Book Description
This book is designed to serve as an introduction to the fascinating world of maps. It explains how to use maps to obtain information about a wide variety of topics. Throughout the book, maps are viewed in a broad framework. Thus, the discussion includes mental maps, aerial photographs, remotely sensed images, computer-assisted cartography, and geographical information systems, in addition to traditional printed maps. The writing style is neither formalistic nor casual, with an emphasis on clarity of explanation. The discussions assume that the reader has no specific prior knowledge of the topic, so that even novice map users can understand and use the information and techniques presented.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent course textbook.......2003-03-24
I received a copy of this book from the publisher when I was teaching a university course on cartography. The textbook for the semester had already been selected, so I used this book originally as a second resource while preparing lectures. By the end of the semester, I found myself using this book as the primary source for topics and explanations and suggested it be used in future semesters.
This book explains concepts such as projections and coordinate systems in ways that are easy to understand, particularly for new students. The explanations are thorough without bogging down in details. The figures are large, many take up a full page. They are helpful, relevant, and excellently reproduced. The chapters on terrain representation, contours, and topographic features are exceptionally good (there are almost 40 examples of terrain representation) The remote sensing and GIS chapters are brief and introductory, but those are topics best left for other books.
I was a little skeptical when I first saw this book, since it appeared to be a somewhat thin, and we were using Robinson's book, which is basically a standard. But, I would recommend this to any map student, teacher, or user. It packs a lot of information in its pages. I still use it as a reference (...).
Great Help.......2001-03-22
If I were stuck on a deserted Island like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, and I could only have one book, it would be this one. It would help me to get off the island and determine my global positioning! Lots of help.
A Cartographer's View of the World.......2000-10-02
When you've been working in a field for 30 years it's really difficult to drag yourself backwards and review data you already know, so when I signed up for a GPS (Global Positioning Sattelite) software course I looked at "Map Use & Analysis" by John Campbell as something I could just skip over, but since it was required reading I finally got it out. I was really pleased with the depth of material and the extremely clear explanations of all those mystifying cartography words. Anyone who has no idea about mapping or is a begining student will be able to use this book. The format is excellent with terms higligted and the index and dictionary are well coordinated. I feel that this book is such an excellent reference that I am buying a copy for myself. The only negative thing I have to say is that the illustrations, which are plentiful seem to wander several pages ahead of text, but they are carefully numbered and correspond exactly to the descriptions. Well done! Les L. Johnson
Book Description
Philosophers from Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein to the recent realists and antirealists have sought to answer the question, What are concepts? This book provides a detailed, systematic, and accessible introduction to an original philosophical theory of concepts that Christopher Peacocke has developed in recent years to explain facts about the nature of thought, including its systematic character, its relations to truth and reference, and its normative dimension.
Customer Reviews:
A Difficult Conception of Concepts.......2000-05-12
In my work I have found it much important to develop my understanding of semantics, concepts, and meaning. Peacocke's book is a scholarly and powerful treatment of concepts (for which it get 5 stars), but it is also difficult and one-sided. I highly recommend anybody to read the review by Herman Philipse in Inquiry, 1994, 37, pp. 225-252. The reviewer writes that Peacocke leaves out any full treatment of the relations between Concept possession and linguistic understanding. "While the philosophical tradition from Plato to Husserl endorsed it, revolutionary philosophers such as Schliermacher, Nitzsche, Peirce, and Wittgenstein held that it involves a fundamental mistake".
What I have found extremely useful for my purpose and for my understanding is the article by Georges Rey on concepts on pp. 185-193 in A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND (ed. by Samuel Guttenplan. Published by Blackwell, Oxford, UK. in 1994 (and later reprints). I also strongly recommend Frank C. Keil: Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1989.
Book Description
Western philosophy has long been divided between empiricists, who argue that human understanding has its basis in experience, and rationalists, who argue that reason is the source of knowledge. A central issue in the debate is the nature of concepts, the internal representations we use to think about the world. The traditional empiricist thesis that concepts are built up from sensory input has fallen out of favor. Mainstream cognitive science tends to echo the rationalist tradition, with its emphasis on innateness. In Furnishing the Mind, Jesse Prinz attempts to swing the pendulum back toward empiricism.
Prinz provides a critical survey of leading theories of concepts, including imagism, definitionism, prototype theory, exemplar theory, the theory theory, and informational atomism. He sets forth a new defense of concept empiricism that draws on philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology and introduces a new version of concept empiricism called proxytype theory. He also provides accounts of abstract concepts, intentionality, narrow content, and concept combination. In an extended discussion of innateness, he covers Noam Chomsky's arguments for the innateness of grammar, developmental psychologists' arguments for innate cognitive domains, and Jerry Fodor's argument for radical concept nativism.
Customer Reviews:
An important step towards a comprehensive theory of concepts.......2003-01-06
Prinz's book is an intriguing blend of traditional philsophy and up-to-date cognitive science. His main argument is that concepts are basically "copies" of perceptual experiences, bound together in long-term memory and accessed by working memory during thought. Prinz argues that, instead of assuming a "common code", cognitive science should view the mind as a "multi-media machine" that uses a diverse array of codes specific to sense modalities. Along the way, he argues against concept nativism, expands on what perceptional experiences are, and elucidates possible mechanisms for concept acquisition and combination.
Keep in mind, though, that Prinz's book is fast-paced and assumes a lot of background knowledge. Many of the details that one would have liked are either glossed over or left for future research. And the editor's at MIT press need to do a much better job of proof-reading in the future. But in terms of setting up a new research program and arguing forcfully for it, Prinz's book does the job. This book should get a lot of reaction in years to come.
Average customer rating:
- At last!
- Clear, concise introduction for undergraduates
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Image and Representation: Key Concepts in Media Studies
Nick Lacey
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Critical Approaches to Television (2nd Edition)
ASIN: 0312212038 |
Book Description
This book offers readers a lively, clear and practical introduction to two of the most central concepts in the study of media, culture and communication: media language and representation. Beginning with the basic components of image analysis, including framing, mise-en-scène, anchorage and genre, this book goes on to examine the contribution of semiotics to our understanding of the messages media texts convey. It then considers debates around authorial intent, "preferred" readings, ideology and discourse. The book subsequently explores the web of codes and interpretation that constructs representation and looks at important issues to do with stereotyping, propaganda, realism and the documentary. Packed with graphic and memorable examples and case studies taken from a range of contemporary and classic media texts, and carefully interspersed with suggestions for further activity or study, the book offers a lucid review of key theories that pays due attention to their practical application.
Customer Reviews:
At last!.......2002-09-11
At last, a straight forward foundation book on the analysis of image and representation. It covers the analysis of photography as well as that of cinema step by step. Lacey also gives precise definitons of all the components of an image, what elements are to be taken into account when, why and how. His manual covers camera techniques and semiotics with unprecedented clarity. Saussure, Barthes, Pierce and other classics in the realm of linguistics are explained and applied. The excercises he proposes for the classroom are fun and straight to the point. This book will teach everyone to read images.
Clear, concise introduction for undergraduates.......1999-04-14
THis book is a fine and in many ways unique addition to possible choices for textbooks for an undergraduate course in critical theories of image analysis (or introduction for general readers interested in this topic). Lacey is Head of Media Studies at a post-16 school in West Yorkshire, England. This book appears to be an outcome of his own teaching at this level as well as his professed primary interest in film.
Its major accomplishment is to clearly link image analysis to the field of communication, as well as to reintroduce social and historical considerations into what is too often considered either an individualist or a formalist task. Lacey emphasizes throughout that individual interpretations have a common basis determined by culture and history, and that individual images can be examined carefully in order to suggest this basis.
By taking this view, Lacey avoids the "art-appreciation" trap, stressing that the goal of interpretation is to describe how images work in society, not what the proper meaning is. He also deftly minimizes the mechanistic implications of a (generally speaking) semiotic perspective by emphasizing that codes are fluid social conventions, not invariant and timeless structures.
Lacey begins Chapter 1 by introducing linguist Roman Jakobson's model of communication, a six-faceted one consisting of addresser, addressee, context, message, contact, and code, to emphasize the social and contextual nature of interpretation. This is combined with a clear run-down of features of images, from nonverbal communication (such as facial expression, body gestures, and clothing) to form (such as framing, angle, height, and depth of field) and content (subject, lighting, and setting). Additional media-specific features (such as anchorage and juxtaposition) and editing are also noted. This discussion is particularly useful for students who have not taken courses in television- or film-production or in photography. All this and more takes place in the (50-page) first chapter, no less!
Chapter 2, which introduces semiotic analysis via Saussure, Peirce, and Barthes, finishes the overtly methodological discussion. It does as good a job as any on a notoriously difficult topic.
The remaining five chapters build upon the theoretical and descriptive basis laid down in the first two. Stronger chapters alternate between somewhat weaker ones.
Chapter 4, titled "Advanced Image Analysis," introduces larger issues surrounding images (and media) in society from a cultural and critical perspective. Brief discussions of authorial intent, preferred reading, discourse, and hegemony are fleshed out with an account of alternative ways of editing and a short history of Western images and their uses in society.
Similarly, Chapter 6, titled "Representation and Reality," provides a clear introduction to the emergence of realism as a way of understanding and packaging the world. The discussion ranges from a history of realism to its use in documentaries and the challenges to it in the late 1960s. Less useful chapters include a short elaboration of Jakobson's theory of communication (I've generally skipped it when assigning readings from this book). Case studies included in Chapter 5 reflect the experience of Lacey's primary audience in Britain, and students in this country may find them obscure and therefore less useful. Chapter 7 contains the almost obligatory discussion of new technology, but it unfortunately has little new to say.
In sum, though, Lacey has done a fine job with this book. The stronger chapters not only provide students with a conceptual and methodological framework, they acquaint students with major issues while also including fine, brief discussions about the uses of images in history.
Suggested exercises are scattered throughout the text in key places (most work well as prompts for in-class discussion), in addition to many clearly described examples and a compact bibliography at the end that serves as a resource for students interested in reading in more depth.
Of course, no book can do it all. But this book packs more between the covers than any I've yet found.
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Modelling and Reasoning with Vague Concepts (Studies in Computational Intelligence)
Lawry J.
Manufacturer: Springer
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ASIN: 0387290567 |
Book Description
Vagueness is central to the flexibility and robustness of natural language descriptions. Vague concepts are robust to the imprecision of our perceptions, while still allowing us to convey useful, and sometimes vital, information. The study of vagueness in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is therefore motivated by the desire to incorporate this robustness and flexibility into intelligent computer systems. Such a goal, however, requires a formal model of vague concepts that will allow us to quantify and manipulate the uncertainty resulting from their use as a means of passing information between autonomous agents. This volume outlines a formal representation framework for modelling and reasoning with vague concepts in Artificial Intelligence. The new calculus has many applications, especially in automated reasoning, learning, data analysis and information fusion. This book gives a rigorous introduction to label semantics theory, illustrated with many examples, and suggests clear operational interpretations of the proposed measures. It also provides a detailed description of how the theory can be applied in data analysis and information fusion based on a range of benchmark problems.
Book Description
In virtually every democratic nation in the world, political representation is defined by where citizens live. In the United States, for example, Congressional Districts are drawn every 10 years as lines on a map. Why do democratic governments define political representation this way? Are territorial electoral constituencies commensurate with basic principles of democratic legitimacy? And why might our commitments to these principles lead us to endorse a radical alternative: randomly assigning citizens to permanent, single-member electoral constituencies that each looks like the nation they collectively represent? Using the case of the founding period of the United States as an illustration, and drawing from classic sources in Western political theory, this book describes the conceptual, historical, and normative features of the electoral constituency. As an institution conceptually separate from the casting of votes, the electoral constituency is little studied. Its historical origins are often incorrectly described. And as a normative matter, the constituency is almost completely ignored. Raising these conceptual, historical and normative issues, the argument culminates with a novel thought experiment of imagining how politics might change under randomized, permanent, national electoral constituencies. By focusing on how citizens are formally defined for the purpose of political representation, The Concept of Constituency thus offers a novel approach to the central problems of political representation, democratic legitimacy, and institutional design.
Book Description
This book presents current research and development work in the fields of knowledge visualization and information visualization. In addition to revised reviewed papers presented at an international workshop on Visual Artefacts for the Organization of Information and Knowledge held in Tübingen, Germany in May 2004, invited papers from leading experts are included to round off coverage of relevant aspects.
The 19 chapters presented together with an introductory overview are organized in topical sections on background, knowledge visualization, information visualization, visualizing knowledge and information for fostering learning and instruction, and knowledge-oriented organization of information for fostering information use.
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Knowledge, Concepts, and Categories (Studies in Cognition)
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262621185 |
Book Description
The study of mental representation is a central concern in contemporary cognitive psychology. Knowledge, Concepts, and Categories is unusual in that it presents key conclusions from across the different subfields of cognitive psychology. Readers will find data from many areas, including developmental psychology, formal modeling, neuropsychology, connectionism, and philosophy. The difficulty of penetrating the fundamental operations of the mind is reflected in a number of ongoing debates discussed--for example, do distinct brain systems underlie the acquisition and storage of implicit and explicit knowledge, or can the evidence be accommodated by a single-system account of knowledge representation?
The book can be divided into three distinct parts. Chapters 1 through 5 offer an introduction to the field; each presents a systematic review of a significant aspect of research on concepts and categories. Chapters 6 through 9 are concerned primarily with issues related to the taxonomy of human knowledge. Finally, Chapters 10 through 12 discuss formal models of categorization and function learning.
Contributors: Jerome R. Busemeyer, Eunhee Byun, Nick Chater, Paul De Boeck, Edward L. Delosh, Thomas Goschke, Ulrike Hahn, James Hampton, Evan Heit, Barbara Knowlton, Koen Lamberts, Mary E. Lassaline, Mark A. McDaniel, George L. Murphy, Larissa K. Samuelson, David Shanks, Linda B. Smith, Gert Storms, Bruce W. A. Whittlesea.
Book Description
Concepts embody our knowledge of the kinds of things there are in the world. Tying our past experiences to our present interactions with the environment, they enable us to recognize and understand new objects and events. Concepts are also relevant to understanding domains such as social situations, personality types, and even artistic styles. Yet like other phenomenologically simple cognitive processes such as walking or understanding speech, concept formation and use are maddeningly complex.
Research since the 1970s and the decline of the "classical view" of concepts have greatly illuminated the psychology of concepts. But persistent theoretical disputes have sometimes obscured this progress. The Big Book of Concepts goes beyond those disputes to reveal the advances that have been made, focusing on the major empirical discoveries. By reviewing and evaluating research on diverse topics such as category learning, word meaning, conceptual development in infants and children, and the basic level of categorization, the book develops a much broader range of criteria than is usual for evaluating theories of concepts.
Customer Reviews:
A gem of a book.......2004-02-14
Gregory Murphy begins this extraordinary book by saying, "Concepts are the glue that holds our mental world together". This is actually an understatement. Without concepts there would be no mental world in the first place. Concepts are mental representations that tie together specific instances, and are essential for relating ongoing experience to knowledge from the past. Concepts allow us to move from William James' "blooming buzzing confusion" to structured and adaptive thought.
Murphy is one of the leading scholars in this area, and he reviews a messy and complicated literature with honesty, clarity, and wit. This is going to be the classic text in the field for a very long time. It is one of the rare cases where the standard back-of-the-book blurb is actually true: Anyone seriously interested in concepts and categorization - seasoned researchers, graduates and advanced undergraduates, or scholars who simply want to get a sense of the field - really must read this book.
(Note: this is an excerpt from a review that was published in the journal "Nature")
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