Authors:
Hardcover, 352 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: 1991-02-14


Reviews :

    Since the invention of the telegraph, information technology (IT) has revolutionized the way we communicate, the way we do business, and the way we live. From the telephone to the fax machine, the Hollerith tabulating machine to the modern-day computer, IT has collapsed time and distance, becoming indispensable in today's world economy. And yet, though businesses and organizations have spent tremendous amounts of money on computer hardware and software, these investments in IT have not raised most organizations' productivity or profitability. How can organizations make better use of the available technology?
The Corporation of the 1990s presents an expert view of how information technology will influence organizations and their ability to survive and prosper in this decade and beyond. Featuring a foreword by Lester C. Thurow, Dean of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and an introduction by Michael S. Scott Morton, it represents the fruit of an active collaboration between scholars from MIT's Sloan School and ten major corporations--including American Express, Digital Equipment Corporation, Eastman Kodak, General Motors, British Petroleum, and MCI Communications--and two U.S. governmental agencies.
This highly readable, exhaustively researched volume describes how the rapidly changing global economy has placed new demands on corporations; at the same time, the contributors point to the exponential growth of IT in recent years--from electronic check-out counters at grocery stores to ATMs on street corners to the widespread use of electronic mail--discussing how this tremendous IT resource can be used to master the changing market. The authors also present a wealth of real-life examples of organizations that have used IT effectively and profitably. The IRS, for instance, now provides an electronic filing system for individual taxpayers. And airlines, realizing that they could solve overbooking problems by offering customers various package deals (such as free flights and cash) in exchange for their reserved seats, have developed sophisticated computer systems which allow them to play more boldly with the probabilities of flight capacity.
The authors argue that corporations will not survive just by working harder and faster within existing organizational structures. Instead, organizations will have to restructure, invest heavily in human resources, and adopt totally new concepts of managing. Only then will they be able to create new strategies that will allow them to get closer to customers' real needs--and only then will their investments in IT pay off....

Authors: Richard Critchfield.
Paperback, 258 pages
Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr (Sd)
Publication Date: 1984-08

Authors: Brian C. O'Neill. F. Landis MacKellar. Wolfgang Lutz.
Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication Date: 2005-09-29


Reviews :

    Population and Climate Change provides the first systematic in-depth treatment of links between two major themes of the 21st century: population growth (and associated demographic trends such as aging) and climate change. It is written by a multidisciplinary team of authors from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis who integrate both natural science and social science perspectives in a way that is comprehensible to members of both communities. The book will be of primary interest to researchers in the fields of climate change, demography, and economics. It will also be useful to policy-makers and NGOs dealing with issues of population dynamics and climate change, and to teachers and students in courses such as environmental studies, demography, climatology, economics, earth systems science, and international relations....

Authors: Timothy Leary. Michael Horowitz. Vicki Marshall.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Ronin Pub
Publication Date: 1994-10
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Timothy Learys Chaos and CyberCulture is his futuristic vision of the emergence of a new humanism with an emphasis on questioning authority , independent thinking, individual creativity, and the empowerment of computer and other brain technologies. This cyberpunk manifesto describes a new breed that loves technology and uses it to revolutionize communication and tweak Big Brother while being successful, achieving political power and having fun. Timothy Leary is a leading figure in the consciousness revolution of the 1960s.

Chaos and CyberCulture brings together his provocative, futuristic writings, lively interviews and cogent conversations with a variety of writers and thinkers. Chaos and CyberCulture defines the emergence of the New Breed of the Information Age, who are creating the cyberdelic politics and culture of the 21st Century.

Chaos and CyberCulture is a substantial work (over 100,000 words) consisting of over forty chapters and conversations with leading figures. There are eight main sections and a epilogue....

Authors: Sadie Plant.
Hardcover, 320 pages
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: 1997-09-15
Edition: 1st

Reviews :

    Not since The Female Eunuch has there been a book so radical in its scope, so persuasive in its detail, so exhilarating in its polemical energy.  Beginning with Ada Lovelace and her unheralded contributions to Charles Babbage and his development of the Difference Engine, Sadie Plant traces the critical contributions women have made to the progress of computing.  Shattering the myth that women are victims of technological change, Zeros Ones shows how women and women's work in particular--weaving and typing, computing and telecommunicating--have been tending the machinery of the digital age for generations, the very technologies that are now revolutionizing the Western world.

In this bold manifesto on the relationship between women and machines, Sadie Plant explores the networks and connections implicit in nonlinear systems and digital machines.  Steering a course beyond the old feminist dichotomies, Zeros Ones is populated by a diverse chorus of voices--Anna Freud, Mary Shelley, Alan Turing--conceived as exploratory bundles of intelligent matter, emergent entities hacking through the constraints of their old programming and envisioning a postpatriarchal future.

Astonishing, inspiring, witty, and perverse, Zeros Ones is a love song to Ada, a soundtrack for the next millennium, a radical revision of our technoculture that will forever change the way we perceive our digital world....

    Meet Ada Lovelace, daughter of mathematician Annabella Byron and poet Lord Byron, and a major contributor to Charles Babbage's famous Analytic Engine. Lovelace is in many ways the patron saint of Sadie Plant's exploration of women's roles in the creation of modern technology. The book begins with Lovelace's story, and elements of her writings appear throughout the book--sometimes to emphasize points but often to exemplify attitude. They also serve to anchor Plant's dynamic, almost stream-of-conscious approach as we travel to 19th-century Europe to meet the nameless women who laid the foundation of modern technology with the development of weaving, survey the major female technological innovators of today, and even explore female figures in technology-based fiction.

Plant's "cyberfeminist rant," as William Gibson calls it, attempts to demonstrate that women have always used technology. You won't find victims here, rather women who were empowered by the technological innovations in their lives. What emerges is a very nontraditional feminist picture, one in which women are neither bystanders nor victims but are in many ways the unsung heroes of technical innovation. The author also points to a future where, within zeros and ones of cyberspace many such dichotomies of life/machine, let alone male/female, may blur in unexpected ways. ...

Authors: Nordal Akerman.
Paperback, 336 pages
Publisher: Westview Press
Publication Date: 1998-03-12


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Chris Goodall.
Paperback, 326 pages
Publisher: Earthscan Publications Ltd.
Publication Date: 2007-03-30


Reviews :

    That climate change is happening is now all too clear. Many of us want to take action to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. Yet the lack of a consolidated source of reliable information on how to calculate one’s individual emissions and the difficulty in assessing different options for effectiveness and cost savings has proven to be a major stumbling block. But personal actions to reduce carbon emissions, if replicated on a sufficient scale, might just save the planet.

How to Live a Low-Carbon Life provides the first comprehensive, one-stop reference guide to calculating individual carbon emissions and it lays out clear plans for how individuals can reduce their emissions. Covering all aspects of modern life from transport to home heating to food sources and the vexing issue of vacations, the book provides easy-to-use tables for conducting a personal lifestyle carbon audit.

Easy reference tables enable rapid carbon footprint calculations, and a companion website houses downloadable spreadsheets to facilitate a complete lifestyle carbon audit as well as up-to-the minute information on new products and carbon-reducing technologies.

This is the most comprehensive guide to calculating and reducing individual and home carbon emissions. It provides all the information needed for people and families to understand their impacts on the world’s climate. It gives us the information to enable us to adjust lifestyles and live a responsible life.

Written in an optimistic tone, How to Live a Low-Carbon Life shows how easy it is to take responsibility and reduce our personal carbon emissions.

Listen to Chris Goodall on NPR's Science Friday.  Click here to download the audio file.
...

Authors: David H. Jonassen.
Paperback, 240 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Publication Date: 2005-11-13
Edition: 3

Reviews :

   

Well-known for addressing the use of computers to foster critical-thinking and problem solving, this text was written to teach current and future teachers how to better engage learners more mindfully and meaningfully in the process of learning.  Available now in  it's Third Edition,  it focuses on how to use technology to support meaningful learning through model building, providing powerful strategies for engaging, supporting, and assessing coonceptual change in learners. 

...

Authors: Donna Ewald. Peter Clute.
Paperback, 132 pages
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Publication Date: 1991-10-01

Authors:
Hardcover, 608 pages
Publisher: CRC
Publication Date: 2002-08-29
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    Citing viable homeland defense strategies, this book examines the potential agents, delivery methods, and toxic and nontoxic effects of possible nuclear, biological, and chemical terrorist attacks. Providing countermeasures for governmental and emergency first-response teams, the book covers the impact of WMDs on public health, agriculture, and economic infrastructures, as well as the limitations of sensor/detection technology and the prediction of potential biological and chemical events. It also discusses the effects of next wave cyberterrorism, the roles of state and federal agencies, root causes of terrorism, how to diagnose a chemical or bioterrorism event in the emergency room, and more....