Preface

The Mesolithic period (approximately 10,000 - 5000 years ago), from the end of the last Ice Age to the beginnings of agriculture, is now seen as critical in our understanding of all later developments - both in human society and in the natural world - throughout prehistoric northern Europe. The Scottish landscape and its plants and animals underwent dramatic change, a change experienced by the first human inhabitants - the Mesolithic hunters, fishers and gatherers. This volume of collected papers originated in a ground-breaking international conference held in Edinburgh in November 1999, when leading experts gathered at the Royal Museum to present and discuss current knowledge in Scotland, and the rest of the UK and Ireland, informed by insights into recent developments in Denmark, Norway, Poland and Sweden. These published studies present an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the exciting and expanding field of Mesolithic research

Трансформація природи знання в постіндустріальному суспільстві: до нової парадигми освіти?

I start from the famous scheme of historical development of our civilization by American sociologist Daniel Bell. He identified 3 main stages of such development: 1)agrarian society; 2)industrial society; 3)post-industrial society. What is the nature of knowledge at each of these stages? In agrarian society knowledge is a kind of sacred access to creation, “participation mystique” in creative activities of god or gods. If we would analyse human nature at this stage, it would be a kind of shift from “biological” to “social” nature. Or, with certain simplification, a “construction of social”. In typical industrial society this shift is successfully completed. Knowledge here is an opportunity to create and to expand a new world, which is relevant to social nature of human beings. In post-industrial society knowledge is a kind of access to “creation of creation”(or, if we use the popular term of Jean Baudrillard, creation of “simulacrums of simulation”). At this stage we have a kind of shift from “social” to “virtual” nature of human beings. This shift is enforced by expanding of Internet and modern (or postmodern) information and communication technologies. We could also call this knowledge “incomplete knowledge”, because in contemporary civilization future has a kind of ontological priority over the past and, even, over the present. The numerous literature on innovations and their crucial role in contemporary world helps to support this argument. And here we come to the necessity of creation of new paradigm of education, which would reflect these changes of nature of knowledge and human nature together with the other important attributes of nowadays reality (for example, the phenomenon of “overcoming the national” and “origin of the global” is specially interesting for me). I want to identify the main features of this new paradigm of education in my presentation.Робиться спроба, спираючись на періодизацію історичного розвитку, запропоновану Деніелем Беллом (аграрне, індустріальне та постіндустріальне суспільство), простежити еволюцію природи людського знання. Доводиться, що на етапі аграрного суспільства знання - це щось сакральне, доступне лише обраним. На етапі індустриального суспільства знання перетворюється на технологію творення нової, штучної реальності, а в постіндустріальну добу надає можливості творити середовище креативної самореалізації, що є викликом для традиційної системи освіти та вимагає її радикального оновлення

Вектор соціального розвитку України в контексті перспектив побудови інноваційної економіки

The article is devoted to the problems of social and human development in the context of transformation of modern economy into innovative one. Theoretical analysis of the main directions of human development have been carried out. The dynamics of the Human Development Index and the interdependence of its components at the example of Ukrainian regions have been analyzed. The dependence of the Human Development Index mainly on its social component has been revealed by modeling. The necessity to choose the vector of social development according to the priorities of human development in Ukraine at the stage of creation of innovative economy has been proved. Стаття присвячена проблемам соціального розвитку і розвитку людини в контексті перетворення сучасної економіки на інноваційну. Проведено теоретичний аналіз основних напрямків людського розвитку. Динаміка індексу розвитку людського потенціалу і взаємопов'язаність його компонентів були проаналізовані на прикладі регіонів України. Моделлю було показано, що індекс розвитку людського потенціалу в першу чергу залежить від соціальних компонентів. Доведено необхідність вибору вектора соціального розвитку в контексті пріоритетів людського розвитку на етапі становлення інноваційної економіки

Achieving Access: Professional Movements and the Politics of Health Universalism

[Excerpt] This book examines efforts to expand access to health care and AIDS medicine in Thailand, Brazil, and South Africa. Although these countries are geographi­cally far apart, they share many similarities as newly industrializing countries engaged in processes of democratic opening. Scholars have often suggested that expansionary social policy is the product of left-wing parties and labor unions or bottom-up people’s movements. From a strictly rational perspective, that these groups would be at the forefront of such change makes perfect sense. After all, expanding access to health care and medicine would seem to be in their interest, and they would appear to have a lot to gain. While this book recognizes the role they often play, it focuses on a different, more puzzling set of actors whose actions are sometimes even more decisive in expanding access to health care and medicine: elites from esteemed professions who, rationally speaking, aren’t in need of health care or medicine themselves and who would otherwise seem to have little to gain from such policies. This group includes doctors like Sanguan Nitayarumphong and Paulo Teixeira, whose work with the poor and needy informed their advocacy for universal health care in Thailand and Brazil while also putting them into conflict with the medical profession of which they were a part. How is it that these people would play such an important and active role in making change happen

Application of Tuncay's language teacher model to business-customer relations

It seems that what has been said by now about market and competitiveness do not fit perfectly with competences of getting the best of profit. Sometimes, the classical methods of fundamentals of management do not apply to individual companies that face irregular accommodation on the market. It is high time to replace the perfect business with the right one. New approaches and models may help in identifying new competition trends, changes for better application of purposes and proposals.Comment: 5 pages, no figures, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

Transforming the Academy: Knowledge Formation in the Age of Digital Information

Computer-mediated knowledge formation will profoundly change every academic discipline and pose fundamental challenges to the mission of the modern research university in teaching the new knowledge, securing sound methods for creating it, directing it to our deepest intellectual concerns, and insuring that we become wiser for it. Digital information, now measured in petabytes, is expanding rapidly; already most of it will never be examined by any human. Computers show us where to look and help us see patterns and extract meaning. How will this way of knowing impact the research university as the Age of Digital Information unfolds? To grasp the magnitude of the changes we face, it is important to realize that knowledge created with computer assistance goes well beyond classical knowledge formation rising from computer processing of digital information resources on a scale that could not be achieved by all peoples of the earth acting in concert using all their cognitive powers. Computers change the scale at which resources can be examined, and they already provide sufficient discriminatory powers that scale and speed compensate for their currently limited intelligence as they draw conclusions, make predictions, and participate in discoveries. The academy is not generally aware of the potential of this transformation, although some computer scientists and computational scientist are. The challenge for society is to assimilate digital knowledge and to improve the human condition by its application. We also seek to understand how it will shape our sense of self, individually and collectively as a society and a culture. In all of these tasks, the universities play an indispensable role for which they must prepare

Values Generation: Turning Values into Wealth

Much of management behavior is focused on increasing benefits (usually thought of — in terms of Utilitarian ethics — as maximizing utility). Good, in terms of what increases benefits; thus, what is preferred by business is defined as the ability to motivate individuals in a way that increases desired outcomes (or that enhances organizational performance). This talent (referred to as the art of persuasion or the art of management) is valued because it facilitates achieving the desired results. Managers with such persuasive or motivational skills are highly regarded because of their ability to increase personal wealth, improve performance, and contribute to increasing stakeholder satisfaction. However, as was made clear by Aristotle’s socio-economic ethics, a leader’s ability to generate higher levels of excellence is based on a character trait defined by Aristotle as magnanimous. Developing such a character is important because it is the key to enabling a person to get more of what he or she wants out of life and with such a character a manager/leader is able to motivate an organization to have improved performance. This article highlights the dynamics that are connected with how such characters contribute to enhancing organizational performance, how an individual obtains such character traits, and why such characters contribute to the prosperity of other individuals and of society

A Resource Letter on Physical Eschatology

This Resource Letter treats the nascent discipline of physical eschatology, which deals with the future evolution of astrophysical objects, including the universe itself, and is thus both a counterpart and a complement to conventional cosmology. While sporadic interest in these topics has flared up from time to time during the entire history of humanity, a truly physical treatment of these issues has only become possible during the last quarter century. This Resource Letter deals with these recent developments. It offers a starting point for understanding what the physical sciences might say about the future of our universe and its constituents. Journal articles, books, and web sites are provided for the following topics: history and epistemology of physical eschatology, the future of the Solar system, the future of stars and stellar systems, the global future of the universe, information processing and intelligent communities, as well as some side issues, like the possible vacuum phase transition and the so-called Doomsday Argument.Comment: Annotated bibliography, 40 pages, to be published in American Journal of Physics early 200

The Perception of Students from the Economic Area on the New Learning Methods in the Knowledge Society

The competition that exists among the higher education institutions involves great efforts to adapt to the new requirements of the modern society. The educational offers must face the new challenges that require flexibility, rapidity, complexity and provide students both with specific habits and efficient work tools. Our research aimed at identifying the perception of students from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA), which belongs to “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, concerning the utility and degree of acceptance of the new e-learning methods. We try to analyze the degree of opposition in adopting them, the limits and motivations, the preference for a certain type of teaching-learning (usual, e-learning, mixed), as well as at finding out the way in which students perceive the assessment of their knowledge by using the new information technologies. The research demonstrates that there are significant differences between what is required and what is expected on a theoretical level from the new educational systems as well as the way in which they are accepted and used by students in practice. The main identified barrier is the students’ reluctance towards the new learning methods due, in our opinion, to the human opposition to change on the one hand and on the other hand to the lack of information about its advantages. We consider appropriate expanding research topic article to the other universities in the country in order to understand the impact of current e-learning as a whole, at national level.e-Learning, the knowledge technology, e-universities, students, communication, virtual, education

The Role of the Food & Beverage Sector in Expanding Economic Opportunity

The food and beverage industry has a unique role in expanding economic opportunity because it is universal to human life and health. The industry operates at multiple levels of society where billions of people grow, transform, and sell food, particularly in developing countries where agriculture dominates all other economic sectors. Yet a vast share of these workers cannot both satisfy their immediate consumption needs and earn sufficient income from food markets to improve their lives. This report applies the results of primary and secondary research to a number of case studies to draw lessons on strategies for expanding economic opportunity in the food & beverage sector. Primary research consisted of telephone interviews and secondary research included a review of reports, studies, and articles from a range of sources for each case study. The result is a paper that provides insight into how pioneering large firms are breaking this dilemma and building economic opportunity around food beverage value chains