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This book presents a conceptual mapping of supererogation in the analytic moral philosophical tradition. It first asks whether supererogation can be conceptualised in the absence of obligation or duty and then makes the case that it can be. It does so by enlisting the resources of the continental tradition, specifically using the work of Emmanuel Levinas and his notion of infinite responsibility. In so doing the book contributes to the ongoing efforts to create a common ethical terminology between the analytic and continental traditions within moral philosophy. Supererogatory actions are praiseworthy actions that go ¿beyond duty¿, and yet are not blameworthy when not performed. In responding to this paradox, moral philosophy either brackets or attempts a reductionism of supererogation. Supererogation is epitomised in the paradigmatic figures of the saint and hero. Yet, most would agree that emulating these figures is too morally demanding. We rightly ask: where does moral obligation end? Is it even possible, or desirable to demarcate such a boundary? Besides the important theoretical issues these questions raise, they also speak to practical ethical dilemmas in the contemporary milieu, as they concern the global wealthy¿s responsibility to the poor and the challenges of development aid work.

This book focuses on dialog from a varied combination of fields: Linguistics, Philosophy of Language and Computation. It builds on the hypothesis that meaning in human communication arises at the discourse level rather than at the word level. The book offers a complex analytical framework and integration of the central areas of research around human communication. The content revolves around meaning but it also gives evidence of the connection among different points of view.Besides discussing issues of general interest to the field, the book triggers theoretical argumentation that is currently under scientific discussion. It examines such topics as immanent reasoning joined with Recanati's lekta and free enrichment, challenges of internet conversation, inner dialogs, cognition and language, and the relation between assertion and denial. It proposes a dialogical framework for intra-negotiation and gives a geolinguistic perspective on spoken discourse. Finally, it examines dialog and abduction and sheds light on a generation of dialog contexts by means of multimodal logic applied to speech acts.

This open access book analyzes the transition toward a low-carbon energy system in Europe under the aspects of flexibility and technological progress. By covering the main energy sectors ¿ including the industry, residential, tertiary and transport sector as well as the heating and electricity sector ¿ the analysis assesses flexibility requirements in a cross-sectoral energy system with high shares of renewable energies. The contributing authors ¿ all European energy experts ¿ apply models and tools from various research fields, including techno-economic learning, fundamental energy system modeling, and environmental and social life cycle as well as health impact assessment, to develop an innovative and comprehensive energy models system (EMS). Moreover, the contributions examine renewable penetrations and their contributions to climate change mitigation, and the impacts of available technologies on the energy system. Given its scope, the book appeals to researchers studying energy systems and markets, professionals and policymakers of the energy industry and readers interested in the transformation to a low-carbon energy system in Europe.

This book draws inspiration from natural shepherding, whereby a farmer utilizes sheepdogs to herd sheep, to inspire a scalable and inherently human friendly approach to swarm control. The book discusses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) approaches needed to design smart robotic shepherding agents capable of controlling biological swarms or robotic swarms of unmanned vehicles. These smart shepherding agents are described with the techniques applicable to the control of Unmanned X Vehicles (UxVs) including air (unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs), ground (unmanned ground vehicles or UGVs), underwater (unmanned underwater vehicles or UUVs), and on the surface of water (unmanned surface vehicles or USVs). This book proposes how smart ¿shepherds¿ could be designed and used to guide a swarm of UxVs to achieve a goal while ameliorating typical communication bandwidth issues that arise in the control of multi agent systems. The book covers a wide range of topics ranging from the design of deep reinforcement learning models for shepherding a swarm, transparency in swarm guidance, and ontology-guided learning, to the design of smart swarm guidance methods for shepherding with UGVs and UAVs. The book extends the discussion to human-swarm teaming by looking into the real-time analysis of human data during human-swarm interaction, the concept of trust for human-swarm teaming, and the design of activity recognition systems for shepherding.Presents a comprehensive look at human-swarm teaming;Tackles artificial intelligence techniques for swarm guidance;Provides artificial intelligence techniques for real-time human performance analysis.

Blast is an important foliar disease that infects the majority of cereal crops like rice, finger millet, pearl millet, foxtail millet and wheat, and thus resulting in a huge economic impact. The pathogen is responsible for causing epidemics in many crops and commonly shifts to new hosts. Magnaporthe spp. is the most prominent cause of blast disease on a broad host range of grasses including rice as well as other species of poaceae family. To date, 137 members of Poaceae hosting this fungus have been described in Fungal Databases. This book provides information on all blast diseases of different cereal crops. The pathogen evolves quickly due to its high variability, and thus can quickly adapt to new cultivars and cause an epidemic in a given crop. Some of the topics covered here include historical perspectives, pathogen evolution, host range shift, cross-infectivity, and pathogen isolation, use of chemicals fungicides, genetics and genomics, and management of blast disease in different cereal crops with adoption of suitable methodologies.In the past two decades there have been significant developments in genomics and proteomics approaches and there has been substantial and rapid progress in the cloning and mapping of R genes for blast resistance, as well as in comparative genomics analysis for resolving delineation of Magnaporthe species that infect both cereals and grass species. Blast disease resistance follows a typical gene-for-gene hypothesis. Identification of new Avr genes and effector molecules from Magnaporthe spp. can be useful to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in the fast evolution of different strains of this fungal genus. Advances in these areas may help to reduce the occurrence of blast disease by the identification of potential R genes for effective deployment. Additionally, this book highlights the importance of blast disease that infects different cereal hosts in the context of climate change, and genomics approaches that may potentially help in understanding and applying new concepts and technologies that can make real impact in sustainable management of blast disease in different cereal crops.

This book examines the complex impact of prenatal stress and the mechanism of its transmission on children¿s development and well-being, including prenatal programming, epigenetics, infl ammatory processes, and the brain-gut microbiome. It analyzes current findings on prenatal stressors affecting pregnancy, including preconception stress, prenatal maternal depression, anxiety, and pregnancy-specific anxieties. Chapters explore how prenatal stress affects cognitive, affective, behavioral, and neurobiological development in children while pinpointing core processes of adaptation, resilience, and interventions that may reduce negative behaviors and promote optimal outcomes in children. Th is complex perspective on mechanisms by which early environmental influences interact with prenatal programming of susceptibility aims to inform clinical strategies and future research targeting prenatal stress and its cyclical impact on subsequent generations.Key areas of coverage include:The developmental effects of prenatal maternal stress on children.Epigenetic effects of prenatal stress.Intergenerational transmission of parental early life stress.The microbiome-gut-brain axis and the effects of prenatal stress on early neurodevelopment.The effect of prenatal stress on parenting.Gestational stress and resilience.Prenatal stress and children¿s sleeping behavior.Prenatal, perinatal, and population-based interventions to prevent psychopathology.Prenatal Stress and Child Development is an essential resource for researchers, professors and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and related professionals in infancy and early childhood development, maternal and child health, developmental psychology, pediatrics, social work, child and adolescent psychiatry, developmental neuroscience, and related behavioral and social sciences and medical disciplines.Excerpt from the foreword:¿I would make the plea that in addition to anyone with an interest in child development, this book should be essential reading for researchers pursuing ¿pre-clinical, basic science models of neurodevelopment and brain health¿¿. This book provides what in my mind is the most advanced compilation of existing knowledge and state-of-the-art science in the field of prenatal psychiatry/psychology (and perhaps in the entire field of prenatal medicine). This volume can brilliantly serve to focus future directions in our understanding of the perinatal determinants of brain health.¿Michael J MeaneyJames McGill Professor of MedicineTranslational Neuroscience Programme Adjunct Professor of Paediatrics

This book is a truly interdisciplinary publication, useful to scholars, social movements, practitioners and members of governmental agencies and private companies, undertaking research and/or executing projects focusing on social responsibility and sustainability from across the world.Sustainable development has become a matter of central concern to both public institutions and enterprises. Indeed, for many companies, a due emphasis to environmental issues is not only positive from the point of view of environmental gains, but also to the image of the business. Often, but not always, this is reflected in the preparation of formal strategies and programmes, which entail their institutional strategies and visions. The wide area of social responsibility, often known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), entails elements of social equality and environmental accountability, and eco-efficiency. Due to their complexity, the interrelations between social responsibility and sustainable development need to be better understood. There is also a real need to showcase successful examples of how public institutions and companies are handling their sustainability challenges. It is against this background that this book has been produced.

Of the world¿s seven continents, Asia is the largest. Its physical landscapes, political units, and ethnic groups are both wide-ranging and many. Southwest, South and Middle Asia are highly populated regions which, as a whole, cover an extremely large area of varied geography. In total, this domain is unique in its plant diversity and large vegetation zones with different communities and biomes. It is rich in endemics, with specific and intraspecific diversity of fruit trees and medicinal plants, including a number of rare, high value, species. At the same time, much of the land in the region is too dry or too rugged, with many geographical extremes. Overgrazing, oil and mineral extraction, and poaching are the major threats in the area.This two-volume project focuses on the dynamic biodiversity of the region with in-depth analysis on phytosociology, plants, animals and agroecology. There are also chapters that explore new applications as well as approaches to overcome problems associated with climate change. Much of the research and analysis are presented here for the first time. We believe this work is a valuable resource for professionals and researchers working in the fields of plant diversity and vegetation, animal diversity and animal populations, and geo-diversity and sustainable land use, among others.The first volume guides our readers to West Asia and the Caucasus region, while volume two focuses on issues unique to South and Middle Asia.

Among the deep-sea marine invertebrates, pycnogonids and crustaceans represent ecologically important and most diverse groups of species. Yet both are still poorly understood. Sampling and exploring operations off the west and east coast of the Americas has significantly increased in the last two decades. However such operations are very costly and limited in number and frequency. In countries like Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, the United States of America, and El Salvador a large effort has been made to explore the deep-sea resources and the rich diversity of the communities, resulting in a better understanding of the natural ecosystems on both coasts of America. Pycnogonids and many groups of deep-sea crustaceans have been intensively studied, from the smallest animals, like the mostly unknown benthic copepods to the largest decapods.This book presents new and updated information on various groups of deep-sea pycnogonids and crustaceans occurring off the American continent. Offering a valuable reference resource for scientists interested in this fascinating fauna, it includes review papers and new data on the deep-sea communities occurring off the USA, Mexico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentina, as well as in larger areas in both the East Pacific and the West Atlantic. As such it covers most of the current deep-water research in Latin America.

This book proposes a new approach to mindfulness-based interventions, presenting them not as individual, but as relational practices. In the last decades, mindfulness has exerted a growing influence on many fields of research and activity, but always as an individual practice. The authors in this volume believe that the strong development of mindfulness today implies considering a dialogue between this individualistic approach and the perspective of relational mindfulness based on social constructionism. The volume is organized in two parts. The first part focuses on the theoretical foundations of relational mindfulness. The second part presents possibilities of applications of relational mindfulness in clinical and organizational settings to promote mental health and personal development.Relational Mindfulness: Fundamentals and Applications will be of interest to a wide range of professionals interested in applying mindfulness-based interventions in mental health care and productive organizations, such as clinical and health psychologists, public health professionals and human resources analysts and consultants, among others. "It is true that the metaphor of mindfulness has been enormously fruitful in its invitation to innovate. By removing meditative practices from their ancient roots, practitioners were free to create practices especially relevant to context. (¿) At the same time, there was also a recognizable loss in the profoundly rich heritage that was left behind. For many of us, the greatest loss resulted from the absorption of such practices into Western individualism. What had once been an orientation to practice emphasizing our fundamental inter-being, had become a gateway to silent separation. It is in this context that the present volume bursts into significance. With special appreciation to the editors of this book, we are treated to a multi-dimensional exploration into the relational dimensions of mindfulness practices. Bringing ideas, experience, and wisdom from across professions, and across continents the contributors open an exciting path to the future." - Excerpt from the Foreword by Kenneth J. Gergen

This proceedings volume contains selected and expanded contributions presented at the 6th International Symposium of Space Optical Instruments and Applications, held in Delft, the Netherlands on Sep 24th¿25th, 2019. The meeting was organized by the Sino-Holland Space Optical Instruments Joint Laboratory and supported by TU Delft.The symposium focused on key innovations of space-based optical instruments and applications, and the newest developments in theory, technology and applications in optics, in both China and Europe. It thus provided a platform for exchanges on the latest research and current and planned optical missions.The major topics covered in these conference proceedings are: space optical remote sensing system design; advanced optical system design and manufacturing; remote sensor calibration and measurement; remote sensing data processing and information retrieval; and remote sensing data applications.

This edited volume gathers selected, peer-reviewed contributions presented at the fourth International Conference on Differential & Difference Equations Applications (ICDDEA), which was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in July 2019.First organized in 2011, the ICDDEA conferences bring together mathematicians from various countries in order to promote cooperation in the field, with a particular focus on applications. The book includes studies on boundary value problems; Markov models; time scales; non-linear difference equations; multi-scale modeling; and myriad applications.

Natural resources and associated biological diversity provide the basis of livelihood for human population, particularly in the rural areas and mountain regions across the globe. Asia is home to the world's highest mountain regions including the Himalayas, Karakorum and Hindukush. These regions are renowned around the globe because of their unique beauty, climate, and biocultural diversity. Because of geoclimatic conditions, the mountains of Asia are medicinal and food plant diversity hot spots. The indigenous communities residing in the valleys of these mountains have their own culture and traditions, and have a long history of interaction with the surrounding plant diversity. Local inhabitants of these mountains areas possess significant traditional knowledge of plant species used as food, medicine, and for cultural purposes. So far, many workers have reported traditional uses of plant species from different regions of Asia including some mountain areas; however, there is not one inclusive document on the ethnobotany of mountains in Asia.This book provides a comprehensive overview on ethno-ecological knowledge and cross cultural variation in the application of plant species among various communities residing in the mountains of Asia; cross cultural variation in traditional uses of plant species by the mountain communities; high value medicinal and food plant species; and threats and conservation status of plant species and traditional knowledge. This book should be useful to researchers of biodiversity and conservation, ethnobiologists, ethnoecologists, naturalists, phytochemists, pharmacists, policy makers, and all who have a devotion to nature.