Narcissism and entitlement

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Marco Dorigo, Thomas Stützle

"The attempt to develop algorithms inspired by one aspect of ant behavior, the ability to find what computer scientists would call shortest paths, has become the field of ant colony optimization (ACO), the most successful and widely recognized algorithmic technique based on ant behavior. This book presents an overview of this rapidly growing field, from its theoretical inception to practical applications, including descriptions of many available ACO algorithms and their uses." "The book first describes the translation of observed ant behavior into working optimization algorithms. The ant colony metaheuristic is then introduced and viewed to the general context of combinatorial optimization. This is followed by a detailed description and guide to all major ACO algorithms and a report on current theoretical findings. The book surveys ACO applications now in use including routing, assignment, scheduling, subset, machine learning and bioinformatics problems. AntNet, an ACO algorithm designed for the network routing problem, is described in detail. The authors conclude by summarizing the progress in the field and outlining future research directions. Each chapter ends with bibliographic material, bullet points setting out important ideas covered in the chapter, and exercises. Ant Colony Optimization will be of interest to academic and industry researchers, graduate students, and practitioners who wish to learn how to implement ACO algorithms."--BOOK JACKET.

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Jacques Ranciere

In this title, the foremost philosopher of art argues for a new politics of seeing. The role of the viewer in art and film theory revolves around a theatrical concept of the spectacle. The masses subjected to the society of spectacle have traditionally been seen as aesthetically and politically passive - in response, both artists and thinkers have sought to transform the spectator into an active agent and the spectacle into a performance. In this follow-up to the acclaimed "The Future of the Image", Ranciere takes a radically different approach to this attempted emancipation. Beginning by asking exactly what we mean by political art or the politics of art, he goes on to look at what the tradition of critical art, and the desire to insert art into life, has achieved. Has the militant critique of the consumption of images and commodities become, instead, a melancholic affirmation of their omnipotence?

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David C. Hsiung

Most Americans know Appalachia through stereotyped images: moonshine and handicrafts, poverty and illiteracy, rugged terrain and isolated mountaineers. Historian David Hsiung maintains that in order to understand the origins of such stereotypes, we must look critically at their underlying concepts, especially those of isolation and community. According to Hsiung's interpretation, two worlds coexisted in the Tennessee mountains: some people made connections with the rest of country and others lived in relative isolation. When this latter group came to be characterized by their neighbors as backward, growing perceptions of difference within the mountain region eventually found their way into fiction and popular images of Appalachia for well over a century. By demonstrating that these perceptions of difference first emerged from within Appalachia itself, Two Worlds in the Tennessee Mountains alters the commonly held views of this region and its people during the antebellum period. This provocative work will stimulate future studies of early Appalachia and serve as a model for the analysis of regional cultures.

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John C. Bridges

This book examines online dating from the "inside," using in-depth interviews with dating website members to reveal -- and keenly analyze -- what relationships and romance in the 21st century are really like. For a huge number of Americans, online dating has almost become the "only game in town." For a variety of niche populations with extremely varied motivations, and even more varied capacities for honesty and self-interest, the Internet has become the vehicle for a search leading to intimacy and the fulfillment of their desires & at least for a while. The members of the current generation of "digital guinea pigs" are true social pioneers as they embrace digital technology to create a new realm of mating, dating, and intimacy in America. Ironically, "digital dating" frequently results in an outcome that is exactly opposite to its participants' intended purposes. -- From publisher's website.