Social choice in machine design

1. What is a machine tool?

2. What are machine tools used for?

3. In the first paragraph, the author states that numerically controlled machine tools will lead to increased concentration in the metalworking industry. Why?

4. The author also states that there has been a change in planning and control. What change is the author referring to?

5. Why is automating machine tools different than building an assembly line?

6. The author refers to two separate processes that are required if machine tools are to be automated. What are these processes?

7. What was the difference between record playback and numerical control?

8. Why was numerical control developed while record playback wasn’t?

9. What effect did air force support have on the choice of technology?

10. Why did APT software become the standard?

11. What effect did this have on businesses?

12. What motivations other than profit affect the choice of a new technology?

13. What was the reality on the shop floor according to the author?

Science as Intellectual Property

Read the following pages: 480-481; last paragraph on p 482-486; 489- top of 492; 497-498; 503

1. What does the phrase “capitalization of science” mean?

2. According to the authors, what are the steps in the “capitalization of science”?

3. What were the criticisms of the patents system in the U.S. during the 1930s?

4. How has the commercialization of science changed scientific practices?

5. What is meant by the term “intellectual property”?

6. What are the main types of industry-university relationships?

7. What is the difference between American and Japanese views towards intellectual property rights? Why is there this difference?

8. What are the views on intellectual property rights of industrially developed and developing countries?

9. In what ways are the views of large and small corporations different?

10. Describe the three procedures that university often use to capitalize knowledge.

11. How may the commercialization of science affect the ethics of scientific practice?

Untangling context: understanding a university laboratory in the commercial world

Read pages 1-2; 9-10; 11-13

1. What type of lab was investigated?

2. What type of research method was used?

3. What is meant by the terms “actor network theory” and “social worlds approach”?

4. What criticisms of these theories does the author make?

5. What type of research work was carried out at the Handelsman Lab?

6. The author uses the example of Taq to illustrate how structural factors can affect the laboratory. How does the author make this case?

7. Why did Handelsman patent inventions, even though she thought that patents were much less effective than industry thought they were?

8. How did the university administration help the lab commercialize its research?