Satire is often defined as a moral and rhetorical art that engages in social critique through wit and ridicule. During its long history it has come in many forms and genres as well as in different types of media (verse, drama, rhetorical performance, prose, cartoons, journalism, film, TV, internet). Here, Nilsson examines American film satire produced during the 1990s and how its style and form cue viewers towards constructing satirical meaning. The study offers an explanation for how a particular selection of films turned material circulating in American culture of the 1990s into satirical experiences for viewers and finds that there are elements of resistance to mainstream culture in the original material: resistance to norms and conventions in politics, to mainstream news channels and Hollywood, and to official American history.

Intelligent agents are employed as the central characters in this new introductory text. Beginning with elementary reactive agents, Nilsson gradually increases their cognitive horsepower to illustrate the most important and lasting ideas in AI. Neural networks, genetic programming, computer vision, heuristic search, knowledge representation and reasoning, Bayes networks, planning, and language understanding are each revealed through the growing capabilities of these agents. The book provides a refreshing and motivating new synthesis of the field by one of AI's master expositors and leading researchers. "Artificial Intelligence: A New Synthesis" takes the reader on a complete tour of this intriguing new world of AI.
* An evolutionary approach provides a unifying theme
* Thorough coverage of important AI ideas, old and new
* Frequent use of examples and illustrative diagrams
* Extensive coverage of machine learning methods throughout the text
* Citations to over 500 references
* Comprehensive index

Previous treatments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) divide the subject into its major areas of application, namely, natural language processing, automatic programming, robotics, machine vision, automatic theorem proving, intelligent data retrieval systems, etc. The major difficulty with this approach is that these application areas are now so extensive, that each could, at best, be only superficially treated in a book of this length. Instead, I have attempted here to describe fundamental AI ideas that underlie many of these applications. My organization of these ideas is not, then, based on the subject matter of their application, but is, instead, based on general computational concepts involving the kinds of data structures used, the types of operations performed on these data struc tures, and the properties of con'trol strategies used by AI systems. I stress, in particular, the important roles played in AI by generalized production systems and the predicate calculus. The notes on which the book is based evolved in courses and seminars at Stanford University and at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Although certain topics treated in my previous book, Problem solving Methods in Artificial Intelligence, are covered here as well, this book contains many additional topics such as rule-based systems, robot problem-solving systems, and structured-object representations."

Based on an interdisciplinary investigation of future visions, scenarios, and case-studies of low carbon innovation taking place across economic domains, Decarbonising Economies analyses the ways in which questions of agency, power, geography and materiality shape the conditions of possibility for a low carbon future. It explores how and why the challenge of changing our economies are variously ascribed to a lack of finance, a lack of technology, a lack of policy and a lack of public engagement, and shows how the realities constraining change are more fundamentally tied to the inertia of our existing high carbon society and limited visions for what a future low carbon world might become. Through showcasing the first seeds of innovation seeking to enable transformative change, Decarbonising Economies will also chart a course for future research and policy action towards our climate goals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This study examines how a particular selection of films turned American cultural material of the 1990s into satirical experiences for viewers and finds that there are elements of resistance to norms and conventions in politics, to mainstream news channels and Hollywood, and to official American history already embedded in the culture.

The papers in this volume were presented at the 14th Symposium on Fun- mentals of Computation Theory. The symposium was established in 1977 as a biennial event for researchers interested in all aspects of theoretical computer science, in particular in al- rithms, complexity, and formal and logical methods. The previous FCT con- rences were held in the following cities: Poznan (Poland, 1977), Wendisch-Rietz (Germany, 1979), Szeged (Hungary, 1981), Borgholm (Sweden, 1983), Cottbus (Germany, 1985), Kazan (Russia, 1987), Szeged (Hungary, 1989), Gosen-Berlin (Germany, 1991), Szeged (Hungary, 1993), Dresden (Germany, 1995), Krak ow (Poland, 1997), Iasi (Romania, 1999), and Riga (Latvia, 2001). The FCT conferences are coordinated by the FCT steering committee, which consistsofB.Chlebus(Denver/Warsaw), Z.Esik(Szeged), M.Karpinski(Bonn), A. Lingas (Lund), M. Santha (Paris), E. Upfal (Providence), and I. Wegener (Dortmund). The call for papers sought contributions on original research in all aspects of theoretical computer science including design and analysis of algorithms, abstract data types, approximation algorithms, automata and formal lang- ges, categorical and topological approaches, circuits, computational and str- turalcomplexity, circuitandprooftheory, computationalbiology, computational geometry, computer systems theory, concurrency theory, cryptography, domain theory, distributed algorithms and computation, molecular computation, qu- tum computation and information, granular computation, probabilistic com- tation, learning theory, rewriting, semantics, logicin computer science, speci?- tion, transformation and veri?cation, and algebraic aspects of computer science. There were 73 papers submitted, of which the majority were very good."

Intelligent agents are employed as the central characters in this introductory text. Beginning with elementary reactive agents, Nilsson gradually increases their cognitive horsepower to illustrate the most important and lasting ideas in AI. Neural networks, genetic programming, computer vision, heuristic search, knowledge representation and reasoning, Bayes networks, planning, and language understanding are each revealed through the growing capabilities of these agents. A distinguishing feature of this text is in its evolutionary approach to the study of AI. This book provides a refreshing and motivating synthesis of the field by one of AI's master expositors and leading researches.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field within computer science that is attempting to build enhanced intelligence into computer systems. This book traces the history of the subject, from the early dreams of eighteenth-century (and earlier) pioneers to the more successful work of today s AI engineers. AI is becoming more and more a part of everyone s life. The technology is already embedded in face-recognizing cameras, speech-recognition software, Internet search engines, and health-care robots, among other applications. The book s many diagrams and easy-to-understand descriptions of AI programs will help the casual reader gain an understanding of how these and other AI systems actually work. Its thorough (but unobtrusive) end-of-chapter notes containing citations to important source materials will be of great use to AI scholars and researchers. This book promises to be the definitive history of a field that has captivated the imaginations of scientists, philosophers, and writers for centuries.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a field within computer science that is attempting to build enhanced intelligence into computer systems. This book traces the history of the subject, from the early dreams of eighteenth-century (and earlier) pioneers to the more successful work of today s AI engineers. AI is becoming more and more a part of everyone s life. The technology is already embedded in face-recognizing cameras, speech-recognition software, Internet search engines, and health-care robots, among other applications. The book s many diagrams and easy-to-understand descriptions of AI programs will help the casual reader gain an understanding of how these and other AI systems actually work. Its thorough (but unobtrusive) end-of-chapter notes containing citations to important source materials will be of great use to AI scholars and researchers. This book promises to be the definitive history of a field that has captivated the imaginations of scientists, philosophers, and writers for centuries.

Das Buch ist die deutsche UEbersetzung des Standardwerkes der Stanforder Professoren Michael R. Genesereth und Nils J. Nilsson.Im Unterschied zu deutschen Lehrbuchern der Informatik zeichnet sich das Buch dadurch aus, dass es einen gut lesbaren UEberblick gibt, ohne allzu formalistisch zu werden, gleichwohl aber von hohem Niveau ist und die Ergebnisse jungster Forschung berucksichtigt. Das Buch empfiehlt sich sowohl fur Studenten und Dozenten der Inf ormatik, aber auch fur Forscher aus anderen Gebieten, die von den Grundlagen der Kunstlichen Intelligenz profitieren moechten.

As a patient who has suffered at the hands of the medical profession and legal system, Timothy J. Nilsson knew the importance of awareness. In Traumatized: A Patient's Story, he reflects on his own personal journey to expose major flaws within the system of healthcare and attorneys who do not put their clients' interests ahead of their own. Everyone is accountable for improving healthcare and victim's rights. This country is in serious trouble if the medical profession is responsible for injuring or killing a patient, and to make matters worse, the injured or victim's families cannot seek the best legal representation to rectify the injustice placed upon them. This is the most powerful country on earth. We are at the top when it comes to medical knowledge and research. So why are so many people being injured and killed due to medical error? We are supposed to have the most brilliant legal minds in the world. Why are these brilliant legal minds not representing their clients to the best of their ability, and in most cases, not able to acquire compensation for them? The medical profession and legal system must learn from its mistakes regarding medical malpractice. As important as it is for today and tomorrow, the future of this country is deserving of it. This story will have an influence on everyone who reads it. Passionately written, it is certain to leave the reader with a different view of the challenges ahead.

Joel and his best friend Sammy are die-hard baseball fans. Their favorite team is the Milwaukee Brewers. Joel wants nothing more than to meet his favorite player of all time, Rollie Fingers. While his mind is consumed with meeting Rollie Fingers, he also can't stop thinking about the old house right down the street. What might the old house and Rollie Fingers have in common? With all of this weighing so heavily on his mind, what do you suppose Joel's dream will include? Will Sammy go along for the ride? Will your next baseball dream be anything like Joel's?

One hot day, Sepp Klemens is violently expelled from Heinz Hollow, the isolated religious community where he spent his life. Alone and friendless, he is left with nothing, not even the truth of what happened to him. As he navigates between the sudden end of his old life and the prospect of a remarkable new one, he receives unexpected help. A lonely man, Sepp discovers passion in a shocking way that he never imagined, and finds the gift of love when he is on the verge of giving up hope. Now he has unfinished business and choices to make, but first he must uncover some ugly secrets still lurking back in Heinz Hollow. Those secrets may threaten the promising future that lies before him and endanger people who have no idea that evil has come to their quiet town.

In this sequel to "A Shunned Man," Sepp Klemens believes his lonesome days are behind him as he settles comfortably into the modern world with his new wife, Claire. But Sepp is destined to face trouble once again, almost before his honeymoon is over. This time the drama takes place in California, where he and Claire try to shed new light on his late mother's childhood in a magnificent Sonoma Valley vineyard. Sepp's mother, Francesca Proul, eloped with Gunther Klemens at the age of nineteen and never spoke of her family with Sepp. Now he discovers that his gentle mother's early years were far more worldly and difficult than he had ever known. In meeting her family, he learns of the challenges faced by his late parents, but finds that the real reason they had vanished from California is elusive. The volatile Proul family invites Sepp and Claire into the exotic world of the Sant' Severo Winery and Sepp quickly develops a bond with his remarkable great-grandfather, one that contains choices beyond anything he ever imagined. But along with the excitement of discovering his new relations, his arrival causes dark secrets that were buried for decades to emerge, and those secrets may devastate the entire family.

What beliefs are, what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples. But so are theories about astrology, alien abduction, guardian angels, and reincarnation. All are products (with varying degrees of credibility) of fertile minds trying to find explanations for observed phenomena. In this book, Nils Nilsson examines beliefs: what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. We should evaluate our beliefs carefully, Nilsson points out, because they influence so many of our actions and decisions. Some of our beliefs are more strongly held than others, but all should be considered tentative and changeable. Nilsson shows that beliefs can be quantified by probability, and he describes networks of beliefs in which the probabilities of some beliefs affect the probabilities of others. He argues that we can evaluate our beliefs by adapting some of the practices of the scientific method and by consulting expert opinion. And he warns us about "belief traps"-holding onto beliefs that wouldn't survive critical evaluation. The best way to escape belief traps, he writes, is to expose our beliefs to the reasoned criticism of others.