Effects of mobile phone use on health - Essay Example

Current issues in computing Computers play significant role in the development of digital technologies and are imposed to fast change and growth in the domain of communicating and information delivery. Developmental issues in the area of computing can be viewed from different points. I will consider its fast expansion in mobile technologies, ICT in education, and robotics invention. Effects of mobile phone use on health Current report emphasises the relation of recently appeared mobile technology and human health. The report is important to consider due to human concern of health issues as well as governmental regard to the increased cancer cases and its possible outcome of mobile use. The report is structured in the following way: two groups of people are chosen to participate; with the help of independent experts, groups from recommendations and minister for public health research covers current issues in the development of mobile connection and its impact on cancer. The paper further describes the work of every group and how it helped to realize research. The first groups was used to get statistical information on the use of mobile phones and helps to indicate the expected growth of the indicator for the following periods. It says that "at present there are approximately 25 million subscribers in the UKin the next five years it is expected that this will have increased to45 million subscribers" (Stewart et al 2000). The group also looked at the specific technology used and mobile phone operators, as well as the advantages that mobile phones bring with them. The group cited "a number of economic benefitsin terms of employment and tax revenue" (Stewart et al 2000). The first group also helped to define radiofrequency radiation usage, electromagnetic compatibility, Electric and magnetic field intensities and fields from mobile phone systems. The second group of participants considered the use of mobile phones and its possible outcomes on adults health, particularly the risk of glioma ("a specific type of brain tumour for which the causes are generally unknown" (Hepworth et al 2006)) that recently became related to phone usage. The research that the group carried out aimed to find out if one of these unknown causes is the Radiofrequency radiation which is released from mobile phones. They also wanted to find out whether the side of the head at which the phone was held made any difference or whether the area in which the phone was being used was linked in any way to glioma. From the discussion and conclusion part of the paper it is needed to make an outline that there were two reports received by the results of the first and the second group study. The first report is a general overview of the mobile phone usage while the the second report is focused entirely on finding a link between mobile phones and a specific type of brain tumour. In the end, although there is no definite evidence or proof that mobile phones effect human health, both groups are correct in my view of the "precautionary approach"(Stewart et al 2000), limiting calls were possible especially amongst children. Robotics Present report presents an investigation on the invention of robots and their ability to think. The paper consists of abstract, introduction, discussion and conclusion. First, the author introduces the concept of robotics and demonstrates research group that were used for the reflection of data in the paper, then the discussion of two working groups is provided, finally the general overview of the future of robots and concluding remarks are given. The first research presented in report is called Flocking Seven Dwarf Robots. The group carried out this research in order to find out about a robots ability to learn from another one and to ultimately define their ability to work in a team. The second research group refers to A Tale of Two Filters - Online Novelty Detection. This research that was carried out was all about detecting unexpected features within an environment. The group wanted to use robots and learning systems to implement a novelty detection system that would allow the robots to locate any problems that are within there environment and then to highlight them. It is important for mobile robots to have this ability so that objects or problems can be avoided (P. A. Crook, S. Marsland, G. Hayes and U. Nehmzow 2002). An important input of this research was that robots were checked to work online. The robot can be trained for a while then can be tested to see how much knowledge it has learnt. Then it can be trained again to increase this knowledge and this can be repeated for as long as it is needed. Further research outlines the future that robotics may bring to the world shortly. Author presents his or own view to the problem saying that "there is definitely a very bright future, for research in robotics it is not the fastest moving research area around, as progress is normally slow and time conshoeming but I am sure they will be a number of key developments in the near future". It is authors belief that in the future people will create fully working Perceptual attention systems (G. Maistros, Y. Marom and G. Hayes 2001) that could learn a skill and navigate on its own. Maybe it could help in the home or in the work place. For example it could be used in the car industry, as there is a lot of robotics used in car manufacturing at present. ICT's in Secondary Education Current report considers the research of two groups of people who investigated the importance of ICT in secondary education as an important tool to the education promotion. The articles used for research comes from Oxford and Cambridge University press. The research found that from having interactivity from the use of ICT's that students could visualise scientific and mathematical processes as oppose to being taught theory and being confined to old fashioned experiments. This in turn led to greater student understanding of the curriculum and allowed teachers to structure their lessons in such a way that more complex areas of study could be focused on. The results of first group's practice identified that there is a definite shift from traditional teaching methods to active intervention through the use of ICT's and Multimedia. The acces to the latter provided students with the opportunity to generate their own thoughts on subject matters. Second report findings indicate that ICT stimulated students' discussion and promoted collaboration as well as helped to give them a confidence in their own ideas. In the discussion part of the paper author provides critical observation of the experiment conducted. He points out that findings of two reports are highly important in the promotion of ICT and its incorporation in secondary education. The author suggests that both groups have massive scope for future and further work. The Cambridge group have even indicated this in their present work. With more funding and the undertaking of similar projects they could look at how ICT's could be used to teach other subjects, for instance using ICT to teach information technology. As there is no information given as to the 'reputation' of the schools having research conducted in by either group it would be interesting to see how the impact of ICT's affected pupils and teachers from lower and upper ends of the education league tables. Or where there are limited resources for equipment such as hardware and software in schools how this effects how ICT's are used as oppose to ICT's in schools where there hardware and software budgets are larger. References: Stewart, W,. Challis, L J,. Barclay, L W,. Barton, M N,. Blakemore, C,. Coggon, D N M,. Cox, D,. Fellow, J,. Repacholi, M,. Rugg, M,. Swerdlow, A J,. Varma, T R.,(2000), "Mobile Phones and Health", [Internet]. Available from [Accessed 06/06/2006] Hepworth, S J,. Schoemaker, M J,. Muir, K R,. Swerdlow, A J,. Van Tongreren, M J A,. McKinney, P A,. (2006), "Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study", [Internet]. Available from [Accessed 06/03/2006] Paul A Crook and Gillian Hayes (2001) A Robot Implementation of a Biologically Inspired Method for Novelty Detection, Edinburgh University [Internet] Available from: http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/groups/mrg/publications.html [Accessed 25 February 2006] George Maistros. Yuval Marom and Gillian Hayes (2001) Perception- Action Coupling via Imitation and Attention, Edinburgh University [Internet] Available from: http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/georgem/publications/AAAI_abs.html [Accessed 21 February 2006] Ruthven, K. Hennessy, S. Deaney, R (2004) Eliciting Situated Expertise in ICT - Integrated Mathematics and Science Teaching - Final Report to ESRC 2004 http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/istl/pub.html [Accessed 21 February 2006] Davies, C. Birmingham, P (2002) Using ICT to Enhance the Learning Experience in the Classroom www.edstud.ox.ac.uk/research/Education%20Libraries%20Journal%20article.doc [Accessed 21 February 2006] Read More