Information and Technology

Author(s):  
Richard Susskind ◽  
Daniel Susskind

In Part I of this book, by reporting on our own research and reflecting on the writings of others, we offer evidence of the changes that the professions are facing. In these opening chapters, however, we do not provide an explanation of why this transformation is taking place. That is our purpose now, in Part II of the book. Our aim is to provide a more general and systematic account of what is going on. We advance a variety of theories and models that explain the evidence we have uncovered and suggest how these may help us predict what is yet to unfold. Our initial focus in this chapter is on what we call the ‘information substructure’ of society, and how this influences the way that human beings have shared practical expertise in the past and are likely to do so in the future. Then we turn to technology, and talk about the worth of making predictions. Our conclusions here help us to identify what we regard as the four most important sets of future developments in technology. In concluding this chapter, we present a fifty-year overview of the changing impact of technology on the professions. This then sets us up for Chapter 5, where we discuss the nature of knowledge, the evolution of professional work, and the models for the production and distribution of practical expertise that will displace the traditional working practices of professionals. In everyday conversation, people often now use the terms ‘technology’ or ‘tech’ more often than ‘information technology’ and ‘IT’. This emphasis on the technical angle is understandable, because the technological accomplishments that underpin our everyday devices are remarkable. The technology can be mesmerizing, both in its power and design, and we justifiably marvel at the genius and ingenuity of those who contribute to its development. But to focus exclusively on the ‘T’ rather than on the ‘I’, to neglect the ‘information’ in our wonder at the ‘technology’, runs the risk of failing to grasp the role and value of information—in our world generally, and especially in the professions.

Author(s):  
Richard Susskind ◽  
Daniel Susskind

In the long run, increasingly capable machines will transform the work of professionals, giving rise to new ways of sharing practical expertise in society. This is the central thesis of our book. We cannot commit to timeframes, in large part because the speed of change is not in our hands. But we are confident that the change will constitute an incremental transformation rather than an overnight revolution. In the language of the book, the shift itself can be characterized in many ways: as the industrialization and digitization of the professions; as the routinization and commoditization of professional work; as the disintermediation and demystification of professionals. Whatever terminology is preferred, we foresee that, in the end, the traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professionals to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems. We expect new roles will arise, but we are unsure how long they will last, because these too, in due course, may be taken on by machines. In the post-professional society, we predict that practical expertise will be available online. Our strong inclination is to encourage the removal of current and future gatekeepers, and to provide people with as much access as is feasible to this collective knowledge and experience. The final step in our argument is to explain why we think that it is desirable to liberate practical expertise in this way. When we speak above and throughout about technology and its impact on the professions, we are conscious that it might sound as though we believe the future is already mapped out in detail and is somehow inevitable— that we are hardline ‘determinists’. Our analysis in Chapter 4, for example, makes it clear that we expect machines to become increasingly capable, that devices will be increasingly pervasive, and that human beings will be increasingly connected. And we certainly do anticipate an exponential growth in information technology. While we do not foresee these developments unfolding as a matter of necessity, we do regard them as extremely probable (barring asteroids, nuclear wars, pandemics, or the like). However—and this is where we part company with determinists—this does not mean that human beings have no control over future direction.


Author(s):  
Volker Scheid

This chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half century between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biology. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a definition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious starting point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technology studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthropologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice. This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s definition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’. If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affirming this shared objective and responsibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Ae Lee

To displace a character in time is to depict a character who becomes acutely conscious of his or her status as other, as she or he strives to comprehend and interact with a culture whose mentality is both familiar and different in obvious and subtle ways. Two main types of time travel pose a philosophical distinction between visiting the past with knowledge of the future and trying to inhabit the future with past cultural knowledge, but in either case the unpredictable impact a time traveller may have on another society is always a prominent theme. At the core of Japanese time travel narratives is a contrast between self-interested and eudaimonic life styles as these are reflected by the time traveller's activities. Eudaimonia is a ‘flourishing life’, a life focused on what is valuable for human beings and the grounding of that value in altruistic concern for others. In a study of multimodal narratives belonging to two sets – adaptations of Tsutsui Yasutaka's young adult novella The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Yamazaki Mari's manga series Thermae Romae – this article examines how time travel narratives in anime and live action film affirm that eudaimonic living is always a core value to be nurtured.


2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Melanie Maytin ◽  
Laurence M Epstein ◽  
◽  

Prior to the introduction of successful intravascular countertraction techniques, options for lead extraction were limited and dedicated tools were non-existent. The significant morbidity and mortality associated with these early extraction techniques limited their application to life-threatening situations such as infection and sepsis. The past 30 years have witnessed significant advances in lead extraction technology, resulting in safer and more efficacious techniques and tools. This evolution occurred out of necessity, similar to the pressure of natural selection weeding out the ineffective and highly morbid techniques while fostering the development of safe, successful and more simple methods. Future developments in lead extraction are likely to focus on new tools that will allow us to provide comprehensive device management and the design of new leads conceived to facilitate future extraction. With the development of these new methods and novel tools, the technique of lead extraction will continue to require operators that are well versed in several methods of extraction. Garnering new skills while remembering the lessons of the past will enable extraction technologies to advance without repeating previous mistakes.


GIS Business ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Gunjan Sharma ◽  
Tarika Singh ◽  
Suvijna Awasthi

In the midst of increasing globalization, the past two decades have observed huge inflow of outside capital in the shape of direct and portfolio investment. The increase in capital mobility is due to contact between the different economies across the globe. The growing liberalization in the capital market leads to the growth of various financial products and services. Over the past decade, the Indian capital market has witnessed numerous changes in the direction of developing the capital markets more robust. With the growing Indian economy, the larger inflow of funds has been fetched into the capital markets. The government is continuously working on investor’s education in order to increase retail participation in the Indian stock market. The habits of the risk-averse middle class have been changing where these investors started participating in the Indian stock market. It is an explored fact that human beings are irrational and considering this fact becomes imperative to investigate factors that influence the trading decisions. In this research, ‘an attempt has been made to investigate various factors that affect the individual trading decision’. The data has been collected from various stockbroking firms and from clients of those stockbroking firms their opinions were recorded by means of a questionnaire. Data collected through the structured questionnaire, 33 questions were prepared which was given to the 330 respondents on the basis of convenience sampling out of which 220 individuals filled questionnaire, the total of 200 questionnaires was included in the study after eliminating the incomplete questionnaire. Various factors are being explored from the literature and then with the help of factor analysis some of the most influential factors have been explored. Factors like overconfidence, optimism, cognitive bias, herd behavior, advisory effect, and idealism are the factors which influenced the trading decision of the investors the most. Such kind of a study is contributing in the area of behavioral finance as a trading decision is an important aspect while investing in the stock market. And this kind of study would be helping and assisting financial advisors to strategies for their clients in making the right allocation and also the policy maker and market regulators to come up with better reforms for the Indian stock markets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rohit Bhatia ◽  
Amit Sharma ◽  
Raj Kumar Narang ◽  
Ravindra K. Rawal

: Cancer is one of the most serious health concerns in 21st century whose prevalence is beyond boundaries and can affect any organ of human beings. The conventional chemotherapeutic treatment strategies lack specificity to tumours and are associated with toxic effects on immune system and other organ systems. In the past decades, there has been a continuous progress in the development of smart nanocarrier systems for target specific delivery of drugs against variety of tumours including intracellular gene-specific targeting. These nanocarriers are able to recognize the tumour cells and deliver the therapeutic agent in fixed proportions causing no or very less harm to healthy cells. Nanosystems have modified physicochemical properties, improved bioavailability and long retention in blood which enhances their potency. A huge number of nanocarrier based formulations have been developed and are in clinical trials. Nanocarrier systems include polymeric micelles, liposomes, dendrimers, carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, etc. Recent advancements in nanocarrier systems include mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs), metal organic frame works and quantum dots. In the present review, various nanocarrier based drug delivery systems along with their applications in the management of cancer have been described with special emphasis on MSNs.


SUHUF ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Novita Siswayanti

The stories in Qur'an are Allah’s decrees which convey more beau-tiful values beyond any religious text ever written. It is the holiest scripture and is written  in a wonderful, understandable, and attract-ive language humbly conveying a vast amount of information about life and events that happened in the past. It’s aim is to be an object of reflection for human beings living in this age and the future. Even more so, the stories in Al-Qur'an also entail an educative function providing learning materials,  and teaching methods, regarding the transformative power of Islam and the internalization of true religious values.


Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins, SJ

Help towards understanding the human and religious functions of tradition comes from such sociologists as Peter Berger, Anthony Giddens, and Edward Shils. Tradition by Shils continues to illuminate how, although human beings modify inherited beliefs and change traditional patterns of behaviour, the new always incorporates something of the past. Shils takes a global view of tradition; it embodies everything individuals inherit when born into the world. It is through tradition that new members of society begin to identify themselves. The bearers of tradition may be not only official but also ‘learned’ and ‘ordinary’. Shils dedicates many further pages to changes in traditions and the forces leading to these changes. What sociologists like Giddens say about globalization also affects theological reflection on tradition. Surprisingly, the very few theologians who have published on tradition have ignored the sociologists.


Author(s):  
Jordan Wessling

This book provides a systematic account of the deep and rich love that God has for humans. Within this vast theological territory, the objective is to contend for a unified paradigm regarding fundamental issues pertaining to the God of love who deigns to share His life of love with any human willing to receive it. Realizing this objective includes clarifying and defending theological accounts of the following: • how the doctrine of divine love should be constructed; • what God’s love is; • what role love plays in motivating God’s creation and subsequent governance of humans; • how God’s love for humans factors into His emotional life; • which humans it is that God loves in a saving manner; • what the punitive wrath of God is and how it relates to God’s redemptive love for humans; • and how God might share His intra-trinitarian love with human beings. As the book unfolds, a network of nodal issues are examined related to God’s love as it begins in Him and then overflows into the creation, redemption, and glorification of humanity. The result is an exitus-reditus structure driven by God’s unyielding love.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cécile Mathou ◽  
Jin Yan

Abstract The objective of this study was to provide comprehensive information about student and academic staff mobility between the European Union (EU) and China as well as the main strategies and policies in place to promote mobility. Based on quantitative and qualitative data provided by national authorities and various stakeholders consulted throughout the research process, the study aimed at taking stock of the situation and identifying trends regarding EU-China learning mobility over the past ten years. It also aimed at drawing recommendations to improve current and future mobility actions between the two regions.


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