Until recently, the study of industrial relations centred around trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes - often in the manufacturing industry. Union decline and de-industrialization in the advanced capitalist world have raised major issues about the relevance of this focus. As a result, there is growing interest in alternative forms of worker representation, often in conjunction with Human Resource Management. Union decline is by no means universal, however, even in Europe, and there are regions of the world (South East Asia, some African countries and parts of Latin America) where...

We are crossing a new frontier in the evolution of computing and entering the era of cognitive systems. The victory of IBM's Watson on the television quiz show Jeopardy revealed how scientists and engineers at IBM and elsewhere are pushing the boundaries of science and technology to create machines that sense, learn, reason, and interact with people in new ways to provide insight and advice.

In Smart Machines, John E. Kelly III, director of IBM Research, and Steve Hamm, a writer at IBM and a former business and technology journalist, introduce the fascinating world of...