Download or read book Technology in Transition A D 300 650 written by Luke Lavan and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2008-03-31 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first general work to be published on technology in Late Antiquity. It seeks to survey aspects of the technology of the period and to respond to questions about technological continuity, stagnation and decline. The book opens with a comprehensive bibliographic essay that provides an overview of relevant literature. The main section then explores technologies in agriculture, production (metal, ceramics and glass), engineering and building. Papers draw on both archaeological and textual sources, and on analogies with medieval and early modern technologies. Reference is made not only to the periods which preceded it, but to the transition to the Early Middle Ages and to the technological heritage of Late Antiquity to the Islamic world. Several papers focus on Italy, whilst others consider North Africa, Asia Minor, and the Near-East.

Download or read book Rethinking Media Change written by David Thorburn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in Rethinking Media Change center on a variety of media forms at moments of disruption and cultural transformation. The editors' introduction sketches an aesthetics of media transition—patterns of development and social dispersion that operate across eras, media forms, and cultures. The book includes case studies of such earlier media as the book, the phonograph, early cinema, and television. It also examines contemporary digital forms, exploring their promise and strangeness. A final section probes aspects of visual culture in such environments as the evolving museum, movie spectaculars, and "the virtual window." The contributors reject apocalyptic scenarios of media revolution, demonstrating instead that media transition is always a mix of tradition and innovation, an accretive process in which emerging and established systems interact, shift, and collude with one another.

Download or read book Transitions and Transformations written by Caitrin Lynch and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rapid population aging, once associated with only a select group of modern industrialized nations, has now become a topic of increasing global concern. This volume reframes aging on a global scale by illustrating the multiple ways it is embedded within individual, social, and cultural life courses. It presents a broad range of ethnographic work, introducing a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches to studying life-course transitions in conjunction with broader sociocultural transformations. Through detailed accounts, in such diverse settings as nursing homes in Sri Lanka, a factory in Massachusetts, cemeteries in Japan and clinics in Mexico, the authors explore not simply our understandings of growing older, but the interweaving of individual maturity and intergenerational relationships, social and economic institutions, and intimate experiences of gender, identity, and the body.

Download or read book The Cambridge World History written by Jerry H. Bentley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The era from 1400 to 1800 saw intense biological, commercial, and cultural exchanges, and the creation of global connections on an unprecedented scale. Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history.

Download or read book Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Invasion written by Rani T. Alexander and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This impressive collection features the work of archaeologists who systematically explore the material and social consequences of new technological systems introduced after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica. It is the first collection to present case studies that show how both commonplace and capital-intensive technologies were intertwined with indigenous knowledge systems to reshape local, regional, and transoceanic ecologies, commodity chains, and political, social, and religious institutions across Mexico and Central America.

Download or read book The Social Context of Technological Change written by Andrew J. Shortland and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2016-12-16 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The technological capabilities of the ancient world have long fascinated scholars and the general public alike, though scholarly debate has often seen material culture not as the development of technology, but as a tool for defining chronology and delineating the level of interactions of neighboring societies. These fourteen papers, arising from a conference held in Oxford in September 2000, take the approach that technology plays a vital role in past socioeconomic systems. They cover the Near East and associated areas, including Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt from the end of the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age (1650-1150 BC), a period when many technological innovations appear for the first time.

Download or read book The Nature of Technological Knowledge Are Models of Scientific Change Relevant written by L. Laudan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the ironies of our time is the sparsity of useful analytic tools for understanding change and development within technology itself. For all the diatribes about the disastrous effects of technology on modern life, for all the equally uncritical paeans to technology as the panacea for human ills, the vociferous pro- and anti-technology movements have failed to illuminate the nature of technology. On a more scholarly level, in the midst of claims by Marxists and non-Marxists alike about the technological underpinnings of the major social and economic changes of the last couple of centuries, and despite advice given to government and industry about managing science and technology by a small army of consultants and policy analysts, technology itself remains locked inside an impenetrable black box, a deus ex machina to be invoked when all other explanations of puzzling social and economic pheoomena fail. The discipline that has probably done most to penetrate that black box in recent years by studying the 1 internal development of technology is history. Historians of technology and certain economic historians have carried out careful and detailed studies on the genesis and impact of technological innovations, and the structu-re of the social systems associated with those innovations. Within the past few decades tentative consensus about the periodization and the major traditions within the history of technology has begun to emerge, at least as far as Britain and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth century are concerned.

Download or read book The Colorado Plateau II written by Charles Van Riper and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publication of The Colorado Plateau: Cultural, Biological, and Physical Research in 2004 marked a timely summation of current research in the Four Corners states. This new volume, derived from the seventh Biennial Conference on the Colorado Plateau in 2003, complements the previous book by focusing on the integration of science into resource management issues. The 32 chapters range in content from measuring human impacts on cultural resources, through grazing and the wildland-urban interface issues, to parameters of climate change on the Plateau. The book also introduces economic perspectives by considering shifting patterns and regional disparities in the Colorado Plateau economy. A series of chapters on mountain lions explores the human-wildland interface. These chapters deal with the entire spectrum of challenges associated with managing this large mammal species in Arizona and on the Colorado Plateau, conveying a wealth of timely information of interest to wildlife managers and enthusiasts. Another provocative set of chapters on biophysical resources explores the management of forest restoration, from the micro scale all the way up to large-scale GIS analyses of ponderosa pine ecosystems on the Colorado Plateau. Given recent concerns for forest health in the wake of fires, severe drought, and bark-beetle infestation, these chapters will prove enlightening for forest service, park service, and land management professionals at both the federal and state level, as well as general readers interested in how forest management practices will ultimately affect their recreation activities. With broad coverage that touches on topics as diverse as movement patterns of rattlesnakes, calculating watersheds, and rescuing looted rockshelters, this volume stands as a compendium of cutting-edge research on the Colorado Plateau that offers a wealth of insights for many scholars.

Download or read book Technological Transitions and System Innovations written by Frank W. Geels and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important book addresses how long term and large scale shifts from one socio-technical system to another come about, using insights from evolutionary economics, sociology of technology and innovation studies. These major changes involve not just technological changes, but also changes in markets, regulation, culture, industrial networks and infrastructure. The book develops a multi-level perspective, arguing that transitions take place through the alignment of multiple processes at three levels: niche, regime and landscape. This perspective is illustrated by detailed historical case studies: the transition from sailing ships to steamships, the transition from horse-and-carriage to automobiles and the transition from propeller-piston engine aircraft to turbojets. This book will be of great interest to researchers in innovation studies, evolutionary economics, sociology of technology and environmental studies. It will also be useful for policy makers involved in long-term sustainability and systems transitions issues.

Download or read book Histories of Maize written by John Staller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 1129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maize has been described as a primary catalyst to complex sociocultural development in the Americas. State of the art research on maize chronology, molecular biology, and stable carbon isotope research on ancient human diets have provided additional lines of evidence on the changing role of maize through time and space and its spread throughout the Americas. The multidisciplinary evidence from the social and biological sciences presented in this volume have generated a much more complex picture of the economic, political, and religious significance of maize. The volume also includes ethnographic research on the uses and roles of maize in indigenous cultures and a linguistic section that includes chapters on indigenous folk taxonomies and the role and meaning of maize to the development of civilization. Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published to date. This book will appeal to a varied audience, and have no titles competiting with it because of its breadth and scope. The volume offers a single source of high quality summary information unavailable elsewhere.

Download or read book Energy Transitions written by Olivier Labussière and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-30 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book elucidates what it means to transition to alternative sources of energy and discusses the potential for this energy transition to be a more democratic process. The book dynamically describes a recent sociotechnical study of a number of energy transitions occurring in several countries - France, Germany and Tunisia, and involving different energy technologies - including solar, on/off-shore wind, smart grids, biomass, low-energy buildings, and carbon capture and storage. Drawing on a pragmatist tradition of social inquiry, the authors examine the consequences of energy transition processes for the actors and entities that are affected by them, as well as the spaces for political participation they offer. This critical inquiry is organised according to foundational categories that have defined the energy transition - ‘renewable’ energy resources, markets, economic instruments, technological demonstration, spatiality (‘scale’) and temporality (‘horizon(s)’). Using a set of select case studies, this book systematically investigates the role these categories play in the current developments in energy transitions.

Download or read book Tradition and Transition written by Philip G. Altbach and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the topics considered are the logic of mass higher education, globalization and inequality, the role of research universities, academic freedom, private higher education, and the academic profession and its problems. These topical chapters are accompanied by in-depth discussions of Asia and Africa.

Download or read book The Future of Work and Technology written by Andreas Cebulla and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2023-12-20 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how global technological advances shape the way we work and allocate work today, and how we might do so in the future, exploring advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, green technology and implications for workforce skills and future welfare. It uses Australia as a case study, contrasting the country’s experience to those elsewhere. The book is a cross-disciplinary collaboration that brings together the expertise of engineers, data scientists, economists and sociologists. The reader is offered an overview of the current uses of advanced digital technologies and what it means for today’s workforce, society and economy. The book also looks to the future. Current uses of advanced technologies lag its already existing capability. The contributions note potential future applications of technology and the economic, social and workplace implications of technological change. This book should be of interest to anyone studying and wishing to better understand what work might look like in the future and how we might prepare for likely changes.

Download or read book University Writing in Central and Eastern Europe Tradition Transition and Innovation written by Mădălina Chitez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-10 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores specific issues related to academic writing provision in the post-communist countries in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. Although they have different cultures and writing traditions, these countries share common features in what regards the development of higher education and research and encounter challenges different from Western European countries. Since academic writing as a discipline is relatively new in Eastern Europe, but currently plays an essential part in the development of higher education and the process of European integration, the volume aims to open discussion on academic writing in the region by addressing several issues such as the specific challenges in providing academic writing support at tertiary level in post-communist countries, the limitations and possibilities in implementing Western models of academic writing provision, or the complex interactions between writing in national languages and writing in a second language. Additionally, the book presents several recent initiatives and possible models for providing academic writing support in universities in the area. The important role of academic writing in English, a common feature in post-communist countries, is reflected in the sections which focus on writing in English as a foreign language, as well as on the impact of English upon national languages. The volume will be of interest to academic writing researchers and teachers and those involved in teaching academic writing at the tertiary level.

Download or read book Transition to Advanced Analytics written by Jason Tan and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2024-04-05 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amazon knows the products we’re interested in and shows us more to boost the size of our shopping cart. Google Maps knows the best route to get from A to B and recommends it to get us there in the shortest possible time. Netflix knows the media we enjoy most and recommends more to boost streaming time. However, many companies still fall short with their data analytics practices. This book focuses on how to embed advanced analytics directly into daily business operations and complement an enterprise system. This book can guide you in how traditional industries like retailers, banks and insurers can utilise and develop advanced analytics complementing their enterprise systems while embedding advanced analytics directly to optimise revenue and customer experience. Detailed in this book is a world-class analytics application used by loyalty point providers, banks, insurers and leading retailers. The title also provides a step-by-step implementation framework for Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Offices to develop their advanced analytics capabilities in tandem with legacy IT systems.

Download or read book Grand Transitions written by Vaclav Smil and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the world's leading experts on the history of energy, a rigorous examination of the transitions that structure our modern world--and the environmental reckoning that will mark its success or failure. What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live. Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments. Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition--environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming--will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.

Download or read book Biodiversity in Agriculture written by Jack Rodney Harlan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-23 with total page 639 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together research from a range of fields to address key questions relating to agriculture: its origins and long-term sustainability.