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How we can invent—but not predict—the future of cities.We cannot predict future cities, but we can invent them. Cities are largely unpredictable because they are complex systems that are more like organisms than machines. Neither the laws of economics nor the laws of mechanics apply; cities are the product of countless individual and collective decisions that do not conform to any grand plan. They are the product of our inventions; they evolve. In Inventing Future Cities, Michael Batty explores what we need to understand about cities in order to invent their future.Batty outlines certain themes—principles—that apply to all cities. He investigates not the invention of artifacts but inventive processes. Today form is becoming ever more divorced from function; information networks now shape the traditional functions of cities as places of exchange and innovation. By the end of this century, most of the world's population will live in cities, large or small, sometimes contiguous, and always connected; in an urbanized world, it will be increasingly difficult to define a city by its physical boundaries.Batty discusses the coming great transition from a world with few cities to a world of all cities; argues that future cities will be defined as clusters in a hierarchy; describes the future “high-frequency,” real-time streaming city; considers urban sprawl and urban renewal; and maps the waves of technological change, which grow ever more intense and lead to continuous innovation—an unending process of creative destruction out of which future cities will emerge.

"This book provides a longue durâee story examining the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in sciences--and particularly in engineering and other applied sciences--which is crucial to understanding today's culture of prediction"--

A multidisciplinary examination of the phenomenon of collaboration to expand knowledge and inform future activities.Human existence depends critically on how well diverse social-cultural-political groups can collaborate. Yet the phenomenon of collaboration itself is ill-defined, badly understood, and there is no straightforward formula for its successful realization. In The Nature and Dynamics of Collaboration, edited by Paul F.M.J. Verschure et al., experts from wide-ranging disciplines examine how human collaboration arises, breaks down, and potentially recovers. They explore the different contexts, boundary conditions, and drivers of collaboration to expand understanding of the underlying dynamic, multiscale processes, in an effort to increase chances for ethical, sustainable, and productive collaboration in the future.This volume is accompanied by twenty-four podcasts, which provide insights from real-world examples.ContributorsAsaf Bachrach, Kevin Bauer, Jenna Bednar, Eric D. Beinhocker, Johan Bollen, Federica Carugati, Esther Chevrot-Bianco, Michael Chwe, A. C. C. Coolen, Tamas David-Barrett, Simon DeDeo, L. Zachary DuBois, Ismael T. Freire, Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson, Rebecca D. Hardin, Sebastian Kahl, Heidi Keller, Mette Løvschal, Jônatas Manzolli, George E. Marcus, Marcia L. McLain, Stephanie Musgrave, Melody N.Ndzenyuiy, Chris J. C. Nierstrasz, Raul Pacheco-Vega, Scott E.Page, Ella Paldam, Bhavani R. Rao, Andreas Roepstorff, Karthik Sankaranarayanan, Dennis Snower, Sidney Strauss, Justin Sulik, Veena Suresh, Kristian Tylén, Robert Van der Laarse, Sander E.van der Leeuw, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Alicia von Schenk, Ferdinand von Siemens

An international overview of how policy makers, curriculum developers, and school practitioners can integrate computational thinking into K–12 curricula.In today’s digital society, computational thinking (CT) is a critical component of all children’s education. In Computational Thinking Curricula in K–12, editors Harold Abelson and Siu-Cheung Kong present a range of professional perspectives on the most effective ways to integrate CT into school curricula. Their edited volume, which offers an overview of educational policy, curriculum development, school implementation, and classroom practice, will appeal especially to policy makers, curriculum developers, school practitioners, and educational researchers. The essays cover twelve countries and regions across three continents: Australia, China, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom, with a particular emphasis on Asia.A companion to the editors’ earlier Computational Thinking Education in K–12, this book consists of two sections: 1) educational policy and curriculum development and 2) school implementation and classroom practice. The authors delve into issues of regional history; governmental planning; official initiatives; leadership commitment; curriculum design; pedagogical implementation; equity, diversity, and inclusion; assessment, including longitudinal assessment across age groups; formal and informal learning approaches to CT; and teacher development. Specific topics include core competencies and CT education, robotics education and CT, AI and CT, and game-based platforms for computational problem-solving. The varying ways that CT is being integrated into the early grades, in particular, presents an interesting case study in international comparative education.

"Hedgehogs, Killing, and Kindness explores the complex ways in which various human actors interact with hedgehogs and other species, and the multifaceted modes of care--sometimes violent, often ambiguous--in contemporary species conservation and wildlife rehabilitation"--

"An educational ethnography focusing on the uses of technology within a purposely inclusive elementary school that integrates students with and without disabilities in the same classroom setting"--

"A demonstration of the superiority of the "fast and frugal heuristics" model over statistical analysis for making business decisions"--

"A thought experiment by a prominent bioethicist on how unintended pregnancies can be drastically curtailed using currently available methods"--

"An argument for the importance of sadness in human life, drawing broadly on the cognitive sciences and stemming from the author's deep research into music"--

"Underbelly articulates the pathways of global health funding and development policies by exploring their outcomes for recipient individuals and communities. Drawing on 15 years of ethnographic research and global health program implementation in highland Guatemala, this book focuses on the provision of primary health care services as a critical exemplar of how global health and development programs fall short, specifically focusing on efforts to prevent and treat diarrhea"--

"This is the first historical work that situates the Strategic Defense Initiative within a new phase in the militarization of space, uncovering a largely secret history of the role of military space technologies in late-Cold War U.S. defense strategy and foreign relations"--

"Prior Art offers the first ever history of the use of patents in architecture, spanning the period 1830 - 1996"--

"This book sets out to investigate the political, technological, and environmental dimensions of architecture at a moment when buildings began to interact with the emergent medium of radio. More especially it explores Cold War Berlin, through the Haus des Rundfunks, occupied by the Soviet forces on the Eastern side of the city"--

A high-level text that synthesizes diverse research areas for characterizing objects (targets) from radar data and establishes a novel analysis framework for a class of signal processing techniques useful for high-resolution radar signature modeling.The only text to integrate a diverse body of work on characterizing objects (targets) from radar data into a common analysis framework, this book brings together the results of research papers and technical reports providing improved resolution and precision in radar target signature modeling and target motion solutions. It offers comprehensive coverage related to basic radar concepts, signal representation, and radar measurements; the development of advanced analysis tools essential for high-resolution signature modeling; the development of novel wideband and narrowband radar imaging techniques; the application of 2D spectral estimation theory to wideband signal processing; ultra-wideband scattering phenomenology and sparse-band sensor data fusion; and the integration of field measurements into the radar signature modeling process. The analysis techniques developed in the text provide the framework for a novel approach, called measurements-based modeling (MBM), to model target signatures by incorporating measurement data into the signature model of the target. Extensive examples throughout compare the performance of the new techniques with that of conventional analysis techniques.The first systematic, comprehensive synthesis of wide-ranging research areas for characterizing targets from radar data A deeply researched, lucid presentation enriched by extensive illustrations and examples An essential reference for experts in radar and signal processing, professional engineers in related fields, and graduate students

"An exploration of the world's first stand-alone stereoscopic 3D videogame platform: how it worked, how it was perceived, and how it built on a rich tradition of entertainment media created to trick our eyes"--

"Broussard argues that the structural inequalities reproduced in algorithmic systems are no glitch. They are part of the system design. This book shows how everyday technologies embody racist, sexist, and ableist ideas; how they produce discriminatory and harmful outcomes; and how this can be challenged and changed."--

"One economist's reflections on the professional culture of economic theory"--

"Through a social history of the Tor network (often known as the "Dark Web"), this book develops a rich and novel approach to understanding privacy technologies and their implication in crime, harm, control, and resistance"--

"A nuanced, science-based understanding of the creative mind, one that punctures many (but not all) of the standard myths that obscure this perennial topic"--

Exploring architecture as a form of concealment and obfuscation in engendering new ways of understanding, conceptualizing, and reshaping the world.Architecture is the perfect form of camouflage. As buildings recede into the background of everyday life, the myriad forces that shape our natural, social, and political landscapes hide in plain sight. Embedded within the spatial and material organizations of the built environment are ideas of value, hierarchy, and control that tilt the ground and influence perception in the name of endless competing interests.Operating across multiple scales and mediums, architectural camouflage gives familiar form to obscure objectives. Design transforms and encodes our shared environments, from domestic domains to digital territories, through its material practices, aesthetics, and discourses. Immanent in the periphery, architecture’s images are internalized as forms for understanding and reshaping the world. Camouflage, in turn, dwells in the architecture of our collective subconscious.Latent within architecture’s deceptions is a profound capacity to reflect the elusive intentions and surreal ambiguities of our ecological entanglements. In masking hierarchies and shifting sensitivities to what escapes perception, architecture can engender vital questions around the agency and significance of its world-making practices. Mediating with and within the background, architecture can awaken new modes of attention to material and social layers previously unimagined or hidden and engage directly with the mirrored frameworks that define reality.This issue of Perspecta considers the complexities and potentialities of architectural concealment, obfuscation, and mimicry; of the power inherent in architecture’s expanding capacity as media. In the veiled extents of our physical and digital worlds, what is still not found?ContributorsAPRDELESP and Xavier Nueno Guitart, Ashley Bigham and Erik Herrmann, Esther M. Choi, feminist architecture collaborative, Marianela D’Aprile and Douglas Spencer, Theo Deutinger and Christopher Clarkson, DESIGN EARTH, David Freeland and Brennan Buck, Linda Gordon, Noah Kalina, Dana Karwas, Andrew Economos Miller, M.C. Overholt and Alex Whee Kim, Trevor Paglen, Lukas Pauer, Nina Rappaport, David Sadighian, Matthew Soules, Jerome Tryon, Michael Young

"Critical analysis of the convergence of global crises facing humanity and their implications for our planetary future"--

On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game’s legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture.In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game’s past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D.Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D’s adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers’ understanding of the game.

"This book argues that bibliography is the foundation of information science, an infrastructure with the power to address many of the most challenging issues in the field. Bibliographers establish what has been presented to us as records of what has been known, experienced, and desired, and they are responsible for assessing and safeguarding what has arrived in the present and for reproducing what has been deemed worthy to be made available elsewhere: the data of science, the expressions of culture, and the records of personal witness"--

"A critique of how data is used in educational settings, and a demonstration of how data can play a more just role in research and practice when approached through a broader spectrum of anonymity"--

"With satirical wit and philosophical rigor, Higgins critiques the empty rhetoric of the contemporary university, and articulates a vision of what substantive formative education could be"--

"A deep dive into a masterwork, Building SimCity analyzes the history, reception, and design of Will Wright's seminal simulation game, and locates SimCity-alongside Maxis, its developer/publisher-within the larger history of simulation, computing, and games"--

"A collection of essays from the Center for Science and the Imagination that combines theory and practice for a critical assesment of the transmedia landscape"--

"Rosenbaum explains at an advanced undergrad level, the core mathematical and computational models of neurons and networks of neurons, focusing primarily on neurons in the cerebral cortex"--