The HR function is currently dealing with a range of questions: How can HR prepare for the future? Which HR competencies will be needed? Which aspects should be focused upon? The way forward may start with capacitating HR managers to obtain the necessary competencies and be enlightened about which aspects should get specific attention in order to prepare for the future world of work. In ord…
Climate change and globalisation are opening up the Arctic for exploitation by the world – or so we are told. But what about the views, interests and needs of the peoples who live in the region? This volume explores the opportunities and limitations in engaging with the Arctic under change, and the Arctic peoples experiencing the changes, socially and physically. With essays by both academics…
Traversing disciplines, A History of Participation in Museums and Archives provides a framework for understanding how participatory modes in natural, cultural, and scientific heritage institutions intersect with practices in citizen science and citizen humanities. Drawing on perspectives in cultural history, science and technology studies, and media and communication theory, the book explore…
Ageing is a diverse and multifaceted experience that is unique to each person. The process of ageing is lived differently according to each individual’s socio-cultural, historical, religious, and political context, among other factors. However, the stereotype of homogeneity is still one of the strongest aspects related to later life. This Special Issue covers manuscripts of original research …
Visual perception is one of the most important sources of information for both humans and robots. A particular challenge is the acquisition and interpretation of complex unstructured scenes. This work contributes to active vision for humanoid robots. A semantic model of the scene is created, which is extended by successively changing the robot's view in order to explore interaction possibilitie…
After Race pushes us beyond the old "race vs. class" debates to delve deeper into the structural conditions that spawn racism. Darder and Torres place the study of racism forthrightly within the context of contemporary capitalism. While agreeing with those who have argued that the concept of "race" does not have biological validity, they go further to insist that the concept also holds little p…
Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity. Andrea Ballestero shows how these ephemeral distinctions are made through four technolegal devices—formula, index, list and pact. She arg…
As the development of smart biped robots has been thriving, research and development of personal robots with unique personalities will become an important issue in the next decade. For instance, we might want to have robots capable of affording us pleasure by chatting, singing or joking with us in our homes
We live in a dramatically evolving knowledge society that is founded on the assumption of equal access to relevant skills and technology-dispensed knowledge. If so, then effective inclusion in society requires powerful new learning resources