Joint Role of Industry, Technology and Society in Modal Shift

Author(s):  
Robert Latorre

Over 150 years ago engineers dealt with the technological development of heavy industry and its organization to meet society needs. During the past 25 years the issue of reducing environmental impact from technology has opened new engineering challenges. One is the modal shift from trucks on roads to trucks being loaded on coastal ships. Industry, technology and society has created a number of possibilities for realizing the modal shift. The pressure of economics is forcing the industry to seek cost reduction while the technology of high speed marine transport is developing to the point where a number of high speed ships can be utilized. Finally the social concerns of the environment and air pollution is impacting the expansion of current truck operations. The presentation shows the modal shift offers both economic benefits as well as reduction of the environmental impact.

Author(s):  
Andreas Kratky

To understand historic developments of the past the authors normally turn to facts: Archival records, testimonies or remains from the past – they are looking for tangible evidence to reconstruct the past. In particular in respect to the technological development that originated at the turn from the 19th to the 20th century the role of deterministic interpretations has been very strong. The focus is on technologies and how they improved along an inevitable time line towards technical perfection (Marvin, 1988). Another historic perspective that takes the social aspects into account mainly traces how people negotiated the old and the new and how technologies changed the social fabric. What stays out of the focus of most research is what people in the past felt and thought and how their imagination of what is possible and desirable influenced the development of technologies and the society. The following will use the example of the interactive media art piece The Imaginary 20th Century to discuss an approach to turn the attention to the re-construction of historical imagination with a particular focus on the imaginative processes and their communication to a current audience.


Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110136
Author(s):  
Caroline Bem ◽  
Susanna Paasonen

Sexuality, as it relates to video games in particular, has received increasing attention over the past decade in studies of games and play, even as the notion of play remains relatively underexplored within sexuality studies. This special issue asks what shift is effected when sexual representation, networked forms of connecting and relating, and the experimentation with sexual likes are approached through the notion of play. Bringing together the notions of sex and play, it both foregrounds the role of experimentation and improvisation in sexual pleasure practices and inquires after the rules and norms that these are embedded in. Contributors to this special issue combine the study of sexuality with diverse theoretical conceptions of play in order to explore the entanglements of affect, cognition, and the somatic in sexual lives, broadening current understandings of how these are lived through repetitive routines and improvisational sprees alike. In so doing, they focus on the specific sites and scenes where sexual play unfolds (from constantly morphing online pornographic archives to on- and offline party spaces, dungeons, and saunas), while also attending to the props and objects of play (from sex toys and orgasmic vocalizations to sensation-enhancing chemicals and pornographic imageries), as well as the social and technological settings where these activities occur. This introduction offers a brief overview of the rationale of thinking sex in and as play, before presenting the articles that make up this special issue.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 49
Author(s):  
Mahmoud Safy Mahmoud ◽  
Hoda Mitkees

Malaysia has adopted several developmental plans since 1969 starting with the New Economic Policy (NEP), passing by the National Development Plan (NDP) and ending with the Vision 2020 adopted in 1991 under the rule of Mahathir Mohammed (1981-2003), whereby Malaysia has aimed to become a developed country by 2020. Looking for the future, Malaysia 2020 should build upon the older developmental plans; however there are some new elements that need to be considered if Malaysia is to continue on its successful developmental path. This paper aims at focusing on the issues that still need to be considered in Vision 2020 from an outsider point of view. This paper addresses the questions of what Malaysia’s economic plans adopted in the past which were able to achieve high economic growth rates while preserving at the same time the social aspects. And the paper focuses on trade policy in Malaysia under Mahathir rule, identifying how was it shaped and how likely it will continue in 2020. The paper identifies the challenges likely to be faced by Malaysia in the coming period and how such issues should be tackled in Vision 2020.


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Murphy ◽  
Maurice Patterson ◽  
Lisa O’Malley

Although the skilful body has been ever-present in research accounts of consumption experiences, no sustained attention has been given to the acquisition of skills necessary for successful engagement with those experiences. In the present study, we report an empirical investigation of the acquisition and diffusion of embodied competencies among high-speed motorcyclists. In doing so, we mobilize the concept of reflexive body techniques in order to unpack the social, physical and mindful aspects of skilled embodiment. We demonstrate that skill acquisition is a necessary precursor to successful immersion into certain kinds of consumption experiences offered by the marketplace. Further, we underline the role of skill acquisition in subject formation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-271
Author(s):  
Marina Radić-Šestić ◽  
Mia Šešum ◽  
Ljubica Isaković

Introduction. Music in the Deaf community is a socio-cultural phenomenon that depicts a specific identity and way of experiencing the world, which is just as diverse, rich and meaningful as that of members of any other culture. Objective. The aim of this paper was to point out the historical and socio-cultural frameworks, complexity, richness, specific elements, types and forms of musical expression of members of the Deaf community. Methods. The applied methods included comparative analysis, evaluation, and deduction and induction system. Results. Due to limitations or a lack of auditive component, the members of Deaf culture use different communication tools, such as speech, pantomime, facial expressions and sign language. Signed music, as a phenomenon, is the artistic form which does not have long history. However, since the nineties of the past century and with technological development, it has been gaining greater interest and acknowledgement within the Deaf community and among the hearing audience. Signed music uses specific visuo-spatial-kinaesthetic and auditive elements in expression, such as rhythm, dynamism, rhyme, expressiveness, iconicity, intensity of the musical perception and the combination of the role of the performer. Conclusion. Signed music as a phenomenon is an art form that incorporates sign poetic characteristics (lyrical contents), visual musical elements and dance.


Politeja ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2(65)) ◽  
pp. 189-204
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Marcol

The Role of Language in Releasing from Inherited Traumas. Negotiations of the Social Position of the Silesian Minority in Serbian Banat The aim of the paper is to show the dependence between language, collective memory (also post-memory) and sense of identity. This issue is analysed using the example of an ethnic minority living in the village of Ostojićevo (Banat, Serbia) called ‘Toutowie.’ Their ancestors came in the 19th century from Wisła (Silesian Cieszyn, Poland); they left their homes because of great hunger and were looking for jobs in Banat. Narratives about the past contain traumatic experiences of the past generations transmitted in the Silesian dialect and constituting communicative memory. At the same time, a new Polish national identity is being constructed, supported by institutions and authorities; it carries a new image of the world and creates a new cultural memory. This new identity – shaped on the basis of national categories – leads to changes of its self-identification and gives the opportunity to raise its social position in the multi-ethnic Banat community.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0142064X2110647
Author(s):  
Katja Kujanpää

When Paul and the author of 1 Clement write letters to Corinth to address crises of leadership, both discuss Moses’ παρρησία (frankness and openness), yet they evaluate it rather differently. In this article, I view both authors as entrepreneurs of identity and explore the ways in which they try to shape their audience’s social identity and influence their behaviour in the crisis by selectively retelling scriptural narratives related to Moses. The article shows that social psychological theories under the umbrella term of the social identity approach help to illuminate the active role of leaders in identity construction as well as the processes of retelling the past in order to mobilize one’s audience.


Author(s):  
Michael P. Roller

The conclusion revisits the three major inquiries addressed in the text, drawing together the evidence and contexts provided in the previous seven chapters. The first investigates the role of objective settings, such as the systemic and symbolic violence of landscapes and semiotic systems of racialization in justifying or triggering moments of explicit subjective violence such as the Lattimer Massacre. The second inquiry, traces the trajectory of immigrant groups into contemporary patriotic neoliberal subjects. In other terms, it asks how an oppressed group can become complicit with oppression later in history. The third inquiry traces the development of soft forms of social control and coercion across the longue durée of the twentieth century. Specifically, it asks how vertically integrated economic and governmental structures such as neoliberalism and governmentality which serve to stabilize the social antagonisms of the past are enunciated in everyday life.


Author(s):  
Mahabir Pun

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become a vital instrument for delivering a number of services such as education, healthcare, and public services. Community wireless networks are community-centric telecommunication infrastructures developed to provide affordable communication for those who live in remote areas. This chapter discusses the role of Nepal Wireless in achieving socio-economic development of rural communities by facilitating affordable Internet access. In particular, the authors discuss the philosophy and objectives of the project, used network technology, financial resources, and management structure. In addition, the chapter discusses its key services including e-learning, telemedicine, e-commerce, training, and research support. The authors also analyze the challenges Nepal Wireless faced and articulate on the approaches it took to address those challenges. These challenges include lack of technical skills, selecting appropriate technology, ensuring funding resources, difficult geographical terrains, unstable political situation, and expensive devices. They conclude the chapter with some suggestions for policy makers, community developers, and academicians.


Author(s):  
Sam Lubbe

Over the past couple of years, the Internet has taken off and organizations will soon reap economic benefits on it. E-commerce will therefore hopefully emerge as an efficient yet effective mode of creating new markets although most managers still doubt the economic impact and profitability it has. Enabled by global telecommunication networks and the convergence of computing, telecom, entertainment and publishing industries, e-commerce is supplanting (maybe replacing) traditional commerce. In the process, it is creating new economic opportunities for today’s businesses, creating new market structures. Managers of tomorrow must therefore understand what e-commerce is; how the approach to this concept will be; and how it will affect the economic position of the organization.


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