A computer scientist and a performance and new media theorist define and document the emerging field of mixed reality performance. Working at the cutting edge of live performance, an emerging generation of artists is employing digital technologies to create distinctive forms of interactive, distributed, and often deeply subjective theatrical performance. The work of these artists is not only fundamentally transforming the experience of theater, it is also reshaping the nature of human interaction with computers. In this book, Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi offer a new theoretical framework for understanding these experiences—which they term mixed reality performances—and document a series of landmark performances and installations that mix the real and the virtual, live performance and interactivity. Benford and Giannachi draw on a number of works that have been developed at the University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Laboratory, describing collaborations with artists (most notably the group Blast Theory) that have gradually evolved a distinctive interdisciplinary approach to combining practice with research. They offer detailed and extended accounts of these works from different perspectives, including interviews with the artists and Mixed Reality Laboratory researchers. The authors develop an overarching theory to guide the study and design of mixed reality performances based on the approach of interleaved trajectories through hybrid structures of space, time, interfaces, and roles. Combinations of canonical, participant, and historic trajectories show how such performances establish complex configurations of real and virtual, local and global, factual and fictional, and personal and social.
Have you ever taken your children on a maths walk? Are your pupils shape detectives? How to be Inventive When Teaching Primary Mathematics is a pocket guide to inspire primary teachers to become confident, effective, imaginative teachers who enjoy teaching, and whose pupils enjoy learning. It is packed with exciting, creative, unexpected ideas, to help teachers and pupils open their eyes to the mathematical world around them. It gives teachers the tools to develop their own classroom activities and experiences, supporting learners as they move fluently between mathematical ideas and develop their ownership of mathematics: Take your pupils on a maths walk, meet dinosaurs, visit art galleries, learn your destiny number, create your first human graph in the playground and learn how to be an algebra magician. Written by Steve Humble, expert teacher, teacher trainer and, as Dr Maths, advocate for the power and potential of mathematics, this friendly, stimulating guide offers a fresh, practical approach to teaching mathematics, based on the best research and practice, and years of experience in the field. Focussing on five key mathematical topics - number, geometry, measurement, statistics and algebra – it is structured in the form of a journey, introducing historical facts, ideas for innovative and inventive classroom activities and explorations of the key misconceptions for each topic. How to be Inventive When Teaching Primary Mathematics will challenge you to think about your own beliefs and how they influence your practice, and help you understand how best to transform your teaching to stimulate children’s emotions to improve knowledge, learning and enjoyment of the beauty of maths.
Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.
TouchIT brings together insights from human-computer interaction and industrial design, exploring these themes under four main headings: human body and mind; objects and things; space; and information and computation.
The historical roots, key practitioners, and artistic, theoretical, and technological trends in the incorporation of new media into the performing arts. The past decade has seen an extraordinarily intense period of experimentation with computer technology within the performing arts. Digital media has been increasingly incorporated into live theater and dance, and new forms of interactive performance have emerged in participatory installations, on CD-ROM, and on the Web. In Digital Performance, Steve Dixon traces the evolution of these practices, presents detailed accounts of key practitioners and performances, and analyzes the theoretical, artistic, and technological contexts of this form of new media art. Dixon finds precursors to today's digital performances in past forms of theatrical technology that range from the deus ex machina of classical Greek drama to Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk (concept of the total artwork), and draws parallels between contemporary work and the theories and practices of Constructivism, Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, Futurism, and multimedia pioneers of the twentieth century. For a theoretical perspective on digital performance, Dixon draws on the work of Philip Auslander, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, and others. To document and analyze contemporary digital performance practice, Dixon considers changes in the representation of the body, space, and time. He considers virtual bodies, avatars, and digital doubles, as well as performances by artists including Stelarc, Robert Lepage, Merce Cunningham, Laurie Anderson, Blast Theory, and Eduardo Kac. He investigates new media's novel approaches to creating theatrical spectacle, including virtual reality and robot performance work, telematic performances in which remote locations are linked in real time, Webcams, and online drama communities, and considers the "extratemporal" illusion created by some technological theater works. Finally, he defines categories of interactivity, from navigational to participatory and collaborative. Dixon challenges dominant theoretical approaches to digital performance—including what he calls postmodernism's denial of the new—and offers a series of boldly original arguments in their place.
Negative Emissions Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation provides a comprehensive introduction to the full range of technologies that are being researched, developed and deployed in order to transition from our current energy system, dominated by fossil fuels, to a negative-carbon emissions system. After an introduction to the challenge of climate change, the technical fundamentals of natural and engineered carbon dioxide removal and storage processes and technologies are described. Each NET is then discussed in detail, including the key elements of the technology, enablers and constraints, governance issues, and global potential and cost estimates.This book offers a complete overview of the field, thus enabling the community to gain a full appreciation of NETs without the need to seek out and refer to a multitude of sources. - Covers the full spectrum of technologies to underpin the transition to a negative emissions energy system, from technical fundamentals to the current state of deployment and R&D - Critically evaluates each technology, highlighting advantages, limitations, and the potential for large scale environmental applications - Combines natural science and environmental science perspectives with the practical use of state-of-the-art technologies for sustainability
Cybernetic-Existentialism: Freedom, Systems, and Being-for-Others in Contemporary Arts and Performance offers a unique discourse and an original aesthetic theory. It argues that fusing perspectives from the philosophy of Existentialism with insights from the ‘universal science’ of cybernetics provides a new analytical lens and deconstructive methodology to critique art. In this study, Steve Dixon examines how a range of artists’ works reveal the ideas of Existentialist philosophers including Kierkegaard, Camus, de Beauvoir, and Sartre on freedom, being and nothingness, eternal recurrence, the absurd, and being-for-others. Simultaneously, these artworks are shown to engage in complex explorations of concepts proposed by cyberneticians including Wiener, Shannon, and Bateson on information theory and ‘noise’, feedback loops, circularity, adaptive ecosystems, autopoiesis, and emergence. Dixon’s groundbreaking book demonstrates how fusing insights and knowledge from these two fields can throw new light on pressing issues within contemporary arts and culture, including authenticity, angst and alienation, homeostasis, radical politics, and the human as system.
This gripping insider's look at the contemporary American trade union movement shows that reports of organized labor's death are premature. In this eloquent and erudite narrative, Steven Henry Lopez demonstrates how, despite a hostile legal environment and the punitive anti-unionism of U.S. employers, a few unions have organized hundreds of thousands of low-wage service workers in the past few years. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been at the forefront of this effort, in the process pioneering innovative strategies of grassroots mobilization and protest. In a powerful ethnography that captures the voices of those involved in SEIU nursing-home organizing in western Pennsylvania, Lopez illustrates how post-industrial, low-wage workers are providing the backbone for a reinvigorated labor movement across the country. Reorganizing the Rust Belt argues that the key to the success of social movement unionism lies in its ability to confront a series of dilemmas rooted in the history of American labor relations. Lopez shows how the union's ability to devise creative solutions—rather than the adoption of specific tactics—makes the difference between success and failure.
This text aims to help the novice understand demographic variables and analyze their impact on specific private and public sector interests. Examples are employed to demonstrate a wide range of techniques, and the book discusses software products from the 1990 US census that may revolutionize the use of demographic data by business and government.
The 78th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment took the field under command of a lackadaisical colonel who was frequently absent and feuded with his own officers and superiors. Distrusted by senior officers, the 78th became a regiment that was always left behind—until its own officers forced their reluctant colonel to resign. His replacement was a forceful leader who turned the regiment into a crack fighting outfit that performed heroically in the battle of Chickamauga and many of the great battles of the Atlanta campaign. It later joined Sherman’s March to the Sea and fought its way out of the tangled swamps of Bentonville in one of the war’s last battles. Its story is told here mostly in the words of its soldiers through letters, diaries and other sources, many never before accessed by historians. This book sheds new light on many important incidents and battles in the Civil War’s Western Theater.
“The plots are inventive, and as someone always trying to guess how a story will unfold, I'm always left guessing until the end.” —Regina Broscius, Public Relations Specialist and Mystery Fan “Bernie Madoffs better watch their backs...” —Richard Wall, Book Reviewer The Philadelphia Eagles have been loved by their fans for many years. Their premier running back, Franklin Johns, was having a great season. However, he took a cheap shot to his knee and was taken to Penn Medicine for observation. Based on the MRI he had, Johns was scheduled for surgery. Meanwhile, most people didn't know that some local gamblers had paid a Giants player to injure Johns. The Giants player started having second thoughts about what he had done, and soon the gamblers had the player killed. Ben and Sharon soon became involved with big-time gambling, money laundering, and murder. And even though neither Ben nor Sharon were big football fans, both wanted to ensure justice was served.
Based on the most comprehensive, multi-site, and multi-dimensional study completed to date on waste-facility siting and management in rural areas in the U.S., Hazardous Wastes in Rural America establishes the impacts of waste facilities for a range of rural communities that have experienced alternative stages of waste-facility siting and operation process.
The turbulent year of 2011 has brought the appearance of mass popular unrest and the collapse of long lived autocratic regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and possibly Syria. The sudden and unanticipated fall of these regimes – often thought of as exemplars of authoritarian resilience - has brought much of the conventional wisdom on the durability and vulnerability of nondemocratic regimes into question. This book seeks to advance the existing literature by treating the autocratic state not as a unitary actor characterized by strength or weakness but rather as a structure or terrain that can alternatively inhibit or facilitate the appearance of national level forms of protests. In the mode of the Arab Spring, the color revolutions of the former Soviet Union, and the people power movement of the Philippines, such movements overcome the daunting impediments presented by autocrats, appeal to likeminded counterparts across society, and overwhelm the ability of regimes to maintain order. Conversely, in other settings, such as contemporary China, decentralized state structures provide an inhospitable environment for national-level protest, leading collective actors to opt for more local and parochial forms of contention. This outcome produces paradoxical situations, such as in the PRC, where protests are frequent but national-level mobilization and coordination is absent.
Since bioavailability can alter health risk estimates by a factor of 10, 100 or more, its importance in risk assessment cannot be underestimated. Presenting the basic principles that govern bioavailability and how it is measured, this very unique and timely book fills a void in the existing literature on toxicology and toxicokinetics. It contains clear and concise discussions on the behavior of environmental contaminants and how they reach the bloodstream in living organisms. It also presents an exhaustive review of measured bioavailability factors for environmental contaminants most frequently encountered at contaminated sites.
Renowned college basketball coach Tom Penders revisits his successful, if tumultuous, career in a new autobiography Dead Coach Walking: Tom Penders Surviving and Thriving in College Hoops. One of the winningest head coaches in NCAA Division I basketball history, Penders reflects on four decades steering programs at 7 universities-Tufts, Columbia, Fordham, Rhode Island, Texas, George Washington and Houston. As he lifted them from depths of "death row" to winning glory, he enhanced his reputation as "Turnaround Tom." Penders achieved success with distinction: he has coached more NCAA Division I basketball programs than any coach in history and has taken four different schools to the Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. He also retired in 2010 ranked 4th total among active coaches in games-coached, trailing only Connecticut's Jim Calhoun, Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse's Jim Boeheim. In Dead Coach Walking, Penders talks about the teams he led and how he dealt with athletic directors, conference commissioners, assistants, AAU coaches, the NABC and the NCAA. The book also goes behind the scenes, revealing game strategies, coaching personalities, locker room stories, and experiences on the recruiting trail. Penders' perspective, while sometimes controversial, is riveting not to mention entertaining. Dead Coach Walking is truly as unique, quirky, and remarkable as its subject.
In Culture in Action Derne explores the interconnections between male dominance, joint-family living, Indian emotional life, and a cultural focus on group pressures. Derne emphasizes the Hindu focus on the social group, but shows that men often distance themselves from group culture by marrying for love, separating from their parents, or embracing closeness with their wives. Derne's suggestion that Indian men's cultural focus on the group limits men's and women's strategies for breaking cultural norms offers a new approach to understanding how culture constrains. He shows how the child-rearing practices and emotional tensions associated with joint-family living shape Indians' group emphasis. This approach suggests that the Hindu focus on the group is intimately connected with male dominance.
A computer scientist and a performance and new media theorist define and document the emerging field of mixed reality performance. Working at the cutting edge of live performance, an emerging generation of artists is employing digital technologies to create distinctive forms of interactive, distributed, and often deeply subjective theatrical performance. The work of these artists is not only fundamentally transforming the experience of theater, it is also reshaping the nature of human interaction with computers. In this book, Steve Benford and Gabriella Giannachi offer a new theoretical framework for understanding these experiences—which they term mixed reality performances—and document a series of landmark performances and installations that mix the real and the virtual, live performance and interactivity. Benford and Giannachi draw on a number of works that have been developed at the University of Nottingham's Mixed Reality Laboratory, describing collaborations with artists (most notably the group Blast Theory) that have gradually evolved a distinctive interdisciplinary approach to combining practice with research. They offer detailed and extended accounts of these works from different perspectives, including interviews with the artists and Mixed Reality Laboratory researchers. The authors develop an overarching theory to guide the study and design of mixed reality performances based on the approach of interleaved trajectories through hybrid structures of space, time, interfaces, and roles. Combinations of canonical, participant, and historic trajectories show how such performances establish complex configurations of real and virtual, local and global, factual and fictional, and personal and social.
THE UNION JACK TAKES TO SPACE! All-new alternate history science fiction from New York Times best-selling author Steve White. In an alternate future where the British empire never crumbled, the space ships of Her Majesty’s Navy work to keep the spaceways safe. Commander Robert Rogers of the Royal Space Navy is a defense intelligence officer known for his unconventional ways. Rogers is American born-and-raised, a loyal citizen of the Viceroyalty of North America. He’s a descendant of the founder of the highly effective, pro-British Rogers’ Rangers during the Colonial unpleasantries of 1776, and he’s inherited his ancestor’s intelligence and drive in spades. But there are those among the stars who are not so happy being subjects of the British Empire. In the Tau Ceti system, a cauldron of trouble brews as a terrorist faction of the rebellious Sons of Arnold attacks the empire from within, and warships of the theocratic Caliphate enters the system, prepared to do their worse to destroy the hated empire head on. Yet standing against the coming anarchy and tyranny is one intrepid spy prepared to risk all for queen and empire: COMMANDER ROBERT ROGERS, HER MAJESTY’S AMERICAN At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Steve White: “Creative . . . White seamlessly inserts his characters into history, blending science fiction and vintage military action to deliver a fast-paced, high-stakes story. The time travel leads to a twisty, clever series of surprises and plot mechanics.”—Publishers Weekly on Soldiers out of Time “White offers fast action and historically informed world-building.”—Publishers Weekly “. . . recalls the best of the John Campbell era of SF. White's core audience of hard SF fans will be pleased . . .”—Publishers Weekly “. . . Engaging entertainment . . . much suspense and many well-handled action scenes . . .”—Booklist
In Crying for a Vision, British-born poet, musician and performance artist Steve Scott offers a challenge to artists and a manifesto for the arts. This new edition includes an introduction and study guide, four newly-collected essays and an interview with the author. Steve Scott is the author of Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Post-modern Culture and The Boundaries. "Steve Scott is a rare individual who combines a deep love and understanding of Scripture with a passion for the arts." -Steve Turner, author of Jack Kerouac: Angelheaded Hipster. "Steve Scott links a number of fields of inquiry that are usually perceived as unrelated. In doing so he hopes to open wider possibilities for Christians in the arts, who may perhaps be relieved to find that, in many ways, they were right all along." -Rupert Loydell, author of The Museum of Light. Cover art by Michael Redmond
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