Wilson, A. Meriwether W.; Mugerauer, Robert; Klinger, Terrie. (2015). Rethinking Marine Infrastructure Policy and Practice: Insights from Three Large-Scale Marina Developments in Seattle. Marine Policy, 53, 67 – 82.
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Abstract
The global transformation of the marine nearshore is generating profound losses of ecological and geomorphological functions and ecosystem services, as natural environments are replaced with built. With conservation a diminishing option and restoration often unrealistic, there is a need to rethink development and the potential for marine infrastructure to contribute to net environmental gain. Through analysis of 150 years of change associated with the development of three large-scale marinas in the Seattle area, this research identifies the ways in which evolving policy frameworks and ecological understanding determine the nature, efficiency and environmental outcomes of coastal marine developments. Decisions on infrastructure design, mitigation strategies and policy interpretations directly determined the ecological fate of marine biota inhabiting these structures as well as surrounding ecosystems. In spite of increasing evidence of environmental legislation driving mitigation and innovative engineering, the net ecological trajectories remained negative. There were no tested demonstrations of marine mitigation to confirm which measures would succeed. Where scientific understanding existed, the uptake into planning and legislation was slow. More broadly, this research highlights a need and opportunity to consider marine infrastructure as living laboratories to inform a policy shift from a no-net-loss paradigm to net-environmental-gain. This evolution is timely, with sea level rise requiring new approaches to coastal defenses and with marine energy infrastructure increasingly being located offshore, where there is little knowledge of the ecological changes occurring in both time and space. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Coastal; Restoration; Landscape; Habitats; Science; Driver; Areas; Act; Marine Coastal Infrastructure; Ecological Mitigation; Novel Marine Habitats; Environmental Governance; Pacific Northwest
Mugerauer, Robert. (2016). Anthropotechnology: Sloterdijk on Environmental Design and the Foamworlds of Co-Isolation. Architecture And Culture, 4(2), 227 – 248.
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Abstract
The paper has two primary goals. The first is to reexamine the dynamics of cultural change by applying the innovative interpretations of German theorist and cultural historian Peter Sloterdijk, who contends that the ways we traditionally have made and understood our built environment are grossly inadequate in our contemporary media-saturated, war-weary, biotechnological world. The second is to show how such a reinterpretation of space, architecture, and culture could help us to learn to design better and act by way of an anthropotechnology (Sloterdijk's word) that is simultaneously developmental and threatening - that might enable us to find an orientation in a world of complexity, and thus more positively shape our lives and future world. Sloterdijk's intriguing concepts - spheres of immunization (bubbles, globes, foams), co-isolation, dyads, tensegrity - hold great promise for the next pulse of architectural, planning, and construction theory.
Keywords
Peter Sloterdijk; Anthropotechnology; Spheres Of Immunization (bubbles, Globes, Foams); Co-isolation; Housing
Mugerauer, Robert. (2021). Professional Judgement in Clinical Practice (Part 1): Recovering Original, Moderate Evidence-Based Health Care. Journal Of Evaluation In Clinical Practice, 27(3), 592 – 602.
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Abstract
Evidence-based medicine announced its entry as heralding a new paradigm in health care practices, but it has been widely criticized for lacking a coherent theoretical basis. This paper presents the first part of a three-article series examining the epistemological, practical, and ethical dimensions of strong EBM, as well as considering alternatives that promise potential solutions to chronic conceptual and practical problems. While the focus is on the details of the arguments and evidence in thoughtful debates over the last 30 years, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the overall trajectory of modern thought, because strong EBM continues discredited positivist positions, thus repeating its major assumptions and inadequacies, now transferred to the medical sphere and vocabulary. Part 1 of the series examines the development of strong EBM by clarifying and critiquing its somewhat discontinuous accounts of scientific knowledge and epistemology, evidence, the differences between statistical probability in regard to populations and understanding the health of individuals, and its claims for direct transfer of research findings to clinical settings-all of which raises more questions regarding its application to provider-patient decision making, pedagogy, and policy.
Keywords
Evidence-based Medicine; Theory Of Knowledge; Medical Ethics; Decision Making In Clinical Medicine; Policy Sciences; Clinical Practice; Epistemology; Ethics; Evidence; Evidence‚Äêbased Medicine; 2009 Cancer-control; Integrating Evidence; Decision-making; G. H.; Tonelli; Discourse; Knowledge; Ashcroft; Guyatt; Evidence‐ Based Medicine
Mugerauer, Robert. (2021). Professional Judgement in Clinical Practice (Part 2): Knowledge into Practice. Journal Of Evaluation In Clinical Practice, 27(3), 603 – 611.
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Abstract
Rationale, Aims, and Objectives Though strong evidence-based medicine is assertive in its claims, an insufficient theoretical basis and patchwork of arguments provide a good case that rather than introducing a new paradigm, EBM is resisting a shift to actually revolutionary complexity theory and other emergent approaches. This refusal to pass beyond discredited positivism is manifest in strong EBM's unsuccessful attempts to continually modify its already inadequate previous modifications, as did the defenders of the Ptolemaic astronomical model who increased the number of circular epicycles until the entire epicycle-deferent system proved untenable. Methods Narrative Review. Results The analysis in Part 1 of this three part series showed epistemological confusion as strong EBM plays the discredited positivistic tradition out to the end, thus repeating in a medical sphere and vocabulary the major assumptions and inadequacies that have appeared in the trajectory of modern science. Paper 2 in this series examines application, attending to strong EBM's claim of direct transferability of EBM research findings to clinical settings and its assertion of epistemological normativity. EBM's contention that it provides the only valid approach to knowledge and action is questioned by analyzing the troubled story of proposed hierarchies of the quality of research findings (especially of RCTs, with other factors marginalized), which falsely identifies evaluating findings with operationally utilizing them in clinical recommendations and decision-making. Further, its claim of carrying over its normative guidelines to cover the ethical responsibilities of researchers and clinicians is questioned.
Keywords
Judgment (psychology); Professions; Evidence-based Medicine; Science; Medical Research; Application To Clinical Recommendations; Evidence‚Äêbased Medicine; Judgement; Quality Of Evidence; 2009 Cancer-control; Practice Guidelines; Health-care; G. H.; Grade; Quality; Recommendations; Ashcroft; Guyatt; Evidence‐ Based Medicine
Mugerauer, Robert. (2021). Professional Judgement in Clinical Practice (Part 3): A Better Alternative to Strong Evidence-Based Medicine. Journal Of Evaluation In Clinical Practice, 27(3), 612 – 623.
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Abstract
Parts 1 and 2 in this series of three articles have shown that and how strong evidence-based medicine has neither a coherent theoretical foundation nor creditable application to clinical practice. Because of its core commitment to the discredited positivist tradition it holds both a false concept of scientific knowledge and misunderstandings concerning clinical decision-making. Strong EBM continues attempts to use flawed adjustments to recover from the unsalvageable base view. Paper three argues that a promising solution is at hand if we can manage several modes of inclusion. A modified original, moderate version of EBM continues though usually overshadowed. As definitively laid out by Sackett in the 1990s, clinical decision making is intended to be person-centered, recognizing and integrating multiple modes of evidence and knowledge that have been marginalized: professional experience, illness narratives, and individual patients' values and preferences. Complementary resources are at hand: interpretative understanding and practice, such as philosophical anthropology, hermeneutical phenomenology, complexity theory, and phronetic practices respond to the major problems and open new possibilities. Phronesis is especially important in regard to public decision making. Within part 3 an additional tone necessarily occurs. While most of papers 1, 2, and 3 are written in the classical mode of contrasting the theoretical-logical and empirical evidence offered by contending positions bearing on the decision making and judgement in clinical practice, a shift occurs when considerations move beyond what is possible for clinical practitioners to accomplish. A different, discontinuous level of power operates in the trans-personal realm of instrumental policy, insurance, and hospital management practices. In this social-economic-political-ethical realm what happens in clinical practice today increasingly becomes a matter of what is done unto clinical practitioners, of what hampers their professional action and thus care of individual patients and clients.
Keywords
Medical Policy; Judgment (psychology); Professions; Evidence-based Medicine; Patient-centered Care; Phenomenology; Decision Making In Clinical Medicine; Casuistry; Decision Making; Evidence‚Äêbased Medicine; Phronƒìsis; 2009 Cancer-control; Integrating Evidence; Decision-making; Health-care; G. H.; Mental-health; Tonelli; Challenge; Knowledge; Evidence‐ Based Medicine; Phronē Sis
The Urban Design & Planning Interdisciplinary Ph.D. at the University of Washington is one of 39 Ph.D. programs in urban and regional planning in North America, and one of the oldest, founded in 1967.
This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions. Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. The breadth of this program permits students to pursue doctoral studies in the various aspects of urban design and planning as well as in a number of related social science, natural resource, and engineering areas.
The Program seeks to prepare scholars who can advance the state of research, practice, and education related to the built environment and its relationship to society and nature in metropolitan regions throughout the world. The program provides a strong interdisciplinary educational experience that draws on the resources of the entire University, and on the laboratory provided by the Seattle metropolitan region and the Pacific Northwest. The program emphasizes the educational values of interdisciplinarity, intellectual leadership and integrity, and the social values of equity, democracy and sustainability. It seeks to promote deeper understanding of the ways in which public decisions shape and are shaped by the urban physical, social, economic, and natural environment. The program envisions its graduates becoming leaders in the international community of researchers, practitioners and educators who focus on improving the quality of life and environment in metropolitan regions.
The Northwest Center’s mission is to enhance the livability of communities in the Pacific Northwest through applied research and outreach in the areas of land use planning, policy, and design; healthy communities; food security; and public participation and democracy.
The Center is a research and policy center focused on issues of environmental and economic sustainability, quality of life, and responsible governance using Washington as a model. Recognizing that the term “livability” has many different definitions and interpretations, the Center’s programs are focused on how the fields of urban planning and design, landscape architecture, and architecture work within this broader context to address livability factors.
The Center operates from the belief that the university should, in cooperation with state agencies, local governments, and community leaders, seek to improve existing social and environmental conditions through research and innovative policy development. It advocates development strategies that focus on smart and efficient land use, strong communities, high-wage, low waste jobs and economic development and public participation and accountability in government.