Grants for EMERGING TECHNOLOGY ACTIVITIES

The demands of globalization have ushered in the Age of Emerging Technologies (ETs). Although some educational technologies (ETs) are not new, very few Filipino educators utilize them in their classroom practice, despite their potential to improve the teaching-learning process. The study identified the types of educational technologies (ETs) used by Filipino STEM teachers and how these are being utilized, the reasons for using ETs, the observed or perceived effects on students’ learning, the observed or perceived challenges in using ETs, and the enabling mechanisms to support the integration of ETs in STEM classrooms. The study used a case study qualitative research design with participants from Public HS (PHS) and Public Science HS (PSHS) who completed an online questionnaire. The results of the study showed that there was no difference between PHS and PSHS teachers’ use and perception of ETs and that most teachers use AI in their teaching practice. The result also showed that teachers use ETs mostly as teaching aids and to promote STEM education and careers. Teachers were also found to have either positive or negative observed and perceived effects of ETs’ use on students’ learning. The challenges in using ETs were the lack of equipment, training, integration time, teaching resources, and their potential misuse. Enabling mechanisms for ET integration include an investment in infrastructure and human resources, and programs to sustain teachers’ motivation to use ETs. The findings of the study have potentially useful implications for STEM Education, School Administration, and Teacher Training Institutions.

PurposeThis study aims to conduct performance and clustering analyses with the help of Digital Government Reference Library (DGRL) v16.6 database examining the role of emerging technologies (ETs) in public services delivery.Design/methodology/approachVOSviewer and SciMAT techniques were used for clustering and mapping the use of ETs in the public services delivery. Collecting documents from the DGRL v16.6 database, the paper uses text mining analysis for identifying key terms and trends in e-Government research regarding ETs and public services.FindingsThe analysis indicates that all ETs are strongly linked to each other, except for blockchain technologies (due to its disruptive nature), which indicate that ETs can be, therefore, seen as accumulative knowledge. In addition, on the whole, findings identify four stages in the evolution of ETs and their application to public services: the “electronic administration” stage, the “technological baseline” stage, the “managerial” stage and the “disruptive technological” stage.Practical implicationsThe output of the present research will help to orient policymakers in the implementation and use of ETs, evaluating the influence of these technologies on public services.Social implicationsThe research helps researchers to track research trends and uncover new paths on ETs and its implementation in public services.Originality/valueRecent research has focused on the need of implementing ETs for improving public services, which could help cities to improve the citizens’ quality of life in urban areas. This paper contributes to expanding the knowledge about ETs and its implementation in public services, identifying trends and networks in the research about these issues.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES – LAW – RECIPROCAL IMPACT – POTENTIALS – DYSCRASIAS This paper discusses the relationships between law and new communication technologies from a socio-legal perspective, with a focus on artificial intelligence and the access to Big Data. The author contends that, on the one side, such innovations have brought about a revolution in information about law, in that they make legislative processes easier, offer new keys for the interpretation of precedents, enable the administration’s inner machineries to be inspected or future deviances to be predicted and, no less important, impose a steady reorganization of work in all sectors, including that of the legal professions. On the other side, much still remains to be done in the field of the formation of law, even though experiments with ‘smart’ legislation and ‘smart’ contracts, as well as automated judicial decision-making, are already online. Here a dyscrasia still exists between legal and algorithmic languages. Law operates as a conditional action programme, based on the transmission of signs to be interpreted and the link between a factual premise and a deontic consequence (“if X, then Y”), as well as on the activity of “a third actor”, whether law-giver, administrator or judge, “who doubts and decides”. Conversely, learning machines operate by transmitting pre-packaged signals that exclude the “third actor’s” interpretative and decision-making activity, especially delicate when addressed to understanding the motivations of human action or facing an unforeseeable future. The law’s complexity therefore seems to resist algorithmic regulation and the question, nowadays, is whether technologies will adapt to the law and leave room for human intervention, or whether they will impose a kind of simplified law, in which human intervention will be annulled or drastically reduced.

New technologies are one of the most obvious parts of the emotional change of culture in developing or developed countries. These emergent technologies offer enormous opportunities for the entrepreneurial firms interested in searching for a competing lead in business as well as pose challenges to the firms. The emergent technologies can go a long way in helping the organisations to tap the newly emerging markets with high potential. The present study aims at identifying the role of emergent technologies in influencing the survival and expansion of the business. The study has compiled the reviews of various scholars on the usage of the latest technologies by the firms to achieve a competitive edge. This is a descriptive study and makes use of the secondary data. The findings of the study suggest that technologies, such as AI, robotics and drones, 3D Printing, serverless computing, block chain and so forth have been most important technologies for the firms, as they have completely changed their traditional way of organisation functioning. These technologies enable effective and efficient decision-making and promote the growth and development of the firms. The study makes a value addition to the existing literature on the role of emergent and futuristic technologies in enabling the entrepreneurial firms to pave their way towards sustainable growth in the competitive business environment through ingenious business solutions.

The paper develops a contemporary innovation value network model in emerging technology, particularly in the case of micro and nano-manufacturing technology (MNT), based on primary and secondary data analysis and a survey conducted on European research and development projects. A mixed-methods approach was adopted in this research which investigated the business and technical challenges to the commercialization of technology. The research was motivated by a systematic literature review. A notable finding is that the emergent MNT often does not have a direct link with market demand. An intermediary role between the emergent advanced technology and market demand should be included to act as coordinator for the complex design issues inherent when developing such technology.

How should we handle ethical issues related to emerging science and technology in a rational way? This is a crucial issue in our time. On the one hand, there is great optimism with respect to technology. On the other, there is pessimism. As both perspectives are based on scarce evidence, they may appear speculative and irrational. Against the pessimistic perspective to emerging technology, it has been forcefully argued that there is a status quo bias (SQB) fuelling irrational attitudes to emergent science and technology and greatly hampering useful development and implementation. Therefore, this article starts by analysing the SQB using human enhancement as a case study. It reveals that SQB may not be as prominent in restricting the implementation of emergent technologies as claimed in the ethics literature, because SQB (a) is fuelled by other and weaker drivers than those addressed in the literature, (b) is at best one amongst many drivers of attitudes towards emergent science and technology, and (c) may not be a particularly prominent driver of irrational decision-making. While recognizing that SQB can be one driver behind pessimism, this article investigates other and counteracting forces that may be as strong as SQB. Progress bias is suggested as a generic term for the various drivers of unwarranted science and technology optimism. Based on this analysis, a test for avoiding or reducing this progress bias is proposed. Accordingly, we should recognize and avoid a broad range of biases in the assessment of emerging and existing science and technology in order to promote an open and transparent deliberation.

Pricing is a major challenge in the marketing of emergent industrial technologies. Because of this challenge, a good strategy would be to price them based on the perceived value they would have to the client firm. Now often, such technologies have multiple attributes or features, the relative importance and the benefits of which would be different for each client. So the total perceived value from such technology would vary from client to client. This paper proposes a novel way to capture the perceived value an emergent technology may provide to the client by treating the problem as a multi-criteria decision making one. A multi-response fuzzy analytic hierarchy process is adapted for capturing the trade-offs amongst the multiple value drivers, to estimate the perceived value of the emergent technology with multiple attributes or features. The proposed methodology attempts to address a few limitations of regression-based techniques developed for the same purpose. The estimated perceived value is used to devise a pricing strategy. Finally, a hypothetical case has been used to demonstrate the proposed technique.

This article analyzes how the Meta Quest virtual reality headset’s implementation requires one’s domestic space to be rearranged to accommodate for its use. Analyzing tutorials, help videos, and advertisements for Quest, we demonstrate how its production of space relies on classist and ableist biases which presume easy access to an open play grid and user mobility. We additionally draw from user-generated videos on YouTube which show additional ways “VR rooms” are tied to socioeconomic status as well as videos which are focused on making VR more accessible for users with mobility or neurocognitive differences. We situate these videos within media studies research on emergent technologies’ domestication, and how the process of “making space for” and accommodating emergent media technology continues to rely on assumptions about the identities of normal and ideal users.

This chapter shows the common ancestry found in the evolution of ideas (philosophy and humanities) between cybernetics and emergent (or converging) technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science—NBIC. It also establishes the historical and philosophical ancestry between cybernetics and transhumanism. This unveils the unfinished (and somewhat surreptitious) transhumanist agenda underpinning much of current emergent technologies. Part of the purpose of this chapter is to show the utmost relevance of cybernetics to contemporary and future endeavors of the sciences and technologies that deal with life (including the mind). Another reason is to remove the feeling of uncanniness or alienation sometimes attached to these emergent technologies—and for that matter, to cybernetics itself. These insights into the way of doing science and technology, with the purpose of altering the human condition, are shown as embedded in the very thrust behind some canonical ideas driving Western civilization (as found in, e.g. Medieval and Modern times).

Effect of emergent non-thermal extraction technologies on bioactive individual compounds profile from different plant materials

Abstracts from ATTD 20158th International Conference on Advanced Technologies & Treatments for DiabetesParis, France—February 18–21, 2015

Corporate End User

The combined effect of essential oils and emerging technologies on food safety and quality

Bernardino Ramazzini (1633-1714) is the author of the famous treatise De morbis artificum diatriba (Diseases of Workers) and is widely acknowledged as the founder of occupational medicine. In his writings, he set out groundbreaking and innovative principles for identifying and controlling hazards causing diseases in workers at a time when technologies were poorly developed. Since Ramazzini’s time there has been a series of different industrial revolutions, each bringing with it major new technologies. These new technologies have introduced advanced industrial processes, which have contributed to improvements in economic productivity and social wellbeing for the community. They have also introduced many new hazards which can adversely affect the health of workers. The first industrial revolution began in Britain in the mid 18th century with the development of coal power generation and the rise of machines to manufacture a wide range of goods. An example of one important hazard to workers from this new form of power was coal workers’ pneumoconiosis. Despite the introduction of control measures during the 19th and 20th centuries, this occupational disease persists in many parts of the world to the present day. The second industrial revolution from the late 19th century revolved around the development of electrical power, which led to greater mechanisation of industrial processes. The rapid increase in the use of production lines in industrial processes brought with it a rise in musculoskeletal conditions in workers, due to poor ergonomic design. The 2nd industrial revolution also involved a dramatic expansion in chemical processes, including the production of pesticides, solvents and synthetic dyes. Many of these chemicals have subsequently been found to cause a wide range of malignant and non-malignant diseases in the workers who produce them and in those who use them, such as agricultural workers. The 3rd industrial revolution is widely known as the digital revolution, which started in the latter parts of the 20th century. This revolution introduced many digital technologies into workplaces, such as the internet and advanced communication technologies, which brought with it concerns about the hazards of radiofrequency and other non-ionising radiation. Currently, we are in the midst of the 4th industrial revolution, which is sometimes referred to as the Cyber-Physical revolution. This industrial revolution has introduced novel technologies leading to greater automation of industrial processes, robotic manufacturing systems, machine learning and the rise of artificial intelligence. These new technologies have also led to major changes in work organisation, such as the 24 hour work cycle, increasing introduction of shift work arrangements and the rise of the Gig economy. Such work organisation changes have had significant health impacts on workers, such as the rise in work stressors and associated mental health conditions related to work. As we head into what is considered the 5th industrial revolution, we are seeing a rise in machine-human interaction. One example of this is the rise in the number and sophistication of robots used in industry, as well as in community settings. One of the concerns which has been raised is whether this will lead to a reduction in employment opportunities for humans. Being in gainful and hazard-free employment is considered to be an important source of health and wellbeing for workers and society more broadly. The rising use of robots has the potential to undermine this prompting considerable debate about the balance between beneficical and adverse events. The rise in the use of digital platforms is leading to a rapid increase in the Gig economy, which has been demonstrated to increase the risk of injury in those involved in delivery services. This technology can also lead to blurring of the line between work and non-work life for workers, especially with the rise of work-from-home arrangements. These arrangements increased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and have persisted since then. One further consideration about the introduction of new technologies is the potential for old hazards to return in newly developed products. A good example of this is the introduction, and rapid increase in use, of artificial stone over the past two decades. Artificial stone can contain up to 95% crystalline silica. Recent research has demonstrated that the use of this material has led to an epidemic of an accelerated form of silicosis among stonemasons. As well as considerations of rising hazards and other possible negative impacts due to the introduction of new technologies, we need to consider the impact on the provision of occupational health services. The increase in the use of digital communication technologies, such as telehealth, has been beneficial in making health services, including occupational health services, more accessible. This can be beneficial for workers in remote work locations and help to improve the current low rate of occupational health service coverage in many countries. Not only can telehealth be beneficial in performing clinical consultations, but it can also be used to facilitate workplace inspections from a distant location. Greater sophistication of artificial intelligence in healthcare also has the potential to increase efficiency in occupational health service provision. This will be particularly beneficial where the occupational health workforce is scarce and/or only has basic training. Therefore, the introduction of new technologies during the various industrial revolutions can result in a wide range of beneficial and potentially adverse impacts on workers. What is very important is that any potential negative impacts are anticipated and/or detected at an early stage and suitable control measures put in place early. It is just over 300 years since the death of Ramazzini, who worked and wrote about workplaces and workers who were involved with very basic technologies at that time. The world and workplaces have gone through dramatic changes over those three centuries with the introduction of new technologies way beyond the wildest imagination of Ramazzini. Nevertheless, the important principles which he advocated in his writings to protect the health of workers and to benefit society as a whole still apply today in the modern workplace and will continue to guide occupational health programs and activities into the future.

The Impact of Emerging Technologies on Residency Selection by Medical Students in 2017 and 2021, With a Focus on Diagnostic Radiology