Globalization has shifted perspectives on individualism and identity as cultural exchange occurs more rapidly in an age of heightened connectivity. As technology connects those around the world, it too helps to provoke a shift in the autonomy of individuals. The Handbook of Research on Individualism and Identity in the Globalized Digital Age explores the ways in which globalization has impacted the human experience with a specific emphasis on the field of education and human development. This research-based publication presents critical perspectives on the global changes that are occurring as a result of globalization. Researchers, professionals, and graduate-level students will find this publication to be an essential resource.

This book provides a timely overview of the impacts of digitalization from the perspective of everyday life, and argues that one central issue in digitalization is the development of new types of services that digitalization enables, but which are often overlooked due to the focus on new technologies and devices. The book summarizes the past 20 years of research into the relationship between information and communications technology (ICT) and service innovation, and reveals that the ongoing digitalization is a qualitatively different phenomenon and represents a true paradigm shift. The all-encompassing integration and distribution of data raises critical issues such as preserving human dignity and individual autonomy; moreover, interaction practices that foster broad participation, trust, learning, and a willingness to share knowledge are called for. Citizen empowerment and multi-actor co-creation have become central to using digitalization to support the development of wellbeing and sustainability. Further, the book shows how employees and professionals can and should be involved in designing their future work, and in evaluating it. Proactiveness and participation in innovation endeavours are ways to guarantee meaningful work in an age of socio-technical transition. The book employs a variety of theoretical approaches and perspectives from diverse disciplines to illustrate these needs. In addition to theoretical analyses, some specific application areas are examined, e.g. services in health and social care, and problems linked to robots in elderly care. Given its scope, the book is highly recommended to all readers seeking an overview of the current understanding of the human side of digitalization and searching for concrete cases from different countries to illustrate the topic.

This book features an exploration of the interaction between Darwinian ideas and Catholic doctrine. This coherent collection of original papers marks the 150 year anniversary since the publication of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1859). Although the area of evolution-related publications is vast, the area of interaction between Darwinian ideas and specifically Catholic doctrine has received limited attention. This interaction is quite distinct from the one between Darwinism and the Christian tradition in general. Interest in Darwin from the Catholic viewpoint has recently been rekindled. The major causes of this include: John Paul II's "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution" in 1996; (2) the document "Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God" issued in 2002; by the International Theological Commission under the supervision of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the present Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal Christoph Schonborn apparent endorsement of Intelligent Design in his "New York Times" article "Finding Design in Nature" of July 7, 2005; and, Pope Benedict XVI's contributions in the recent collection of papers "Schopfung und Evolution" ("Creation and Evolution"), published in Germany in April, 2007. Responding to this heightened interest, the book offers a valuable collection of work from outstanding Catholic scholars in various fields.

Animal experimentation has been one of the most controversial areas of animal use, mainly due to the intentional harms inflicted upon animals for the sake of hoped-for benefits in humans. Despite this rationale for continued animal experimentation, shortcomings of this practice have become increasingly more apparent and well-documented. However, these limitations are not yet widely known or appreciated, and there is a danger that they may simply be ignored. The 51 experts who have contributed to Animal Experimentation: Working Towards a Paradigm Change critically review current animal use in science, present new and innovative non-animal approaches to address urgent scientific questions, and offer a roadmap towards an animal-free world of science.

Reaching for the High Frontier tells the story of the pro-space movement from the end of the moon landing program to the beginning of the space station program. It describes the origins, constituencies, and goals of the various groups in the movement, and reviews their tactics, successes, and the opportunities they may have missed.

Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise to have major impacts on human health, wealth, and peace in the coming decades. Among the expected breakthroughs are orders of magnitude increases in computer efficiency, human organ restoration using engineered tissue, designer' materials created from directed assembly of atoms and molecules, and the emergence of entirely new phenomena in chemistry and physics. This book includes a collection of essays by leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists reviewing the possible uses of these impending technical developments in various industrial, medical, and national security applications, and the corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and educational issues that they raise. The report outlines potential areas for research into societal implications of nanotechnology, as well as some preliminary suggestions for how potential positive impacts of nanotechnology can be maximized, while minimizing any possible negative impacts, real or imagined. This book also provides the beginning of a blueprint for how one should address second-order consequences of the new technology, either positive implications or potential risks. This material was prepared under the auspices of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The issues raised in the book are global in scope, going far beyond the immediate impact of the NNI. They ask the general questions of how history and the human condition are affected by technological progress, and how individuals and institutions can seek to guide that progress in ways most beneficial to mankind in the long run.

Technology and innovation are fundamental to economic success and the struggle for markets in an increasingly competitive world. This book draws together the latest research in the fields of technology, innovation and competitiveness from some of the world's leading academics.International in its approach, this book considers a wide range of topics including the globalization of research and technology and the effect of this on the product cycle, financial domination in the global economy and its consequences for structural competitiveness. It also examines the impact of the pooling of technology and science in Europe on the environment for new entrepreneurial initiatives. Special emphasis is placed on the policy implications of recent developments in technology, industry and the economy. Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness will be of interest to policy analysts as well as academics and students of economics, management and business studies.

Negotiating the terrain between techno-optimism and eco-pessimism, this work establishes the political connections between technologies of "the body," property, and the environment. Specific technologies of the body, such as surrogacy and in vitro fertilization, are examined in relation to their political and legal constructions. Next, Shevory analyzes private property as an evolving historical concept that implicates environmental and biological transformations with particular attention given to biotechnology cases. He then considers the body's appearance and its alterations through plastic surgery, dieting, or piercing as political constructions. A theoretical overview specifies technoprogressivist (liberal) and technophobic traditions, especially as they have evolved in the United States during the second half of the 20th-century. Drawing upon critical and feminist theories, Shevory specifies a body politics that negotiates the terrain between these two traditions. Body technologies and markets, he argues, interact to consolidate and reinforce dominant systems of power, while at the same time resisting and sometimes subverting them. "Technology" is often a factor in the fragmentation of evolving political ideological discourses on the "left" and "right; " however, the resulting instabilities create the potential for both the expansion of global capital and its subversion via democratic interventions.

Although advanced technologies are the cornerstone of modern life, few people understand how such technologies as robotics or nuclear science actually work. Fewer still realize how--and how dramatically--technology influences our society and culture. Nuclear Technology, the newest volume in the Sourcebooks in Modern Technology Series, is a reference guide that provides nonspecialists with the most up-to-date information on seminal developments in nuclear technology, as well as covering the social, political, and technical impacts of those developments on everyday life, both now and in the future. Included are:

• A detailed history of nuclear technology's evolution
• A discussion of civilian and military applications of nuclear technology
• A chronology of major developments and discoveries
• Profiles of prominent scientists, politicians, popularizers, and institutions
• Explanations of key principles
• A discussion of nuclear technology's major impacts and implications
• An examination of major issues surrounding nuclear technology's use
• Predictions of future advances

This unique treatise expands on the philosophy of technology to argue for a psychology of technology based on the complex relationships between psychology, biology and technology, especially in the light of our relationships with our digital devices, our online lives, and our human experience. Drawing from disciplines ranging from philosophy and evolution to cognition and neuroscience, it examines myriad aspects of the brain's creative development: the cognitive, sensory, and motor processes that enable technological progress and its resulting efficiencies and deficiencies along with our discomforts and pleasures. These experiences are key to behavioral and affective processes in technology, manifest in such diverse phenomena as multitasking, the shift in tech design from ergonomics to hedonomics, and the many types of online problem behaviors. Through these rich pages, readers can understand more deeply the history and future of human adjustment and adaptation in an environment intertwined with technology-and, with the ascendance of video games and virtual reality, new conceptions of the human self. Among the topics covered: Could we have remained a tech-devoid society? Technology, ergonomics and the non-executive functions of our body. New directions in brain-computer interface. From avatars and agents to virtual reality technology.< On measuring affective responses to objects. Psychology, technology, ethics, and culture. A timely lens on a field that will grow in importance as it shapes our existence, Psychology of Technology will be read and discussed by not only psychologists, social scientists, and behavioral scientists, but also by technology designers and developers and those in biotechnology.

The banking sector is undergoing a process of fundamental transformation - mainly due to the challenges of digitalization, insistent customers, regulation and a volatile economic environment. This book provides an in-depth understanding of the underlying logic of 21st century's banking environment and helps to develop a roadmap for the successful transformation of contemporary business models. The authors introduce the 'Zurich model for a customer-centric banking architecture enabling the reader to develop a sustainable business model which copes with the challenges of this information age. They identify customer behavior traps in such an environment; introduce adequate strategic instruments and cornerstones for providing added value through financial services, and provide core factors for conducting a successful transformation process.

Should parents aim to make their children as normal as possible to increase their chances to "fit in"? Are neurological and mental health conditions a part of children's identity and if so, should parents aim to remove or treat these? Should they aim to instill self-control in their children? Should prospective parents take steps to insure that, of all the children they could have, they choose the ones with the best likely start in life? This volume explores all of these questions and more. Against the background of recent findings and expected advances in neuroscience and genetics, the extent and limits of parental responsibility are increasingly unclear. Awareness of the effects of parental choices on children's wellbeing, as well as evolving norms about the moral status of children, have further increased expectations from (prospective) parents to take up and act on their changing responsibilities. The contributors discuss conceptual issues such as the meaning and sources of moral responsibility, normality, treatment, and identity. They also explore more practical issues such as how responsibility for children is practiced in Yoruba culture in Nigeria or how parents and health professionals in Belgium perceive the dilemmas generated by prenatal diagnosis.

Science has now demonstrated without a doubt that we live in an "unfinished universe." Discoveries in geology, biology, cosmology and other fields of scientific inquiry have shown that the cosmos has a narrative character and that the story is far from over. The sense of a universe that is still coming into being provides a fertile new framework for thinking about the relationship of faith to science. John F. Haught argues that if we take seriously the fact that the universe is a drama still unfolding, we can think new thoughts about God, and indeed about all the perennial themes of theology. Science's recent realization that the universe is dramatic, however, has yet to penetrate deeply into either spiritual or intellectual life. Most Christian thought and spirituality still presuppose an essentially static universe while influential academic and intellectual culture remains stuck in a stagnant materialist naturalism and cosmic pessimism. Resting on the Future asks about the meaning of an unfinished universe from the point of view of both Christian theology and contemporary intellectual life. Each chapter covers a distinct aspect of what Haught takes to be an essential transition to a new age in Catholic life and thought. Biology, cosmology, and other fields of science now provide the setting for a wholesome transformation of Catholic thought from a still predominantly pre-scientific to a more hopeful and scientifically informed vision of God, humanity and the natural world.

Astronomers around the world are pointing their telescopes toward the heavens, searching for signs of intelligent life. If they make contact with an advanced alien civilization, how will humankind respond? In thinking about first contact, the contributors to this volume present new empirical and theoretical research on the societal dimensions of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Archaeologists and astronomers explore the likelihood that extraterrestrial intelligence exists, using scientific insights to estimate such elusive factors as the longevity of technological societies. Sociologists present the latest findings of novel surveys, tapping into the publicOCOs attitudes about life beyond Earth to show how religion and education influence beliefs about extraterrestrials. Scholars from such diverse disciplines as mathematics, chemistry, journalism, and religious studies offer innovative solutions for bridging the cultural gap between human and extraterrestrial civilizations, while recognizing the tremendous challenges of communicating at interstellar distances. At a time when new planets are being discovered around other stars at an unprecedented rate, this collection provides a much needed guide to the human impact of discovering we are not alone in the universe."

Many scientists today think of the universe as essentially purposeless. Likewise, modern and postmodern philosophers have often been suspicious of any religious claims that the natural world embodies and eternal meaning or teleology. Not all scientific thinkers subscribe to this cosmic pessimism, however, and some would even argue that contemporary knowledge is consistent with a religious sense of cosmic purpose. This stimulating book offers candid reflections on the question of cosmic purpose written both by prominent scientists and by scholars representing the world's religious traditions. Examining the issue from a wide variety of perspectives, this is the only current book to deal with cosmic purpose from an interreligious and interdisciplinary perspective. Here scientists such as physicist Andrei Linde and biologist Francisco Ayala come face to face with Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hindu philosopher Anindita Niyogi Balslev, and others. They examine such perplexing issues as the possible existence of multiple universes and the implications of seemingly purposive features in life. The contributions address the question of whether a religiously-based notion of a purposeful cosmos is consistent with the latest scientific understanding of nature, and whether theology can affirm the presence of divine action without contradicting science. These essays will challenge readers to ponder their own place in the cosmos as they seek to interpret the visions of the world's great spiritual traditions in the light of natural science.

A factual narrative explaining an innovative, artistic technique, developed by the author, who deciphers the three-dimensional information encoded within the image of the Shroud of Turin. The Shroud is one of the most misunderstood artifacts known to humanity, and one of the most rigorously investigated. It has baffled scientist, chemist, and theorist who despite all their examinations, debates, and annalistic data, cannot explain the mechanics of the image, why it is there, or what caused the image to appear. While studying this image as an artist, an unexpected and unique method developed that explains the image and demonstrates what this image is, and how the image emerged on the cloth. Many mysteries concerning the Shroud's image can now be deciphered, including why there are three ratios of size within the image, why the position of the wounds on the cloth are not accurate to the locations on the body, as well as an explanation of how long it took between death and the creation of the image. This method proves the man was much shorter in stature than first indicated by the image. It explains why this image encodes three-dimensional information. It also provides the most accurate depiction of this man as created by the follow-the-light method. This journey incorporates thirty-years of determination. Through experimentation, the author discovers the Shroud's image is a blueprint that creates its own three-dimensional sculpture with stunningly new details. As one question leads to another, the solving of the mysteries concerning the Shroud is fulfilled, one-by-one. This documentation permits the reader to experience the events that explain the secrets of the image-producing process, within an easy to follow storyline. There are many more answers between these pages, and all of this evidence began as a home-science project between an artistic mom and her eight-year-old child, who together powerfully exposes the hidden truth behind the creation of the Shroud's image. This narrative also explains the artistic-process in detail, so that any artist may reproduce the process and verify all of the evidence that this book contains. The conclusion remains thought provoking and relinquishes all of this evidence to the hands of the reader to determine if the Shroud of Turin, is in fact, the Shroud of the true historic Jesus.

Did God create our universe? If so, who created him? "The Atheist's Bible" tackles these complex and important ancient mysteries. With the discoveries of modern science, author Geoff Linsley offers a new look at the questions most philosophers throughout history have thought unanswerable.

Mysteries such as "Why does the universe exist as it does?" and "When did it come about?" are newly thought to be demystified by modern science. Mixing scientific knowledge with common sense, Linsley answers these questions in an easy-to-understand dialogue.

"The Atheist's Bible" compiles the case for an atheistic universe in a thorough discussion, provides facts that science has gathered about existence, and creates a new view of the nature of our universe. Linsley searched through scientific discussions of how nature operates, through religious wisdom, and through topics thought to be paranormal to present the first complete theory regarding the origin and evolution of existence and humanity.

A collection of several books with individual purposes, "The Atheist's Bible" furthers humanity's understanding of reality and helps to overcome its fear of the unknown. Linsley challenges the realm of theism and looks outside of it to explain how our universe functions.

The growth of developmental and intercultural communication in recent years has prompted scholars to focus their attention on communication systems in non-Western nations, especially those in the Third World. This volume advocates and demonstrates the need to consider continuity and change as the fundamental principle in the development of communication systems. It constitutes the first attempt to critically review the use of indigenous communication systems, as continuing from the past, for plannned change.

Economic progress requires technological development, which in turn depends on a country's social capacity to acquire, assimilate, and develop new technologies. Focusing on the evolution of Japan's economy from the Meiji Restoration to the present day, this volume provides an authoritative account, firmly grounded in theoretical and empirical analysis, of the country's attempts to generate the necessary social capacity for technological innovation and absorption. Successive chapters address the specific experiences of a number of key Japanese industries during this process. Each industrial case study is written by an acknowledged expert in the field and presents material of significant interest to specialists in economic development in a form that is also accessible to the nonspecialist. The book concludes with a summary of useful lessons, variously applicable to countries at all the different stages of industrialization.

Thirteen essays explore the varying virtual, physical, cultural and institutional contexts influencing the nature of electronic space for women and explore the intersection of feminisms, power, authority, voice, and computer technologies. It also contains four interviews with prominent scholars, which historicize the disciplinary formation of computers and composition and the impact of technology on the professional lives of women. This collection continues the ongoing conversation exploring the theoretical, pedagogical, and political implications of computer technologies for composition studies, with an primary audience of teachers and theorists of writing in electronic environments.