Scientists have been trying to confirm the existence of gravitational waves for fifty years. Then, in September 2015, came a "very interesting event" (as the cautious sub
In 1944, Britain led the world in electronic computing. By 1974, the British computer industry was all but extinct. What happened in the intervening thirty years holds lessons for all postindustrial s
Psychiatry and mental health research is in crisis, with tensions between psychiatry's clinical and research aims and controversies over diagnosis, treatment, and scientific constructs for studying me
Synthetic biology manipulates the stuff of life. For synthetic biologists, living matter is programmable material. In search of carbon-neutral fuels, sustainable manufacturing techniques, and innovati
The most visible use of computers and software is processing information for human consumption. The vast majority of computers in use, however, are much less visible. They run the engine, brakes, seat
Over the last decade, video games designed to teach academic content have multiplied. Students can learn about Newtonian physics from a game or prep for entry into the ar
In his work, the philosopher John Haugeland (1945--2010) proposed a radical expansion of philosophy's conceptual toolkit, calling for a wider range of resources for under
When the Bush administration's faith-based initiative was introduced in 2001 as the next stage of the "war on poverty," it provoked a flurry of protest for violating the church-state divide. Most crit
This is a book for readers who want to probe more deeply into mindfulness. It goes beyond the casual, once-in-awhile meditation in popular culture, grounding mindfulness
A major question for linguistic theory concerns how the structure of sentences relates to their meaning. There is broad agreement in the field that there is some regulari
For more than a century, the interplay between private, investor-owned electric utilities and government regulators has shaped the electric power industry in the United S
The ventral visual stream is believed to underlie object recognition in primates. Over the past fifty years, researchers have developed a series of quantitative models th
Climate change affects not just the planet but the people who live on it. In this book, physician Alan Lockwood describes how global warming will be bad for our health. D
Voice leading is the musical art of combining sounds over time. In this book, David Huron offers an accessible account of the cognitive and perceptual foundations for thi
Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In the West after World War II, happiness seemed inextricably connected to prosperity. Beginn
In the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake
Libraries have existed for millennia, but today the library field is searching for solid footing in an increasingly fragmented (and increasingly digital) information envi
Causality plays a central role in the way people structure the world; we constantly seek causal explanations for our observations. But what does it even mean that an even
Applied state estimation and association is an important area for practicing engineers in aerospace, electronics, and defense industries, used in such tasks as signal processing, tracking, and navigat
Languages differ in the types of overt movement they display. For example, some languages (including English) require subjects to move to a preverbal position, while others (including Italian) allow s
Languages differ in the types of overt movement they display. For example, some languages (including English) require subjects to move to a preverbal position, while others (including Italian) allow s
Today curators are sometimes more famous than the artists whose work they curate, and curatorship involves more than choosing objects for an exhibition. The expansion of the curatorial field in recent
The public sector has grown substantially in the last fifty years. In the euro area, for example, total government expenditures have been around fifty percent of GDP since the early 2000s, resulting i
This book offers a guide for librarians who see their profession as a chance to make a positive difference in their communities -- librarians who recognize that it is no longer enough to stand behind
Sharing isn't new. Giving someone a ride, having a guest in your spare room, running errands for someone, participating in a supper club -- these are not revolutionary concepts. What is new, in the &q
To communicate, speakers need to make it clear what they are talking about. The act of referring, which anchors words to things, is a fundamental aspect of language. In t
In The Not-Two, Lorenzo Chiesa examines the treatment of logic and God in Lacan's later work. Chiesa draws for the most part from Lacan's Seminars of the early 1970s, as they revolve around the axiom
What happens in an established practice or work setting when a novel artifact or tool for doing work changes the familiar work routines? Any unexpected event, or change, or technological innovation cr
This is a renaissance moment for video games -- in the variety of genres they represent, and the range of emotional territory they cover. But how do games create emotion? InHow Games Move Us, Katherin
Humanity's collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in e
Humanity's collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in e
Architecture remains in crisis, its social relevance lost between the two poles of formal innovation and technical sustainability. InAttunement, Alberto Perez-Gomez calls for an architecture that can
For more than forty years, the philosopher Martin Heidegger logged ideas and opinions in a series of notebooks, known as the "Black Notebooks" after the black oilcloth booklets into which he
Design structure matrix (DSM) is a straightforward and flexible modeling technique that can be used for designing, developing, and managing complex systems. DSM offers network modeling tools that repr
As the global economic crisis continues to cause damage, some policy makers have called for a more Keynesian approach to current economic problems. In this book, the economists Peter Temin and David V
John D. C. Little of MIT's Sloan School of Management is famous for his contributions to operations research and marketing science. He formulated a fundamental theorem in queuing theory known as Littl
Although it is among the oldest of market institutions, the auction is ubiquitous in today's economy, used for everything from government procurement to selling advertising on the Internet to course a
In the years after World War II, a distinctly American model for suburban development emerged. The expansive rings of outer suburbs that formed around major cities were decentralized and automobile or
Over the last fifty years, an extensive array of instruments for financing, investing, and controlling risk has become available in financial markets, with demand for these innovations driven by the n
In December 2009, the economist Kaushik Basu left the rarefied world of academic research for the nuts and bolts of policymaking. Appointed by the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, to be c
