In the light of mass migration, the rise of nationalism and the resurgence of global terrorism, this timely volume brings the debate on border protection, security and control to the centre stage of international relations research. Rather than analysing borders as mere lines of territorial demarcation in a geopolitical sense, it sheds new light on their changing role in defining and negotiating identity, authority, security, and social and economic differences. Bringing together innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives, the book examines the nexus of authority, society, technology and culture, while also providing in-depth analyses of current international conflicts. Regional case studies comprise the Ukraine crisis, Nagorno-Karabakh, the emergence of new territorial entities such as ISIS, and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, as well as the contestation and re-construction of borders in the context of transnational movements. Bringing together theoretical, empirical and conceptual contributions by international scholars, this Yearbook of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs offers novel perspectives on hotly debated issues in contemporary politics, and will be of interest to researchers, graduate students and political decision makers alike.

In the light of mass migration, the rise of nationalism and the resurgence of global terrorism, this timely volume brings the debate on border protection, security and control to the centre stage of international relations research. Rather than analysing borders as mere lines of territorial demarcation in a geopolitical sense, it sheds new light on their changing role in defining and negotiating identity, authority, security, and social and economic differences. Bringing together innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives, the book examines the nexus of authority, society, technology and culture, while also providing in-depth analyses of current international conflicts. Regional case studies comprise the Ukraine crisis, Nagorno-Karabakh, the emergence of new territorial entities such as ISIS, and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, as well as the contestation and re-construction of borders in the context of transnational movements. Bringing together theoretical, empirical and conceptual contributions by international scholars, this Yearbook of the Austrian Institute for International Affairs offers novel perspectives on hotly debated issues in contemporary politics, and will be of interest to researchers, graduate students and political decision makers alike.

This book presents a fascinating and self-contained account of "recruitment learning", a model and theory of fast learning in the neocortex. In contrast to the more common attractor network paradigm for long- and short-term memory, recruitment learning focuses on one-shot learning or "chunking" of arbitrary feature conjunctions that co-occur in single presentations. The book starts with a comprehensive review of the historic background of recruitment learning, putting special emphasis on the ground-breaking work of D.O. Hebb, W.A.Wickelgren, J.A.Feldman, L.G.Valiant, and L. Shastri. Afterwards a thorough mathematical analysis of the model is presented which shows that recruitment is indeed a plausible mechanism of memory formation in the neocortex. A third part extends the main concepts towards state-of-the-art spiking neuron models and dynamic synchronization as a tentative solution of the binding problem. The book further discusses the possible role of adult neurogenesis for recruitment. These recent developments put the theory of recruitment learning at the forefront of research on biologically inspired memory models and make the book an important and timely contribution to the field.

This book presents a fascinating and self-contained account of "recruitment learning," a model and theory of fast learning in the neocortex. In contrast to the more common attractor network paradigm for long- and short-term memory, recruitment learning focuses on one-shot learning or "chunking" of arbitrary feature conjunctions that co-occur in single presentations. The book starts with a comprehensive review of the historic background of recruitment learning, putting special emphasis on the ground-breaking work of D.O. Hebb, W.A.Wickelgren, J.A.Feldman, L.G.Valiant, and L. Shastri. Afterwards a thorough mathematical analysis of the model is presented which shows that recruitment is indeed a plausible mechanism of memory formation in the neocortex. A third part extends the main concepts towards state-of-the-art spiking neuron models and dynamic synchronization as a tentative solution of the binding problem. The book further discusses the possible role of adult neurogenesis for recruitment. These recent developments put the theory of recruitment learning at the forefront of research on biologically inspired memory models and make the book an important and timely contribution to the field.

From Islamists to Muslim Democrats? deals with the transformation of Islamist movements in Egypt and Turkey against the background of thorough socio-economic and political change in both societies. In both of these two key countries of the region Islamist bottom-up movements have gained momentum and increasingly challenged the secular regimes. However, instead of demonising Islamism, the study suggests to look into the dynamics within these movements. Particularly, economic liberalisation and globalisation have induced a process of de-ideologisation. A new generation of Islamists have adapted their lifestyles and worldviews to market economy. The outcome has been a value-centred notion of Islam which is seemingly compatible with liberal economy and pluralist democracy. As an emergent, well educated and economically successful class, they demand for participation. Promoting universal values as human rights, the freedom of speech and democracy, they have given hope for the democratisation of Middle Eastern societies. The question is; what kind of democracy?