Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 366.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
[1] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> (336)
Subject: new books
[2] From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk> (51)
Subject: the social context (in memoriam Rob Kling 1945-2003)
[3] From: Michael Hart <hart@beryl.ils.unc.edu> (64)
Subject: Re: 17.361 books and their openings
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 06:35:22 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: new books
(1)
Argumentation Machines
New Frontiers in Argument and Computation
edited by
Chris Reed
University of Dundee, Scotland, UK
Timothy J. Norman
University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
ARGUMENTATION LIBRARY -- 9
This book represents the first coherent published work in bringing together
various branches of artificial intelligence with argumentation and
rhetoric, and, as such, aims to play a key role in the establishment of a
new field of scholarly research. The volume not only offers in-depth
assessments of existing research, but also represents a substantial advance
in the state of the art, and lays out a roadmap for future work in this
newly emerging cross-disciplinary field.
Computer scientists, and, in particular, Artificial Intelligence
researchers, have been inspired by the notions of argumentation for as
almost long as the field has existed. Scholars in the philosophy of
language and reasoning, and others studying language-use in the social
sciences, can trace ancient roots for models of argument that are
descriptive, normative, or cognitive. With both the computational and
noncomputational work generating substantial fields of research, it is
surprising that direct communication between the computational and
non-computational sides has been relatively limited until quite recently.
Though there might be any number of useful ways to identify foci for this
potential interaction, this volume explores a number of places at which a
concerted effort might yield rich rewards. The first is in multi-agent
systems, where commitment-based models of interaction between autonomous
agents offer significant advantages to agent-based systems designs, and
computational models offer a means to rigorously evaluate theories of
dialogue. The second is in practical reasoning, and in particular the role
of supporting humans in such reasoning through the application of rich and
sophisticated models of argument. The third is in law, where traditions of
rhetoric and modern developments in argumentation might be expected to
drive new innovation in AI & Law systems and theories. The fourth is in
natural language generation, where models of rhetoric and argument
structure can be put to work as operational definitions and algorithms for
system design and implementation. And the fifth picks up on the importance
of rhetoric across different subfields, identifying the roles that
rhetorical models can play throughout AI, and considering how such
application might lead to new departures for rhetoric itself.
Audience: This book is of interest to academics, researchers, PhD and
graduate students in philosophy of argument, logic, informal logic,
critical thinking, rhetoric, artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems,
computational linguistics, natural language processing, law, cognitive
science and the interdisciplinary areas between these fields.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1811-8 Date: December 2003 Pages: 262 pp.
EURO 104.00 / USD 114.00 / GBP 72.00
(2)
Bibliographie linguistique de l'année 1999/Linguistic Bibliography for the
year 1999 et compléments des années précédentes/and supplements for
previous years
edited by
Mark Janse
Hella Olbertz
Sijmen Tol
LINGUISTIC BIBLIOGRAPHY -- 1999
Bibliographie Linguistique/ Linguistic Bibliography is the annual
bibliography of linguistics published by the Permanent International
Committee of Linguists under the auspices of the International Council of
Philosophy and Humanistic Studies of UNESCO. With a tradition of more than
fifty years (the first two volumes, covering the years 1939-1947, were
published in 1949-1950), Bibliographie Linguistique is by far the most
comprehensive bibliography in the field. It covers all branches of
linguistics and related disciplines, both theoretical and descriptive, from
all geographical areas, including less known and extinct languages, with
particular attention to the many endangered languages of the world.
Up-to-date information is guaranteed by the collaboration of some fifty
contributing specialists from all over the world. With over 23,000 titles
arranged according to a detailed state-of-the-art classification,
Bibliographie Linguistique remains the standard reference book for every
student of language and linguistics. An important innovation in this
fifty-second edition is the revised and much expanded classification of the
languages of South America.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1716-2 Date: December 2003 Pages: 1486 pp.
EURO 446.00 / USD 491.00 / GBP 308.00
(3)
Ernst Mach's World Elements
A Study in Natural Philosophy
by
Erik C. Banks
THE WESTERN ONTARIO SERIES IN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE -- 68
Ernst Mach (1838-1916) was a seminal philosopher-scientist and a deserving
member of the canon of major twentieth-century thinkers. Yet, despite a
healthy resurgence in Mach studies, he is still widely thought to represent
a simplistic positivist, even sensationalist, position that does not at all
reflect the depth of Mach's interests and subtlety as a philosopher. By
exploring Mach's views on science as well as philosophy, this book attempts
to wrest him free from his customary association with logical positivism
and to reinterpret him on his own terms as a natural philosopher and
naturalist about human knowledge. Mach's development and his influences
from 19th century German philosophy and science are probed in great
conceptual and historical detail, and attention is paid to his unpublished
NachlaĂ as well as to the affinities between Mach's thought and that of
other major philosopher-scientists such as Einstein, Bertrand Russell,
William James, Helmholtz, Riemann, Herbart and Kant. In particular, the
book strives to set forth the true nature of Mach's sensation-elements, the
motivations for his critique of the concepts of space and time in physics,
and the real meaning of his famous critique of metaphysics. The author's
work has appeared in Synthese, Kant-Studien, Studies in History and
Philosophy of Modern Physics and the Journal of the History of the
Behavioral Sciences, but here these inquiries are gathered into a unified
historico-critical treatment that follows Mach's conceptual development and
the culmination of his work in a unique and intriguing natural philosophy.
Physicists, psychologists, philosophers of science, historians of
twentieth-century thought and culture, and educators will find this volume
a valuable help in interpreting Mach's ideas in a context that includes
philosophy and science and the bridge between them.
CONTENTS
Preface. Introduction.
1: The Viennese Background.
2: A New Theory Of Matter.
3: Herbart's Metaphysics.
4: Mach On Space Sensations.
5: Mach And Riemann.
6: Fechner And The Inner Side Of Nature.
7: From Sensations To World Elements.
8: The Economy Of Thought.
9: Neutral Monism From Mach To Russell.
10: Politics (And Physics) In Prague.
11: The Perpetual Motion Principle In Mechanics.
12: Machs Definitions Of Mass And Inertia.
13: The Wärmelehre.
14: Machs Late View Of Space And Natural Philosophy. Notes. References. Index.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1662-X Date: November 2003 Pages: 304 pp.
EURO 115.00 / USD 127.00 / GBP 79.00
(4)
Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries
Volume 30
edited by
Dept. of Special Collections of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek
The Hague, The Netherlands
ANNUAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE HISTORY OF THE PRINTED BOOK AND LIBRARIES -- 30
The Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book andLibraries
aims at recording articles of scholarly value which relate to the history
of the printed book, to the history of arts, crafts, techniques and
equipment, and of the economic social and cultural environment, involved in
its production, distribution, conservation and description.
CONTENTS
Introduction. List of Periodicals.
A. General Works about the History of the Printed Book and Library.
B. Paper, Inks, Printing Materials.
C. Calligraphy, Type, Design, Typefounding.
D. Layout, Composing, Printing, Presses, Printed Books, incl. Incunabula, etc.
E. Book Illustration.
F. Bookbinding.
G. Book Trade, Publishing.
H. Bibliography, Bookcollecting.
J. Libraries, Librarianship, Scholarship, Institutions.
K. Legal, Economic, Social Aspects.
L. Newspapers, Periodicals, Journalism.
M. Relation to Secondary Subjects mainly in order of DC.
Index I. Authors' Names and Anonyms.
Index II. Geographical and Personal Names.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1686-7 Date: November 2003 Pages: 656 pp.
EURO 270.00 / USD 297.00 / GBP 186.00
(5)
Current and New Directions in Discourse and Dialogue
edited by
Jan van Kuppevelt
Stuttgart University, Germany
Ronnie W. Smith
Dept. of Computer Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, USA
TEXT, SPEECH AND LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY -- 22
This volume is unique in its breadth of coverage on key topics in the field
from a variety of leading researchers. In one volume, readers gain exposure
to several perspectives in the areas of corpus annotation and analysis,
dialogue system construction; as well as theoretical perspectives on
communicative intention, context-based generation, and modelling of
discourse structure.
In this book you will find high quality articles representing current and
new directions in discourse and dialogue with an emphasis on Dialogue
Systems; Corpora and Corpus Tools; and Semantic and Pragmatic Modelling of
Discourse and Dialogue. The majority of the articles included come from the
most outstanding papers presented at the 2nd SIGdial workshop on Discourse
and Dialogue held in conjunction with Eurospeech 2001. The contents are
supplemented with four invited papers from internationally recognized
researchers in discourse and dialogue.
Audience: researchers and practitioners in dialogue and discourse processing.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1614-X Date: October 2003 Pages: 369 pp.
EURO 152.00 / USD 167.00 / GBP 105.00
(6)
Geophysical Applications of Artificial Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic
edited by
William Sandham
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Miles Leggett
Jason Geosystems bv, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Preface by
Fred Aminzadeh
President, DGB-USA & FACT, Sugar Land, TX, USA
MODERN APPROACHES IN GEOPHYSICS -- 21
This book is the first major text to encompass the wide diversity of
geophysical applications of artificial neural networks (ANNs) and fuzzy
logic (FZ). Each chapter, written by internationally-renowned experts in
their field, represents a specific geophysical application, ranging from
first-break picking and trace editing encountered in seismic exploration,
through well-log lithology determination, to electromagnetic exploration
and earthquake seismology.
The book offers a well-balanced division of contributions from industry and
academia, and includes a comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography covering
all major publications in geophysical applications of ANNs and FZ. A
special feature of this volume is the preface written by Professor Fred
Aminzadeh, eminent authority in the field of artificial intelligence and
geophysics.
The enclosed CD rom contains full colour figures and searchable files, as
well as short biographies of the editors.
Audience: This work will serve as an ideal reference for professional
geophysicists, engineers and research students, as well as a useful
introductory text for those just commencing their studies.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-1729-4 Date: November 2003 Pages: 348 pp.
EURO 115.00 / USD 127.00 / GBP 79.00
(7)
Fuzzy Logic in Management
by
Christer Carlsson
IAMSR, Ĺbo Akademi University, Finland
Mario Fedrizzi
Dept. of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Italy
Robert Fullér
Dept. of Operations Research, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary
INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCE -- 66
Fuzzy Logic In Management demonstrates that difficult problems and changes
in the management environment can be more easily handled by bringing fuzzy
logic into the practice of management. This explicit theme is developed
through the book as follows:
* Chapter 1, "Management and Intelligent Support Technologies", is a
short survey of management leadership and what can be gained from support
technologies,
* Chapter 2, "Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic", provides a short
introduction to fuzzy sets, fuzzy relations, the extension principle, fuzzy
implications and linguistic variables,
* Chapter 3, "Group Decision Support Systems", deals with group
decision making, and discusses methods for supporting the consensus
reaching processes,
* Chapter 4, "Fuzzy Real Options for Strategic Planning", summarizes
research where the fuzzy real options theory was implemented as a series of
models. These models were thoroughly tested on a number of real life
investments, and validated in 2001,
* Chapter 5, "Soft Computing Methods for Reducing the Bullwhip Effect",
summarizes research work focused on the demand fluctuations in supply
chains. The program enhanced existing theoretical frameworks with fuzzy
logic modeling ,
* Chapter 6, "Knowledge Management", outlines the collection, storing,
transfer and management of knowledge using fuzzy logic. The principles are
worked out in detail with software agents,
* Chapter 7, "Mobile Technology Application", introduces various
applications including empirical facts and how mobile technology can be
supported with software agents.
Implicitly the book develops themes that successful companies should use to
(1) master effectiveness and quality in both the details and the whole, (2)
build on and work with flexibility, and (3) support continuous learning in
both the organizational and the individual level.
CONTENTS
* List of Figures. List of Tables. Introduction.
* 1: Management and intelligent support technologies. 1. Management. 2.
Decision support systems. 3. Hyper knowledge - a brief summary of
experiences. 4. New information technology, intelligent systems and soft
computing. 5. Some lessons for future DSS.
* 2: Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. 1. Fuzzy sets. 2. Averaging operators.
* 3: Group decision support systems. 1. The arrow impossibility
theorem: from classical to fuzzy approaches. 2. Consensus modeling in GDM.
3. A soft degree of concensus based on fuzzy logic with linguistic
quantifiers. 4. An interactive system for concensus reaching. 5. The OCA
approach to multicriteria multiperson concensus modeling. 6. Quality
evaluation of elderly persons' homes using fuzzy quantifiers. 7. A decision
support system for strategic planning through scenarios. 8. An artificial
neural network evaluator for mortgage loan applications. 9. A linguistic
approach to personnel evaluation. 10. An application to environmental
policies.
* 4: Fuzzy real options for strategic planning. 1. A fuzzy approach to
real option valuation. 2. Nordic Telekom Inc. 3. Summary.
* 5: A fuzzy approach to reducing the bullwhip effect. 1. The bullwhip
effect, some additional details. 2. Fuzzy approaches to demand signal
processing. 3. A hybrid soft computing platform for taming the bullwhip
effect. 4. Summary.
* 6: Knowledge management. 1. Introduction. 2. The current state of
knowledge management research. 3. Knowledge management: a conceptual
framework. 4. Knowledge management strategies. 5. Knowledge management
projects. 6. Research in knowledge management - some methodology issues. 7.
IT solutions to support knowledge management.
* 7: Mobile technology applications. 1. Introduction. 2. Consumer
survey in Finland. 3. An expert survey in Finland. 4. Acceptance of mobile
commerce in Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore. 5. Mobile commerce products
and services.
Hardbound ISBN: 1-4020-7695-9 Date: November 2003 Pages: 296 pp.
EURO 116.00 / USD 129.00 / GBP 80.00
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:42:56 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>
Subject: the social context (in memoriam Rob Kling 1945-2003)
Observations like Norman Hinton's in Humanist 17.361 I think we should take
seriously, and not just because in this case I agree with his preference
for the printed codex when reading in a sustained way.
To a significant degree discourse about "the" electronic book (another
reified pseudo-object) tends these days either to dismiss such preferences
or to promise their fulfilment in some new marvel. As Geoffrey Nunberg
points out in "The Places of Books in the Age of Electronic Reproduction",
Representations 42 (1993): 13-37, a true e-book would mean that the
technology had become entirely invisible and so in thrall to the prior
technology (p. 18). But far more importantly, he argues, we need to pay
closer attention to what is involved in the act of reading and especially
to have our minds directed toward the social institutions within which this
reading and related behaviours take place. For the new media, this means
looking to its impact on current institutions, perhaps forming new ones.
For the inherited media, it means understanding their role within them.
At this point comes our indebtedness to Rob Kling, Professor of Information
Systems and Information Science and Director of the Center for Social
Informatics at SLIS (Indiana) until his untimely death on 15 May of this
year -- "Infectiously curious, playfully serious, razor sharp, generous of
spirit, and wonderfully open-minded", as his Dean, Blaise Cronin, has
written. (For those who would like to catch up on what Kling managed to do
with his life, his homepage is the place to go,
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/kling/.) Norman Hinton's comments
brought Kling to mind through an essay by Cronin, "Scholarly Communication
and Epistemic Cultures" (for which see
http://www.arl.org/scomm/disciplines_program.html), which refers in several
places to Kling's work in "social informatics". Here perhaps the most
relevant of Kling's papers is "Not Just a Matter of Time: Field Differences
and the Shaping of Electronic Media in Supporting Scientific
Communication", JASIS 51.14 (2000): 1306-20 (in draft at
http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/WP/wp99_02B.html), co-authored with
Geoffrey McKim. The point is a simple one but seems to need repeating quite
often so that we may hear ourselves think over the promotional clamourings
for on-screen reading. This is, simply, that our formal scholarly output is
part of a process of communication within a particular social context (or
"epistemic culture", to borrow Karin Knorr Cetina's term from Cronin).
Kling's social informatics directs us to look to the culture in which work
is done as well as to the technological possibilities. Kling's death
removes from the scene one of our most redoubtable allies in this crucial
effort of looking to our own epistemic culture(s) and social context(s)
when deciding how we might want them to change.
Is it not less than helpful to promote a "one size fits all" approach to
the reading, say, of (a) a poem by Seamus Heaney, (b) a novel by Toni
Morrison, (c) a write-up of research results from a high-energy physics
project, (d) a scholarly monograph in the history of ideas, (e) a book
review, (f) a survey of current work in cognitive science? (One might add
the books listed in the previous note :-)
Yours,
WM
Dr Willard McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the
Humanities | King's College London | Strand | London WC2R 2LS || +44 (0)20
7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:46:09 +0000
From: Michael Hart <hart@beryl.ils.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: 17.361 books and their openings
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard
McCarty <willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk>) wrote:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 361.
> Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
> www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
> www.princeton.edu/humanist/
> Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
>
>
>
> Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 06:28:27 +0000
> From: Norman Hinton <hinton@springnet1.com>
> >
> I have written Amazon about "search inside the book" and asked them to
> provide a way to turn the damn thing off -- it has lengthened my time
> searching by a factor of at least 5 and often more, and it has done me no
> good at all the first 15 times I have been forced to use it.
I have seen the comments of a number of people who took a while to figure
out how to use, or not use, Amazon's new eBook features.
Usually after a few days they finally read the advanced tools instructions
and are then much happier with the way things work.
I must agree, that right now _I_ am not terrible happy with all the changes,
and not just those at Amazon, but also at Google.
> Rail or not -- I don't want to read a book on-line unless I'm forced to. I
> don't like the way books look on the screen, I don't like being unable to
> look at the right-hand page while reading the left-hand one, or to see the
> bottom of the page while reading the top, etc. I also don't like the angle
> at which I read the screen for extended periods -- I like to lay a book
flat
> down on a table and read under strong light. The only good thing about
> books online is being able to search -- and a good Index will take care of
> that much of the time.
As for those who do not like reading books online, I can only say that they
most likely have simply not set up things to optimize their reading eBooks
to the same degree they have when reading paper books.
1.
I have found that the refresh rate, persistence, and other parameters of
monitors matter quite a bit, as well as brightness and contrast, of course.
2.
In addition, there are usually 16 million colors to choose from for both
foreground and background. . .I have stuck with ye olde green on black,
which has worked fine for me for decades.
3.
Besides that, I can always use my reflective LCD screens if I don't want
ANY flicker at all and if I want reflective light, as with paper books.
4.
I also go through the effort of choosing a font that I like, as well as
line lengths are just right for me [65-75 characters per line].
If one takes all these variables into account [there ARE more, but. . .]
there are trillions of combinations available, all one has to do is try
out some of the more obvious ones to be well on their way.
The next generation is already carrying about 10,000 eBooks around on a
single DVD that only cost ~$1 to copy, and legally, I might add, and they
will hopefully never understand why so many people don't. . . .
;-)
Thanks!!!
So Nice To Hear From You!
Michael
As of October 30,
~10,166+ FreeBooks at:
http://gutenberg.net
Michael S. Hart
<hart@pobox.com>
Project Gutenberg
Executive Coordinator
"*Internet User ~#100*"
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