Is it possible to construct an artificial person? Researchers in the field of artificial intelligence have for decades been developing computer programs that emulate human intelligence. This book goes beyond intelligence and describes how close we are to recreating many of the other capacities that make us human. These abilities include learning, creativity, consciousness, and emotion.
Why do some people collapse under certain life conditions, while others remain relatively unscathed? What accounts for the marked variations in people’s responses to stress and adversity? The second edition of this groundbreaking how-to guide has been extensively updated to reflect the field’s growing understanding of the importance of resiliency and protective factors — the positive poles of the human experience — and the importance of their role in forming balanced assessments and responsive interventions.
This book explains how mobile computer usability is shaped by the increasing integration of personal circumstances in organization. It represents an attempt to conceptualize an alternative model of mobile computer usability. It is motivated by the authors conviction that we do not yet have an adequate understanding of this concept because we have not taken seriously the transformation of human personality by the co-evolution of organization and ICTs. The author argues that the transformation has resulted in a human personality whose personal and organizational activities are characterized by strong continuities between them. This characterization reflects a new kind of personality of the worker, and is a critical determinant of mobile computer usability. The word organizational is used to describe this kind of personality hence an alternative organizational personality perspective on mobile computer usability. This perspective suggests that a mobile computer is more usable to a person than another one because of its satisfaction of both his personal and organizational motives, which are in turn shaped by the co-evolution of organization, technology and personality.
Renowned political economist Samir Amin, engaged in a unique lifelong effort both to narrate and affect the human condition on a global scale, brings his analysis up to the present-the world of 2013. The key events of our times-financial crisis, the emerging nations, globalization, financialization, political Islam, Euro-zone implosion-are related in a coherent, historically based, account. Changes in contemporary capitalism require an updating of definitions and analysis of social classes, class struggles, political parties, social movements and the ideological forms in which they express their modes of action in the transformation of societies. Amin meets this challenge and lays bare the reality of monopoly capitalism in its general, global form. Ultimately, Amin demonstrates that this system is not viable and that the implosion in progress is unavoidable. Whether humanity will rise to the challenge of building a more humane global order free of the contradictions of capital, however, is yet to be seen.
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Reminiscent of Aimee Bender and Karen Russellan enthralling new collection that uses the world of the imagination to explore the heart of the human condition.
Cross disciplinary biometric systems help boost the performance of the conventional systems. Not only is the recognition accuracy significantly improved, but also the robustness of the systems is greatly enhanced in the challenging environments, such as varying illumination conditions. By leveraging the cross disciplinary technologies, face recognition systems, fingerprint recognition systems, iris recognition systems, as well as image search systems all benefit in terms of recognition performance. Take face recognition for an example, which is not only the most natural way human beings recognize the identity of each other, but also the least privacy-intrusive means because people show their face publicly every day. Face recognition systems display superb performance when they capitalize on the innovative ideas across color science, mathematics, and computer science (e.g., pattern recognition, machine learning, and image processing). The novel ideas lead to the development of new color models and effective color features in color science; innovative features from wavelets and statistics, and new kernel methods and novel kernel models in mathematics; new discriminant analysis frameworks, novel similarity measures, and new image analysis methods, such as fusing multiple image features from frequency domain, spatial domain, and color domain in computer science; as well as system design, new strategies for system integration, and different fusion strategies, such as the feature level fusion, decision level fusion, and new fusion strategies with novel similarity measures.
Human action analysis and recognition is a relatively mature field, yet one which is often not well understood by students and researchers. The large number of possible variations in human motion and appearance, camera viewpoint, and environment, present considerable challenges. Some important and common problems remain unsolved by the computer vision community. However, many valuable approaches have been proposed over the past decade, including the motion history image (MHI) method. This method has received significant attention, as it offers greater robustness and performance than other techniques. This work presents a comprehensive review of these state-of-the-art approaches and their applications, with a particular focus on the MHI method and its variants.
This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of our understanding of the causes and consequences of violence. Represented in its chapters are noted scholars from a variety of fields including psychology, anthropology, law, and literature. The contributions reflect a broad scope of inquiry and diverse levels of analysis. With an underlying evolutionary theme each of the contributors invoke their separate areas of expertise, offering empirical and theoretical insights to this complex subject. The multi-faceted aspect of the book is meant to engender new perspectives that will synthesize current knowledge and lead to a more nuanced understanding of an ever timely issue in human behavior. Of additional interest, is a foreword written by world renowned psychologist, Steven Pinker, and an afterword by noted evolutionary scholar, Richard Dawkins.
Living involves being exposed to pain every secondnot necessarily as an insistent reality, but always as a possibility, writes Arne Vetlesen in A Philosophy of Pain, a thought-provoking look at an inevitable and essential aspect of the human condition. Here, Vetlesen addresses pain in many forms, including the pain inflicted during torture; the pain suffered in disease; the pain accompanying anxiety, grief, and depression; and the pain brought by violence. He examines the dual nature of pain: how we attempt to avoid it as much as possible in our daily lives, and yet conversely, we obtain a thrill from seeking it.
This book outlines a framework for analysis of marine resource management incorporating ecological and economic considerations and technological feasibility. Ecologonomics – a new emerging science combining economic and ecological concepts and principles – is introduced. Its use in studying changes in natural processes occurring in the marine environment in combination with analysing economic consequences of human impact on marine ecosystems is demonstrated. A unique book, which offers a rare insight into the research achievements of Russian scientists.
Evil is a problem that will not go away. For some it is an inescapable fact of the human condition. For others ‘evil’ is a term that should only be used to name the most horrible of crimes. Still others think that the worst problem lies with the abuse of the term: using it to vilify a misunderstood enemy. No matter how we approach it, ‘evil’ is a concept that continues to call out for critical reflection.
The Earth has limited material and energy resources. Further development of the humanity will require going beyond our planet for mining and use of extraterrestrial mineral resources and search of power sources. The exploitation of the natural resources of the Moon is a first natural step on this direction. Lunar materials may contribute to the betterment of conditions of people on Earth but they also may be used to establish permanent settlements on the Moon. This will allow developing new technologies, systems and flight operation techniques to continue space exploration. In fact, a new branch of human civilization could be established permanently on Moon in the next century. But, meantime, an inventory and proper social assessment of Moons prospective energy and material resources is required. This book investigates the possibilities and limitations of various systems supplying manned bases on Moon with energy and other vital resources. The book collects together recent proposals and innovative options and solutions. It is a useful source of condensed information for specialists involved in current and impending Moon-related activities and a good starting point for young researchers.
A management professor and a religion professor team up to provide a fresh, penetrating look at the obstacles that prevent people from achieving their full potential. As authors Charles Watson and Thomas Idinopulos demonstrate, inner demons like a lack of integrity, mindless conformity, passivity, or greed conspire to keep people from doing their best. But people can avoid becoming their own worst enemies by using their uniquely human capacities to their fullestto be more responsible, more creative, more self-disciplined, and more honest. Using these strengths, the authors show, makes it easier to resolve ethical dilemmas, attain peak performance without burning out, maintain a positive outlook, and, ultimately, succeed in achieving treasured personal and professional goals.
North-East India, comprising the seven contiguous states around Assam, the principal state of the region, is a relatively unknown, yet very fascinating region. The forest clad peripheral mountains, home to indigenous peoples like the Nagas, Mizos and the Khasis, the densely populated Brahmaputra valley with its lush green tea gardens and the golden rice fields, the moderately populated hill regions and plateaus, and the sparsely inhabited Himalayas, form a unique mosaic of natural and cultural landscapes and human interactions, with unparalleled diversity.
This is the first biography of the last and greatest British idealist philosopher, R. G. Collingwood (1889-1943), a man who both thought and lived at full pitch. Best known today for his philosophies of history and art, Collingwood was also a historian, archaeologist, sailor, artist, and musician. A figure of enormous energy and ambition, he took as his subject nothing less than the whole of human endeavor, and he lived in the same way, seeking to experience the complete range of human passion. In this vivid and swiftly paced narrative, Fred Inglis tells the dramatic story of a remarkable life, from Collingwood’s happy Lakeland childhood to his successes at Oxford, his archaeological digs as a renowned authority on Roman Britain, his solo sailing adventures in the English Channel, his long struggle with illness, and his sometimes turbulent romantic life.
A compulsively readable, deeply human novel that examines our most basic and unquenchable emotion: want. With his critically acclaimed first novel, Jonathan Miles was widely praised as a comic genius after something bigger (David Ulin, Los Angeles Times) whose fiction was not just philosophically but emotionally rewarding (Richard Russo, New York Times Book Review, front cover).
Renowned for her effective learning systems, respected author Sylvia Mader has helped thousands of entry-level students understand and enjoy the principles of human anatomy and physiology. Mader expertly weaves up-to-date informative content with effective learning systems, piecing together the facts and fascination of human anatomy and physiology. With the fifth edition of Understanding Human Anatomy and Physiology, your introductory, one-semester students have the opportunity to experience an effective blend of up-to-date, informational content with several new features and an extensively enhanced multimedia support system.
Designed for the one-semester anatomy and physiology course, Hole’s Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology assumes no prior science knowledge and supports core topics with clinical applications, making difficult concepts relevant to students pursuing careers in the allied health field. The unparalleled teaching system is highly effective in providing students with a solid understanding of the important concepts in anatomy and physiology.
This is the first in-depth study of the English neurologist and polymath Sir Henry Head (1861-1940). Head bridged the gap between science and the arts. He was a published poet who had close links with such figures as Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon. His research into the nervous system and the relationship between language and the brain broke new ground. L S Jacyna argues that these advances must be contextualised within wider Modernist debates about perception and language. In his time, Head was best known for his research into the human nervous system, but also worked on the localization of the language function within the brain. Head radically revised current ideas about the physiological basis of language. As well as its impact on medicine and biology, this work was seen to have implications for other disciplines including linguistics and social anthropology. This important new study draws upon a wide range of previously unpublished resources.
