Volume five of the faculty reading list includes scholarly works penned by Northeastern University professors, such as internationally-renowned network scientist Albert-Laszlo Barabási’s investigation of the predictability of human behavior through digital networks; and professor of architectural history Elizabeth Cromley’s journey through the evolving design of spaces related to the preparation and serving of food in the American home.

Title: “Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do”

Author: Albert-Laszlo Barabási, Distinguished professor of physics

Description: Barabási, a world-renowned network scientist, investigates patterns in humanbehavior through our use of mobile phones, the internet and email. Hediscovered that these digital networks provide massive quantitative data thattracks our movements, our decisions and our lives, showing that human behavioris not purely random, but is “bursty” and predictable, revealing an astonishingdeep order in our actions and reflecting the universality of human behavior.

 

 

Title: “The Geometry of Argument Structure (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory)”

Author: Janet Randall, professor of English and director of the linguistics program

Description: In linguistics, linking is one of the challenges for theories of the syntax-semantics interface. In this new approach, the author explores the hypothesis that the positions of syntactic arguments are strictly determined by lexical argument geometry. Through careful argumentation and original analysis, her study provides a framework for explaining the linking patterns of a range of verb classes, leading to a number of insights about lexical structure and a radical rethinking of many verb classes.

 

Title: “The Food Axis: Cooking, Eating, and the Architecture of American Houses”

Author: Elizabeth Cromley, professor of architecture

Description: This book is an architectural history that approaches the understanding of domestic architecture through the set of spaces and functions related to food. It focuses on the way that changes in people’s preferred modes of food storage, preservation, preparation and the serving of meals acted as agents of change for the design of houses and their nearby landscapes. The book traces changes in food spaces through the years, noting a steady escalation in the number of food-related rooms in the American home.

 

Title: “Market Driven Supply Chains”

Author: Amiya K. Chakravarty, Philip R. McDonald Chair and Professor of operations and technology management

Description: This book shows how supply chain management directly impacts the competitiveness and financial performance of a company. It provides modeling approaches for new problems along with discussion of case studies and other examples. This book is appropriate for academics and industrial practitioners, and would be of great value to graduate students in business and engineering.

 

 

Title: “The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914″

Author: Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, professor of history

Description: This book establishes the existence of radicalism spanning four continents and linking Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria between 1860 and 1914. It shows that socialist and anarchist ideas were regularly discussed, disseminated, and reworked among intellectuals, workers, dramatists, Egyptians, Ottoman Syrians, ethnic Italians, Greeks and many others in these cities. In situating the Middle East within the context of world history, Khuri-Makdisi challenges nationalist and elite narratives of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern history as well as Eurocentric ideas about global radical movements.