Böcker i The MIT Press-serien

An introduction to the global carbon cycle and the human-caused disturbances to it that are at the heart of global warming and climate change.

Works by a pre-Pop, post-abstract expressionist generation of artists who rejected painterly expression and embraced the object.As the 1950s became the 1960s, a new generation of artists around the globe rejected direct painterly expression and returned decisively to the object. Moving away from abstract expressionism and toward the sensibility that would become Pop, these artists—among them Raymond Hains, Martial Raysse, Yves Klein, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, and Robert Rauschenberg—effectively established a new set of artistic paradigms that would influence the decade ahead. New Realisms: 1957-1962 maps this international field of artistic practice, showcasing more than 200 works by artists of the period. The title echoes the name of the French movement of the 1960s "Nouveau Réalisme.” Indeed, the work of the Nouveaux Réalistes group anchors the book (and the exhibition it accompanies), but at the same time, New Realisms represents a wider range of related instincts, diversely expressed. The emphasis is on a constellation of activities in play before the new critical terms and categories of Pop Art were set in stone. The book views the emerging artistic scene from the other end of the telescope, as it were: from a European perspective rather than from that of American Pop Art. New Realisms is emphatically hybrid, encompassing the initiatives of the French group as well as trajectories in New York that stretched from painting to "Environment” to Happening.Artists include: Arman, George Brecht, Cesar, Christo, Gérard Deschamps, Jim Dine, François Dufrêne, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Raymond Hains, Allan Kaprow, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Roy Lichtenstein, Piero Manzoni, Claes Oldenburg, Giuseppe Pinot Gallizio, Robert Rauschenberg, Martial Raysse, Mimmo Rotella, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely, Robert Watts, and Robert Whitman.Essays by: Julia Robinson, Hannah Feldman, Agnes Berecz, Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh.Exhibition: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; June 19th-October 4th, 2010.Distributed by the MIT Press for the Reina Sofia Museum

This is designed for the cancer patient or health professional who seeks a comprehensive overview of the available choices both in treatment and in living with cancer. Included are evaluations of a wide range of complementary therapies and traditional medicines from around the world.

How New York City subways signage evolved from a "visual mess” to a uniform system with Helvetica triumphant.For years, the signs in the New York City subway system were a bewildering hodge-podge of lettering styles, sizes, shapes, materials, colors, and messages. The original mosaics (dating from as early as 1904), displaying a variety of serif and sans serif letters and decorative elements, were supplemented by signs in terracotta and cut stone. Over the years, enamel signs identifying stations and warning riders not to spit, smoke, or cross the tracks were added to the mix. Efforts to untangle this visual mess began in the mid-1960s, when the city transit authority hired the design firm Unimark International to create a clear and consistent sign system. We can see the results today in the white-on-black signs throughout the subway system, displaying station names, directions, and instructions in crisp Helvetica. This book tells the story of how typographic order triumphed over chaos.The process didn't go smoothly or quickly. At one point New York Times architecture writer Paul Goldberger declared that the signs were so confusing one almost wished that they weren't there at all. Legend has it that Helvetica came in and vanquished the competition. Paul Shaw shows that it didn't happen that way—that, in fact, for various reasons (expense, the limitations of the transit authority sign shop), the typeface overhaul of the 1960s began not with Helvetica but with its forebear, Standard (AKA Akzidenz Grotesk). It wasn't until the 1980s and 1990s that Helvetica became ubiquitous. Shaw describes the slow typographic changeover (supplementing his text with more than 250 images—photographs, sketches, type samples, and documents). He places this signage evolution in the context of the history of the New York City subway system, of 1960s transportation signage, of Unimark International, and of Helvetica itself.

A sociotechnical investigation of ubiquitous computing as a research enterprise and as a lived reality.

A philosophical refashioning of the Language of Thought approach and the related computational theory of mind.

Why it matters that our relationship with nature is increasingly mediated and augmented by technology.

The story of the decade long, billion-dollar building boom at MIT and how it produced major works of architecture by Charles Correa, Frank Gehry, Steven Holl, Fumihiko Maki, and Kevin Roche.

An exploration of commercially available technologies that can enhance energy security and address climate change and public policy options crucial to their adoption.

How do radical religious sects run such deadly terrorist organizations? Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban all began as religious groups dedicated to piety and charity. Yet once they turned to violence, they became horribly potent, executing campaigns of terrorism deadlier than those of their secular rivals. In Radical, Religious, and Violent, Eli Berman approaches the question using the economics of organizations. He first dispels some myths: radical religious terrorists are not generally motivated by the promise of rewards in the afterlife (including the infamous seventy-two virgins) or even by religious ideas in general. Drawing on parallel research on radical religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Berman shows that the most lethal terrorist groups have a common characteristic: their leaders have found a way to control defection. Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Taliban, for example, built loyalty and cohesion by means of mutual aid, weeding out ¿free riders¿ and producing a cadre of members they could rely on. The secret of their deadly effectiveness lies in their resilience and cohesion when incentives to defect are strong

The odyssey of a group of "refugees" from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds.

The former president of MIT discusses challenges and policy issues confronting academia, science and technology, and the world at large.

The basics of the profession and practice of architecture, presented in illustrated A-Z form.The word "architect" is a noun, but Doug Patt uses it as a verb—coining a term and making a point about using parts of speech and parts of buildings in new ways. Changing the function of a word, or a room, can produce surprise and meaning. In How to Architect, Patt—an architect and the creator of a series of wildly popular online videos about architecture—presents the basics of architecture in A-Z form, starting with "A is for Asymmetry" (as seen in Chartres Cathedral and Frank Gehry), detouring through "N is for Narrative," and ending with "Z is for Zeal" (a quality that successful architects tend to have, even in fiction—see The Fountainhead's architect-hero Howard Roark.) How to Architect is a book to guide you on the road to architecture. If you are just starting on that journey or thinking about becoming an architect, it is a place to begin. If you are already an architect and want to remind yourself of what drew you to the profession, it is a book of affirmation. And if you are just curious about what goes into the design and construction of buildings, this book tells you how architects think. Patt introduces each entry with a hand-drawn letter, and accompanies the text with illustrations that illuminate the concept discussed: a fallen Humpty Dumpty illustrates the perils of fragile egos; photographs of an X-Acto knife and other hand tools remind us of architecture's nondigital origins.How to Architect offers encouragement to aspiring architects but also mounts a defense of architecture as a profession—by calling out a defiant verb: architect!

A brief and accessible introduction to molecular biology for students and professionals who want to understand this rapidly expanding field.

Why Americans do not divide neatly into red and blue or right and left but form coalitions across party lines on hot-button issues ranging from immigration to same-sex marriage.

How unassuming government researcher Marshall Nirenberg beat James Watson, Francis Crick, and other world-famous scientists in the race to discover the genetic code.

How the partnership between Ford and the UAW, forged through more than fifty pivotal events, transformed their capacity to combine good jobs with high performance.

A leading economist contends that the recent financial crisis was caused not by the failure of mainstream economics but by corrupted monetary data constructed without reference to economics.

A framework for assessing the security risks of emerging dual-use technologies and devising tailored governance strategies is proposed and applied to contemporary case studies.

A compilation of current scientific knowledge about psychoactive herbal drugs.

A leading economist develops a supply-side approach to fighting climate change that encourages resource owners to leave more of their fossil carbon underground.The Earth is getting warmer. Yet, as Hans-Werner Sinn points out in this provocative book, the dominant policy approach—which aims to curb consumption of fossil energy—has been ineffective. Despite policy makers' efforts to promote alternative energy, impose emission controls on cars, and enforce tough energy-efficiency standards for buildings, the relentlessly rising curve of CO2 output does not show the slightest downward turn. Some proposed solutions are downright harmful: cultivating crops to make biofuels not only contributes to global warming but also uses resources that should be devoted to feeding the world's hungry. In The Green Paradox, Sinn proposes a new, more pragmatic approach based not on regulating the demand for fossil fuels but on controlling the supply.The owners of carbon resources, Sinn explains, are pre-empting future regulation by accelerating the production of fossil energy while they can. This is the "Green Paradox”: expected future reduction in carbon consumption has the effect of accelerating climate change. Sinn suggests a supply-side solution: inducing the owners of carbon resources to leave more of their wealth underground. He proposes the swift introduction of a "Super-Kyoto” system—gathering all consumer countries into a cartel by means of a worldwide, coordinated cap-and-trade system supported by the levying of source taxes on capital income—to spoil the resource owners' appetite for financial assets.Only if we can shift our focus from local demand to worldwide supply policies for reducing carbon emissions, Sinn argues, will we have a chance of staving off climate disaster.

Everything you've always wanted to know about self-driving cars, Netflix recommendations, IBM's Watson, and video game-playing computer programs.The future is here: Self-driving cars are on the streets, an algorithm gives you movie and TV recommendations, IBM's Watson triumphed on Jeopardy over puny human brains, computer programs can be trained to play Atari games. But how do all these things work? In this book, Sean Gerrish offers an engaging and accessible overview of the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and machine learning that have made today's machines so smart.Gerrish outlines some of the key ideas that enable intelligent machines to perceive and interact with the world. He describes the software architecture that allows self-driving cars to stay on the road and to navigate crowded urban environments; the million-dollar Netflix competition for a better recommendation engine (which had an unexpected ending); and how programmers trained computers to perform certain behaviors by offering them treats, as if they were training a dog. He explains how artificial neural networks enable computers to perceive the world—and to play Atari video games better than humans. He explains Watson's famous victory on Jeopardy, and he looks at how computers play games, describing AlphaGo and Deep Blue, which beat reigning world champions at the strategy games of Go and chess. Computers have not yet mastered everything, however; Gerrish outlines the difficulties in creating intelligent agents that can successfully play video games like StarCraft that have evaded solution—at least for now. Gerrish weaves the stories behind these breakthroughs into the narrative, introducing readers to many of the researchers involved, and keeping technical details to a minimum. Science and technology buffs will find this book an essential guide to a future in which machines can outsmart people.

The contributors represent the complete spectrum of positions between a relativism that challenges the very concept of a single world and the idea that there are ascertainable, objective universals.

Two experts on the information economy explore the true economic value of technology and innovation.

How tiny variations in our personal DNA can determine how we look, how we behave, how we get sick, and how we get well.

The work of art's mattering and materialization in a globalized world, with close readings of works by Takahashi Murakami, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Hirschhorn, and others.