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Converging Technologies for Enhancing Human Performance: Science and Business Perspectives
Abstract
Our goal is to provide a rough sketch of some of the possible implications of converging technologies for enhancing human performance ((Roco and Bainbridge, 2002)) from both a science and a business perspective. Converging technologies refers to a type of coevolutionary progress that is characterized by rapid advances across multiple areas of technology (nano-bio-info-cogno or NBIC), accelerated by interdisciplinary cross-fertilization as the advances in one area spill over and speed progress in other areas. The rapid, multi-front progress characteristic of converging technologies results in better technological capabilities which are faster and cheaper, and can be broadly applied for many different purposes. In this paper, we specifically explore applications of converging technologies for enhancing human performance, that is, enhancing our human ability to achieve goals both individually and collectively. These applications hold the promise to make people healthier, wealthier, and wiser as well as to make businesses more responsive, resilient, and adaptive.
... Conceitualmente, a Convergência Tecnológica (CT) consiste no processo de integração sinérgica entre múltiplas áreas do conhecimento científico e tecnológico, que tem permitido acelerar a geração de novos conhecimentos, soluções tecnológicas e na produção de bens e serviços, fazendo com que avanços em uma área permitam o progresso em outras (Spohrer;Engelbart, 2004). ...
... Conceitualmente, a Convergência Tecnológica (CT) consiste no processo de integração sinérgica entre múltiplas áreas do conhecimento científico e tecnológico, que tem permitido acelerar a geração de novos conhecimentos, soluções tecnológicas e na produção de bens e serviços, fazendo com que avanços em uma área permitam o progresso em outras (Spohrer;Engelbart, 2004). ...
O objetivo deste documento é identificar um conjunto de sinais e tendências para a Ciência do Solo no horizonte 2030, consolidados em megatendências. São apresentadas as principais forças de mudanças que impulsionam importantes transformações do mundo e da agropecuária, bem como seus impactos sobre o futuro da Ciência do Solo.
... Enhancing human performance means enhancing human abilities to achieve goals both individually and collectively through the convergence of technologies. Enhancing human performance also hold the promise to make people healthier, wealthier, and wiser as well as to make business more responsive, resilient, and adaptive [22]. LG ...
... Enhancing human performance means enhancing human abilities to achieve goals both individually and collectively through the convergence of technologies. Enhancing human performance also hold the promise to make people healthier, wealthier, and wiser as well as to make business more responsive, resilient, and adaptive [22]. In addition, Engelbart [6] asserted that technology could be used to augment human performance to address complex and urgent problems in our society. ...
When cognitive computing enabled smart computers are growing in our daily lives, there are not many studies that explain how people interact and utilize these solutions, and the impact of these smart machines to people’s performance to do things. In this paper, a theoretical framework for boosting people’s performance using cognitive assistants (CAs) was developed and explained using the data analysis from 15 interviews. The results show that people interaction with CAs enhance their levels of cognition and intelligence that help them to enhance their capabilities. Enhanced capabilities help people to enhance their performance.
... There are fewer examples that address the boundaries between any two converging knowledge/technology areas; Fig. 8.2 shows several. The cost of public elementary, secondary, and college education in the United States is high-estimated at ~$900 billion for the 2004school year (DOD 2005. Figure 8.3 illustrates the relative funding provided by state, local, and Federal sources for K-12 in 2009. ...
... If we survive our own tendency to go to war with each other, human beings at that point may have diverged into what amounts to multiple species, based on the capabilities and choices available to people. We may be mining asteroids, settling other planets, and having at our disposal a "utility fog" that allows self-assembly of desired items (Spohrer and Engelbart 2004). Each generation will live longer, and the capability gap between generations may grow over time, depending on multiple nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) (and beyond) enhancements that interact in complex ways. ...
Productive ongoing activity in convergence science and engineering and broad distribution of their economic, societal, and environmental benefits across the nation and the world is not a given. This chapter addresses the need for continuing development and implementation of a new human infrastructure—specifically, affordable IT-based and interactive formal and informal education at all levels and for all individuals, with a strong focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects—and of a new physical infrastructure—specifically, advanced and accessible knowledge and communication networks, measurement capabilities, and laboratory and manufacturing facilities—that will be necessary for continuing progress and real benefit to society. For successful development of both types of infrastructure, it will be necessary for the social sciences to be better integrated into these processes; for them to be more science- and evidence-based; and for them to positively impact formation of broad partnerships and new governance modalities. International formal and informal knowledge sharing and deliberation will be critical as well. The convergence of knowledge and technology that has taken place to date will provide indispensable tools for all of these activities, but society’s commitment also must be engaged.
... People and their ideas are an interesting physicalsymbol system, since both biological and nonbiological processes are at work, driving change in the system. Human evolution is driven by adaptation of people to their environment, and that environment includes both physical and symbolic resources [6]. Simon [7] further developed the notion of hierarchical complexity in his work on 'sciences of the artificial'. ...
This paper explores a simple idea and asks a simple question: What determines the speed limit of evolutionary processes, and might there be ways to speed up those processes for certain types of systems under certain conditions? Or even more simply, how rapidly can complex systems be rebuilt? To begin with, the universe can be viewed as an evolving ecology of entities. Entities correspond to types of systems - from atoms in stars to organisms on Earth to ideas in the heads of people. Service science is the study of the evolving ecology of service system entities, complex socio-technical systems with rights and responsibilities – such as people, businesses, and nations. We can only scratch the surface in this paper, but our explorations suggest this is an important research question and direction, especially as we enter the cognitive era of smart and wise service systems. For example, it takes a child multiple years of experience to learn language and basic social interactions skills, but could machine learning algorithms with the proper data sets learn those capabilities in a fraction of the time?
... The differing talents and background results in a variance of knowledge in each individual. He coins the term "collective IQ" on which he stresses that it is the best form to leverage our group brain [66]. This can be achieved by sharing ideas and solutions through appropriate tools and methods with which individuals can work together to capture, manage, access and learn from the shared knowledge, reusing it in an effort to become more effective at addressing the many challenges in any form of businesses and societies [67]. ...
Over the years, the idea of group effectiveness to individual performance in problem solving has fascinated the many minds of researchers, essentially in the field of software agent technology. Group effectiveness focuses on the overall group contribution rather than the individual effort. Some terms which are often associated with the above includes collective effort, global brain and self-organization while there are many more which inter-relates. While group behaviour espouses the main ingredient of such effort, other studies do suggest the potential of a communal cognition is as essential. In this paper, our intention is to provide a systematic review of the influences of behaviour and cognition to the concept of collectiveness in Collective Intelligence.
... The convergence of NBIC is expected to result with enhanced human performance which promises to make people healthier, wealthier and wiser with an improved business environment (Spohrer and Engelbart, 2004). Enhanced human performance is to be obtained with the help and control of ubiquitous real-time information systems. ...
Free, libre and open source software (FLOSS) is developed in a distributed fashion within virtual communities open to everyone and it is widely used in various electronic devices. The code is available to anyone, with licenses having different levels of openness. The FLOSS development model and related licenses create opportunities and inspiration for different areas which are not limited to the software. In this article, FLOSS is treated within the techno-economic paradigm (TEP) literature which aims to explain long term, cyclic fluctuations of capitalism beginning with the Industrial Revolution. This article argues that FLOSS, which is an institutional and socio-cultural outcome of the fifth long wave, is the key factor of the subsequent, sixth long wave.
... Many people realize that adaptions to the environment have driven human evolution. The current stage of human evolution constitutes an information-rich human-made environment that leads to different goals and selection pressures for different capabilities (Spohrer & Engelbart, 2004). Bush and Licklider envisioned that advanced information technologies would accelerate the co-evolution and human-machine symbiosis for individuals and organizations and accelerate how much information they could store, process, and replicate and the speed at which they did so. ...
... The use of knowledge has also expanded because of increases in economies of scale and scope that have resulted from greater globalization (Romer, 1986;Jones and Romer, 2010). Technological developments have aided the growth of knowledge businesses by reducing consumers' search costs (Bakos, 1997), by facilitating instantaneous and low-cost delivery of knowledge products to remote customers (Spohrer and Engelbart, 2004), and by enabling a quicker assimilation of existing knowledge products into the creation of new knowledge products (Shapiro and Varian, 1998). Apte et al. (2008) quantify the temporal increases in U.S. firms' intangible inputs by dividing the U.S. economy into two distinct domains. ...
The properties of earnings have changed dramatically over the past 40 years. Prior studies interpret this trend as a decline in earnings quality but disagree on whether it results from changes in the real economy or changes in accounting standards. I find that each new cohort of listed firms exhibits lower earnings quality than its predecessors, mainly because of higher intangible intensity. I conclude that the trend of decline in earnings quality is due more to changes in the sample of firms than to changes in GAAP or in the earnings quality of previously listed firms.
The convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous
improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable opportunities to meet and enhance human potential
and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This paper focuses on the progress made in governance
of such converging, emerging technologies and suggests possibilities for a global approach. Specifically, this paper suggests
creating a multidisciplinary forum or a consultative coordinating group with members from various countries to address globally
governance of converging, emerging technologies. The proposed framework for governance of converging technologies calls for
four key functions: supporting the transformative impact of the new technologies; advancing responsible development that includes
health, safety and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and establishing commitments to long-term
planning and investments centered on human development. Principles of good governance guiding these functions include participation
of all those who are forging or affected by the new technologies, transparency of governance strategies, responsibility of
each participating stakeholder, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must
be done with respect for immediate concerns, such as privacy, access to medical advancements, and potential human health effects.
At the same time, introduction and management should also be done with respect for longer-term concerns, such as preserving
human integrity, dignity and welfare. The suggested governance functions apply to four levels of governance: (a) adapting
existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations and organizations specifically to handle
converging technologies; (c) building capacity for addressing these issues into national policies and institutions; and (d)
making international agreements and partnerships. Several possibilities for improving the governance of converging technologies
in the global self-regulating ecosystem are recommended: using open-source and incentive-based models, establishing corresponding
science and engineering platforms, empowering the stakeholders and promoting partnerships among them, implementing long-term
planning that includes international perspectives, and institute voluntary and science-based measures for risk management.
After historically situating NBIC Convergence in the context of earlier bioethical debate on genetics, ten questions are raised
in areas related to the ethics of Convergence, indicating where future research is needed.
It is expected that convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution, and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable human personal abilities and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This article focuses on the progress made in governance of such converging, emerging technologies that are integrated with more traditional technologies. The proposed framework for governance calls for several key functions: supporting the transformative impact; advancing responsible development that includes health, safety, and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and commitment to long-term planning with effects on human development. Principles of good governance include participation of all those involved or affected by the new technologies, transparency, participant responsibility, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must be done with respect for immediate concerns (such as information technology privacy, access to medical advancements, and addressing toxicity of new nanomaterials) and longer-term concerns (such as human development and concern for human integrity, dignity, and welfare). Four levels of governance of converging technologies have been identified: (a) adapting existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations, and organizations specifically to handle converging technologies; (c) national policies and institutional capacity building; and (d) international agreements and partnerships.
Unifying science based on the material unity of nature at the nanoscale provides a new foundation for knowledge, innovation, and integration of technology. Revolutionary and synergistic advances at the interfaces between previously separated fields of science, engineering and areas of relevance are ready to create nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) transforming tools. Developments in systems approach, mathematics, and computation in conjunction with NBIC allow us to understand the natural world and scientific research as closely coupled, complex, hierarchical entities. At this unique moment of scientific and technical achievement, improvement of human performance at individual and group levels, as well as development of suitable revolutionary products, becomes possible and these are primary goals for converging new technologies. NBIC addresses long-term advances in key areas of human activity, including working, learning, aging, group interaction, organizations, and human evolution ((Roco and Bainbridge, 2003)). Fundamentally new tools, technologies, and products will be integrated into individual and social human architecture. This introductory chapter of the Annals outlines research and education trends, funding activities, and the potential of development of revolutionary products and services.
Strategic decision-making is often based on multiple decision criteria and on the decision-makers' preferences regarding relative criterion importance. We present version 2 of a map overlay and opacity tool (moot2), which supports the visual exploration of decision-making scenarios. The tool uses a basic function of geographic information systems (GIS): visual map overlay. In this approach, visual overlay serves as a representation of weighted linear combination in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Using the tool, we model a global human influence index for the extent of the province of Ontario, Canada. The index is a weighted overlay of six indicators that represent human influence on the land. The semi-transparent overlay of the six indicator layers occurs online in a web browser, making it accessible to distant collaborators in low-technology settings. The software architecture of moot2 includes the OpenLayers JavaScript library to display thematic Web Map Service (WMS) layers, such as the human influence indicators, on top of popular base map services, such as OpenStreetMap or Google Maps. The tool also uses jQuery, a JavaScript library that enables interactions between the user and the map environment. Layer opacity is manipulated by the jQuery Slider, permitting the user to generate on-the-fly weighting schemes for the combination of the human influence indicators. By removing the analytical engine (i.e., GIS), decision-makers can perform rapid MCDA without recalculating composite evaluation scores. The case study demonstrates how visual-spatial MCDA supports the refinement of decision-making parameters such as criterion weights.
Economics has accumulated a great body of knowledge about value. Building on economics and other disciplines, service science
is an emerging transdiscipline. It is the study of value-cocreation
phenomena (Spohrer
& Maglio
, 2010). Value cocreation occurs in the real-world ecology of diverse types of service system
entities (e.g., people, families, universities, businesses, and nations). These entities use symbols to reason about the value of knowledge. Like mathematics (quantity relationship proofs) and computer science (efficient representations and algorithms), service science must ultimately embody a set of proven techniques for processing symbols, allowing us to model the world better and to take better actions. In addition, the emergence of service science promises to accelerate the creation of T-shaped
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) professionals who are highly adaptive innovators that combine deep problem solving skills in one area with broad communication skills across many areas. This paper casts service science as a transdiscipline based on symbolic processes that adaptively compute the value of interactions among systems.
This chapter will consider how service science
could transform socio-technical systems in beneficial ways. The term socio-technical system is used in the science and technology
studies (STS) literature to refer to the way in which technological and human activity are tightly coupled (M. E. Gorman
, 2008). Beneficial here refers both to improvements in quality of life and to increasing revenue for services—complementary
objectives, because adding social value is one way of creating sources of revenue.
As the world evolves complex interdependencies, it is more important than ever to pay special attention to service system resiliency and sustainability. The emergence and growth of service science and Service-Dominant (S-D) Logic helps to encourage systems-level thinking and provides at least some initial guidance on developing appropriate ‘mind-sets’ and skills. In turn, this provides the means to be more innovative in developing solutions to ‘wicked’ human problems that growing complexity brings forth. Undoubtedly, some of these innovative solutions must deal with policymaking. And some of these policies may encourage new types of value-propositions that grant shared access rights to resources while developing new rules that allow the co-evolution of dispute resolutions. This invited commentary on service integration and coordination in a complex world should be of value to enterprises and governments searching for ways to adopt a more service-oriented perspective and develop more innovative service offerings.
This book focuses on the nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology, a new scientific area. It specifically covers the clinical aspects, scientific aspects, and laboratory aspects relating to these new scientific views. It presents summative data from both nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology scientific community as well as additional metanalysis for important topics. This work is useful for medical personnel, scientists and practitioners who are not familiar to the new techniques.
Loma Linda 2010 Symposium proceeding book
While cognitive computing-enabled smart computers are growing in people's daily lives, there are not many studies that explain how people interact and utilize these solutions, and the impact of these smart machines to people's performance to do things. In this article, a theoretical framework for boosting people's performance using cognitive assistants (CAs) was developed and explained using the data analysis from 32 interviews. The results show that people interaction with CAs enhance their levels of cognition and intelligence that help them to enhance their capabilities. Enhanced capabilities help people to enhance their performance.
Information foraging theory is an approach to understanding how strategies and technologies for information seeking, gathering, and consumption are adapted to the flux of information in the environment. The theory assumes that people, when possible, will modify their strategies or the structure of the environment to maximize their rate of gaining valuable information. The theory is developed by (a) adaptation (rational) analysis of information foraging problems and (b) a detailed process model (adaptive control of thought in information foraging [ACT-IF]). The adaptation analysis develops (a) information patch models, which deal with time allocation and information filtering and enrichment activities in environments in which information is encountered in clusters; (b) information scent models, which address the identification of information value from proximal cues; and (c) information diet models, which address decisions about the selection and pursuit of information items. ACT-IF is instantiated as a production system model of people interacting with complex information technology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)
We present here a brief summary of the rich heritage of observational and theoretical research leading to the development
of our current understanding of the initiation, structure, and evolution of Coronal Mass Ejections.
Computer Supported Argument Visualization is attracting attention across education, science, public policy and business. More than ever, we need sense-making tools to help negotiate understanding in the face of multi-stakeholder, ill-structured problems. In order to be effective, these tools must support human cognitive and discursive processes, and provide suitable representations, services and user interfaces. Visualizing Argumentation is written by practitioners and researchers for colleagues working in collaborative knowledge media, educational technology and organizational sense-making. It will also be of interest to theorists interested in software tools which embody different argumentation models. Particular emphasis is placed on the usability and effectiveness of tools in different contexts.
Among the key features are:
- Case studies covering educational, public policy, business and scientific argumentation
- Expanded, regularly updated resources on the companion website:
www.VisualizingArgumentation.info
"The old leadership idea of "vision" has been transformed in the face of wicked problems in the new organizational landscape. In this excellent book we find a comprehensive yet practical guide for using visual methods to collaborate in the construction of shared knowledge. This book is essential for managers and leaders seeking new ways of navigating complexity and chaos in the workplace."
(Charles J. Palus, Ph.D, Center for Creative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA)
We stand at the threshold of a new renaissance in science and technology, based on a comprehensive understanding of the structure and behavior of matter from the nanoscale up to the most complex system yet discovered, the human brain. Unification of science based on unity in nature and its holistic investigation will lead to technological convergence and a more efficient societal structure for reaching human goals. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, concentrated effort can bring together nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, the result can be a tremendous improvement in human abilities, new industries and products, societal outcomes, and quality of life.
1. Background We stand at the threshold of a New Renaissance in science and technology, based on a comprehensive understanding of the structure and behavior of matter from the nanoscale up to the most complex system yet discovered, the human brain. Unification of science based on unity in nature and its holistic investigation will lead to technological convergence and a more efficient societal structure. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, concentrated effort can bring together nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and new humane technologies based in cognitive science. With proper attention to ethical issues and societal needs, the result can be a tremendous improvement in human abilities, societal outcomes and quality of life. Rapid advances in convergent technologies have the potential to enhance both human performance and the nation's productivity. Examples of payoffs will include improving work efficiency and learning, enhancing individual sensory and cognitive capabilities, revolutionary changes in healthcare, improving both individual and group efficiency, highly effective communication techniques including brain to brain interaction, perfecting human-machine interfaces including neuromorphic engineering for industrial and personal use, enhancing human capabilities for defense purposes, reaching sustainable development using NBIC tools, and ameliorating the physical and cognitive decline that is common to the aging mind. This report addresses several main issues: What are the implications of unifying sciences and converging technologies. What should be done to achieve the best results over the next 10 to 20 years? What visionary ideas can guide research to accomplish broad benefits for humanity? What are the most pressing research and education issues? How can we develop a transforming national strategy to enhance individual capabilities and overall societal outcomes ? These issues were discussed on December 3-4, 2001, at the workshop on Convergent Technologies to Improve Human Performance, and in contributions submitted after that meeting for this report. The phrase "convergent technologies" refers to the synergistic combination of four major "NBIC" (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno) provinces of science and technology, each of which is currently progressing at a rapid rate: (a) nanoscience and nanotechnology; (b) biotechnology and biomedicine, including genetic engineering; (c) information technology, including advanced computing and communications; and, (d) cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience. Accelerated scientific and social progress can be achieved by combining research methods and results across these provinces in duos, trios, and the full quartet. Figure 1 shows the NBIC tetrahedron, in which each field is represented by a vertex, each pair of fields by a line, each set of three fields by a surface, and the entire union of all four fields by the volume of the tetrahedron. This progress is expected to change the main societal paths, towards a more functional and coarser mesh instead of the less organized and finer one we have now.
Unpredictable, discontinuous change is an unavoidable consequence of doing business in the Information Age. Because this intense turbulence demands fast - even instantaneous - response, many large companies are fragmenting themselves into smaller, quick-response units. But in doing so, they relinquish important advantages of scale and scope. Is it possible to have it both ways? Can large, complex firms adapt successfully and systematically to unexpected change? Yes, says Stephan Haeckel, but only if leaders learn how to manage their organizations as adaptive systems. In Adaptive Enterprise, Haeckel updates the concept of the corporation for the Information Age with a radical and comprehensive rethinking of organizational strategy, structure, and leadership. He outlines the new sense-and-respond business model that is helping companies systematically cope with the unexpected. Haeckel argues that when unpredictability is a given, the only strategy that makes sense is a strategy to become adaptive - to sense early and respond quickly to abrupt changes in individual customer needs. As a result, a firm's operations must be driven by current customer requests - implicit as well as articulated - rather than by plans to make and sell what customers are forecasted to want in the future. Here, for the first time, is a clear and comprehensive strategy for transforming firms into adaptive systems. Adaptive Enterprise is both a new way of thinking about business and a handbook for leadership of postindustrial organizations. It maps out, with examples and illustrations, a step-by-step plan that companies can use to transform themselves into a new type of organization - one in which change is not a problem to be solved, but rather an indispensable source of energy, growth, and value.
Active, polymorphic material ('Utility Fog') can be designed as a
conglomeration of 100-micron robotic cells ('foglets'). Such robots
could be built with the techniques of molecular nanotechnology.
Controllers with processing capabilities of 1000 MIPS per cubic micron,
and electric motors with power densities of one milliwatt per cubic
micron are assumed. Utility Fog should be capable of simulating most
everyday materials, dynamically changing its form and properties, and
forms a substrate for an integrated virtual reality and telerobotics.
All natural and living systems are governed by atomic and molecular behavior at the nanoscale. Research is now seeking systematic approaches to create revolutionary new products and technologies by control of matter at the same scale. Fundamental discoveries and potential implications of nanotechnology to wealth, health and peace have captured the imagination of scientists, industry and government experts. The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has become a top national priority in science and technology in U.S. for fiscal year 2001, with a Federal nanotechnology investment portfolio of $422 million. Nanotechnology is expected to have a profound impact on our economy and society in the earlier 21st century.The vision, research and development strategy, and timeline of NNI are presented by using several recent scientific discoveries and results from industry.
As global positioning, wireless communication, and mobile display technologies continue to advance, our notion of place will change. Information objects—first geocoded signs and later animated special effects—will begin to populate real physical space on what we call WorldBoard channels. WorldBoard is a proposed global infrastructure to associate information with places and ultimately to provide people with enhanced information perception services. This paper explores the notion of a WorldBoard from four perspectives: historical background, technical feasibility, potential applications, and social implications. Recent developments, ranging from lower-cost Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled car navigation systems to Casio Electronics' first-of-a-kind GPS-enabled wristwatch, foreshadow increased availability of location-aware information services and products. While significant technical, application development, and social challenges remain before a complete WorldBoard infrastructure can be made broadly, uniformly, and cost-effectively available, some feasible first steps toward this important goal are recommended. Finally, a notion like WorldBoard offers an opportunity to reflect on how technological possibilities unfold.
The reciprocal evolutionary relationships of butterflies and their food plants have been examined on the basis of an extensive survey of patterns of plant utilization and information on factors affecting food plant choice. The evolution of secondary plant substances and the stepwise evolutionary responses to these by phytophagous organisms have clearly been the dominant factors in the evolution of butterflies and other phytophagous groups. Furthermore, these secondary plant substances have probably been critical in the evolution of angiosperm subgroups and perhaps of the angiosperms themselves. The examination of broad patterns of coevolution permits several levels of predictions and shows promise as a route to the understanding of community evolution. Little information useful for the reconstruction of phylogenies is supplied. It is apparent that reciprocal selective responses have been greatly underrated as a factor in the origination of organic diversity. The paramount importance of plant-herbivore interactions in generating terrestrial diversity is suggested. For instance, viewed in this framework the rich diversity of tropical communities may be traced in large part to the hospitality of warm climates toward poikilothermal phytophagous insects.
Incl. notes bibl., index.
Incluye índice Incluye bibliografía Estudio sobre la nueva visión de conjunto en las ciencias, que supera el mecanicismo y atomismo, hacia una concepción orgánica y holística.
Research center for investigating man/computer interaction, discussing display systems, computers, languages and data entities
An estimate of the total number of persons who have ever lived on earth depends on two factors: 1) the length of time humans have been on earth; and 2) the average size of human populations at different periods. According to the United Nations' "Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends," modern Homo sapiens appeared about 50,000 B.C. At the dawn of agriculture, about 8000 B.C., the world's population was around 5 million. By 1 A.D., the population had reached 300 million, which indicates a growth rate of 0.0512% per year. Life expectancy at birth averaged 10 years for most of human history. The birth rate would have to be about 80 per 1000 just for the species to survive. Infant mortality in the early days of human life would be high, probably 500 infant deaths per 1000. Children were probably economic liabilities in hunter-gatherer societies; this might have led to infanticide, which in turn would require a disproportionately high birth rate to maintain population growth. By 1650, the world's population had risen to 500 million, although the Black Plague, which began in 542 A.D. in western Asia and killed 50% of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century (a total of 100 million deaths), had slowed the rate of growth. By 1800, the world's population passed 1 billion and continued to grow to its current total of 5.7 billion. Estimating the number of people ever born requires selecting population sizes for different points from antiquity to the present and applying assumed birth rates to each period. Assuming a constant growth rate and birth rates of 80 per 1000 through 1 A.D., 60 per 1000 from 2 A.D. to 1750, and the low 30s per 1000 by modern times, 105 billion people have lived on earth, of whom 5.5% are alive today. The assumption of constant population growth in the earliest period may have resulted in an underestimate, while an earlier date of the appearance of humans on earth would raise the number. A table of Population Reference Bureau statistics is given.
Man-computer symbiosis is an expected development in cooperative interaction between men and electronic computers. It will involve very close coupling between the human and the electronic members of the partnership. The main aims are 1) to let computers facilitate formulative thinking as they now facilitate the solution of formulated problems, and 2) to enable men and computers to cooperate in making decisions and controlling complex situations without inflexible dependence on predetermined programs. In the anticipated symbiotic partnership, men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking. Preliminary analyses indicate that the symbiotic partnership will perform intellectual operations much more effectively than man alone can perform them. Prerequisites for the achievement of the effective, cooperative association include developments in computer time sharing, in memory components, in memory organization, in programming languages, and in input and output equipment.
Statistical abstracts of the United States: 2001 the national data book
- Jr Barron
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Customer-Driven IT: How Users Are Shaping Technology Industry Growth
- David Moschella
Facets of the technical information problem
- Charles P Bourne
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- Engelbart
The Phenomenon of Man (reprint 1976)
- Pierre De Chardin
- Teilhard
State of the Future 2002: The Millennium Project American Council for the United Nations University
- Jerome C Glenn
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6 Billion Human Beings: An Exhibit from the Musée de l'Homme
- Muséum National D 'histoire Naturelle
Universe is a computer
- Philip Ball
Paper presented at New Paradigms in Computing Workshop
- Peter Pirolli
Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Transforming Cultures and Communities in the Age of Instant Access
- Howard Rheingold
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public and Political: Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, and Corruption
- Robert Steele
- David
Annual Report World Bank Institute: Promoting Knowledge and Learning for a Better World
- James D Wolfensohn
The Timetable of History
- Bernard Grun
Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on Earth
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- Mathias Wackernagel
Discovery helps explain why humans can talk the talk
- Marsha Walton
National Nanotechnology Initiative: The Initiative and Its Implementation Plan : Office of Science and Technology Policy
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Lab spins artificial spider silk, paving the way to new materials
- Bijal P Trivedi