After the surprising publishing success of the so-called New Atheists it has become clear that there is a market for critical discussions about religion. A religion is much more complex than a set of beliefs which cannot be proven, as the New Atheists argue. There is, in fact, much more to religion and much more to the arguments about its truth claims. This book seeks to bring together a range of discussions, both critical and apologetic, each of which examines some part of religion and its functions. Half of the contributors are critical of some element of religion and the other half are apologetic in nature, seeking to defend or extend some particular religious argument. Covering a wide range of topics, including ethics, religious pluralism, the existence of God, and reasonableness of Islam, these pieces have in common arguments that are made in careful and scholarly ways they represent reasonable perspectives on a wide swath of contemporary religious debates, in contrast to the unreasonableness that creeps into discussions on religion in American society.

Originally from Chicago, Ryan W. Kennihan has been working in Dublin since 2007 and has taught at various universities. His architecture is reserved, peaceful and elegant. Each building is a little gem, where every detail reflects the architecture. For instance the Vita Family Center in Roscommon assumes the volume and appearance of the surrounding traditional buildings, while varying the details in an astute and subtle way. Text in English and German.

Query reformulation refers to a process of translating a source query-a request for information in some high-level logic-based language-into a target plan that abides by certain interface restrictions. Many practical problems in data management can be seen as instances of the reformulation problem. For example, the problem of translating an SQL query written over a set of base tables into another query written over a set of views; the problem of implementing a query via translating to a program calling a set of database APIs; the problem of implementing a query using a collection of web services. In this book we approach query reformulation in a very general setting that encompasses all the problems above, by relating it to a line of research within mathematical logic. For many decades logicians have looked at the problem of converting "implicit definitions" into "explicit definitions," using an approach known as interpolation. We will review the theory of interpolation, and explain its close connection with query reformulation. We will give a detailed look at how the interpolation-based approach is used to generate translations between logic-based queries over different vocabularies, and also how it can be used to go from logic-based queries to programs.

Architecture Beyond Experience is an interdisciplinary work in the service of one goal: the bringing about of a more relational, 'posthuman' and yet humanist strain in architecture. It argues against the values that currently guide much architectural production (and the larger economy's too), which is the making, marketing, and staging of ever more arresting experiences. The result, in architecture, is experientialism: the belief that what gives a building value, aside from fulfilling its shelter functions, is how its views and spaces make us personally feel as we move around it. This thought provoking essay argues it's time to find a deeper basis for making and judging architecture, a basis which is not personal-experience-multiplied, but which is dialogical and relational from the start. In this context, the word relationaldescribes an architecture that guides people in search of encounter with (or avoidance of) each other and that manifests and demonstrates those same desires in its own forms, components, and materials. Buildings are beings. When studying architecture, they teach as well as protect; they tell us who we were and who we want to be; they exemplify, they deserve respect, invite investment, and reward affection. These are social-relational values, values that both underlie and go beyond experiential ones (sometimes called 'phenomenological'). Such relational values have been suppressed, in part because architects have joined the Experience Economy, hardly noticing they have done so. Architecture Beyond Experience provides the argument and the concepts to ultimately re-centre a profession.