Smart Cities and Homes: Key Enabling Technologies explores the fundamental principles and concepts of the key enabling technologies for smart cities and homes, disseminating the latest research and development efforts in the field through the use of numerous case studies and examples. Smart cities use digital technologies embedded across all their functions to enhance the wellbeing of citizens. Cities that utilize these technologies report enhancements in power efficiency, water use, traffic congestion, environmental protection, pollution reduction, senior citizens care, public safety and security, literacy rates, and more. This book brings together the most important breakthroughs and advances in a coherent fashion, highlighting the interconnections between the works in different areas of computing, exploring both new and emerging computer networking systems and other computing technologies, such as wireless sensor networks, vehicle ad hoc networks, smart girds, cloud computing, and data analytics and their roles in creating environmentally friendly, secure, and prosperous cities and homes. Intended for researchers and practitioners, the book discusses the pervasive and cooperative computing technologies that will perform a central role for handling the challenges of urbanization and demographic change.

Did the universe begin to exist? If so, did it have a cause? Or could it have come into existence uncaused, from nothing? These questions are taken up by the medieval-though recently-revived-kalam cosmological argument, which has arguably been the most discussed philosophical argument for God's existence in recent decades. The kalam's line of reasoning maintains that the series of past events cannot be infinite but rather is finite. Since the universe could not have come into being uncaused, there must be a transcendent cause of the universe's beginning, a conclusion supportive of theism. This anthology on the philosophical arguments for the finitude of the past asks: Is an infinite series of past events metaphysically possible? Should actual infinites be restricted to theoretical mathematics, or can an actual infinite exist in the concrete world? These essays by kalam proponents and detractors engage in lively debate about the nature of infinity and its conundrums; about frequently-used kalam argument paradoxes of Tristram Shandy, the Grim Reaper, and Hilbert's Hotel; and about the infinity of the future.

'A most welcome book on the most neglected of topics by a pioneering team of interdisciplinary scholars. The volume illuminates the rendering asunder of the borders that previously protected personal information, even when the individual was in ''public'' and helps us see the muddying of the simple distinction between public and private. The book asks what public and private mean (and should mean) today as smart phones, embedded sensors and related devices overwhelm the barriers of space, time, physicality, and inefficiency that previously protected information. This collection offers a needed foundation for future conceptualization and research on privacy in literal and virtual public spaces. It should be in the library of anyone interested in the social, policy and ethical implications of information technologies.' - Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 'How we should think about privacy in public spaces in a world of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous sensors is among the most interesting and pressing questions in all of privacy studies. This edited volume brings together some of Europe and America's finest minds to shed theoretic and practical light on a critical issue of our time.' - Ryan Calo, University of Washington 'The deepest conundrum in the privacy world-especially, in light of the internet of other people's things-is perhaps the notion of privacy in public. Unraveling this practically Kantian antinomy is the ambitious aim of this important new collection. Together and apart, this intriguing assemblage of scientists, social scientists, philosophers and lawyers interrogate subjects ranging from conceptual distinctions between ''space'' and ''place'' and the social practice of ''hiding in plain sight'', to compelling ideas such as ''privacy pollution'' and the problem of ''out-of-body DNA''. With this edited volume, the team from TILT has curated a convincing account of the importance of preserving privacy in increasingly public spaces.' - Ian Kerr, University of Ottawa, Canada With ongoing technological innovations such as mobile cameras, WiFi tracking, drones, and augmented reality, aspects of citizens' lives are becoming increasingly vulnerable to intrusion. This book brings together authors from a variety of disciplines (philosophy, law, political science, economics, and media studies) to examine privacy in public space from both legal and regulatory perspectives. The contributors explore the contemporary challenges to achieving privacy and anonymity in physical public space at a time when legal protection remains limited in comparison to `private' space. To address this problem, the book clearly demonstrates why privacy in public space needs defending. Different ways of conceptualizing and shaping such protection are explored, for example through `privacy bubbles', obfuscation and surveillance transparency, as well as by revising the assumptions underlying current privacy laws. Scholars and students who teach and study issues of privacy, autonomy, technology, urban geography and the law and politics of public spaces will be interested in this book. Contributors include: M. Brincker, A. Daly, A.M. Froomkin, M. Galic, J.M. Hildebrand, B.-J. Koops, M. Leta, K. Mause, M. Nagenborg, B.C Newell, A.E. Scherr, T. Timan, S.B. Zhao

Exploring the connections between technology, emotions, and behaviors is increasingly important as we spend more and more time online and in digital environments. Technology, Emotions, and Behavior explains the role of technology in the evolution of both emotions and behaviors, and their interaction with each other. It discusses emotion modeling, distraction, and contagion as related to digital narrative and virtual spaces. It examines issues of trust and technology, behaviors used by individuals who are cut off from technology, and how individuals use technology to cope after disasters such as Hurricane Sandy. Technology, Emotions and Behaviors ends by exploring the construct of empathy and perspective-taking through online videos and socially shared activities. Practitioners and researchers will find this text useful in their work.

Studying religion in college or university? This book shows you how to perform well on your course tests and examinations, write successful papers, and participate meaningfully in class discussions. You'll learn new skills and also enhance existing ones, which you can put into practice with in-text exercises and assignments. Written by two award-winning instructors, this book identifies the close reading of texts, material culture, and religious actions as the fundamental skill for the study of religion at undergraduate level. It shows how critical analytical thinking about religious actions and ideas is founded on careful, patient, yet creative "reading" of religious stories, rituals, objects, and spaces. The book leads you through the description, analysis, and interpretation of examples from multiple historical periods, cultures, and religious traditions, including primary source material such as Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord's Prayer), the Gohonzon scroll of the Japanese new religion Soka Gakkai, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). It provides you with typical assignments you will encounter in your studies, showing you how you might approach tasks such as reflective, interpretive or summary essays. Visit www.bloomsbury.com/cw/the-religious-studies-skills-book/ for further resources, including bibliographies and links to useful podcasts.

In public debates over biotechnology, theologians, philosophers, and political theorists have proposed that biotechnology could have significant implications for human nature. They argue that ethical evaluations of biotechnologies that might affect human nature must take these implications into account. In this book, Gerald McKenny examines these important yet controversial arguments, which have in turn been criticized by many moral philosophers and professional bioethicists. He argues that Christian ethics is, in principle, committed to some version of the claim that human nature has normative status in relation to biotechnology. Showing how both criticisms and defences of this claim have often been facile, he identifies, develops, and critically evaluates three versions of the claim, and contributes a fourth, distinctively Christian version to the debate. Focusing on Christian ethics in conversation with secular ethics, McKenny's book is the first thorough analysis of a controversial contemporary issue.

A philosophical analysis of the rationality of the Christian faith and the rationality of science aims at establishing the kind of relationship that should exist between religion and science owing to the human rational capacity as the uniting factor. If the human being is one and that same human being is rational and capable of science and religion, there should be a possibility of a reconciliation of these two domains within his rational capacity. The study takes into consideration the various models of the relationship between science and religion and arrives at the fact that conflicts that seem to arise are always due to lack of intellectual honesty and the failure to accept the limits of one's competence. This is a product of a scientific doctoral research.

The Cognitive Science of Religion introduces students to key empirical studies conducted over the past 25 years in this new and rapidly expanding field. In these studies, cognitive scientists of religion have applied the theories, findings and research tools of the cognitive sciences to understanding religious thought, behaviour and social dynamics. Each chapter is written by a leading international scholar, and summarizes in non-technical language the original empirical study conducted by the scholar. No prior or statistical knowledge is presumed, and studies included range from the classic to the more recent and innovative cases. Students will learn about the theories that cognitive scientists have employed to explain recurrent features of religiosity across cultures and historical eras, how scholars have tested those theories, and what the results of those tests have revealed and suggest. Written to be accessible to undergraduates, this provides a much-needed survey of empirical studies in the cognitive science of religion.

More than ever, emerging technology is assisting individuals with autism in a variety of ways. However, many parents, schools, and special education professionals are not aware of the recent technological developments that are available to assist these individuals. Innovative Technologies to Benefit Children on the Autism Spectrum brings together relevant theoretical frameworks and empirical research concerning the emerging technologies that benefit individuals living with autism. This book is an essential reference source for parents, teachers, special educators, researchers, academics, and other professionals seeking relevant information on the emerging technological advances available for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders.

Since the dawn of civilization, new technologies-from the plow to the locomotive to the computer-have transformed human lives. These changes have often been for the better, but occasionally also for the worse. No matter what consequence, these changes have always been irrevocable and pervasive. Today's new technologies, from the well-connected computer to the digital communication infrastructure, are not exception. They are dramatically changing the way we work, play and live. The central theme of Our Virtual World: The Transformation of Work, Play and Life via Technology is the interplay of the ubiquity of the virtual environment and our evolving interactions in this changed context.

Evolution, Chance, and God looks at the relationship between religion and evolution from a philosophical perspective. This relationship is fascinating, complex and often very controversial, involving myriad issues that are difficult to keep separate from each other. Evolution, Chance, and God introduces the reader to the main themes of this debate and to the theory of evolution, while arguing for a particular viewpoint, namely that evolution and religion are compatible, and that, contrary to the views of some influential thinkers, there is no chance operating in the theory of evolution, a conclusion that has great significance for teleology. One of the main aims of this book is not simply to critique one influential contemporary view that evolution and religion are incompatible, but to explore specific ways of how we might understand their compatibility, as well as the implications of evolution for religious belief. This involves an exploration of how and why God might have created by means of evolution, and what the consequences in particular are for the status of human beings in creation, and for issues such as free will, the objectivity of morality, and the problem of evil. By probing how the theory of evolution and religion could be reconciled, Sweetman says that we can address more deeply key foundational questions concerning chance, design, suffering and morality, and God's way of acting in and through creation.