Megatrend
Megatrends are trends that have an effect on a global scale. Some of the current megatrends relate to global threats. A megatrend strongly influences different spheres of life in many countries and at different levels, covering political, economic, natural environmental, social, and cultural dimensions. A megatrend is different than a shortlived product or consumer trend. John Naisbitt was a pioneer of future studies. His book “Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives” was first published in 1982. It focused mainly on the United States but also attempted to present a global outlook. Naisbitt accurately predicted the change from industrialized to information societies. A growing number of research institutions, international organizations, and think tanks are reflecting on megatrends with the purpose of engaging in dialogue and influence policymaking and investments. Kuhn & Margellos proposed a framework to identify and prioritize megatrends which focuses on fi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Futures Studies
Futures studies, futures research or futurology is the systematic, interdisciplinary and holistic study of social and technological advancement, and other environmental trends, often for the purpose of exploring how people will live and work in the future. Predictive techniques, such as forecasting, can be applied, but contemporary futures studies scholars emphasize the importance of systematically exploring alternatives. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and an extension to the field of history. Futures studies (colloquially called "futures" by many of the field's practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to explore the possibility of future events and trends. Unlike the physical sciences where a narrower, more specified system is studied, futurology concerns a much bigger and more comp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Naisbitt
John Naisbitt (January 15, 1929 – April 8, 2021) was an American author and public speaker in the area of futures studies. His first book ''Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives'' was published in 1982. It was the result of almost ten years of research. It was on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list for two years, mostly as No. 1. ''Megatrends'' was published in 57 countries and sold more than 14 million copies. Biography John Naisbitt grew up in Glenwood, Utah and studied at Harvard, Cornell and Utah universities. He gained business experience working for IBM and Eastman Kodak. In the world of politics he was assistant to the Commissioner of Education under President John F. Kennedy and served as special assistant to HEW Secretary John Gardner during the Johnson administration. He left Washington in 1966 and joined Science Research Associates. In 1968, he founded his own company, the Urban Research Corporation. Naisbitt founded the Naisbitt China In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Resource Depletion
Resource depletion occurs when a natural resource is consumed faster than it can be replenished. The value of a resource depends on its availability in nature and the cost of extracting it. By the law of supply and demand, the Scarcity, scarcer the resource the more valuable it becomes. There are several types of resource depletion, including but not limited to: wetland and ecosystem degradation, soil erosion, aquifer depletion, and overfishing. The depletion of wildlife populations is called ''defaunation''. It is a matter of research and debate how humanity will be impacted and what the future will look like if resource consumption continues at the current rate, and when specific resources will be completely exhausted. History of resource depletion The depletion of resources has been an issue since the beginning of the 19th century amidst the Industrial Revolution, First Industrial Revolution. The extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources increased drasticall ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthetic Biology
Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a multidisciplinary field of science that focuses on living systems and organisms. It applies engineering principles to develop new biological parts, devices, and systems or to redesign existing systems found in nature. It is a branch of science that encompasses a broad range of methodologies from various disciplines, such as biochemistry, biotechnology, biomaterials, Materials science, material science/engineering, genetic engineering, molecular biology, molecular engineering, systems biology, Model lipid bilayer, membrane science, biophysics, Biological engineering, chemical and biological engineering, Electrical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, control engineering and evolutionary biology. It includes designing and constructing BioBrick, biological modules, biological systems, and biological machines, or re-designing existing biological systems for useful purposes. Additionally, it is the branch of science that focuses on the ne ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Microbiota
Microbiota are the range of microorganisms that may be commensal, mutualistic, or pathogenic found in and on all multicellular organisms, including plants. Microbiota include bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi, and viruses, and have been found to be crucial for immunologic, hormonal, and metabolic homeostasis of their host. The term ''microbiome'' describes either the collective genomes of the microbes that reside in an ecological niche or else the microbes themselves. The microbiome and host emerged during evolution as a synergistic unit from epigenetics and genetic characteristics, sometimes collectively referred to as a holobiont. The presence of microbiota in human and other metazoan guts has been critical for understanding the co-evolution between metazoans and bacteria. Microbiota play key roles in the intestinal immune and metabolic responses via their fermentation product ( short-chain fatty acid), acetate. Introduction All plants and animals, from simple life fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthetic Media
Synthetic media (also known as AI-generated media, media produced by generative AI, personalized media, personalized content, and colloquially as deepfakes) is a catch-all term for the artificial production, manipulation, and modification of data and media by automation, automated means, especially through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms, such as for the purpose of producing automated content or producing cultural works (e.g. text, image, sound or video) within a set of human prompted parameters automatically. Synthetic media as a field has grown rapidly since the creation of generative adversarial networks, primarily through the rise of deepfakes as well as music synthesis, text generation, human image synthesis, speech synthesis, and more. Though experts use the term "synthetic media," individual methods such as deepfakes and text synthesis are sometimes not referred to as such by the media but instead by their respective terminology (and often use "deepfakes" as a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Deepfake
''Deepfakes'' (a portmanteau of and ) are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or AV editing software. They may depict real or fictional people and are considered a form of synthetic media, that is media that is usually created by artificial intelligence systems by combining various media elements into a new media artifact. While the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes uniquely leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including facial recognition algorithms and artificial neural networks such as variational autoencoders (VAEs) and generative adversarial networks (GANs). In turn, the field of image forensics develops techniques to detect manipulated images. Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud. Acade ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Emerging Market
An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were in the past. The term "frontier market" is used for developing countries with smaller, riskier, or more illiquid capital markets than "emerging". As of 2006, the economies of China and India are considered to be the largest emerging markets. According to ''The Economist'', many people find the term outdated, but no new term has gained traction. Emerging market hedge fund capital reached a record new level in the first quarter of 2011 of $121 billion. Emerging market economies’ share of global PPP-adjusted GDP has risen from 27 percent in 1960 to around 53 percent by 2013. The ten largest emerging economies by nominal GDP are 4 of the 9 BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) along with Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia, Turkey ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trend (statistics)
Trend analysis is the widespread practice of collecting information and attempting to spot a pattern. In some fields of study, the term has more formally defined meanings. Although trend analysis is often used to predict future events, it could be used to estimate uncertain events in the past, such as how many ancient kings probably ruled between two dates, based on data such as the average years which other known kings reigned. Project management In project management, trend analysis is a mathematical technique that uses historical results to predict future outcome. This is achieved by tracking variances in cost and schedule performance. In this context, it is a project management quality control tool. Statistics In statistics, trend analysis often refers to techniques for extracting an underlying pattern of behavior in a time series which would otherwise be partly or nearly completely hidden by noise. If the trend can be assumed to be linear, trend analysis can be undertaken wi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Climate Change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is Scientific consensus on climate change, driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. Fossil fuel use, Deforestation and climate change, deforestation, and some Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, agricultural and Environmental impact of concrete, industrial practices release greenhouse gases. These gases greenhouse effect, absorb some of the heat that the Earth Thermal radiation, radiates after it warms from sunlight, warming the lower atmosphere. Carbon dioxide, the primary gas driving global warming, Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, has increased in concentratio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Global Catastrophic Risk
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, endangering or even destroying modern civilization. Existential risk is a related term limited to events that could cause full-blown human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential. In the 21st century, a number of academic and non-profit organizations have been established to research global catastrophic and existential risks, formulate potential mitigation measures, and either advocate for or implement these measures. Definition and classification Defining global catastrophic risks The term global catastrophic risk "lacks a sharp definition", and generally refers (loosely) to a risk that could inflict "serious damage to human well-being on a global scale". Humanity has suffered large catastrophes before. Some of these have caused serious damage but were only local in scope—e.g. the Black Death ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformation. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance the transition from feudalism to capitalism, or hypothetical future transition to some form of post-capitalism. Social development is the people that develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan, with particular attention to childhood and adolescence. Healthy social development allows us to form positive relationships with family, friends, teachers, and other people in our lives. Accordingly, it may also refer to social revolution, such as the socialism, Socialist rev ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |