TWC Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

Technology & Medicial Science: Recombinant DNA technology may be the key to future cancer research


(i) Innovation of Interest:
The focus on the research paper will be on how technology influenced the progressment of the medical profession, and how technology will influence in the future.


(ii) Rationale for Selection:

Cancer is an incurable disease in the past. However, with the progress of technology, cancer is no longer an incurable disease. Currently, there are some ways to prevent and cure cancer. In addition, everyone has the invisible cancer cells, and all cancers occur due to abnormalities in DNA sequences. That means cancer is the commonest genetic disease. Currently, recombinant DNA is widly used in biotechnology, medicine and research. 

(iii) Proposed Approach

(1) Executive Summary

(2) Background / Introduction
• Definitions of the Recombinant DNA technology 

• What caused cancer?

• Recombinant DNA technology 

1. The study and/or modification of gene expression patterns
2. Gene cloning
3. Creation of transgenic plants and animals

(3) Historical Perspective

• The idea for Recombinant DNA

--The idea was first proposed by Peter Lobban, a graduate student of Prof. Dale Kaiser in the Biochemistry Department at Stanford University Medical School.

--Recombinant DNA products

• Idea/knowledge of cancer

--How to diagnose cancer

--The way of curing method

--What research they did about curing cancer

(4) Current Situation

• Current way to prevent/cure cancer

1. Four standard methods of treatment for cancer: surgery, Chemotherapy, Radiation therapy, and Biologic or Targeted Therapy. 

2.vaccine

• How does each way works

--efficiency

--negative consequences

(5) Future Considerations / Possible Problems

--Development prospects--Reasons why can use Recombinant DNA technology to cure cancer

(6) Conclusion

 Recombinant DNA technology may be the key to future cancer research

(7) References

Week3--Industrial Development and Innovation Management

I am quite familiar with this week's topic, it is because China's development is basesd on the industrial development. At the begining, I want to share something happened in China. And I think Industrial development and sustainable development may contradict with each other. At around 1970, China started be open minded, as what we learned last week. At that period, China's development strategy is "economic development first, environment protection second." This made China gradually grow up. However, big achievements followed by serious environmental problem.

This lead us to first part of the session  "We need to move from thinking linearly into a cyclical mood. ", which is about the Sustainable Industrial Development --- the combination of sustainable development and individual development --- is to develop its eonomy and at the same time care about environment. Furthermore, maximising value creation without reducing options for future generation. In my opinion, the reason why we need to talk about the sustainable industrial development is because of the shortage of resources and the severely damaged environment. In order to better understand the topic. We read some articles.

Reading1 talks about the industrial development can achieve gender equality. What I understand about this readting is that industrialization increase the number of working people, so that women also go for work. What they were doing in the begining is about spinning and other Light Industry processing. What happened in China also can prove this argument. China can have a big industrial development because of the cheap labor. And most of labors are women. Women do not need to rely on their husbands, and they can have their independet income. This makes women have their status in the society, and achieve gender equality.

The key takeways from Reading 2 is about the "advantages of backwardness". Some people may think starting something late is not a good same, it lose the opportunities to compete with other. However, what this article points out is very interesting. Author thinks starting lates has its advantages. It is because these late comers do not need to bear the developing difficulties. They can learn from the previous experiences and avoid the same mistakes which committed by previous people. They can just follow the previous successful roles. Beyond this obvious idea, I think this is a hint for some developing countries. They do not have ability to lose, and now, they have chance to develop without much loses. This is good fo them to be backwards.

What I learned from Reading 3 is about this world economic forum report explores the business case for sustainability as an opportunity for innovation and growth. It shows the disadvantages of developing countries. Developing countries usually export raw materials with low price and import end product at a high price. It shows that without technology, countries cannot develop. And technology can make rich countries richer, and make poor countries poorer.

We did an interesting experiment about the the choices of different type of products with the same function. One is normal product, another is green product. If two of them having the same price, almost all people are willing to choose the green product. If the green product is less expensive than the normal product, some people still want to buy green product. However, when the green product is much expensive than the normal product, only 20 percent population still want to to buy it. Hence, it shows that consumers are willing to pay more for the green products, but not much. This experiment shows us a very significant concept of the sustainable issue. And what we need to work on it becomes the major issue in today's society.

The second part of session we focus on technology and innovation development. I have some takeways in this part, the first one is one quote, "To be innovation, need to have four smarts, smart people, smart ideas, smart money and smart friends. " Just us one quote from Tom Peter on the opportunity and challenge of innovation to keep abide to is this: “Life is pretty simple:

You do some stuff.
Most fails. Some works.
You do more of what works.
If it works big, others quickly copy it.
Then you do something else.
The trick is the doing something else.”

 

This is a meanful concept, change is the only constant. If people do not have innovations and new ideas, they will lose their competition. For instance, Apple need to continue come out new products to attract customers.

The second one is R-D-A Translating Process, which is the translation of new insights and understanding to practical application. New ideas have been created, need to be developed and applied in reality. Imagination is not enough, must convert it into application. The difference between invention and innovation is convert ideas into market place.

I felt that this week's session gave me a good idea of the different forms of change. And the main point of development, both in the short run and long run.  Overall, I will give 8/10 for this week's session.

Week 2——Global Dominance and Human Development

History of the World in 7 Minutes

After recap what we have learned last week, we started off our second class by a video entitled "History of the World in 7 Minutes". The video gave us an overview of how does world changes over last 13 billion years. The concept of "technology can make the world change" clearly showed in this video. About 8000 years ago, it may seem like life did not change much since 15000 years ago. It is because humans did not have technology. What they did were hunting and gathering. However, after they started farming, they had the basic knowledge about the technology and after that world started changing.

Global Dominance

First part of the session, we talk about "Technnology, Society and Global Dominance". First we talk about the dominant leaders in their specific areas. For instance, China, Japan, America and South Korea are the dominant leader in economic area. America is the dominant leader in culture and military area. And this brought up the discussion of the 'rising star' and the 'falling star',. 'Rising star' refer to players who are optimistic with a hunger to learn from others, keen to interest in new ideas and are willing to keep an open mind. And 'falling star' refer to players who with little or no willingness to learn and improve, and they often do not have open mind. China is a good example who was a 'falling star' in 40 century. China had no interest in other countries' culture. So this is the begining of the end. After 1970 China wake up and start growing up. China keep open mind and improving. This bring us to the key point of today: "Attitude is Everything. Winner are open, losers are closed."

I also take away some points in Reading2--Innovation in the Reset World. It talks about how global change and technology innovation are changing the dominant players for both economies and companies in the global marketplace. Interesting part in this article is the description of three boxes. Box 1 is for "managing the present," that is to say, projects that will improve the performance of today's businesses. Box2 is for "selectively forgetting the past"--dealing with legacy and existing infrastructure. Box3 is for "creating the future"--forward looking projects that will improve the bottom line a decade down the road."  It is an intereting point, most companies spend a majority of their time in Box 1. Unfortunately, this is short sighted. Box 1 is about efficiency. But Box 2 and 3 are about innovation. So that we must finish current problems first, foloowed by selectively abandoning things from the past and create future.

Human Development

Second part of the session, we focus on "Technology and Human Development". The topic is more about  the individual developmet. And how do people stimulate their potentials and contribute to the society. In addition, development is not always positive, what we are doing is to minimise  negative impacts and maximise positive impacts.

I take aways some points from video1: Progress in Human Development. Firstly, everything is changing , counties which are rich in 1810, are not countries which rich in 2009. Secondly, I learned how to be sustainable? Ranking of different countries, The healthier you are, the better facilities/infrastructure they have. The more educated they get. Help to increase the GDP, help the country be better in the globle. Hence, education is the main issue for a country to develop sustainable.

From "The Millennium Development Goals", I learned eight challenges the world face; which are hunger, poor educaion, gender inequality, poor health care, disease(HIV/ADS), and environmental issue. Every country has some of these problems, and in order to develop, they must solve these problems. So that development goals can be achieved.

Individual Oral Presentation

I find some interesting parts in the oral presentation. Firstly, a classmate brought up a question of whether technology make our education cheaper than before? Most people think technology make our life cheaper. It is because we can download text book from website instead of buying it. We also can access many materials without spending one cents. And students also can learn from websites. However, in my opinion, I think technology make our educattion more expensive. In today's world, students need to buy computer for school work. Some schools even use ipad as a tool to teach and learn. So that students spend a lot of money on education. So I wonder how does these influence education?

And I learned education targets the very root cause of a country falling behind in technological advancement.  With education, not only do people possess the required knowledge, it is also possible that they would develop the drive to further improve their lives. This could then translate into the ability and desire to improve technological wise, hence putting a stop to the vicious cycle.

Conclusion

Overall, I have prepared for this session, and I learned a lot from and tthere were many great and interesting ideas brought up during the lesson, but  I feel that some articles need to be more clarified. Hence, I would give the lesson a rating of 7/10.

First TWC——Technology and the Rise of Civilizations: Historical Timeline and Technology “Revolutions”

 

Finally started the second semester, the first lesson in 2013 is Technology and the World Change which is closely related to my major -- Information Systems. When I read the slides before class, I asked myself about the knowledge I have about the Technology and  World Change. Really not much, but I know that I use it everyday, and it develops and changes the world gradually. First lesson covers the introduction of the course and the relaionship between tecbnology and the rise of civilization.

For what I mainly takeaway from this lesson are roughly three points. Firstly, "Technology is easy, people are hard". Technology can make our life easier, people use technology as their assistant to help them on their work. But accepted by people to utilize technology is hard and challengeable. At the same time, people who invent these technology are very hard. World is changing, followed by the changes of people's mindset and attitude. Hence, people become more free thinking and creative. After that, world changed even faster.

Secondly, in this technological age it has great changes in society. In this 'new world', native groups had a more environmental and technological constraints than those in the 'old world'. People can enjoy more advanced products, and rise the civilization. And this civilization includes many areas, such as agriculture, health care and human development.

The video Guns Germs and Steel gives an idea of civilization. Different societies develop at different rate. Many people have the impression that either China or Egypt was the first center of "civilization." Both of these areas have the image of being very, very ancient and of having "discovered things first." In truth, however, neither China and Egypt were the first to discover most aspects of civilization. Developments is essential for the evolution of human societies, which includes the development of agriculture and pastoralism, specialization of labor, urbanization and writing.

Some idea and informations are quite interesting and meaningful. First one is "For students starting a four year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in the first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study." from the video Did You Know - Shift Happens. It may sounds exaggeration, but I think it really can reflect the changes of current world. Technology changes almost everyday, what we are all familiar with are digital products, such as apple products. If you search what changed the world on google, you can received a lot of articles talking about Apple. As the apple product become more popular in the world, more of their advanced are arise. What we are learning know may not be used in the future because the old technology may outdated.

The second one is also from the video Did You Know - Shift Happens. " It only will take a $1000 computer to exceed the capabilities of the human brain." Classmates contribute some ideas about this statement. In my view, computer can do something which normal people cannot achieve. But, computer was invented by human-beings. So that computer can exceed the capabilities of most human brain, and still cannot reach some people's capability. 

Although, technology can solve some limitations and the necessarily slower pace of development caused by the difficulties in communication and transport. As we all know, technology can change our world, in both good and bad ways. Hence, technology may influence our civilization in an opposite way. How does influence? Technology influenced different nations in different way, how does it happens? I think these two questions can be further discussed, it is quite interesting.

Overall, I learned something from this session, but due to I cannot closely follow some parts of the session and did not contribute some ideas in class. Hence, I would give the lesson a rating of 7/10.