An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, Illinois. This paper examines factors in college student confidence in using electronic books as learning tools between 2007 and 2009. The study was done in response to the growing concern over the cost of textbooks and the increase in the use of e-textbooks to counteract that cost. This study shows that despite a lack of a (...) gap between comfort of use of computers, students whose parents income is above the national median income are more confident in learning from electronic books than students whose parents income is not. Not only is this gap existent but it widened between 2007 and 2009 despite the growing confidence in the use of electronic books by both groups. The results of this study suggests that this gap, and its concomitant widening, could be associated with exposure to computer classes in high school and the choice of major. (shrink)

The massive and unstoppable emergence of electronic books in libraries has altered their organization. This disruptive technology has led to structural changes. Currently, an e-book exists only if its metadata exists. The objective of this article is to analyse the impact that the massive incorporation of electronic books in university library systems is having in the processes of assignment of subject headings and classification codes. We carried out a survey of more than six hundred libraries, which means (...) almost all the university libraries in Portugal, Spain, England, United States, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Australia. From the results obtained, it is deduced that: 1) librarians expect e-books to be provided with descriptive metadata related to the subject headings and classification codes; 2) the bibliographic records provided by publishers/providers seem to be improvable; 3) the quality of the metadata provided by the providers does not seem to be taken into account when selecting publishers for the purchase; 4) the discovery tools are also clearly improvable; 5) it seems that there is no “frustration” or “stress” among librarians about the changes produced in relation to technical processes; and, 6) it does not seem that we are facing a paradigm shift motivated by these issues. (shrink)

This dissertation reconstructs some aspects of the historical development of the concept of the electron from 1891, when the term "electron" was introduced, to 1925, when the notion of spin was put forward, in the light of the relevant historiographical and philosophical problems. The central historiographical tool employed is Karl Popper's notion of a problem situation. Furthermore, some of the historical episodes are reconstructed in terms of a "biographical" approach to theoretical entities that portrays them as active agents that participate (...) in the development of scientific knowledge. Their agency is due to the heuristic resources that they embody and to the resistance that they exhibit to manipulation. The historical analysis begins with a reconceptualization of the "discovery" of the electron and aims at situating the principal historical actors within the wider process which led to the acceptance of the electron as an element of the ontology of physics. I continue with a reconstruction of the discovery of the Zeeman effect in the light of recent work on the history and philosophy of experimental science. The next three chapters are devoted to a reading of the development of the old quantum theory of the atom , which aimed at understanding the behavior and distribution of electrons bound within the atom, from the perspective of the electron's biography. Furthermore, I discuss the chemists' representation of the electron and contrast it with its physical counterpart. The main philosophical problem examined concerns the implications of meaning change for scientific realism . I discuss in detail that issue and argue against the widespread view that meaning variance is incompatible with scientific realism. Thus, I provide a way out for the aspiring realist, without however committing myself to a realist position. Finally, I argue that the historical development of the concept of the electron from 1896 to 1925 is compatible with a realist construal of its ontological status. (shrink)

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, 1482, the priest says that, alas, ‘this will destroy that’, meaning that the book upon which his hand was placed would destroy the building opposite. He is looking out of a window at the immense Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Hugo, 1967, p. 197). If the cathedral is a library to be read by the religious, and if the church is the symbol of authority and the repository of medieval knowledge, then the priest means (...) not only that the book, printing and new literacy would undermine the church’s authority, but that human thought will undermine the church’s expression of its authority (Bolter, 1991). The priest continues: the principal idea of each generation would no longer write itself with the same material and in the same way, that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give place to the book made of paper, yet made more solid and durable. (Hugo, 1967, p. 199; Bolter’s 1991 translation). (shrink)

The Alice Books, full of illogical thoughts, words, and contradictions, were unrivaled entertainment until the publication of the medical literature promoting electronic fetal monitoring for every pregnancy. The modern-day EFM advocates acknowledge EFM’s decades long failure but simultaneously recommend EFM use for lawsuit protection and because the profession has used EFM for every pregnancy for fifty years, therefore, it must be efficacious. These self-indulgent, illogical rationalizations ignore the half century of evidence-based scientific research proving that EFM is a complete (...) failure as well as ignoring the fact that continued EFM use violates the fundamental principles of modern bioethics. This blind advocacy perpetuates four pernicious EFM harms occurring to mothers, babies, and the medical profession itself. This article sets out these four EFM harms with the goal of abolishing the misguided, illogical, contradictory, arguments used by the twenty-first century EFM Lewis Carroll mimics. (shrink)

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, 1482, the priest says that, alas, ‘this will destroy that’, meaning that the book upon which his hand was placed would destroy the building opposite. He is looking out of a window at the immense Cathedral of Notre-Dame (Hugo, 1967, p. 197). If the cathedral is a library to be read by the religious, and if the church is the symbol of authority and the repository of medieval knowledge, then the priest means (...) not only that the book, printing and new literacy would undermine the church’s authority, but that human thought will undermine the church’s expression of its authority (Bolter, 1991). The priest continues: the principal idea of each generation would no longer write itself with the same material and in the same way, that the book of stone, so solid and durable, would give place to the book made of paper, yet made more solid and durable. (Hugo, 1967, p. 199; Bolter’s 1991 translation). (shrink)

Excerpt from Relativity: The Electron Theory and Gravitation The first edition of this book was published while the General Principle of Relativity was being worked out, before it seemed possible to arrive at any confirmation from observation. Shortly after, however, it was shown that the new theory explained the motion of the perihelion of Mercury, and now the result of the Solar Eclipse expedition has clinched matters. It seemed best to leave practically untouched the account of the special principle (...) as the natural avenue of approach to the broader view, which is described at length in Part II. Acknowledgment is due to the authors friends, Prof. H. F. Baker and Mr. E. V. Appleton, who kindly read through the proofs of the new matter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In this book, scholars and artists explore the relation between electronic music and bodily expression from perspectives including aesthetics, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, dance and interactive performance arts, sociology, computer music and sonic arts, and music theory, transgressing disciplinary boundaries and established beliefs. The historic decoupling of action and sound generation might be seen to have distorted or even effaced the expressive body, with the retention of performance qualities via recoupling not equally retaining bodily expressivity. When, where, and (...) what is the body expressed in electronic music then? The authors of this book reveal composers', performers', improvisers' and listeners' bodies, as well as the works' and technologies' figurative bodies as a rich source of expressive articulation. Bringing together humanities' scholarship and musical arts contingent upon new media, the contributors offer inspiring thought and critical reflection for all those seriously engaged with the aesthetics of electronic music, interactive performance, and the body's role in aesthetic experience and expression. Performativity is not only seen as being reclaimed in live electronic music, interactive arts, and installations; it is also exposed as embodied in the music and the listeners themselves. (shrink)

In this book, scholars and artists explore the relation between electronic music and bodily expression from perspectives including aesthetics, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, dance and interactive performance arts, sociology, computer music and sonic arts, and music theory, transgressing disciplinary boundaries and established beliefs. The historic decoupling of action and sound generation might be seen to have distorted or even effaced the expressive body, with the retention of performance qualities via recoupling not equally retaining bodily expressivity. When, where, and (...) what is the body expressed in electronic music then? The authors of this book reveal composers', performers', improvisers' and listeners' bodies, as well as the works' and technologies' figurative bodies as a rich source of expressive articulation. Bringing together humanities' scholarship and musical arts contingent upon new media, the contributors offer inspiring thought and critical reflection for all those seriously engaged with the aesthetics of electronic music, interactive performance, and the body's role in aesthetic experience and expression. Performativity is not only seen as being reclaimed in live electronic music, interactive arts, and installations; it is also exposed as embodied in the music and the listeners themselves. (shrink)

The selected papers of William Phelps Allis are gathered here in celebration of his elevation from Professor to Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This gathering was arranged as a surprise tribute to Professor Allis and was prepared under conditions of conspiring silence. The presentation was held at M.I.T. on May 10, 1967. The papers selected here are a worthy extension of the man himself, in their directness and essential simplicity. And in their abiding value. In (...) the words of his editor, student, and colleague Sanborn C. Brown, "he has succeeded in leading a whole generation of Physicists with such a timeless approach that this volume should be considered not as a look backward but as a compilation of fundamental insights upon which to build future progress.". (shrink)

Plagiarism detection is the process of finding similarities on electronic based documents. Recently, this process is highly required because of the large number of available documents on the internet and the ability to copy and paste the text of relevant documents with simply Control+C and Control+V commands. The proposed solution is to investigate and develop an easy, fast, and multi-language support plagiarism detector with the easy of one click to detect the document plagiarism. This process will be done with (...) the support of intelligent system that can learn, change and adapt to the input document and make a cross-fast search for the content on the local repository and the online repository and link the content of the file with the matching content everywhere found. Furthermore, the supported document type that we will use is word, text and in some cases, the pdf files –where is the text can be extracting from them- and this made possible by using the DLL file from Word application that Microsoft provided on OS. The using of DLL will let us to not constrain on how to get the text from files; and will help us to apply the file on our Delphi project and walk throw our methodology and read the file word by word to grantee the best working scenarios for the calculation. In the result, this process will help in the uprising the documents quality and enhance the writer experience related to his work and will save the copyrights for the official writer of the documents by providing a new alternative tool for plagiarism detection problem for easy and fast use to the concerned Institutions for free. (shrink)

Introduction -- Quantum information: basic relevant concepts and applications -- Theory -- Part I. Atomic processes -- Coulombic entanglement: one-step single photoionization of atoms -- Coulombic entanglement: one-step double photoinonization of atoms -- Coulombic entanglement: two-step double photoinonization of atoms -- Fine-structure entanglement: bipartite states of flying particlees with rest mass different from zero -- Bipartite states and flying electronic qubits -- Part II. Molecular processes -- One-step double photoionization of molecules -- Two-step double photoionization of molecules -- Part (...) III. Miscellaneous -- Conclusions and prospectives. (shrink)

This textbook offers the first unified treatment of wave propagation in electronic and electromagnetic systems and introduces readers to the essentials of the transfer matrix method, a powerful analytical tool that can be used to model and study an array of problems pertaining to wave propagation in electrons and photons. It is aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students in physics, materials science, electrical and computer engineering, and mathematics, and is ideal for researchers in photonic crystals, negative index materials, (...) left-handed materials, plasmonics, nonlinear effects, and optics. Peter Markos and Costas Soukoulis begin by establishing the analogy between wave propagation in electronic systems and electromagnetic media and then show how the transfer matrix can be easily applied to any type of wave propagation, such as electromagnetic, acoustic, and elastic waves. The transfer matrix approach of the tight-binding model allows readers to understand its implementation quickly and all the concepts of solid-state physics are clearly introduced. Markos and Soukoulis then build the discussion of such topics as random systems and localized and delocalized modes around the transfer matrix, bringing remarkable clarity to the subject. Total internal reflection, Brewster angles, evanescent waves, surface waves, and resonant tunneling in left-handed materials are introduced and treated in detail, as are important new developments like photonic crystals, negative index materials, and surface plasmons. Problem sets aid students working through the subject for the first time. (shrink)

Current Wittgenstein scholarship is marked by a striking discrepancy. The Bergen electronic edition, which has been published starting in 1998, is now completed and has dramatically changed the field of Wittgenstein philology. Wittgenstein's entire writings are available in easily accessible facsimiles as well as in carefully prepared diplomatic and normalized transcriptions. This is nothing less than a quantum leap for anyone involved in going beyond the surface of the volumes published from the "Nachlass" by the Trustees, some of which (...) have been shown to require philological revision. The search facilities included in the Bergen edition are unique in providing almost instant access to all the data parsed by arbitrary queries. The very scope of the enterprise, offering a comprehensive, multi-layered digital rendition of the Wittgenstein corpus goes far beyond anything we can expect from traditional editions, including Michael Nedo's "WienerAusgabe", in our lifetime. And yet -- this is the discrepancy alluded to -- a significant number of recent books on Wittgenstein does not even mention the Bergen edition. "The New Wittgenstein", a collection of essays published in 2000 contains a bibliography faithfully reproducing all "primary sources", but lacking any reference to the digitized Nachlass. "Wittgenstein in America", a prestigious collection from 2001 -- ironically published by Oxford University Press -- does not do better and the same situation holds for the German language literature. To pick just two examples: neither Eike von Savigny's reader on the "Philosophische Untersuchungen", nor Wilhelm Vossenkuhl's corresponding volume on the "Tractatus" contain any pointer to the Bergen project. Something strange is, clearly, going on here. (shrink)

Well known for this crucial wartime role in breaking the ENIGMA code, this book chronicles Turing's struggle to build the modern computer. Includes first hand accounts by Turing and the pioneers of computing who worked with him.

v. 1. The doctor's book of yogas.--v. 2. Training of the brain by the brain.

What is required for something to be evidence for a hypothesis? In this fascinating, elegantly written work, distinguished philosopher of science Peter Achinstein explores this question, rejecting typical philosophical and statistical theories of evidence. He claims these theories are much too weak to give scientists what they want--a good reason to believe--and, in some cases, they furnish concepts that mistakenly make all evidential claims a priori. Achinstein introduces four concepts of evidence, defines three of them by reference to "potential" evidence, (...) and characterizes the latter using a novel epistemic interpretation of probability. The resulting theory is then applied to philosophical and historical issues. Solutions are provided to the "grue," "ravens," "lottery," and "old-evidence" paradoxes, and to a series of questions. These include whether explanations or predictions furnish more evidential weight, whether individual hypotheses or entire theoretical systems can receive evidential support, what counts as a scientific discovery, and what sort of evidence is required for it. The historical questions include whether Jean Perrin had non-circular evidence for the existence of molecules, what type of evidence J. J. Thomson offered for the existence of the electron, and whether, as is usually supposed, he really discovered the electron. Achinstein proposes answers in terms of the concepts of evidence introduced. As the premier book in the fabulous new series Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science, this volume is essential for philosophers of science and historians of science, as well as for statisticians, scientists with philosophical interests, and anyone curious about scientific reasoning. (shrink)

This book review critically analyzes Mark Coecelbergh’s newest work: “Money Machines”. In his book, Coeckelbergh discusses the epistemic, social and moral distances that are created by modern financial technologies. It consists of a historical analysis of financial technologies from cowrie shells to digital money, a theoretical analysis of the distancing effects of financial technologies which revolves around the theories of Simmel and McLuhan and a discussion of the empirical instances of modern money machines within the framework of distancing. (...) Two problems and one missed opportunity of the book are discussed in this review: the underdeveloped nature of the theory of distancing which leaves the reader with multiple open questions, the absence of established theories of money and the sometimes uncritical comparison of different theories applied to analyse financial technologies. Nevertheless, the book convincingly manages to open up a novel branch of research in the field philosophy and ethics of technology. Its highly original discussion of financial technologies and embracement of Simmel as a philosopher of technology provide for interesting prospects for future work. (shrink)

Contemporary electronic music has splintered into numerous genres and subgenres, all of which share a concern with whether sound, in itself, bears meaning. Listening through the Noise considers how the experience of listening to electronic music constitutes a departure from the expectations that have long governed music listening in the West.

System Requirements System requirements Minimum 80486, 66MHz IBM PC or full compatible ; Minimum 16MB RAM 177MB hard disk space to store and run the Nachlass, an extra 12MB in addition to this should be available during installation. SVGA monitor set to 800x600 pixels, 16-bit colour, or higher setting recommended to use and display the transcription text and facsimiles; Quad-speed CD-ROM drive or higher; Windows 3.1, 3.11; Windows 95/98; Windows NT 4.0; Windows 2000. Microsoft mouse or compatible Network versions Windows (...) NT 4, and Novell networks. Customers with Wide Area Networks should ring Customer Services to discuss specific requirements. Customer Service Contact: Customer Services, Electronic Publishing Tel: +44 1865 267979 Fax: +44 1865 267990 Email: [email protected]. (shrink)

Widely recognized as America's premiere photography critic, Coleman took an interest in emerging digital technologies long before his colleagues. In fact, the earliest text in this new book of essays concerning the advent of electronic media is from 1967. The intervening thirty years have found Coleman returning to topics such as digitized images, the shifting concept of intellectual property, the impact of computers on photography as a whole, and the social implications of the Internet and World Wide Web. (...) A wide-ranging selection of essays, lectures, and writings, The Digital Evolution makes for stimulating reading, and should be well received by those familiar with Coleman's previous collection of essays, Critical Focus. (shrink)