Sustainable Development for the Americas


Book Description

Environmental sustainability efforts require a great deal of engagement and political will, ranging from local communities to state departments. Science diplomats—from experts and scientists to spokespersons and ambassadors—can help facilitate at all levels and yield valued resources from technology sharing, capacity building, and knowledge exchanges. This book explores the importance of sustained international scientific cooperation, building community resilience, and the role of political will in sustainability and diplomacy. It shows how even small diplomatic efforts can influence myriad issues, from overfishing to human rights negotiations to global carbon emission reduction. Features: • Examines various topics such as global climate change, arid environments, water security and governance, trans-boundary conflict and cooperation, urban and rural resilience, and public health. • Presents case studies from various geographic regions through the lens of diplomacy, including the US–Mexico border, the Gulf of California, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and China. • Discusses how building networks of people, organizations, and countries engaged in science diplomacy is crucial for mutual growth and for overcoming conflicting political stances. Sustainable Development for the Americas: Science, Health and Engineering Policy and Diplomacy provides a useful resource for diplomats, policymakers, students, and decision-makers. It provides numerous examples of how using science and technology for policy and diplomacy is essential to finding common ground among nations for a collective global benefit.




Open Access and Digital Libraries


Book Description

The social sciences have made fundamental contributions to the understanding of the economic, political and social life of nations in the past century. Social science libraries now have an important role to play in the context of the information society as significant sources of academic and social knowledge. This work provides information on the development and use of digital resources in the social sciences emphasizing best practices; an articulation of some of the problems presented to providing these resources; and a view to the use of these resources to support sustainable development.




Proceedings of the XV Ibero-American Congress of Mechanical Engineering


Book Description

This open access book shows some of the highlights presented at the XV Ibero-American Congress of Mechanical Engineering. The papers explore the forefront of Mechanical Engineering, containing research into fluid mechanics, energy systems, tribology, materials science, robotics, mechatronics, biomechanics, instrumentation, thermodynamics, and mechanical sustainability.




Bioeconomies


Book Description

This book explores the promissory discourses and practices associated with the bioeconomy, focusing especially on the transformation of institutions; the creation, appropriation, and distribution of value; the struggle over resources, power, and meaning; and the role of altruism, kinship, and care practices. Governments and science enthusiasts worldwide are embracing the bioeconomy, championing it as the key to health, wealth, and sustainability, while citing it as justification to transform research and regulatory institutions, health and agricultural practices, ethics of privacy and ownership, and conceptions of self and kin. Drawing together studies from Asia, Australia, the Americas, and Europe, this volume encompasses subjects as diverse as regenerative medicine, population health research, agricultural finance, biobanking, assisted reproduction, immigration, breastfeeding, self-help groups, GM fish, and mining sewage.




Science, Technology, and Higher Education


Book Description

This volume explores the governance and management of science, technology, and innovation (STI) in relation to social inclusion and sustainability, highlighting its goal, challenges, and opportunities. Divided into two sections, it addresses the goals and institutional arrangements around sustainable development in the context of Latin American countries as well as the challenges of developing absorptive STI capacities for inclusion in the higher education institutions and systems. The chapters tackle the important role of citizen science, science diplomacy, peace building, mission-oriented policies, public innovation, institutional entrepreneurs, and policy networks. Researchers and scholars will find an opportunity to better grasp several topics and methodologies in knowledge development in the governance of STI. This interdisciplinary work presents original research on science, technology and innovation policy and governance studies in an understudied region.




Knowledges, Practices and Activism from Feminist Epistemologies


Book Description

Science, Technology and Gender studies (STG) include the different approaches to feminist epistemologies, their current debates and also the theoretical analysis of different scientific controversies around cases that involve women's bodies and health, sex/gender, and techno-scientific practices. These studies are linked to the demand for another type of hybrid knowledge that revalorizes the practices, the embodied experience and care, as well as the subject positions traditionally excluded from the scientific community. The diversity of voices has allowed a plural knowledge in techno-scientific practices to emerge as well as the identification of gender, class, sexuality, race, functional diversity inequalities, for example. This has made possible a bioethical reflection which is not understood as abstract normative principles but linked to the practices and lived experience. Divided into three parts, this edited volume presents original and insightful research on STG from feminist epistemologies. The first part addresses fundamental theoretical questions that feminist epistemologies raise; and how they confront complex social problems, such as gender-based violence. The second part deals with research practices or processes, explicitly showing the relationship between science and policy. Finally, the third part presents some case studies that show the multidimensionality of the problems and the depth and richness of these analyses. The contributions included in the volume present original and in-depth research on local case studies within Spain. Not only challenging the hegemonic and global perspectives on different issues, this volume also opens up and enables discussion of these global narratives. This edited volume is a useful tool for researchers and university students in multiple fields such as gender studies, feminist epistemologies, STS, cultural history or transgender studies.




The Development of Social Knowledge


Book Description

The result of a deep research work sustained for more than two decades, this book studies the construction of social knowledge from a constructivist perspective inherited from Piagetian thought. It thus advances in a process of revision and discussion, while maintaining crucial aspects of this current for the approach to the construction of the subject and the object of knowledge, in the search for the elaboration of an explanatory theory for the formation of new knowledge. A collaborative proposal between different disciplines of potential interest for the different actors who study and intervene in this field.




Rethinking Technology and Engineering


Book Description

This book gives insight into the ongoing work of the forum on Philosophy, Engineering and Technology (fPET), which brings together philosophers and engineers from all over the world to discuss philosophical issues of engineering across disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on presentations and conversations at the fPET 2020 online conference hosted by the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile, the chapters establish connections and describe discoveries that have so far been neglected in the discussions held within the young discipline of philosophy of engineering. This volume appeals to students and researchers in the field, through twenty-four proposals brought forward by leading scholars and emerging voices. Pertinent themes covered are: the broader engagement of engineers in problem-solving beyond the scope of their own profession the exploration of new goals for technology development and the implementation of strategies to reach these goals the need for philosophical content and unique pedagogical approaches to engineering education, digital transformations, artificial intelligence and the ethics of online collaboration in social media critical revisions of fundamental terminology and theoretical modelling of key concepts in engineering design, ethics, innovation and the anthropology of technology




Multivariate Analysis in Management, Engineering and the Sciences


Book Description

Recently statistical knowledge has become an important requirement and occupies a prominent position in the exercise of various professions. In the real world, the processes have a large volume of data and are naturally multivariate and as such, require a proper treatment. For these conditions it is difficult or practically impossible to use methods of univariate statistics. The wide application of multivariate techniques and the need to spread them more fully in the academic and the business justify the creation of this book. The objective is to demonstrate interdisciplinary applications to identify patterns, trends, association sand dependencies, in the areas of Management, Engineering and Sciences. The book is addressed to both practicing professionals and researchers in the field.




Repensar la Educación para un Mundo Global y Transcultural


Book Description

Además disponible en inglés: Rethinking Education for a Global, Transcultural World Repensar la educación es esencial en un mundo, global, transcultural, cambiante y comunicado. A través del libro Repensar la Educación para un Mundo global, Transcultural se argumenta y se analiza cómo construir relaciones entre la escuela y la sociedad, y las posibilidades de trascender las barreras en diferentes contextos nacionales: Chile, Israel, México, Marruecos, Polonia y España. El principal objetivo que queremos conseguir con las aportaciones realizadas en el libro, es conocer cómo los Sistemas Educativos y las escuelas de diferentes países responden a los cambios sociales causados por la globalización, las migraciones y las tecnologías de la comunicación. Los autores son profesores de diferentes disciplinas científicas y de diferentes religiones, culturas y puntos de vista que viven las realidades descritas en los capítulos y piensan desde estas realidades cómo mejorar y cómo debe ser la educación en un mundo global, desafiante y cambiante. Hacemos hincapié en la importancia de este libro y sus implicaciones en la educación de niños y jóvenes, y en la formación de los maestros. Por esta razón, este es un libro diseñado para profesores de escuelas primarias y secundarias, padres, directores, supervisores, profesores universitarios que forman a los maestros, para los estudiantes de la universidad y para todos los que quieren saber y pensar acerca de la educación en un mundo global e intercultural y las nuevas formas de comunicación para hacer frente al aprendizaje, ya sea a nivel local o a nivel mundial. La misión de todos es continuar construyendo la educación, y para ello en este libro se presentan las contribuciones y recomendaciones de los profesionales de diferentes partes del mundo que permitirán al lector conocer, analizar, comprender y apreciar la importancia de la educación para preparar a los estudiantes en un pensamiento abierto y crítico en un mundo global. Los capítulos no ofrecen una panacea, pero ofrecen muchas ideas sobre cómo, a través de la educación, preparar a los ciudadanos para una sociedad global y transcultural.