The advent of the digital age has brought about significant changes in how information is created, disseminated and consumed. Recent developments in the use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have brought all things digital into sharp focus. Big data and AI have played pivotal roles in shaping the digital landscape. The term ‘big data’ describes the vast amounts of structured and unstructured data generated every day. Advanced analytics on big data enable businesses and organisations to extract valuable insights, make informed decisions and enhance various processes. AI, on the other hand, has brought about a paradigm shift in how machines learn, reason and perform tasks traditionally associated with human intelligence. Machine-learning algorithms, a subset of AI, process vast datasets to identify patterns and make predictions. This has applications across diverse fields, including health care, finance, marketing and more. The combination of big data and AI has fuelled advancements in areas such as personalised recommendations, predictive analytics and automation in all aspects of our day-to-day lives.

How did the novel come to be entangled with large-scale public infrastructure in nineteenth-century Britain? Sixteen years after the first purpose-built passenger railway opened in 1830, an anonymous writer for Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal pondered the formal compatibility of railways and fiction. ‘One half of the romantic stories of the country are more or less connected with stage-coach travelling’, the author muses, ‘but the railway, with its formal lines and prosaic punctuality, appears to be almost entirely given up to business’.1 By claiming (however hyperbolically) that ‘one half’ of ‘romantic’ stories in the 1840s work through stagecoach infrastructure, this author puts the untapped potential of railway travel under the spotlight. Yet the exact proportion of fictional references to popular transport is less important than public perception of plotlines and travel as closely intertwined modes. There was an inevitability about novelists exploring the possibilities of passenger railways in fiction.

In the evolving landscape of healthcare, quality and service improvement are the forefront, driving the shift towards more efficient, effective and patient-centred care. Quality in healthcare includes not only the excellence of medical interventions but also extends to the patient experience and ensuring safe, effective care. The importance of quality is highlighted by the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) six dimensions: safety, effectiveness, patient-centredness, timeliness, efficiency and equity. These dimensions provide a comprehensive framework for evaluating and enhancing healthcare quality and services. This chapter seeks to broaden the comprehensiveness of the healthcare quality and service improvement model suggested by the IOM and provides real-life case studies in which each of the 12 dimensions is examined and discussed.

Negotiation is important for healthcare managers. In the past, negotiation was largely conducted face-to-face but that changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many negotiations are now conducted virtually over videoconferencing platforms such as MS Teams. This chapter introduces negotiating that can assist readers to develop their skills for use in personal and professional negotiations.

This introductory chapter explores the foundation of intellectual property (IP) in the United States, specifically focusing on the history and purpose of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. It highlights how these pillars have maintained their utilitarian character despite major technological revolutions and emphasizes the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence (AI). As AI technologies increasingly influence creative processes, they raise significant questions about the nature of human contribution and the value of IP. This chapter introduces some of the legal implications of generative AI, including concerns over copyright infringement and the potential need for new IP protections for AI-generated works. It outlines how the rise of AI challenges the traditional metrics of progress and the standards by which human contributions are evaluated. The author suggests that rather than resisting these changes, society should adapt its understanding of IP in a way that reflects the evolving technological landscape. Ultimately, the author argues for a nuanced approach to IP law that recognizes the shifting boundaries of what constitutes valuable innovation, advocating for humility in navigating the complexities of this ongoing transformation. The discussion sets the stage for the rest of the book.

Young people are learning in a digitally connected world where rapid advancements in technology are impacting the way people communicate and live their lives. Technology is changing the way learners access, apply and demonstrate their learning. HASS educators need to embrace this learning context and understand that the world young people are learning about, and learning in, is a globally connected and highly technological one. The impact of technology on learning and educator practice has been widely researched and recognised in education circles. Education technology refers to the tools learners have available to support learning. This includes information technology, software and other digital tools, hardware tools, social media and communication devices. It is clear that although technology has the potential to positively change the way young people learn, the role of the educator is crucial in ensuring that technology is used in ways that improve learning outcomes. The SAMR model is a well-researched and widely accepted framework for supporting educators to embed technologies into teaching and learning.

The four volumes of the Cambridge History of War were conceived in global terms. The aim was to go beyond a history centred on warfare in Europe, in which the global context emerged solely through the eyes of European exploration, trading, and colonisation. Instead, the volumes would seek to provide the reader with a broader approach to warfare across the world, in which the experiences and trajectories of states and their military systems could be examined and compared. Europe and Europe’s military engagement with the wider world would have a place, but would not be the single point of reference from which global warfare would be seen. This aim was the starting point for Volume III, both as initially conceived by the first editors, John Childs and Arthur Waldron, and then by the current editorial team.

Naval warfare changed out of all recognition from the late sixteenth century onwards through the rapid development of large square-rigged warships carrying heavy broadside gun batteries. A whole series of developments followed, with a long (if far from smooth) evolution in ships, equipment, strategy, and tactics continuing down to the last sailing navies of the early nineteenth century. It was clearly no accident that this naval revolution coincided with a great age of global European empires, which would have been impossible to create or maintain without effective naval power. Galleys and other oared craft became largely obsolete, except for some amphibious operations in the Mediterranean and for use in shallow waters around the innumerable Baltic islands. The crushing Dutch victory over a Spanish fleet at the battle of the Downs (1639) marked the first occasion when the full power of broadside gunnery became evident. Then the three Anglo-Dutch wars between the 1650s and 1670s saw a series of savage and bloody engagements between the fleets of two nations that were coming to be known as the Maritime Powers. The combination of imperial and trading ambitions, new financial arrangements, and relatively open societies enabled first the Dutch, and then the British, to develop naval power to new heights, in turn allowing them to punch well above their weight on the international stage. Under Louis XIV, France did mount a serious challenge to the Dutch and English, and for a time possessed the largest navy in the Western world. However, by the 1690s the French, and more gradually the Dutch, were finding the costs of maintaining this level of power at sea, as well as on land, to be too great.

For over half a century, discussion of the relationship between military finance, organisation, and state development has been dominated by the contested concept of a ‘military revolution’; the belief that there were one or a few periods of fundamental change that transformed both war and wider European history. More recently, this has been supplemented by the idea of smaller, but more frequent ‘revolutions in military affairs’ (RMAs) as individual military organisations respond to, or anticipate, changes made by their likely opponents. Technology is generally considered to drive both forms of ‘revolution’, as innovative weaponry and institutional practice transform war, rendering older models ineffective and obsolete. Change flows through a series of chain reactions, as states adapt to new conditions, modifying their structures to sustain and direct altered armed forces, and revising their forms of interaction with society both to extract the necessary resources and to legitimate their use in war-making.

This chapter explores much of the current research about the value and effect of the Arts in education and assists you to develop your own thinking about the importance of Arts education. This research is framed by an understanding of developing modes of engagement in Arts education, and a discussion of the importance of personal agency and Arts education as ‘praxis’. Finally, the notions of learning ‘in’ and ‘through’ the Arts are explored to enable you to understand the types of learning in which your students can engage.

In this chapter, we introduce and explain the key principles of integrated learning and outline ways in which it can be put into practice to provide quality Arts experiences, as well as quality learning in other areas. We suggest ways to achieve integrated learning that you can adapt to construct your own successful program. We also move beyond the concept of curriculum integration to look at child integration as it should be applied in the classroom. Schools do exclude, both intentionally and otherwise. We explore the justifications offered for, and ways to remove, these barriers to engagement in the Arts by all. We argue that everyone needs to experience the Arts equally, no matter what their background or what form of diverse learning is brought to the classroom. For some children, this is the only pathway to success. In the Arts, anyone can engage; everyone gets to live them.

The changes at play in the contemporary world bring about challenges that are impacting political legitimacy. They make legitimacy at the same time more problematic and more relevant, at both the national and international levels. From this perspective, how these changes and challenges are going to be addressed in the coming years is likely to determine, to a large extent, the evolution of political legitimacy—nationally and internationally. Among the changes and challenges underway, and their associated events and trends, I highlight the following eight: (1) the challenge of integration and disintegration, (2) the economic and financial challenge, (3) the geopolitical challenge, (4) the normative challenge, (5) the technological challenge, (6) the reassessment of globalization challenge, (7) the crisis of democracy challenge, and (8) the governance challenge. I unpack them in turn and, for each of them, allude to their possible meaning and implications for political legitimacy.

The twentieth century was a period of radical transformation in the materials, resources and technologies available for music. Pierre Boulez was at the forefront of these developments, yet at the same time he displayed a curious ambivalence towards them. This chapter shows how, as a powerful cultural figure committed to the project of modernity, Boulez embraced the technologies of the new age, particularly through his guiding of the programme of activities undertaken at the music/scientific research centre IRCAM, which he helped to found in Paris in the 1970s. It also shows how, in his own compositional work, he displayed an ambivalent and musically conservative attitude towards new technological developments, leaving the details to others, while maintaining a quite traditional view of musical composition and performance. The chapter explores the conceptual, historical and cultural contexts for Boulez’s engagement with technology, and examines some of the works he composed using the technological resources developed at IRCAM.