Science, Society and New Technologies

Brands, which are major economic entities and major symbols of market mediations, are increasingly appearing in the social arena as cultural actors in their own right. Their quest for social legitimacy and to have control over the markets goes beyond the u... (Read more)

The modeling of cities and territories has progressed greatly in the last 20 years. This is firstly due to geographic information systems, followed by the availability of large amounts of georeferenced data – both on the Internet and through the use of c... (Read more)

Computer software (operating systems, web browsers, word processors, etc.) structure our daily lives. Comprising both a user interface and the electronic circuits of the machine it is printed to, software represents a hybrid object at the crossroads of mat... (Read more)

Interdisciplinarity research results from a growing need for multi-perspective methods, and knowledge on complex and multifaceted objects of study. It is not simply scientific research that involves several disciplines, but ultimately, the aim is confronti... (Read more)

Alternative Takes to the City presents the mosaic of relations and socio-spatial conditions which compose the plurality of contemporary everyday space(s) in cities, offering "a view from below". It proposes a multidisciplinary and gendered approach to the ... (Read more)

The analysis of kinship plays a major role in social anthropology. However, the intellectual triumph of structuralism has transformed this analysis into an ivory tower and the methodological hegemony of functionalism inhibits any historical authority. K... (Read more)

This book demonstrates that our daily relations, like our most recognized institutions, are based on a symbolic foundation put in place by rituals. Rituals are present at every level of society and are an expression of the sacredness of society, as much as... (Read more)

The notion of otherness, often misused, requires important conceptualization work in order for it to be considered in all of its forms, and not simply reduced to the account of others. Although otherness certainly questions the link to the other (relation... (Read more)

Changing your mind to change the world is the general principle proposed to educate for responsibility. Using an interdisciplinary scientific approach, this book dissects the functioning of the ego, that is to say the belief in a self, an illusion that ... (Read more)

Discourse is not just a means of expressing thought; it is also an autonomous body, an act through which we aim to achieve a certain effect. Modern linguistics proposes a broader definition of discourse, as a discrete and unique enunciative process, where ... (Read more)

We are at a crucial time for the production and dissemination of knowledge – one in which the scientific community is questioning the nature of the digital humanities. Within this context, Learner Support in Online Learning Environments proposes, by taki... (Read more)

In recent years, interest for local energy production, supply and consumption has increased in academic and public debates. In particular, contemporary energy transition discourses and strategies often emphasize the search for increased local energy autono... (Read more)

Whilst research and innovation may allow for increasing efficiency in the pursuit of human ends, they also pose dangers, linked to the unpredictability of their development, which call for unprecedented responsibility. This book contends that the struct... (Read more)

It may seem obvious that the human being has always been present in anthropology. This book, however, reveals that he has never really been a part of it. Theoretical Anthropology or How to Observe a Human Being establishes the foundations and conditions... (Read more)

In geography, a region is one of the most obscure and controversial scientific research objects. However, the tourism sector frequently uses the term, both in the communication of tourism destinations and in daily-life vocabulary, to characterize spatial p... (Read more)

The notion of the dispositif (dispositive) is particularly relevant for understanding phenomena where one can observe the reproducibility of distributed technical activities, operational or discursive, between human and non-human actors. This book revie... (Read more)

A polymorphous concept, power has imposed itself since ancient times. Whether it characterizes the phenomena of domination, exclusion or voluntary submission, it illuminates social relations and, since the 20th Century, interpersonal relations. This boo... (Read more)

Living eXperience Design – the design of life experiences – is an extension of user experience design (UXD). The context comprises usage and practice in real contexts in which spatial, urban, social, temporal, historical and legal dimensions are consid... (Read more)

In a context where climate change urgently requires us to alter our paradigms, this book explores the possibilities of cities that are both more energy efficient and more respectful of the environment. Based on the observation that urban planning has be... (Read more)

Mediation is a very old practice that has been reborn to meet the needs of the contemporary world. It is thus increasingly present in today's societies. This book presents the theoretical foundations of mediation, as well as the way in which teachers and ... (Read more)

In early research work on international communication, the countries of North Africa and the Middle East were seen as part of the “Third World”, and the media had to be at the service of development. However, this situation is changing due to the trans... (Read more)

The industrial interest in Wearables, smart textiles and smart apparel is growing. This book focuses on concrete aspects of this domain and is intended for readers wishing to familiarize themselves with the complex issues surrounding smart textiles and sma... (Read more)

Trapped between the caricatured causalities of biological determinism and the sinister abdications of sociological relativism, socio-ecological interdisciplinarity stagnates. It has lost sight of the ambition of a long-term program and no longer works to c... (Read more)

The emergence of social networks, OpenCourseWare, Massive Open Online Courses, informal remote learning and connectivist approaches to learning has made the analysis and evaluation of Digital Learning Environments more complex. Modeling these complex sy... (Read more)

This book presents different data collection and representation techniques: elementary descriptive statistics, confirmatory statistics, multivariate approaches and statistical modeling. It exposes the possibility of giving more robustness to the classical ... (Read more)

Technical progress reveals the possibility of a new world and a fourth industrial revolution centered on digital data and artificial intelligence. The advent of the digital realm and its ubiquity in our society create a growing need for ethical benchmarks ... (Read more)

Following the rapid development of connected technologies, which are now highly sophisticated and spread across the globe, Society 5.0 has emerged and brought with it a dramatic societal shift. In 1998, Kodak, the world leader in photographic film, had... (Read more)

What is color? What is the precise meaning of the statement “the stock market is down by 5% this evening”? How can images produce meaning? How are TV viewers defined? Informationally speaking, such well-known, common questions are examined in this b... (Read more)

This book, comprised of two volumes, is an extended and detailed analysis of both the flow phenomena in closed and open channels and the flows around solid bodies. Although emphasis is given to the real-life applications of flows, the theoretical backgroun... (Read more)

This book, comprised of two volumes, is an extended and detailed analysis of both the flow phenomena in closed and open channels and the flows around solid bodies. Although emphasis is given to the real-life applications of flows, the theoretical backgroun... (Read more)

Time, Emergences and Communications pursues scientific and philosophical research on the place and role of information in natural systems. The first part proposes an unprecedented interpretation of quantum physics by focusing on the idea of matter that com... (Read more)

This book represents an up-to-date summary on the issue of education and territory. By questioning the relationship between education and territory according to three main axes – historical evolutions, contemporary interactions and original theorizations... (Read more)

Responsible Innovation. For some, this expression is only an oxymoron or, worse, a means of masking with a sheet of virtue economic practices that would otherwise appear selfish and self-interested. For others, theorists and actors of innovation, this expr... (Read more)

For the last 40 years, anthropotechnology has concentrated its efforts on the study and improvement of the working and living conditions of populations throughout the world. It guides the actors of the design processes by paying attention to the “human f... (Read more)

Modern science is at a tipping point. A new page in the history of knowledge opens with the “information paradigm”, a notion which is gradually supplanting the old mechanistic vision inherited from Galileo and Newton. The author presents an overview... (Read more)

Practices associated with the culture of “scholarly” reading have been developed over many centuries and annotations themselves have become the subject of study, either as additional elements in connection with the original texts or as documents in the... (Read more)

The relationship between technicity and scientificity is often overlooked or avoided despite being a determining factor for establishing interdisciplinarity. By focusing on this relationship and highlighting a number of its ramifications, this book sheds l... (Read more)

"Creative competitive intelligence" is an information-seeking and monitoring activity of an information environment for the purpose of creativity and innovation. It involves the process leading up to the development of an informational supply adapted to th... (Read more)

As a theory, sociobiology is opposed to socio-ecology, a discipline hampered since its birth. The indictment of the ideological intentions of the first has obscured the notion that the growing domination of the image of the “selfish gene” has obstructe... (Read more)

Too often, governance falls short of the ideals established through reflections on RRI. Yet, a reflexive governance model has emerged in recent years in scientific debates. This model tries to focus on the effects of actors’ commitment in shared cooperat... (Read more)

Responsible research and innovation (RRI) has become an intensely debated concept for shaping future science, technology and innovation. This book is dedicated to the first steps of emerging RRI debates. Its main message is that the object of responsibilit... (Read more)

This volume tackles the burden of judgment and the challenges of ethical disagreements, organizes the cohabitation of scientific and ethical argumentations in such a way they find their appropriate place in the political decision. It imagines several forms... (Read more)

Smart cities are a new vision for urban development. They integrate information and communication technology infrastructures – in the domains of artificial intelligence, distributed and cloud computing, and sensor networks – into a city, to facilitate... (Read more)

The scientific and technological upheavals of the 20th Century and the questions and difficulties that went along with them (climate change, nuclear energy, GMO, etc.) have increased the necessity of thinking about and formalizing technoscientific progress... (Read more)

This volume presents the first half of a diverse collection of chapters in the field of materials and infrastructures in transport systems, which illustrate the technological and methodological innovations required to rise to the challenge of building more... (Read more)

This volume presents the second half of a diverse collection of chapters in the field of materials and infrastructures in transport systems, which illustrate the technological and methodological innovations required to rise to the challenge of building mor... (Read more)

Transport systems are facing an impossible dilemma: satisfy an increasing demand for mobility of people and goods, while decreasing their fossil-energy requirements and preserving the environment. Additionally, transport has an opportunity to evolve in a c... (Read more)

Freight transport faces a dual challenge: it must satisfy the demands of globalized trade and meet environmental requirements. In this context, innovation is a crucial topic to enable the transition from the current transportation and logistics system to a... (Read more)

Transport systems are facing an impossible dilemma: satisfy an increasing demand for mobility of people and goods, while decreasing their fossil-energy requirements and preserving the environment. Additionally, transport has an opportunity to evolve in a c... (Read more)

Transport systems are facing an impossible dilemma: satisfy an increasing demand for mobility of people and goods, while decreasing their fossil-energy requirements and preserving the environment. Additionally, transport has an opportunity to evolve in a c... (Read more)

Responsible Research and Innovation appears as a paradoxical frame, hard to conceptualize and difficult to apply. If, on the one hand, research and innovation appear to follow logics blind to societal issues, on the other hand responsibility is still a b... (Read more)

Practical and conceptual, the Responsible Research and Innovation set of books contributes to the clarification of this new requirement for all sciences and technological innovation. It covers the multiple and international responsibilities, by using vario... (Read more)

This book discusses the media, beliefs, the news, the Internet, etc. but it should not be seen as yet another critique of the media system, exploring with indignant fascination the idea of a machination against truth set up to serve a society of domination... (Read more)

New information technologies have contributed to the emergence of new lifestyles and modern strategic developments, but they have also provided new forms of weapons for all kinds of belligerents. This book introduces the concept of “information warfa... (Read more)