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The Smart Swarm
by Peter MillerWhat ants, bees, fish, and smart swarms can teach about communication, organization, and decision-making. The modern world may be obsessed with speed and productivity, but twenty-first-century humans actually have much to learn from the ancient instincts of swarmers. A fascinating new take on collective intelligence and its colorful manifestations in some of our most complex problems, The Smart Swarm introduces a compelling new understanding on solving our own problems relating to such topics as business, politics, and technology. This lively tour from National Geographic reporter Peter Miller introduces ant colonies that have been the inspiration for streamlining factory processes, telephone networks, and truck routes; termites, used in studies for climate-control solutions; schools of fish, on which the U.S. military modeled a team of robots; and many other examples of the wisdom to be gleaned about the behavior of crowds.
Smart Teams: How to Move from Friction to Flow and Work Better Together
by Dermot CrowleyLearn how your team can communicate, congregate and collaborate more effectively than ever Smart Teams will help your team to go beyond personal productivity to build a culture where productivity thrives. This book shows you how to turn around the unproductive team behaviours that create friction. You’ll learn the ‘superproductive’ behaviours that promote flow and the most impactful productivity principles for working better together. Smart Teams shares the practical guidelines and key skills you need to lead a productive, cooperative team. Email noise, unproductive meetings and poorly organised projects can stifle creativity and disrupt everyone’s workflow. A culture that isn’t productive results in long hours, more stress, and a lack of balance. But by raising awareness of how our behaviours impact our work and our colleagues, you build the desire and capability to change within your team. This book is packed with tips, guidelines and expert insights for leaders and managers at any level. Foster a culture of ‘superproductivity’ Create a set of Smart Team principles to guide cooperation Run fewer, shorter and more effective meetings Collaborate more productively on projects Reduce urgency, interruptions and email noise People want their work to matter, they want to make an impact and they want to do it all with a healthy work-life balance. Productivity is the key to making it all happen! Smart Teams shows you how to implement the culture shift that will allow your team to flourish. This book is part of the Smart Productivity series, helping readers find practical solutions for better managing their time, energy and focus.
Smart Technologies for the Digitisation of Industry: Entrepreneurial Environment (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies #254)
by Agnessa O. Inshakova Evgenia E. FrolovaThis book discusses fusion of technology and body of knowledge through elaboration of theoretical concepts and conceptual frameworks to ensure the economic growth of the Russian Federation by utilizing the huge potential for innovation and entrepreneurship in Russia. The book presents recent research to solve the most challenging problems facing digitalization in the field of entrepreneurship in the country. Some of them need specialized personnel training; the considerable financial resources needed for the maintenance of digital technologies; how to market enterprises and organizations; and financial instruments designed to support industrial development. The proposed results will create the conditions for a systemic approach to tilting towards supporting new ventures through an improved regulatory framework—currently virtually absent in the field of entrepreneurship at the national level. The book defines prospects for investment in renewable energy sources, circulation of energy resources, and energy efficiency improvements to gain positive economic effects from the introduction of new technologies.
Smart Technologies in Healthcare
by Bruno BouchardAssistive technologies for the old and people with disabilities is now a very active field of research. It also constitutes a very profitable market (expected to reach US $60 billion p.a. by 2018). The book covers key aspects of this important field and provides guidelines for developing assistive technologies in smart environments. The book also presents the new paradigm of open innovation used by the most prolific research teams around the world. The latest developments in the field are given. Overall this book will be a reference for researchers, practitioners and engineers.
Smart und digital: Wie künstliche Intelligenz unser Leben verändert
by Klaus HenningKünstliche Intelligenz verändert alles.Dieses Buch ermutigt, sich der Herausforderung durch die digitale Transformation mit Künstlicher Intelligenz zu stellen. Der Leser erfährt, warum diese Transformation als größte Kulturrevolution seit der Erfindung des Massenbuchdrucks anzusehen ist und wie diese wert-orientiert positiv gestaltet werden kann. Dabei verfolgt der Autor die These, dass Intelligente Objekte im Netz und Gegenstände dieser Welt ein eigenes Bewusstsein bekommen. Er zeigt anhand vieler Beispiele, wie diese digitalen Begleiter zu unseren digitalen Partnern werden. Dieses Sachbuch gibt viele Anregungen für das eigene Lebens- und Arbeitsumfeld und ist voller Beispiele für die Umsetzung von Systemen der künstlichen Intelligenz. Der Leser erfährt, was heute schon geht und was in den nächsten zehn bis zwanzig Jahren zu erwarten ist. Das Werk ist für alle interessant, die sich für KI und die digitale Transformation interessieren – von Verantwortlichen in Unternehmen, öffentlichen Einrichtungen und Politik, wie auch alle Lehrer und Eltern, die verstehen wollen, was die nächste Generation erwartet.
Smart Urban Safety and Security: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
by Anniina Autero Marcela de Moraes Batista Simão Ilari KarppiThis open access book explores the use of technologies for urban safety and security. Rather than focusing on the technologies themselves, it provides and in-depth analysis of the complex urban transformations linked to the increasing integration of technical systems in the built environment. Interdisciplinary contributions explain how technologies can improve urban safety, whilst offering a broader discussion relative to urban, socio-economic and political factors. Against simplistic techno-solutionist ideas, the authors illustrate the role of technology as means to an end and show how technologies can widen our understanding of safety and security. Readers are introduced to issues relative to the practical implementation, development, and testing of urban technologies via numerous case studies from cities around the world.
Smart Urbanism: Utopian vision or false dawn?
by Simon Marvin, Andrés Luque-Ayala and Colin McFarlaneSmart Urbanism (SU) – the rebuilding of cities through the integration of digital technologies with buildings, neighbourhoods, networked infrastructures and people – is being represented as a unique emerging ‘solution’ to the majority of problems faced by cities today. SU discourses, enacted by technology companies, national governments and supranational agencies alike, claim a supremacy of urban digital technologies for managing and controlling infrastructures, achieving greater effectiveness in managing service demand and reducing carbon emissions, developing greater social interaction and community networks, providing new services around health and social care etc. Smart urbanism is being represented as the response to almost every facet of the contemporary urban question. This book explores this common conception of the problematic of smart urbanism and critically address what new capabilities are being created by whom and with what exclusions; how these are being developed - and contested; where is this happening both within and between cities; and, with what sorts of social and material consequences. The aim of the book is to identify and convene a currently fragmented and disconnected group of researchers, commentators, developers and users from both within and outside the mainstream SU discourse, including several of those that adopt a more critical perspective, to assess ‘what’ problems of the city smartness can address The volume provides the first internationally comparative assessment of SU in cities of the global north and south, critically evaluates whether current visions of SU are able to achieve their potential; and then identifies alternative trajectories for SU that hold radical promise for reshaping cities.
The Smart Wife: Why Siri, Alexa, and Other Smart Home Devices Need a Feminist Reboot
by Yolande Strengers Jenny KennedyA bold dive into the problematic development (and developers) of "smart wives"--feminized digital assistants who are friendly, sometimes flirty, docile, efficient, occasionally glitchy, and perpetually available. Meet the Smart Wife--at your service, an eclectic collection of feminized AI, robotic, and smart devices. This digital assistant is friendly and sometimes flirty, docile and efficient, occasionally glitchy but perpetually available. She might go by Siri, or Alexa, or inhabit Google Home. She can keep us company, order groceries, vacuum the floor, turn out the lights. A Japanese digital voice assistant--a virtual anime hologram named Hikari Azuma--sends her "master" helpful messages during the day; an American sexbot named Roxxxy takes on other kinds of household chores. In The Smart Wife, Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy examine the emergence of digital devices that carry out "wifework"--domestic responsibilities that have traditionally fallen to (human) wives. They show that the principal prototype for these virtual helpers--designed in male-dominated industries--is the 1950s housewife: white, middle class, heteronormative, and nurturing, with a spick-and-span home. It's time, they say, to give the Smart Wife a reboot.
Smart & Wise: A Transformation
by Florence Pittman MatuskyFlorence Matusky proposes that K-12 public education's primary focus on one hemisphere only (the left-brain) - to be test smart,not wise - produces students whose impoverished, "approved" knowledge is not for understanding self,others,or how to live,but for programming them with by-the-book,academic knowledge then reducing them to numbers.The rationale for flourish or perish ensures failures and dropouts; fosters poverty,crime,violence,addictions,greed,or selfishness;and jeopardizes two of America's Four Freedoms (freedom from fear and want).No one comes into this world and to school with a clean slate. We are born self-centered to get our survival needs met and with inherited and experiential embedded data from conception onward.All children and adults need to express their significance. When children experience being loved,respected, and their embedded true life stories - which are played out as behavior,appearance,and capacity to learn in school - are heard, understood, and accepted, then they learn to love, respect, and accept themselves and others "as is." Released from ego deficits and negativity,they are present to their full human intelligence.When the invisible curriculum(self-awareness, humane redevelopment, emotional resilience, virtues, and character) is not taught and modeled at home and in K-12 public schools,children's uneducated egos and passion and/or lack of meaning and respect override cognition,creating anti-social acts and unsafe societies. As adults, many seek significance outside themselves: power-over people,wealth, and/or the world's stage, creating wars, economic bubbles, income inequality,and declining human qualities and inner lives.Our societal ills are reflections of The Western Intellectual Tradition's legacy. Smart & Wise offers reasons for and solutions to America's quantitative, unequal public schools so students may rise to their higher faculties and excel in math,reading,science,innovation,communications,and relationships.
Smart Working, Living and Organising: IFIP WG 8.6 International Conference on Transfer and Diffusion of IT, TDIT 2018, Portsmouth, UK, June 25, 2018, Proceedings (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology #533)
by Amany Elbanna Yogesh K. Dwivedi Deborah Bunker David WastellThis book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the IFIP WG 8.6 International Working Conference "Smart Working, Living and Organising" on Transfer and Diffusion of IT, TDIT 2018, held in Portsmouth, UK, in June 2018. The 17 revised full papers and 2 short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 34 submissions. They deal with the adoption of new classes of technology used by individuals, organisations, sectors and society with a particular focus on how emerging technologies are adopted and appropriated in organisations and everday life and their impact. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: being smart: adoption challenges; sharing economy and social media; government and infrastructure; IT project management; and revisiting concepts and theories.
Smartcities, Resilient Landscapes and Eco-Warriors: Resilient Landscapes + Eco-warriors
by CJ Lim Ed LiuFollowing on from the success of the first edition, Smartcities + Eco-Warriors (2010), this book is the latest innovative response on urban resilience from one of the world’s leading urban design and architectural thinkers. An ecological symbiosis between nature, society and the built form, the Smartcity cultivates new spatial practices and creates diverse forms of resilient landscapes including and beyond urban agriculture. The notion of the Smartcity is developed through a series of international case studies, some commissioned by government organisations, others speculative and polemic. This second edition has nine new case studies, and additional ecological sustainability studies covering sensitivity, design criteria, and assessments for ecological construction plans. The book concludes with two new essays on the romance of trees and the empowering nature of resilient landscapes. Smartcities, Resilient Landscapes + Eco-warriors represents a crucial voice in the discourse of climate change and the potential opportunities to improve the ecological function of existing habitats or create new landscapes which are considered beneficial to local ecology and resilience. It is indispensable reading for practitioners and students in the fields of landscape, urban design, architecture and environmental engineering. An inspiration to government agencies and NGOs dealing with sustainability, this work also resonates with anyone concerned about cities, landscapes, food and water security, and energy conservation.
Smarter Faster Better
by Charles Duhigg<P>From the bestselling author of The Power of Habit comes a fascinating new book exploring the science of productivity, and why, in today's world, managing how you think--rather than what you think about--can transform your life. <P>Productivity, recent studies suggest, isn't always about driving ourselves harder, working faster and pushing ourselves toward greater "efficiency." Rather, real productivity relies on managing how we think, identify goals, construct teams and make decisions. The most productive people, companies and organizations don't merely act differently--they envision the world and their choices in profoundly different ways. <P> This book explores eight concepts that are critical to increasing productivity. It takes you into the cockpit of two passenger jets (one crashes) to understand the importance of constructing mental models--telling yourself stories about yourself in order to subconsciously focus on what really matters. <P>It introduces us to basic training in the U.S. Marine Corps, where the internal locus of control is exploited to increase self-motivation. ' <P>It chronicles the outbreak of Israel's Yom Kippur War to examine cognitive closure--a dangerous trap that stems from our natural desire to feel productive and check every last thing off our to-do lists, causing us to miss obvious risks and bigger opportunities. <P>It uses a high-achieving public school in Cincinnati to illuminate the concept of disfluency, which holds that we learn faster and more deeply when we make the data harder to absorb. <P>It shows how the principles of lean manufacturing--in which decision-making power is pushed to the lowest levels of the hierarchy--allowed the FBI to produce a software system that had eluded them for years. <P>It explores how Disney made Frozen into a record success by encouraging tension among animation teams--a version of what biologists refer to as the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis, which posits that nature is most creative when crises occur. <P>With the combination of relentless curiosity, deep reporting and rich storytelling that defined The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg takes readers from neurology laboratories to Google's brainstorming sessions and illustrates how we can all increase productivity in our lives. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
Smarter Faster Better: The Transformative Power of Real Productivity
by Charles Duhigg<P>From the author of the New York Times bestselling phenomenon The Power of Habit comes a fascinating new book that explores the science of productivity, and why, in today's world, managing how you think--rather than what you think--can transform your life. <P>A young woman drops out of a PhD program and starts playing poker. By training herself to envision contradictory futures, she learns to anticipate her opponents' missteps--and becomes one of the most successful players in the world. <P>A group of data scientists at Google embark on a four-year study of how the best teams function, and find that how a group interacts is more important than who is in the group--a principle, it turns out, that also helps explain why Saturday Night Live became a hit. A Marine Corps general, faced with low morale among recruits, reimagines boot camp--and discovers that instilling a "bias toward action" can turn even the most directionless teenagers into self-motivating achievers. The filmmakers behind Disney's Frozen are nearly out of time and on the brink of catastrophe--until they shake up their team in just the right way, spurring a creative breakthrough that leads to one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. <P>What do these people have in common? They know that productivity relies on making certain choices. <P>The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive. At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key concepts--from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making--that explain why some people and companies get so much done. <P>Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics--as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters--this painstakingly researched book explains that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don't merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.<P>In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg explained why we do what we do. In Smarter Faster Better, he applies the same relentless curiosity, deep reporting, and rich storytelling to explain how we can improve at the things we do. It's a groundbreaking exploration of the science of productivity, one that can help anyone learn to succeed with less stress and struggle, and to get more done without sacrificing what we care about most--to become smarter, faster, and better at everything we do. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Smarter Screen
by Shlomo Benartzi Jonah LehrerA leading behavioral economist shows how businesses can improve consumer thinking and decision-making on screens.The typical American office worker now spends the majority of his or her waking hours staring at a screen. In the 21st century, every business is a digital business, which is why it's so critical to understand how we think and behave online.Acclaimed behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi reveals a toolkit of interventions for the digital age. Using provocative case-studies and engaging reader exercises, Benartzi shows how businesses can update their nudges to help consumers make better decisions on screens.Consider these solutions:The tournament model used for Wimbledon and March Madness may help consumers identify what they want more easily. While most websites attempt to display as many options as possible, if people can select options from manageable rounds they tend to make better choices.People are more willing to tell a gadget the truth about their risky health behaviors than an actual doctor. When dealing with sensitive subjects, the absence of human feedback - an absence made easy in an age of screens and machines - can be a great advantage.The precise location of an option on a screen can have a massive impact on consumer choice. (In some instances, screen location matters more than personal preference.) The same logic also applies to information, as certain layouts can dramatically influence our levels of attention.Although most websites are designed to make the act of reading as easy as possible, Benartzi explains why this can be a big mistake. Sometimes, the careful use of ugly fonts and other forms of "visual disfluency" are an important way to boost reading comprehension and retention.This book will help you transform the challenges of the digital world into powerful new opportunities that will drive your success in an age of screens.
A Smarter Toronto: Some Reassembly Required
by Bob HankeThis book bridges media, technocultural, urban, and journalism studies to examine the role of journalism in relation to a smart city project on Toronto’s waterfront. From the announcement of the public-private partnership called Sidewalk Toronto to the project’s termination, a mediatized controversy unfolded. Through an assemblage approach to this project and a case study of The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star, it follows the actors and chronicles the Quayside project story as a conversation about the promise and perils of a future “smart” neighbourhood. In the news of Waterfront Toronto, Sidewalk Labs, other actors, events, and developments, there were multiple voices and views, interpretations and arguments, that manifested conflicting interests and values. As a locally situated actor, journalism produced a porous discourse that expressed a proposeand- public pushback movement. This work of articulating mediation conditioned the project’s alteration and dissolution within asymmetrical relations of power. In addition to a wave of opposition that inflected the project’s enactment, a time lag between project time and governmental policymaking made the controversy over this future urban space intractable. With their residual symbolic power, quality journalism contributed to dialogical urban learning.
Smartphone Cultures
by Jane Vincent Leslie HaddonSmartphone Cultures explores emerging questions about the ways in which this mobile technology and its apps have been produced, represented, regulated and incorporated into everyday social practices. The various authors in this volume each locate their contributions within the circuit of culture model. More specifically, this book engages with issues of production and regulation in the case of the electrical infrastructure supporting smartphones and the development of mobile social gambling apps. It examines issues of consumption through looking at parental practices relating to children’s smartphone use, children’s experience of the regulation of this technology, both in the home and in school, how they cope with the mass of communications via the smartphone and the nature of their attachment to the device. Other chapters cover the engagement of older people with smartphones, as well as how different cultural norms of sociability have a bearing on how the technology is consumed. The smartphone’s implications for other theoretical frameworks is illustrated through examining ramifications for domestication, and the sometimes-limited place of smartphones in certain aspects of life is examined through its role in the practices of reading and writing. Smartphone Cultures presents the latest international research from scholars located in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia and will appeal to scholars and students of media and cultural studies, communication studies and sociologists with interests in technology and social practices.
Smartsourcing: Driving Innovation And Growth Through Outsourcing
by Thomas M KoulopoulosOutsourcing is the most popular movement of the new global business economy. In fact, the typical executive will soon spend one-third of their budget on outsourcing! Smartsourcing is the next evolution in outsourcing. Traditional outsourcing reduces costs by moving the work to where the least expensive workers are. While that may cut costs, it simply replicates the status quo. Smartsourcing goes a step further by showing companies how to partner with service providers to not only cut costs, but also increase innovation across the full spectrum of their business. Smartsourcing is the first book on the market to be ahead of the curve on one of the most important shifts in business today.
SmartTribes
by Christine ComafordAre You Scaring Your People into Mediocrity? All leaders want to outperform, outsell, and outinnovate the competition. And most teams are fully capable of doing so. The problem: we consistently say and do things that spark unconscious fears and keep our people stuck in their Critter State. This primitive fight, flight, or freeze mode distills all decision making to one question: What will keep me safest? Lying low, sucking up, procrastinating, and doing a good enough job may keep employees breathing, but it doesn't make for vital organizations. Leaders have to get their people unstuck and fully engaged, replacing their old, limiting mental patterns with new patterns that foster optimal performance. New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again. Comaford brings to this book more than thirty years of company-building experience, combined with her expertise in behavioral modification and organizational development. She has helped hundreds of leaders navigate rapid growth, maximize performance, resolve internal conflicts, and execute turnarounds with the full support of their people. Now she shares potent yet easy-to-learn neuroscience techniques that will help you do the same. You'll learn how to move your team forward and reach your next revenue inflection point using the five key Accelerators of the Smart State--focus, clarity, accountability, influence, and sustainability. You'll get better at anticipating and moving through your own stuck spots and those of your people. Using her proven system, Comaford's clients have already created hundreds of millions of dollars in new value. They've seen their revenues and profits increase by up to 210% annually; individuals become up to 50% more productive and 100% more accountable; marketing demand generation grow by up to 237%; new products and services created up to 48% faster; and sales close up to 50% faster. They spot changes in their markets more quickly, then pounce on them to create the future they want. Ultimately, SmartTribes will help you and your team achieve optimal performance and engagement--brilliance--and leave competitors in the dust.
SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together
by Christine ComafordAre You Scaring Your People into Mediocrity? All leaders want to outperform, outsell, and outinnovate the competition. And most teams are fully capable of doing so. The problem: we consistently say and do things that spark unconscious fears and keep our people stuck in their Critter State. This primitive fight, flight, or freeze mode distills all decision making to one question: What will keep me safest? Lying low, sucking up, procrastinating, and doing a good enough job may keep employees breathing, but it doesn’t make for vital organizations. Leaders have to get their people unstuck and fully engaged, replacing their old, limiting mental patterns with new patterns that foster optimal performance. New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again. Comaford brings to this book more than thirty years of company-building experience, combined with her expertise in behavioral modification and organizational development. She has helped hundreds of leaders navigate rapid growth, maximize performance, resolve internal conflicts, and execute turnarounds with the full support of their people. Now she shares potent yet easy-to-learn neuroscience techniques that will help you do the same. You’ll learn how to move your team forward and reach your next revenue inflection point using the five key Accelerators of the Smart State-focus, clarity, accountability, influence, and sustainability. You’ll get better at anticipating and moving through your own stuck spots and those of your people. Using her proven system, Comaford’s clients have already created hundreds of millions of dollars in new value. They’ve seen their revenues and profits increase by up to 210% annually; individuals become up to 50% more productive and 100% more accountable; marketing demand generation grow by up to 237%; new products and services created up to 48% faster; and sales close up to 50% faster. They spot changes in their markets more quickly, then pounce on them to create the future they want. Ultimately, SmartTribes will help you and your team achieve optimal performance and engagement-brilliance-and leave competitors in the dust. .
The SME Business Guide to Fraud Risk Management
by Robert James ChapmanAll organisations are affected by fraud, but disproportionately so for SMEs given their size and vulnerability. Some small businesses that have failed to manage business fraud effectively have not only suffered financially but also have not survived. This book provides a guide for SMEs to understand the current sources of business fraud risk and the specific risk response actions that can be taken to limit exposure, through the structured discipline of enterprise risk management. The book provides: A single-source reference: a description of all of the common fraud types SMEs are facing in one location. An overview of enterprise risk management: a tool to tackle fraud (as recommended by the Metropolitan Police Service and many other government-sponsored organisations). Illustrations of fraud events: diagrams/figures (where appropriate) of how frauds are carried out. Case studies: case studies of the fraud types described (to bring the subject to life and illustrate fraud events and their perpetrators) enabling readers to be more knowledgeable about the threats. Sources of support and information: a description of the relationship between the government agencies and departments. What to do: ‘specific actions’ to be implemented as opposed to just recommending the preparation of policies and processes that may just gather dust on a shelf. The book gives SMEs a much better understanding of the risks they face and hence informs any discussion about the services required, what should be addressed first, in what order should remaining requirements be implemented and what will give the best value for money.
Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Health Care of Gay Men
by Michael ScarceDiscover how gay men’s health care can be improved!Smearing the Queer: Medical Bias in the Health Care of Gay Men explores how social prejudices embedded in scientific research and practice often act as a detriment to gay men’s health. This book provides an agenda for addressing heterosexism in the health sciences and in medical care while broadening approaches to gay male wellness beyond the limited scope of HIV infection. This groundbreaking book explore a number of neglected concerns affecting the sexual health of gay men , calling for the recognition of their scientific, political, and cultural significance. In Smearing the Queer, gay men, HIV prevention workers, health care providers, mental health professionals, policymakers, researchers, and instructors in related fields will appreciate the in-depth examination of such issues as: research and development on rectal microbicides why many gay men should be receiving periodic anal Pap smears to screen for anorectal cancer an in-depth critique of the problematic diagnosis of “Gay Bowel Syndrome” gay men’s use of the Reality Female Condom for anal sex Viagara’s impact on gay men’s sexual cultures, erectile dysfunction, and recreational drug use a broad-based advocacy agenda for improving relations between gay men and the health sciences the politics surrounding gay men’s restricted access to new and prospective safer sex technologies Smearing the Queer challenges heterosexist bias within the health care delivery and health sciences research and calls for the development of public policy initiatives that address gay men’s wellness in more sophisticated and complex ways. This is the only publication that provides in-depth social, cultural, and political analysis of the topics of Gay Bowel Syndrome, gay men’s use of the female condom, rectal microbicides, and anal Pap smears while examining the social forces that direct scientific research under the guise of objectivity.
Smell, Memory, and Literature in the Black Country
by Sebastian Groes R. M. FrancisFrom Banks’s brewery’s yeasty stink to groaty pudding to spicy curry, Sebastian Groes and R. M. Francis have assembled a new literary history of the smells and (childhood) memories that belong to the Black Country. This often overlooked region of the United Kingdom at the frontlines of post-industrial upheaval is a veritable treasure trove for studying the relationship between olfaction and place-specific memory. Smell, Memory, and Literature in the Black Country is an interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between smell and memory in which the contributions consider both personal and communal memory. Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, memory studies, literary studies and philosophy, the critical essays reconsider psychogeography through cutting-edge sensory and philosophical engagements with physical space, smell, language and human behaviour. The creative contributions from writers including Liz Berry, Narinder Dhami, Anthony Cartwright, and Kerry Hadley-Pryce meditate on the senses, place, and identity. Not only does this book illustrate the rich cultural heritage of the Black Country, it will also appeal to those interested in place writing. The book is prefaced by Will Self.
Smitten: Sex, Gender, and the Contest for Souls in the Second Great Awakening
by Rodney HessingerIn Smitten, Rodney Hessinger examines how the Second Great Awakening disrupted gender norms across a breadth of denominations. The displacement and internal migration of Americans created ripe conditions for religious competition in the North. Hessinger argues that during this time of religious ferment, religious seekers could, in turn, play the missionary or the convert. The dynamic of religious rivalry inexorably led toward sexual and gender disruption. Contending within an increasingly democratic religious marketplace, preachers had to court converts in order to flourish. They won followers through charismatic allure and making concessions to the desires of the people. Opening their own hearts to new religious impulses, some religious visionaries offered up radical dispensations—including new visions of how God wanted them to reorder sex and gender relations in society. A wide array of churches, including Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, Shakers, Catholics, and Perfectionists, joined the fray. Religious contention and innovation ultimately produced backlash. Charges of seduction and gender trouble ignited fights within, among, and against churches. Religious opponents insisted that the newly converted were smitten with preachers, rather than choosing churches based on reason and scripture. Such criticisms coalesced into a broader pan-Protestant rejection of religious enthusiasm. Smitten reveals the sexual disruptions and subsequent domestication of religion during the Second Great Awakening.
Smoke Hole: Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass
by Martin Shaw"With potent, lyrical language and a profound knowledge of storytelling, Shaw encourages and illuminates the mythic in our own lives. He is a modern-day bard." – Madeline Miller, author of Circe and The Song of Achilles At a time when we are all confronted by not one, but many crossroads in our modern lives—identity, technology, trust, politics, and a global pandemic—celebrated mythologist and wilderness guide Martin Shaw delivers Smoke Hole: three metaphors to help us understand our world, one that is assailed by the seductive promises of social media and shadowed by a health crisis that has brought loneliness and isolation to an all-time high. Smoke Hole is a passionate call to arms and an invitation to use these stories to face the complexities of contemporary life, from fake news, parenthood, climate crises, addictive technology and more. Shaw urges us to reclaim our imagination and untangle ourselves from modern menace, letting these tales be our guide. More Praise: "I can still remember the first time I heard Martin Shaw tell a story. The tale that emerged was like a living thing, bounding around, throwing itself at us there listening. I had never heard anything like it before." – Paul Kingsnorth, Booker shortlisted author of The Wake "Martin Shaw’s work is so very beautiful. A new animal. His love of images is deep and contagious." – Coleman Barks, author of The Essential Rumi "Through feral tales and poetic exegesis, Martin Shaw makes you re-see the world, as a place of adventure, and of initiation, as perfect home, and as perfectly other. What a gift." – David Keenan, author of Xstabeth "Shaw has so much wisdom and knowledge about the old stories, it emanates from his pores." – John Densmore, The Doors
Smokefree: A Social, Moral and Political Atmosphere
by Simone DennisAlthough tobacco is a legal substance, many governments around the world have introduced legislation to restrict smoking and access to tobacco products. Smokefree critically examines these changes, from the increasing numbers of places being designated as ‘smokefree’ to changes in cigarette packaging and the portrayal of smoking in popular culture. Unlike existing texts, this book neither advances a public health agenda nor condemns the erosion of individual rights. Instead, Simone Dennis takes a classical anthropological approach to present the first agenda-free, full-length study of smoking. Observing and analysing smoking practices and environments, she investigates how the social, moral, political and legal atmosphere of ‘smokefree’ came into being and examines the ideas about smoke, air, the senses, space, and time which underlie it. Looking at the impact on public space and individuals, she reveals broader findings about the relationship between the state, agents, and what is seen to constitute ‘the public’. Enriched with ethnographic vignettes from the author’s ten years of fieldwork in Australia, Smokefree is a challenging, important book which demands to be read and discussed by anyone with an interest in anthropology, sociology, political science, human geography, and public health.