英國dissertation寫作指導：Introduction寫作范例

關于科學技術變化對英國未來教育的影響討論

Introduction 

自1978年以來，30年的技術趨勢和發(fā)展非常大的影響了社會。現(xiàn)在，2008年中期，似乎其中的幾個技術趨勢完全有可能在將來的30年直至2038年甚至更遠的時間內(nèi)繼續(xù)維持或改變?nèi)藗兊纳鐣＜夹g的進步可以改變社會，但同樣的，社會因素也會影響教育研究，發(fā)展，商業(yè)和軟件應用。所以社會也在影響技術進步的形狀方向。
考慮2個明顯的例子。人們在過去30年里見證了信息技術的戲劇化的爆炸式的發(fā)展，增強了社會經(jīng)濟。不久時間前，個人計算機和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的重要性還在被嚴重低估到無人問津。現(xiàn)在,似乎很有可能會像蛋白質(zhì)組學的生物技術和合成生命在30年左右對世界有一個類似的爆炸和革命影響
 
In the 30 years since 1978 a number of technology trends and developments have had a significant effect upon society, and right now in mid 2008 it seems entirely plausible that several of these technology trends will continue to maintain or increase in their societal importance and impact over the coming 30 years to 2038, and beyond. Technology advances will change society but, simultaneously, societal factors will influence the demands placed on technology research, development, commercialization, and application and so society will shape and influence future technology advances.
 
Consider a couple of obvious exampleosite direction too. Events in the world, and changes in society, will determine research agendas and affect technology developments, or as. The past 30 years have witnessed a dramatic, explosive, increase in the socioeconomic importance of information technology (IT) systems. It is difficult to remember the extent to which the magnitudes of the Personal Computer (PC) and Internet revolutions were under-estimated until very shortly before their impact became undeniable. Right now, it seems very likely that the post-genomic biotechnology of proteomics and synthetic life are set (over the next 30 years or so) to
have a similarly explosive and revolutionary effect on the world in general, and on advanced industrialized economies in particular. In these aspects of IT and of biotech we can think informally of the causation being from the lab to the world: researchers develop new technologies, those technologies change society.
 
But we know that causation runs in the oppffect which technologies are commercially successful. That the world‘s climate is undergoing a period of significant change is no longer in dispute (although the extent to which that change is anthropogenic is still the topic of some debate). That the world‘s energy consumption is increasing at an alarming rate (regardless of any impact on climate) is, on a 25-50 year perspective, an extraordinarily serious concern: many respected commentators argue that the oil peak will be passed very soon, if not already; some estimates of global uranium stocks imply that, if all major economies switched to traditional fissile nuclear reactors, the world‘s uranium would be entirely consumed within 30 years compensating for dwindling oil supplies by increasing production of liquid bio fuels requires repurposing vast tracts of arable land, typically switching it away from producing food for humans, and thereby contributing to significant inflation in basic food prices. Dealing with climate change, our rampant energy needs, our increasingly crowded planet, and our resultant pollution, are challenges not only for technology development but also for policymakers and other agents of social change.#p#分頁標題#e#
 
Sometimes the key issues lie entirely in the social domain: the deployment of proven   technology, presenting no significant research challenges, might nevertheless be highly   contentious. One result of the various terrorist attacks attributed to Al-Qaeda has been a   greatly increased focus on ―homeland security‖ monitoring and surveillance of people as   they go about their everyday business. Here, technology can readily be brought to bear on   the problem (for example, basic automated surveillance such as tracking cars by   computerized CCTV license-plate recognition is, in principle, more effective and more   practicable than having humans do the same job) but thorny social, legal, ethical, and   political issues need also to be resolved, such as those concerning the trade-off between   the individual‘s right to privacy, and the state‘s ―duty of care‖ to detect and defeat terrorist   activity.
Because of the interplay and interdependence between technology developments and   societal change, making usefully accurate predictions concerning specific technology   developments and how they might interact with social structures on a 15-to-50-year   timescale is pretty-much impossible.
 
And so the rest of this paper aims to meet that specification. We concentrate here on computing, with particular reference to computerized automation, artificial intelligence, ubiquitous computing, and advanced interface issues. Bioscience makes an entry because the psychopharmacology of ―smart drugs‖ for cognitive enhancement is already a manifest issue, but also within the next 50 years it seems quite likely that traditional computer technologies will be able to interface directly with the nervous system via implanted electrical connections, and that novel computers will be built from living cells, instead of silicon chips. Mathematics is not discussed explicitly in any depth here, but all of the technology trends explored in this paper require continued effort by highly numerate researchers and practitioners and, in some cases, they also require the development of new mathematics tools and techniques, and so in that sense mathematics silently permeates this entire document.

Eight specific major trends are discussed. Before we go on, it‘s worth pointing out that any discussion paper such as this is partial in both senses of the word: it is incomplete, and it reflects the biases of the authors.