The People's Network

The People's Network
Author: Robert MacDougall
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2014-01-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812245695

The Bell System dominated telecommunications in the United States and Canada for most of the twentieth century, but its monopoly was not inevitable. In the decades around 1900, ordinary citizens—farmers, doctors, small-town entrepreneurs—established tens of thousands of independent telephone systems, stringing their own wires to bring this new technology to the people. Managed by opportunists and idealists alike, these small businesses were motivated not only by profit but also by the promise of open communication as a weapon against monopoly capital and for protection of regional autonomy. As the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to retain control of their local networks and companies—a struggle with an emerging corporate giant that has been almost entirely forgotten. The People's Network reconstructs the story of the telephone's contentious beginnings, exploring the interplay of political economy, business strategy, and social practice in the creation of modern North American telecommunications. Drawing from government documents in the United States and Canada, independent telephone journals and publications, and the archives of regional Bell operating companies and their rivals, Robert MacDougall locates the national debates over the meaning, use, and organization of the telephone industry as a turning point in the history of information networks. The competing businesses represented dueling political philosophies: regional versus national identity and local versus centralized power. Although independent telephone companies did not win their fight with big business, they fundamentally changed the way telecommunications were conceived.

Culture in Networks

Culture in Networks
Author: Paul McLean
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745687202

Today, interest in networks is growing by leaps and bounds, in both scientific discourse and popular culture. Networks are thought to be everywhere – from the architecture of our brains to global transportation systems. And networks are especially ubiquitous in the social world: they provide us with social support, account for the emergence of new trends and markets, and foster social protest, among other functions. Besides, who among us is not familiar with Facebook, Twitter, or, for that matter, World of Warcraft, among the myriad emerging forms of network-based virtual social interaction? It is common to think of networks simply in structural terms – the architecture of connections among objects, or the circuitry of a system. But social networks in particular are thoroughly interwoven with cultural things, in the form of tastes, norms, cultural products, styles of communication, and much more. What exactly flows through the circuitry of social networks? How are people's identities and cultural practices shaped by network structures? And, conversely, how do people's identities, their beliefs about the social world, and the kinds of messages they send affect the network structures they create? This book is designed to help readers think about how and when culture and social networks systematically penetrate one another, helping to shape each other in significant ways.

Digital Libraries

Digital Libraries
Author: Lucy A. Tedd
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2005
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9783598116278

Digital libraries are now a reality and yet their implementation and use is still not at an optimum. This text examines the various options for setting up digital libraries from digitising information in the first place to providing the interface to access the information held by the digital global library.

Traditional Knowledge in Modern India

Traditional Knowledge in Modern India
Author: Nirmal Sengupta
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 186
Release: 2018-09-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8132239229

This book demonstrates how traditional knowledge can be connected to the modern world. Human knowledge of housing, health and agriculture dates back thousands of years, with old wisdom developing and becoming modern. But in the past few decades, global communities have increasingly become aware that some of this valuable knowledge has fallen by the wayside. This has sparked systematic efforts at the local, national and global levels to connect this neglected knowledge to the modern world. It discusses the origin of the topic, its importance, recent developments in India and abroad, and what is being done and still needs to be done in order to preserve India’s traditional knowledge. The discussions address a broad range of fields and organizations: from Basmati rice to Ayurvedic cosmetics; from traditional irrigation and folk music to modern drug discovery and climate change adaptation; and from the Biodiversity Convention to the WHO, WTO and WIPO.

Global Security, Safety, and Sustainability

Global Security, Safety, and Sustainability
Author: Hamid Jahankhani
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2009-08-20
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3642040624

The Annual (ICGS) International Conference is an established platform in which se- rity, safety and sustainability issues can be examined from several global perspectives through dialogue between academics, students, government representatives, chief executives, security professionals, and research scientists from the United Kingdom and from around the globe. The 2009 two-day conference focused on the challenges of complexity, rapid pace of change and risk/opportunity issues associated with modern products, systems, s- cial events and infrastructures. The importance of adopting systematic and systemic approaches to the assurance of these systems was emphasized within a special stream focused on strategic frameworks, architectures and human factors. The conference provided an opportunity for systems scientists, assurance researchers, owners, ope- tors and maintainers of large, complex and advanced systems and infrastructures to update their knowledge with the state of best practice in these challenging domains while networking with the leading researchers and solution providers. ICGS3 2009 received paper submissions from more than 20 different countries around the world. Only 28 papers were selected and were presented as full papers. The program also included three keynote lectures by leading researchers, security professionals and government representatives. June 2009 Hamid Jahankhani Ali Hessami Feng Hsu

The Future Internet

The Future Internet
Author: Bernard Marr
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119882877

A sneak peek at the future of the internet, from one of the web’s most prescient voices In The Future Internet: How the Metaverse, Web3, and NFTs Will Transform Business & Society, acclaimed futurist, author, and digital strategist Bernard Marr delivers a compelling and engaging discussion of the technologies driving the impending—and ongoing—transformation of the internet, including blockchain, augmented reality (AR), and more. In the book, you’ll explore the risks and opportunities presented by these game-changing techs and how they might impact you, your organisation, and community. The author explains how various sectors will be revolutionised by the future internet, as industries like sports, retail, energy, healthcare, education, and others feel the effects of paradigm-shifting developments in society and technology. He also discusses: Strategies for individuals seeking to leverage the coming changes in technology, employment, and culture The potential impact of the unprecedented combination of blockchain and AR technologies Techniques for getting in on the ground floor of a new internet that places a heavy premium on participation and immersive experiences An essential and incisive exploration of what our tomorrows might bring, The Future Internet is perfect for executives, managers, and other business leaders doing their best to get a head start on tomorrow’s digital economy.

Metal Sustainability

Metal Sustainability
Author: Reed M. Izatt
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1119009103

The sustainable use of natural resources is an important global challenge, and improved metal sustainability is a crucial goal for the 21st century in order to conserve the supply of critical metals and mitigate the environmental and health issues resulting from unrecovered metals. Metal Sustainability: Global Challenges, Consequences and Prospects discusses important topics and challenges associated with sustainability in metal life cycles, from mining ore to beneficiation processes, to product manufacture, to recovery from end-of-life materials, to environmental and health concerns resulting from generated waste. The broad perspective presented highlights the global interdependence of the many stages of metal life cycles. Economic issues are emphasized and relevant environmental, health, political, industrial and societal issues are discussed. The importance of applying green chemistry principles to metal sustainability is emphasized. Topics covered include: • Recycling and sustainable utilization of precious and specialty metals • Formal and informal recycling from electronic and other high-tech wastes • Global management of electronic wastes • Metal reuse and recycling in developing countries • Effects of toxic and other metal releases on the environment and human health • Effect on bacteria of toxic metal release • Selective recovery of platinum group metals and rare earth metals • Metal sustainability from a manufacturing perspective • Economic perspectives on sustainability, mineral development, and metal life cycles • Closing the Loop – Minerals Industry Issues The aim of this book is to improve awareness of the increasingly important role metals play in our high-tech society, the need to conserve our metal supply throughout the metal life cycle, the importance of improved metal recycling, and the effects that unhindered metal loss can have on the environment and on human health.