Nanotechnology manipulates matter at the atomic level. It leads to innovative processes and products that are revolutionizing many areas of modern life. Huge amounts of public funds are being invested in the science, yet the public has little understanding of the technology or its ethical implications. Indeed, the ethical, social and political dimensions of nanotechnology are only beginning to receive the attention they require outside of science fiction contexts. Surveillance devices may become so small that they are practically invisible to the naked eye, raising concerns about privacy. Nanomedicine may lead to the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic devices, yet anxieties have been raised about the impact of nanobots circulating in our bodies. Military applications, or misuses, of nanotechnology raise other concerns. This book explores in an accessible and informative way how nanotechnology is likely to impact the lives of ordinary people in the coming years and why ethical reflection on nanotechnology is needed now. Articulate, provocative and stimulating, this timely book will make a significant contribution to one of the most important debates of our time.

For decades, science and technology (sci-tech) have influenced world trade, world economy, and international finance. However, their specific impacts are seldom known and related empirical studies are rare. Thus, we must quantify and empirically explore how sci-tech influences such areas as mentioned above. The purpose of this book is to explore how sci-tech influences world trade, foreign exchange, and currency internationalization in various ways through quantifying science & technology first. This book empirically explores how major world currencies might change their relative international positions with continuous innovation and diffusion of sci-tech.Currency internationalization is measured by the percentage share of the average daily turnover of a particular currency in the global foreign exchange market over the corresponding overall daily turnover of the global foreign exchange market. Sci-tech as a commodity is borderless, yet its inventors and related businesses are bound by the intellectual property laws of their own countries. Patents, especially international patents, are useful representations of science & technology. They cannot be compared directly because of different criteria of patent regulators worldwide, and thus the quality of patents varies across patent regulators. Based on patent data from annual IP 5 Statistics Reports and charges for the use of IP of major currency issuers released by WTO, this book defines and quantifies sci-tech originality capability using data of charges for the use of IP of each economy and sci-tech internationalization using weighted patent families first, and proceeds to study how sci-tech internationalization affects currency internationalization.

Some 600 million children worldwide do not legally exist. Without verifiable identification, they and unregistered adults could face serious difficulties in proving their identity, whether to open a bank account, purchase a SIM card, or cast a vote. Lack of identification is a barrier to full economic and social inclusion. Recent advances in the reach and technological sophistication of identification systems have been nothing less than revolutionary. Since 2000, over 60 developing countries have established national ID programs. Digital technology, particularly biometrics such as fingerprints and iris scans, has dramatically expanded the capabilities of these programs. Individuals can now be uniquely identified and reliably authenticated against their claimed identities. By enabling governments to work more effectively and transparently, identification is becoming a tool for accelerating development progress. Not only is provision of legal identity for all a target under the Sustainable Development Goals, but this book shows how it is also central to achieving numerous other SDG targets. Yet, challenges remain. Identification systems can fail to include the poor, leaving them still unable to exercise their rights, access essential services, or fully participate in political and economic life. The possible erosion of privacy and the misuse of personal data, especially in countries that lack data privacy laws or the capacity to enforce them, is another challenge. Yet another is ensuring that investments in identification systems deliver a development payoff. There are all too many examples where large expenditures sometimes supported by donor governments or agencies appear to have had little impact. Identification Revolution: Achieving Sustainable Development in the Digital Age offers a balanced perspective on this new area, covering both the benefits and the risks of the identification revolution, as well as pinpointing opportunities to mitigate those risks.

In recent years, many branches of science have been revolutionized. Completely new disciplines now occupy a central place in modern scientific thought, and Aviezer contributes to the discourse of biblical interpretation by utilizing knowledge obtained from them. This book aims to demonstrate the profound implication of combining the scientific understanding of modern science with Biblical passages. Writing for any curious reader, even those without scientific background, Aviezer explains complicated scientific topics in a simple manner, allowing nearly anyone to examine how quantum theory, the butterfly effect, string theory and others can possibly enrich the interpretation of scriptural passages.

We are witnessing the development of new technologies that could have a dramatic impact on markets for both skilled and unskilled labour, including the use of Big Data. In addition, many welfare states have once again been restructured, sometimes weakening states? protection of employees. This timely book provides a systematic and vigorous analysis of the impact of new technology on the labour market and different kinds of welfare states. The book offers a novel contribution to the discussion of how welfare states can be maintained and developed to support groups in society who often need aid from a welfare state system. It also highlights the risk of increased social division as a consequence of these developments, and considers whether or not our response to this divide will have negative repercussions on the way societies function. With comprehensive analysis of the sharing and platform economies as well as new types of inequality, Technology and the Future of Work will appeal to academics and graduate students of social policy and readers interested in societal change more broadly.

Schools and universities educate (mostly young) people, to equip them to deal with the future as it unfolds from the present. The question - whether these schools and universities are fit for that purpose - has always been relevant, even in slow-paced times of relative stability, where the future seems predictable as a simple extension of the past.Now that the future is not predictable anymore. Slow-paced times have gone. The relative stability in which universities developed and educated successive generations is gone. The question whether universities are fit for purpose is now more relevant than ever.In this book, ten leading thinkers and eighteen students from different continents, countries and cultures present their views on futures of universities and whether present-day universities are fit for purpose. It is an exploration, meant to inform, inspire and crystallize discussions.

The ancient kalam cosmological argument maintains that the series of past events is finite and that therefore the universe began to exist. Two recent scientific discoveries have yielded plausible prima facie physical evidence for the beginning of the universe. The expansion of the universe points to its beginning-to a Big Bang-as one retraces the universe's expansion in time. And the second law of thermodynamics, which implies that the universe's energy is progressively degrading, suggests that the universe began with an initial low entropy condition. The kalam cosmological argument-perhaps the most discussed philosophical argument for God's existence in recent decades-maintains that whatever begins to exist must have a cause. And since the universe began to exist, there must be a transcendent cause of its beginning, a conclusion which is confirmatory of theism. So this medieval argument for the finitude of the past has received fresh wind in its sails from recent scientific discoveries. This collection reviews and assesses the merits of the latest scientific evidences for the universe's beginning. It ends with the kalam argument's conclusion that the universe has a cause-a personal cause with properties of theological significance.

The Outside the Research Lab series is a testament to the fact that the physics taught to high school and university students IS used in the real world. This book explores the physics and technology inherent to a selection of sports which have caught the author's attention and fascination over the years. Outside the Research Lab, Volume 3 is a path to discovering how less commonly watched sports use physics to optimize performance, diagnose injuries, and increase access to more competitors. It covers Olympic and Paralympic fencing, show jumping horses, and arguably the most brutal of motorsports - drag racing. Stunning images throughout the book and clear, understandable writing are supplemented by offset detail boxes which take the physics concepts to higher levels. Outside the Research Lab, Volume 3 is both for the general interest reader and students in STEM. Lecturers in university physics, materials science, engineering and other sciences will find this an excellent basis for teaching undergraduate students the range of applications for the physics they are learning. There is a vast range of different areas that require expertise in physics...this third volume of Outside the Research Lab shows a few with great detail provided by professionals doing the work.

Janello Torriani, known in the Spanish-speaking world as Juanelo Turriano (Cremona, Italy ca. 1500 - Toledo, Spain 1585), is the greatest among Renaissance inventors and constructors of machines. Contemporary literates and mathematicians celebrated Janello Torriani and his creations in their writings. It is striking how such fame turned into nearly complete oblivion, leaving only a few clues of a blurred and distorted memory dispersed here and there. This book wishes to show the central role that artisans formed in the Vitruvian tradition played in demonstrating through practical mathematics an increasing and positive control over Nature, a step rooted in humanist culture and foundational for the understanding of those historical processes known as the Scientific and the Industrial Revolutions.

Few artworks have been the subject of more extensive modern interpretation than Melencolia I by renowned artist, mathematician, and scientist Albrecht Durer (1514). And yet, did each of these art experts and historians miss a secret manifesto that Durer included within the engraving? This is the first work to decrypt secrets within Melencolia I based not on guesswork, but Durer's own writings, other subliminal artists that inspired him (i.e., Leonardo da Vinci), the Jewish and Christian Bibles, and books that inspired Durer (De Occulta Philosophia and the Hieorglyphica). To read the covert message of Melencolia I is to understand that Durer was a humanist in his interests in mathematics, science, poetry, and antiquity. This book recognizes his unparalleled power with the burin, his mathematical skill in perspective, his dedication to precise language, and his acute observation of nature. Melencolia I may also be one of the most controversial (and at the time most criminal) pieces of art as it hid Durer's disdain for the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the Kaiser, and the Holy Roman Empire from the general public for centuries. This book closely ties the origins of philosophy (science) and the work of a Renaissance master together, and will be of interest for anyone who loves scientific history, art interpretation, and secret manifestos.

Today the name most closely associated with evolutionary theory is Charles Darwin. Given Darwin's immense reputation it is easy to forget that Herbert Spencer, in his time, was just as famous as Darwin. It turns out that Spencer's evolutionary thought was not what necessarily appealed to many of his readers, since they had their own sense of his identity and importance. By focusing on Spencer the evolutionist, scholars have tended to concentrate their attention on a rather narrow view of him that has come out of Anglo-American appropriations of his thought. Spencer was one of the first international, public intellectuals whose views on psychology, religion, sociology, ethics, education, and biology captured the imagination of readers all over the world. The chapters will cover the communication and appropriation of Spencer's ideas in Russia, the Middle East, China, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, the United States, Italy, Scandinavia, and France. Contributors are: Li Bin, Juan Manuel Rodriguez Caso, Gowan Dawson, Heloisa Maria Bertol Domingues, Marwa Elshakry, Mark Francis, G. Clinton Godart, Michael Gordon, Paola Govoni, Rosaura Ruiz Gutierrez, Hans Henrik Hjermitslev, Ricardo Noguera-Solano, Adriana Novoa, Greg Radick, Nathalie Richard, Ke Zunke.