What does Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition have in common with the chicken that crossed the road? Or James Baldwin's campaign for civil rights with the development of AI? Or even Crossrail and George Bush's 'mission accomplished'?

The Bright Side makes a vital and transformative new argument: that optimism is not only the natural state of humanity, but an essential one. Without optimism we would never have survived the unpredictable - and often hostile - world we evolved into. Yet optimism is not reserved for times of extremity. Its benefits manifest throughout our everyday lives: our relationships, careers, bodies and minds. And it will play a critical role in overcoming the challenges of the twenty-first century.

In this book, astrophysicist-turned-journalist Sumit-Paul Choudhury offers practical suggestions on what it really takes to be an optimist today and, in doing so, provides a powerful manifesto for hope and a much-needed new perspective on our prospects. He shows how, by embracing action, imagination and possibility, we can find a path to the bright side, even - perhaps especially - when the future seems dark.

Both realistic and revolutionary, The Bright Side is a guidebook for troubled times that will make you re-evaluate your habits and outlook.

Applying mechanisms and principles of human intelligence and converging the brain and artificial intelligence (AI) is currently a research trend. The applications of AI in brain simulation are countless. Brain-inspired intelligent systems will improve next-generation information processing by applying theories, techniques, and applications inspired by the information processing principles from the brain. Exploring Future Opportunities of Brain-Inspired Artificial Intelligence focuses on the convergence of AI with brain-inspired intelligence. It presents research on brain-inspired cognitive machines with vision, audition, language processing, and thinking capabilities. Covering topics such as data analysis tools, knowledge representation, and super-resolution, this premier reference source is an essential resource for engineers, developers, computer scientists, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Among the leading vegetable producing countries in the world, India ranks second only after China. Vegetables play pivotal role in mitigating nutritional requirement of the soceity as well as providing employment oppurtunity specially in the agriculture dominated rural agrarian economy of the developing countries like India. Among different kinds of vegetables, cucurbits are a diverse group of vegetables (include pumpkin, bitter gourd, water melon, cucumber, pointed gourd, ridge gourd, bottle gourd etc) cultivated widely all over the South Asian countries including Indian sub-continent. These are basically worm season crops and fetch several biotic and abiotic stresses during their life stages. These stressess considerably affect yield potentiality of several cucurbitaceous vegetables quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Climatic changes and increment in cropping intensity reflected in a remarkable and rapid shift of vegetable ecosystem that ultimately increasing these stresses day by day. Biotic stresses like insect, mite and nematode pests etc. are the most significant biotic stresses which are responsonible limiting yeild reduction as well as quality deterioration of produces. Application of hazardous toxic chemicals to combat the pest problems of cucurbits not only results in residual toxicity in vegetables but also destabilising agro-ecosystem. Again, due to change in climatic condition and introduction of modern agro-technology these problems are becoming very very complex. In this perspectives, updated and alternative information with regard to crop management of cucurbits is a dire need of the hour for successful and remunerative cucurbit production. The book covers all the issues related with these aspects like insect pests, diseases, mites, nematode parasites weeds, environmental stresses, nutrients elaborately with latest information, findings ect. It will be helpfull for agricultural students (both UG as well as PG level including Ph. D.) in India and abroad, horticultural experts, extension workers, policy makers etc. Latest available literatures, ideas, thoughts on these aspects has been incorporated. Related colour photographs has also been incorporated. It will be a treasure of knowledge with regard to management of cucurbitaceous vegetables for better productivity and remunerative cultivation.

Supplying a product to the most customers possible in an effective and cost-efficient way is the primary goal of the sales and distribution sector of a business, since the profits from sales are responsible for the majority of an organization's revenue. However, with countless brands vying for the customers' attention, the ability to create a demand for a product and subsequently supply that demand is often the key to a business's success. There is a need for studies that seek to understand the complementary roles of an organization's sales force and distribution team to ensure relevancy in today's globalized world. Sales and Distribution Management for Organizational Growth is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the organization of sales and the sales force, their geographic deployment, and distribution and channel management including how to develop customer-oriented distribution systems. While highlighting topics including expense control, personnel training, and channel design, this book is ideally designed for business students, marketing professionals, executive members, finance analysts, operations employees, academicians, industry professionals, researchers, and students seeking current research on implementing sales strategy and distribution systems to maximize profits and remain a marketplace competitor.

This book focuses on the fundamentals of blockchain technology along with the means and methods of its integration with Internet of Things (IoT). The book allows the reader to have a deeper understanding of blockchain technology, IoT and various application areas wherein both technologies can be implemented. The book serves the purpose of providing knowledge about the fundamentals of blockchain and IoT to a common reader along with allowing a research scholar to identify some futuristic problem areas that emerge from the convergence of both technologies. Furthermore, the authors discuss relevant application areas such as smart city, e-healthcare, smart travel, etc. throughout the course of the book. The book also talks through a few case studies illustrating the implementation and benefits of using blockchain and IoT. Provides a comprehensive view of blockchain technology and its integration with IoT; Facilitates in having a valuable understanding of various application areas pertaining to blockchain and IoT; Assists the reader in exploring new research areas wherein blockchain and IoT can find their applicability based upon their list of benefits.

This book is a compilation of peer-reviewed papers presented at the International Conference on Machine Intelligence and Data Science Applications, organized by the School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, on September 4 and 5, 2020. The book starts by addressing the algorithmic aspect of machine intelligence which includes the framework and optimization of various states of algorithms. Variety of papers related to wide applications in various fields like image processing, natural language processing, computer vision, sentiment analysis, and speech and gesture analysis have been included with upfront details. The book concludes with interdisciplinary applications like legal, health care, smart society, cyber physical system and smart agriculture. The book is a good reference for computer science engineers, lecturers/researchers in machine intelligence discipline and engineering graduates.

Due to applications in recent electronic appliances and pervasive devices, Automated Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) is of particular interest nowadays. HGR developments have come a long way from the traditional Sign Language Recognition (SLR) systems to innovations such as wearable sensor based electronic devices. A large amount of research on HGR is still on the way, both from the industry and academia, that is working towards introducing more practical gesture recognition systems and associated algorithms. This book highlights state-of-the-art practices in the direction of HGR research. It is organized into five coherent heads: HGR introduction, modalities, and challenges, practical hand segmentation schemes capable of working under cluttered backgrounds, gesture recognition schemes targeting different acquisition mechanisms, solutions sticking to different, practiced methodologies, and conclusions from the HGR works witnessed so far and future options. The book is ideal for undergraduates, researchers at all levels, and the developer community as it provides a basis of information about HGR, as well as new and in-depth research in the field.

This book invokes the Tawhidi ontological foundation of the Qur'anic law and worldview, and is also a study of ta'wil, the esoteric meaning of Qur'anic verses. It presents a comparative analysis between the Tawhidi methodology and the contemporary subject of Shari'ah. Masudul Alam Choudhury brings about a serious criticism of the traditional understanding of Shari'ah as Islamic law contrary to the holistic socio-scientific worldview of the unity of knowledge arising from Tawhid as the law. A bold repudiation of the Islamic traditional understanding and the school of theocracy, Choudhury's critique is in full consonance with the Qur'an and Sunnah. It is critical of the sectarian (madhab) conception of relational independence of facts. Thus the non-creative outlook of Shari'ah contrasts with universality and uniqueness of Tawhid as the analytically established law explaining the monotheistic organic unity of being and becoming in 'everything'. This wide and strict methodological development of the Tawhidi worldview is articulated in this work. The only way that Tawhid and Shari'ah can converge as law is in terms of developing the Tawhidi methodology, purpose and objective of the universal and unique law in consonance with the ontology of Tawhid. Such a convergence in the primal ontological sense of Tawhid is termed as maqasid as-shari'ah al-Tawhid.

This book is a compilation of peer-reviewed papers presented at the International Conference on Machine Intelligence and Data Science Applications, organized by the School of Computer Science, University of Petroleum & Energy Studies, Dehradun, India, during 4-5 September 2020. The book addresses the algorithmic aspect of machine intelligence which includes the framework and optimization of various states of algorithms. Variety of papers related to wide applications in various fields like data-driven industrial IoT, bioinformatics, network and security, autonomous computing and various other aligned areas. The book concludes with interdisciplinary applications like legal, health care, smart society, cyber-physical system and smart agriculture. All papers have been carefully reviewed. The book is of interest to computer science engineers, lecturers/researchers in machine intelligence discipline and engineering graduates.

Under ongoing climate changes, natural and cultivated habitats of major crops are being continuously disturbed. Such conditions impose and exacerbate abiotic and biotic stressors. Drought, salinity, flood, cold, heat, heavy metals, metalloids, oxidants, irradiation, etc. are important abiotic stressors, while diseases and infections caused by plant pathogens, such as fungal agents, bacteria and viruses, are major biotic stresses. In many instances, stresses have become the major limiting factor for agricultural productivity and exert detrimental role on growth and yield of the crops. To help feed an ever increasing world population and to ensure global food security, concerted efforts from scientists and researchers have identified strategies to manage and mitigate the impacts of climate-induced stresses. This book, summarizing their findings, is aimed at crop improvement beyond such kind of barriers, by agronomic practices (genetics, breeding, phenotyping, etc.) and biotechnological applications, including molecular markers, QTL mapping, genetic engineering, transgenesis, tissue culture, various 'omics' technologies and gene editing. It will cover a wide range of topics under environmental challenges, agronomy and agriculture processes, and biotechnological approaches. Additionally, fundamental mechanisms and applied information on stress responses and tolerance will be discussed. This book highlights problems and offers proper solutions for crop stress management with recent information and up-to-date citations. We believe this book is suitable for scientists, researchers and students working in the fields of agriculture, plant science, environmental biology and biotechnology.

This book shares important findings on the application of robotics in industry using advanced mechanisms, including software and hardware. It presents a collection of recent trends and research on various advanced computing paradigms such as soft computing, robotics, smart automation, power control, and uncertainty analysis. The book constitutes the proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Application of Robotics in Industry using Advanced Mechanisms (ARIAM2019), which offered a platform for sharing original research findings, presenting innovative ideas and applications, and comparing notes on various aspects of robotics. The contributions highlight the latest research and industrial applications of robotics, and discuss approaches to improving the smooth functioning of industries. Moreover, they focus on designing solutions for complex engineering problems and designing system components or processes to meet specific needs, with due considerations for public health and safety, including cultural, societal, and environmental considerations. Taken together, they offer a valuable resource for researchers, scientists, engineers, professionals and students alike.

This book presents the building blocks of Islamic economics as meso-science, offering an in-depth study of the Qur'anic worldview of the monotheistic unity of knowledge, which is the universal and unique message of Tawhid in the Qur'an. This primal ontological premise is formalised in an analytical approach that introduces and unpacks the philosophical concepts of ontology, epistemology, and phenomenology in relation to the Tawhidi methodological worldview. The analysis of Qur'anic logical consistency is then cast in a phenomenological perspective by applying the complete model of the unity of knowledge of the Qur'an in a specific study of the Tawhidi methodological approach to Islamic financial-economic theory. In doing so, it tackles the problems of meso-economics given its socio-scientific holism in world affairs. It hones in on the results of the symbiotic modulation of evolutionary learning processes in the world system of the unity of knowledge and its material embedding across knowledge, and knowledge-induced space and time dimensions. The author poses that Shari'ah is only partial in its scope, and excludes an analytical methodological worldview. Shari'ah is thus cast in the midst of a meso-socio-scientific absence of any appertaining methodology. The book is a landmark work in the conceptual and applied understanding of Tawhid as the methodological worldview of the monotheistic unity of knowledge in the meso-socio-scientific realm of 'everything', particularised to Islamic economics. Adopting an inter-disciplinary view integrating various fields, it challenges pervasive Western academic and institutional thinking in terms of economics. It will be of interest to students and researchers in Islamic economics, religious theory, Islamic philosophy, development studies, and finance.

In any field whether scientific, business, or social ethics plays a critical role in determining what is acceptable in a particular community and what is considered taboo. The source of these preconditions is often a complex interweaving of tradition and rational thought. Socio-Cybernetic Study of God and the World-System investigates morality in a socio-scientific worldview, examining the epistemology of existence in conjunction with Islamic monotheistic law to generate a world-system that governs action and reaction in the context of a variety of cognitive and social environments. Readers with backgrounds in finance and economics can utilize this book to construct a more thorough theoretical understanding of their societal and professional associations."

This book comprises select proceedings of the National Conference on Advances in Structural Technology (CoAST 2019). It brings together different applied and technological aspects of structural engineering. The main topics covered in this book include solid mechanics, composite structures, fluid-structure interaction, soil-structure interaction, structural safety, and structural health monitoring. The book also focuses on emerging structural materials and the different behavior of civil, mechanical, and aerospace structural systems. Given its contents, this book will be a useful reference for researchers and practitioners working in structural safety and engineering.

This book reflects more than three decades of research on Cellular Automata (CA), and nearly a decade of work on the application of CA to model biological strings, which forms the foundation of 'A New Kind of Computational Biology' pioneered by the start-up, CARLBio. After a brief introduction on Cellular Automata (CA) theory and functional biology, it reports on the modeling of basic biological strings with CA, starting with the basic nucleotides leading to codon and anti-codon CA models. It derives a more involved CA model of DNA, RNA, the entire translation process for amino acid formation and the evolution of protein to its unique structure and function. In subsequent chapters the interaction of Proteins with other bio-molecules is also modeled. The only prior knowledge assumed necessary is an undergraduate knowledge of computer programming and biology. The book adopts a hands-on, "do-it-yourself" approach to enable readers to apply the method provided to derive the CA rules and comprehend how these are related to the physical 'rules' observed in biology. In a single framework, the authors have presented two branches of science - Computation and Biology. Instead of rigorous molecular dynamics modeling, which the authors describe as a Bottoms-Up model, or relying on the Top-Down new age Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Language (ML) that depends on extensive availability of quality data, this book takes the best from both the Top-Down and Bottoms-up approaches and establishes how the behavior of complex molecules is represented in CA. The CA rules are derived from the basic knowledge of molecular interaction and construction observed in biological world but mapped to a few subset of known results to derive and predict results. This book is useful for students, researchers and industry practitioners who want to explore modeling and simulation of the physical world complex systems from a different perspective. It raises the inevitable the question - 'Are life and the universe nothing but a collection of continuous systems processing information'.

Herbicides constitute about 60% of the total pesticides consumed globally. In India, the use of herbicides started initially in tea gardens and picked up in the 1970s, when the high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat were introduced. Presently, 67 herbicides are registered in the country for controlling weeds in crops including cereals, pulses, oilseeds, fibre and tuber crops, and also in the non-crop situations. These chemicals are becoming increasingly popular because of their efficiency and relatively low cost compared with manual or mechanical weeding operations. The contribution of herbicide to total pesticide use, which was only 10-15% during the first decade of the 21st century, has now increased to about 25% with an annual growth rate of 15-20%, which is much higher than insecticides and fungicides. Though the application of herbicides is minimizing yield loss to a great extent, their residues in the food chain and surface and groundwater create some environmental nuisance particularly to non-target organisms. Research on pesticide residues in India was started during 1970s, when such chemicals were introduced on a greater scale along with high-yielding variety seeds, irrigation and chemical fertilizers for increasing food production. However, the herbicide residue research was not given much emphasis until 1990s. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research initiated a national level programme known as All India Coordinated Research Project on Weed Management through the NRC-Weed Science as the main centre along with some centers of ICAR Institutes and state agricultural universities. Over the last two decades, adequate information was generated on estimation, degradation and mitigation of herbicide residues, which were documented in annual reports, bulletins, monographs and scientific articles. However, there was no consolidated compilation of all the available information providing a critical analysis of herbicide residues. Accordingly, an effort has been made in the publication to compile the available information on herbicide residues in India. This is the first report of its kind which presents the findings of herbicide residues and their interactions in the biotic and abiotic environment. There are 16 chapters contributed by the leading herbicide residue scientists, each describing the present status of herbicide use, crops and cropping systems, monitoring, degradation and mitigation, followed by conclusions and future lines of work. This book will be useful to the weed scientists in general and herbicide residue chemists in particular, besides the policy makers, students and all those concerned with the agricultural production in the country.

This book studies the absolute reality of the Qur'an, which is signified by the struggle of truth against falsehood in the framework of monotheistic unity of knowledge and the unified world-system induced by the consilience of knowledge. In such a framework the absolute reality reveals itself not by religious dogmatism. Rather, the methodology precisely comprises its distinctive parts. These are namely the 'primal ontology' as the foundational explained axiom of monotheistic unity; the 'secondary ontologies' as explanatory replications of the law of unity in the particulars of the world-system; 'epistemology' as the operational model; and 'phenomenology' as the structural nature of events induced by the monotheistic law, that is by knowledge emanating from the law. The imminent methodology remains the unique explanatory reference of all events that take place, advance, and change in continuity across continuums of knowledge, space, and time.