"How do Americans think about energy? Is the debate over fossil fuels highly partisan and ideological? Does public opinion about fossil fuels and alternative energies divide along the fault between red states and blue states? And how much do concerns about climate change weigh on their opinions? In Cheap and Clean, Stephen Ansolabehere and David Konisky show that Americans are more pragmatic th…
Even those of us who can't play a musical instrument or lack a sense of rhythm can perceive and enjoy music. Research shows that all humans possess the trait of musicality. We are a musical species—but are we the only musical species? Is our musical predisposition unique, like our linguistic ability? In The Evolving Animal Orchestra, Henkjan Honing embarks upon a quest to discover if humans s…
Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out, first published in 2009, has become a foundational text in the field of digital media and learning. Reporting on an ambitious three-year ethnographic investigation into how young people live and learn with new media in varied settings—at home, in after-school programs, and in online spaces—it presents a flexible and useful framework for understa…
Even minute increases in a country's growth rate can result in dramatic changes in living standards over just one generation. The benefits of growth, however, may not be shared equally. Some may gain less than others, and a fraction of the population may actually be disadvantaged. Recent economic research has found both positive and negative relationships between growth and inequality across na…
Contributions to this edition of Computer Methods have been extensively revised and contain much new material--updating the proceedings of a conference held in 1964 at the Joint Center for Urban Studies of MIT and Harvard University. In this conference social scientists experienced in computer use compared notes on the problems and benefits encountered in their studies with beginners in compute…
How Brazil's monetary and fiscal policies survived a series of severe economic shocks and the policy lessons for other countries.Inflation targeting--when central bank policies set specific inflation rate objectives--is widely used by both developed and developing countries around the world (although not by the United States or the European Central Bank). This collection of original essays look…
An introduction to the work and ideas of artists who use--and even influence--science and technology.A new breed of contemporary artist engages science and technology--not just to adopt the vocabulary and gizmos, but to explore and comment on the content, agendas, and possibilities. Indeed, proposes Stephen Wilson, the role of the artist is not only to interpret and to spread scientific knowled…
The Virtual Score examines a broad range of approaches to working with musical scores in ways suited to electronic distribution. The first section, on musical representation and interchange, discusses early music and its multiple editorial stances, scores in Braille musical notation (with and without NIFF), the GUIDO format for "adequate" (as opposed to comprehensive) music representation, Exte…
Today educational activities take place not only in school but also in after-school programs, community centers, museums, and online communities and forums. The success and expansion of these out-of-school initiatives depends on our ability to document and assess what works and what doesn't in informal learning, but learning outcomes in these settings are often unpredictable. Goals are open-end…