Inside the Black Box

Sociology of Education in India, 2012

CERS-IE Working Papers are circulated to promote discussion and provoque comments, they have not been peer-reviewed. Any references to discussion papers should clearly state that the paper is preliminary. Materials published in this series may be subject to further publication.

Textbooks and other popular venues commonly present science as a progressive “brick-by-brick” accumulation of knowledge and facts. Despite its hallowed history and familiar ring, this depiction is nowadays rejected by most specialists. Then why are books and articles, written by these same experts, actively promoting such a distorted characterization? The short answer is that no better alternative is available. There currently are two competing models of the scientific enterprise: reductionism and antireductionism. Neither provides an accurate depiction of the productive interaction between knowledge and ignorance, supplanting the old metaphor of the “wall” of knowledge. This book explores an original conception of the nature and advancement of science. The proposed shift brings attention to a prominent, albeit often neglected, construct—the black box—which underlies a well-oiled technique for incorporating a productive role of ignorance and failure into the acquisition of empirical...

The Journal of the Kentucky Medical Association, 2008

Id; see also KENNETH CULP DAVIS, ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE at vi (1969) ("Writers about law and government characteristically recognize the role of discretion and explore all around the perimeter of it but seldom try to penetrate it").

2019

The Black Box is a student based creative publication serving the Embry-Riddle Prescott campus. It is our goal to provide a showcase for the creativity and talent of the Embry-Riddle students. Please Note All works herein are reproduced with the written consent of their creators and are still under their copyright. Please enjoy them, but do not appropriate them for yourself. Special Thanks To logophiles of the best sort, the College of Security and Intelligence for funding the publication of this issue, to the Hazy Library for placing this issue on the Scholarly Commons, and thank you to all who submitted creative work.

Emergency Medicine Journal, 2016

Plays International

Innovation Explained: Inside the Blackbox, 2020

While it has often be said that we have entered an era of innovation, to what extent are we seeing with accelerated globalisation of products and services and the emergence of new fields of technology, rather than innovation per se? In this book we unpack what innovation means and how we might stimulate innovation at a local level by providing the right conditions and by fostering a culture and behaviour conducive to innovative activities. Forbes for example note that we are entering a new territory where the central challenge will be to bridge the gap between new scientific discovery and commercialisation – known otherwise as the ‘Valley of Death’ (Satell, 2016). The emphasis is on new discoveries in the academic world, and creating the conditions needed for successful exploitation/ commercialisation of this new knowledge. When viewed in this way, quantum computing, neuromorphic chips, genomics, nanotechnology, AI and robotics are seen merely as linear developments in the innovation pipeline – in which a direct path is forged between discovery and commercialisation. In this book, we argue that this presents an old world view of innovation, and that the new era of innovation is much more about being connective and relational. In short, that collaboration and connections will become the new competitive attribute and the main tenet of economic growth. As such, we expect innovation to be inherently unpredictable but also recognise there are core building blocks around social relations and connections, that are visible in all examples of innovation, and from which localities might look to strengthen to overcome an economic downturn.

Western Journal of Nursing Research, 2012

Purpose-Drawing largely upon resource orchestration theory, this study aims to contribute to the intellectual capital (IC) literature by testing a model where intrapreneurship mobilizes resources to trigger firm performance. More specifically, this study investigates how intrapreneurship mediates the relationship between IC and financial performance. Design/methodology/approach-Data was collected using a structured questionnaire administered to a target sample of publicly-listed Iranian companies across a variety of sectors. Archival data supplemented the survey findings to capture financial performance. A structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, using LISREL, was used to assess the measurement and structural models. Findings-The results supported the hypothesized associations among IC, intrapreneurship, and financial performance. Furthermore, the findings provided some evidence that IC is indirectly related to financial performance through the mediating role of intrapreneurship. Research limitations/implications-The focus on Iranian publicly listed companies limits the generalizability of results. Practical implications-Managers need to align the company's strategic resources with other competencies such as intrapreneurial initiatives. The synthesis of knowledge resources and intrapreneurship can help organization to better organize, synchronize and supporti.e. "orchestrate"their human and structural capital, improving the firm's social and innovation capital and eventually enhancing overall performance. Originality/value-To our knowledge, this is the first study ever to explore the mediating role of intrapreneurship in the relationship between IC and financial performance from the resource orchestration lens.

Wiener's appropriation for use on a wider range of more complex systems. Rather than using the Black Box as a tool to gain understanding through simplification, Ashby discusses it as a problem to be tackled. He presents the lack of understanding as problematic, something to be overcome by the experimenter's use of "certain given resources for acting on it (e.g. prodding it, shining a light on it) and certain given resources for observing its behaviour (e.g. photographing it, recording its temperature)." ↓ 2 He gives the example, again military in its origin, of an engineer required to investigate a broken, but top secret, bomb sight: "Sometimes the problem arose literally, when a secret and sealed bomb-sight became defective and a decision had to be made, without opening the box, whether it was worth returning for repair or whether it should be scrapped." ↓ 3 With a fundamental distrust of its users, the Black Box, here, becomes a strong manifestation of hierarchical control. The engineer is required to maintain a device, but not trusted to understand it fully, allowed a level of control over its destiny, perhaps, but not able to do this from a position of comprehension: the balance of power is maintained in favour of the Black Box. For Ashby, the Black Box problem takes one of two forms: 'The Very Large Box' and the 'Incompletely Observable Box'. When Ashby was writing the miniaturisation of general computing devices that has occurred today had not begun, and increases in computational or technological complexity necessarily increased the size of the object housing them. Today, elaborate systems can still be found. Despite their small size, modern computing devices such as smartphones and laptops are highly intricate computers ↓ 4, the phrase Very Large Box, then, describes an incredibly complex system and will be used here in that sense. As for the Incompletely Observable Box, early computers were of considerable size, often taking up rooms, or sets of rooms, but it was possible to see their whole, even if it was necessary to climb inside them, and initially at least it was possible to understand their construction by looking at them. The phrase in this context refers to devices, such as the bomb-sight, which were made inaccessible by structures of control, by legislation and secrecy, and in this sense remains relevant to the discussion here, but it is also worth considering for another reason: the internet, the global network joining many computers and devices around the world has produced technology that cannot be easily seen, both because of geographical inaccessibility, with cables running along seabeds for example, and its scale, stretching around the earth and, through satellites, into space.