Category: ETH
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Principles of Economics: Introduction
The course’s objective is to introduce the study of economics, and the economic way of thinking about societal problems. It should provide basic understanding of a market economy and the potentials and limitations of economic policies. Economics is the study of how society manages scares resources to use them in the most efficient way. The…
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BSTP – Lecture 1: History of Technology and Society I
Bridging Science, Technology and Policy will today cover the history of technology and society and how they interact. The first part covers the technical innovations up to the industrial revolution. Science is how the environment around human functions. It is not human-centric. Technology on the other hand is made by humans to improve human live.…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Big Data
Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Privacy and Surveillance
Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 5: Digital Society – Network Neutrality
Digital Society is a very elastic phrase. We will explore three examples: Network Neutrality Privacy and Surveillance Big Data All are focused on how technology changes society. It is a contested topic on whether the impact is positive or negative. Issues are at the intersection of information and communications technologies and society, law, and public…
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Geels’ Technological Transitions and System Innovations
Technological transitions and system innovations: A Co-Evolutionary and Socio-Technical Analysis(Geels, 2004)is a mandatory reading of the core course Bridging Science, Technology and policy. The book analyses how technological changes transform societal functions such as transport, communication, housing and energy supply. According to Geels social and technological aspects are always intertwined and constitute each other. The…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 4: Omitted
For personal reasons I did not join the 4th day of the cornerstone course. Some notes may be added at a later point in time.
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Cornerstone Course – Day 3: Urbanisation II
This entry will deal with urbanisation is from the view of UN Habitat and all numbers come from them. 4 billion people (54% of people) live in urban areas. Of those 1 billion live in Informal Settlements (or slums) where basic services and tenure security are lacking. However, cities account for 80% of GDP. Urbanisation…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 3: Urbanisation I
There is a claim that more 50% of humankind live in cities. This claim, however, is wrong. The reason is that a city and an urban environment is not the same and the correct description would be that more than 50% live in urban environments. This differentiation has a huge impact, Caracas, Mexico City and…
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Cornerstone Course – Day 3: Water quality
Water has many exotic physical properties: surface tension, transparency in green and blue wavelengths (allows photosynthesis), protection from wavelengths shorter than UV light (high biodiversity). Surface water however looses lots of biodivserty (76% in freshwater, 39% in seawater). The physiological water cycle in humans consist of 5 litres of blood that transport sugars, amino acids…