An Opportunity to Present Research

________________________________________
From: Karim Gherab Martin [karim.gherabmartin@technology-conference.com]
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 8:23 PM
To: Leggett, Mark
Subject: Technology Conference, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany, 15-17 January 2010 - Call for Papers

Dear Colleague,

On behalf of the Advisory Board, we would like to inform you of the:

SIXTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TECHNOLOGY, KNOWLEDGE AND SOCIETY
Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany
15-17 January 2010
http://www.Technology-Conference.com

Berlin, today, has great influence within the realms of science, technology, commerce, architecture and the arts. No other region in Europe has such a rich concentration of scientific, academic and research facilities, as does Berlin. Adlershof, a district of Berlin, has become one of the world's 15 largest science and technology parks and is named the 'City for Science, Technology and Media'. The focal points of Berlin's research span the depths of medical technology, biotechnology, information and communications technology, optical technology, material sciences and transportation and environmental technologies. Showing testament to the quality of this very research, one of the products of Berlin's research, a digital film recorder, received an Oscar for technical innovation at the 2002 Academy Awards in Hollywood. At the heart of the recorder, a new frequency-stabilized laser diode, was the creation of the Ferdinand Braun Institute for Highest Frequency Technology. Of additional significance, the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy generated the world's shortest light pulse (used to examine ultra-fast chemical processes and primary biological procedures), with a duration of only 3.8 femto seconds - another tribute to Berlin's thriving technological research.

This Conference will address a range of critically important themes in the various fields that address the complex and subtle relationships between technology, knowledge and society. The Conference is cross-disciplinary in scope, meeting points for technologists with a concern for the social and social scientists with a concern for the technological. The focus is primarily, but not exclusively, on information and communications technologies.

The Conference includes plenary presentations by accomplished researchers, scholars and practitioners, as well as numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations. Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society. If you are unable to attend the Conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic Journal.

Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this Conference, we also encourage you to present on the Conference YouTube Channel. Please select the Online Sessions link on the Conference website for further details.

The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 13 August 2009. Future deadlines will be announced on the Conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the Conference, including an online proposal submission form, are to be found at the Conference website - http://www.Technology-Conference.com

We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope you will be able to join us in Berlin in January 2010.

Yours Sincerely,

Karim Gherab Martin
Visiting Research Scholar
Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
For the Advisory Board, International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society and The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society

pop agenda

flickering messages on electronic boards along the road
guide the driver's eyes away from the slick blackberry
and make him wondering about dinner tonight.

slow moving traffic allows for applying make-up
while sipping on that latte in the morning
that sits between the legs on the driver's seat.

another intersection interrupts the flow of cars
with red and blinking lights hanging across the lanes
when suddenly the board changes its psychology of persuasion.

clearly hackers broadcast an attack on the auto industry
and its gas-guzzling clunkers that led to the taxpayer's bailout
which in the end increased this car's sales price beyond imagination.

Westervelt-Warner Museum

Here is an example for what I have been thinking about in my previous post: The Westervelt-Warner Museum in Tuscaloosa offers two-day seminars for medical students to hone their skills in analyzing an object. Participants will learn to analyze a work of art and the use of a particular vocabulary. The idea is to develop the skills needed in diagnosing a patient's symptoms by "diagnosing" an artist's possible intentions for a work of art. And so far I have not heard that this project has fallen on the way-side; instead, even medical staff at the UA Medical School in Tuscaloosa praised it during a recent talk with me.

research project 001

Research on freshman learning communities focuses on the synergy effects of linking several seminar classes and lecture courses under one particular theme or topic so students will learn to transfer knowledge between those. These learning communities offer faculty involved in the organization and teaching of the communities the opportunity to design assignments and projects together which then become more authentic and more relevant for participating students. The goal is to link the syllabi and content of the various elements of a learning community to achieve a high saturation of theme-specific knowledge. As a result themes of learning communities tend to focus on one particular area of acquiring and applying knowledge while discounting others. For example, in the sciences skills of rational thinking and analyzing are favored over the emotional, creative side of the human brain as well as developing imagination.
As one on the forefront to combine the teaching and learning of knowledge that stimulates both sides of the brain, Sir Ken Robinson argues, for example, for engineering students to study art history and practice painting. Students in the humanities, however, should study math and engineering concepts. I call this truly interdisciplinary studies whereas both parts of the brain are being stimulated and the student is being offered another point of view when solving a problem or analyzing data.

A new beginning.

ED did it again. She twisted my arm just a little bit to go ahead and start another blog despite my "failure" on livejournal a couple of years back. Apparently, I can still log in but all the stuff got deleted since I had abandoned the place. Now a new start. Why not test some ideas and do some writing every day, ED asked me yesterday, so here I am. Perhaps watching the documentary on Hank today provided the impetus necessary to sit down and register here. Hank is Henry Charles Bukowski, a writer I admired years ago for his frank sexy writing on women and the life of a drifter in the U.S.A. The life's story ends tragic, so I think, with him contracting tuberculosis first and later leukemia. (1920-1994) Still, he had something to say to the average man about how to live a life and did not care much for academia and formalism. In fact, there is one quote that stands out to me and while I cannot repeat it verbatim it states that when the writer's spirit wanes his work will become more formalist. And this is something I will attempt to avoid in the weeks and years to come. Let the new conversation begin!