What is the status and role in public action of the knowledge possessed by ‘simple’ citizens, users and professionals? That is the question broached in both this article and the entire special issue for which it serves as the introduction. To this end, we explore the abundant scientific literature pertaining to the topic and try to situate our own position within the broader setting. After disc...

At its core, joint fact finding (JFF) is about bringing knowledge—usually scientific or technical— into the policy arena in the most effective way possible. The JFF approach assumes that better decisions can be made when value judgments are informed by science. Therefore, much of the focus of JFF is around knowledge produced by experts, or information provided by the scientific community. This ...

When the state of the world changes due to an action performed by an agent in a multiagent system, the views of other agents, and hence their knowledge, remain unaffected. We describe such situations using a simple modal logic. Traditionally, modal logics of knowledge are interpreted over global states of the multi-agent system. When actions are incorporated into such logics, it leads to high u...

T he nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE) has been the workhorse of structural studies of macromolecules in solution by NMR spectroscopy. The NOE is a measure of the rate of magnetization transfer between nuclei, induced by modulation of the magnetic dipole–dipole coupling between nuclear spins by overall tumbling of the molecule in solution (1). The efficiency of magnetization transfer via this mec...

The use of local knowledge in and for development is a relatively recent phenomenon, entering the realm of development theory and practice from the mid 1970s, yet it has become a key part of the rhetoric and practice of development agencies and academic research. The conceptual and historical background to local knowledge in development, including its roots of ‘Western’ engagement with ‘other’ ...