Электронный учебно-методический комплекс по учебной дисциплине Философия и методология науки для студентов, слушателей, осваивающих содержание образовательной программы высшего образования 2 ступени
.pdffaster, and contain more memory thanks to nanotechnology. Nanotechnology may have the ability to make existing medical applications cheaper and easier to use in places like the general practitioner's office and at home. Cars are being manufactured with nanomaterials so they may need fewer metals and less fuel to operate in the future.
Scientists are now turning to nanotechnology in an attempt to develop diesel engines with cleaner exhaust fumes. Platinum is currently used as the diesel engine catalyst in these engines. The catalyst is what cleans the exhaust fume particles. First a reduction catalyst is employed to take nitrogen atoms from NOx molecules in order to free oxygen. Next the oxidation catalyst oxidizes the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide and water. Platinum is used in both the reduction and the oxidation catalysts. Using platinum though, is inefficient in that it is expensive and unsustainable. Danish company InnovationsFonden invested DKK 15 million in a search for new catalyst substitutes using nanotechnology. The goal of the project, launched in the autumn of 2014, is to maximize surface area and minimize the amount of material required. Objects tend to minimize their surface energy; two drops of water, for example, will join to form one drop and decrease surface area. If the catalyst's surface area that is exposed to the exhaust fumes is maximized, efficiency of the catalyst is maximized. The team working on this project aims to create nanoparticles that will not merge. Every time the surface is optimized, material is saved. Thus, creating these nanoparticles will increase the effectiveness of the resulting diesel engine catalyst – in turn leading to cleaner exhaust fumes – and will decrease cost. If successful, the team hopes to reduce platinum use by 25%.
Nanotechnology also has a prominent role in the fast developing field of Tissue Engineering. When designing scaffolds, researchers attempt to the mimic the nanoscale features of a Cell's microenvironment to direct its differentiation down a suitable lineage. For example, when creating scaffolds to support the growth of bone, researchers may mimic osteoclastresorption pits. Researchers have successfully used DNA ori- gami-based nanobots capable of carrying out logic functions to achieve targeted drug delivery in cockroaches. It is said that the computational power of these nanobots can be scaled up to that of a Commodore 64.
An area of concern is the effect that industrial-scale manufacturing and use of nanomaterials would have on human health and the environment, as suggested by nanotoxicology research. For these reasons, some groups advocate that nanotechnology be regulated by governments.
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Others counter that overregulation would stifle scientific research and the development of beneficial innovations. Public health research agencies, such as the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health are actively conducting research on potential health effects stemming from exposures to nanoparticles. Some nanoparticle products may have unintended consequences. Researchers have discovered that bacteriostatic silver nanoparticles used in socks to reduce foot odor are being released in the wash. These particles are then flushed into the waste water stream and may destroy bacteria which are critical components of natural ecosystems, farms, and waste treatment processes. Public deliberations on risk perception in the US and UK carried out by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society found that participants were more positive about nanotechnologies for energy applications than for health applications, with health applications raising moral and ethical dilemmas such as cost and availability.
Experts, including director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies David Rejeski, have testified that successful commercialization depends on adequate oversight, risk research strategy, and public engagement. Berkeley, California is currently the only city in the United States to regulate nanotechnology; Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2008 considered enacting a similar law, but ultimately rejected it. Relevant for both research on and application of nanotechnologies, the insurability of nanotechnology is contested. Without state regulation of nanotechnology, the availability of private insurance for potential damages is seen as necessary to ensure that burdens are not socialised implicitly.
Nanofibers are used in several areas and in different products, in everything from aircraft wings to tennis rackets. Inhaling airborne nanoparticles and nanofibers may lead to a number of pulmonary diseases, e.g. fibrosis. Researchers have found that when rats breathed in nanoparticles, the particles settled in the brain and lungs, which led to significant increases in biomarkers for inflammation and stress response and that nanoparticles induce skin aging through oxidative stress in hairless mice.
A major study published more recently in Nature Nanotechnology suggests some forms of carbon nanotubes – a poster child for the "nanotechnology revolution" – could be as harmful as asbestos if inhaled in sufficient quantities. In the absence of specific regulation forthcoming from governments, Paull and Lyons have called for an exclusion of en-
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gineered nanoparticles in food. A newspaper article reports that workers in a paint factory developed serious lung disease and nanoparticles were found in their lungs.
Calls for tighter regulation of nanotechnology have occurred alongside a growing debate related to the human health and safety risks of nanotechnology. There is significant debate about who is responsible for the regulation of nanotechnology. Some regulatory agencies currently cover some nanotechnology products and processes – by "bolting on" nanotechnology to existing regulations – there are clear gaps in these regimes. Davies has proposed a regulatory road map describing steps to deal with these shortcomings.
Stakeholders concerned by the lack of a regulatory framework to assess and control risks associated with the release of nanoparticles and nanotubes have drawn parallels with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, thalidomide, genetically modified food, nuclear energy, reproductive technologies, biotechnology, and asbestosis. Dr. Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor to the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, concludes that there is insufficient funding for human health and safety research, and as a result there is currently limited understanding of the human health and safety risks associated with nanotechnology. As a result, some academics have called for stricter application of the precautionary principle, with delayed marketing approval, enhanced labelling and additional safety data development requirements in relation to certain forms of nanotechnology.
The Center for Nanotechnology in Society has found that people respond to nanotechnologies differently, depending on application – with participants in public deliberations more positive about nanotechnologies for energy than health applications – suggesting that any public calls for nano regulations may differ by technology sector.
7.1.49. Additive Manufacturing
Alhough media likes to use the term ―3D Printing‖ as a synonym for all Additive Manufacturing processes, there are actually lots of individual processes which vary in their method of layer manufacturing. Individual processes will differ depending on the material and machine technology used. Hence, in 2010, the American Society for Testing and Materials group ―ASTM F42 – Additive Manufacturing‖, formulated a set of standards that classify the range of Additive Manufacturing processes into 7 categories.
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Vat polymerisation uses a vat of liquid photopolymer resin, out of which the model is constructed layer by layer.
Material jetting creates objects in a similar method to a two dimensional ink jet printer. Material is jetted onto a build platform using either a continuous or Drop on Demand approach.
The binder jetting process uses two materials; a powder based material and a binder. The binder is usually in liquid form and the build material in powder form. A print head moves horizontally along the x and y axes of the machine and deposits alternating layers of the build material and the binding material. Fuse deposition modelling is a common material extrusion process and is trademarked by the company Stratasys. Material is drawn through a nozzle, where it is heated and is then deposited layer by layer. The nozzle can move horizontally and a platform moves up and down vertically after each new layer is deposited.
The Powder Bed Fusion process includes the following commonly used printing techniques: Direct metal laser sintering, Electron beam melting, Selective heat sintering, Selective laser melting and Selective laser sintering.
Sheet lamination processes include ultrasonic additive manufacturing and laminated object manufacturing. The Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing process uses sheets or ribbons of metal, which are bound together using ultrasonic welding.
Directed Energy Deposition covers a range of terminology: ‗Laser engineered net shaping, directed light fabrication, direct metal deposition, 3D laser cladding‘ It is a more complex printing process commonly used to repair or add additional material to existing components.
7.1.50. Technoprogressivism and Transgymanizm
Progressivism which asserts that the best possible ―posthuman future‖ is achievable only by ensuring that human enhancement technologies are safe, made available to everyone, and respect the right of individuals to control their own bodies. Appearing several times in Hughes‘ work, the term ―radical‖ is used as an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the root or going to the root. His central thesis is that emerging
Technoprogressivism is an ideological stance with roots in Enlightenment thought which focuses on how human flourishing is advanced by the convergence of technological progress and democratic social change. Technoprogressives argue that technological innovations can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are demo-
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cratically and transparently regulated for safety and efficacy, and then made universally and equitably available.
Technoprogressives maintain that accounts of ―progress‖ should focus on ethical and social as well as scientific and technical dimensions. For most technoprogressives, then, the growth of scientific knowledge or the accumulation of technological powers will not represent the achievement of proper progress unless and until it is accompanied by a just distribution of the costs, risks, and benefits of these new knowledges and capacities. At the same time, for most technoprogressives the achievement of better democracy, greater fairness, less violence, and a wider rights culture are all desirable, but inadequate in themselves to confront the quandaries of contemporary technological societies unless and until they are accompanied by progress in science and technology to support and implement these values.
Technoprogressives support the rights of persons to either maintain or modify his or her own mind and body, on his or her own terms, through informed, consensual recourse to, or refusal of, available therapeutic or enabling biomedical technology. Technoprogressivism extends beyond cognitive liberty and morphological rights to views on safe, accountable and liberatory uses of emerging technologies such as genomic choice in reproduction, GMOs, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, surveillance and geoengineering.
Hughes holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he served as the assistant director of research for the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Before graduate school he was temporarily ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1984 while working as a volunteer in Sri Lanka for the development organization Sarvodaya from 1983 to 1985. Hughes served as the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association from 2004 to 2006, and currently serves as the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he founded with Nick Bostrom. He also produces the syndicated weekly public affairs radio talk show program Changesurfer Radio and contributed to the Cyborg Democracy blog.
Hughes‘ book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future was published by Westview Press in November 2004.
The emergence of biotechnological controversies, however, is giving rise to a new axis, not entirely orthogonal to the previous dimensions but certainly distinct and independent of them. I call this new axis bio-
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politics, and the ends of its spectrum are transhumanists (the progressives) and, at the other end, the bio-Luddites or bio-fundamentalists. Transhumanists welcome the new biotechnologies, and the choices and challenges they offer, believing the benefits can outweigh the costs. In particular, they believe that human beings can and should take control of their own biological destiny, individually and collectively enhancing our abilities and expanding the diversity of intelligent life. Biofundamentalists, however, reject genetic choice technologies and ―designer babies,‖ ―unnatural‖ extensions of the life span, genetically modified animals and food, and other forms of hubristic violations of the natural order. While transhumanists assert that all intelligent ―persons‖ are deserving of rights, whether they are human or not, the biofundamentalists insist that only ―humanness,‖ the possession of human DNA and a beating heart, is a marker of citizenship and rights.
―Techno-progressivism, technoprogressivism, tech-progressivism or techprogressivism is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments‖
Technology Aware – Follows trends in emerging technologies; often eager to acquire and master newest gadgets; knows history of technology development and cultural integration; recognizes necessity for caution and responsibility.
Politically Progressive – Follows trends in emerging politics, both national and global; supports better democracy, greater fairness, less violence, and wider rights; enjoys learning about and sometimes participating in political action; knows history of political development and cultural integration; recognizes necessity for caution and responsibility.
And let‘s add one more definition that will help sort things out:
Transhumanist – Supports the use of science and technology to improve human physical and mental characteristics and capacities; regards aspects of the human condition, such as disability, suffering, disease, aging, and involuntary death as unnecessary and undesirable; looks to biotechnologies and other emerging technologies for these purposes; may believe that humans eventually will be able to transform themselves into beings with such greatly expanded abilities as to merit the label ―posthuman.‖
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7.1.51. Innovation economics
Innovation economics is a growing economic theory that emphasizes entrepreneurship and innovation. Innovation economics is based on two fundamental tenets: that the central goal of economic policy should be to spur higher productivity through greater innovation, and that markets relying on inputresources and price signals alone will not always be as effective in spurring higher productivity, and thereby economic growth. This is in contrast to the two other conventional economic doctrines, neoclassical economics and Keynesian economics.
Joseph Schumpeter was one of the first and most important scholars who extensively has tackle the question of innovation in Economics. In contrast to his contemporary John Maynard Keynes, Schumpeter contended that evolving institutions, entrepreneurs, and technological change were at the heart of economic growth, not independent forces that are largely unaffected by policy. He argued that "capitalism can only be understood as an evolutionary process of continuous innovation.
But it is only within the last 15 years that a theory and narrative of economic growth focused on innovation that was grounded in Schumpeter‘s ideas has emerged. Innovation economics attempted to answer the fundamental problem in the puzzle of total factor productivity growth. Continual growth of output could no longer be explained only in increase of inputs used in the production process as understood in industrialization. Hence, innovation economics focused on a theory of economic creativity that would impact the theory of the firm and organization decision-making. Hovering between heterodox economics that emphasized the fragility of conventional assumptions and orthodox economics that ignored the fragility of such assumptions, innovation economics aims for joint didactics between the two. As such, it enlarges the Schumpeterian analyses of new technological system by incorporating new ideas of information and communication technology in the global economy.
Indeed, a new theory and narrative of economic growth focused on innovation has emerged in the last decade. Innovation economics emerges on the wage of other schools of thoughts in economics, including new institutional economics, new growth theory, endogenous growth theory, evolutionary economics, neo-Schumpeterian economics
– provides an economic framework that explains and helps support growth in today‘s knowledge economy. Leading theorists of innovation
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economics include both formal economists, as well as management theorists, technology policy experts, and others. These include Paul Romer, Elhanan Helpman, W. Brian Arthur, Robert Axtell, Richard R. Nelson, Richard Lipsey, Michael Porter, Christopher Freeman.
Innovation economists believe that what primarily drives economic growth in today‘s knowledge-based economy is not capitalaccumulation, as claimed by neoclassicalism asserts, but innovative capacity spurred by appropriable knowledge and technological externalities. Economic growth in innovation economics is the end-product of knowledge; regimes and policies allowing for entrepreneurship and innovation; technological spillovers and externalities between collaborative firms; and systems of innovation that create innovative environments.
In 1970, economist Milton Friedman said in the New York Times that a business‘s sole purpose is to generate profits for their shareholders and companies that pursued other missions would be less competitive, resulting in fewer benefits to owners, employees, and society. Yet data over the past several decades shows that while profits matter, good firms supply far more, particularly in bringing innovation to the market. This fosters economic growth, employment gains, and other society-wide benefits. Business school professor David Ahlstrom asserts: ―the main goal of business is to develop new and innovative goods and services that generate economic growth while delivering benefits to society.‖ In contrast to neoclassical economics, innovation economics offer differing perspectives on main focus, reasons for economic growth, and the assumptions of context between economic actors:
Despite the differences in economic thought, both perspectives are based on the same core premise: the foundation of all economic growth is the optimization of the utilization of factors and the measure of success is how well the factor utilization is optimized. Whatever the factors, it nonetheless leads to the same situation of special endowments, varying relative prices, and production processes. So while, the two differ in theoretical concepts, innovation economics can find fertile ground in mainstream economics, rather than remain in diametric contention.
Empirical evidence worldwide points to a positive link between technological innovation and economic performance. The drive of biotech firms in Germany was due to the R&D subsidies to joint projects, network partners, and close cognitive distance of collaborative partners within a cluster. These factors increased patent performance in the bio-
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tech industry. Additionally, innovation capacity explains much of the GDP growth in India and China between 1981–2004 but especially in the 1990s. Their development of a National Innovation System through heavy investment of R&D expenditures and personnel, patents, and high-tech/service exports strengthened their innovation capacity.
By linking the science sector with the business sector, establishing incentives for innovative activities, and balancing the import of technology and indigenous R&D effort, both countries experienced rapid economic growth in recent decades. Also, the Council of Foreign Relations asserted that since the end of the 1970s, the U.S. has gained a disproportionate share of the world‘s wealth through their aggressive pursuit of technological change, demonstrating that technological innovation is a central catalyst of steady economic performance. Concisely, evidence shows that innovation contributes to steady economic growth and rise in per capita income. However, some empirical studies investigating the innovation-performance-link lead to rather mixed results and indicate that the relationship be more subtle and complex than commonly assumed. In particular, the relationship between innovativeness and performance seems to differ in intensity and significance across empirical contexts, environmental circumstances, and conceptual dimensions.
All of the above has taken place in an era of data constraint, as identified by Zvi Griliches twenty years ago. Because the primary domain of innovation is commerce the key data resides there; continually out of campus reach in reports hidden within factories, corporate offices and technical centers. This recusal still stymies progress today. Recent attempts at data transference have led, not least, to the ‗positive link‘ (above) being upgraded to exact algebra between R&D productivity and GDP allowing prediction from one to the other. This is pending further disclosure from commercial sources but several pertinent documents are already available.
While innovation is important, it is not a happenstance occurrence as a natural harbor or natural resources are, but a deliberate, concerted effort of markets, institutions, policymakers, and effect use of geographic space. In global economic restructuring, location has become a key element in establishing competitive advantage as regions focus on their unique assets to spur innovation. Even more, thriving metropolitan economies that carry multiple clusters essentially fuel national economiesthrough their pools of human capital, innovation, quality places,
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and infrastructure. Cities become ―innovative spaces‖ and ―cradles of creativity‖ as drivers of innovation. They become essential to the system of innovation through the supply side: ready, available, abundant capital and labor; good infrastructure for productive activities, and diversified production structures that spawn synergies and hence innovation. In addition they grow due to the demand side: diverse population of varying occupations, ideas, skills; high and differentiated level of consumer demand; and constant recreation of urban order especially infrastructure of streets, water systems, energy, and transportation.
semiconductors and information technology in Silicon Valley in California
high-technology and life sciences in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina
energy companies in Energy Corridor in Houston, Texas
financial products and services in New York City
biotechnology in Genome Valley in Hyderabad, India and Boston, Massachusetts
nanotechnology in Tech Valley, New York
precision engineering in South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
petrochemical complexes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
train locomotive and rolling stock manufacturing in Beijing,
China
automotive engineering in Baden-Württemberg, Germany
digital media technologies in Digital Media City in Seoul, South
Korea
7.1.52. Start-up
A startup company is an entrepreneurial venture which is typically a newly emerged, fast-growing business that aims to meet a marketplace need by developing a viable business model around innovative product, service, process or a platform. A startup is usually a company such as a small business, a partnership or an organization designed to effectively develop and validate a scalable business model.
Startup companies can come in all forms and sizes. Some of the critical tasks are to build a co-founder team to secure key skills, know-how, financial resources, and other elements to conduct research on the target market. Typically, a startup will begin by building a first minimum viable product, a prototype, to validate, assess and develop the new ideas or business concepts. In addition, startups founders do research to deepen
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