Infotech + Biotech

INFORMATION AGE 1950-present 

Central to society is the gathering, manipulation, classification, storage, and retrieval of information

Information Technology (IT) allows us to send signals around the world

Ex: tv, internet, satellite, GPS, cellphone

Two Impacts of IT on society: 

E-Commerce -  Buying and selling of goods and services or transmitting of funds over an electronic network through the internet 

Customers will make use of their devices to access online stores where they can browse products and services then place orders. 

The internet allows individuals and businesses to buy and sell physical and/or digital goods and services through electronic ways.

Information technology evolves rapidly, however, with these evolutions comes the evolution of scammers as well. 

Issues associated: data privacy, intellectual property, free speech, taxation, computer crimes, consumer protection, miscellaneous, 

Top Online Scams:

• internet auction fraud - fraud perpetrated on auction sites. Examples are misrepresentation of products for sale, fraudulent bidding, or nondelivery of goods purchased during auctions. Bid shilling/shielding is when the scammer drives up the bidding price of the item.

• Disaster relief scam - Hiding behind the guise of an actual aid organization, scammers typically use a tragedy or natural disaster to con you out of your money. By thinking you're donating to an emergency relief fund, you unwittingly provide credit card or other e-payment information.

• Phishing scam - victims receive emails from enterprises that they frequent, such as banks or universities. The message directs them to sites that will require updating of personal information that scammers will steal. 

• Grandparents scam - fraudsters will pose as a panicked grandchild who needs cash immediately for “emergencies”. 

• Web cramming - billing customers for a website they didn’t know they had.

• Mobile/Credit card cramming -  companies will place unauthorized charges for telephone and non-telephone related services to your telephone bill. These charges will appear on your bill using terminologies you may not be familiar with. 

• Pyramid scams - marketing and investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product. The real profit is earned, not by the sale of the product, but by the sale of new distributorships. Also known as franchise fraud or chain referral scams

• Business opportunity/work at home scams - scammers pose as reputable companies to create fake job postings to benefit themselves. These are used as a means to steal personal information or financial assets. 

• Multilevel marketing or mlm - A sales strategy in which the salesforce is financially incentivized to recruit and sell inventory to additional salespeople, and which can sometimes be construed as an illegal pyramid scheme.

• Investment and get rich quick scams - people will attempt to trick you into investing money: stocks, bonds, notes, commodities, currency, real estate. 

• Travel/Vacation fraud - scammers will request upfront payments for “travel arrangements” such as flights, accommodations, etc. 

• Telephone/pay per call solicitation frauds - these scams entice victims to pay to make calls in order to receive information such as how to save money on groceries, etc. They will charge you exorbitant prices as a “consultation fee” for calling the numbers.

• Health care frauds - committed by either medical care providers or patients.

Double Billing - submitting multiple claims for the same service

Phantom Billing - billing for a service visit or supplies the patient never received

Upcoding - billing for a more expensive service than the patient actually received

other examples are unbundling, prescription frauds, forgery, diversion which is diverting legal prescription/selling your prescription medication, doctor shopping 

Use of infotech in the workplace:

• expands job-related knowledge

• Increases productivity

• Improves communication 

Types of monitoring:

Email and internet usage, printer/fax usage, workers via video cameras, cellphone usage, GPS equipped vehicles

Unethical workplace employee activities: 

• engaging in dangerous activities (e.g., usage of cellphone while driving a company vehicle) 

• copying company software for home use

• Accessing corporate files without permission

• Blaming errors on technology

• Computer shopping

• Invading a co-worker's privacy

• Visiting porn sites and playing games

• Seeking employment on company time

Impact of Computers on work:

• Jobs have been eliminated, while new others were created

• Repetitious or boring jobs are now done with computers

• There is more time for creativity

• Some workers ”telecommute” (work from home or remote locations)

• Employers can better monitor their employees

• Health issues have been associated with computer usage

Impact on employment:

Job destruction and creation

   Computers and unemployment:

• Automation leads to loss of jobs

• Computerization eliminates some jobs

• Computer efficiency means fewer jobs

• technology is often blamed for massive unemployment

• Likewise many fear technology will eliminate jobs

• Complicated economic and political factors contribute to job destruction

• Some jobs move from wealthy countries to less wealthy ones (pay rates are lower in lesser ones)

• The internet and web reduce the need for transportation and make it easier for information technology

• Need for computer designers, builders and programmers creates jobs

• Need for training, sales and technical support creates jobs

• Computers make many products affordable to more people. Thus, more jobs are created in order to make those products. 

Changing Skills and jobs

   Optimistic outlook:

• education system adapts rapidly to create newly trained workers

• Technology can be used to retrain displaced workers

   Pessimistic outlook:

• advanced software will eliminate many jobs requiring high skills

• Automation and the web will lead to mass unemployment

Possible health problems: RSI or Repetitive Strain Injury from frequent use, radiation exposure, toxic waste from discarded computer parts

Teleworking - a form of work that allows employees to work part or full time at home or at satellite offices. 

Benefits: 

1. Flexible schedule and work options

2. Reduced overhead

3. Reduction in transportation and parking resources

Problems:

1. Less productive or overworked employees

2. Lack of belonging (social isolation)

3. Potential distractions are counter-productive

Employee monitoring: 

Data entry, phone work and retail

Types of monitoring: 

Keystroke - to determine if quotas are met or employee is on task

Phone - to determine customer satisfaction and proper use of phone resources

Types of location monitoring:

Badges - to replace worker keys or track down workers

GPS tracking systems - to locate vehicles, employee driving speed 

Health issues from the manufacture and use of computers:

• radiation exposure from terminals

• Toxic wastes from discarded computer parts

• Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) 

IT in Banking

Telephone and internet banking, ATM, Debit Card, Credit Card, Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, e.g., cheque processing

IT in Crime Prevention:

• scanning crowd for criminals

• Casinos use face recognition systems to identify “undesirables”. This is also used in banks, gas stations

• Surveillance and monitoring

• Crime mapping technology

How are computers used in manufacturing? 

CAD - Computer Aided Design is a method of using computers to design things such as buildings or items. It allows designers and engineers to create 2D drawings and 3D models of their designs then modify and test them. It also includes tools for analyzing designs. CAD has become a key part of the design process in many industries, and it has replaced manual design and drafting processes. It has led to more detailed, accurate, and efficient representations of products, which improved the quality of manufacturing goods and streamlined planning. 

CAM - Computer Aided Manufacturing is the use of software and computer controlled machinery to automate manufacturing processes. 

Impact of biotechnology to Society

The “bio” part of the word is derived from biology, life

Biotechnology refers to any technique that uses living organisms or substances from those organisms to make or modify a product, to improve plants or animals to benefit humans

Webster's Definition: the aspect of technology concerned with the application of living organisms to meet the needs and ends of man

Multidisciplinary in nature, involving input from engineering, computer science, cell and molecular biology, genetics, physiology, biochemistry,biochemistry immunology, virology, recombinant DNA technology

DNA has a double helix structure. Nucleotides are the building blocks for both RNA and DNA. Nucleotides are composed of phosphate and deoxyribose (five carbon) sugar where 4 nitrogenous bases are attached (A, T, C, G). 

It contains four nitrogenous bases which are: Adenine, Guanine (purines), Thymine, Cytosine (pyrimidines).

Found in pairs: AT, GC 

A segment of DNA is called a gene. A gene corresponds to a certain trait. A genome is a complete set of DNA found in an organism. 

A plasmid is a circular loop of DNA. In cutting plasmid, enzymes are used. 

Recombinant DNA is made using transformation, transduction, and conjugation

Restriction enzymes are molecular scissors that cut double stranded DNA molecules at specific points. They are found naturally in a wide variety of prokaryotes and are an important tool for manipulating DNA. DNA ligase is a molecular glue. 

Microbes are used for genetic engineering:

because bacteria is unicellular and has plasmids that mark genes. 

They reproduce asexually and have rapid multiplication ability. 

Insulin producing bacteria: recombinant DNA is a technology scientists developed that made it possible to insert a human gene into the genetic material of a common bacterium. The bacteria used in genetic engineering is E. Coli. 

Paul Berg - first to use restriction enzymes and DNA ligase to alter DNA in 1972.

Stanley Cohen and Herbert Boyer - perfected techniques to cut and paste DNA

How insulin from recombinant DNA is made: 

First, the human cell with the gene that controls the production of insulin is isolated.

Then the DNA is isolated.

Afterwards, the gene of interest is isolated.  cut using restriction enzymes. 

Using a restriction enzyme, plasmid is cut.

Then, plasmid is reinserted into the E. Coli using DNA ligase. 

Afterwards, the recombinant E. Coli will have the ability to produce insulin. 

Genetically engineered bacteria can be used to eat oil and help clean up oil spills. 

Alcanivorax borkumensis is a small bacterium that thrives on petroleum. Able to feed on both hydrocarbon and allies abundant in oil, this bacterium occurs naturally near oil seeps in marine environments. Vitor Martins dos Santos sequenced the genome of A. Borkumensis in search of gene sequences that can be inserted into synthetic organisms to degrade oil spills.

Agrobacterium tumefaciens is a bacterium used in genetic engineering to transfer DNA into plant cells. It is a preferred tool for genetic engineering because it can transfer a segment of its genome. 

The Ti plasmid can be used to transfer any desired gene into a plasmid

Scientists have engineered golden rice, which received genes from a daffodil and a bacterium that enable it to produce beta-carotene. 

Bt Corn - bacillus thurigienesis; produces crystals of endotoxin which acts as a natural toxin to insects mainly in their larval stage, thus acting as insecticides. 

Polymerase Chain Reaction is like a molecular xeroxing process. It produces millions of copies of a gene. The process involves three basic steps. 

Using gel electrophoresis to visualize the results of PCR. Fragments of DNA are pulled through a gel matrix by an electric current, and it separates DNA fragments according to size. 

Cloning is a process that creates an exact genetic replica of a cell, tissue, or entire organism.