Approaching Transhumanism: On How Human Beings Transform in the 21st Century

The following article is to introduce the reader into a cultural and intellectual movement whose aim is to identify the need for improvement in human life in the sphere of physicality as well as mentality with the aid of modern technologies – transhumanism. With the dramatic change in the perception of technology, transhumanist welcome the opportunity to improve cognitive skills, help to perpetuate human happiness, or increase longevity. Although the opponents of the transhumanist thought dismiss it as “the world’s most dangerous idea,” the adversaries advocate that the alternation of human form is both practical and reasonable. With the use of modern technology, enthusiasts of transhumanism try to prove that the human body needs to be re-invented in order to transcend the natural limitations. In my work I will try to tackle the problem of human body being currently subject to gradual transition from Homo Sapiens to Robo Sapiens, the process of ‘becoming’ a cyborg. By incorporating bodily augmentation, contemporary artists such as Stelarc or Neil Harbisson cast a light on the change of physical form, as well as the definition of being human. Evoking much controversy, transhumanism brings a completely new dimension to the understanding of the current human condition

Emotional Biosensing: Exploring Critical Alternatives

Emotional biosensing is rising in daily life: Data and categories claim to know how people feel and suggest what they should do about it, while CSCW explores new biosensing possibilities. Prevalent approaches to emotional biosensing are too limited, focusing on the individual, optimization, and normative categorization. Conceptual shifts can help explore alternatives: toward materiality, from representation toward performativity, inter-action to intra-action, shifting biopolitics, and shifting affect/desire. We contribute (1) synthesizing wide-ranging conceptual lenses, providing analysis connecting them to emotional biosensing design, (2) analyzing selected design exemplars to apply these lenses to design research, and (3) offering our own recommendations for designers and design researchers. In particular we suggest humility in knowledge claims with emotional biosensing, prioritizing care and affirmation over self- improvement, and exploring alternative desires. We call for critically questioning and generatively re- imagining the role of data in configuring sensing, feeling, ‘the good life,’ and everyday experience

Different views : including others in participatory health service innovation

We describe our experiences employing experience-based design (EBD) to improve an outpatients health service in the UK and discuss the impacts of incorporating the voices of those not directly using or working within the service. We suggest that such new perspectives, experiences and expertise may enable the development of service innovations outside patients’ and staffs’ conceptual space of problems/solutions, but can affect the ownership and agency within the change project. To conclude, we propose a balance between accomplishing change and creating the self-belief to achieve it

Location prediction based on a sector snapshot for location-based services

In location-based services (LBSs), the service is provided based on the users' locations through location determination and mobility realization. Most of the current location prediction research is focused on generalized location models, where the geographic extent is divided into regular-shaped cells. These models are not suitable for certain LBSs where the objectives are to compute and present on-road services. Such techniques are the new Markov-based mobility prediction (NMMP) and prediction location model (PLM) that deal with inner cell structure and different levels of prediction, respectively. The NMMP and PLM techniques suffer from complex computation, accuracy rate regression, and insufficient accuracy. In this paper, a novel cell splitting algorithm is proposed. Also, a new prediction technique is introduced. The cell splitting is universal so it can be applied to all types of cells. Meanwhile, this algorithm is implemented to the Micro cell in parallel with the new prediction technique. The prediction technique, compared with two classic prediction techniques and the experimental results, show the effectiveness and robustness of the new splitting algorithm and prediction technique

Constructing Futures: Outlining a Transhumanist Vision of the Future and the Challenge to Christian Theology of its Proposed Uses of New and Future Developments in Technology

Transhumanists arc committed to re-evaluating the entire human condition and offering proposalsfor transcending mortality, principally by augmenting the human body with mechanical components or by transferring the human mind into intelligent hyper-computers. In this essay, the author\'s methodology is to critique the culture oftranshumanism, arguing, with Barbour, that all technology is tool whose use is determined by the cultural and socialframeworks within which it is utilized. Transhumanism is characterized as morally ambiguous, extremely individualistic, fixated upon health, vitality, and power, ideological, reductionist, and self-deluded. Its proposed use of technology is, thus, highly suspect and deserves a robust theological response

Taking great pains: critical theory, affective pedagogies and radical democracy

The consolidation of neoliberal capitalism over the past decade has been intense, as has the articulation of critical and creative responses to it. One of the most remarkable is the turn towards forms of political resistance that seek liberation from the logics of state and capital while – or through – simultaneously creating alternative, radically democratic modes of existence. Many of these draw on anarchistic and autonomist traditions of critical theory which assert the possibility of prefiguring alternative political projects as well as critiquing existing ones, thus appearing to transcend what Herbert Marcuse described as a ‘vicious circle’ of liberation (1964, 1967). We have thus seen a proliferation of work on problems of prefigurative politics, autonomy, co-operation and self-valorisation; significantly, there is renewed attention to pedagogy in critical theory and as a political practice. However, there is still little attention to the affective and social labour that this type of prefigurative theory and practice requires, or to the systemic critique of the conditions of possibility for it to constitute a challenge to neoliberalism. My concern is that these lacunae can lead to misinterpretations of the meaning of radical democracy and of its possibilities and limitations as a challenge to the logics of neoliberal capitalism and other forms of dehumanising power. In this paper, I draw on work with British-based cultural workers who are active in radical-democratic projects to illustrate how bringing practical work into conversation with critical theories of political subjectivity, on the one hand, and theories of affective pedagogy and politics, on the other, can contribute to strengthening both theories and practices of radical democracy

Do innovation projects with ICT enhance learning? Experiences from case studies in Galician schools

We present a study which analyzes the factors that influence the processes of change in innovation projects with ICT in schools. In the current socio-political and economic context, the demand for innovation is felt across all fields. The educational system is no exception, and schools are expected to hop on board the innovation wagon. Our research involved four cases including a pre-school, two primary schools and a secondary school in Galicia (Spain). A collaborative action research methodology was used in the usual stages: action, observation, and reflection. The factors affecting change in schools are complex and intertwined. The present study focuses on the following three research questions: How do education administration policies affect the development of school innovation processes with ICT? What training and professional development processes are mobilized for the management and evaluation of school innovation projects? And which aspects of school organizational culture change when there are innovation processes with ICT? The findings reveal a strong interconnection among the dimensions analyzed (socio-political context, school organization, teachers, their professional culture and their training and professional development). The difficulties and possibilities associated with each dimension as well as the way they interconnect also come to light. (DIPF/Orig.)Diese Studie dient der Untersuchung von Faktoren, die Veränderungsprozesse in informations- und kommunikationstechnologisch gestützten Schulinnovationsprojekten beeinflussen. In gegenwärtigen gesellschaftspolitischen und ökonomischen Zusammenhängen ist die Forderung nach Innovationen auf allen Feldern spürbar. Das Bildungssystem ist dabei keine Ausnahme und von Schulen wird erwartet, dass sie auf den Innovationszug aufspringen. Die Untersuchung umfasst vier Fälle in Galicien (Spanien): eine Vorschule, zwei Primarschulen sowie eine Sekundarschule. Dem methodische Ansatz der kollaborativen Handlungsforschung gemäß erfolgte die Untersuchung in den Stufen Handlung, Beobachtung und Reflexion. Faktoren, die Veränderungen in Schulen betreffen, sind komplex und miteinander verwoben. Der Studie liegen die drei folgenden Forschungsfragen zugrunde: Wie beeinflussen Strategien der Bildungsadministration die Entwicklung von Schulinnovationsprozessen mit IKT? Welche Aus- und Weiterbildung und welche professionellen Entwicklungsprozesse werden für die Durchführung und Evaluation von Schulinnovationsprojekten bereitgestellt? Und welche Aspekte der schulischen Organisationskultur verändern sich im Zuge informations- und kommunikationstechnologisch gestützter Innovationsprozesse? Die Befunde zeigen starke Querverbindungen zwischen den untersuchten Dimensionen auf (gesellschaftspolitischer Kontext, Schulorganisation, Lehrkräfte sowie deren Berufskultur, Aus- und Weiterbildung). Außerdem erhellen die Ergebnisse die Schwierigkeiten und Möglichkeiten, die mit den einzelnen Dimensionen verbunden sind, sowie die Art und Weisen ihrer Verknüpfung. (DIPF/Orig.

Locating distributed leadership

This special issue addresses a number of the key themes that have been surfacing from the literature on distributed leadership (DL) for some time. Together with those papers selected to be included in this special issue, the authors set out both to explore and contribute to a number of the current academic debates in relation to DL, while at the same time examining the extent to which research on DL has permeated the management field. The paper examines a number of key concepts, ideas and themes in relation to DL and, in so doing, highlights the insights offered through new contributions and interpretations. The paper offers a means by which forms of DL might be conceptualized to be better incorporated into researchers' scholarship and research, and a framework is presented which considers a number of different dimensions of DL, how it may be planned, and how it may emerge, together with how it may or may not align with other organizational activities and aspects. © 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Management Reviews © 2011 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd