Parasites that manipulate the behaviour of their hosts represent striking examples of adaptation by natural selection. This field of study is now moving beyond its descriptive phase and into more exciting areas where the processes and patterns of such dramatic adaptations can be better understood. This innovative text provides an up-to-date, authoritative, and challenging review of host manipulation by parasites that assesses the current state of developments in the field and lays out a framework for future research. It also promotes a greater integration of behavioral ecology with studies of host manipulation (behavioral ecology has tended to concentrate mainly on behaviour expressed by free living organisms and is far less focused on the role of parasites in shaping behaviour). To help achieve this, the editors adopt a novel approach of having a prominent expert on behavioral ecology (but who does not work directly on parasites) to provide an afterword to each chapter.

This pioneering book, first published in 1987, launched the new field of social studies of technology. It introduced a method of inquiry--social construction of technology, or SCOT--that became a key part of the wider discipline of science and technology studies. The book helped the MIT Press shape its STS list and inspired the Inside Technology series. The thirteen essays in the book tell stories about such varied technologies as thirteenth-century galleys, eighteenth-century cooking stoves, and twentieth-century missile systems. Taken together, they affirm the fruitfulness of an approach to the study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions, and they demonstrate the illuminating effects of the integration of empirics and theory. The approaches in this volume--collectively called SCOT (after the volume's title) have since broadened their scope, and twenty-five years after the publication of this book, it is difficult to think of a technology that has not been studied from a SCOT perspective and impossible to think of a technology that cannot be studied that way.

This hands-on guide is primarily intended to be used in undergraduate laboratories in the physical sciences and engineering. It assumes no prior knowledge of statistics. It introduces the necessary concepts where needed, with key points illustrated with worked examples and graphic illustrations. In contrast to traditional mathematical treatments it uses a combination of spreadsheet and calculus-based approaches, suitable as a quick and easy on-the-spot reference. The emphasis throughout is on practical strategies to be adopted in the laboratory.

Error analysis is introduced at a level accessible to school leavers, and carried through to research level. Error calculation and propagation is presented though a series of rules-of-thumb, look-up tables and approaches amenable to computer analysis. The general approach uses the chi-square statistic extensively. Particular attention is given to hypothesis testing and extraction of parameters and their uncertainties by fitting mathematical models to experimental data. Routines implemented by most contemporary data analysis packages are analysed and explained. The book finishes with a discussion of advanced fitting strategies and an introduction to Bayesian analysis.

Troppo spesso al giorno d'oggi qualsiasi discorso sul progresso tecnologico si riduce a un appiattimento sminuente legato al mondo dei computer di Internet o dei più banali "gadget hi-tech", dimenticando che la tecnologia è innanzitutto una pratica complessa, stratificata e profondamente umana, e che come ogni aspetto della nostra vita anch'essa è percorsa da profonde contraddizioni. Thomas Hughes, in "Il mondo a misura d'uomo", analizza lo stretto legame che unisce il progresso umano alla tecnologia, restituendo a quest'ultima la sua natura carica di valori e aspettative per il futuro: quella della propensione umana a modificare e migliorare il mondo che ci circonda. Per questo motivo la tesi conclusiva dell'autore, fondata sull'irreversibilità storica del mondo "tecnologicamente naturale", è quella di immaginare un "pensiero ecotecnologico" critico, che sia alleato, non nemico, dell'ambiente. Con una prosa chiara ed elegante, ricca di suggestioni artistiche e letterarie, Hughes mostra come la tecnologia sia espressione emblematica, al contempo, della creatività, della follia, dell'ingenuità e della curiosità umana.