Articles in peer reviewed Journals by Katerina Vlantoni
Icon, 2022
This article introduces to a history of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biom... more This article introduces to a history of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biomedicine, based on accounts of AI that were published in journals of biomedical, medical, scientific and engineering communities during the last half century. These accounts were full of promises about the future of each new generation of AI, but, also, assessments of how the preceding generations of AI did not manage to deliver according to what was promised. We read such accounts together in order to capture both a narrative of unbound progress and of failure regarding the use of AI (and computing in general) in virtually all medical specialties and fields. This article contributes to the historiography of AI by retrieving this contrast between a progressivist ideology and a reality defined by limits in the integration of AI into biomedicine.
History of Technology, 2017
We present our research on the history of the use of medical technologies in Greece in relation t... more We present our research on the history of the use of medical technologies in Greece in relation to health policies and the increasingly complex intersection with the private sector. We focus on the multifaceted processes of the deployment of medical technologies in the post-war period, paying attention to particular policymaking initiatives, healthcare services, political economy and social setting. We chose three case studies, representing key medical technologies. These are: medical imaging technologies, since Greece has a comparatively high rate of installed systems per capita. molecular diagnostic techniques in blood transfusion services, representing the largest public investment ever in the Greek health system. telemedicine, a technology considered suitable to a country containing many remote islands and mountainous locations. We have studied these cases by relying on the history of technology and the historical and social study of medicine.
Το κείμενο αυτό στοχεύει να δείξει με ποιους τρόπους διαμορφώνονται και παρεμβαίνουν διάφορες ομά... more Το κείμενο αυτό στοχεύει να δείξει με ποιους τρόπους διαμορφώνονται και παρεμβαίνουν διάφορες ομάδες «ειδημόνων»κατά την ανάπτυξη και σταθεροποίηση μιας τεχνολογίας. Εστιάζεται στην κατασκευή της έννοιας της διακινδύνευσης και πως αυτή συνδέεται με τις θέσεις διαφορετικών ομάδων ειδημόνων. Η περίπτωση που αναλύεται αφορά τη διαμόρφωση και χρήση της τεχνολογίας γενετικού εντοπισμού ιών σε τράπεζες αίματος στις ΗΠΑ. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, εξετάζεται ο σχεδιασμός πολιτικών δημόσιας υγείας που στοχεύουν στην αύξηση της ασφάλειας του αίματος. Οι πολιτικές που προτάθηκαν στόχευαν στη μείωση της διακινδύνευσης μετάδοσης ιών μετά τη μετάγγιση και βασίστηκαν στον υπολογισμό της διακινδύνευσης. Για μια ομάδα ειδημόνων, ο υπολογισμός της διακινδύνευσης καταδείκνυε ότι το οριακός όφελος από τη χρήση των μοριακών διαγνωστικών τεστ θα ήταν πολύ μικρό. Στην βάση αυτή προτείνονταν εναλλακτικές επιλογές για τη διάθεση των πορισμένων πόρων, είτε στον ίδιο κλάδο της ιατρικής των μεταγγίσεων είτε σε άλλους κλάδους της ιατρικής. Οι επιλογές αυτές θα κατέληγαν σε μεγαλύτερο όφελος για τη δημόσια υγεία. Η αντιπαράθεση που υπήρξε μεταξύ των ειδημόνων για την ανάπτυξη της νέας τεχνολογίας μοριακής διαγνωστικής δεν κρίθηκε τελικά στο πεδίο του υπολογισμού της διακινδύνευσης. Αφορούσε τον προσδιορισμό του πεδίου λήψης αποφάσεων, δηλαδή την επικέντρωση των ασκούμενων πολιτικών στη μείωση της διακινδύνευσης μετάδοσης ιών χωρίς να συνυπολογίζεται το εκτιμούμενο όφελος για τη δημόσια υγεία σε σύγκριση με άλλες επιλογές. Στον ορισμό του πεδίου λήψης αποφάσεων έπαιξε καθοριστικό ρόλο ο κρατικός φορέας FDA, ο οποίος επέλεξε στοιχεία της «ειδημοσύνης» που υποστήριζαν την ανάπτυξη της νέας τεχνολογίας της μοριακής διαγνωστικής για χρήση στις τράπεζες αίματος.
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The article focuses on how various groups of “experts” are formed through their involvement in the development and stabilization of a new technology. It specifically discusses the construction of risk and its relation to the positions held by competing groups of experts. The case study under consideration concerns the development of genetic screening technology for blood donations in order to be used in blood banks in the US. More specifically, the paper deals with processes of decision-making regarding public health policies aimed at advancing blood safety. The suggested policies targeted the reduction of risk of transfusion transmitted infections and were based on the calculations of risk. For a group of experts, the calculation of risk showed that the incremental benefit from molecular diagnostics would be low. For this reason, they suggested the use of the limited resources towards other interventions, which could result in greater benefit to the public, either in the field of transfusion medicine or in other fields of medicine. As I argue, the debate among experts over the development of molecular diagnostics was not determined by competing risk estimates to a comparative context. Instead, it concerned the domain of decision-making and its future focus on the policies that would guide the interventions aiming at reducing the risk of transfusion transmitted infections without comparing the estimated public health benefit with that of other medical interventions. I argue that the intervening of a state regulatory agency, FDA, determined the domain of decision-making by selecting elements of the expertise that supported the development of the new technology of molecular diagnostics for blood banks.
EASST Review, May 2019
Laboratory: anthropoLogy of environment|human reLations 8
![Research paper thumbnail of (2019) (με την Κατερίνα Βλαντώνη) «Υγρός βιολογικός χρυσός»: Κριτικές προσεγγίσεις των τραπεζών ομφαλοπλακουντιακού αίματος από το πεδίο “Επιστήμη, Τεχνολογία, Κοινωνία” (“Biological gold”: Critical approaches of umbilical cord blood banking from the field “Science, Technology, Society”) [GR]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58796616/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Βιοηθικά (Bioethica), Mar 2019
In this paper, we present the ways umbilical cord blood banking practices interrelate with the in... more In this paper, we present the ways umbilical cord blood banking practices interrelate with the institutional forms of umbilical cord blood banks.
The differing modes of utilizing umbilical cord blood are connected to the establishment of public and private banking. The public and private banks are associated with different social meanings. Public banks are associated with the principles of redistributive economy, while, the private banks with that of market economy. The practices of umbilical cord blood banks, as it has been demonstrated by studies from the interdisciplinary field “Science, Technology, Society”, render less rigid the distinction between public and private banking.
By focusing on the mobility of the umbilical cord blood cells in a wide network of infrastructure and organizations that surround its utilization, we intend to show the factors that make problematic the binary and opposed consideration of the public-private character in the two modes of umbilical cord blood banking.
Book Chapter by Katerina Vlantoni
Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe: Interdisciplinary case studies to think with history, 2022
Human blood is essential for a vast range of therapeutic treatments, in the form of transfusions ... more Human blood is essential for a vast range of therapeutic treatments, in the form of transfusions and the administration of medicinal blood products. The issue of blood safety is thus a preeminent public health issue, and national healthcare policy always seeks to ensure a pristine and secure blood supply. Blood safety is also the object of international and supranational collaborative efforts, interrelated with the governance of blood supply as a vital infrastructure. We examine the ethical values promoted in international cooperation around the circulation of human blood products and around setting common safety standards, and discern the interactions of formal and informal health diplomacy. The dynamic character of blood supply infrastructure manifests underlying tensions in the policy-shaping processes, throwing light on the complex negotiations of blood diplomacy.
In The Making of Europe’s Critical Ιnfrastructures: Common Connections and Shared Vulnerabilities, Per Högselius, Anique Hommels, Arne Kaijser and Erik van der Vleuten (eds), 2013
Πόλα Καπόλα, Γεράσιμος Κουζέλης και Ορέστης Κωνσταντάς (επιμ.), Αποτυπώσεις σε στιγμές κινδύνου: 100 κείμενα για την κατάσταση της πανδημίας, Τοπικά ιθ', 2020
Science and Literature: Poetry and Prose
Kostas Tampakis - George Ν. Vlahakis
Introduction -
The Power Of Names 11
POETRY . . . . . . . . ... more Kostas Tampakis - George Ν. Vlahakis
Introduction -
The Power Of Names 11
POETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Pauline Choay-Lescar
Geopoetry In Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass 15
Simone Palmieri
A Survey On The Functionality Of Metrical-Rhyming Structures In Italian Advertising . . . . . . 25
Marion Simonin
The Fourth State Of Material By Leonard Gaspar. A Poetry To Stich Up? 41
Io Stephanidou
Scientific Fragments Of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry In Art:
A Comment On Janet Malcolm’s Cut Up Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Kostas Tampakis
“To Leave Parnassus And Climb The Rugged Mountain Of Science”–
Theodoros Orphanidis, Poetry And Science In Nineteenth Century Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Maria Terdimou
Zero And Infinity In Modern Greek Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PROSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Constantin Canavas
The Affective Narrative Of The Lunar Distance. Science And Literature
In The Cosmicomics By Italo Calvino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Evangelia Chordaki
Hidden Paths – Unconventional Practices. A Her-Story Of Circulation Of Medical Knowledge
In The Late Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Manolis Kartsonakis
The Leading Approach To The Scientific Revolution Through Literature Forms:
Reports, Dialogues And Letters Within Copernicus’, Kepler’s And Galileo’s Works . . . . . . . . . 111
Gianna Katsiampoura
Science And Scientists In Crime Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Constantinos Morfakis - Katerina Vlantoni
Science, Technology And Society, Searching For The Enemy Of The People . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Roula Tsitouri
Exploring Aphasia: Samuel Beckett’s Late Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Michael Wainwright
On What Matters For African Americans: W. E. B. Du Bois’s
The Souls Of The Black Folk In The Light Of Derek Parfit’s Reasons And Persons 149
Anne-Gaëlle Weber
Scholarly Uses Of Literature At The End Of The 18th Century And In The 19th Century . . . . . . 157
George N. Vlahakis
Mesmerism In Nineeteenth–Century Greek Popular Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The Making of Europe's Critical Infrastructure, 2013
Επιστήμη και Τεχνολογία. Ιστορικές και ιστοριογραφικές μελέτες [Science and Technology. Historical and Historiographical Studies] (Editors: Eir. Mergoupi-Savaidou, G. Merianos, F. Papanelopoulou and Ch. Christopoulou), 2013
Τεχνολογία και Κοινωνία στην Ελλάδα. Μελέτες από την Ιστορία της Τεχνολογίας και τις Σπουδές Επιστήμης και Τεχνολογίας, 2015
Conference Presentations by Katerina Vlantoni
The umbilical cord blood (UCB) banks construct an economy based essentially on the transformation... more The umbilical cord blood (UCB) banks construct an economy based essentially on the transformation of bio-material from a waste by-product to a valuable one employed in promises of new therapies. The UCB contains stem and progenitor cells. It's used as an alternative source of haematoietic stem cells for transplantation in patients to treat haematological malignancies, bone marrow failures and inherited metabolic disorders.
![Research paper thumbnail of (2014) (with Vlantoni Katerina) “Science, Technology and Society. Searching for the Enemy of the People”, First International Conference on Science & Literature [Commission on Science & Literature DHST/ IUHPST]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/41347669/thumbnails/1.jpg)
The technoscientific developments have shaped the world around us and at the same time are being ... more The technoscientific developments have shaped the world around us and at the same time are being shaped by society. We embark from academic studies about scientific and technological controversies and their public communication, originating from the field of Science, Technology and Society (STS), broadly influenced from the findings of the history of science and technology disciplines. At the same time, recent research has led to considerations regarding more participatory and deliberative procedures about decision-making affecting science and technology research and policies, especially when risk and uncertainty are prevailing. Literature is one of the various modes of communicating science and technology in the public domain. The public image of science and technology influences positive and critical considerations about their development and their role in everyday life.
In our paper we consider open issues regarding public policy in the play of Henrik Ibsen called An Enemy of the people (1882). In the play, Doctor Thomas Stockmann is a popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway, who discovers that the waters of the town’s new thermal baths were being polluted. The Doctor informs the authorities and suggests solutions to deal with the risks of causing diseases to the tourists using the baths. At the beginning he is supported by his environment and local media. However, the issue of repairing the baths has serious tradeoffs, and the Mayor of the town, who is the Doctor’s brother, considers that it could lead to the financial devastation of the town. At a town meeting the different positions are presented and the Doctor’s opinion loses its merit in the public.
In this paper we shall attempt to examine the following issues in Ibsen’s play and in connection to recent developments in STS scholarship. We are interested in the way a scientific controversy reaches the public through media communication. Furthermore, we are focusing on the role of the media coverage in framing scientific data and the authority of scientists. In addition, we pay special attention to various modes of deliberative processes on decision making, more particularly for issues of public health benefit versus potential health risks. We believe that Ibsen’s play provides us with interesting insights on contemporary questions regarding science and technology policy.
These papers were received in response to a call to all presenters to submit papers up to three m... more These papers were received in response to a call to all presenters to submit papers up to three months after the conference. Except where indicated otherwise in the table of contents, these papers were presented either to parallel sessions of individual papers or to pre-arranged panel sessions.
Call for Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
Call for Papers | Research Workshop on Science, Technology, Society (STS)/History, Technology, So... more Call for Papers | Research Workshop on Science, Technology, Society (STS)/History, Technology, Society (HTS): Bioeconomy, Biotechnology, Medical Technologies
Location: Historical Archive of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Dates: Thursday 19th and Friday 20th of April 2018
Organizers: Constantinos Morfakis and Katerina Vlantoni, Postdoctoral Fellows, Department of History and Philosophy Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
The workshop is organized in the context of the research project “The public debate on umbilical cord blood banking in Greece: Approaches from the interdisciplinary field Science, Technology, Society (STS)”. This project is funded by the Onassis Foundation and is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Sponsored by: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Onassis Foundation, and EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology)
We invite contributions from scholars who are interested in critical approaches to the theoretical framework and the methodology involved in STS/HTS perspectives on UCB biobanking.
Possible topics include:
• Commercialization initiatives in UCB biobanking / the production of biovalue(s).
• Ideologies of UCB biobanking.
• Varieties of UCB biobanking institutional configurations and regulatory issues.
• Public awareness and citizen participation in UCB donation/storage: the perspective of the voluntary donor, the organization of patient engagement, other non-expert involvement in UCB banking settings.
• UCB biobanking in global, national and local media (newspapers, tv broadcasting, social media). The connection between media coverage/framing and UCB banking practices and health policies.
• Futuristic discourses and science/technology forecasting of UCB bioeconomies: challenges, public health policies and cooperation strategies (e.g. the financial sustainability of UCB banks, the future value of UCB as inscribed in current banking configurations).
• Big data issues in UCB banking settings.
• Approaches to the use of UCB in therapeutic practices (allogeneic and autologous transplants) and regenerative medicine.
Conference Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
In Quality, Honesty and Beauty in science and technology communication, PCTS 2012 Book of Papers, Massimiano Bucchi and Brian Trench (editors), 2012
Public knowledge of issues related to biotechnology and wind energy is heavily influenced by news... more Public knowledge of issues related to biotechnology and wind energy is heavily influenced by news coverage, as most citizens have little first-hand knowledge about research related to biotechnology and wind energy. As is well known, both biotechnology and wind energy encounter considerable resistance. The beautification of biotechnology in the media has attracted considerable attention among specialists in Science Communication and Science, Technology, and Society. As a result, we know about the presence of patterns in, for example, the use of the metaphors employed in order to promote a whole range of biotechnologies, from genetically modified organisms to cloning. Several STS scholars have argued that textual and visual mechanisms of media beautification of biotechnology have been developed in response to widespread public concern about biotechnology, which frequently took the form of open resistance to biotechnology. This is also connected to ongoing discussions regarding the risks and ethical issues associated with biotechnology. We know much less about media strategies that have aimed at the beautification of another defining technology of our era, that of wind farms. Noticeably, wind farms are by now, also, a technology that faces considerable resistance. Wind farm installation has raised great waves of resistance in local communities due to the serious impact it has on the environment, the landscape, the biodiversity and the economic life of communities (e.g. negative impact on prospect of development of tourism). This is why central to our paper is a comparison between the way stem cells and wind farms have been portrayed in the media. This comparison is based on primary research in several of the most popular Greek e-newspapers and other news blogs and websites. Between the Regenerative and the Renewable Stem cell research is a hot topic in the press. It has been constantly in the news for several years: not a week goes by without the announcement of a new and 'amazing' advance. Reporters tell us that we are constantly on the verge of a revolution in medicine due to developments in stem cell technology. The central rhetoric in the beautification of biotechnology in the media is the idea of regenerative: that bio-scientists reorganise life at the genetic level so as that biotechnology will offer enormous possibilities in order to remould life on Earth. GM technology is presented as a green revolution that regenerates agriculture and solves the problems of the poor and world starvation. The GMOs crops are supposed to be durable, more productive and nutritious.
Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology , 2022
This article introduces to a history of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biom... more This article introduces to a history of the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into biomedicine, based on accounts of AI that were published in journals of biomedical, medical, scientific and engineering communities during the last half century. These accounts were full of promises about the future of each new generation of AI, but, also, assessments of how the preceding generations of AI did not manage to deliver according to what was promised. We read such accounts together in order to capture both a narrative of unbound progress and of failure regarding the use of AI (and computing in general) in virtually all medical specialties and fields. This article contributes to the historiography of AI by retrieving this contrast between a progressivist ideology and a reality defined by limits in the integration of AI into biomedicine.
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Articles in peer reviewed Journals by Katerina Vlantoni
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The article focuses on how various groups of “experts” are formed through their involvement in the development and stabilization of a new technology. It specifically discusses the construction of risk and its relation to the positions held by competing groups of experts. The case study under consideration concerns the development of genetic screening technology for blood donations in order to be used in blood banks in the US. More specifically, the paper deals with processes of decision-making regarding public health policies aimed at advancing blood safety. The suggested policies targeted the reduction of risk of transfusion transmitted infections and were based on the calculations of risk. For a group of experts, the calculation of risk showed that the incremental benefit from molecular diagnostics would be low. For this reason, they suggested the use of the limited resources towards other interventions, which could result in greater benefit to the public, either in the field of transfusion medicine or in other fields of medicine. As I argue, the debate among experts over the development of molecular diagnostics was not determined by competing risk estimates to a comparative context. Instead, it concerned the domain of decision-making and its future focus on the policies that would guide the interventions aiming at reducing the risk of transfusion transmitted infections without comparing the estimated public health benefit with that of other medical interventions. I argue that the intervening of a state regulatory agency, FDA, determined the domain of decision-making by selecting elements of the expertise that supported the development of the new technology of molecular diagnostics for blood banks.
The differing modes of utilizing umbilical cord blood are connected to the establishment of public and private banking. The public and private banks are associated with different social meanings. Public banks are associated with the principles of redistributive economy, while, the private banks with that of market economy. The practices of umbilical cord blood banks, as it has been demonstrated by studies from the interdisciplinary field “Science, Technology, Society”, render less rigid the distinction between public and private banking.
By focusing on the mobility of the umbilical cord blood cells in a wide network of infrastructure and organizations that surround its utilization, we intend to show the factors that make problematic the binary and opposed consideration of the public-private character in the two modes of umbilical cord blood banking.
Book Chapter by Katerina Vlantoni
Introduction -
The Power Of Names 11
POETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Pauline Choay-Lescar
Geopoetry In Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass 15
Simone Palmieri
A Survey On The Functionality Of Metrical-Rhyming Structures In Italian Advertising . . . . . . 25
Marion Simonin
The Fourth State Of Material By Leonard Gaspar. A Poetry To Stich Up? 41
Io Stephanidou
Scientific Fragments Of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry In Art:
A Comment On Janet Malcolm’s Cut Up Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Kostas Tampakis
“To Leave Parnassus And Climb The Rugged Mountain Of Science”–
Theodoros Orphanidis, Poetry And Science In Nineteenth Century Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Maria Terdimou
Zero And Infinity In Modern Greek Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PROSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Constantin Canavas
The Affective Narrative Of The Lunar Distance. Science And Literature
In The Cosmicomics By Italo Calvino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Evangelia Chordaki
Hidden Paths – Unconventional Practices. A Her-Story Of Circulation Of Medical Knowledge
In The Late Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Manolis Kartsonakis
The Leading Approach To The Scientific Revolution Through Literature Forms:
Reports, Dialogues And Letters Within Copernicus’, Kepler’s And Galileo’s Works . . . . . . . . . 111
Gianna Katsiampoura
Science And Scientists In Crime Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Constantinos Morfakis - Katerina Vlantoni
Science, Technology And Society, Searching For The Enemy Of The People . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Roula Tsitouri
Exploring Aphasia: Samuel Beckett’s Late Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Michael Wainwright
On What Matters For African Americans: W. E. B. Du Bois’s
The Souls Of The Black Folk In The Light Of Derek Parfit’s Reasons And Persons 149
Anne-Gaëlle Weber
Scholarly Uses Of Literature At The End Of The 18th Century And In The 19th Century . . . . . . 157
George N. Vlahakis
Mesmerism In Nineeteenth–Century Greek Popular Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Conference Presentations by Katerina Vlantoni
In our paper we consider open issues regarding public policy in the play of Henrik Ibsen called An Enemy of the people (1882). In the play, Doctor Thomas Stockmann is a popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway, who discovers that the waters of the town’s new thermal baths were being polluted. The Doctor informs the authorities and suggests solutions to deal with the risks of causing diseases to the tourists using the baths. At the beginning he is supported by his environment and local media. However, the issue of repairing the baths has serious tradeoffs, and the Mayor of the town, who is the Doctor’s brother, considers that it could lead to the financial devastation of the town. At a town meeting the different positions are presented and the Doctor’s opinion loses its merit in the public.
In this paper we shall attempt to examine the following issues in Ibsen’s play and in connection to recent developments in STS scholarship. We are interested in the way a scientific controversy reaches the public through media communication. Furthermore, we are focusing on the role of the media coverage in framing scientific data and the authority of scientists. In addition, we pay special attention to various modes of deliberative processes on decision making, more particularly for issues of public health benefit versus potential health risks. We believe that Ibsen’s play provides us with interesting insights on contemporary questions regarding science and technology policy.
Call for Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
Location: Historical Archive of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Dates: Thursday 19th and Friday 20th of April 2018
Organizers: Constantinos Morfakis and Katerina Vlantoni, Postdoctoral Fellows, Department of History and Philosophy Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
The workshop is organized in the context of the research project “The public debate on umbilical cord blood banking in Greece: Approaches from the interdisciplinary field Science, Technology, Society (STS)”. This project is funded by the Onassis Foundation and is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Sponsored by: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Onassis Foundation, and EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology)
We invite contributions from scholars who are interested in critical approaches to the theoretical framework and the methodology involved in STS/HTS perspectives on UCB biobanking.
Possible topics include:
• Commercialization initiatives in UCB biobanking / the production of biovalue(s).
• Ideologies of UCB biobanking.
• Varieties of UCB biobanking institutional configurations and regulatory issues.
• Public awareness and citizen participation in UCB donation/storage: the perspective of the voluntary donor, the organization of patient engagement, other non-expert involvement in UCB banking settings.
• UCB biobanking in global, national and local media (newspapers, tv broadcasting, social media). The connection between media coverage/framing and UCB banking practices and health policies.
• Futuristic discourses and science/technology forecasting of UCB bioeconomies: challenges, public health policies and cooperation strategies (e.g. the financial sustainability of UCB banks, the future value of UCB as inscribed in current banking configurations).
• Big data issues in UCB banking settings.
• Approaches to the use of UCB in therapeutic practices (allogeneic and autologous transplants) and regenerative medicine.
Conference Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
Papers by Katerina Vlantoni
/
The article focuses on how various groups of “experts” are formed through their involvement in the development and stabilization of a new technology. It specifically discusses the construction of risk and its relation to the positions held by competing groups of experts. The case study under consideration concerns the development of genetic screening technology for blood donations in order to be used in blood banks in the US. More specifically, the paper deals with processes of decision-making regarding public health policies aimed at advancing blood safety. The suggested policies targeted the reduction of risk of transfusion transmitted infections and were based on the calculations of risk. For a group of experts, the calculation of risk showed that the incremental benefit from molecular diagnostics would be low. For this reason, they suggested the use of the limited resources towards other interventions, which could result in greater benefit to the public, either in the field of transfusion medicine or in other fields of medicine. As I argue, the debate among experts over the development of molecular diagnostics was not determined by competing risk estimates to a comparative context. Instead, it concerned the domain of decision-making and its future focus on the policies that would guide the interventions aiming at reducing the risk of transfusion transmitted infections without comparing the estimated public health benefit with that of other medical interventions. I argue that the intervening of a state regulatory agency, FDA, determined the domain of decision-making by selecting elements of the expertise that supported the development of the new technology of molecular diagnostics for blood banks.
The differing modes of utilizing umbilical cord blood are connected to the establishment of public and private banking. The public and private banks are associated with different social meanings. Public banks are associated with the principles of redistributive economy, while, the private banks with that of market economy. The practices of umbilical cord blood banks, as it has been demonstrated by studies from the interdisciplinary field “Science, Technology, Society”, render less rigid the distinction between public and private banking.
By focusing on the mobility of the umbilical cord blood cells in a wide network of infrastructure and organizations that surround its utilization, we intend to show the factors that make problematic the binary and opposed consideration of the public-private character in the two modes of umbilical cord blood banking.
Introduction -
The Power Of Names 11
POETRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Pauline Choay-Lescar
Geopoetry In Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass 15
Simone Palmieri
A Survey On The Functionality Of Metrical-Rhyming Structures In Italian Advertising . . . . . . 25
Marion Simonin
The Fourth State Of Material By Leonard Gaspar. A Poetry To Stich Up? 41
Io Stephanidou
Scientific Fragments Of Emily Dickinson’s Poetry In Art:
A Comment On Janet Malcolm’s Cut Up Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Kostas Tampakis
“To Leave Parnassus And Climb The Rugged Mountain Of Science”–
Theodoros Orphanidis, Poetry And Science In Nineteenth Century Greece . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Maria Terdimou
Zero And Infinity In Modern Greek Poetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PROSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Constantin Canavas
The Affective Narrative Of The Lunar Distance. Science And Literature
In The Cosmicomics By Italo Calvino . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Evangelia Chordaki
Hidden Paths – Unconventional Practices. A Her-Story Of Circulation Of Medical Knowledge
In The Late Twentieth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Manolis Kartsonakis
The Leading Approach To The Scientific Revolution Through Literature Forms:
Reports, Dialogues And Letters Within Copernicus’, Kepler’s And Galileo’s Works . . . . . . . . . 111
Gianna Katsiampoura
Science And Scientists In Crime Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Constantinos Morfakis - Katerina Vlantoni
Science, Technology And Society, Searching For The Enemy Of The People . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Roula Tsitouri
Exploring Aphasia: Samuel Beckett’s Late Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Michael Wainwright
On What Matters For African Americans: W. E. B. Du Bois’s
The Souls Of The Black Folk In The Light Of Derek Parfit’s Reasons And Persons 149
Anne-Gaëlle Weber
Scholarly Uses Of Literature At The End Of The 18th Century And In The 19th Century . . . . . . 157
George N. Vlahakis
Mesmerism In Nineeteenth–Century Greek Popular Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
In our paper we consider open issues regarding public policy in the play of Henrik Ibsen called An Enemy of the people (1882). In the play, Doctor Thomas Stockmann is a popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway, who discovers that the waters of the town’s new thermal baths were being polluted. The Doctor informs the authorities and suggests solutions to deal with the risks of causing diseases to the tourists using the baths. At the beginning he is supported by his environment and local media. However, the issue of repairing the baths has serious tradeoffs, and the Mayor of the town, who is the Doctor’s brother, considers that it could lead to the financial devastation of the town. At a town meeting the different positions are presented and the Doctor’s opinion loses its merit in the public.
In this paper we shall attempt to examine the following issues in Ibsen’s play and in connection to recent developments in STS scholarship. We are interested in the way a scientific controversy reaches the public through media communication. Furthermore, we are focusing on the role of the media coverage in framing scientific data and the authority of scientists. In addition, we pay special attention to various modes of deliberative processes on decision making, more particularly for issues of public health benefit versus potential health risks. We believe that Ibsen’s play provides us with interesting insights on contemporary questions regarding science and technology policy.
Location: Historical Archive of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Dates: Thursday 19th and Friday 20th of April 2018
Organizers: Constantinos Morfakis and Katerina Vlantoni, Postdoctoral Fellows, Department of History and Philosophy Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
The workshop is organized in the context of the research project “The public debate on umbilical cord blood banking in Greece: Approaches from the interdisciplinary field Science, Technology, Society (STS)”. This project is funded by the Onassis Foundation and is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
Sponsored by: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Onassis Foundation, and EASST (European Association for the Study of Science and Technology)
We invite contributions from scholars who are interested in critical approaches to the theoretical framework and the methodology involved in STS/HTS perspectives on UCB biobanking.
Possible topics include:
• Commercialization initiatives in UCB biobanking / the production of biovalue(s).
• Ideologies of UCB biobanking.
• Varieties of UCB biobanking institutional configurations and regulatory issues.
• Public awareness and citizen participation in UCB donation/storage: the perspective of the voluntary donor, the organization of patient engagement, other non-expert involvement in UCB banking settings.
• UCB biobanking in global, national and local media (newspapers, tv broadcasting, social media). The connection between media coverage/framing and UCB banking practices and health policies.
• Futuristic discourses and science/technology forecasting of UCB bioeconomies: challenges, public health policies and cooperation strategies (e.g. the financial sustainability of UCB banks, the future value of UCB as inscribed in current banking configurations).
• Big data issues in UCB banking settings.
• Approaches to the use of UCB in therapeutic practices (allogeneic and autologous transplants) and regenerative medicine.