As a programmer working for Logica UK in London in the mid-1980’s, I became a passionate advocate of formal methods. Extrapolating from small successes with VDM and JSP, I was sure that widespread use of formal methods would bring an end to the software crisis.

One approach especially intrigued me. John Guttag and Jim...

This comprehensive handbook of mathematical and programming techniques for audio signal processing will be an essential reference for all computer musicians, computer scientists, engineers, and anyone interested in audio. Designed to be used by readers with varying levels of programming expertise, it not only provides the foundations for...

The thirteen chapters written expressly for this book by logicians, theoretical computer scientists, philosophers, and semanticists address, from the perspective of mathematical logic, the problems of understanding and studying the flow of information through any information-processing system.The logic of information flow has applications in...

A Bayesian approach can contribute to an understanding of the brain on multiple levels, by giving normative predictions about how an ideal sensory system should combine prior knowledge and observation, by providing mechanistic interpretation of the dynamic functioning of the brain circuit, and by suggesting optimal ways of deciphering...

An MIT "hack" is an ingenious, benign, andanonymous prank or practical joke, often requiring engineering or scientificexpertise and often pulled off under cover of darkness -- instances of campus mischief sometimes coinciding withApril Fool's Day, final exams, or commencement. (It should not beconfused with the sometimes...

This book introduces students with little or no prior programming experience to the art of computational problem solving using Python and various Python libraries, including PyLab. It provides students with skills that will enable them to make productive use of computational techniques, including some of the tools and techniques of "data...

Approaches to building machines that can learn from experience abound - from connectionist learning algorithms and genetic algorithms to statistical mechanics and a learning system based on Piaget's theories of early childhood development. This monograph describes results derived from the mathematically oriented framework of computational...

Sound is an integral part of every user experience but a neglected medium in design disciplines. Design of an artifact's sonic qualities is often limited to the shaping of functional, representational, and signaling roles of sound. The interdisciplinary field of sonic interaction design (SID) challenges these prevalent approaches by...

One of the enduring concerns of moral philosophy is deciding who or what is deserving of ethical consideration. Much recent attention has been devoted to the "animal question" -- consideration of the moral status of nonhuman animals. In this book, David Gunkel takes up the "machine question": whether and to what extent...

In the early days of computer science, the interactions of hardware, software, compilers, and operating system were simple enough to allow students to see an overall picture of how computers worked. With the increasing complexity of computer technology and the resulting specialization of knowledge, such clarity is often lost. Unlike other...

Interactive systems and devices, from mobile phones to office copiers, do not fulfill their potential for a wide variety of reasons--not all of them technical. Press On shows that we can design better interactive systems and devices if we draw on sound computer science principles. It uses state machines and graph theory as a powerful and...

Complex adaptive systems (cas), including ecosystems, governments, biological cells, and markets, are characterized by intricate hierarchical arrangements of boundaries and signals. In ecosystems, for example, niches act as semi-permeable boundaries, and smells and visual patterns serve as signals; governments have departmental hierarchies...