Academic literature on the topic 'General-Purpose Technology (GPT)'

FinTech is said to have promising effects. The consideration that arises is whether this new form is a special kind of technology that affects an entire economy and has the potential to change societies through its impact on existing economic and social structures. Thus, the question arises whether FinTech can be characterized as general-purpose technology (GPT)? This is followed by the second question: What is the impact of FinTech at the aggregate level and as a potential GPT on aggregate economic welfare? Using two different GPT definitions and characteristics, we show how FinTech can be characterized as a GPT. In the second part, an analytical framework is used to show that FinTech increases welfare as a positive supply shock.

Blockchain is an emerging evolutionary paradigm that is expected to revolutionize existing business models in many industries and impact the world economy and society. Its potential pervasiveness is increasingly drawing the interest of academics, practitioners, firms, financial institutions, and national governments, who define it as a general purpose technology (GPT). Although it may take considerable time to affirm a technology as general, in this phase of the evolution of the blockchain domain, to what extent can it be considered a GPT? By adopting a patent co-classifications analysis, this paper aims at disentangling the blockchain technology structure, evolution, and potential future trends. We analyzed blockchain international patents issued from 2008 to 2018. Results showed a proliferation of the inventive activity outputs and a significant increase in the diversification across different technology fields, capturing the blockchain’s GPT traits. Moreover, our patent measures detected technology dynamics related to ‘space for improvement’ and ‘pervasiveness’ that commonly characterize GPTs. Our study contributes to the technology innovation literature by uncovering the emergence and evolutionary path of a GPT, and our results provide an empirical basis on which managers can build technology-related decisions and systems to enable appropriate firms’ innovation strategies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its many potential applications 1 will become a fast-growing industry 2, and many predict that it will completely change the way we live and work. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said AI is "on the verge of making our lives more productive and creative." From the economic perspective, 54% of EU jobs, according to research, and 375 million world jobs will be affected by AI automation. This paper aims to test whether AI will emerge as General Purpose Technology (GPT). Historical dissemination of GPT to model the potential impact on the UK economy, especially with regard to productivity 5 and employment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its many potential applications 1 will become a fast-growing industry 2, and many predict that it will completely change the way we live and work. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said AI is "on the verge of making our lives more productive and creative." From an economic perspective, 54% of EU jobs, according to research, and 375 million world jobs will be affected by AI automation. This paper aims to test whether AI will emerge as General Purpose Technology (GPT). Historical dissemination of GPT to model the potential impact on the UK economy, especially with regard to productivity 5 and employment.

Abstract Many people point to information and communications technology (ICT) as the key for understanding the acceleration in productivity in the United States since the mid-1990s. Stories of ICT as a ‘general-purpose technology’ suggest that measured total factor productivity (TFP) should rise in ICT-using sectors (reflecting either unobserved accumulation of intangible organizational capital; spillovers; or both), but with a long lag. Contemporaneously, however, investments in ICT may be associated with lower TFP as resources are diverted to reorganization and learning. We find that US industry results are consistent with general-purpose technology (GPT) stories: the acceleration after the mid-1990s was broad-based - located primarily in ICT-using industries rather than ICT-producing industries. Furthermore, industry TFP accelerations in the 2000s are positively correlated with (appropriately weighted) industry ICT capital growth in the 1990s. Indeed, as GPT stories would suggest, after controlling for past ICT investment, industry TFP accelerations are negatively correlated with increases in ICT usage in the 2000s.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming a key driver of modern economic development, with its impact spanning multiple facets of both microeconomic and macroeconomic levels. At the microeconomic level, AI significantly alters consumer behavior and business operations by enhancing individual decision-making efficiency and optimizing internal corporate management. Simultaneously, as a General Purpose Technology (GPT), AI fosters productivity improvements, industrial structure transformations, and the emergence of new growth drivers at the macroeconomic level. This study systematically analyzes the application of AI across different economic agents, exploring its profound effects on the labor market, industrial organization, and innovation ecosystems.

Technology is used in many ways to solve many complicated challenges in the society. Certain technologies have grown and expanded their branches to many areas and sectors of practice in such a way that they have been designated as General-Purpose Technologies. General Purpose Technologies’ (GPT) are characterized by pervasiveness where they have an inherent potential for technical improvements, and innovation complementarities, meaning that the productivity through research and development in related sectors increases due to the consequence of innovative applications through such general-purpose technologies. Thus, as general-purpose technologies progress, they spread throughout the economy, eventually bringing about generalized productivity gains. Examples include the steam engine, railroad, interchangeable parts, electricity, electronics, materialhandling, mechanization, control theory (automation), the automobile, the computer, the   Internet, and nanotechnology. In this paper, we have identified, analysed, and compared Information Communication and Computation Technology (ICCT), and Nanotechnology (NT) as two most important general-purpose technologies due to their abilities to solve both basic problems and advanced need of the society. The paper also contains a conceptual and predictive proposal on how various general-purpose technologies including ICCT and NT are potentially contributing towards creating a techno-society and based on further progress and spread of such technologies to every dimension of human life to reach the ultimate level of civilization in or around this earth. The analysis finally leads to the development of the concept of ‘Universal Technology’ model.

The aim of the paper is to answer the overriding question what is the role of ICT in implementation of smart specialization (SS) in EU regions (NUTS2 level)? This role can be dual and ICT is considered in this study both as an invention which has led to the emergence of new sector, and from the perspective of general purpose technology (GPT) properties where ICT plays the role of input in innovation process. There are used following methods and techniques: desk research, descriptive statistical analysis, the correlation measure and Hellwig’s method of taxonomic analysis. The main findings indicate that in practice SS in ICT is not focused on development ICT as invention and is not based on readiness to usage of ICT as GPT. However, the abilities of regions to take advantage of ICT as a driver of innovation (as GPT) are materially related to specialization in the ICT sector (development ICT as invention). The findings bring some improvements by evidence-based policy making. The research contribute to the better understanding of the innovation determinants during digital transformation and especially the base of specialization in ICT as GPT under SS assumptions.

Modern marketing requires effective tools to attract and retain customers, as well as improve communication with the audience. In this context, the use of artificial intelligence, in particular, ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), can be a promising innovative solution. However, the conclusions about the potential benefits and limitations of using ChatGPT in marketing are ambiguous, due to the little experience gained in this area. The purpose of the study is to assess the potential of using ChatGPT in marketing strategies, to study the opportunities and challenges it presents for improving the efficiency of communication with customers and brand development. The methodological basis of the study is based on modern research on marketing and artificial intelligence and analysis of the results of using ChatGPT in real marketing campaigns. The main hypothesis of the study is the assumption that the use of ChatGPT in marketing can improve the quality of customer service, increase brand engagement, and increase customer loyalty. Summary of the main research material. The study examines the results of using ChatGPT in marketing strategies, in particular in online communications, especially in areas where personal interaction with customers is important. The working hypotheses were confirmed based on the analysis of data and information collected during the study. Possible limitations and challenges related to the implementation of ChatGPT in marketing practices were identified. The originality and practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the analysis helped to reveal the potential of using ChatGPT in marketing strategies and made it possible to formulate recommendations on the optimal use of this technology to attract and retain customers. Conclusions and prospects for further research. The conducted research allowed us to state that the use of ChatGPT in marketing contributes to increasing the efficiency of marketing activities of the enterprise in general and improving communications with customers in particular. Further research may include the development of new algorithms and strategies for the optimal use of artificial intelligence in marketing.

The subject of research in this article is the features and patterns of legal activity in comparison with the features and patterns of functioning of artificial intelligence systems, including systems based on Chat GPT technology. The purpose of the study is to analyze the features and patterns of legal activity, the features and patterns of functioning of artificial intelligence systems, including systems based on the Chat GPT technology, compare these patterns, and based on the comparison of these patterns, draw a conclusion about the degree applicability of artificial intelligence technologies for solving a particular class of legal problems. Research methods include the social experiment method, when Chat GPT was asked certain questions of a legal nature, answers to them were received and analyzed. Also during the study, general scientific research methods were used, such as analysis, synthesis, deduction, abstraction, generalization. These research methods were used to reveal the features and patterns of legal activity, the features and patterns of the functioning of artificial intelligence systems, as well as to draw conclusions about the degree of applicability of artificial intelligence technologies for solving a particular class of problems in jurisprudence.
 During the study, it was found that artificial intelligence technologies based on Chat GPT in some cases are not very suitable for solving problems related to the application of legal norms to specific situations, due to the specific “thinking” of artificial intelligence systems, which in some cases does not allow one to distinguish so-called legal circumstances that are significant in a given situation, from legal circumstances that are not significant in a given situation, the inability in some cases to correctly qualify the legal relations of the parties and make the correct legal decision with reference to current legislation. The study also analyzed the capabilities of artificial intelligence based on Chat GPT technologies for solving problems in the field of lawmaking, application and interpretation of legal norms. It is concluded that in these areas, artificial intelligence technologies, including those based on Chat GPT, have a certain potential, provided that the associative connection built by artificial intelligence between the elements of legal reality contained in the texts corresponds to the ontological connection between the objects of legal reality.

Nationalism: Past as Prologue began as a single volume being compiled by Ad Akande, a scholar from South Africa, who proposed it to me as co-author about two years ago. The original idea was to examine how the damaging roots of nationalism have been corroding political systems around the world, and creating dangerous obstacles for necessary international cooperation. Since I (Bruce E. Johansen) has written profusely about climate change (global warming, a.k.a. infrared forcing), I suggested a concerted effort in that direction. This is a worldwide existential threat that affects every living thing on Earth. It often compounds upon itself, so delays in reducing emissions of fossil fuels are shortening the amount of time remaining to eliminate the use of fossil fuels to preserve a livable planet. Nationalism often impedes solutions to this problem (among many others), as nations place their singular needs above the common good. Our initial proposal got around, and abstracts on many subjects arrived. Within a few weeks, we had enough good material for a 100,000-word book. The book then fattened to two moderate volumes and then to four two very hefty tomes. We tried several different titles as good submissions swelled. We also discovered that our best contributors were experts in their fields, which ranged the world. We settled on three stand-alone books:” 1/ nationalism and racial justice. Our first volume grew as the growth of Black Lives Matter following the brutal killing of George Floyd ignited protests over police brutality and other issues during 2020, following the police assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis. It is estimated that more people took part in protests of police brutality during the summer of 2020 than any other series of marches in United States history. This includes upheavals during the 1960s over racial issues and against the war in Southeast Asia (notably Vietnam). We choose a volume on racism because it is one of nationalism’s main motive forces. This volume provides a worldwide array of work on nationalism’s growth in various countries, usually by authors residing in them, or in the United States with ethnic ties to the nation being examined, often recent immigrants to the United States from them. Our roster of contributors comprises a small United Nations of insightful, well-written research and commentary from Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, China, India, South Africa, France, Portugal, Estonia, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and the United States. Volume 2 (this one) describes and analyzes nationalism, by country, around the world, except for the United States; and 3/material directly related to President Donald Trump, and the United States. The first volume is under consideration at the Texas A & M University Press. The other two are under contract to Nova Science Publishers (which includes social sciences). These three volumes may be used individually or as a set. Environmental material is taken up in appropriate places in each of the three books. * * * * * What became the United States of America has been strongly nationalist since the English of present-day Massachusetts and Jamestown first hit North America’s eastern shores. The country propelled itself across North America with the self-serving ideology of “manifest destiny” for four centuries before Donald Trump came along. Anyone who believes that a Trumpian affection for deportation of “illegals” is a new thing ought to take a look at immigration and deportation statistics in Adam Goodman’s The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Deporting Immigrants (Princeton University Press, 2020). Between 1920 and 2018, the United States deported 56.3 million people, compared with 51.7 million who were granted legal immigration status during the same dates. Nearly nine of ten deportees were Mexican (Nolan, 2020, 83). This kind of nationalism, has become an assassin of democracy as well as an impediment to solving global problems. Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times (2019:A-25): that “In their 2018 book, How Democracies Die, the political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt documented how this process has played out in many countries, from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to Recep Erdogan’s Turkey, to Viktor Orban’s Hungary. Add to these India’s Narendra Modi, China’s Xi Jinping, and the United States’ Donald Trump, among others. Bit by bit, the guardrails of democracy have been torn down, as institutions meant to serve the public became tools of ruling parties and self-serving ideologies, weaponized to punish and intimidate opposition parties’ opponents. On paper, these countries are still democracies; in practice, they have become one-party regimes….And it’s happening here [the United States] as we speak. If you are not worried about the future of American democracy, you aren’t paying attention” (Krugmam, 2019, A-25). We are reminded continuously that the late Carl Sagan, one of our most insightful scientific public intellectuals, had an interesting theory about highly developed civilizations. Given the number of stars and planets that must exist in the vast reaches of the universe, he said, there must be other highly developed and organized forms of life. Distance may keep us from making physical contact, but Sagan said that another reason we may never be on speaking terms with another intelligent race is (judging from our own example) could be their penchant for destroying themselves in relatively short order after reaching technological complexity. This book’s chapters, introduction, and conclusion examine the worldwide rise of partisan nationalism and the damage it has wrought on the worldwide pursuit of solutions for issues requiring worldwide scope, such scientific co-operation public health and others, mixing analysis of both. We use both historical description and analysis. This analysis concludes with a description of why we must avoid the isolating nature of nationalism that isolates people and encourages separation if we are to deal with issues of world-wide concern, and to maintain a sustainable, survivable Earth, placing the dominant political movement of our time against the Earth’s existential crises. Our contributors, all experts in their fields, each have assumed responsibility for a country, or two if they are related. This work entwines themes of worldwide concern with the political growth of nationalism because leaders with such a worldview are disinclined to co-operate internationally at a time when nations must find ways to solve common problems, such as the climate crisis. Inability to cooperate at this stage may doom everyone, eventually, to an overheated, stormy future plagued by droughts and deluges portending shortages of food and other essential commodities, meanwhile destroying large coastal urban areas because of rising sea levels. Future historians may look back at our time and wonder why as well as how our world succumbed to isolating nationalism at a time when time was so short for cooperative intervention which is crucial for survival of a sustainable earth. Pride in language and culture is salubrious to individuals’ sense of history and identity. Excess nationalism that prevents international co-operation on harmful worldwide maladies is quite another. As Pope Francis has pointed out: For all of our connectivity due to expansion of social media, ability to communicate can breed contempt as well as mutual trust. “For all our hyper-connectivity,” said Francis, “We witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all” (Horowitz, 2020, A-12). The pope’s encyclical, titled “Brothers All,” also said: “The forces of myopic, extremist, resentful, and aggressive nationalism are on the rise.” The pope’s document also advocates support for migrants, as well as resistance to nationalist and tribal populism. Francis broadened his critique to the role of market capitalism, as well as nationalism has failed the peoples of the world when they need co-operation and solidarity in the face of the world-wide corona virus pandemic. Humankind needs to unite into “a new sense of the human family [Fratelli Tutti, “Brothers All”], that rejects war at all costs” (Pope, 2020, 6-A). Our journey takes us first to Russia, with the able eye and honed expertise of Richard D. Anderson, Jr. who teaches as UCLA and publishes on the subject of his chapter: “Putin, Russian identity, and Russia’s conduct at home and abroad.” Readers should find Dr. Anderson’s analysis fascinating because Vladimir Putin, the singular leader of Russian foreign and domestic policy these days (and perhaps for the rest of his life, given how malleable Russia’s Constitution has become) may be a short man physically, but has high ambitions. One of these involves restoring the old Russian (and Soviet) empire, which would involve re-subjugating a number of nations that broke off as the old order dissolved about 30 years ago. President (shall we say czar?) Putin also has international ambitions, notably by destabilizing the United States, where election meddling has become a specialty. The sight of Putin and U.S. president Donald Trump, two very rich men (Putin $70-$200 billion; Trump $2.5 billion), nuzzling in friendship would probably set Thomas Jefferson and Vladimir Lenin spinning in their graves. The road of history can take some unanticipated twists and turns. Consider Poland, from which we have an expert native analysis in chapter 2, Bartosz Hlebowicz, who is a Polish anthropologist and journalist. His piece is titled “Lawless and Unjust: How to Quickly Make Your Own Country a Puppet State Run by a Group of Hoodlums – the Hopeless Case of Poland (2015–2020).” When I visited Poland to teach and lecture twice between 2006 and 2008, most people seemed to be walking on air induced by freedom to conduct their own affairs to an unusual degree for a state usually squeezed between nationalists in Germany and Russia. What did the Poles then do in a couple of decades? Read Hlebowicz’ chapter and decide. It certainly isn’t soft-bellied liberalism. In Chapter 3, with Bruce E. Johansen, we visit China’s western provinces, the lands of Tibet as well as the Uighurs and other Muslims in the Xinjiang region, who would most assuredly resent being characterized as being possessed by the Chinese of the Han to the east. As a student of Native American history, I had never before thought of the Tibetans and Uighurs as Native peoples struggling against the Independence-minded peoples of a land that is called an adjunct of China on most of our maps. The random act of sitting next to a young woman on an Air India flight out of Hyderabad, bound for New Delhi taught me that the Tibetans had something to share with the Lakota, the Iroquois, and hundreds of other Native American states and nations in North America. Active resistance to Chinese rule lasted into the mid-nineteenth century, and continues today in a subversive manner, even in song, as I learned in 2018 when I acted as a foreign adjudicator on a Ph.D. dissertation by a Tibetan student at the University of Madras (in what is now in a city called Chennai), in southwestern India on resistance in song during Tibet’s recent history. Tibet is one of very few places on Earth where a young dissident can get shot to death for singing a song that troubles China’s Quest for Lebensraum. The situation in Xinjiang region, where close to a million Muslims have been interned in “reeducation” camps surrounded with brick walls and barbed wire. They sing, too. Come with us and hear the music. Back to Europe now, in Chapter 4, to Portugal and Spain, we find a break in the general pattern of nationalism. Portugal has been more progressive governmentally than most. Spain varies from a liberal majority to military coups, a pattern which has been exported to Latin America. A situation such as this can make use of the term “populism” problematic, because general usage in our time usually ties the word into a right-wing connotative straightjacket. “Populism” can be used to describe progressive (left-wing) insurgencies as well. José Pinto, who is native to Portugal and also researches and writes in Spanish as well as English, in “Populism in Portugal and Spain: a Real Neighbourhood?” provides insight into these historical paradoxes. Hungary shares some historical inclinations with Poland (above). Both emerged from Soviet dominance in an air of developing freedom and multicultural diversity after the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. Then, gradually at first, right wing-forces began to tighten up, stripping structures supporting popular freedom, from the courts, mass media, and other institutions. In Chapter 5, Bernard Tamas, in “From Youth Movement to Right-Liberal Wing Authoritarianism: The Rise of Fidesz and the Decline of Hungarian Democracy” puts the renewed growth of political and social repression into a context of worldwide nationalism. Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and a Fulbright scholar at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. His books include From Dissident to Party Politics: The Struggle for Democracy in Post-Communist Hungary (2007). Bear in mind that not everyone shares Orbán’s vision of what will make this nation great, again. On graffiti-covered walls in Budapest, Runes (traditional Hungarian script) has been found that read “Orbán is a motherfucker” (Mikanowski, 2019, 58). Also in Europe, in Chapter 6, Professor Ronan Le Coadic, of the University of Rennes, Rennes, France, in “Is There a Revival of French Nationalism?” Stating this title in the form of a question is quite appropriate because France’s nationalistic shift has built and ebbed several times during the last few decades. For a time after 2000, it came close to assuming the role of a substantial minority, only to ebb after that. In 2017, the candidate of the National Front reached the second round of the French presidential election. This was the second time this nationalist party reached the second round of the presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic. In 2002, however, Jean-Marie Le Pen had only obtained 17.79% of the votes, while fifteen years later his daughter, Marine Le Pen, almost doubled her father's record, reaching 33.90% of the votes cast. Moreover, in the 2019 European elections, re-named Rassemblement National obtained the largest number of votes of all French political formations and can therefore boast of being "the leading party in France.” The brutality of oppressive nationalism may be expressed in personal relationships, such as child abuse. While Indonesia and Aotearoa [the Maoris’ name for New Zealand] hold very different ranks in the United Nations Human Development Programme assessments, where Indonesia is classified as a medium development country and Aotearoa New Zealand as a very high development country. In Chapter 7, “Domestic Violence Against Women in Indonesia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Making Sense of Differences and Similarities” co-authors, in Chapter 8, Mandy Morgan and Dr. Elli N. Hayati, from New Zealand and Indonesia respectively, found that despite their socio-economic differences, one in three women in each country experience physical or sexual intimate partner violence over their lifetime. In this chapter ther authors aim to deepen understandings of domestic violence through discussion of the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of theit countries to address domestic violence alongside studies of women’s attitudes to gender norms and experiences of intimate partner violence. One of the most surprising and upsetting scholarly journeys that a North American student may take involves Adolf Hitler’s comments on oppression of American Indians and Blacks as he imagined the construction of the Nazi state, a genesis of nationalism that is all but unknown in the United States of America, traced in this volume (Chapter 8) by co-editor Johansen. Beginning in Mein Kampf, during the 1920s, Hitler explicitly used the westward expansion of the United States across North America as a model and justification for Nazi conquest and anticipated colonization by Germans of what the Nazis called the “wild East” – the Slavic nations of Poland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia, most of which were under control of the Soviet Union. The Volga River (in Russia) was styled by Hitler as the Germans’ Mississippi, and covered wagons were readied for the German “manifest destiny” of imprisoning, eradicating, and replacing peoples the Nazis deemed inferior, all with direct references to events in North America during the previous century. At the same time, with no sense of contradiction, the Nazis partook of a long-standing German romanticism of Native Americans. One of Goebbels’ less propitious schemes was to confer honorary Aryan status on Native American tribes, in the hope that they would rise up against their oppressors. U.S. racial attitudes were “evidence [to the Nazis] that America was evolving in the right direction, despite its specious rhetoric about equality.” Ming Xie, originally from Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China, in Chapter 9, “News Coverage and Public Perceptions of the Social Credit System in China,” writes that The State Council of China in 2014 announced “that a nationwide social credit system would be established” in China. “Under this system, individuals, private companies, social organizations, and governmental agencies are assigned a score which will be calculated based on their trustworthiness and daily actions such as transaction history, professional conduct, obedience to law, corruption, tax evasion, and academic plagiarism.” The “nationalism” in this case is that of the state over the individual. China has 1.4 billion people; this system takes their measure for the purpose of state control. Once fully operational, control will be more subtle. People who are subject to it, through modern technology (most often smart phones) will prompt many people to self-censor. Orwell, modernized, might write: “Your smart phone is watching you.” Ming Xie holds two Ph.Ds, one in Public Administration from University of Nebraska at Omaha and another in Cultural Anthropology from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, where she also worked for more than 10 years at a national think tank in the same institution. While there she summarized news from non-Chinese sources for senior members of the Chinese Communist Party. Ming is presently an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. In Chapter 10, analyzing native peoples and nationhood, Barbara Alice Mann, Professor of Honours at the University of Toledo, in “Divide, et Impera: The Self-Genocide Game” details ways in which European-American invaders deprive the conquered of their sense of nationhood as part of a subjugation system that amounts to genocide, rubbing out their languages and cultures -- and ultimately forcing the native peoples to assimilate on their own, for survival in a culture that is foreign to them. Mann is one of Native American Studies’ most acute critics of conquests’ contradictions, and an author who retrieves Native history with a powerful sense of voice and purpose, having authored roughly a dozen books and numerous book chapters, among many other works, who has traveled around the world lecturing and publishing on many subjects. Nalanda Roy and S. Mae Pedron in Chapter 11, “Understanding the Face of Humanity: The Rohingya Genocide.” describe one of the largest forced migrations in the history of the human race, the removal of 700,000 to 800,000 Muslims from Buddhist Myanmar to Bangladesh, which itself is already one of the most crowded and impoverished nations on Earth. With about 150 million people packed into an area the size of Nebraska and Iowa (population less than a tenth that of Bangladesh, a country that is losing land steadily to rising sea levels and erosion of the Ganges river delta. The Rohingyas’ refugee camp has been squeezed onto a gigantic, eroding, muddy slope that contains nearly no vegetation. However, Bangladesh is majority Muslim, so while the Rohingya may starve, they won’t be shot to death by marauding armies. Both authors of this exquisite (and excruciating) account teach at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, Georgia, Roy as an associate professor of International Studies and Asian politics, and Pedron as a graduate student; Roy originally hails from very eastern India, close to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, so he has special insight into the context of one of the most brutal genocides of our time, or any other. This is our case describing the problems that nationalism has and will pose for the sustainability of the Earth as our little blue-and-green orb becomes more crowded over time. The old ways, in which national arguments often end in devastating wars, are obsolete, given that the Earth and all the people, plants, and other animals that it sustains are faced with the existential threat of a climate crisis that within two centuries, more or less, will flood large parts of coastal cities, and endanger many species of plants and animals. To survive, we must listen to the Earth, and observe her travails, because they are increasingly our own.

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is a general purpose technology (GPT), which is currently enjoying increasing use in strategic decision-making and military affairs. The AI revolution brings significant changes into the current and future socio-economic national and international systems, with AI applications expected to tilt the global balance of power in favour of actors who strategically invest and use this emerging technology. AI-assisted automation is also changing prevailing socio-economic production models on the global scale, and sooner or later, these technologies are expected to exert systemic impacts on the current global order. However, the distribution of AI technologies and skills is not uniform, with the global north dominating the space. Even within the global south, Africa lags way behind other continents.

This chapter analyses the relationship between the diffusion of general purpose technologies (GPTs) and surges in the growth of productivity. It first explores the dynamics of GPT diffusion by considering the generic and differentiating aspects of the US experience with industrial electrification and in comparison with that of the UK and Japan. It then discusses the analogies and contrasts between the historical case of a socio-economic regime transition involving the electric dynamo and the modern experience of the information and communications technology (ICT).

Abstract This chapter covers the diffusion of new technologies, which is an important and necessary process if the economy is to receive the benefits of innovation. The workhorse model of diffusion is presented in two ways, as arising from consumer heterogeneity or from information epidemics. The real options model of technology adoption is also presented briefly. The role of network externalities and general-purpose technology (GPT) in slowing diffusion via their requirement for complementary investments is emphasized, along with the fact that network goods tend to exhibit increasing returns in adoption. The empirical evidence on factors affecting adoption choices is summarized at the end of the chapter.

Abstract This book is about two interrelated phenomena: long-term economic growth and the pervasive technologies that occasionally transform a society’s entire set of economic, social, and political structures and that have come to be called ‘general purpose technologies’ (GPTs). In most of the existing literature, these have been treated separately, and indeed much of our discussion of GPTs can be taken on its own, independent of long-term growth.

Support systems for the management of prescriptions are commonplace in hospitals, whilst they are rarely found in general practice. This exploratory study draws on a qualitative survey conducted with focus groups to investigate the information needs of General Practitioners (GPs) in regard to the therapeutic management of complex patients, the purpose being to identify possible areas of application. The question addressed is whether the systems existing in hospitals can be usefully adapted and used by GPs or if a different approach needs to be adopted to design other tools. The analysis shows that the information needs of GPs relative to medication management are significantly different from those of their hospital colleagues because the former are not directly responsible for the administration but instead operate within a care network on which they cannot exercise direct control. This study suggests that support systems for therapy management should be designed on the assumption that it derives from cooperative work by a heterogeneous network of actors, and therefore with functionalities intended to satisfy the coordination needs of all the actors involved in the process.

Germany became the first country to accept certain mobile health (mHealth) apps for prescription with costs covered by statutory health insurance. Yet, this option has only been used to a limited extent. To develop an international comparison, this study investigates GPs’ perceptions of mHealth apps with a medical purpose in Germany and Australia. We conducted semi-structured interviews to examine their perspective on introducing and using mHealth apps and their awareness of their impact on patient adherence, empowerment, and health literacy. The results show that prescribing mHealth apps in general practice seems feasible in Australia and doctors are highly receptive to it.

General practice-based research networks have become an integral tool to gain medical knowledge from primary care in many countries. For this purpose, a scalable IT-infrastructure is presented considering the limiting peculiarities in the German health system and enabling GPs to participate in clinical studies based on their patient population. The infrastructure consists of a central study management server and local clients for each practice. It adopts to the currently limited digital connectivity of GP practices, data protection regulations for clinical data and the needs of the medical staff to manage a clinical study. The infrastructure is in production at the four university hospitals in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Until now three clinical studies with over 70 GPs and 350 Participants are successfully conducted or have been finished. Further clinical studies are in the planning stages.

An approach for model-based programming is presented supporting automated software generation for Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). As General Purpose Computing on GPUs (GPGPU) has evolved from a very special niche of software technology to an established grade, it is ready now to be adressed from the perspective of automated software generation. This allows to achieve a more flexible, more reliable and faster development process. We present a software generation framework covering the complete design flow from model-based system specification to actual code for heterogeneous CPU and GPU platforms. Good mappings to highly parallel GPU architecture are achieved as inherent parallelism of signal processing algorithms is treated within code translation. First results will be given for an example design from the automotive driver assistance domain.

Dijkstra’s algorithm is one of the simplest shortest path finding algorithm. A star(A*) algorithm is a variation of the shortest path first Dijkstra’s algorithm and is very commonly used in games using heuristics. The idea behind A* is to assign weight to each open node and then use a heuristic to calculate the cost from start to finish. A* uses heuristics and cost functions to find the most appropriate path in games and robotics. Games are needed to be fast and so we can have tradeoffs between speed and accuracy. So instead of accuracy we focus more on speed which is not needed in some of the situations like autonomous vehicles and simulation games. So, the A* algorithm may underestimate the costs but will never overestimate it. Bidirectional A*reduces the computation by calculating the shortest path from the source as well as the destination. A solution may be the General-Purpose Graphics Processing Units. It can be used to enhance the processing and execution speed of Bidirectional A* algorithm by using parallel processing and multiple threads. GPU based path finding may be approximately 45 times as fast as CPU pathfinding mechanism.

Passing the national licensure examination for registered nurses (NCLEX-RN) in the US is a critical outcome of the nursing program. Research has been conducted to identify which nursing students are at risk for not passing the NCLEX-RN test. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether any of several student covariates can be used to accurately identify associate in science in nursing (ASN) students that are at-risk for failing the NCLEX-RN test. Covariates included in the study were demographics, students' pre-admission grade point average (GPA), the scores of test of essential skills (TEAS), and the assessment technologies institute® (ATI)'s comprehensive scores for a pre-RN examination test. Chi-squared automatic interaction detection, or CHAID analysis, was used to develop the model. One covariate, ATI comprehensive test scores, was found to accurately identify all at-risk ASN students. The model explained that students identified as “at-risk” had a failure rate nearly two-and-a-half times as high as the general population.

GPUs (Graphics Processing Units), traditionally used for 3D graphics calculations, have recently got an ability to perform general purpose calculations with a GPGPU (General Purpose GPU) technology. Moreover, GPUs can be much faster than CPUs (Central Processing Units) by performing hundreds or even thousands commands concurrently. This parallel processing allows the GPU achieving the extremely high performance but also requires using only highly parallel algorithms which can provide enough commands on each clock cycle. This work formulates a methodology for selection of a right geometry representation and a data structure suitable for parallel processing on GPU. Then the methodology is used for designing the 3-axis CNC milling simulation algorithm accelerated with the GPGPU technology. The developed algorithm is validated by performing an experimental machining simulation and evaluation of the performance results. The experimental simulation shows an importance of an optimization process and usage of algorithms that provide enough work to GPU. The used test configuration also demonstrates almost an order of magnitude difference between CPU and GPU performance results.

<title>ABSTRACT</title> <p>Localization refers to the process of estimating ones location (and often orientation) within an environment. Ground vehicle automation, which offers the potential for substantial safety and logistical benefits, requires accurate, robust localization. Current localization solutions, including GPS/INS, LIDAR, and image registration, are all inherently limited in adverse conditions. This paper presents a method of localization that is robust to most conditions that hinder existing techniques. MIT Lincoln Laboratory has developed a new class of ground penetrating radar (GPR) with a novel antenna array design that allows mapping of the subsurface domain for the purpose of localization. A vehicle driving through the mapped area uses a novel real-time correlation-based registration algorithm to estimate the location and orientation of the vehicle with respect to the subsurface map. A demonstration system has achieved localization accuracy of 2 cm. We also discuss tracking results for the first autonomous vehicle to use this technology and the potential for miniaturized general use systems.</p>

It is widely accepted that coal gasification combined-cycle plants represent an environmentally superior alternative to conventional coal fired power plants with flue gas desulfurization. Purpose of this paper is to show that technology is available for all steps required to convert coal to electricity, including treatment of waste streams. Based on examples for power plants in the 200–800 MW range using current and as well as advanced gas turbines, it is shown that under both European and US-conditions cost of electricity from this (new) route of coal based power generation is certainly no higher — and probably even lower — than from conventional PC (pulverized coal) power plants equipped with equivalent environmental control technology. Thus, this technology is likely to be a prime contributor when it comes to enhance environmental acceptability of power plants in general, and to help solve the acid rain problem in particular. In addition the versatility of the proposed technology for repowering, decentralized application and district heat system is explained.

The Advanced Course in Engineering (ACE) was started in 1923 at the Alternating Current Engineering Department of the General Electric Company by Dr. Robert E. Doherty. The purpose of this program was, and still is, to teach advanced technology, to solve real engineering problems and to learn how to write good engineering reports. The 61-year-old Advanced Course is less than half as old as the University of Cincinnati. The University of Cincinnati was founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College. In addition to its excellent research programs, the University of Cincinnati is also recognized for its leadership in cooperative education. “The academic climate was set early in this century by Dean Herman Schneider, the originator of the cooperative plan of education. The objective of that plan was to join theory and practice by linking education and industry through knowledge and experience.” The educational objectives of the University of Cincinnati (UC) and the General Electric Company (GE) have been joined through the Advanced Course in Engineering in the university’s College of Engineering.

Most countries in the world have experienced the shock of the first three months during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown affected all economic realms, turned the usual mode of life upside down, taught everyone, without exception, to live in a new way. Surprisingly, many spheres of personal, social and professional life have not only been able to resist, but also to adapt to the new reality. It is fair to say that Higher Education (HE) has become one of those that the pandemic has had the greatest impact on a global scale. Moreover, HE has become one of those prepared to move most of its processes online. Due to the popularization and growth of the mobile device market, as well as the convenience of using modern messengers, communication between people has become easier. Distance learning presupposes fast and efficient information transfer and feedback. The use of chatbots these days is reflected in almost all spheres: from e-commerce to industry and education. In the study, we will highlight some important features in the chatbots use in the learning process, get acquainted with their applicativity in universities to identify the main advantages and disadvantages of their use, as well as to form general recommendations aimed at improving the effectiveness of their appliance in the learning process. Among other things, the article will consider the prospects and theoretical aspects of applicability and effectiveness of chatbots in the learning process, acting as a tool to improve the interaction between teachers and students in organizational and methodological issues. The purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of modern messengers and chatbots. The authors conclude that the chatbot is a useful tool in organizing the learning process, as well as interesting and convenient to use for both students and teachers. Besides, it caters to the needs of the younger generation who are gaining knowledge in the context of digitalization.

The use of ICT in education through the integration of Web 2.0 applications and open online education resources leads to an increase in the motivation and involvement of students in their own learning process, promoting a collaborative-participative learning and facilitating the development of necessary 21st century skills (learning and innovation skills; information, media, and technology skills; life and career skills; adaptability; complex communication/social skills; non-routine problem solving; self-management/self-development; and systems thinking). The use of the aforementioned resources in science education through various devices (computers, smartphones, or tablets) determines teachers to continuously adapt their perspective upon the design and management of the teaching process and to acquire new professional and transversal skills, since an exemplary science education can offer a rich context to develop most of the necessary 21st century skills. From a pedagogical perspective, the use of new media is of outmost importance to support learning and to obtain educational benefits which can be a result of an enrichment/extension/completion of the learning experiences offered to students in the real world with those based on virtual reality. We refer here to a new visualization option offered to science education through ICT, namely augmented reality (AR). Augmented reality is a superposition of virtual information on the real environment, in real time and 3D format [1]. Nowadays AR applications are only occasionally used in science education, being mainly seen as a technology for entertainment and informal education. Nevertheless, this visualization technology has a great potential for formal education, developing life skills and facilitating new learning experiences. We can envision an orchestration of the teaching process [2] based on role-playing or student interactions with the physical locations in their environment with emphasis on the design of learning experiences [3]. Currently, two types of AR implementations exist: a) location-aware AR, in which locations in the real world are augmented with GPS location-based narration and/or relevant scientific information; respectively b) vision-based AR, in which the digital information can be visualized once the camera of the mobile phone has been positioned over a target object (ex. QR cod, imagine, 3D target, etc.) [4]. Regardless of the visualization technology used, its teaching value derives from the way teachers are able to direct learning experience through the proposed instructional design, starting from the desired learning outcomes. For science education, we refer here to the collaborative-participative experiences which are the result of applying teaching methods such as investigation, observation, peer coaching, jigsaw, etc. Starting from these general observations, we present in this study the various options in which AR can be used to create authentic learning experiences in Romanian science education. We also describe and analyze free apps developed for this purpose (Aurasma, ZooBurst, Wikitude). Finally, we study the attitude of future teachers towards using learning and visualization technologies in their future teaching, emphasizing their main fears but also what they consider to be the main advantages of integrating technology and in particular AR in science education.

Purpose: With the advent of the Industry 4.0 era, technology's continuous development and progress. Working and studying in a fixed posture for a long time has become a regular part of people's lives. The resulting diseases such as lumbar disc protrusion, lumbar strain, and scoliosis increase yearly. The age of patients is also showing a trend of low generation. At the same time, the elderly and pregnant women occupy a large proportion of them. Most of the products on the market for lumbar problems are still lumbar massagers, lumbar pillows, and other products used to relieve lumbar pain. They still do not solve the inconvenience of daily life caused by lumbar diseases. In response to the problems mentioned earlier, the sit-up booster can provide adequate assistance to patients as an additional indoor product. Through external support and the appropriate amount of external force to give users a certain amount of support in the process of rising and setting, to reduce the discomfort in the process of rising and sitting.Methodology: As a product that improves the life of users and enhances the quality of life of users, it is necessary to follow the "people-oriented" design concept in the design and put the user experience in the first place. Therefore, we conducted market research and user research to analyze the existing products to discover their shortcomings. Then, through user interviews and user journeys, we summarized the problems in users' lives and the problems they encountered with existing products. Conclusion and concluded the product design that derives elements that can improve user experience, designed questionnaires, and analyzed the results using the KANO model to derive the most real pain points of users.Result: According to the information obtained from the fuzzy front-end research, the design practice of the sit-up booster was carried out by continuously improving the details to make the connection between the user and the product closer. While solving the pain points, the product can be applied to more people, regardless of age, gender, and other restrictions.Conclusion: This design study addresses the growing number of people with back discomfort in today's society and finds that they need to improve and enhance their needs in life. The design of a sit-up booster emerges as a general trend. Use the KANO model to analyze the preliminary research results and get the critical needs of users for the product. According to the user's requirements for different functions, the user's needs are ranked, and then the aspects that need to be considered a priority, and the booster is designed for these aspects. It provides a direction for the future design of the sit-up booster.

The objectives of this project were to develop nondestructive methods for detection of internal properties and firmness of fruits and vegetables. One method was based on a soft piezoelectric film transducer developed in the Technion, for analysis of fruit response to low-energy excitation. The second method was a dot-matrix piezoelectric transducer of North Carolina State University, developed for contact-pressure analysis of fruit during impact. Two research teams, one in Israel and the other in North Carolina, coordinated their research effort according to the specific objectives of the project, to develop and apply the two complementary methods for quality control of agricultural commodities. In Israel: An improved firmness testing system was developed and tested with tropical fruits. The new system included an instrumented fruit-bed of three flexible piezoelectric sensors and miniature electromagnetic hammers, which served as fruit support and low-energy excitation device, respectively. Resonant frequencies were detected for determination of firmness index. Two new acoustic parameters were developed for evaluation of fruit firmness and maturity: a dumping-ratio and a centeroid of the frequency response. Experiments were performed with avocado and mango fruits. The internal damping ratio, which may indicate fruit ripeness, increased monotonically with time, while resonant frequencies and firmness indices decreased with time. Fruit samples were tested daily by destructive penetration test. A fairy high correlation was found in tropical fruits between the penetration force and the new acoustic parameters; a lower correlation was found between this parameter and the conventional firmness index. Improved table-top firmness testing units, Firmalon, with data-logging system and on-line data analysis capacity have been built. The new device was used for the full-scale experiments in the next two years, ahead of the original program and BARD timetable. Close cooperation was initiated with local industry for development of both off-line and on-line sorting and quality control of more agricultural commodities. Firmalon units were produced and operated in major packaging houses in Israel, Belgium and Washington State, on mango and avocado, apples, pears, tomatoes, melons and some other fruits, to gain field experience with the new method. The accumulated experimental data from all these activities is still analyzed, to improve firmness sorting criteria and shelf-life predicting curves for the different fruits. The test program in commercial CA storage facilities in Washington State included seven apple varieties: Fuji, Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and D'Anjou pear variety. FI master-curves could be developed for the Braeburn, Gala, Granny Smith and Jonagold apples. These fruits showed a steady ripening process during the test period. Yet, more work should be conducted to reduce scattering of the data and to determine the confidence limits of the method. Nearly constant FI in Red Delicious and the fluctuations of FI in the Fuji apples should be re-examined. Three sets of experiment were performed with Flandria tomatoes. Despite the complex structure of the tomatoes, the acoustic method could be used for firmness evaluation and to follow the ripening evolution with time. Close agreement was achieved between the auction expert evaluation and that of the nondestructive acoustic test, where firmness index of 4.0 and more indicated grade-A tomatoes. More work is performed to refine the sorting algorithm and to develop a general ripening scale for automatic grading of tomatoes for the fresh fruit market. Galia melons were tested in Israel, in simulated export conditions. It was concluded that the Firmalon is capable of detecting the ripening of melons nondestructively, and sorted out the defective fruits from the export shipment. The cooperation with local industry resulted in development of automatic on-line prototype of the acoustic sensor, that may be incorporated with the export quality control system for melons. More interesting is the development of the remote firmness sensing method for sealed CA cool-rooms, where most of the full-year fruit yield in stored for off-season consumption. Hundreds of ripening monitor systems have been installed in major fruit storage facilities, and being evaluated now by the consumers. If successful, the new method may cause a major change in long-term fruit storage technology. More uses of the acoustic test method have been considered, for monitoring fruit maturity and harvest time, testing fruit samples or each individual fruit when entering the storage facilities, packaging house and auction, and in the supermarket. This approach may result in a full line of equipment for nondestructive quality control of fruits and vegetables, from the orchard or the greenhouse, through the entire sorting, grading and storage process, up to the consumer table. The developed technology offers a tool to determine the maturity of the fruits nondestructively by monitoring their acoustic response to mechanical impulse on the tree. A special device was built and preliminary tested in mango fruit. More development is needed to develop a portable, hand operated sensing method for this purpose. In North Carolina: Analysis method based on an Auto-Regressive (AR) model was developed for detecting the first resonance of fruit from their response to mechanical impulse. The algorithm included a routine that detects the first resonant frequency from as many sensors as possible. Experiments on Red Delicious apples were performed and their firmness was determined. The AR method allowed the detection of the first resonance. The method could be fast enough to be utilized in a real time sorting machine. Yet, further study is needed to look for improvement of the search algorithm of the methods. An impact contact-pressure measurement system and Neural Network (NN) identification method were developed to investigate the relationships between surface pressure distributions on selected fruits and their respective internal textural qualities. A piezoelectric dot-matrix pressure transducer was developed for the purpose of acquiring time-sampled pressure profiles during impact. The acquired data was transferred into a personal computer and accurate visualization of animated data were presented. Preliminary test with 10 apples has been performed. Measurement were made by the contact-pressure transducer in two different positions. Complementary measurements were made on the same apples by using the Firmalon and Magness Taylor (MT) testers. Three-layer neural network was designed. 2/3 of the contact-pressure data were used as training input data and corresponding MT data as training target data. The remaining data were used as NN checking data. Six samples randomly chosen from the ten measured samples and their corresponding Firmalon values were used as the NN training and target data, respectively. The remaining four samples' data were input to the NN. The NN results consistent with the Firmness Tester values. So, if more training data would be obtained, the output should be more accurate. In addition, the Firmness Tester values do not consistent with MT firmness tester values. The NN method developed in this study appears to be a useful tool to emulate the MT Firmness test results without destroying the apple samples. To get more accurate estimation of MT firmness a much larger training data set is required. When the larger sensitive area of the pressure sensor being developed in this project becomes available, the entire contact 'shape' will provide additional information and the neural network results would be more accurate. It has been shown that the impact information can be utilized in the determination of internal quality factors of fruit. Until now,