Proposes a new paradigm to investigate an individual’s cognitive deliberation in dynamic human-machine interactions Today, intelligent machines enable people to interact remotely with friends, family, romantic partners, colleagues, competitors, organizations, and others. Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), mobile social media, and other technologies have been driving these interactions to an unprecedented level. As the complexity in system control and management with human participants increases, engineers are facing challenges that arise from the uncertainty of operators or users. Parallel Population and Parallel Human: A Cyber-Physical Social Approach presents systemic solutions for modeling, analysis, computation, and management of individuals’ cognition and decision-making in human-participated systems, such as the MetaVerse. With a virtual-real behavioral approach that seeks to actively prescribe user behavior through cognitive and dynamic learning, the authors present a parallel population/human model for optimal prescriptive control and management of complex systems that leverages recent advances in artificial intelligence. Throughout the book, the authors address basic theory and methodology for modeling, describe various implementation techniques, highlight potential acceleration technologies, discuss application cases from different fields, and more. In addition, the text: Considers how an individual’s behavior is formed and how to prescribe their behavioral modes Describes agent-based computation for complex social systems based on a synthetic population from realistic individual groups Proposes a universal algorithm applicable to a wide range of social organization types Extends traditional cognitive modeling by utilizing a dynamic approach to investigate cognitive deliberation in highly time-variant tasks Presents a new method that can be used for both large-scale social systems and real-time human-machine interactions without extensive experiments for modeling Parallel Population and Parallel Human: A Cyber-Physical Social Approach is a must-read for researchers, engineers, scientists, professionals, and graduate students who work on systems engineering, human-machine interaction, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence.

With breadth and depth of coverage, the Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology, Second Edition has a multi-disciplinary scope, drawing together comprehensive coverage of the inter-related aspects of computer science and technology. The topics covered in this encyclopedia include: General and reference Hardware Computer systems organization Networks Software and its engineering Theory of computation Mathematics of computing Information systems Security and privacy Human-centered computing Computing methodologies Applied computing Professional issues Leading figures in the history of computer science The encyclopedia is structured according to the ACM Computing Classification System (CCS), first published in 1988 but subsequently revised in 2012. This classification system is the most comprehensive and is considered the de facto ontological framework for the computing field. The encyclopedia brings together the information and historical context that students, practicing professionals, researchers, and academicians need to have a strong and solid foundation in all aspects of computer science and technology.

We live in a complex and dynamically changing acoustic environment. To this end, the auditory cortex of humans has developed the ability to process a remarkable amount of diverse acoustic information with apparent ease. In fact, a phylogenetic comparison of auditory systems reveals that human auditory association cortex in particular has undergone extensive changes relative to that of other species, although our knowledge of this remains incomplete. In contrast to other senses, human auditory cortex receives input that is highly pre-processed in a number of sub-cortical structures; this suggests that even primary auditory cortex already performs quite complex analyses. At the same time, much of the functional role of the various sub-areas in human auditory cortex is still relatively unknown, and a more sophisticated understanding is only now emerging through the use of contemporary electrophysiological and neuroimaging techniques. The integration of results across the various techniques signify a new era in our knowledge of how human auditory cortex forms basis for auditory experience. This volume on human auditory cortex will have two major parts. In Part A, the principal methodologies currently used to investigate human auditory cortex will be discussed. Each chapter will first outline how the methodology is used in auditory neuroscience, highlighting the challenges of obtaining data from human auditory cortex; second, each methods chapter will provide two or (at most) three brief examples of how it has been used to generate a major result about auditory processing. In Part B, the central questions for auditory processing in human auditory cortex are covered. Each chapter can draw on all the methods introduced in Part A but will focus on a major computational challenge the system has to solve. This volume will constitute an important contemporary reference work on human auditory cortex. Arguably, this will be the first and most focused book on this critical neurological structure. The combination of different methodological and experimental approaches as well as a diverse range of aspects of human auditory perception ensures that this volume will inspire novel insights and spurn future research.

Paul Spencer presents the definitive study of the ways of life of the cattle-herding peoples of East Africa, drawing on many years of research. This region has offered a prime example of a traditional culture resisting the inevitability of change; it provides the best-known and most extensive instance both of cattle-pastoralist society and of social organization based primarily on age. Pastoral peoples were once dominant in the East African interior, but development of the market economy has progressively polarized the region and forced them into the most marginal, drought-ridden areas; in this ecological trap they have become a peripheral underclass. The Pastoral Continuum examines the richness and resilience of their cultures and illuminates the role of indigenous practices and institutions in adaptation and survival. The pastoralists' systems of age organization in particular are notable for their resilience: it is demonstrated that these are bound up with problems of growth and succession in family enterprises, and that marriage is a critical link in the web of alliance that governs the problematic relations between old and young. Spencer's exploration of the development of the pastoralist phenomenon yields a unique view of its place in the modern world and its prospects for the future. This landmark work by a leading authority will be of lasting value to any reader interested in traditional social systems of this kind.

Educators play a significant role in the intellectual and social development of children and young adults. Next-generation teachers can only be as strong as their own educational foundation which serves to cultivate their knowledge of the learning process, uncover best practices in the field of education, and employ leadership abilities that will inspire students of all ages. Teacher Education: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications explores the current state of pre-service teacher programs as well as continuing education initiatives for in-service educators. Emphasizing the growing role of technology in teacher skill development and training as well as key teaching methods and pedagogical developments, this multi-volume work compiles research essential to higher education professionals and administrators, educational software developers, and researchers studying pre-service and in-service teacher training.

Cities occupy about 3 per cent of the Earth's habitable land area and are home to one out of two humans worldwide; both estimates are predicted to grow. Urban space is thus becoming an important, novel ecological niche for humans and wildlife alike. Building on knowledge gathered by urban ecologists during the last half century, evidence of evolutionary responses to urbanization has rapidly emerged. Urban evolutionary biology is a nascent yet fast-growing field of research--and a fascinating testing ground for evolutionary biologists worldwide. Urbanization offers a great range of opportunities to examine evolutionary processes because of the radically altered and easily quantifiable urban habitat, and the large number of cities worldwide, enabling rigorous, replicated tests of evolutionary hypotheses. Urban populations are increasingly exhibiting both neutral and adaptive evolutionary changes at levels ranging from genotypes to phenotypes. The novelty of urban evolutionary biology is that these changes are driven by the cities we have built, including effects of infrastructure, pollution, and social characteristics of our urban neighbourhoods. It will thereby enrich the field of evolutionary biology with emergent yet incredibly potent new research themes where the urban habitat is key. In a series of sixteen chapters written by leading evolutionary biologists working on urban drivers of evolution, Urban Evolutionary Biology is the first academic book in the field. It synthesizes current knowledge on evolutionary processes occurring literally on our doorstep, across the globe, and in each city independently.--Provided by publisher.

In the hundred years ending in 1930, an estimated 2.8 million Canadians moved south of the 49th Parallel and settled in the United States. The human and technical resources they brought made Canadian immigrants integral to the growth of New England, the Great Lakes region, and the west coast. Crossing the 49th Parallel is the first book to encompass that entire, continent-wide population shift. It brings Canadian migration to the center of both Canadian and U.S. history. Bruno Ramirez researches the contents of previously unused border records to bring to light the wide variety of local contexts and historical circumstances that led Canadian men, women, and children to cross the border and become key actors in the U.S. economy and society. Ramirez goes beyond these statistical data, consulting qualitative sources and case studies to reveal the motives and aspirations of individuals and family groups. The comparative perspective of Crossing the 49th Parallel allows Ramirez to explain the distinctive roles of French- and Anglo-Canadians in the immigrant movement. By shifting the viewpoint from a continental to a transatlantic one, Ramirez also unveils Canada's important role in international migration; it served as a temporary destination for many Europeans who subsequently remigrated to the United States.

Twenty years ago, in England, author Richard Leviton "discovered the planet." Following quite specific guidance, he began a long process that amounted to an apprenticeship. "My mentors dispatched me to various specific locations in the Somerset landscape, and at all hours of the night and day. I sat on hills and valleys and rocks under sunlight, moonlight, rain, snow, and fog, and had visions. I started to see another landscape behind the apparent landscape. It was an apparitional landscape with stars, planets, galaxies, angels, spirits of Nature, mythic deities, divinity." As time went on, he found himself talking with angels, visiting celestial cities, and following gnomes. He came to understand that at one level we are the planet, and that both we and it have an intimate relationship with our galaxy. "I found myself living inside the myths of the world as if they were expert scripts for real-life inner adventures. I never once thought I was crazy. Why should I? Quite the opposite. I believed I was finally getting grounded in something real. But it would take me twenty years to make sense of it. That sense is embodied in The Emerald Modem." The Emerald Modem includes: direct correspondences between human chakras and the Earth's energy features--and the galactic originalstables listing locations of sacred sites around the planet where you may experience this relationshipexplanations of world myths, which provide clues to this unsuspected visionary world around us This is the first book to synthesize all the fragments of geomantic perception (sacred sites, energy points, vertexes, etc.) into a global interactive model that ties human consciousness directly to it. Leviton describes 85 subtle features in the planetary landscape, places you can go for mystical experiences. They are features of the Earth's energy body, almost all invisible to conventional sight. But psychic cognition can be trained, and you can usefully interact with any of these types of sites today without seeing what you're doing. Your intent to interact for the benefit of yourself and the planet is all that's required. Just as modems dial us into the Internet, so the features of the Earth's energy body described in The Emerald Modem help us get online with the galaxy. You can learn to visit Grail Castles, experience a Mount Olympus, or walk through the stars in a landscape zodiac--and you can learn enough to become confident that you're not traveling alone.

The last half-century has shown a dramatic increase in the standard of living of millions of people in Europe, North America and many parts of the Third World. This has, in many ways been brought about by scientific and technical developments which were initiated in the 1940s and 1950s. Promises were then made that nuclear energy would provide electricity so cheap that it would not need metering, pesticides would end malnutrition throughout the world and plastics and other synthetic chemicals would revolutionise our manufacturing industry and our way of life. Whilst some of these promises have been fulfilled, the problems of long-term health risks to humans and wildlife arising from the use, production and disposal of these products were either unknown or deliberately understated. Nuclear power is rendered economically unviable when the real cost of decommissioning and storage of waste for several millenia is included, and the effects on health of both humans and wildlife of early pest eradication programmes with organochlorine pesticides were well documented in Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". Evidence of the effects of aerosols and refrigerants on depletion of the ozone layer has led to restriction on the use of CFCs, and there is now increasing evidence of climate change resulting from our profligate use of fossil fuels.