Heinz von Foerster was the inventor of second-order cybernetics, which recognizes the investigator as part of the system he is investigating. The Beginning of Heaven and Earth Has No Name provides an accessible, nonmathematical, and comprehensive overview of von Foerster's cybernetic ideas and of the philosophy latent within them. It distills concepts scattered across the lifework of this scientific polymath and influential interdisciplinarian. At the same time, as a book-length interview, it does justice to von Foerster's elan as a speaker and improviser, his skill as a raconteur.
Developed from a week-long conversation between the editors and von Foerster near the end of his life, this work playfully engages von Foerster in developing the difference his notion of second-order cybernetics makes for topics ranging from emergence, life, order, and thermodynamics to observation, recursion, cognition, perception, memory, and communication.
The book gives an English-speaking audience a new ease of access to the rich thought and generous spirit of this remarkable and protean thinker.

Designing research is about making decisions to transform an idea into a plan that can provide answers to a research problem or question. Thinking about, and then making these decisions results in the research design – the plan that will be followed to conduct the research and answer the question. This text engages in a dialogue with the reader, providing a serious but accessible introduction to research design, for use as a guide when designing your own research or when reading the research of others.  Julianne Cheek and Elise Øby show that designing research is an iterative and reflexive process in which there is constant thinking through, and re-visiting of, decisions about that design as it develops. They use a variety of pedagogical devices throughout the book including Tip; Activity; and Putting it into Practice boxes to emphasize specific points and encourage readers to think about the practical implications of what they have learned.

The brief, practical texts in the Essentials of Qualitative Methods series introduce social science and psychology researchers to key approaches to qualitative methods, offering exciting opportunities to gather in-depth qualitative data and to develop rich and useful findings.  In this book, Scott D. Churchill introduces readers to existential phenomenological research, an approach that seeks an in-depth, embodied understanding of subjective human existence that reflects a person's values, purposes, ideals, intentions, emotions, and relationships. This method helps researchers understand the lives and needs of others by helping identify and set aside theoretical and ideological prejudgments. About the Essentials of Qualitative Methods book series: Even for experienced researchers, selecting and correctly applying the right method can be challenging. In this groundbreaking series, leading experts in qualitative methods provide clear, crisp, and comprehensive descriptions of their approach, including its methodological integrity, and its benefits and limitations. Each book includes numerous examples to enable readers to quickly and thoroughly grasp how to leverage these valuable methods.

This book delves into the power of the conversation and the words we use. There is a tremendous need for people to be more thoughtful and careful with their words. Electronic transactions tend to be shorter and quicker and in many cases, delivered without much thought as to the impact of the message and the words. As soon as the words are spoken or written and received, it is too late to take them back. In addition, most conflicts and challenging situations could be avoided, minimized, and/or deescalated with an effective conversation. Effective and meaningful conversations do not come naturally but it is a skill that can be learned through education and practice. This book will walk you through effective principles and practices that can be used to enhance the probability of a good outcome from a challenging situation and conversation. The words we choose do make a difference and this fact needs to be at the forefront of our thought process as we enter a face to face conversation, compose an email, and send a text or place a social media post. This book will provide the tools necessary to begin a practice of meaningful and effective conversations.

Is Hitler bigger than Napoleon? Washington bigger than Lincoln? Picasso bigger than Einstein? Quantitative analysts are rapidly finding homes in social and cultural domains, from finance to politics. What about history? In this fascinating book, Steve Skiena and Charles Ward bring quantitative analysis to bear on ranking and comparing historical reputations. They evaluate each person by aggregating the traces of millions of opinions, just as Google ranks webpages. The book includes a technical discussion for readers interested in the details of the methods, but no mathematical or computational background is necessary to understand the rankings or conclusions. Along the way, the authors present the rankings of more than one thousand of history's most significant people in science, politics, entertainment, and all areas of human endeavor. Anyone interested in history or biography can see where their favorite figures place in the grand scheme of things.

Crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, disasters, or violent conflict present numerous challenges for researchers. Faced with disruption, obstacles, and even danger to their own lives, researchers in times of crisis must adapt or redesign existing research methods in order to continue their work effectively. Including contributions on qualitative and digital research from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia, and the Americas, this volume explores the creative and thoughtful ways in which researchers have adapted methods and rethought relationships in response to challenges arising from crises. Their collective reflections, strategies, and practices highlight the importance of responsive, ethical, and creative research design and the need to develop methods for fostering mutual, reflexive, and healthy relationships in times of crisis.

This handbook documents sixty methods used in design innovation projects leading to the design of new products or services. It is the first publication to bring together methods, tools and case studies that involve multiple design disciplines and perspectives – from product and service design to interaction and user experience design. Design. Think. Make. Break. Repeat. addresses the needs of anyone interested in deploying design thinking academically or operationally inside their organisation. With design thinking becoming an increasingly valued skillset across a wide range of industries, there is an increasing demand for design-based skills in the workplace. More and more organisations are looking at design to improve their businesses and the services and products they offer. The book offers an easily accessible overview of the design thinking process along with a wide range of methods that can be applied across many different areas and contexts. Design. Think. Make. Break. Repeat. is designed as a learning resource to scaffold the reader’s understanding of design as a method for innovation. Each method is presented through an evidence-based description along with simple exercises that allow for a hands-on, interactive learning experience, including templates, tools and case studies. It is a must-have for everyone interested in adopting design thinking.

Value-Driven Data explains how data and business leaders can co-create and deploy data-driven solutions for their organizations. Value-Driven Data explores how organizations can understand their problems and come up with better solutions, aligning data storytelling with business needs. The book reviews the main challenges that plague most data-to-business interactions and offers actionable strategies for effective data value implementation, including methods for tackling obstacles and incentivizing change. Value-Driven Data is supported by tried-and-tested frameworks that can be applied to different contexts and organizations. It features cutting-edge examples relating to digital transformation, data strategy, resolving conflicts of interests, building a data P&L and AI value prediction methodology. Recognizing different types of data value, this book presents tangible methodologies for identifying, capturing, communicating, measuring and deploying data-enabled opportunities. This is essential reading for data specialists, business stakeholders and leaders involved in capturing and executing data value opportunities for organizations and for informing data value strategies.

The essential insider’s guide for ecologists at all career stages—now completely updated and expanded Most books and courses in ecology focus on facts and concepts but do little to explain the process of research. How to Do Ecology provides nuts-and-bolts advice for organizing and conducting a successful research program. This fully updated and expanded edition explains how to ask and answer your own research questions using compelling study design and appropriate stats. Ecology doesn’t take place exclusively outdoors, so the book shares invaluable insights on topics such as identifying your goals, developing professional relationships, reading efficiently, and organizing a field season. Because the currency in ecology is publications, it also suggests effective ways to communicate your ideas through journal articles, oral presentations, posters, and grant proposals. This incisive handbook makes explicit many of the unstated rules that ecologists follow and serves as a practical resource for meaningful conversations about ecology. This new edition includes: Expanded emphasis on collecting and interpreting observational data An innovative new workshop for generating and evaluating creative research questions Helpful tips on developing the skills most important to students, navigating your career path, writing efficiently, and more

This book provides step-by-step guidance for developing high-quality infographics. Practical in its approach, 10 Steps to Creating an Infographic: A Practical Guide for Non-designers outlines a user-friendly process for developing infographics with a clearly defined purpose and powerful message.

This open access book presents thirteen outstanding doctoral dissertations in Information Technology from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Information Technology has always been highly interdisciplinary, as many aspects have to be considered in IT systems. The doctoral studies program in IT at Politecnico di Milano emphasizes this interdisciplinary nature, which is becoming more and more important in recent technological advances, in collaborative projects, and in the education of young researchers. Accordingly, the focus of advanced research is on pursuing a rigorous approach to specific research topics starting from a broad background in various areas of Information Technology, especially Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, and Telecommunications. Each year, more than 50 PhDs graduate from the program. This book gathers the outcomes of the thirteen best theses defended in 2019-20 and selected for the IT PhD Award. Each of the authors provides a chapter summarizing his/her findings, including an introduction, description of methods, main achievements and future work on the topic. Hence, the book provides a cutting-edge overview of the latest research trends in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, presented in an easy-to-read format that will also appeal to non-specialists.

First published in 1874, this landmark dictionary of old Icelandic is both authoritative and comprehensive. It offers thousands of illustrative quotations, full descriptions of pronunciation for every letter, and a detailed outline of grammar that includes the old Icelandic alphabet, word formation, and spelling. The 52-page supplement contains a list of additional words and references from the eleventh century to the mid-fourteenth century. An essential point of reference for any student of old Icelandic, supplement author Sir William A. Craigie stated in 1957 that 'though the dictionary is mainly intended for the old authors, both in prose and poetry, it endeavours to embrace an account of the whole language, old and new'.

Widely considered the leading book involving nutrition and feeding infants and children, this revised edition offers practical advice that takes into account the most recent research into such topics as: emotional, cultural, and genetic aspects of eating; proper diet during pregnancy; breast-feeding versus; bottle-feeding; introducing solid food to an infant's diet; feeding the pre-schooler; and avoiding mealtime battles. An appendix looks at a wide range of disorders including allergies, asthma, and hyperactivity, and how to teach a child who is reluctant to eat. The author also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of giving young children vitamins.

This updated edition of Costumes for the Stage aims at simplicity in all aspects of designing and making costumes. It is designed primarily for those who need to dress plays on a small budget, whether for amateur, semi-professional, or professional groups. Starting with five pages illustrating the basic shapes of each period, Sheila Jackson provides practical advice for every kind of play, together with drawings, diagrams, and patterns from which to work. Included are sections on Greek plays, medieval miracles and mysteries, Shakespeare, seventeenth century, eighteenth century, Victorian and Edwardian costume, the twenties and thirties, and the present day. Each section covers the details of men's and women's clothes (hats, collars, shoes, jewelry, etc.) as well as methods for adapting and simplifying the style of the period. There are also sections on pantomimes and musicals, pageants and school plays, and invaluable advice on underwear, fabrics, measurements and fitting, the use of color, and simple ways to make masks, crowns, and decorations. The revised edition features expanded text and new illustrations. Hundreds of line drawings and no-nonsense, authoritative text combine to make this an essential book of costume design.

Since the fourth century, when Spanish monks first started signing to communicate during their vows of silence, sign language has been used in religious communities of all faiths. Present-day American Sign Language (ASL) carries on that tradition. Like any living language, it continues to grow and change to meet the communication needs of an ever more diverse religious population. This comprehensive guide, newly revised, updated, and expanded, gives you all the vocabulary you need to communicate effectively in any religious setting.
From Alleluia to Zizith, more than 750 signs and their specific meanings
Large, clear, upper-torso illustrations that show the corresponding movements of hands, body, and face
Easy-to-follow instructions to help you master the art of expressing signs
A complete index for quick access to any sign
With an essential section of religious "name signs," the addition of signs for the Muslim faith, and an expanded selection of favorite verses, prayers, and blessings, this book is an indispensable resource for signers of all denominations. Written with expertise by an educator and author associated with the field of deafness for more than thirty years, it makes communicating by ASL in a religious setting simple and easy, no matter your level of experience.

This open access Brief introduces the basic principles of control theory in a concise self-study guide. It complements the classic texts by emphasizing the simple conceptual unity of the subject. A novice can quickly see how and why the different parts fit together. The concepts build slowly and naturally one after another, until the reader soon has a view of the whole. Each concept is illustrated by detailed examples and graphics. The full software code for each example is available, providing the basis for experimenting with various assumptions, learning how to write programs for control analysis, and setting the stage for future research projects. The topics focus on robustness, design trade-offs, and optimality. Most of the book develops classical linear theory. The last part of the book considers robustness with respect to nonlinearity and explicitly nonlinear extensions, as well as advanced topics such as adaptive control and model predictive control. New students, as well as scientists from other backgrounds who want a concise and easy-to-grasp coverage of control theory, will benefit from the emphasis on concepts and broad understanding of the various approaches.

Introduction to Research Methods contains everything from developing an initial idea into a proposal, through to analysing data and reporting results. Whether you have to undertake a project as part of your coursework, or as part of your employment, or simply because you are fascinated by something you have observed and want to find out more, this book offers you advice on how to turn your ideas into a workable project. Specifically it will show you how to: *Choose your research methods *Choose your participants *Prepare a research proposal *Construct questionnaires *Conduct interviews and focus groups *Analyse your data *Report your findings *Be an ethical researcher

This book provides a practically-oriented introduction to high-level programming language implementation. It demystifies what goes on within a compiler and stimulates the reader's interest in compiler design, an essential aspect of computer science. Programming language analysis and translation techniques are used in many software application areas. A Practical Approach to Compiler Construction covers the fundamental principles of the subject in an accessible way. It presents the necessary background theory and shows how it can be applied to implement complete compilers. A step-by-step approach, based on a standard compiler structure is adopted, presenting up-to-date techniques and examples. Strategies and designs are described in detail to guide the reader in implementing a translator for a programming language. A simple high-level language, loosely based on C, is used to illustrate aspects of the compilation process. Code examples in C are included, together with discussion and illustration of how this code can be extended to cover the compilation of more complex languages. Examples are also given of the use of the flex and bison compiler construction tools. Lexical and syntax analysis is covered in detail together with a comprehensive coverage of semantic analysis, intermediate representations, optimisation and code generation. Introductory material on parallelisation is also included. Designed for personal study as well as for use in introductory undergraduate and postgraduate courses in compiler design, the author assumes that readers have a reasonable competence in programming in any high-level language.  

This book is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of science. The genetic code and the codes of culture have been known for a long time and represent the historical foundation of this book. What is really new in this field is the study of all codes that came after the genetic code and before the codes of culture. The existence of these organic codes, however, is not only a major experimental fact. It is one of those facts that have extraordinary theoretical implications. The first is that most events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, and this gives us a completely new reconstruction of the history of life. The second implication is that codes involve meaning and we need therefore to introduce in biology not only the concept of information but also the concept of biological meaning. The third theoretical implication comes from the fact that the organic codes have been highly conserved in evolution, which means that they are the greatest invariants of life. The study of the organic codes, in short, is bringing to light new mechanisms that have operated in the history of life and new fundamental concepts in biology.

This book presents a treatise on the theory and modeling of second-order stationary processes, including an exposition on selected application areas that are important in the engineering and applied sciences. The foundational issues regarding stationary processes dealt with in the beginning of the book have a long history, starting in the 1940s with the work of Kolmogorov, Wiener, Cramér and his students, in particular Wold, and have since been refined and complemented by many others. Problems concerning the filtering and modeling of stationary random signals and systems have also been addressed and studied, fostered by the advent of modern digital computers, since the fundamental work of R.E. Kalman in the early 1960s. The book offers a unified and logically consistent view of the subject based on simple ideas from Hilbert space geometry and coordinate-free thinking. In this framework, the concepts of stochastic state space and state space modeling, based on the notion of the conditional independence of past and future flows of the relevant signals, are revealed to be fundamentally unifying ideas. The book, based on over 30 years of original research, represents a valuable contribution that will inform the fields of stochastic modeling, estimation, system identification, and time series analysis for decades to come. It also provides the mathematical tools needed to grasp and analyze the structures of algorithms in stochastic systems theory.

The authors give a detailed summary about the fundamentals and the historical background of digital communication. This includes an overview of the encoding principles and algorithms of textual information, audio information, as well as images, graphics, and video in the Internet. Furthermore the fundamentals of computer networking, digital security and cryptography are covered. Thus, the book provides a well-founded access to communication technology of computer networks, the internet and the WWW. Numerous pictures and images, a subject-index and a detailed list of historical personalities including a glossary for each chapter increase the practical benefit of this book that is well suited as well as for undergraduate students as for working practitioners.

This book is the first publication to give a comprehensive, structured treatment to the important topic of situational awareness in cyber defense. It presents the subject in a logical, consistent, continuous discourse, covering key topics such as formation of cyber situational awareness, visualization and human factors, automated learning and inference, use of ontologies and metrics, predicting and assessing impact of cyber attacks, and achieving resilience of cyber and physical mission. Chapters include case studies, recent research results and practical insights described specifically for this book. Situational awareness is exceptionally prominent in the field of cyber defense. It involves science, technology and practice of perception, comprehension and projection of events and entities in cyber space. Chapters discuss the difficulties of achieving cyber situational awareness – along with approaches to overcoming the difficulties - in the relatively young field of cyber defense where key phenomena are so unlike the more conventional physical world. Cyber Defense and Situational Awareness is designed as a reference for practitioners of cyber security and developers of technology solutions for cyber defenders. Advanced-level students and researchers focused on security of computer networks will also find this book a valuable resource.

This book covers novel research on construction and analysis of optimal cryptographic functions such as almost perfect nonlinear (APN), almost bent (AB), planar and bent functions. These functions have optimal resistance to linear and/or differential attacks, which are the two most powerful attacks on symmetric cryptosystems. Besides cryptographic applications, these functions are significant in many branches of mathematics and information theory including coding theory, combinatorics, commutative algebra, finite geometry, sequence design and quantum information theory. The author analyzes equivalence relations for these functions and develops several new methods for construction of their infinite families. In addition, the book offers solutions to two longstanding open problems, including the problem on characterization of APN and AB functions via Boolean, and the problem on the relation between two classes of bent functions.

This thesis focuses on the dynamics of autonomous Boolean networks, on the basis of Boolean logic functions in continuous time without external clocking. These networks are realized with integrated circuits on an electronic chip as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) with roughly 100,000 logic gates, offering an extremely flexible model system. It allows fast and cheap design cycles and large networks with arbitrary topologies and coupling delays. The author presents pioneering results on theoretical modeling, experimental realization, and selected applications. In this regard, three classes of novel dynamic behavior are investigated: (i) Chaotic Boolean networks are proposed as high-speed physical random number generators with high bit rates. (ii) Networks of periodic Boolean oscillators are home to long-living transient chimera states, i.e., novel patterns of coexisting domains of spatially coherent (synchronized) and incoherent (desynchronized) dynamics. (iii) Excitable networks exhibit cluster synchronization and can be used as fast artificial Boolean neurons whose spiking patterns can be controlled. This work presents the first experimental platform for large complex networks, which will facilitate exciting future developments.