Nameless Relations

Nameless Relations PDF Author: Monica Konrad
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571816474
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Based on the author's fieldwork at assisted conception clinics in England in the mid-1990s, this is the first ethnographic study of the new procreative practices of anonymous ova and embryo donation. Giving voice to both groups of women participating in the demanding donation experience - the donors on the one side and the ever-hopeful IVF recipients on the other - Konrad shows how one dimension of the new reproductive technologies involves an unfamiliar relatedness between nameless and untraceable procreative strangers. Offsetting informants' local narratives against traditional Western folk models of the 'sexed' reproductive body, the book challenges some of the basic assumptions underlying conventional biomedical discourse of altruistic donation that clinicians and others promote as "gifts of life." It brings together a wide variety of literatures from social anthropology, social theory, cultural studies of science and technology, and feminist bioethics to discuss the relationship between recent developments in biotechnology and changing conceptions of personal origins, genealogy, kinship, biological ownership and notions of bodily integrity.

Nameless Relations

Nameless Relations PDF Author: Monica Konrad
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571816474
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Based on the author's fieldwork at assisted conception clinics in England in the mid-1990s, this is the first ethnographic study of the new procreative practices of anonymous ova and embryo donation. Giving voice to both groups of women participating in the demanding donation experience - the donors on the one side and the ever-hopeful IVF recipients on the other - Konrad shows how one dimension of the new reproductive technologies involves an unfamiliar relatedness between nameless and untraceable procreative strangers. Offsetting informants' local narratives against traditional Western folk models of the 'sexed' reproductive body, the book challenges some of the basic assumptions underlying conventional biomedical discourse of altruistic donation that clinicians and others promote as "gifts of life." It brings together a wide variety of literatures from social anthropology, social theory, cultural studies of science and technology, and feminist bioethics to discuss the relationship between recent developments in biotechnology and changing conceptions of personal origins, genealogy, kinship, biological ownership and notions of bodily integrity.

Affinities

Affinities PDF Author: Jennifer Mason
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509524282
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
How is it possible to feel an affinity with a place? What is happening when someone feels almost literally transported to another time by a smell or a texture or a song? Why do striking family resemblances sometimes feel uncanny? In each of these cases a potent connection is being made, involving forces, flows, energies and atmospherics that conventional sociological approaches can find hard to grasp, but that are important nonetheless. In this innovative book Jennifer Mason argues that these are affinities – potent charges and charismatically lively connections in personal life, that rise up and matter in some way and that enchant or toxify the everyday. She suggests that exploring affinities opens up new possibilities for conceptualizing the experience of living in the world through what she calls the 'socio-atmospherics of everyday life'. This book invites the reader to embrace possibilities and themes that may seem outside the usual range, and to engage in a more open, attentive, inventive and poetic sociological sensibility.

Economics and Cognitive Science

Economics and Cognitive Science PDF Author: Paul Bourgine
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 1483294897
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Economics, dealing with mental processes of decision makers is part of cognitive science; conversely, cognitive science, faced with constraints on information processing, is part of economics. In July 1990, the Cecoia 2 conference was organised in Paris to further explore the connections between the two. The papers presented in this volume illustrate this truly interdisciplinary research intertwining social and cognitive sciences. Three main topics are represented: agent's mental representation when facing complex uncertainty; agent's computational constraints leading to bounded rationality; agent's learning and evolution in an imperfectly known environment.

Evolutionary processes and theory

Evolutionary processes and theory PDF Author: Evitar Nevo
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0323142494
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 797

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Book Description
Evolutionary Processes and Theory contains the proceedings of a workshop held in Israel in March 1985. Contributors explore evolutionary processes and theory and highlight advances in knowledge concerning differentiation, metabolic and immunological mechanisms, and the molecular biology of the genome. Issues that are being debated are also considered, including the origin and evolution of sexual systems, the genetics of altruism, and general forms and levels of social evolution. This volume is organized into six sections encompassing 33 chapters and begins with an overview of the evolutionary problems of molecular biology. Some chapters are devoted to topics such as the role of gene regulation in evolutionary processes; the structural diversity and evolution of intermediate filament proteins; and adaptation and evolution in the immune system. The next section examines the tempo and mode of molecular evolution, including that of hybrid dysgenesis systems, as well as the statistical aspects of the molecular clock. Later chapters focus on DNA and protein sequences; sexual selection and speciation; and the relation between speciation mechanisms and macroevolutionary patterns. The book also methodically explains population genetics, with particular reference to the altruistic behavior in sibling groups with unrelated intruders, the endosperm evolution in higher plants, and the evolutionary aspects of sexual reproduction in predominantly asexual populations. This book will be of interest to geneticists and molecular biologists.

The Future of Evolution

The Future of Evolution PDF Author: Pnas
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309074231
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description


Corals in Space and Time

Corals in Space and Time PDF Author: John Edward Norwood Veron
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801482632
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
As concerns about the change in global climate and the loss of biodiversity have mounted, attention has focused on the depletion of the ozone layer and the destruction of tropical rainforests. But recently scientists have identified another seriously endangered ecosystem: coral reefs. In Corals in Space and Time, J.E.N. Veron provides a richly detailed study of corals that will inform investigations of these fragile ecosystems. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, Veron brings together extensive field observations about the taxonomy, biogeography, paleontology, and biology of corals. After introducing coral taxonomy and biogeography, as well as relevant aspects of coral biology for the non-specialist, he provides an interpretation of the fossil record and paleoclimates, an analysis of modern coral distribution, and a discussion of the evolutionary nature and origins of coral species. Revealing a sharp conflict between empirical observations about the geographical variation within species, Veron introduces a non-Darwinian theory of coral evolution. He proposes that the evolution of coral species is driven not primarily by natural selection, but by constantly shifting patterns of ocean circulation, which produce changing variations of genetic connectivity. This mechanism of speciation and hybridization has far-reaching consequences for the study of all types of corals and potentially many other groups of organisms as well.

Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process

Technological Innovation as an Evolutionary Process PDF Author: John M. Ziman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521542173
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Ground-breaking yet non-technical analysis of the analogy that technological artefacts 'evolve' like biological organisms.

Frontiers of Management (Routledge Revivals)

Frontiers of Management (Routledge Revivals) PDF Author: Roger Mansfield
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317961285
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
This edited collection, first published in 1989, stems from the second annual meeting of the British Academy of Management, held at Cardiff Business School in 1988. With the focus on important areas of change affecting management practice and theory – in markets, technology and organizational structure - this volume contains a selection of material presented at the conference by leading scholars in the field. Their contributions provide multi-disciplinary views of organizational strategy, across a wide spectrum of business and industry, which will be of significant interest to any students of business structure and management.

Nanotechnology: Societal Implications

Nanotechnology: Societal Implications PDF Author: William S. Bainbridge
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402054327
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology promise great technical breakthroughs in the coming decades. In this book, leading scientists, engineers, and social scientists review the possible uses of these impending technical developments in various industrial, medical, and national security applications. They also examine the corresponding ethical, legal, social, economic, and educational issues that these developments raise.

Innovation in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors

Innovation in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors PDF Author: Patria De Lancer Julnes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317416414
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
In the organizational context, the word "innovation" is often associated with private sector organizations, which are often perceived as more agile, adaptable, and able to withstand change than government agencies and nonprofit organizations. But the reality is that, while they may struggle, public and nonprofit organizations do innovate. These organizations must find ways to use shrinking resources effectively, improve their performance, and achieve desirable societal outcomes. Innovation in the Public Sector provides alternative frameworks for defining, categorizing, and studying innovation in government and in the nonprofit sector. Through a diverse collection of international case studies, this book broadens the discussion of innovation in public and nonprofit organizations, demonstrating the hurdles organizations face and examining the technological advances and managerial ingenuity innovators use to achieve their goals, both within and beyond the boundaries of the innovating organization. The chapters shed light on key issues including: how to conceptualize innovation; how organizations decide between competing good ideas; how to implement innovation; how to contend with challenges to innovation; how to judge success in innovation This book provides current and future public managers with the understanding and skills required to manage change and innovation, and is essential reading for all those studying public management, public administration, and public policy.