This Winter 2009 (VII, 1) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self- Knowledge, entitled “Teaching Transformations 2009” and dedicated to the chronicling of representative experiences of teaching transformation in the New England area and elsewhere, brings together selected proceedings of the annual conferences of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching (CIT) and the New England Center for Inclusive Teaching (NECIT) recently held at UMass Boston. The first seven studies in the issue were gathered through the conference activities of NECIT. The second series of articles emerged from the conversations and presentations at the annual CIT conference at UMass Boston. The contributions have a common interest in advancing teaching and learning practices that transform the self and the world in favor of more just, inclusive, and participatory outcomes. The editors believe that the most central and distinguishing defining features of NECIT and CIT, i.e., the three-fold concerns with promoting pedagogical reflexivity, student learning empathy, and faculty agency, are well advocated for and respresented in the papers shared in this volume. Contributors include: Jay R. Dee (also as journal issue guest editor), Vivian Zamel (also as journal issue guest editor), Cheryl J. Daly, Maria Natalicia Rocha-Tracy, Darlene Ferguson-Russell, John Fobanjong, Patricia White, LeeAnn Griggs, Sally Barney, Janet Brown-Sederberg, Elizabeth Collins, Susan Keith, Lisa Iannacci, Kimberly Smirles, Ann Wetherilt, Melanie Murphy, Elijah Patterson, Janet D. Johnson, Elizabeth H. Rowell, Mary Ball Howkins, Duane Wright, Wayne-Daniel Berard, Alexandria Hallam, Anne Geiwitz, Matthew R. Kerzner, Angelika Festa, and Mohammad Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.

In recent years, it was realized that Radio Cognitive Systems seems to be a real need in the near future evolution,especially because of the severe spectrum regulations and channel congestion problems. Moreover high data rates become more and more necessary for normal professional needs or at home based users. Cognitive radio systems were first defined in the late of 1990s. The idea is to integrate a new concept of channel environmental sensing, followed by a knowledge based standard learning, which in return helps to identify free channel spectrum slots. These slots can be used by a third party user in a way to take advantage of the unused spectrum.This type of communication provides dynamic opportunistic algorithm for spectrum access. The new concept has to be adaptive and based on a reconfigurable hardware with a real time processing. Such cognitive radio systems can be also used in indoor wireless communications, where more and more wireless peripherals and tools are used in a limited space, and once again data packet congestion is a real problem. This book is written by specialists working in the field of telecommunication and signal processing. Various aspects of the radio cognitive systems are discussed with some applications and implementations such as software defined radios. The book is composed of seven chapters; as each chapter is written in a self-contained manner, the reader can use the book without any restrictive ordering of the chapters. At the end of the chapters there are valuable references that provide in depth coverage of the application...

This is the first comprehensive overview of the 'science of science,' an emerging interdisciplinary field that relies on big data to unveil the reproducible patterns that govern individual scientific careers and the workings of science. It explores the roots of scientific impact, the role of productivity and creativity, when and what kind of collaborations are effective, the impact of failure and success in a scientific career, and what metrics can tell us about the fundamental workings of science. The book relies on data to draw actionable insights, which can be applied by individuals to further their career or decision makers to enhance the role of science in society. With anecdotes and detailed, easy-to-follow explanations of the research, this book is accessible to all scientists and graduate students, policymakers, and administrators with an interest in the wider scientific enterprise.

This book brings together leading representatives of activity-theoretically-oriented and socioculturally-oriented research around the world, to discuss creativity as a collective endeavour strongly related to learning to face the societal challenges of our world. As history shows, major accomplishments in arts and technological innovations have allowed us to see the world differently and to identify new learning perspectives for the future which were seldom limited to individual action or isolated activities. This book, while primarily focused on educational insitutions, extends its examination of creativity and learning to include other settings (such as government agencies) beyond the limits of schooling.