A nation's culture and structure influence the type and degree of innovation achievable within its society. Routes exist for any nation, regardless of its structural or cultural elements, to achieve innovative success and economic development. Clear, concise prescriptions are given to enable managers and societies to determine the structural aspects of their nation that may need adjustment. Managers of international businesses, research and development, as well as researchers in the fields of strategic management, technology, and public policy, will find this comprehensive book on innovation practical reading.

A number of innovation hotspots are studied, including large, evolving countries such as Russia and India. Various governmental support, incentives, and regulations are evaluated in light of their contributions or obstructions to the process. Cross-cultural studies on major economies are also included to enhance the readers' knowledge and understanding. Recommendations are provided on how a society, or region within a particular country, can become either more innovative or retain what innovativeness it currently has.

The successful achievement of pregnancies following pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) was first reported in April 1990. The technology is often used for patients who are at substantial risk of conceiving a pregnancy affected by a known genetic disorder, however from this technology other more controversial uses have arisen such as HLA typing to save the life of a sibling, gender selection for social reasons, the prevention of late onset diseases, or the prevention of diseases which may be genetically predisposed to developing such as breast cancer. The technology surrounding PGD is constantly developing, giving rise to new and unexpected consequences that create fresh ethical and legal dilemmas.

Featuring internationally recognized experts in the field, this book critically explores the regulation of PGD and the broader legal and ethical issues associated with it. It looks at the regulatory situation in a number of jurisdictions including New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, but it also explores a number of themes of wide significance including a historical consideration of PGD and its part in the creation of the "genetic embryo" as a political tool, the over regulation of PGD and the ethical difficulties in handling additional unexpected medical information yielded by new technologies. This book will be of particular interest to academics and students of law, medicine and ethics.

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

'Commerce In Space' discusses opportunities in the development of policies to use space technology for the improvement of life on earth.

In an era characterized by data globalization, there is, paradoxically, a shortage of literature on the social impact of globalization, technology diffusion, and gender disparity. The new information and knowledge society may, in fact, aggravate the development and poverty gap instead of closing it. The cultural construction of knowledge exacerbates class, ethnic, and gender divides, and ICT has contributed to this problem. Globalization, Technology Diffusion and Gender Disparity: Social Impacts of ICTs discusses theoretical aspects of gender issues in ICT and presents a number of case studies from various countries. Covering topics such as social networking, ICT use among women, the digital divide, and theoretical approaches to gender gaps and ICT, this book aims to provide a strong foundation on ICT and digital equity that will be useful to a broad audience comprised of students, researchers, and policymakers.

The end of this century has witnessed dramatic changes in morality, history and geography. These changes were felt throughout the world, and also across the entire gamut of professional concerns. Even relatively remote and seemingly insulated activities such as science and technology have experienced, and up to a point contributed to, these dramatic changes. This volume presents a series of views on the effect of these changes on science and technology, and more specifically, on the international diffusion of new technologies. These views come from a variety of fields, among them history and sociology of science, political science, information sciences, marketing. Yet, most authors share an interest in science policy studies which permeates this collection. It would be fair to say that this volume belongs to the intellectual domain known as STS, i. e. studies in Science, Technology and Society. The authors come from nine countries, and their contributions are expected to reflect this diversity. It is well known that the dominant lingua franca in the end of the 20th century is Broken English, with the possible exception of a minority of native English speakers some of whom fail to learn this new language. An attempt was therefore made throughout this volume to conform to a certain standard of English usage and, at the same time, to preserve the local flavour of expression, and the stylistic and cultural dimensions of each chapter.

Trust in Knowledge Management and Systems in Organizations aims at tying trust to knowledge management (KM). It highlights the complexity of the invisible phenomenon of trust challenged by the global economy. Fresh insights, novel theoretical frameworks, and empirical results and ideas for future research are presented that differ from those since the 1950s. The eleven chapters (whose authors represent information studies, economics, administrative scientists, mass communications, computer science and cognitive science) explore the multidisciplinary nature of the concepts of trust and KM. The concept of trust is analyzed by presenting its extensive description in relation to knowledge and information-intensive activities and systems for understanding the dynamics of knowledge-based production at the levels of individuals, information systems, organizations, networks and society. Systems are considered from the social or the socio-technological perspective.

'This book is not just about life, but about discovery itself. It is about error and hubris, but also about wonder and the reach of science. And it is bookended with the ultimate question: How do we define the thing that defines us?' - Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene We all assume we know what life is, but the more scientists learn about the living world - from protocells to brains, from zygotes to pandemic viruses - the harder they find it to locate the edges of life, where it begins and ends. What exactly does it mean to be alive? Is a virus alive? Is a foetus? Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The answer seems obvious until you try to seriously answer it. Is the apple sitting on your kitchen counter alive, or is only the apple tree it came from deserving of the word? If we can't answer that question here on earth, how will we know when and if we discover alien life on other worlds? The question hangs over some of society's most charged conflicts - whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead. Life's Edge is an utterly fascinating investigation by one of the most celebrated science writers of our time. Zimmer journeys through the strange experiments that have attempted to recreate life. Literally hundreds of definitions of what that should look like now exist, but none has yet emerged as an obvious winner. Lists of what living things have in common do not add up to a theory of life. It's never clear why some items on the list are essential and others not. Coronaviruses have altered the course of history, and yet many scientists maintain they are not alive. Chemists are creating droplets that can swarm, sense their environment, and multiply - have they made life in the lab? Whether he is handling pythons in Alabama or searching for hibernating bats in the Adirondacks, Zimmer revels in astounding examples of life at its most bizarre. He tries his own hand at evolving life in a test tube with unnerving results. Charting the obsession with Dr Frankenstein's monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up.

Science and the Construction of Women is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the major questions currently challenging feminist scholars of science. The authors ask key questions: What constitutes science? How have feminists investigated it? How does science 'construct' women? How can we create a feminist discourse of science? Are the current developments to women's advantage or disadvantage? Their answers draw on material from a wide range of natural scientific, humanities and social science sources, critically examining theoretical approaches from the postmodern to the materialist to the cyborgian. A key argument of the book is that there are strong intellectual and pragmatic reasons - the rapid development of information technology, advances in fertility treatment and genetic engineering, feminist concern for environmental issues - why feminism must rigorously engage with issues of a scientific and technological nature. Science and the Construction of Women provides an important contribution to the opening-up and broadening of debate in the field. This book will be an important text for students of gender and women's studies, and science studies. It is also designed to be read by feminists both inside and outside the academy and to appeal to all those with interests in the sociology of knowledge and the history of ideas.

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems- both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

The series Religion and Society (RS) contributes to the exploration of religions as social systems - both in Western and non-Western societies; in particular, it examines religions in their differentiation from, and intersection with, other cultural systems, such as art, economy, law and politics. Due attention is given to paradigmatic case or comparative studies that exhibit a clear theoretical orientation with the empirical and historical data of religion and such aspects of religion as ritual, the religious imagination, constructions of tradition, iconography, or media. In addition, the formation of religious communities, their construction of identity, and their relation to society and the wider public are key issues of this series.

Biotechnology is a recognized research area that has increasingly advanced into new technologies and modern practices raising several legal, ethical and regulatory issues. The revolutionary speed of biotech innovations has had a significant impact on the protection of the rights of the individual. Fundamental rights provide a framework within which the justification of "limitations and restrictions"" "to biotechnology innovations and research results have to be assessed. The legal regulation of scientific research and scientific investigations impact more and more directly on the freedom of research and therapies as well as on the broad diffusion of knowledge. Closely related is also the debated question of the technological manipulation of life and the boundary of scientific knowledge with regard to the topical question of genetic invention patents and their side effects on access to scientific information and health care opportunities.

Drawing on expertise from different disciplines, the volume comprises invited papers and plenary presentations given at the conference entitled "Biotech Innovations & Fundamental Rights" that took place on Januray 20-21 2011 at the Department of Juridical Sciences of the University of Ferrara. Each contribution covers a different aspect of the legal and scientific issues involved in regulation of biotechnology. In particular the focus of attention has been given to genetic research, genetic data, freedom of scientific research in genetics and biotech patents.

This book examines the political and developmental implications of the new information and communication technologies (NICT) in the Third World. Whereas the concept of the "digital divide" tends to focus on technological and quantitative indicators, this work stresses the crucial role played by the political regime type, the pursued development model and the specific configuration of actors and decision-making dynamics. Two starkly contrasting Third World countries, state-socialist Cuba and the Latin America's "show-case democracy" Costa Rica, were chosen for two in-depth empirical country studies.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacks past philosophers for their alleged lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of the Christian premises in their consideration of morality. The work attempts to moves "beyond good and evil" in the sense of leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a destructive critique in favor of what he regards as an affirmative approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.

This volume breaks new ground by asking how our understandings of gender can be informed by exploring the socio-technical relations of ICTs in health care, and how far an appreciation of the ways in which gender works can inform and improve our understanding of how ICTs are being developed, implemented, and used in health care contexts.

The enigmatic relation between religion and science still presents a challenge to European societies and to ideas about what it means to be 'modern.' This book argues that European secularism, rather than pushing back religious truth claims, in fact has been religiously productive itself. The institutional establishment of new disciplines in the nineteenth century, such as religious studies, anthropology, psychology, classical studies, and the study of various religious traditions, led to a professionalization of knowledge about religion that in turn attributed new meanings to religion. This attribution of meaning resulted in the emergence of new religious identities and practices. In a dynamic that is closely linked to this discursive change, the natural sciences adopted religious and metaphysical claims and integrated them in their framework of meaning, resulting in a special form of scientific religiosity that has gained much influence in the twentieth century. Applying methods that come from historical discourse analysis, the book demonstrates that religious semantics have been reconfigured in the secular sciences. Ultimately, the scientification of religion perpetuated religious truth claims under conditions of secularism.

When people think of a scientist, they often think of someone who has his or her head in the clouds, motivated by an entirely untainted desire for the pursuit of knowledge and truth. In "Science 3.0," Frank Miedema casts aside these beliefs about scientists as needlessly naive, and instead suggests that we rebuild our idea of the sciences, particularly the life sciences, with today's economic reality in mind.This book is a frank discussion of the impact of external forces on the sciences, dealing with topics as diverse as social media for the scientist, the role of academic independence, and the tension between university and business. Miedema also shows the way science shapes both economic and social progress in modern society, and how increasing pressure to solve real-world problems has forced scientists out of the ivory tower and into the corporate world. Sharply observed and exceptionally well-researched, "Science 3.0 "provides scientists with a powerful overview of their field that is singular in its candor and breadth.

Television had, until recently, a social and cultural purpose. In Britain, the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, were committed to develop and maintain these purposes. With the enlargement of the range of choices for viewers by digital television and the provision of access to cable and satellite TV and the Internet, the role of the terrestrial television channels is being diluted. The authors examine these effects and consider what can be done to maintain the standards and quality of television at a time of unlimited competition.

"Exposes the vast gap between the actual science underlying AI and the dramatic claims being made for it." -John Horgan "If you want to know about AI, read this book...It shows how a supposedly futuristic reverence for Artificial Intelligence retards progress when it denigrates our most irreplaceable resource for any future progress: our own human intelligence." -Peter Thiel Ever since Alan Turing, AI enthusiasts have equated artificial intelligence with human intelligence. A computer scientist working at the forefront of natural language processing, Erik Larson takes us on a tour of the landscape of AI to reveal why this is a profound mistake. AI works on inductive reasoning, crunching data sets to predict outcomes. But humans don't correlate data sets. We make conjectures, informed by context and experience. And we haven't a clue how to program that kind of intuitive reasoning, which lies at the heart of common sense. Futurists insist AI will soon eclipse the capacities of the most gifted mind, but Larson shows how far we are from superintelligence-and what it would take to get there. "Larson worries that we're making two mistakes at once, defining human intelligence down while overestimating what AI is likely to achieve...Another concern is learned passivity: our tendency to assume that AI will solve problems and our failure, as a result, to cultivate human ingenuity." -David A. Shaywitz, Wall Street Journal "A convincing case that artificial general intelligence-machine-based intelligence that matches our own-is beyond the capacity of algorithmic machine learning because there is a mismatch between how humans and machines know what they know." -Sue Halpern, New York Review of Books

What effect have innovations in digital technology had on the way we communicate and work, and what can we expect from the future? Following on from the hugely successful "e-Shock," Michael de Kare Silver analyses the developments in digital technology over the past decade, and how they have changed our lives both at home and in the workplace.

An archaeology of innovation is the first monograph-length investigation of innovation and the innovation process from an archaeological perspective. It interrogates the idea of innovation that permeates our popular media and our political and scientific discourse, setting this against the long-term perspective that only archaeology can offer. Case studies span the entire breadth of human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the contemporary world. The book argues that the present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations ignores the complex interplay of social, technological and environmental systems that underlies truly innovative societies; the inherent connections between new technologies, technologists and social structure that give them meaning and make them valuable; and the significance and value of conservative social practices that lead to the frequent rejection of innovations. -- .

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

aAs more and more people use computers, the Internet and mobile phones, the study of their effects on our culture (and vice versa) becomes increasingly important. Framed as a ahow-to guide for those new to cyberstudiesa, Critical Cyberculture Studies goes some of the way to emphasising the importance and the diversity of this young academic field.a
--"M/C Reviews"

"As studies of the Internet and cyberculture begin to mature, it is a particularly important time for critical studies--critical of the subject matter, and critical of the emerging field itself. The consciously interdisciplinary approach of Critical Cyberculture Studies, and the depth and breadth of the contributions, make this an important foundational work for a new field of study. If only we had had a critical study of communication when the Gutenberg revolution was beginning!"
--Howard Rheingold, author of "The Virtual Community" and "Smart Mobs"

"This expansive book functions as both survey and call to action. Even as they map the shifting contours of an emergent field, the editors and contributors warn against the deadening force of disciplinarity. They encourage a nimble, flexible formulation of cyberculture studies, one that can keep pace with the rapid pulse of technological change and, more importantly, also address the injustices wrought of life in a networked age. Like the best traditions of cultural studies, they aim not just to describe our moment but to matter in the world."
--Tara McPherson, USC School of Cinema-Television

Starting in the early 1990s, journalists and scholars began responding to and trying to take account of newtechnologies and their impact on our lives. By the end of the decade, the full-fledged study of cyberculture had arrived. Today, there exists a large body of critical work on the subject, with cutting-edge studies probing beyond the mere existence of virtual communities and online identities to examine the social, cultural, and economic relationships that take place online.

Taking stock of the exciting work that is being done and positing what cyberculture's future might look like, Critical Cyberculture Studies brings together a diverse and multidisciplinary group of scholars from around the world to assess the state of the field. Opening with a historical overview of the field by its most prominent spokesperson, it goes on to highlight the interests and methodologies of a mobile and creative field, providing a much-needed how-to guide for those new to cyberstudies. The final two sections open up to explore issues of race, class, and gender and digital media's ties to capital and commerce--from the failure of dot-coms to free software and the hacking movement.

This flagship book is a must-read for anyone interested in the dynamic and increasingly crucial study of cyberculture and new technologies.