For millennia, human beings have reported hearing 'voices'. These experiences have been a source of fascination, sometimes because they spoke of revelation, sometimes because they presaged madness and destruction. From Socrates to the Yorkshire Ripper, the impact of voices upon human society has been considerable. But after all this time what can we really say about their causes, their meaning and their treatment? In the special issue of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Spence and David have edited a contemporary synthesis of what is known about voices ('auditory verbal hallucinations', AVH). Contributions are drawn from an internationally renowned panel of authors, most of whom contributed to a symposium held in Sheffield, England in September 2002 ('Voices in the Brain: The Cognitive Neuropsychiatry of Auditory Verbal Hallucinations'). Topics included in this special issue are: a contemporary voice hearer's perspective on voices and their treatment (Cockshutt); a phenomenological-hermeneutic interpretation of the content of 'voice speech' (Thomas, Bracken & Leudar); a review of the evidence for cognitive interventions used to treat AVH in a group setting (Wykes); a structured literature review of evidence for and against 3 cognitive models of AVH (Seal, Aleman & McGuire); a review of the functional neuroimaging literature on AVH and proposed directions for future discovery (Woodruff); the use of 'virtual acoustics' to model hallucinations in healthy subjects in the brain scanner (Hunter); a critique of contrasting cognitive models of the AVH phenomenon (David), an evolutionary account of schizophrenic voices and the place of language in human speciation (Crow); and the phenomology of a saint who was burned at the stake.

‘Highly eloquent, fascinating and deeply compassionate’ Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm We cannot know how to fix a problem until we understand its causes. But even for some of the most common mental health problems, specialists argue over whether the answers lie in the person’s biology, their psychology or their circumstances. As a cognitive neuropsychiatrist, Anthony David brings together many fields of enquiry, from social and cognitive psychology to neurology. The key for each patient might be anything from a traumatic memory to a chemical imbalance, an unhealthy way of thinking or a hidden tumour. Patrick believes he is dead. Jennifer's schizophrenia medication helped with her voices but did it cause Parkinson’s? Emma is in a coma – or is she just refusing to respond?  Drawing from Professor David’s career as a clinician and academic, these fascinating case studies reveal the unique complexity of the human mind, stretching the limits of our understanding.

The complexity of modern computer networks and systems, combined with the extremely dynamic environments in which they operate, is beginning to outpace our ability to manage them. Taking yet another page from the biomimetics playbook, the autonomic computing paradigm mimics the human autonomic nervous system to free system developers and administrators from performing and overseeing low-level tasks. Surveying the current path toward this paradigm, Autonomic Computing: Concepts, Infrastructure, and Applications offers a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art research and implementations in this emerging area. This book begins by introducing the concepts and requirements of autonomic computing and exploring the architectures required to implement such a system. The focus then shifts to the approaches and infrastructures, including control-based and recipe-based concepts, followed by enabling systems, technologies, and services proposed for achieving a set of "self-*" properties, including self-configuration, self-healing, self-optimization, and self-protection. In the final section, examples of real-world implementations reflect the potential of emerging autonomic systems, such as dynamic server allocation and runtime reconfiguration and repair. Collecting cutting-edge work and perspectives from leading experts, Autonomic Computing: Concepts, Infrastructure, and Applications reveals the progress made and outlines the future challenges still facing this exciting and dynamic field.

Schizophrenia is being increasingly viewed as a neurological disorder. This book addresses the key questions in modern schizophrenia research. How do abnormalities of the brain produce the characteristic signs and symptoms of this most severe and mysterious malady? Where are these abnormalities? How do they develop? How can we detect them? What clinical and cognitive effects do they have?; This book tackles these questions in a systematic way from a number of allied perspectives, from phenomenology to physiology, from animal behaviour to metacognition, and from PET scans to paper and pencil tests. Each chapter contains a concise review of the particular topic, empirical data and a theoretical overview.

An international team focuses on current models of self-consciousness from neurosciences and psychiatry in this collection of essays. These are set against introductory essays describing philosophical, historical and psychological approaches. Neuroscience has recently contributed important insights to the concept and construction of the self from conditions, such as schizophrenia, in which the self becomes disordered and can be studied against healthy controls through experiment, building cognitive models of how the mind works, and imaging brain states.

An international team focuses on current models of self-consciousness from neurosciences and psychiatry in this collection of essays. These are set against introductory essays describing philosophical, historical and psychological approaches. Neuroscience has recently contributed important insights to the concept and construction of the self from conditions, such as schizophrenia, in which the self becomes disordered and can be studied against healthy controls through experiment, building cognitive models of how the mind works, and imaging brain states.

Few people thought as deeply or incisively about Germany, Jewish identity, and the Holocaust as Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem. And, as this landmark volume reveals, much of that thinking was developed in dialogue, through more than two decades of correspondence. Arendt and Scholem met in 1932 in Berlin and quickly bonded over their mutual admiration for and friendship with Walter Benjamin. They began exchanging letters in 1939, and their lively correspondence continued until 1963, when Scholem's vehement disagreement with Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem led to a rupture that would last until Arendt's death a dozen years later. The years of their friendship, however, yielded a remarkably rich bounty of letters: together, they try to come to terms with being both German and Jewish, the place and legacy of Germany before and after the Holocaust, the question of what it means to be Jewish in a post-Holocaust world, and more. Walter Benjamin is a constant presence, as his life and tragic death are emblematic of the very questions that preoccupied the pair. Like any collection of letters, however, the book also has its share of lighter moments: accounts of travels, gossipy dinner parties, and the quotidian details that make up life even in the shadow of war and loss. In a world that continues to struggle with questions of nationalism, identity, and difference, Arendt and Scholem remain crucial thinkers. This volume offers us a way to see them, and the development of their thought, anew.

A "New York Times Book Review" Editors' Choice
A teacher, a scholar, a philosopher, and an eyewitness to history, Sari Nusseibeh is one of our most urgent and articulate authorities on the conflict in the Middle East. From his time teaching side by side with Israelis at the Hebrew University through his appointment by Yasir Arafat to administer the Arab Jerusalem, he has held fast to the principles of freedom and equality for all, and his story dramatizes the consequences of war, partition, and terrorism as few other books have done. This autobiography brings rare depth and compassion to the story of his country.

My Book of P.E.M.S. is a combination of things. What they represent most are a reflection of my relationships in the past. They are a pure emotion and they come from within my mind and soul. I feel I have reach a point in my life where the world can know how I felt instead of judge me for the decisions I have made along my way.

In the twenty five years since this essay was written as a biology master's thesis at Harvard University, many of the ideas originally presented as extrapolation of fact and speculation have been borne out and vindicated by recent scientific and medical research, and have been popularized in the press. This book is an updated recapitulation of that earlier thesis, which discusses that early evidence and extrapolation, supported by new evidence from psychoneuroimmunology, neurology, behavioral neuroscience, endocrinology and immunology. As it did then, it indicates how the brain and body produce emotional and placebo responses. It examines the placebo response principally as a reward function and proposes, on that basis, how the technology of Rewarding Deep Brain Stimulation, Rewarding Self-Administration and Transcranial Magnetic Brain Stimulation can be employed in the production of ebullient emotions and in the creation of placebo responses. In general, that technology may be used to maintain health, and as part of therapeutic treatments for disease states. Moreover, this book discusses how that technology can be instructive in the development of self-control tecniques that do not require technology for "on demand" ebullient and placebo responses.