Biotech ethics concerned with ethical dilemmas surrounding the use of biotechnologies in fields including medical research, health care, and industrial applications. Topics such as cloning ethics, e-health ethics, telemedicine ethics, genetics ethics, neuroethics, and sport and nutrition ethics fall into this category; examples of specific issues include the de- bates surrounding euthanasia and reproductive rights.

This area of technoethical inquiry is concerned with technology's re- lation to the human mind, artificial agents, and society. Topics of study that would fit into this category would be artificial morality and moral agents, technoethical systems and techno-addiction.

· An artificial agent describes any type of technology that is cre- ated to act as an agent, either of its own power or on behalf of another agent. An artificial agent may try to advance its own goals or those of another agent.

This field is concerned with the uses of technology to ethically regu- late aspects of a society. For example: digital property ethics, social the- ory, law, science, organizational ethics and global ethics.

Technoethics has concerned itself with society as a general group and made no distinctions between the genders, but considers technologi-

cal effects and influences on each gender individually. This is an im- portant consideration as some technologies are created for use by a spe- cific gender, including birth control, abortion, fertility treatments, and Viagra. Feminists have had a significant influence on the prominence and development of reproductive technologies. Technoethical inquiry must examine these technologies' effects on the intended gender while also considering their influence on the other gender. Another dimension of technofeminism concerns female involvement in technological de- velopment: women's participation in the field of technology has broad- ened society's understanding of how technology affects the female expe- rience in society.

Information and communication technoethics is concerned with ethi- cal issues and responsibilities arising when dealing with information and communication technology in the realm of communication. This field is related to internet ethics, rational and ethical decision making models, and information ethics. A major area of interest is the convergence of technologies: as technologies become more interdependent and provide people with multiple ways of accessing the same information, they transform society and create new ethical dilemmas. This is particularly evident in the realms of the internet. In recent years, users have had the unprecedented position of power in creating and disseminating news and other information globally via social networking; the concept of "citizen journalism" primarily relates to this. With developments in the media, has led to open media ethics as Ward writes, leading to citizen journalism.

In cases such as the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami or the 2011 Arab Spring movements, citizen journalists were seen to have been significant sources of facts and information in relation to the events. These were re- broadcast by news outlets, and more importantly, re-circulated by and to other internet users. As Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin state in their book Remediation: Understanding New Media (1999): "The liveness of the Web is a refashioned version of the liveness of broadcast television" However, it is commonly political events (such as 'Occupy' movements or the Iran Elections of 2009) that tend to raise ethical ques- tions and concerns. In the latter example, there had been efforts made by the Iranian government in censoring and prohibiting the spread of inter- nal happenings to the outside by its citizen journalists. This occurrence questioned the importance of the spread of crucial information regarding the issue, and the source from which it came from (citizen journalists,

government authorities, etc.). Information and Communication Techno- ethics also identifies ways to develop ethical frameworks of research structures in order to capture the essence of new technologies.

Technoethical inquiry in the field of education examines how tech- nology impacts the roles and values of education in society. This field considers changes in student values and behavior related to technology, including access to inappropriate material in schools, online plagiarism using material copied directly from the internet, or purchasing papers from online resources and passing them off as the student's own work. Educational technoethics also examines the digital divide that exists be- tween educational institutions in developed and developing countries or between unequally-funded institutions within the same country: for in- stance, some schools offer students access to online material, while oth- ers do not. Professional technoethics focuses on the issue of ethical re- sponsibility for those who work with technology within a professional setting, including engineers, medical professionals, and so on.

Environmental technoethics originate from the 1960s and 1970s' in- terest in environment and nature. The field focuses on the human use of technologies that may impact the environment; areas of concern include transport, mining, and sanitation. Engineering technoethics emerged in the late 19th century. As the Industrial Revolution triggered a demand for expertise in engineering and a need to improve engineering stand- ards, societies began to develop codes of professional ethics and associ- ations to enforce these codes. Ethical inquiry into engineering examines the "responsibilities of engineers combining insights from both philoso- phy and the social sciences."

A technoethical assessment is an interdisciplinary, systems-based approach to assessing ethical dilemmas related to technology. TEAs aim to guide actions related to technology in an ethical direction by advanc- ing knowledge of technologies and their effects; successful TEAs thus produce a shared understanding of knowledge, values, priorities, and other ethical aspects associated with technology. TEAs involve five key steps:

1. Evaluate the intended ends and possible side effects of the tech- nology in order to discern its overall value (interest).

2. Compare the means and intended ends in terms of technical and non-technical (moral and social) aspects.

3. Reject those actions where the output (overall value) does not balance the input in terms of efficiency and fairness.

4. Consider perspectives from all stakeholder groups.

5. Examine technological relations at a variety of levels.

Technoethical design refers to the process of designing technologies in an ethical manner, involving stakeholders in participatory design ef- forts, revealing hidden or tacit technological relations, and investigating what technologies make possible and how people will use them. TED involves the following four steps:

1. Ensure that the components and relations within the technologi- cal system are explicitly understood by those in the design context.

2. Perform a TEA to identify relevant technical knowledge.

3. Optimize the technological system in order to meet stakehold- ers' and affected individuals' needs and interests.

4. Consult with representatives of stakeholder and affected groups in order to establish consensus on key design issues.

Both TEA and TED rely on systems theory, a perspective that con- ceptualizes society in terms of events and occurrences resulting from investigating system operations. Systems theory assumes that complex ideas can be studied as systems with common designs and properties which can be further explained using systems methodology. The field of technoethics regards technologies as self-producing systems that draw upon external resources and maintain themselves through knowledge creation; these systems, of which humans are a part, are constantly in flux as relations between technology, nature, and society change. TEA attempts to elicit the knowledge, goals, inputs, and outputs that com- prise technological systems. Similarly, TED enables designers to recog- nize technology's complexity and power, to include facts and values in their designs, and to contextualize technology in terms of what it makes possible and what makes it possible.

Recent advances in technology and their ability to transmit vast amounts of information in a short amount of time has changed the way information is being shared amongst co-workers and managers through- out organizations across the globe. Starting in the 1980s with infor- mation and communications technologies, organizations have seen an increase in the amount of technology that they rely on to communicate within and outside of the workplace. However, these implementations of technology in the workplace create various ethical concerns and in turn a need for further analysis of technology in organizations. As a result of this growing trend, a subsection of technoethics known as organizational technoethics has emerged to address these issues. Key scholarly contri-

butions linking ethics, technology, and society can be found in a number of seminal works:

· The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age.

· On Technology, Medicine and Ethics.

· The Real World of Technology.

· Thinking Ethics in Technology: Hennebach Lectures and Pa- pers, 1995-1996.

· Technology and the Good Life.

· Readings in the Philosophy of Technology.

· Ethics and technology: Ethical issues in an age of information and communication technology.

This resulting scholarly attention to ethical issues arising from tech- nological transformations of work and life has helped given rise to a number of key areas of technoethical inquiry under various research programs.

Research Methodology

―Methodology‖ implies more than simply the methods you intend to use to collect data. It is often necessary to include a consideration of the concepts and theories which underlie the methods. For instance, if you intend to highlight a specific feature of a sociological theory or test an algorithm for some aspect of information retrieval, or test the validity of a particular system, you have to show that you understand the underly- ing concepts of the methodology.

When you describe your methods it is necessary to state how you have addressed the research questions and/or hypotheses. The methods should be described in enough detail for the study to be replicated, or at least repeated in a similar way in another situation. Every stage should be explained and justified with clear reasons for the choice of your par- ticular methods and materials.

There are many different ways to approach the research that fulfils the requirements of a dissertation. These may vary both within and be- tween disciplines. It is important to consider the expectations and possi- bilities concerning research in your own field. You can do this by talk- ing to your tutors and looking at dissertations written by former students on your course.

Never before has any civilization had the unique opportunity to en- hance human performance on the scale that we will face in the near fu-

ture. The convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science is creating a set of powerful tools that have the potential to significantly enhance human performance as well as transform society, science, economics, and human evolution. As the NBIC convergence becomes more understood, the possibility that we may be able to enhance human performance in the three domains of therapy, augmentation, and designed evolution will become anticipated and even expected. In addition, NBIC convergence represents entirely new challenges for scientists, policymakers, and business leaders who will have, for the first time, vast new and powerful tools to shape mar- kets, societies, and lifestyles. The emergence of NBIC convergence will challenge us in new ways to balance risk and return, threat and oppor- tunity, and social responsibility and competitive advantage as we step into the 21st century.

STEM is an educational program developed to prepare primary and secondary students for college and graduate study in the fields of sci- ence, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In addition to subject- specific learning, STEM aims to foster inquiring minds, logical reason- ing, and collaboration skills.

Educators break STEM down into seven standards of practice for ed- ucating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students. For many years there has been a strong interest in logical studies at Berke- ley. In 1957, a group of faculty members, most of them from the de- partments of Mathematics and Philosophy, initiated a pioneering inter- disciplinary graduate program leading to the degree of Ph.D. in Logic and the Methodology of Science. ―Methodology of science‖ is here un- derstood to mean primarily deductive ―metascience‖ – a study which takes sciences themselves, their structures and methods, as its subject matter and which is carried out by logical and mathematical means. Stu- dents in this program acquire a good understanding of the mathematical theory known as mathematical logic, which deals in a rigorous way with such central concepts as truth, definability, provability, and computabil- ity. They may then seek to contribute to this theory or to apply it. There are important areas of application in Mathematics, Philosophy, Comput- er Science, and elsewhere. Typical fields of study include:

o foundations of mathematics, including set theory, recursion the- ory, model theory, and theory of proofs,

o philosophical logic, including modal logic,

o philosophy of mathematics,

o logic in computer science and artificial intelligence,

o theory of computational complexity,

o history of logic,

Ph.D. work in logic can also be carried out entirely within one of the departments of Mathematics, Philosophy, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. The program in Logic and the Methodology of Sci- ence is intended for students whose interests lie in more than one of the- se fields. It offers them the possibility of taking qualifying examinations in more than one of these subjects; indeed, they must do so. Disserta- tions in this program may be interdisciplinary in character; however, they may also lie entirely within just one of these fields.