3.1: Socio-Technical Systems in Professional Decision Making
Module Introduction
Milagro Beanfield War: Joe Mondragon has created quite a stir in Milagro, a small village in New Mexico. He has illegally diverted water from the irrigation ditch to his field to grow beans. Access to scarce water in New Mexico has created sharp political and social disputes which have reached a crises point in Milagro. Competing with traditional subsistence farmers like Joe is the profitable recreation industry. Ladd Devine, a wealthy developer, has joined with the state government in New Mexico to build a large recreational center consisting of a restaurant, travel lodge, individual cabins and a lavish golf course. Since there is not enough water to cover both recreational and agricultural uses and since Ladd Devine's project promises large tax revenues and new jobs, the state government has fallen behind him and has promised to give to the recreational facilities all the water it needs. Hence, the problem created by Mondragon's illegal act. You work for Ladd Devine. He has asked you to look into local opposition to the recreational facility. Along these lines, you attend the town meeting scheduled by Ruby Archuleta in the town's church. You are concerned about Charlie Bloom's presentation and the impact it may have on the local community. Prepare a STS analysis to test Bloom's assertions and better prepare Ladd Devine for local opposition to his facility.
Incident at Morales Fred is a chemical engineer hired by Phaust Corporation to design and make operational a new chemical plant for the manufacture of their newly redesigned paint thinner. Under financial pressure from the parent French company, Chemistre, they have decided to locate their new plant in Morales, Mexico to take advantage of lower costs and more flexible government regulations. You are well on the way toward designing this new plant when news comes from Chemistre that all budgets are being cut 20% to finance Chemistre's latest takeover acquisition. You are Fred and are now faced with a series of difficult financial-engineering decisions. Should you hold out for the more expensive Lutz and Lutz controls or use the cheaper ones produced locally? Should you continue with the current plant size or cut plant size and capacity to keep within budgetary constraints? You have also been made aware of the environmental and health risks associated with not lining the waste ponds used by the plant. Do you advocate lining the ponds or not, the latter being within compliance for Mexican environmental and health regulations. Prepare a STS analysis to help you make and justify these decisions. Make a series of recommendations to your supervisors based on this study.
Puerto Rican Projects
- Your company, Cogentrix, proposes a cogeneration plant that uses coal, produces electricity, and creates steam as a by-product of electricity generation process. Because the steam can be sold to nearby tuna canning plants, your company wishes to study the feasibility of locating its plant in or near Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. (Co-generation technology has become very popular and useful in some places.) Carry out an STS analysis to identify potential problems. Make a recommendation to your company. If your recommendation is positive, discuss how the plant should be modified to fit into the Mayaguez, Puerto Rico STS.
- Your company, Southern Gold Resources, is interested in mining different regions in central Puerto Rico for copper and gold. But you know that twenty years earlier, two proposals by two international mining companies were turned down by the PR government. Carry out a STS study to examine the feasibility of designing a different project that may be more acceptable to local groups. What does your STS analysis tell you about social and ethical impacts, financial promise, and likely local opposition. Can profitable mining operations be developed that respect the concerns of opposed groups? What is your recommendation based on your STS analysis?
- Windmar, a company that manufactures and operates windmills for electricity generation has proposed to locate a windmill farm in a location adjacent to the Bosque Seco de Guanica. They have encountered considerable local opposition. Carry out a STS analysis to understand and clarify this opposition. Can the concerns of local stakeholders be addressed and the windmill farm still remain profitable? How should the windmill project be modified to improve its chances of implementation?
Things to Know about STSs
What is a Socio-Technical System? (STS): A socio-technical system (STS) is a tool to help a business anticipate and successfully resolve interdisciplinary business problems. "Interdisciplinary business problems" refer to problems where financial values are intertwined with technical, ethical, social, political, and cultural values. (Reference: Chuck Huff, Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics, draft manuscript for Jones and Bartlett Publishers)
Some Things to Know About STSs
- Socio-Technical systems provide a tool to uncover the different environments in which business activity takes place and to articulate how these constrain and enable different business practices.
- A STS can be divided into different components such as hardware software, physical surroundings, people/groups/roles, procedures, laws/statutes/regulations, and information systems. Other components include the natural environment, markets, and political systems.
- But while different components can be distinguished, these are, in the final analysis, inseparable. Socio-Technical Systems are first and foremost systems : their components are interrelated and interact so that a change in one often produces changes that reverberate through the system.
- Socio-Technical systems embody moral values such as justice, responsibility, respect, trust, and integrity as well as non-moral values such as efficiency, satisfaction, productivity, effectiveness, and profitability. Often these values can be located in one or more of the system components. Often they conflict with one another causing the system as a whole to change.
- STSs change, and this change traces out a path or trajectory. The normative challenge here is to bring about and direct changes that place the STS on a value-positive trajectory. In the final analysis, we study STS to make sure that they change in a value-realizing direction.
Constituents or Sub-Environments of Business Activity
Paragraph summary of sub-environments of business followed by a table devoted to each one.
- Technology including hardware, software, designs, prototypes, products, or services. Examples of engineering projects in Puerto Rico are provided in the PR STS grid. In the Therac-25 case, the hardware is the double pass accelerator, in Hughes the analog-to-digital integrated circuits, and in Machado the UNIX software system and the computers in the UCI laboratories that are configured by this system. Because technologies are structured to carry out the intentions of their designers, they embed values.
- Physical Surroundings . Physical surroundings can also embed values. Doors, by their weight, strength, material, size, and attachments (such as locks) can promote values such as security. Physical surroundings promote, maintain, or diminish other values in that they can permit or deny access, facilitate or hinder speech, promote privacy or transparency, isolate or disseminate property, and promote equality or privilege.
- People, Groups, and Roles . This component of an STS has been the focus of traditional stakeholder analyses. A stakeholder is any group or individual which has an essential or vital interest in the situation at hand. Any decision made or design implemented can enhance, maintain, or diminish this interest or stake. So if we consider Frank Saia a decision-maker in the Hughes case, then the Hughes corporation, the U.S. Air Force, the Hughes sub-group that runs environmental tests on integrated circuits, and Hughes customers would all be considered stakeholders.
- Procedures . How does a company deal with dissenting professional opinions manifested by employees? What kind of due process procedures are in place in your university for contesting what you consider to be unfair grades? How do researchers go about getting the informed consent of those who will be the subjects of their experiments? Procedures set forth ends which embody values and legitimize means which also embody values.
- Laws, statutes, and regulations all form essential parts of STSs. This would include engineering codes as well as the state or professional organizations charged with developing and enforcing them
- The final category can be formulated in a variety of ways depending on the specific context. Computing systems gather, store, and disseminate information. Hence, this could be labeled data and data storage structure . (Consider using data mining software to collect information and encrypted and isolated files for storing it securely.) In engineering, this might include the information generated as a device is implemented, operates, and is decommissioned. This information, if fed back into refining the technology or improving the design of next generation prototypes, could lead to uncovering and preventing potential accidents. Electrical engineers have elected to rename this category, in the context of power systems, rates and rate structures.
| Component | Description | Examples | Frameworks | More Frameworks |
| Technological | Hardware: Machines of different kinds | Door (with tasks delegated to it such as automatically shutting and being locked) | Value Discovery (identifying and locating values in STS) | Social Constructionism> : Restoring interpretive flexibility to reconstruct a technology to remove bias and realize value |
| Code that configures machines around human purposes | Power generating technologies based on renewable and nonrenewable resources | Value Translation (Operationalizing and implementing values in an STS by designing and carrying out a procedure) | Identifying and mitigating complexity in the form of tightly-coupled systems and non-linear causal chains | |
| Technology can constrain business activity by de-skilling | Automobiles, computers, cell phones all of which have produced profound changes in our STSs | Value Verification (Using methods of participatory observation to determine how effectively values have been realized.) | De-centralizing control and authority | |
| Technology, especially software, can instrument human action | Microsoft Office, Firefox Browser, Google Chrome, Google Docs, Social Networking software | Transperspectivity : discovering strands of construction of current STS; identifying possibilities for reconstruction | Designing to avoid the technological imperative and reverse adaptation (where humans abandon ends and serve the ends of technologies |
| Component | Description | Examples | Frameworks | More Frameworks |
| Ethical Environment | Moral Constructs : Spheres of justice where distribution takes place according to context-dependent rules (Rules) | Basic Moral Concepts : rights, duties, goods, values, virtues, responsibility, and justice | Utilitarianism : Happiness is tied to maximizing the satisfaction of aggregated preferences. | Basic Capabilities : life, bodily health, bodily integrity |
| Social Constructs : Power and its distribution among groups and individuals | Intermediate Moral Concepts : Privacy, Property, Informed Consent, Free Speech, due Process, Safety/Risk | Rights : Capacities of action that are essential to autonomy, vulnerable to standard threats, and correlated with feasible duties | Cognitive Capabilities : Sense, Imagination, Thought; Emotion; Practical Reason | |
| Right : A right is a capacity of action, essential to autonomy, that others are obliged to recognize and respect. | Privacy : If the information is directly relevant to the relation to the holder and the seeker, then it is not private. | Virtues : Settled dispositions toward choosing the mean between extremes of excess and defect. (Courage is the mean between cowardice and recklessness) | Social Capabilities : Affiliations, Other Species | |
| Duty : A duty is a principle that obliges us to recognize and respect the rights of others. | Property : That with which I mix my labor is mine. Intellectual property is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. | Capabilities Approach : For Nussbaum, capabilities answer the question, “What is this person able to do or be?” For Sen, capabilities are “‘substantial freedoms,’ a set of (causally interrelated) opportunities to choose and act.” | Capabilities that address vulnerabilities : Play and Control over one's environment |
| Physical Surroundings | Description | Examples | Frameworks | Frameworks |
| Physical environment imposes constraints (limits) over actions that restrict possibilities and shape implementation. | Influence of rivers, mountains, and valleys on social and economic activities such as travel, trade, economic and agricultural activity, commerce, industry, and manufacturing. | Classroom environment enables or constrains different teaching and learning styles. For example, one can pair off technically enhanced and technically challenged classrooms with student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogical styles and come up with four different learning environments. Each constrains and enables a different set of activities. | The physical arrangement of objects in the classroom as well as the borders created by walls, doors, and cubicles can steer a class toward teacher-centered or student-centered pedagogical styles. |
| Stakeholders | Description | Examples | Frameworks | Frameworks |
| Any group or individual that has a vital interest at play (at stake) in the STS. | Market Stakeholders : Employees, Stockholders | Non-Market Stakeholders : communities, activist groups and NGOs | Role : The place or station a stakeholder occupies in a given organizational system and the associated tasks or responsibilities. | |
| customers, suppliers retailers/wholesalers, creditors | business support groups, governments, general public (those impacted by projects who do not participate directly in their development | Interests : Goods, values, rights, interests, and preferences at play in the situation which the stakeholder will act to protect or promote. | ||
| (Distinction between market and non-market stakeholders comes from Lawrence and Weber, Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy , 12th edition. McGraw-Hill, 14-15. | Alliances are discussed by Patricia Werhane et al., Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships: Globalization, Markets, and Economic Well-being . Routledge (2009). | Relation : Each stakeholder is related to other stakeholders in an alliance and each relation is tied to goods and values. |
| Procedural | Description | Examples | Framework | Framework |
| A series of interrelated actions carried out in a particular sequence to bring about a desired result, such as the realization of a value. Procedures can schematize value by setting out a script for its realization. | Hiring a new employee: (a) settling on and publishing a job description; (b) soliciting and reviewing applications from candidates; (c) reducing candidate list and interviewing finalists; (d) selecting a candidate; (e) tendering that candidate a job offer.Other procedures: forming a corporation, filing for bankruptcy, gaining consent to transfer TGI and PII to a third party (Toysmart: opt-in and opt-out procedures). | Value Realization Process in Software Engineering: (a) Discovery : Uncovering values shared by a given community; (b) Translation : operationalizing and implementing values in a given STS; (c) Verification : using methods of participatory observation (surveys and interviews) to validate that the values in question have been discovered and translated. | Challenging the Statement of Values : (a) A stakeholder group raises a conceptual, translation, range, or development issue; (b) Group presents their challenge and response to other stakeholders; (c) If other stakeholder groups agree, then the challenge leads to a revision in the SOV; (d) Community as a whole approves the revision. |
| Laws, Statutes, Regulations | Description | Examples | Frameworks | Frameworks |
| Laws differ from ethical principles and concepts in that laws prescribe the minimally moral while ethical principles and concepts routinely explore higher moral "spaces." | Criminal Law : Applies to individuals; interested party in a criminal trial is society, not the victim. | Civil Law : Torts concern wrongful injury. The objective of a tort is to make the victim "while" after an injury. | US and British law work through a common law system where current decisions are based on past decisions or precedent. | |
| Ethical principles challenge and criticize laws by bringing into question their normative content. | Involves proving a mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty or law-breaking act) and that the mens rea caused the actus reus. | To prevail in a tort one ust prove (in order of severity) negligence, recklessness, or intent. | The Puerto Rican system of law is based on the Napoleonic code where decisions relate directly to existing law and statute and precedent plays a weaker role. | |
| Laws can challenge ethical principles and concepts by raising issues of practicality. Also, as in responsibility theory, the law can structure and inform the moral discussion. | Criminal law does not apply to corporations because they "have no soul to damn and no body to kick" Baron Thurlow | Negligence involves proving that the defendant failed to meet some standard of due care . | Question: How does the statute-based Napoleonic system in PR constrain and enable business practice in relation to other systems such as the British and American common law systems? | |
| Contract law concerns the violation of the terms of a contract. |
| Market Environment | Description | Examples | Frameworks | Frameworks |
| Business takes place within different markets that shape supply, demand, and price. Globalization frequently requires that a business be adept at operating across different markets | Laissez- Faire : Each economic unit makes choice based on rational (enlightened) self-interest. (Private ownership of goods.) | Assumptions of a Free Market System : (a) Individual decisions are aggregated. (b) Information flows through price structure. | Recent economic studies of the limits of laissez-faire markets : | |
| Liberal use made here of notes from Economics class taught by CR Winegardner, University of Toledo, 1971-1972 | Liberal Democratic Socialism : Limited government intervention is needed to improve upon the choice of individual economic units. (Mixture of private and public ownership) | (c) Free association. (d) Absence of force or fraud. (e) Individual agents are rational utility maximizer | (a) Information Asymmetries (as studied by Stiegliz). (b) Monopolies which, in the absence of competition, can dictate standards of price, product and service. | |
| Materials also take from Natural Capitalism from Lovins and Hawkings. | Communist, Authoritarian Socialism : The state is in the best position to know what choices and policies are beneficial for the economy as a whole and its component parts. (Public ownership of goods and services) | (f) Governments should adopt a hands-off stance because interference disrupts the ability of markets to produce utility-maximizing conditions.(4,4) | Animal spirits deflect economic decision-making away from perfect utility maximizing. They include confidence, fairness, corruption, money illusion, and stories.(4,5) | |
| (5,1) | (5,2) | (5,3) | (5,4) | Ghoshal: bad management theories are destroying good mangement practices as they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Ghoshal is especially critical of agency theory, compliance/punitive approaches to corporate governance, and the theory of human nature he calls "Homo Economicus."(5,5) |
| Information Environment (1,1) | Description (1,2) | Examples (1,3) | Frameworks (1,4) | Frameworks (1,5) |
| (2,1) | How data and information is collected, stored, and transmitted along with ethical issues such as informed consent and privacy that accompany information management (2,2) | Informed Consent : Obtaining consent from information holder when collecting, storing, and transferring personal identifying information or transaction generated information.(2,3) | Privacy in Context (2,4) | Data Transfer and Informed Consent (2,5) |
| (3,1) | (3,2) | Belmont Report : (a) Principles: Respect for persons, beneficence, and justice; (b) Application 1: Informed consent as "subjects to the degree that they are capable be given the opportunity to choose what shall or shall not happen to them;" (c) Application 2: assessment of risks and benefits; (d) Application 3: Selection of subjects for experiment.(3,3) | (a) Identify individuals in groups in a context; (b) Identify the roles played by these individuals and groups.(3,4) | Opt-in : Information is not transferred unless data-holder expressly consents; Opt-out : Data will be transferred unless holder expressly refuses or withdraws consent.(3,5) |
| (4,1) | (4,2) | Conditions of Informed Consent Information, Comprehension, Voluntariness. (4,3) | (c) Identify context-relative norms that guide activities within context and between one context and another. (Materials on privacy in context are taken from Helen Nissembaum in her book, Privacy in Context (4,4) | Fair Information Practices : (a) Notice: full disclusure and redress (way to resolve problems); (b) Choice: Choice about how informaitn is to be used; (c) Access: access to stored and about to be disclosed information; (d) Security: ways that information will be kept secure and unauthorized access prevented incollection, storage, and transfer of information.(4,5) |
| Natural Environment (1,1) | Description (1,2) | Examples (1,3) | Frameworks (1,4) | Frameworks (1,5) |
| (2,1) | Wicked Problems (2,2) | Principles of Systainability according to B. Norton (2,3) | Four Theoretical Approaches to Environmental Ethics (2,4) | Environmental Value as determined by shadow markets (2,5) |
| (3,1) | (a) Difficulties in formulating and structuring problem; (b) Non-compatibility of solutions (several ways of stating solutions).(3,2) | Precautionary Principle : "in situations of high risk and high uncertainty,always choose the lowest risk option." (Cass Sunstein distinguishes several senses of the PP including one which makes it impossible to deviate from the status quo) (Norton 348)(3,3) | (a) Extensionism : Peter Singer's extension of Utilitarianism to cover sentient beings; (b) Tom Regan's ascription of rights to select animals. Biocentrism : Taylor's attribution of moral consideration to all teleological centers of a life.(3,4) | Willingness-to-pay : Resource in question would go to the highest bidder, that is, value is dependent on most intense preference and the disposable income to assert that preference(3,5) |
| (4,1) | (c) Wicked problems are "non-repeatable" in that they are context-dependent. This renders learning from previous problems and solutions much more difficult; (d) Wicked problems involve "competing values" that cannot be realized at the same time and that cannot be homogenized or plotted on a single scale; (e) Wicked problems exhibit "open-ended inter-temporal effects". Closely paraphrased from Norton, Systainability, 133-5 (4,2) | Safe Minimum Standard : "save the resource, provided the costs of doing so are bearable" (Norton 346)(4,3) | Land Ethics : A thing has value or is good insofar as it promotes the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. Biotic community includes humans, non-humans, species, and ecosystems all interacting as a system. From Aldo Leopole, Sand County Almanac; Virtue Environmental Ethics : Approach centers on virtues as habits that promote sustainable transactions with the natural environment. Hursthouse provides a provocative example with the virtue, respect for nature.(4,4) | Willingness-to-sell : Resource is owned by the public so its value is determined by its selling rather than buying price. This frees bid fromdisposable income. Now value becomes more reflective of the identity-conferring beliefs and attitudes of a community and its members.(4,5) |
Ethics of STS Research
- Right of Free and Informed Consent : This is the right of participants in a research project to know the harms and benefits of the research. It also includes the right not to be forced to participate in a project but, instead, offer or withdraw voluntarily their consent to participate. When preparing an STS analysis, it is mandatory to take active measures to facilitate participants's free and informed consent.
- Any STS analysis must take active measures to recognize potential harms and minimize or eliminate them. This is especially the case regarding the information that may be collected about different individuals. Special provisions must be taken to maintain confidentiality in collecting, storing, and using sensitive information. This includes careful disposal of information after it is no longer needed.
Participatory Observation
- As we said above, a socio-technical system (STS) is “an intellectual tool to help us recognize patterns in the way technology is used and produced.” Constructing these tools requires combining modes of analysis that are ordinarily kept separate. Because STSs embed values, they are normative. These values can help to chart out trajectories of change and development because they outline values that the system needs to realize, maintain, or even enhance. In this way, the study of STSs is normative and a legitimate inquiry for practical and professional ethics. On the other hand, STS analysis requires finding out what is already there and describing it. So STS analysis is descriptive as well. In this textbox, we will talk briefly about the descriptive or empirical components of STS analysis. This material is taken from the draft manuscript of Good Computing: A Virtue Approach to Computer Ethics and has been developed by Chuck Huff.
- Interviews : Semi-Structured and Structured Interviews conducted with those familiar with a given STS provide an excellent source of information on the constituents of a given STS and how these fit together into an interrelated whole. For example, the STS grid on power systems was put together by experts in this area who were able to provide detailed information on power rates and protocols, software used to distribute energy through the gridlines, and different sources (representing both hard and soft technologies) of power generation.
- Field Observation : Those constructing a STS analysis go directly to the system and describe it in its day-to-day operation. Two books provide more information on the types and techniques of field observation: 1. David M. Fetterman, Ethnography: 2nd Edition, Applied Social Research Methods Series, Vol 17. London, UK.: Sage Publishers, 1998 and 2. James P. Spradley, Participant Observation. New York, Harcourt, 1980. The data collected in this method can also be used to construct day-in-the-life scenarios that describe how a given technology functions on a typical day. These scenarios are useful for uncovering value conflicts and latent accidents. See James T. Reason, Human Error, Cambridge, UK.: Cambridge University Press, 1990 for information on latent accidents, how they are detected, and how they are prevented.
- Questionnaires : Questionnaires are useful for gathering general information from large numbers of people about a STS. Constructing good questionnaires is a difficult process that requires patience as well as trial and error. (Trying out questions on classmates and friends is the best way to identify unclear or misleading questions.) Avoiding complex, overly leading, and loaded questions represent a few of the challenges facing those who would construct useful questionnaires.
- Archival and physical trace methods : Looking at user manuals provides insight into how a system has been designed and how it works. Studying which keys are worn down on computer keyboards provides information on the kind of work being done. Comparing how a system is intended to work with how it is in fact being used is also illuminating, especially when one is interested in tracing the trajectory of a STS. Working with archival and physical trace methods requires critical thought and detective work.
- None of the above methods, taken in isolation, provides complete information on a STS. Triangulation represents the best way to verify data and to reconcile conflicting data. Here we generate evidence and data from a variety of sources then compare and collate. Claims made by interviewees that match direct on-site observations confirm one another and indicate data strength and veracity. Evidence collected through questionnaires that conflicts with evidence gathered through archival research highlights the need for detective work that involves further observation, comparison, interpretation, and criticism.
- Developing STS analyses bears a striking resemblance to requirements analysis. In both cases, data is collected, refined, and put together to provide an analysis. A key to success in both is the proper combination of normative and descriptive procedures.
Exercise 1: Make a Table that Describes the Socio-Technical System
Directions: Identify the constituents of the Socio-Technical System. Use the broad categories to prompt you.
- What are the major hardware and software components?
- Describe the physical surroundings.
- What are the major people groups or roles involved?
- Describe any procedures in the STS.
- Itemize the laws, statutes, and regulations.
- Describe the data and data structures in your STS. Use the two templates below that fill in this table for energy generation systems and for engineering ethics in Puerto Rico.
| Hardware | Software | Physical Surroundings | People, Groups, Roles | Procedures | Laws | Data and Data Structures | |
Exercise 2: Identify Value Mismatches in the STS
Directions: identify the values embedded in the STS. Use the table below to suggest possible values as well as the locations in which they are embedded.
- Integrity : "Integrity refers to the attributes exhibited by those who have incorporated moral values into the core of their identities. Such integration is evident through the way values denoting moral excellence permeate and color their expressions, actions, and decisions. Characteristics include wholeness, stability, sincerity, honesty to self and others, authenticity, and striving for excellence.
- Justice : Justice as fairness focuses on giving each individual what is his or her due. Three senses of justice are (1) the proper, fair, and proportionate use of sanctions, punishments and disciplinary measures to enforce ethical standards (retributive justice), (2) the objective, dispassionate, and impartial distribution of the benefits and burdens associated with a system of social cooperation (distributive justice), (3) an objectively determined and fairly administered compensation for harms and injustices suffered by individuals (compensatory justice), and (4) a fair and impartial formulation and administration of rules within a given group.
- Respect : Respecting persons lies essentially in recognizing their capacity to make and execute decisions as well as to set forth their own ends and goals and integrate them into life plans and identities. Respects underlies rights essential to autonomy such as property, privacy, due process, free speech, and free and informed consent.
- Responsibility : (Moral) Responsibility lies in the ability to identify the morally salient features of a situation and then develop actions and attitudes that answer to these features by bringing into play moral and professional values. Responsibility includes several senses: (1) individuals are responsible in that they can be called upon to answer for what they do; (2) individuals have responsibilities because of commitments they make to carrying out the tasks associated with social and professional roles; (3) responsibility also refers to the way in which one carries out one's obligations (This can range from indifference to others that leads to minimal effort to high care for others and commitment to excellence)
- Free Speech : Free Speech is not an unlimited right. Perhaps the best place to start is Mill's argument in On Liberty . Completely true, partially true, and even false speech cannot be censored, the latter because censoring false speech deprives the truth of the opportunity to clarify and invigorate itself by defending itself. Mill only allows for a limitation of free speech based on harm to those at which the speech is directed. Speech that harms an individual (defamatory speech or shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre) can be censored out of a consideration of self-defense, not of the speaker, but of those who stand to be harmed by the speech.
- Privacy : If an item of information is irrelevant to the relation between the person who has the information and the person sho seeks it, then that information is private. Privacy is necessary to autonomy because control over information about oneself helps one to structure and shape one's relations with others.
- Property : According to Locke, we own as property that with which we have mixed our labor. Thomas Jefferson argues that ideas are problematic as property because, by their very nature, they are shared once they are expressed. They are also nonrivalrous and nonexclusive.
Drawing Problems from Embedded Values
- Changes in an STS (e.g., the integration of a new technology) produce value mismatches as the values in the new component conflict with those already existing within the STS. Giving laptops to children produces a conflict between children's safety requirements and the safety features embedded in laptops as designed for adults.
- Changes within an STS can exaggerate existing value conflicts. Using digitalized textbooks on laptop computers magnifies the existing conflict concerning intellectual property; the balance between copyrights and educational dissemination is disrupted by the ease of copying and distributing digitalized media.
- Changes in STS can also lead to long term harms. Giving laptops to children threatens environmental harm as the laptops become obsolete and need to be safely disposed of.
| Hardware | Software | Physical Surroundings | People, Groups, Roles | Procedures | Laws | Data and Data Structures | |
| Integrity | |||||||
| Justice | |||||||
| Respect | |||||||
| Responsibility for Safety | |||||||
| Free Speech | |||||||
| Privacy | |||||||
| Intellectual Property |
Using Socio-Technical System Grids for Problem Specification
The activity of framing is a central component of moral imagination. Framing a situation structures its elements into a meaningful whole. This activity of structuring suggests both problems and solutions. Framing a situation in different ways offers alternative problem specifications and solution possibilities. Since skillful framing requires practice, this part of the module suggests how socio-technical system tables can help provide different frames for problem specification and solution generation.
Different Problem Frames
- Technical Frame : Engineers frame problems technically, that is, they specify a problem as raising a technical issue and requiring a technical design for its resolution. For example, in the STS grid appended below, the Burger Man corporation wishes to make its food preparation areas more safe. Framing this technically, it would be necessary to change the designs of ovens so they are more accident-proof.
- Physical Frame : How can the Burger Man corporation redesign its restaurants as physical facilities to make them more accessible? One way is to change the access points by, say, designing ramps to make restaurants wheelchair accessible. Framing this as a physical problem suggests solutions based on changing the physical structure and arrangement of the Burger Man STS.
- Social Frame : Burger Man as a corporation has stakeholders, that is, groups or individuals who have an essential interest at play in relation to the corporation. For example, framing the problem of making Burger Man more safe as a social problem might suggest the solution of integrating workplace safety into worker training programs and conducting regular safety audits to identify embedded risks.
- Financial or Market-Based Frames : Burger Man is a for-profit corporation which implies that it has certain financial responsibilities. Consequently, Burger Man should be concerned with how to provide safe, child-proof chairs and tables that do not cut unduly into corporate profits. But like the legal perspective, it is necessary to conduct ethical and social framing activities to compensate for the one-sidedness of financial framing.
- Managerial Frame : Many times ethical problems can be framed as managerial problems where the solution lies in changing managerial structures, reporting relations, and operating procedures. For example, Burger Man may develop a specific procedure when a cashier finishes a shift and turns over the cash register and its contents to another cashier. Burger Man may develop cleaning procedures and routines to minimize the possibility of serving contaminated or spoiled food to customers.
- Legal Frame : Burger Man may choose to frame its environmental responsibilities into developing effective procedures for complying with OSHAA and EPA regulations. Framing a problem legally certainly helps to identify effective and necessary courses of action. But, because the ethical and social cannot be reduced to the legal, it is necessary to apply other frames to uncover additional risks not suggested by the legal framing.
- Environmental Framing : Finally, how does Burger Man look from the environmental standpoint? Does it consider environmental value (environmental health, safety, and integrity) as merely a side constraint to be addressed only insofar as it interferes with realizing supposedly more important values such as financial values? Is it a value to be traded off with other values? (For example, Burger Man may destroy the local environment by cutting down trees to make room for its latest restaurant but it offsets this destruction through its program of planting new trees in Puerto Rican tropical rain forests.) Framing a problem as an environmental problem puts the environment first and sets as a goal the integration of environmental values with other values such as worker safety and corporate profits.
Media File Uplinks
This module consists of two attached Media Files. The first file provides background information on STSs. The second file provides two sample STS grids or tables. These grids will help you to develop specific STSs to analyze cases in engineering, business, and computer ethics without having to construct a completely new STS for each case. Instead, using the two tables as templates, you will be able to zero in on the STS that is unique to the situation posed by the case. This module also presents background constraints to problem-solving in engineering, business, and computer ethics. These constraints do not differ absolutely from the constituents of STSs. However, they pose underlying constraints that outline the feasibility of an ethical decision and help us to identify obstacles that may arise when we attempt to implement ethical decisions.
Socio-Technical Environments Table
STS2.pdfReferences
- Brincat, Cynthia A. and Wike, Victoria S. (2000) Morality and the Professional Life: Values at Work. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
- Huff, Chuck and Jawer, Bruce, "Toward a Design Ethics for Computing Professionals in Social Issues in Computing: Putting Computing in its Place , Huff, Chuck and Finholt, Thomas Eds. (1994) New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
- Solomon, Robert C. (1999) A Better Way to Think About Business: How Personal INtgrity Leads to Corporate Success. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Wike, Victoria S. (2001) "Professional Engineering Ethics Behavior: A Values-based Approach," Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition , Session 2461.
Bibliographical Information on Power STS
- Acceptable Evidence: Science and Values in Risk Management, edited by Deborah G. Mayo and Rachelle D. Hollander. London, UK: Oxford University Press, 1991.
- K. S. Shrader-Frechette. “Ethics and Energy” in Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics, 1st Edition, edited by Tom Regan. NY, NY: Random House, 1984.
- Nancy G. Leveson. Safeware: System Safety and Computers. NY, NY: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.
- Charles Perrow. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. North America, Basic Books, 1984.
- Malcolm Gladwell. “Blowup” in The New Yorker, January 22, 1996: 32-36.
- James Reason. Human Error. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 1990.
- Mark Sagoff. The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law, and the Environment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.


16.1: What are the pros and cons of using rubrics?
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
By Megan Varnell
Learning Objectives
- The reader should be able to define the term "rubric" in relation to education
- The reader should be able to identify the different types of rubrics
- The reader should be able to identify several pros and cons associated with using rubrics
Introduction
Wouldn't it be great if a student could look inside their teacher's head and see exactly what is expected of them in order to get an A+ on a particular assignment or project? Students actually can come quite close to doing this, all thanks to rubrics! Many parents and students have probably heard the term "rubric" before without really knowing what it meant. In this article, not only will this term be defined, but also the pros and cons associated with rubrics will be laid out.
What is a Rubric?
The Pros of Using Rubrics
Using rubrics have many advantages. Many experts believe that student work is much better when a rubric is made available to them. Students know what is expected of them before hand, so it is easier for them to meet the objectives. Rubrics are also beneficial for teachers. They can make grading much quicker and also much more fair. Teachers can also use a rubric they create on several assignment. A teacher can also refer a student back to the rubric if they are not satisfied with a particular grade so the student can under why that grade was given to them.
Note
Advantages of Rubric
•Helps the grading process become more efficient
•Helps faculty grade/score more accurately, fairly and reliably
•Requires faculty to set and define more precisely the criteria used in the grading process
•Supports uniform and standardized grading processes among different faculty members
•Clarifies quality expectations to students about their assignments
•Students are able to self-assess their own work prior to submitting it
•Students can understand better the rationale and the reason for grades
•Helps communicating grade between faculty and students
•Helps improve student performance, because they know what to focus on
(Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics, 2005).
The Cons of Using Rubrics
Rubrics also come with some disadvantages. Rubrics can be very time consuming to create and time is not something that most teachers have an excess of. It also can be difficult for teachers to come up with the appropriate language for the rubric so that the expectations are very clear. Sometimes, rubrics require much revision in order to use them easily.
Note
Possible Disadvantages of Rubrics
•Development of rubrics can be complex and time-consuming
•Using the correct language to express performance expectation can be difficult
•Defining the correct set of criteria to define performance can be complex
•Rubrics might need to be continuously revised before it can actually be usable in an easy fashion
(Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics, 2005).
Conclusion
In conclusion, rubrics come in many forms and can help both teachers and students greatly. For teachers, rubrics can speed up the grading process as well as give them the opportunity to show students what they are expecting of them. For students, rubrics can help clarify what they must achieve in order to get a good grade. Creating rubrics can sometimes be difficult and time consuming, but overall, teachers and students both benefit greatly from them.
Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)
1) The word rubric comes from the Latin word rubrica , which means what?
a. checklist
b. manuscript
c. red ochre
d. teacher-made
2) Which is NOT a type of rubric?
a. analytic
b. generic
c. holistic
d. illuminated
3) Why might Mr. Davis chose to use a analytic rubric for his students' oral presentations?
a. Because he wants to judge the presentation as a whole.
b. Because he wants to use a rubric that he can create quickly.
c. To give the students specific feedback.
d. To grade the presentations quickly.
4) Why might Mrs. Nicks use generic rubrics for her science labs?
a. Because she wants to compare the student's progress over time.
b. Because she wants students grade to be based on all components parts.
c. Because she likes to make completely new rubrics for each assignment.
d. Because she wants students to receive specific feedback.
- Answer
-
1) c
2) d
3) c
4) a
References
Advantages and Disadvantages of Rubrics. (2005). Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://demo.4vqzl21.remote.schoolcenter.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=5128&PHPSESSID=b2fa70324ba350fc
Kidd, J. (2008). L7 performance assessment. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from https://www.blackboard.odu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_144868_1
Rubric. (2009). Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubric
Scoring Rubrics. (2006). Retrieved March 21, 2009, from mfaa.msde.state.md.us/source/MDFAdeveloping_2a_3b.asp
The Advantages of Rubrics. (2009). Retrieved March 20, 2009, from http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/rubrics/4522.html
What is a Rubric? (2008). In Rubistar/4 Teachers. Retrieved March 21, 2009, from http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=WhatIs&module=Rubistar


2.1: Introduction
This chapter introduces a new physical property of matter: the electric charge . As you will see, charged objects can exert forces on other charged objects and even on objects that have no net charge. However, unlike many contact forces often studied in Newtonian mechanics (for example, pushing, pulling, friction, and the normal force), the forces exerted by electric charges can act at a distance from an object with no contact whatsoever! Moreover, the electric force can be attractive, like gravity, but also repulsive (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). How is this possible?
To explain this effect, we will introduce the concept of an electric field . The electric field surrounds the space around an electric charge and enables that charge to interact with other charges throughout space. We will learn how to calculate the electric field and its electric force on the surrounding charge. We will also learn ways to visualize and calculate the electric field for various common distributions of stationary electric charges. Some of these results will prove to be useful in later chapters (for example, the electric field in a parallel-plate capacitor ).
References
- Wikimedia Commons contributors. File: Repulsive-electric-force-between-balloons.jpg [Internet]. Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 4.0, MikeRun)


<IP_ADDRESS>: A Song- "Men of England"
A Song: "Men of England"
A Song: "Men of England" License: Public DomainMen of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
Wherefore feed and clothe and save
From the cradle to the grave
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap:
Find wealth—let no imposter heap:
Weave robes—let not the idle wear:
Forge arms—in your defence to bear.
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells—
In hall ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
With plough and spade and hoe and loom
Trace your grave and build your tomb
And weave your winding-sheet—till fair
England be your Sepulchre.


Part 2 Rest Stop - What’s Out There?
- Explore possible life and career options
- Recognize how laws, public policies, College policies and professional standards affect students’ career goals
- Identify personality preferences and interests and match those to educational and career paths.
Step 1: Research Three Careers/Occupations
Based on the careers you identified in Part 1, research at least three occupations. Use the online research sources listed in section 5.1 of the OER to conduct this research. Your research should include the following elements for each of the three occupations:
- Specific Occupational Title you researched
- Description of the work: list at least five typical work tasks performed in this occupation
- Education, training and other qualifications needed (include also certifications and licensure requirements)
- Job outlook: is the occupation growing or declining and by how much?
- Salary: entry-level and median, on a national or state basis
- Related occupations
- Opportunities for advancement
- Laws, policies affecting these careers
- List at least two more pieces of additional information you need to evaluate whether your career priorities are met in this occupation
You can submit the research in an outline, essay or table format. Make sure to include a Works Cited or Reference page.
Step 2: Compare the Occupations Using Your Career Priorities
List the Career Priorities you identified earlier in Part 1 in the left column. Based on your career research for each occupation, rate how well each occupation meets the Career Priorities using a rating scale from 0-10 (0 – not at all and 10 – meets it 100%). List any relevant information that will help you remember why you rated the career priority the way you did.
| Career Priorities | Rate 0-10 | Name of Occupation 1: | Name of Occupation 2: | Name of Occupation 3: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| List Relevant Information (Reason for the Score) | List Relevant Information (Reason for the Score) | List Relevant Information (Reason for the Score) | ||
| Total Scores: |
Thumbnail: Image of rest area arrow. (Pixabay License via Pixabay )


7.6: Summary
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
Key Takeaways
The work, \(W\), done on an object by a force, \(\vec F\), while the object has moved through a displacement, \(\vec d\), is defined as the scalar product:
\begin{align*} W = \vec F \cdot \vec d &= Fd\cos\theta\\[4pt] &= F_xd_x+F_yd_y+F_zd_z \end{align*}
If the force changes with position and/or the object moves along an arbitrary path in space, the work done by that force over the path is given by:
\begin{align*} W =\int_A^B \vec F(\vec r) \cdot d\vec l \end{align*}
Work allows us to quantify how a force acting on an object changes the speed of that object.
If multiple forces are exerted on an object, then one can calculate the net force on the object (the vector sum of the forces), and the net work done on the object will be equal to the work done by the net force:
\begin{align*} W^{net} = \int_A^B \vec F^{net}(\vec r) \cdot d\vec l \end{align*}
If the net work done on an object is zero, that object does not accelerate. We can define the kinetic energy, \(K(v)\) of an object of mass \(m\) that has speed \(v\) as:
\begin{align*} K(v) = \frac{1}{2} mv^2 \end{align*}
The Work-Energy Theorem states that the net work done on an object in going from position \(A\) to position \(B\) is equal to the object's change in kinetic energy:
\begin{align*} W^{net} = \Delta K = \frac{1}{2} mv_B^2 - \frac{1}{2} mv_A^2 \end{align*}
where \(v_A\) and \(v_B\) are the speed of the object at positions \(A\) and \(B\), respectively.
The rate at which work is being done is called power and is defined as:
\begin{align*} P = \frac{dW}{dt} \end{align*}
If a constant force \(\vec F\) is exerted on an object that has a constant velocity \(\vec v\), then the power that corresponds to the work being done by that force is:
\begin{align*} P &= \frac{d}{dt} W = \frac{d}{dt}(\vec F \cdot \vec d)\\[4pt] &= \vec F \cdot \frac{d}{dt}\vec d = \vec F \cdot \vec v \end{align*}
Important Equations
Work:
\begin{align*} W &= \vec F \cdot \vec d = Fd\cos\theta\\[4pt] W &= F_xd_x+F_yd_y+F_zd_z\\[4pt] W &=\int_A^B \vec F(\vec r) \cdot d\vec l\\[4pt] W^{net} &= \int_A^B \vec F^{net}(\vec r) \cdot d\vec l \end{align*}
Kinetic Energy:
\begin{align*} K(v) = \frac{1}{2} mv^2 \end{align*}
Work-Energy Theorem:
\begin{align*} W^{net} = \Delta K = \frac{1}{2} mv_B^2 - \frac{1}{2} mv_A^2 \end{align*}
Power:
\begin{align*} P &= \frac{dW}{dt}\\[4pt] P &= \vec F \cdot \vec v \end{align*}
Important Definitions
Definition
Work : A scalar quantity to quantity the amount of energy that a force can input into a system when it is exerted over a given distance. SI units: \([\text{J}]\). Common variable(s): \(W\).
Definition
Kinetic energy : A form of energy that an object with a mass has by virtue of having a non-zero speed. SI units: \([\text{J}]\). Common variable(s): \(K\).
Definition
Power : The rate at which energy is converted with respect to time. SI units: \([\text{W}]\). Common variable(s): \(P\).


6.2: Environmental Health
Environmental health is concerned with preventing disease, death and disability by reducing exposure to adverse environmental conditions and promoting behavioral change. It focuses on the direct and indirect causes of diseases and injuries, and taps resources inside and outside the health care system to help improve health outcomes.
Table 1. Typical Environmental Health Issues: Determinants and Health Consequences.
Poverty, Health and Environment
Environmental health risks can be grouped into two broad categories. Traditional hazards are related to poverty and the lack of development and mostly affect developing countries and poor people. Their impact exceeds that of modern health hazards by 10 times in Africa, 5 times in Asian countries (except for China), and 2.5 times in Latin America and Middle East (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\)). Water-related diseases caused by inadequate water supply and sanitation impose an especially large health burden in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region. In India alone, over 700,000 children under 5 die annually from diarrhea. In Africa, malaria causes about 500,000 deaths annually. More than half of the world’s households use unprocessed solid fuels , particularly biomass (crop residues, wood, and dung) for cooking and heating in inefficient stoves without proper ventilation, exposing people—mainly poor women and children—to high levels of indoor air pollution(IAP). IAP causes about 2 million deaths in each year.
Modern hazards , caused by technological development, prevail in industrialized countries where exposure to traditional hazards is low. The contribution of modern environmental risks to the disease burden in most developing countries is similar to – and in quite a few countries, greater than – that in rich countries. Urban air pollution, for example, is highest in parts of China, India and some cities in Asia and Latin America. Poor people increasingly experience a “ double burden ” of traditional and modern environmental health risks. Their total burden of illness and death from all causes per million people is about twice that in rich countries, and the disease burden from environmental risks is 10 times greater.
Environmental Health and Child Survival
Worldwide, the top killers of children under five are acute respiratory infections (from indoor air pollution); diarrheal diseases (mostly from poor water, sanitation, and hygiene); and infectious diseases such as malaria. Children are especially susceptible to environmental factors that put them at risk of developing illness early in life. Malnutrition (the condition that occurs when body does not get enough nutrients) is an important contributor to child mortality—malnutrition and environmental infections are inextricably linked. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently concluded that about 50% of the consequences of malnutrition are in fact caused by inadequate water and sanitation provision and poor hygienic practices.
Poor Water and Sanitation Access
With 1.1 billion people lacking access to safe drinking water and 2.6 billion without adequate sanitation, the magnitude of the water and sanitation problem remains significant. Each year contaminated water and poor sanitation contribute to 5.4 billion cases of diarrhea worldwide and 1.6 million deaths, mostly among children under the age of five. Intestinal worms, which thrive in poor sanitary conditions, infect close to 90 percent of children in the developing world and, depending on the severity of the infection may lead to malnutrition, anemia, or stunted growth. About 6 million people are blind from trachoma, a disease caused by the lack of clean water combined with poor hygiene practices.
Indoor Air Pollution
Indoor air pollution—a much less publicized source of poor health—is responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths per year and for 2.7% of global burden of disease. It is estimated that half of the world’s population, mainly in developing countries, uses solid fuels (biomass and coal) for household cooking and space heating. Cooking and heating with such solid fuels on open fires or stoves without chimneys lead to indoor air pollution and subsequently, respiratory infections. Exposure to these health-damaging pollutants is particularly high among women and children in developing countries, who spend the most time inside the household. As many as half of the deaths attributable to indoor use of solid fuel are of children under the age of five.
Malaria
Approximately 40% of the world’s people—mostly those living in the world’s poorest countries—are at risk from malaria. Malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitoes but caused by a single-celled parasite called Plasmodium . Every year, more than 200 million people become infected with malaria and about 430,000 die, with most cases and deaths found in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and parts of Europe are also affected. Pregnant women are especially at high risk of malaria. Non-immune pregnant women risk both acute and severe clinical disease, resulting in fetal loss in up to 60% of such women and maternal deaths in more than 10%, including a 50% mortality rate for those with severe disease. Semi-immune pregnant women with malaria infection risk severe anemia and impaired fetal growth, even if they show no signs of acute clinical disease. An estimated 10,000 women and 200,000 infants die annually as a result of malaria infection during pregnancy.
Emerging Diseases
Emerging and re-emerging diseases have been defined as infectious diseases of humans whose occurrence during the past two decades has substantially increased or threatens to increase in the near future relative to populations affected, geographic distribution, or magnitude of impacts. Examples include Ebola virus, West Nile virus, Zika virus, sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), H1N1 influenza; swine and avian influenza (swine, bird flu), HIV, and a variety of other viral, bacterial, and protozoal diseases.
A variety of environmental factors may contribute to re-emergence of a particular disease, including temperature, moisture, human food or animal feed sources, etc. Disease re-emergence may be caused by the coincidence of several of these environmental and/or social factors to allow optimal conditions for transmission of the disease.
Ebola , previously known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with one of the Ebola virus strains. Ebola can cause disease in humans and nonhuman primates. The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history (with over 28,000 cases and 11,302 deaths), affecting multiple countries in West Africa. There were a small number of cases reported in Nigeria and Mali and a single case reported in Senegal; however, these cases were contained, with no further spread in these countries.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread with ferocious speed. Virtually unknown 20 years ago, HIV has infected more than 60 million people worldwide. Each day, approximately 14,000 new infections occur, more than half of them among young people below age 25. Over 95 percent of PLWHA (People Living With HIV/AIDS) are in low- and middle- income countries. More than 20 million have died from AIDS, over 3 million in 2002 alone. AIDS is now the leading cause of death in Sub-Saharan Africa and the fourth-biggest killer globally. The epidemic has cut life expectancy by more than 10 years in several nations.
It seems likely that a wide variety of infectious diseases have affected human populations for thousands of years emerging when the environmental, host, and agent conditions were favorable. Expanding human populations have increased the potential for transmission of infectious disease as a result of close human proximity and increased likelihood for humans to be in “the wrong place at the right time” for disease to occur (eg, natural disasters or political conflicts). Global travel increases the potential for a carrier of disease to transmit infection thousands of miles away in just a few hours, as evidenced by WHO precautions concerning international travel and health.
Antibiotic Resistance
Antibiotics and similar drugs, together called antimicrobial agents, have been used for the last 70 years to treat patients who have infectious diseases. Since the 1940s, these drugs have greatly reduced illness and death from infectious diseases. However, these drugs have been used so widely and for so long that the infectious organisms the antibiotics are designed to kill have adapted to them, making the drugs less effective. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in a way that reduces the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents designed to cure or prevent infections. This is caused by the process of evolution through natural selection (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)). The antibiotic-resistant bacteria survive and continue to multiply, causing more harm.
New forms of antibiotic resistance can cross international boundaries and spread between continents with ease. Many forms of resistance spread with remarkable speed. Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people acquire serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more of the antibiotics designed to treat those infections. At least 23,000 people die each year in the US as a direct result of these antibiotic-resistant infections. Many more die from other conditions that were complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection. The use of antibiotics is the single most important factor leading to antibiotic resistance around the world.
Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed drugs used in human medicine, but up to 50% of all the antibiotics prescribed for people are not needed or are not optimally effective as prescribed.
During recent years, there has been growing concern over methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ( MRSA ) , a bacterium that is resistant to many antibiotics. In the community, most MRSA infections are skin infections. In medical facilities, MRSA causes life-threatening bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical site infections.
Suggested Supplementary Reading:
Koch, B.J. et al. 2017. Food-animal production and the spread of antibiotic resistance: the role of ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (15)6: 309-318.
Notable Excerpts:
“Antibiotic use in food animals is correlated with antibiotic resistance among bacteria affecting human populations.” p. 311
“Microbial genes encoding antibiotic resistance have moved between the food-animal and human health sectors, resulting in illnesses that could not be treated by antibiotics.” p. 312
Contributors and Attributions
- Essentials of Environmental Science by Kamala Doršner is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Modified from the original by Matthew R. Fisher.


3.18: Assignment- Create Basic Document
For this assignment, you will create and format a business memo. Follow the directions, then submit your assignment. If you get stuck on a step, review this module and ask your classmates for help in the discussion forum.
Memo Text
To: All Employees
From: Sierra Rowan, Store Manager
Date: September 1, 2019
Subject: New Shelves
Some of you may have noticed in recent weeks that the shelves in the home goods section are beginning to sag. We will be replacing those shelves with new, reinforced metal shelves starting next week. The shelves will be replaced 1:00–4:00 a.m., during our least busy hours. Several aisles will be off-limits to customers during that time as a safety precaution.
The following aisles will be affected:
Kitchen appliances
Kitchen & dining furniture
Kitchen storage
Home goods clearance
Please direct customers looking for items in the affected aisles to the Outdoor Furniture and Patio Accessories areas.
Memo Directions
- Create a new blank document in Microsoft Word.
-
Copy and paste the Memo Text (see above) into your Word document.
-
Save the document to the Rowan folder on your desktop as
BA132_LastName_Memo
.docx
, replacing “LastName” with your own last name. (Example: BA132_Hywater_Memo) It is a good idea to save your work periodically.
-
Change the font of all the text to Arial, size 14.
-
Select the first three lines of the memo (To through Date lines). Remove the spacing after the paragraphs
or
set the After paragraph spacing to 0.
-
Select the Subject line. Set the After paragraph spacing to 30 pts.
-
Bold “To:”, “From:”, “Date:”, and “Subject:” in the first four lines.
-
Justify the paragraph starting with “Some of you”.
-
Select the four lines “Kitchen appliances” through “Home goods clearance” and make them a bulleted list.
-
Indent to 0.5 inches the first line of the “Some of you” paragraph and the “Please direct customers” paragraph.
-
In the first four lines of the memo, hit the Tab key twice after
To:
,
From:
, and
Date:
. Hit the Tab key once after
Subject:
.
- Save your work and submit the document in your course online.
Contributors and Attributions
- Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution


21.12: Voltage Reflection Coefficient
-
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
We now consider the scenario shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). Here a wave arriving from the left along a lossless transmission line having characteristic impedance \(Z_0\) arrives at a termination located at \(z=0\). The impedance looking into the termination is \(Z_L\), which may be real-, imaginary-, or complex-valued. The questions are: Under what circumstances is a reflection – i.e., a leftward traveling wave – expected, and what precisely is that wave?
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): A wave arriving from the left incident on a termination located at \(z = 0\).The potential and current of the incident wave are related by the constant value of \(Z_0\). Similarly, the potential and current of the reflected wave are related by \(Z_0\). Therefore, it suffices to consider either potential or current. Choosing potential, we may express the incident wave as \[\widetilde{V}^+(z) = V_0^+ e^{-j\beta z} \nonumber \] where \(V_0^+\) is determined by the source of the wave, and so is effectively a “given.” Any reflected wave must have the form \[\widetilde{V}^-(z) = V_0^- e^{+j\beta z} \nonumber \] Therefore, the problem is solved by determining the value of \(V_0^-\) given \(V_0^+\), \(Z_0\), and \(Z_L\).
Considering the situation at \(z=0\), note that by definition we have \[Z_L \triangleq \frac{\widetilde{V}_L}{\widetilde{I}_L} \label{m0084_eZL} \] where \(\widetilde{V}_L\) and \(\widetilde{I}_L\) are the potential across and current through the termination, respectively. Also, the potential and current on either side of the \(z=0\) interface must be equal. Thus,
\begin{align}
\widetilde{V}^{+}(0)+\widetilde{V}^{-}(0) &=\widetilde{V}_{L} \label{m0084_eV1} \\
\widetilde{I}^{+}(0)+\widetilde{I}^{-}(0) &=\widetilde{I}_{L} \label{m0084_eI1}
\end{align}
where \(\widetilde{I}^+(z)\) and \(\widetilde{I}^-(z)\) are the currents associated with \(\widetilde{V}^+(z)\) and \(\widetilde{V}^-(z)\), respectively. Since the voltage and current are related by \(Z_0\), Equation \ref{m0084_eI1} may be rewritten as follows:
\[\frac{\widetilde{V}^+(0)}{Z_0} - \frac{\widetilde{V}^-(0)}{Z_0} = \widetilde{I}_L \label{m0084_eI2} \]
Evaluating the left sides of Equations \ref{m0084_eV1} and \ref{m0084_eI2} at \(z=0\), we find:
\begin{aligned}
V_{0}^{+}+V_{0}^{-} &=\widetilde{V}_{L} \\
\frac{V_{0}^{+}}{Z_{0}}-\frac{V_{0}^{-}}{Z_{0}} &=\widetilde{I}_{L}
\end{aligned}
Substituting these expressions into Equation \ref{m0084_eZL} we obtain: \[Z_L = \frac{V_0^+ + V_0^-}{V_0^+/Z_0 - V_0^-/Z_0} \nonumber \] Solving for \(V_0^-\) we obtain \[V_0^- = \frac{Z_L-Z_0}{Z_L+Z_0}~V_0^+ \nonumber \]
Thus, the answer to the question posed earlier is that \[V_0^- = \Gamma V_0^+ ~~\mbox{, where} \nonumber \] \[\boxed{ \Gamma \triangleq \frac{Z_L-Z_0}{Z_L+Z_0} } \label{m0084_eGamma} \]
The quantity \(\Gamma\) is known as the voltage reflection coefficient . Note that when \(Z_L=Z_0\), \(\Gamma=0\) and therefore \(V_0^-=0\). In other words,
If the terminating impedance is equal to the characteristic impedance of the transmission line, then there is no reflection.
If, on the other hand, \(Z_L \neq Z_0\), then \(\left|\Gamma\right|>0\), \(V_0^-= \Gamma V_0^+\), and a leftward-traveling reflected wave exists.
Since \(Z_L\) may be real-, imaginary-, or complex-valued, \(\Gamma\) too may be real-, imaginary-, or complex-valued. Therefore, \(V_0^-\) may be different from \(V_0^+\) in magnitude, sign, or phase.
Note also that \(\Gamma\) is not the ratio of \(I_0^-\) to \(I_0^+\). The ratio of the current coefficients is actually \(-\Gamma\). It is quite simple to show this with a simple modification to the above procedure and is left as an exercise for the student.
Summarizing:
The voltage reflection coefficient \(\Gamma\), given by Equation \ref{m0084_eGamma}, determines the magnitude and phase of the reflected wave given the incident wave, the characteristic impedance of the transmission line, and the terminating impedance.
We now consider values \(\Gamma\) that arise for commonly-encountered terminations.
Matched Load. (\(Z_L = Z_0\)). In this case, the termination may be a device with impedance \(Z_0\), or the termination may be another transmission line having the same characteristic impedance. When \(Z_L = Z_0\), \(\Gamma = 0\) and there is no reflection.
Open Circuit. An “open circuit” is the absence of a termination. This condition implies \(Z_{L} \rightarrow \infty\), and subsequently \(\Gamma \rightarrow+1\). Since the current reflection coefficient is \(-\Gamma\), the reflected current wave is 180 ◦ out of phase with the incident current wave, making the total current at the open circuit equal to zero, as expected.
Short Circuit. “Short circuit” means \(Z_L = 0\), and subsequently \(\Gamma = −1\). In this case, the phase of \(\Gamma\) is 180 ◦ , and therefore, the potential of the reflected wave cancels the potential of the incident wave at the open circuit, making the total potential equal to zero, as it must be. Since the current reflection coefficient is \(−\Gamma = +1\) in this case, the reflected current wave is in phase with the incident current wave, and the magnitude of the total current at the short circuit non-zero as expected.
Purely Reactive Load. A purely reactive load, including that presented by a capacitor or inductor, has \(Z_L = jX\) where \(X\) is reactance. In particular, an inductor is represented by \(X > 0\) and a capacitor is represented by \(X < 0\). We find
\[\Gamma=\frac{-Z_{0}+j X}{+Z_{0}+j X} \nonumber \]
The numerator and denominator have the same magnitude, so \(|\Gamma| = 1\). Let \(\phi\) be the phase of the denominator (\(+Z_0 + jX\)). Then, the phase of the numerator is \(\pi − \phi\). Subsequently, the phase of \(\Gamma\) is \((\pi-\phi)-\phi=\pi-2 \phi\). Thus, we see that the phase of \(\Gamma\) is no longer limited to be 0 ◦ or 180 ◦ , but can be any value in between. The phase of reflected wave is subsequently shifted by this amount.
Other Terminations. Any other termination, including series and parallel combinations of any number of devices, can be expressed as a value of \(Z_L\) which is, in general, complex-valued. The associated value of \(|\Gamma|\) is limited to the range 0 to 1. To see this, note:
\[\Gamma=\frac{Z_{L}-Z_{0}}{Z_{L}+Z_{0}}=\frac{Z_{L} / Z_{0}-1}{Z_{L} / Z_{0}+1} \nonumber \]
Note that the smallest possible value of \(|\Gamma|\) occurs when the numerator is zero; i.e., when \(Z_L = Z_0\). Therefore, the smallest value of \(|\Gamma|\) is zero. The largest possible value of \(|\Gamma|\) occurs when \(Z_{L} / Z_{0} \rightarrow \infty\) (i.e., an open circuit) or when \(Z_L/Z_0 = 0\) (a short circuit); the result in either case is \(|\Gamma| = 1\). Thus,
\[ \boxed{ 0 \leq|\Gamma| \leq 1 } \nonumber \]


2.1: Vectors
Vectors are fundamental objects in applied mathematics; they efficiently convey information about a mathematical or physical object.
A VECTOR is a representation of an object that has both direction and magnitude. By direction, we mean the place toward which something faces, and by magnitude, we mean the size of something.
A vector can be depicted visually by an arrow, with an initial point called the tail and a terminal point called the head. The length of the arrow represents the vector’s magnitude.
An example of a vector is a car’s velocity. Velocity is a vector since it has both magnitude (speed) and direction. A car might be moving west at 60 mph. Other examples of vectors are displacement, acceleration, and force.
The temperature of some medium is not a vector since it has only magnitude. But if the medium is being heated, its temperature is increasing and has a direction; it is going upward. The increase or decrease in temperature is a vector.
Vectors in Standard Position
Components of a Vector
For example, the vector \(\vec{v}\) in the diagram can be broken into two components,
- its horizontal, or \(x\)-component, and
- its vertical, or \(y\)-component.
The vector \(\vec{v}\) in component form is expressed using angle brackets as \(\vec{v}=\langle 3,6\rangle\), where
- the first component, 3 is the length and direction of its \(x\)-component, and
- the second component, 6 is the length and direction of its \(y\)-component.
The vector \(\overrightarrow{u}\) in the picture below has
FIRST COMPONENT = (terminal \(x\) -value) – (initial \(x\) -value) = \(2-7=-5\) , and
SECOND COMPONENT = (terminal \(y\) -value) – (initial \(y\) -value) = \(4-6=-2\) ,
so that \(\overrightarrow{u}=\left\langle -5,\left.-2\right\rangle \right.\) .
we get <-5,-2>."<EMAIL_ADDRESS>Row and Column forms of a Vector
Vectors are represented by a single column matrix or a single row matrix. The vectors \(\overrightarrow{v}=\left\langle 3,\left.6\right\rangle \right.\) , and
\(\overrightarrow{u}=\left\langle -5,\left.-2\right\rangle \right.\) above, can be represented by the 2x1 row matrix and the 1x2 column matrix, respectively as
\[\vec{v}=\left[\begin{array}{ll}
3 & 6
\end{array}\right] \text { and } \vec{u}=\left[\begin{array}{l}
-5 \\
-2
\end{array}\right] \nonumber \]
Equal Vectors
Two vectors are EQUAL if they have the same direction and magnitude. They may start and end at different positions, but their representing arrows will be parallel.
In the diagram vectors \(\vec{a}\) and \(\vec{b}\) are equal but appear in different locations in the x-yplane.
Try These
Express the vectors \(\vec{v}\) and \(\vec{u}\) in component form.
- Answer
-
\(\overrightarrow{v}=\left\langle -3,\left.2\right\rangle \right.\) and \(\overrightarrow{u}=\left\langle 13,\left.3\right\rangle \right.\)
Explain why the two vectors are equal.
- Answer
-
Two vectors are equal because they have the same direction and magnitude.


7.3: Questions to Guide Your Reading
1. How did the Germanic peoples of Western Europe relate to the former Roman territories over which they had taken control?
2. Which of Justinian’s policies had the longest-lasting effects?
3. What crises did the Byzantine Empire face during the reign of Heraclius?
4. What was a way that the Byzantine state reorganized itself to face the challenges of seventhand eighth-century invasions?
5. Why did the Iconoclast emperors believe that using images in worship was wrong?
6. How did the Church provide a sense of legitimacy to the kings of the Franks?
7. How did the majority of people in Europe and the Byzantine Empire live in the Early Middle Ages (i.e., c. 500 to 1000 C.E.)?
8. How did East Francia and England respond to Viking attacks?


3.11: Summary
selected template will load here
This action is not available.
The purpose of this chapter is to help make you a motivated learner and empower you to make informed choices about your own learning. Throughout the chapter, you were introduced to ideas, research, and popular models on learning and given examples of how to use each of these as an effective part of your own learning experience.
Most importantly, you were able to explore how things like motivation, grit, and mindset are the most influential aspects of successful learning.
Watch this TEDx video(opens in new window) on learning styles and the importance of critical thinking. After you have watched the video, consider some of the reflective points below.
The concept of personalized learning styles has been popular for almost half a century. Given the information presented in this video, why do you think people are attracted to the idea of personal learning styles even though evidence shows they do not actually exist?
If you were going to devise an experiment to prove or disprove the idea of personalized learning styles, what would you do?
Recall the four statements that you evaluated at the beginning of this chapter (see below). Have you changed your mind about any of them, or do you intend to work on changing any of them? If you answered no to either or both, why do you feel no change is needed?