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As urban populations grow, new health problems evolve in tandem with longstanding issues. And as a welter of social, environmental, and access factors further complicate the picture, workable solutions require increasingly sophisticated understanding and innovative methods—generally beyond the scope of one professional field. Converging Disciplines introduces the concept of transdisciplinary research as a multidimensional, research-to-practice approach to urban health issues, not only bringing researchers together but also linking stakeholders, from practitioners to policymakers to community members. This immediately accessible volume differentiates transdisciplinary research from multi- and interdisciplinary strategies, as well as from popular community-based models, and brings a uniquely North American set of perspectives to the concept. Chapter authors explore the theory behind the methods as well as their application in meeting chronic problems (e.g., domestic violence, substance abuse) and working with vulnerable populations (e.g., homeless individuals, refugees) in ways that are ecologically based, ethically sound, and eminently practical. Key areas of coverage: Benefits and challenges of transdisciplinary research in the urban health setting. Transdisciplinary research process, including methodologies, collaboration, and information sharing. Detailed case examples of transdisciplinary research used in addressing health issues among marginalized urban populations. An overview of training programs in the U.S. and Canada. The view from funding agencies. Preparing the university, researchers, and the job market for a transdisciplinary future researchers and graduate students in urban and public health will find inspiring reading in Converging Disciplines: a bold framework for transforming their fields, and the tools for meeting the new generation of urban health challenges.
This volume aims to document the most important worldwide accomplishments in converging knowledge and technology, including converging platforms, methods of convergence, societal implications, and governance in the last ten years. Convergence in knowledge, technology, and society is the accelerating, transformative interaction among seemingly distinct scientific disciplines, technologies, and communities to achieve mutual compatibility, synergism, and integration, and through this process to create added value for societal benefit. It is a movement that is recognized by scientists and thought leaders around the world as having the potential to provide far-reaching solutions to many of today’s complex knowledge, technology, and human development challenges. Four essential and interdependent convergence platforms of human activity are defined in the first part of this report: nanotechnology-biotechnology-information technology and cognitive science (“NBIC”) foundational tools; Earth-scale environmental systems; human-scale activities; and convergence methods for societal-scale activities. The report then presents the main implications of convergence for human physical potential, cognition and communication, productivity and societal outcomes, education and physical infrastructure, sustainability, and innovative and responsible governance. As a whole, the report presents a new model for convergence. To effectively take advantage of this potential, a proactive governance approach is suggested. The study identifies an international opportunity to develop and apply convergence for technological, economic, environmental, and societal benefits. The panel also suggests an opportunity in the United States for implementing a program aimed at focusing disparate R and D energies into a coherent activity - a "Societal Convergence Initiative”. This study received input from leading academic, industry, government, and NGO experts from the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Convergence of the life sciences with fields including physical, chemical, mathematical, computational, engineering, and social sciences is a key strategy to tackle complex challenges and achieve new and innovative solutions. However, institutions face a lack of guidance on how to establish effective programs, what challenges they are likely to encounter, and what strategies other organizations have used to address the issues that arise. This advice is needed to harness the excitement generated by the concept of convergence and channel it into the policies, structures, and networks that will enable it to realize its goals. Convergence investigates examples of organizations that have established mechanisms to support convergent research. This report discusses details of current programs, how organizations have chosen to measure success, and what has worked and not worked in varied settings. The report summarizes the lessons learned and provides organizations with strategies to tackle practical needs and implementation challenges in areas such as infrastructure, student education and training, faculty advancement, and inter-institutional partnerships.
In designing a successful English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, an ESP lecturer must research the professional setting and in turn analyze, abstract and synthesize its linguistic characteristics. Expert vocabulary, typical syntactic structures, relevant morphological word formation processes, exemplary text organization and both written and spoken stylistics are no longer taught with little functional relevance, instead they are approached from a subject-specific perspective. While designing and/ or compiling teaching and learning material, an ESP lecturer must decide upon the appropriate teaching methodology and pedagogy in order to ensure that the course in its entirety simulates a particular professional situation. Only if the course is successful in this aim, will ESP learners be able to quickly engage in uninhibited communication and improve job performance in their field of work, whether that be in tourism or aviation. Although many professional settings share certain characteristics, they are nevertheless unique and often require different approaches. For this reason, there is little or no ready-made teaching material or methodological approaches when it comes to ESP teaching. A dedicated ESP lecturer caters for those idiosyncrasies doing a minute, multifaceted investigation into the linguistic characteristics of the relevant professional domain. Bringing together a collection of essays, this edited volume reveals the variety, depth, and quality of the ESP research and its convergence across different professional disciplines.
This book explores the evolution of two disciplines, design and anthropology, and their convergence within commercial and organizational arenas. Focusing on the transdisciplinary field of design anthropology, the chapters cover the global forces and conditions that facilitated its emergence, the people that have contributed to its development and those who are likely to shape its future. Christine Miller touches on the invention and diffusion of new practices, the recontextualization of ethnographic inquiry within design and innovations in applications of anthropological theory and methodology. She considers how encounters between anthropology and ‘designerly’ practice have impacted the evolution of both disciplines. The book provides students, scholars and practitioners with valuable insight into the movement to formalize the nascent field of design anthropology and how the relationship between the two fields might develop in the future given the dynamic global forces that continue to impact them both.
The blurring of boundaries between hitherto distinct scientific disciplines, technologies or markets is a common and powerful phenomenon. Subjects of this convergence often change consumer behaviours, favouring products and platforms with multiple functions. The Anticipation of Converging Industries provides a detailed focus on the triggers, drivers and consequences of convergence to create a more concise definition of convergence. This detailed analysis includes a specifically developed toolbox for ‘convergence foresight’, creating a forecasting method for convergence trends. With the focus on the chemical, biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries, several indicators of convergence in the areas of Nutraceuticals/Functional Foods, Cosmeceuticals and ICT are derived from samples including over 1million patents and scientific publications. By supporting this methodical approach with real world data, The Anticipation of Converging Industries is perfect for industry practitioners looking for a competitive edge in the present and for the future. Similarly, academics will find a comprehensive theoretical concept for better understanding the underlying rationale of convergence at their disposal
The first critical history of interdisciplinary efforts and movements in the modern university. Interdisciplinarity—or the interrelationships among distinct fields, disciplines, or branches of knowledge in pursuit of new answers to pressing problems—is one of the most contested topics in higher education today. Some see it as a way to break down the silos of academic departments and foster creative interchange, while others view it as a destructive force that will diminish academic quality and destroy the university as we know it. In Undisciplining Knowledge, acclaimed scholar Harvey J. Graff presents readers with the first comparative and critical history of interdisciplinary initiatives in the modern university. Arranged chronologically, the book tells the engaging story of how various academic fields both embraced and fought off efforts to share knowledge with other scholars. It is a story of myths, exaggerations, and misunderstandings, on all sides. Touching on a wide variety of disciplines—including genetic biology, sociology, the humanities, communications, social relations, operations research, cognitive science, materials science, nanotechnology, cultural studies, literacy studies, and biosciences—the book examines the ideals, theories, and practices of interdisciplinarity through comparative case studies. Graff interweaves this narrative with a social, institutional, and intellectual history of interdisciplinary efforts over the 140 years of the modern university, focusing on both its implementation and evolution while exploring substantial differences in definitions, goals, institutional locations, and modes of organization across different areas of focus. Scholars across the disciplines, specialists in higher education, administrators, and interested readers will find the book’s multiple perspectives and practical advice on building and operating—and avoiding fallacies and errors—in interdisciplinary research and education invaluable.
In the wake of the Bradford and Brussels football disasters in 1985, football in England was subjected to detailed scrutiny and criticism. Critics - of all sorts and persuasions - saw in those terrible events, especially the Brussels riot, evidence of the broader problems afflicting British (not merely English) life. Football, which had once represented so much of what was once considered good - fair- play, team play and sportsmanship - was now discussed as a major national problem. To most critics, at home and abroad, football came to represent a nation in decline, characterised by organised violence, drunkenness, political extremism and a host of related social problems. It was widely assumed that football - but especially those English fans who travelled abroad - was the epitome of what had gone wrong with life in urban Britain. It is understandable that those disasters would lead to heated and emotional argument. But many of the explanations of the events culminating in the disasters appear less convincing when scrutinised more closely. This book tries to examine not only the alleged roots of those violent incidents, but also to locate the problems afflicting the national game within the context of the broad social and economic changes which have transformed British life in the past generation. The book is as much an analysis of recent British social history as it is about the game of football.
This book deals with both the understanding of, and the explanation of, knowledge about the causes, processes, and patterns of convergence innovation. It argues that the process of convergence innovation is a continuous disequilibrium between reference technology and its matching technology, adjusting the optimal balance between the functions of the two technologies. Contributors describe how convergence innovation is a learning process that requires both vertical and horizontal convergence, and case studies explore the different types of convergence innovation such as outside-in and inside-out. Convergence innovation has been taking place mainly by applying IT technologies to vast areas of conventional technologies, so that individuals or firms reap the benefits of the convergence between IT and conventional technologies. Such innovations are made possible by convergence, and they ultimately improve the welfare of human beings as companies solve diverse problems and increase employment. Examples in this book include biochemical companies in Indonesia, who were able to increase their market shares in bio-fertilizer and bio-pesticide products through bio-based technological convergence; and textile machinery firms in South Korea who have been survived by achieving convergence innovation on their core competences. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Asian Journal of Technology Innovation.