Autonomous Horizons

Autonomous Horizons
Author: Greg Zacharias
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2019-04-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781092834346

Dr. Greg Zacharias, former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force (2015-18), explores next steps in autonomous systems (AS) development, fielding, and training. Rapid advances in AS development and artificial intelligence (AI) research will change how we think about machines, whether they are individual vehicle platforms or networked enterprises. The payoff will be considerable, affording the US military significant protection for aviators, greater effectiveness in employment, and unlimited opportunities for novel and disruptive concepts of operations. Autonomous Horizons: The Way Forward identifies issues and makes recommendations for the Air Force to take full advantage of this transformational technology.

Radical Embodied Cognitive Science

Radical Embodied Cognitive Science
Author: Anthony Chemero
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262516470

A proposal for a new way to do cognitive science argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than computation and representation. While philosophers of mind have been arguing over the status of mental representations in cognitive science, cognitive scientists have been quietly engaged in studying perception, action, and cognition without explaining them in terms of mental representation. In this book, Anthony Chemero describes this nonrepresentational approach (which he terms radical embodied cognitive science), puts it in historical and conceptual context, and applies it to traditional problems in the philosophy of mind. Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American naturalist psychology of William James and John Dewey, and follows them in viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, “shored up” and clarified. Chemero then looks at some traditional philosophical problems (reductionism, epistemological skepticism, metaphysical realism, consciousness) through the lens of radical embodied cognitive science and concludes that the comparative ease with which it resolves these problems, combined with its empirical promise, makes this approach to cognitive science a rewarding one. “Jerry Fodor is my favorite philosopher,” Chemero writes in his preface, adding, “I think that Jerry Fodor is wrong about nearly everything.” With this book, Chemero explains nonrepresentational, dynamical, ecological cognitive science as clearly and as rigorously as Jerry Fodor explained computational cognitive science in his classic work The Language of Thought.

Management Information Systems

Management Information Systems
Author: Kenneth C. Laudon
Publisher: Pearson Educación
Total Pages: 618
Release: 2004
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789702605287

Management Information Systems provides comprehensive and integrative coverage of essential new technologies, information system applications, and their impact on business models and managerial decision-making in an exciting and interactive manner. The twelfth edition focuses on the major changes that have been made in information technology over the past two years, and includes new opening, closing, and Interactive Session cases.

Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children

Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 2009-10-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309121787

Depression is a widespread condition affecting approximately 7.5 million parents in the U.S. each year and may be putting at least 15 million children at risk for adverse health outcomes. Based on evidentiary studies, major depression in either parent can interfere with parenting quality and increase the risk of children developing mental, behavioral and social problems. Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children highlights disparities in the prevalence, identification, treatment, and prevention of parental depression among different sociodemographic populations. It also outlines strategies for effective intervention and identifies the need for a more interdisciplinary approach that takes biological, psychological, behavioral, interpersonal, and social contexts into consideration. A major challenge to the effective management of parental depression is developing a treatment and prevention strategy that can be introduced within a two-generation framework, conducive for parents and their children. Thus far, both the federal and state response to the problem has been fragmented, poorly funded, and lacking proper oversight. This study examines options for widespread implementation of best practices as well as strategies that can be effective in diverse service settings for diverse populations of children and their families. The delivery of adequate screening and successful detection and treatment of a depressive illness and prevention of its effects on parenting and the health of children is a formidable challenge to modern health care systems. This study offers seven solid recommendations designed to increase awareness about and remove barriers to care for both the depressed adult and prevention of effects in the child. The report will be of particular interest to federal health officers, mental and behavioral health providers in diverse parts of health care delivery systems, health policy staff, state legislators, and the general public.

Human-Machine Reconfigurations

Human-Machine Reconfigurations
Author: Lucille Alice Suchman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2007
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9780521675888

Publisher description

Guide to Financial Markets

Guide to Financial Markets
Author: Marc Levinson
Publisher: The Economist
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1541742516

The revised and updated 7th edition of this highly regarded book brings the reader right up to speed with the latest financial market developments, and provides a clear and incisive guide to a complex world that even those who work in it often find hard to understand. In chapters on the markets that deal with money, foreign exchange, equities, bonds, commodities, financial futures, options and other derivatives, the book examines why these markets exist, how they work, and who trades in them, and gives a run-down of the factors that affect prices and rates. Business history is littered with disasters that occurred because people involved their firms with financial instruments they didn't properly understand. If they had had this book they might have avoided their mistakes. For anyone wishing to understand financial markets, there is no better guide.

Rethinking Case Study Research

Rethinking Case Study Research
Author: Lesley Bartlett
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2016-11-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317380517

Comparative case studies are an effective qualitative tool for researching the impact of policy and practice in various fields of social research, including education. Developed in response to the inadequacy of traditional case study approaches, comparative case studies are highly effective because of their ability to synthesize information across time and space. In Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach, the authors describe, explain, and illustrate the horizontal, vertical, and transversal axes of comparative case studies in order to help readers develop their own comparative case study research designs. In six concise chapters, two experts employ geographically distinct case studies—from Tanzania to Guatemala to the U.S.—to show how this innovative approach applies to the operation of policy and practice across multiple social fields. With examples and activities from anthropology, development studies, and policy studies, this volume is written for researchers, especially graduate students, in the fields of education and the interpretive social sciences.

Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, second edition

Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots, second edition
Author: Roland Siegwart
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2011-02-18
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0262015358

The second edition of a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of mobile robotics, from algorithms to mechanisms. Mobile robots range from the Mars Pathfinder mission's teleoperated Sojourner to the cleaning robots in the Paris Metro. This text offers students and other interested readers an introduction to the fundamentals of mobile robotics, spanning the mechanical, motor, sensory, perceptual, and cognitive layers the field comprises. The text focuses on mobility itself, offering an overview of the mechanisms that allow a mobile robot to move through a real world environment to perform its tasks, including locomotion, sensing, localization, and motion planning. It synthesizes material from such fields as kinematics, control theory, signal analysis, computer vision, information theory, artificial intelligence, and probability theory. The book presents the techniques and technology that enable mobility in a series of interacting modules. Each chapter treats a different aspect of mobility, as the book moves from low-level to high-level details. It covers all aspects of mobile robotics, including software and hardware design considerations, related technologies, and algorithmic techniques. This second edition has been revised and updated throughout, with 130 pages of new material on such topics as locomotion, perception, localization, and planning and navigation. Problem sets have been added at the end of each chapter. Bringing together all aspects of mobile robotics into one volume, Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots can serve as a textbook or a working tool for beginning practitioners. Curriculum developed by Dr. Robert King, Colorado School of Mines, and Dr. James Conrad, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, to accompany the National Instruments LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit, are available. Included are 13 (6 by Dr. King and 7 by Dr. Conrad) laboratory exercises for using the LabVIEW Robotics Starter Kit to teach mobile robotics concepts.