Genre in a Changing World


Book Description

Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions, and educational settings. GENRE IN A CHANGING WORLD provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, and North and South America, were selected from the over 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies) held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches, including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.




Stochastic Finite Elements: A Spectral Approach


Book Description

This monograph considers engineering systems with random parame ters. Its context, format, and timing are correlated with the intention of accelerating the evolution of the challenging field of Stochastic Finite Elements. The random system parameters are modeled as second order stochastic processes defined by their mean and covari ance functions. Relying on the spectral properties of the covariance function, the Karhunen-Loeve expansion is used' to represent these processes in terms of a countable set of un correlated random vari ables. Thus, the problem is cast in a finite dimensional setting. Then, various spectral approximations for the stochastic response of the system are obtained based on different criteria. Implementing the concept of Generalized Inverse as defined by the Neumann Ex pansion, leads to an explicit expression for the response process as a multivariate polynomial functional of a set of un correlated random variables. Alternatively, the solution process is treated as an element in the Hilbert space of random functions, in which a spectral repre sentation in terms of the Polynomial Chaoses is identified. In this context, the solution process is approximated by its projection onto a finite subspace spanned by these polynomials.




Successes, Limitations, and Frontiers in Ecosystem Science


Book Description

Ecosystem research has emerged in recent decades as a vital, successful, and sometimes controversial approach to environmental science. This book emphasizes the idea that much of the progress in ecosystem research has been driven by the emergence of new environmental problems that could not be addressed by existing approaches. By focusing on successes and limitations of ecosystems studies, the book explores avenues for future ecosystem-level research.




Computational Stochastic Mechanics


Book Description

Over a period of several years the field of probabilistic mechanics and com putational mechanics have progressed vigorously, but independently. With the advent of powerful computational hardware and the development of novel mechanical techniques, the field of stochastic mechanics has progressed in such a manner that the inherent uncertainty of quite complicated systems can be addressed. The first International Conference on Computational Stochastic Mechanics was convened in Corfu in September 1991 in an ef fort to provide a forum for the exchanging of ideas on the current status of computational methods as applied to stochastic mechanics and for identi fying needs for further research. The Conference covered both theoretical techniques and practical applications. The Conference also celebrated the 60th anniversary of the birthday of Dr. Masanobu Shinozuka, the Sollenberger Professor of Civil Engineering at Princeton University, whose work has contributed in such a great measure to the development of Computational Stochastic Mechanics. A brief sum mary of his career and achievements are given in the Dedication. This book comprises some of the papers presented at the meeting and cov ers sections on Theoretical Reliability Analysis; Damage Analysis; Applied Reliability Analysis; Theoretical Random Vibrations; Stochastic Finite Ele ment Concept; Fatigue and Fracture; Monte Carlo Simulations; Earthquake Engineering Applications; Materials; Applied Random Vibrations; Applied Stochastic Finite Element Analysis, and Flow Related Applications and Chaotic Dynamics. The Editors hope that the book will be a valuable contribution to the grow ing literature covering the field of Computational Stochastic Mechanics.




Distributed and Cloud Computing


Book Description

Distributed and Cloud Computing: From Parallel Processing to the Internet of Things offers complete coverage of modern distributed computing technology including clusters, the grid, service-oriented architecture, massively parallel processors, peer-to-peer networking, and cloud computing. It is the first modern, up-to-date distributed systems textbook; it explains how to create high-performance, scalable, reliable systems, exposing the design principles, architecture, and innovative applications of parallel, distributed, and cloud computing systems. Topics covered by this book include: facilitating management, debugging, migration, and disaster recovery through virtualization; clustered systems for research or ecommerce applications; designing systems as web services; and social networking systems using peer-to-peer computing. The principles of cloud computing are discussed using examples from open-source and commercial applications, along with case studies from the leading distributed computing vendors such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. Each chapter includes exercises and further reading, with lecture slides and more available online. This book will be ideal for students taking a distributed systems or distributed computing class, as well as for professional system designers and engineers looking for a reference to the latest distributed technologies including cloud, P2P and grid computing. - Complete coverage of modern distributed computing technology including clusters, the grid, service-oriented architecture, massively parallel processors, peer-to-peer networking, and cloud computing - Includes case studies from the leading distributed computing vendors: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and more - Explains how to use virtualization to facilitate management, debugging, migration, and disaster recovery - Designed for undergraduate or graduate students taking a distributed systems course—each chapter includes exercises and further reading, with lecture slides and more available online




Making Mathematics Come to Life


Book Description

``It is difficult to define the genre of the book. It is not a problem book, nor a textbook, nor a `book for reading about mathematics'. It is most of all reminiscent of a good lecture course, from which a thoughtful student comes away with more than was actually spoken about in the lectures.'' --from the Preface by A. S. Merkurjev If you are acquainted with mathematics at least to the extent of a standard high school curriculum and like it enough to want to learn more, and if, in addition, you are prepared to do some serious work, then you should start studying this book. An understanding of the material of the book requires neither a developed ability to reason abstractly nor skill in using the refined techniques of mathematical analysis. In each chapter elementary problems are considered, accompanied by theoretical material directly related to them. There are over 300 problems in the book, most of which are intended to be solved by the reader. In those places in the book where it is natural to introduce concepts outside the high school syllabus, the corresponding definitions are given with examples. And in order to bring out the meaning of such concepts clearly, appropriate (but not too many) theorems are proved concerning them. Unfortunately, what is sometimes studied at school under the name ``mathematics'' resembles real mathematics not any closer than a plucked flower gathering dust in a herbarium or pressed between the pages of a book resembles that same flower in the meadow besprinkled with dewdrops sparkling in the light of the rising sun.




The Democratization of Artificial Intelligence


Book Description

After a long time of neglect, Artificial Intelligence is once again at the center of most of our political, economic, and socio-cultural debates. Recent advances in the field of Artifical Neural Networks have led to a renaissance of dystopian and utopian speculations on an AI-rendered future. Algorithmic technologies are deployed for identifying potential terrorists through vast surveillance networks, for producing sentencing guidelines and recidivism risk profiles in criminal justice systems, for demographic and psychographic targeting of bodies for advertising or propaganda, and more generally for automating the analysis of language, text, and images. Against this background, the aim of this book is to discuss the heterogenous conditions, implications, and effects of modern AI and Internet technologies in terms of their political dimension: What does it mean to critically investigate efforts of net politics in the age of machine learning algorithms?




Reinforcement Learning, second edition


Book Description

The significantly expanded and updated new edition of a widely used text on reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence. Reinforcement learning, one of the most active research areas in artificial intelligence, is a computational approach to learning whereby an agent tries to maximize the total amount of reward it receives while interacting with a complex, uncertain environment. In Reinforcement Learning, Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto provide a clear and simple account of the field's key ideas and algorithms. This second edition has been significantly expanded and updated, presenting new topics and updating coverage of other topics. Like the first edition, this second edition focuses on core online learning algorithms, with the more mathematical material set off in shaded boxes. Part I covers as much of reinforcement learning as possible without going beyond the tabular case for which exact solutions can be found. Many algorithms presented in this part are new to the second edition, including UCB, Expected Sarsa, and Double Learning. Part II extends these ideas to function approximation, with new sections on such topics as artificial neural networks and the Fourier basis, and offers expanded treatment of off-policy learning and policy-gradient methods. Part III has new chapters on reinforcement learning's relationships to psychology and neuroscience, as well as an updated case-studies chapter including AlphaGo and AlphaGo Zero, Atari game playing, and IBM Watson's wagering strategy. The final chapter discusses the future societal impacts of reinforcement learning.




Infinite Dimensional Dynamical Systems


Book Description

​This collection covers a wide range of topics of infinite dimensional dynamical systems generated by parabolic partial differential equations, hyperbolic partial differential equations, solitary equations, lattice differential equations, delay differential equations, and stochastic differential equations. Infinite dimensional dynamical systems are generated by evolutionary equations describing the evolutions in time of systems whose status must be depicted in infinite dimensional phase spaces. Studying the long-term behaviors of such systems is important in our understanding of their spatiotemporal pattern formation and global continuation, and has been among major sources of motivation and applications of new developments of nonlinear analysis and other mathematical theories. Theories of the infinite dimensional dynamical systems have also found more and more important applications in physical, chemical, and life sciences. This book collects 19 papers from 48 invited lecturers to the International Conference on Infinite Dimensional Dynamical Systems held at York University, Toronto, in September of 2008. As the conference was dedicated to Professor George Sell from University of Minnesota on the occasion of his 70th birthday, this collection reflects the pioneering work and influence of Professor Sell in a few core areas of dynamical systems, including non-autonomous dynamical systems, skew-product flows, invariant manifolds theory, infinite dimensional dynamical systems, approximation dynamics, and fluid flows.​




From Animals to Animats 3


Book Description

August 8-12, 1994, Brighton, England From Animals to Animats 3 brings together research intended to advance the fron tier of an exciting new approach to understanding intelligence. The contributors represent a broad range of interests from artificial intelligence and robotics to ethology and the neurosciences. Unifying these approaches is the notion of "animat" -- an artificial animal, either simulated by a computer or embodied in a robot, which must survive and adapt in progressively more challenging environments. The 58 contributions focus particularly on well-defined models, computer simulations, and built robots in order to help characterize and compare various principles and architectures capable of inducing adaptive behavior in real or artificial animals. Topics include: - Individual and collective behavior. - Neural correlates of behavior. - Perception and motor control. - Motivation and emotion. - Action selection and behavioral sequences. - Ontogeny, learning, and evolution. - Internal world models and cognitive processes. - Applied adaptive behavior. - Autonomous robots. - Heirarchical and parallel organizations. - Emergent structures and behaviors. - Problem solving and planning. - Goal-directed behavior. - Neural networks and evolutionary computation. - Characterization of environments. A Bradford Book