The Aging Mind: An owner's manual
【作 者】Patrick Rabbitt
【出版社】Routledge; 1 edition (December 8, 2014)
【馆藏地】理科馆外教中心（东）
【索书号】B844.4 /R113 /E
【简 介】No-one approaches aging with enthusiasm. Activities we accomplish easily in our 20s and 30s become more difficult as we grow old but, though change is inevitable, recognising and understanding precisely what is happening to our bodies and minds allows us to continue to manage and enjoy our lives.
Patrick Rabbitt is a cognitive gerontologist who has researched physical and mental aging for over 50 years and so can interpret his personal daily experiences of the aging process through a comprehensive understanding of what gerontological research has revealed about how our bodies and brains age, and how these changes affect our everyday experiences and lives.
Engagingly written, Professor Rabbitt’s book is a fascinating account of why our sensory and cognitive experiences change as we get older, and what these developments mean for our overall physical and emotional well-being. Describing the latest research the book covers the mental changes that affect our daily lives such as those in memory, intelligence, attention, sleep, vision and hearing, taste and smell, touch and balance, anxiety, depression and perception of the passage of time. It also discusses how far we can keep and develop the skills we have mastered over our lifetimes. The book debunks unhelpful myths about the aging process and offers guidance on how we can age better.
This is an absorbing account of the aging process from one of the most eminent gerontologists working today. Its warmth and candour make it an engaging and helpful guide for those interested in understanding their own, or their relatives’ ageing. Its rigour and comprehensiveness make ideal for students seeking an accessible alternative to standard textbooks on aging and for health professionals working with older people.
Social Capital at the Community Level: An Applied Interdisciplinary Perspective
【编 者】John M. Halstead, Steven C. Deller
【出版社】Routledge (April 30, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆理科书库
【索书号】C912.8 /S678s /E
【简 介】In Social Capital at the Community Level, John Halstead and Steven Deller examine social capital formation beyond the individual level through a variety of disciplines: planning, economics, regional development, sociology, as well as non-traditional approaches like engineering and built environmental features. The notion of social capital in community and economic development has become a focus of intense interest for policy makers, practitioners, and academics. The notion is that communities with higher levels of social capital (networks, trust, and norms) will prosper both economically and socially. In a practical sense, how do communities use the notion of social capital to build policies and strategies to move their community forward? Are all forms of social capital the same and do all have a positive influence on the community? To help gain insights into these fundamental questions Social Capital at the Community Level takes a holistic, interdisciplinary or systems approach to thinking about the community.
While those who study social capital will acknowledge the need for an interdisciplinary approach, most stay within their disciplinary silos. One could say there is strong bonding social capital within disciplines but little bridging social capital across disciplines. The contributors to Social Capital at the Community Level have made an attempt to build that bridging social capital. While disciplinary biases and research approaches are evident there is significant overlap about how people with different disciplinary perspectives think about social capital and how it can be applied at the community level. This can be from neighborhoods addressing a localized issue to a global response to a natural disaster. This book is an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers and policy makers of community and economic development, as well as rural sociologists and planners looking to understand the opaque process of social capital formation in communities.
Why India is not a Great Power (Yet)
【作 者】Bharat Karnad
【出版社】Oxford University Press; 1 edition (October 29, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆理科书库
【索书号】D735.12 /K18w /E
【简 介】Since the economic liberalization of the early 1990s, India has been, on several occasions and at different forums, feted as a great power. This subject has been discussed in numerous books, but mostly in terms of rapid economic growth and immense potential in the emerging market. There is also a vast collection of literature on India's 'soft power '- culture, tourism, frugal engineering, and knowledge economy. However, there has been no serious exploration of the alternative path India can take to achieving great power status - a combination of hard power, geostrategics, and realpolitik.
In this book, Bharat Karnad delves exclusively into these hard power aspects of India's rise and the problems associated with them. He offers an incisive analysis of the deficits in the country's military capabilities and in the 'software' related to hard power--absence of political vision and will, insensitivity to strategic geography, and unimaginative foreign and military policies--and arrives at powerful arguments on why these shortfalls have prevented the country from achieving the great power status.
Spinoza, Right and Absolute Freedom
【作 者】Stephen Connelly
【出版社】Birkbeck Law Press (February 19, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆理科书库
【索书号】D903 /C752 /E
【简 介】Against jurisprudential reductions of Spinoza’s thinking to a kind of eccentric version of Hobbes, this book argues that Spinoza’s theory of natural right contains an important idea of absolute freedom, which would be inconceivable within Hobbes’ own schema. Spinoza famously thought that the universe and all of the beings and events within it are fully determined by their causes. This has led jurisprudential commentators to believe that Spinoza has no room for natural right – in the sense that whatever happens by definition has a ‘right’ to happen. But, although this book demonstrates how Spinoza constructs a system in which right is understood as the work of machines, by fixing right as determinate and invariable, Stephen Connolly argues that Spinoza is not limiting his theory. The universe as a whole is capable of acting only in determinate ways but, he argues, for Spinoza these exist within a field of infinite possibilities. In an analysis that offers much to ongoing attempts to conceive of justice post-foundationally, the argument of this book is that Spinoza opens up right to a future of determinate interventions –as when an engineer, working with already-existing materials, improves a machine. As such, an idea of freedom emerges in Spinoza: as the artful rearrangement of the given into new possibilities. An exciting and original contribution, this book is an invaluable addition, both to the new wave of interest in Spinoza’s philosophy, and to contemporary legal and political theory.
Money Talks: Media, Markets, Crisis
【作 者】Graham Murdock, Jostein Gripsrud
【出版社】Intellect Ltd (April 15, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆理科书库
【索书号】F83 /M742 /E
【简 介】Money Talks explores the ways the concepts of money and capital are understood and talked about by a range of people, from traders to ordinary investors, and how these accounts are framed and represented across a range of media. This collection brings together leading writers and emerging researchers to demonstrate how work in media and cultural studies can contribute to debates around the meanings of money, the operations of capital, and the nature of the current crisis. Drawing on a range of work from across disciplines, Money Talks offers a provocative and pathbreaking demonstration of the value of incorporating approaches from media and cultural studies into an understanding of economic issues.
MOOCs and Open Education Around the World
【编 者】Curtis J. Bonk, Mimi M. Lee, Thomas C. Reeves, Thomas H. Reynolds
【出版社】Routledge (June 20, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆理科书库
【索书号】G434 /M817 /E
【简 介】As new digital forms of formal and informal learning proliferate, there is an increasing need to better understand how people in different regions of the world are implementing massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of open educational resources (OERs). Educators, researchers, politicians, and numerous other stakeholders want to grasp what the outcomes of these initiatives are and how they can be improved. Ongoing e-learning developments related to both technology and pedagogy have pushed institutions and organizations to grapple with issues of accreditation, credentialing, quality standards, innovative assessment, and learner motivation and attrition, among other areas of concern.
In response, MOOCs and Open Education Around the World explores and illuminates unique implementations of MOOCs and open education across regions and nations. The book also focuses on the various opportunities as well as the dilemmas presented in this rapidly evolving age of technology-enabled learning. What are the different delivery formats, interaction possibilities, assessment schemes, and business models? What are the key controversies or issues that must be discussed and addressed? This edited collection explains MOOCs and open education trends and issues in a variety of contexts, shares key research findings, and provides practical suggestions and recommendations for the near future.
The Bloomsbury Companion to Stylistics
【主 编】Violeta Sotirova
【出版社】Bloomsbury Academic; annotated edition (November 19, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆外教中心（东）
【索书号】H31 /B655 /E
【简 介】This Bloomsbury Companion provides an overview of stylistics with a detailed outline of the scope and history of the discipline, as well as its key areas of research.
The main research methods and approaches within the field are presented with a detailed overview and then illustrated with a chapter of unique new research by a leading scholar in the field. The Companion also features in-depth explorations of current research areas in stylistics in the form of new studies by established researchers in the field. The broad interdisciplinary scope of stylistics is reflected in the wide array of approaches taken to the linguistic study of texts drawing on traditions from linguistics, literary theory, literary criticism, critical theory and narratology, and in the diverse group of internationally recognised contributors.
Othello: A Critical Reader
【编 者】Robert C. Evans
【出版社】Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare (August 27, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆外教中心（东）
【索书号】I561.073 /E92o1 /E
【简 介】Othello has long been, and remains, one of Shakespeare's most popular works. It is a favourite work of scholars, students, and general readers alike. Perhaps more than any other of Shakespeare's tragedies, this one seems to speak most clearly to contemporary readers and audiences, partly because it deals with such pressing modern issues as race, gender, multiculturalism, and the ways love, jealousy, and misunderstanding can affect relations between romantic partners. The play also features Iago, one of Shakespeare's most mesmerizing and puzzling villains.
This guide offers students and scholars an introduction to the play's critical and performance history, including notable stage productions and film versions. It includes a keynote chapter outlining major areas of current research on the play and four new critical essays. Finally, a guide to critical, web-based and production-related resources and an annotated bibliography provide a basis for further research.
Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 50 Years On
【编 者】William J Devlin, Alisa Bokulich
【出版社】University Of Chicago Press (March 25, 2016)
【馆藏地】数学分馆图书阅览室
【索书号】N0 /K96 /E
【简 介】In 1962, the publication of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure ‘revolutionized’ the way one conducts philosophical and historical studies of science. Through the introduction of both memorable and controversial notions, such as paradigms, scientific revolutions, and incommensurability, Kuhn argued against the traditionally accepted notion of scientific change as a progression towards the truth about nature, and instead substituted the idea that science is a puzzle solving activity, operating under paradigms, which become discarded after it fails to respond accordingly to anomalous challenges and a rival paradigm. Kuhn’s Structure has sold over 1.4 million copies and the Times Literary Supplement named it one of the “Hundred Most Influential Books since the Second World War.” Now, fifty years after this groundbreaking work was published, this volume offers a timely reappraisal of the legacy of Kuhn’s book and an investigation into what Structure offers philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science in the future.
Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach
【作 者】Roman V. Yampolskiy
【出版社】Chapman and Hall/CRC; 2015 edition (June 19, 2015)
【馆藏地】理科馆外教中心（东）
【索书号】TP18-05 /Y19 /E
【简 介】A day does not go by without a news article reporting some amazing breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI). Many philosophers, futurists, and AI researchers have conjectured that human-level AI will be developed in the next 20 to 200 years. If these predictions are correct, it raises new and sinister issues related to our future in the age of intelligent machines. Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach directly addresses these issues and consolidates research aimed at making sure that emerging superintelligence is beneficial to humanity.
While specific predictions regarding the consequences of superintelligent AI vary from potential economic hardship to the complete extinction of humankind, many researchers agree that the issue is of utmost importance and needs to be seriously addressed. Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach discusses key topics such as:
·AI-Completeness theory and how it can be used to see if an artificial intelligent agent has attained human level intelligence
·Methods for safeguarding the invention of a superintelligent system that could theoretically be worth trillions of dollars
·Self-improving AI systems: definition, types, and limits
·The science of AI safety engineering, including machine ethics and robot rights
·Solutions for ensuring safe and secure confinement of superintelligent systems
·The future of superintelligence and why long-term prospects for humanity to remain as the dominant species on Earth are not great
Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach is designed to become a foundational text for the new science of AI safety engineering. AI researchers and students, computer security researchers, futurists, and philosophers should find this an invaluable resource.