Good product designs merge materials; technology and hardware into a unified user experience; one where the technology recedes into the background and people benefit from the capabilities and experiences available. By focusing on functional gain; critical awareness and emotive connection; even the most multifaceted and complex technology can be made to feel straightforward and become an integral part of daily life. Researchers; designers and developers must understand how to progress or appropriate the right technical and human knowledge to inform their innovations. The 1st International Smart Design conference provides a timely forum and brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss issues; identify challenges and future directions; and share their RD findings and experiences in the areas of design; materials and technology.This proceedings of the 1st Smart Design conference held at Nottingham Trent University in November 2011 includes summaries of the talks given on topics ranging from intelligent textiles design to pharmaceutical packaging to the impact of social and emotional factors on design choices with the aim of informing and inspiring future application and development of smart design.
2012-04-10 2012-04-10File Name: B00A9YGEIY
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Bady writingBy Larin RimskyThis book is so overwritten its unreadable. I have an MFA in writing--Im used to reading high-level texts. This is just poorly written.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. I place some blame on the author for poor writing. But Haraways writing is brilliantBy Elizabeth MillerUsually when I have trouble getting through a book; I place some blame on the author for poor writing. But Haraways writing is brilliant; just so theoretically dense that if I really want to understand; it takes me an hour to read 12-15 pages. This is an incredible work of scholarship; will change the way you think about humanitys relationship with the world.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A Great Historiography with Context of PrimatologyBy RDDIn "Primate Visions: Gender; Race; and Nature in the World of Modern Science"; Donna Haraway examines the literature of primatology in the twentieth century. In the course of her work; she draws extensively on Bruno Latourrsquo;s projected methods for studying science in action. Haraway writes ldquo;about primates because they are popular; important; marvelously varied; and controversial. And all members of the Primate Order ndash; monkeys; apes; and people ndash; are threatened. Late twentieth-century primatology may be seen as part of a complex survival literature in global; nuclear culturerdquo; (pg. 3). She continues; ldquo;Primates existing at the boundaries of so many hopes and interests are wonderful subjects with whom to explore the permeability of walls; the reconstitution of boundaries; the distaste for endless socially enforced dualismsrdquo; (pg. 3). Haraway draws extensively on works of fiction as she believes these help shape peoplersquo;s understanding of primates and; thus; themselves (pg. 3). To that end; Haraway argues; ldquo;Primatology is about an Order; a taxonomic and therefore political order that works by the negotiation of boundaries achieved through ordering differenceshellip;The two major axes structuring the potent scientific stories of primatology that are elaborated in these practices are defined by the interacting dualisms; sex/gender and nature/culturerdquo; (pg. 10).One of the foundational scientists in primatology that Haraway identifies is Robert Yerkes. She argues that his ldquo;enduring contribution to science was the founding of a paradigmatic laboratoryrdquo; (pg. 61). In this way; ldquo;the paradigmatic human science for Yerkes was psychobiology. Those animals most like people should be used as the most practical producers of knowledgerdquo; (pg. 62). Reflecting the Progressivesrsquo; goals of social engineering; Yerkes ldquo;saw personnel research as the key discipline of the new era. Yerkes believed that industrial systems had evolved from slavery; to the wage system; to the present system based on cooperation. Only now could the value of the person be realizedrdquo; (pg. 69). Haraway concludes of Yerkesrsquo; work; ldquo;Personality then tied physiology; medicine; psychology; anthropology; and sociology into the service of management. The scientific study of instinct (or drive) was like an inventory of raw material in the production of efficient; harmonious society through human engineeringrdquo; (pg. 69).Summarizing the work of the late Cold War period; Haraway writes; ldquo;Surrogates; rehabilitants; language students; and adopted children: apes modeled a solution to a deep cultural anxiety sharpened by the real possibility in the late twentieth century of western peoplersquo;s destruction of the earthrdquo; (pg. 132). New studies during this period; such as those by Jane Goodall and the early space program tests demonstrate the dichotomy of primatology in the post-WWII era. Haraway writes; ldquo;The naturalistic primate studies in the ethologically constructed field intersected the extraterrestrial primate studies of the space program in the electronically recorded and telemetrically implanted simians beaming information to listening scientists in the field; laboratory; and command center. In the universe of information; the antipodes of the earthly ecosystem and extraterrestrial space meet in a shared coderdquo; (pg. 140).Discussing gender; Haraway writes; ldquo;The story of compulsory reproductive sexuality is never far in the background in primate visions. The multiplicity of surrogates confuses the question of alliances and the nature of progeny; but not for a moment does all the boundary crossing ndash; of species barriers; machine-organism barriers; language barriers; earth-space barriers ndash; relax the injunction to be fruitful and multiply; heterosexuallyrdquo; (pg. 146). Continuing her gender analysis; she writes; ldquo;Feminists ndash; women and men ndash; and women ndash; feminist and not ndash; trace a fine line as scientists drawing and redrawing the objects of biological and medical knowledge marked femalerdquo; (pg. 279-280). Harawayrsquo;s contention ldquo;is that the intersection ndash; coupled with other aspects of the lsquo;decolonization of naturersquo; that have restructured the discourse of biology and anthropology; as well as other practices of international politics ndash; destabilizes the narrative fields that gave rise to both primatology and feminism; thereby generating the possibility of new stories; but also not innocent of the workings of power and desire; including new exclusions. But the intervention must work from within; constrained and enabled by the fields of power and knowledge that make discourse eminently materialrdquo; (pg. 288).Haraway concludes; ldquo;Questions about the nature of war; technology; power; and community echo through the primate literature. Given meaning through readings of the bodies and lives of our primate kin; who were semiotically placed in allochronic time and allotropic space; reinvented origins have been figures for reinvented possible futures. Primatology is a First World survival literature in the conditions of twentieth-century global historyrdquo; (pg. 369).