet AB & Co.. - 1101-2412.
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 5. |
- Fauvelle, Mikael
(författare)
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Shell Money : A Comparative Study
- 2024
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- Where, when, and under what circumstances did money first emerge? This Element examines this question through a comparative study of the use of shells to facilitate trade and exchange in ancient societies around the world. It argues that shell money was a form of social technology that expanded political-economic capacities by enabling long-distance trade across boundaries and between strangers. The Element examines several cases in which shells and shell beads permeated throughout daily life and became central to the economic functioning of the societies that used them. In several of these cases, it argues that shells were used in ways that meet all the standard definitions of modern money. By examining the wide range of uses of shell money in ancient economic systems around the world, this Element explores the diversity of forms that money has taken throughout human history.
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| 6. |
- Gribbe, Johan, 1979, et al.
(författare)
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The Emergence and Growth of Materials Science in Swedish Universities
- 2017
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Ingår i: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences. - : University of California Press. - 1939-182X .- 1939-1811. ; 47:4, s. 459-493
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The cross-disciplinary field of materials science emerged and grew to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, drawing theoretical and experimental strength from the rapid progress in several natural sciences disciplines and connecting to many industrial applications. In this article, we chronicle and analyze how materials science established itself in Swedish universities in the 1960s and after. We build on previous historical accounts of the growth of materials science elsewhere, especially in the United States, and the conceptual guidance that these studies offer. We account for the emergence and growth of materials science in Sweden from the early influences brought back by academics from postdoc stays in the United States, through the creation of the first funding programs in the late 1970s, to the breakthrough of materials science in Sweden in the 1990s and its growth to a true area of strength and priority in Swedish science today. In line with previous studies, we highlight the role of funding agencies, providing the means for new cross -disciplinary activities across and between traditional disciplinary structures, and the role of new instrumentation, providing new experimental opportunities and uniting disciplinarily disparate research activities around common goals, as crucial in the process. Also, the role of entrepreneurially minded individuals is evident in the story: materials science was developed in Sweden largely by a new generation of scientists who established new activities within existing organizational structures, and thus accomplished long-term institutional change in a well -established field and system.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Hennessey, John L., et al.
(författare)
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Ted Chiang's Counterphysical Stories and History of Science Pedagogy
- 2023
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Ingår i: History and Speculative Fiction. - 9783031422348 - 9783031422379 - 9783031422355 ; , s. 151-168
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Counterfactual history constitutes a prominent subgenre of speculative fiction. Nevertheless, though diverging from actual historical events, such works tend to otherwise be highly realistic. Other speculative fiction goes much further, creating not only an alternative timeline but an alternate reality governed by different physical laws. This chapter coins the term “counterphysical” to describe literature that plays with the very laws of physics or nature, but remains within a rules-based, science-inspired paradigm. Examining two counterphysical stories by Ted Chiang, “Seventy-Two Letters” (2000) and “Omphalos” (2019), it argues that such works can serve as a useful tool for teaching the history of science. Counterphysical fiction can help train students to suspend their present-day understanding of science in order to comprehend the worldview and mindset of historical scientists.
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| 9. |
- Houltz, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Transporthistoriska underlag till nytta för infrastruktur och forskning : en förstudie
- 2024
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Rapporten är resultatet av ett tvåårigt samarbetsprojekt mellan Centrum för Näringslivshistoria och Statens maritima och transporthistoriska museer, finansierat av Trafikverkets FoI-medel. Förstudien syftar till att undersöka de väg-, civilflygs- och järnvägshistoriska samlingarnas potential som källa till historisk och annan forskning och som resurs i Trafikverkets planering och verksamhet. Målsättningen är att skapa ett kunskapsunderlag om de källmaterial som förvaltas av Trafikverket, SMTM, Riksarkivet och andra arkiv. Denna ska kunna ligga till grund för en strategi för samlingarnas nyttiggörande för Trafikverket och forskningen, med särskiltavseende på digitala tekniker och sökmöjligheter.
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| 10. |
- Järpvall, Charlie
(författare)
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Pappersarbete : Formandet av och föreställningar om kontorspapper som medium
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores office paper as a medium between 1920 and 1960 in Sweden. During this period, paper was muchdebated due to the number of standards that were implemented. These standardstransformed paper, making it a modern medium in many different ways. The aim ofthe present thesis is to analyze how office paper was reshaped to solveproblems regarding production, reproduction, circulation and use ofinformation. This reshaping, through a series of standards, addressed issuessuch as order, speed, quantity and control of information in the officematerial information system, and was also seen as a way of altering officepractices. The study draws on a wide range of source materials concerning the standardizationof paper: reports, articles from newspapers and journals, standard documents,ads, manuals and handbooks. Theoretically, the thesis applies a materialperspective on communication and mediation, meaning that focus is on howinformation is processed, rather than on the content being circulated.Following this perspective the office is understood as an information system,and paper as an information technology. A crucial methodological claim is thatthe ideas and notions of paper, and paperwork, that various actors expressedwhile discussing standards, materialized in changed paper sizes andstandardized forms. The analysis shows how the paperformat created from the proportion of the page as 1:√2 was associated to aspecific idea of scientific rationality. This rationality was imagined to betransmitted to the information system through adjusting office machines andfurniture, and other paper technologies, to the width and breadth of theA4-format. Another consequence of this process was that paper based informationbecame a quantifiable entity. Following the fixation of paper sizes was theredesigning the graphic interfaces of forms, which resulted in the “the modernform”. The 1940s also saw the emergence of a new occupation, the “form man”; ascience of forms; and the idea of the system of forms, to rationalize paperbased communication.
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