"While there are numerous books that address information science as a scholarly discipline, for the most part they assume a prior knowledge of the field. The Problem of Information approaches the fundamental concepts and research issues of information science by exploring the indeterminate nature of information as an abstract object. It also delves into such cognate fields as computer science, cognitive psychology, semiotics, sociology, and political science. Although The Problem of Information is designed specifically for beginning students in information studies, it offers the discriminating reader much food for thought."--Jacket.
How does the government decide what’s a problem and what isn’t? And what are the consequences of that process? Like individuals, Congress is subject to the “paradox of search.” If policy makers don’t look for problems, they won’t find those that need to be addressed. But if they carry out a thorough search, they will almost certainly find new problems—and with the definition of each new problem comes the possibility of creating a government program to address it. With The Politics of Attention, leading policy scholars Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones demonstrated the central role attention plays in how governments prioritize problems. Now, with The Politics of Information, they turn the focus to the problem-detection process itself, showing how the growth or contraction of government is closely related to how it searches for information and how, as an organization, it analyzes its findings. Better search processes that incorporate more diverse viewpoints lead to more intensive policymaking activity. Similarly, limiting search processes leads to declines in policy making. At the same time, the authors find little evidence that the factors usually thought to be responsible for government expansion—partisan control, changes in presidential leadership, and shifts in public opinion—can be systematically related to the patterns they observe. Drawing on data tracing the course of American public policy since World War II, Baumgartner and Jones once again deepen our understanding of the dynamics of American policy making.
With the advent of the Information Society, access to resources is vital to the ordinary citizen, the academic, and the career professional, as well as in public administration and private enterprise. Information Pathways: A Problem-Solving Approach to Information Literacy is designed to serve as a textbook for courses that address the need of college students to develop a basic knowledge of the complex matrix of core resources for the retrieval, management, and exploitation of information. This book shows students how to: • Build effective search strategies for solving information problems • Evaluate and use information and information sources • Apply information skills to the writing process • Be at ease with numeric information • Integrate information skills for smooth problem solving • Maintain their new fluency with information Organized into chapters that examine different ways in which information is structured, Information Pathways will help students develop and evaluate strategies for finding and adopting information.
How well does your organization manage the risks associated with information quality? Managing information risk is becoming a top priority on the organizational agenda. The increasing sophistication of IT capabilities along with the constantly changing dynamics of global competition are forcing businesses to make use of their information more effectively. Information is becoming a core resource and asset for all organizations; however, it also brings many potential risks to an organization, from strategic, operational, financial, compliance, and environmental to societal. If you continue to struggle to understand and measure how information and its quality affects your business, this book is for you. This reference is in direct response to the new challenges that all managers have to face. Our process helps your organization to understand the "pain points" regarding poor data and information quality so you can concentrate on problems that have a high impact on core business objectives. This book provides you with all the fundamental concepts, guidelines and tools to ensure core business information is identified, protected and used effectively, and written in a language that is clear and easy to understand for non-technical managers. - Shows how to manage information risk using a holistic approach by examining information from all sources - Offers varied perspectives of an author team that brings together academics, practitioners and researchers (both technical and managerial) to provide a comprehensive guide - Provides real-life case studies with practical insight into the management of information risk and offers a basis for broader discussion among managers and practitioners
The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.
"Information Systems for Business and Beyond introduces the concept of information systems, their use in business, and the larger impact they are having on our world."--BC Campus website.
"An interdisciplinary examination of the responses of literary authors in Germany, from 1895-1930, to the emerging media of image and sound recording"--Provided by publisher.
This volume is a compilation of lectures delivered at the TASI 2015 summer school, 'New Frontiers in Fields and Strings', held at the University of Colorado Boulder in June 2015. The school focused on topics in theoretical physics of interest to contemporary researchers in quantum field theory and string theory. The lectures are accessible to graduate students in the initial stages of their research careers.
An examination of the uses of data within a changing knowledge infrastructure, offering analysis and case studies from the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. “Big Data” is on the covers of Science, Nature, the Economist, and Wired magazines, on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. But despite the media hyperbole, as Christine Borgman points out in this examination of data and scholarly research, having the right data is usually better than having more data; little data can be just as valuable as big data. In many cases, there are no data—because relevant data don't exist, cannot be found, or are not available. Moreover, data sharing is difficult, incentives to do so are minimal, and data practices vary widely across disciplines. Borgman, an often-cited authority on scholarly communication, argues that data have no value or meaning in isolation; they exist within a knowledge infrastructure—an ecology of people, practices, technologies, institutions, material objects, and relationships. After laying out the premises of her investigation—six “provocations” meant to inspire discussion about the uses of data in scholarship—Borgman offers case studies of data practices in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, and then considers the implications of her findings for scholarly practice and research policy. To manage and exploit data over the long term, Borgman argues, requires massive investment in knowledge infrastructures; at stake is the future of scholarship.
Information theory and inference, taught together in this exciting textbook, lie at the heart of many important areas of modern technology - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics and cryptography. The book introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. Inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks. Uniquely, the book covers state-of-the-art error-correcting codes, including low-density-parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes - the twenty-first-century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast. Richly illustrated, filled with worked examples and over 400 exercises, some with detailed solutions, the book is ideal for self-learning, and for undergraduate or graduate courses. It also provides an unparalleled entry point for professionals in areas as diverse as computational biology, financial engineering and machine learning.
