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We live in the era of Big Data, with storage and transmission capacity measured not just in terabytes but in petabytes (where peta- denotes a quadrillion, or a thousand trillion). Data collection is constant and even insidious, with every click and every "like" stored somewhere for something. This book reminds us that data is anything but "raw," that we shouldn't think of data as a natural resource but as a cultural one that needs to be generated, protected, and interpreted. The book's e... View full Abstract »

This book takes a single line of code--the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title--and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture. The authors of this collaboratively written book treat code not as merely functional but as a text--in the case of 10 PRINT, a text that appeared in many different printed sources--that yields a story about its making, its purpose, its assumptions... View full Abstract »

Two important subproblems of computer vision are the detection and recognition of 2D objects in gray-level images. This book discusses the construction and training of models, computational approaches to efficient implementation, and parallel implementations in biologically plausible neural network architectures. The approach is based on statistical modeling and estimation, with an emphasis on simplicity, transparency, and computational efficiency.The book describes a range of deformable templat... View full Abstract »

Electrical engineering is a protean profession. Today the field embraces many disciplines that seem far removed from its roots in the telegraph, telephone, electric lamps, motors, and generators. To a remarkable extent, this chronicle of change and growth at a single institution is a capsule history of the discipline and profession of electrical engineering as it developed worldwide. Even when MIT was not leading the way, the department was usually quick to adapt to changing needs, goals, curric... View full Abstract »

In this personal memoir, electrical engineer David Lundstrom recalls the heyday of early computing - the rise of Control Data out of the Univac division of Sperry Rand, such milestone computer systems as the Univac and the Naval Tactical Data System the exploits of CDC's top designer Seymour Cray, and the gradual corporate shift from the exciting and technically interesting world of computer design to internal politics and clumsy bureaucracy.David E. Lundstrom's career spanned 30 years w... View full Abstract »

Within the field of logic programming there have been numerous attempts to transform grammars into logic programs. This book describes a complementary approach that views logic programs as grammars and shows how this new presentation of the foundations of logic programming, based on the notion of proof trees, can enrich the field.The authors' approach facilitates discussion of grammatical aspects of, and introduces new kinds of semantics for, definite programs. They survey relevant grammatic... View full Abstract »

Every field of history has a basic need for a detailed chronology of what happened: who did what when. In the absence of such a resource, fanciful accounts flourish. This book provides a rich narrative of the early development of online information retrieval systems and services, from 1963 to 1976--a period important to anyone who uses a search engine, online catalog, or large database. Drawing on personal experience, extensive research, and interviews with many of the key participants, the book... View full Abstract »

Java is a new object-oriented programming language that was developed by Sun Microsystems for programming the Internet and intelligent appliances. In a very short time it has become one of the most widely used programming languages for education as well as commercial applications.Design patterns, which have moved object-oriented programming to a new level, provide programmers with a language to communicate with others about their designs. As a result, programs become more readable, more reusable... View full Abstract »

This tour de force in experimental robotics paves the way toward understanding dynamic environments in vision and robotics. It describes the first robot able to play, and even beat, human ping-pong players.Constructing a machine to play ping-pong was proposed years ago as a particularly difficult problem requiring fast, accurate sensing and actuation, and the intelligence to play the game. The research reported here began as a series of experiments in building a true real-time vision system. The... View full Abstract »

A Small Matter of Programming asks why it has been so difficult for end users to command programming power and explores the problems of end user-driven application development that must be solved to afford end users greater computational power.Drawing on empirical research on existing end user systems, A Small Matter of Programming analyzes cognitive, social, and technical issues of end user programming. In particular, it examines the importance of task-specific programming languages, visual app... View full Abstract »

This book contends that accessing and browsing information and communication are multidimensional and consequential aspects of the information user's entire experience and of general human behavior. Problems in information creation, processing, transmittal, and use often arise from an incomplete conceptualization of the "information seeking" process, where information seeking is viewed as the intentional finding of specific information. The process has traditionally been considered to begin ... View full Abstract »

Activity theory holds that the human mind is the product of our interaction with people and artifacts in the context of everyday activity. Acting with Technology makes the case for activity theory as a basis for understanding our relationship with technology. Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie Nardi describe activity theory's principles, history, relationship to other theoretical approaches, and application to the analysis and design of technologies. The book provides the first systematic entry-le... View full Abstract »

The shift in the practice of human-computer interaction (HCI) Design from user-centered to context-based design marks a significant change in focus. With context-based design, designers start not with a preconceived idea of what users should do, but with an understanding of what users actually do. Context-based design focuses on the situation in which the technology will be used -- the activities relating to it and their social contexts. Designers must also realize that introduction of the techn... View full Abstract »

The transition from sequential to parallel computation is an area of critical concern in today's computer technology, particularly in architecture, programming languages, systems, and artificial intelligence. This book addresses central issues in concurrency, and by producing both a syntactic definition and a denotational model of Hewitt's actor paradigm -- a model of computation specifically aimed at constructing and analyzing distributed large-scale parallel systems -- it substantially... View full Abstract »

Genetic algorithms are playing an increasingly important role in studies of complex adaptive systems, ranging from adaptive agents in economic theory to the use of machine learning techniques in the design of complex devices such as aircraft turbines and integrated circuits. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems is the book that initiated this field of study, presenting the theoretical foundations and exploring applications.In its most familiar form, adaptation is a biological process, wh... View full Abstract »

Advanced Database Techniques combines advanced techniques with practical advice and many new ideas, methods, and examples for database management students, system specialists, and programmers. It provides a wealth of technical information on database methods and an encyclopedic coverage of advanced techniques that other current books on database lack.An overview covers important definitions in the area of database management and describes such classical notions as file structures, conceptual, ph... View full Abstract »

A major problem in modern probabilistic modeling is the huge computational complexity involved in typical calculations with multivariate probability distributions when the number of random variables is large. Because exact computations are infeasible in such cases and Monte Carlo sampling techniques may reach their limits, there is a need for methods that allow for efficient approximate computations. One of the simplest approximations is based on the mean field method, which has a long history i... View full Abstract »

The field of VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) is concerned with the design, production, and use of highly complex integrated circuits. The research collected here comes from many disciplines, including computer architecture, computer-aided design, parallel algorithms, semiconductor technology, and testing. It extends to novel uses of the technology and concepts originally developed for integrated circuits, including integrated sensor arrays, digital photography, highly parallel computers, mic... View full Abstract »

Genetic programming, a form of genetic algorithm that evolves programs and program-like executable structures, is a new paradigm for developing reliable, time- and cost-effective applications. The second volume of Advances in Genetic Programming highlights many of the most recent technical advances in this increasingly popular field. The twenty-three contributions are divided into four parts: Variations on the Genetic Programming Theme; Hierarchical, Recursive, and Pruning Genetic Programs; Anal... View full Abstract »

The concept of large margins is a unifying principle for the analysis of many different approaches to the classification of data from examples, including boosting, mathematical programming, neural networks, and support vector machines. The fact that it is the margin, or confidence level, of a classification--that is, a scale parameter--rather than a raw training error that matters has become a key tool for dealing with classifiers. This book shows how this idea applies to both the theoretical an... View full Abstract »

The annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference is the flagship meeting on neural computation and machine learning. It draws a diverse group of attendees--physicists, neuroscientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists--interested in theoretical and applied aspects of modeling, simulating, and building neural-like or intelligent systems. The presentations are interdisciplinary, with contributions in algorithms, learning theory, cognitive science, neuroscien... View full Abstract »

Until recently, information systems have been designed around different business functions, such as accounts payable and inventory control. Object-oriented modeling, in contrast, structures systems around the data--the objects--that make up the various business functions. Because information about a particular function is limited to one place--to the object--the system is shielded from the effects of change. Object-oriented modeling also promotes better understanding of requirements, clear desig... View full Abstract »

Among the first uses of the computer was the development of programs to model perception, reasoning, learning, and evolution. Further developments resulted in computers and programs that exhibit aspects of intelligent behavior. The field of artificial intelligence is based on the premise that thought processes can be computationally modeled. Computational molecular biology brought a similar approach to the study of living systems. In both cases, hypotheses concerning the structure, function, and... View full Abstract »

In Aesthetic Computing, key scholars and practitioners from art, design, computer science, and mathematics lay the foundations for a discipline that applies the theory and practice of art to computing. Aesthetic computing explores the way art and aesthetics can play a role in different areas of computer science. One of its goals is to modify computer science by the application of the wide range of definitions and categories normally associated with making art. For example, structures in computin... View full Abstract »

This collection of essays by 12 members of the MIT staff, provides an inside report on the scope and expectations of current research in one of the world's major AI centers. The chapters on artificial intelligence, expert systems, vision, robotics, and natural language provide both a broad overview of current areas of activity and an assessment of the field at a time of great public interest and rapid technological progress.Contents: Artificial Intelligence (Patrick H. Winston and Karen Pren... View full Abstract »