On Folding

On Folding PDF Author: Michael Friedman
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839434041
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
It is only recently, with the increasing interest in origami and folding in natural sciences and the humanities, that the fold as a new conception in a whole range of disciplines has begun to be conceived in a broader way. Folding as a material and structural process offers a new methodology to think about the close relationship of matter, form and code. It henceforth crosses out old dichotomies, such as the organic and the inorganic or nature and technology, and blurs the boundaries between experimental, conceptual and historical approaches. This anthology aims to unfold this new interdisciplinary field and its disciplinary impact, ranging from materials science, biology, architecture, and mathematics to literature and philosophy.

Experimental Conversations

Experimental Conversations PDF Author: Timothy N. Ogden
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262336855
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
Discussions of the use and limits of randomized control trials, considering the power of theory, external validity, gaps in knowledge, and what issues matter. The practice of development economics has undergone something of a revolution as many economists have adopted new methods to answer perennial questions about the effectiveness of anti-poverty programs. In this book, prominent development economists discuss the use and impact of one of the most significant of these new methods, randomized control trials (RCTs) and field experiments. In extended interviews conducted over a period of several years, they explain their work and their thinking and consider the broader issues of how we learn about the world and how we can change it for the better. These conversations offer specialists and nonspecialists alike a unique opportunity to hear economists speak in their own words, free of the confines of a particular study or econometric esoterica. The economists describe how they apply research findings in the way they think about the world, revealing their ideas about the power of theory, external validity, gaps in knowledge, and what issues matter. Also included are interviews with RCT observers, critics, sponsors, consumers, and others. Each interview provides a brief biography of the interviewee. Thorough annotations offer background and explanations for key ideas and studies referred to in the conversations. Contributors Abhijit Banerjee, Nancy Birdsall, Chris Blattman, Alex Counts, Tyler Cowen, Angus Deaton, Frank DeGiovanni, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, Xavi Gine, Rachel Glennerster, Judy Gueron, Elie Hassenfeld, Dean Karlan, Michael Kremer, David McKenzie, Jonathan Morduch, Lant Pritchett, Jonathan Robinson, Antoinette Schoar, Dean Yang

The Great Experiment

The Great Experiment PDF Author: Yascha Mounk
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593296834
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer “[A] brave and necessary book . . . Anyone interested in the future of liberal democracy, in the US or anywhere else, should read this book.” —Anne Applebaum “A convincing, humane, and hopeful guide to the present and future by one of our foremost democratic thinkers.” —George Packer “A rare thing: [an] academic treatise . . . that may actually have influence in the arena of practical politics. . . . Passionate and personal.” —Joe Klein, New York Times Book Review From one of our sharpest and most important political thinkers, a brilliant big-picture vision of the greatest challenge of our time—how to bridge the bitter divides within diverse democracies enough for them to remain stable and functional Some democracies are highly homogeneous. Others have long maintained a brutal racial or religious hierarchy, with some groups dominating and exploiting others. Never in history has a democracy succeeded in being both diverse and equal, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly. And yet achieving that goal is now central to the democratic project in countries around the world. It is, Yascha Mounk argues, the greatest experiment of our time. Drawing on history, social psychology, and comparative politics, Mounk examines how diverse societies have long suffered from the ills of domination, fragmentation, or structured anarchy. So it is hardly surprising that most people are now deeply pessimistic that different groups might be able to integrate in harmony, celebrating their differences without essentializing them. But Mounk shows us that the past can offer crucial insights for how to do better in the future. There is real reason for hope. It is up to us and the institutions we build whether different groups will come to see each other as enemies or friends, as strangers or compatriots. To make diverse democracies endure, and even thrive, we need to create a world in which our ascriptive identities come to matter less—not because we ignore the injustices that still characterize the United States and so many other countries around the world, but because we have succeeded in addressing them. The Great Experiment is that rare book that offers both a profound understanding of an urgent problem and genuine hope for our human capacity to solve it. As Mounk contends, giving up on the prospects of building fair and thriving diverse democracies is simply not an option—and that is why we must strive to realize a more ambitious vision for the future of our societies.

The Art of Experiment

The Art of Experiment PDF Author: Rolf Hughes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351065483
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
A handbook for navigating our troubled and precarious times intended to help readers imagine and make their world anew. In search of new knowledge practices that can help us make the world livable again, this book takes the reader on a journey across time—from the deep past to the unfolding future. The authors search beyond human knowledge to establish negotiated partnerships with forms of knowledge within the planet itself, examining how we have manipulated these historically through an anthropocentric focus. The book explores the many different kinds of knowledge, and the diversity of instruments needed to invoke and actuate the potency of human and nonhuman agencies. Four key phases in our ways of knowing are identified: material, strengthening, reconfiguring and extending, which are exemplified through case studies that take the form of worlding experiments. This pioneering work will inspire architects, artists and designers as well as students, teachers and researchers across arts and design disciplines.

The Experimental Zone

The Experimental Zone PDF Author: Séverine Marguin
Publisher: Park Publishing (WI)
ISBN: 9783038601487
Category : Architectural design
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Experimental Zone documents a remarkable experiment in spatial research at the interdisciplinary laboratory Image Knowledge Gestaltung at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Every two months, for four years, researchers reconfigured a 350-square meter workspace for forty scientists. The design-based collaborative experiment's focus was on the interrelation of space and knowledge production: What spatial qualities are required by interdisciplinary teams for their research work? With some 300 striking and straightforward graphics, Experimental Zone presents the findings of the experiment. It highlights the spatial conditions under which individual and collaborative research unfold, overlap, or merge and reveals the characteristics of an architecture that fosters interdisciplinary. The experiment's innovative interdisciplinary approach is also reflected in the book's design, with each of the five chapters and the comprehensive visual material reflecting publishing traditions in design, architecture, and the humanities.

The Surrender Experiment

The Surrender Experiment PDF Author: Michael A. Singer
Publisher: Yellow Kite
ISBN: 9781473621503
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Shares stories from the author's pursuit of enlightenment, from his years as a hippie introvert and successes as a computer engineer through his work in humanitarian efforts, counseling readers on how to navigate confusing aspects in the spiritual journey.

Unfolding the Labyrinth: Open Problems in Physics, Mathematics, Astrophysics, and other areas of science

Unfolding the Labyrinth: Open Problems in Physics, Mathematics, Astrophysics, and other areas of science PDF Author: Florentin Smarandache
Publisher: Infinite Study
ISBN: 1599730138
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 140

Book Description
Throughout this book, we discuss some open problems in various branches of science, including mathematics, theoretical physics, astrophysics, geophysics etc. It is of our hope that some of the problems discussed in this book will find their place either in theoretical exploration or further experiments, while some parts of these problems may be found useful for scholarly stimulation.The present book is also intended for young physics and mathematics fellows who will perhaps find the unsolved problems described here are at least worth pondering. If this book provides only a few highlights of plausible solutions, it is merely to keep the fun of readers in discovering the answers by themselves. Bon voyage!

A Comparison of Probabilistic Unfolding Theories for Paired Comparisons Data

A Comparison of Probabilistic Unfolding Theories for Paired Comparisons Data PDF Author: Patrick Bossuyt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642841724
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
Some data-analytic methods excel by their sheer elegance. Their basic principles seem to have a particular attraction, based on a intricate combination of simplicity, deliberation, and power. They usually balance on the verge of two disciplines, data-analysis and foundational measurement, or statistics and psychology. To me, unfolding has always been one of them. The theory and the original methodology were created by Clyde Coombs (1912-1988) to describe and analyze preferential choice data. The fundamental assumptions are truly psy chological; Unfolding is based on the notion of a single peaked preference function over a psychological similarity space, or, in an alternative but equivalent expression, on the assumption of implicit comparisons with an ideal alternative. Unfolding has proved to be a very constructive data-analytic principle, and a source of inspiration for many theories on choice behavior. Yet the number of applications has not lived up to the acclaim the theory has received among mathematical psychologists. One of the reasons is that it requires far more consistency in human choice behavior than can be expected. Several authors have tried to attenuate these requirements by turning the deterministic unfolding theory into a probabilistic one. Since Coombs first put forth a probabilistic version of his theory, a number of competing proposals have been presented in the literature over the past thirty years. This monograph contains a summary and a comparison of unfolding theories for paired comparisons data, and an evaluation strategy designed to assess the validity of these theories in empirical choice tasks.

The Unfolding of Artistic Activity

The Unfolding of Artistic Activity PDF Author: Henry Schaefer-Simmern
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520011410
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 234

Book Description


Computational Methods to Study the Structure and Dynamics of Biomolecules and Biomolecular Processes

Computational Methods to Study the Structure and Dynamics of Biomolecules and Biomolecular Processes PDF Author: Adam Liwo
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642285546
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 809

Book Description
Since the second half of the 20th century machine computations have played a critical role in science and engineering. Computer-based techniques have become especially important in molecular biology, since they often represent the only viable way to gain insights into the behavior of a biological system as a whole. The complexity of biological systems, which usually needs to be analyzed on different time- and size-scales and with different levels of accuracy, requires the application of different approaches, ranging from comparative analysis of sequences and structural databases, to the analysis of networks of interdependence between cell components and processes, through coarse-grained modeling to atomically detailed simulations, and finally to molecular quantum mechanics. This book provides a comprehensive overview of modern computer-based techniques for computing the structure, properties and dynamics of biomolecules and biomolecular processes. The twenty-two chapters, written by scientists from all over the world, address the theory and practice of computer simulation techniques in the study of biological phenomena. The chapters are grouped into four thematic sections dealing with the following topics: the methodology of molecular simulations; applications of molecular simulations; bioinformatics methods and use of experimental information in molecular simulations; and selected applications of molecular quantum mechanics. The book includes an introductory chapter written by Harold A. Scheraga, one of the true pioneers in simulation studies of biomacromolecules.