bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Lattice Boltzmann Models for Microflows
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

The Lattice Boltzmann method was originally devised as a computational alternative for the simulation of macroscopic flows, as described by the Navier–Stokes equations of continuum mechanics. In many respects, this still is the main place where it belongs today. Yet, in the past decade, LB has made proof of a largely unanticipated versatility across a broad spectrum of scales, from fully developed turbulence, to microfluidics, all the way down to nanoscale flows. Even though no systematic analogue of the Chapman–Enskog asymptotics is available in this beyond-hydro region (no guarantee), the fact remains that, with due extensions of the basic scheme, the LB has proven capable of providing several valuable insights into the physics of flows at micro- and nano-scales. This does not mean that LBE can solve the actual Boltzmann equation or replace Molecular Dynamics, but simply that it can provide useful insights into some flow problems which cannot be described within the realm of the Navier–Stokes equations of continuum mechanics. This Chapter provides a cursory view of this fast-growing front of modern LB research.
Relativistic Lattice Boltzmann (RLB)
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

Relativistic hydrodynamics and kinetic theory play an increasing role in many areas of modern physics. Besides their traditional arenas, astrophysics and cosmology, relativistic fluids have recently attracted much attention also within the realm of high-energy and condensed matter physics, mostly in connection with quark-gluon plasmas experiments in heavy-ion colliders and electronic transport in graphene. This chapter describes the extension of the Lattice Boltzmann formalism to the case of relativistic fluids.
Introduction
Authors: Crane Ralph , Stafford Jane , Williams Mark
Published: June 2018

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's study. This volume covers the novel in English in countries other than Britain and the United States over four and a half centuries. At the centre of this period is the British Empire, not merely in its political and territorial manifestations, but as a literary empire, processing and reconfiguring the English literary canon through the medium of the English language. The period encompasses satire, fantasy, migration narratives, the literature of dispersal and return, of the growth of empire, and of its lapse, that brings new modes of literary affiliation. Moreover, it sees, throughout the empire, the establishment of new communities of writers and readers, publishers, and booksellers.
Colonial Editions
Authors: Johanson Graeme
Published: June 2018

This chapter describes a colonial edition and considers its role in the patterns of the entire export trade in British books from the 1840s onwards. A colonial edition is categorized as a new setting of type (a true edition), a separate impression from the same type, a separate issue, a reissue, or other types of book which do not fit neatly into a prescriptive bibliographical scheme. Colonial editions were produced to appear distinctive, in order to market them as reliable series of quality, and to prevent them being sold in the United Kingdom, where new novels cost at least twice as much per title as in the colonies. They were a cornerstone of the book trade to South Africa between the South African War (1899–1902) and World War One (1914–1918).
The Novel in English in Antarctica to 1950
Authors: Leane Elizabeth
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on English-language novels in Antarctica. In contrast to the other regions discussed in this volume, the Antarctic as a recognizable place appeared in literature only when the novel as a form was entirely established—when, indeed, modernists were becoming impatient with the limits of its conventions. Moreover, in contrast to other regions, the Antarctic had no Indigenous population, and thus no native myths, legends, or stories. The continent was ‘known’ to novelists only through the accounts of others: exploration narratives, memoirs, and diaries. While it is easy to assume that the ‘Antarctic novel’ prior to 1950 is a rare occurrence, there are actually scores of examples. Instead of tracing a chronological lineage of the Antarctic novel, the chapter follows generic and thematic patterns, focusing on particularly representative or prominent titles rather than attempting a comprehensive account.
The Colonial Romance Novel to 1950
Authors: Dalziell Tanya
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses the colonial romance novel. For an author such as Scottish-born Hume Nisbet, who was living in London during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, desperately trying to ward off crushing poverty, writing romance fiction was one means to generate a modest income. Having toured Australia and the Pacific in 1886, Nisbet tapped into what was a growing literary market: the colonial romance novel. The colonies not only lent themselves as exotic locales for ‘old’ stories; they were also envisioned as the sites at which values of empire—sexual, economic, epistemological, racial—were, at times, not entirely secure, and romance could be re-imagined. Developments in printing and distribution of the written word and the shift away from the lending libraries that promoted and relied upon the triple-decker novel structure of the Victorian romance were also important in the formation of the colonial romance novel.
Juvenile Fiction
Authors: Reimer Mavis , Bradford Clare , Snell Heather
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on the juvenile fiction of the British settler colonies to 1950, and considers how writers both take up forms familiar to them from British literature and revise these forms in the attempt to account for the specific geography, politics, and cultures of their places. It is during this time that the heroics associated with building the empire had taken hold of British cultural and literary imaginations. Repeatedly, the juvenile fiction of settler colonies returns to the question of the relations between settlers and Indigenous inhabitants—sometimes respecting the power of Indigenous knowledge and traditions; often expressing the conviction of natural British superiority to Indigenous ways of knowing and living; always revealing, whether overtly or covertly, the haunting of the stories of settler cultures by the displacement of Indigenous peoples on whose land those cultures are founded.
Colonial Utopias/Dystopias
Authors: Sargent Lyman Tower
Published: June 2018

This chapter explores colonial utopias/dystopias. Utopianism and colonialism have had direct connections from the time Thomas More inadvertently created a genre of literature when he published what is now known as his Utopia, in 1516. Utopia reflected the process of exploration taking place in the early sixteenth century that resulted in the discovery of the lands that were to become colonies. Colonists generally have the expectation of achieving a much better life by settling, while producing an actual dystopia for the original inhabitants. While the colonists did not always find what they expected, they were often led to settle by clearly utopian projections of what life would be like in the new place. Those settlers who had the leisure to write about their hopes for the future in the new place sometimes depicted what that place might look like in the future.
Mulk Raj Anand
Authors: Kanaganayakam Chelva
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on Mulk Raj Anand. Anand's intellectual world was framed by politics, but his concern was largely with social reform and with culture—with art, aesthetics, and with literature. He was very much the social realist, sharply conscious of inequalities and fissures caused by tradition and by urbanization. It is difficult to identify specific influences in Anand's work, given the encyclopaedic reach of his interests, but the intellectuals and writers associated with Bloomsbury shaped his understanding of modernity. He was also inspired by a number of Indian saints and thinkers, but Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi were central to shaping the course of Anand's early work. Very much like Gandhi and Nehru, he too attempted to reconcile the claims of modernity and tradition in his fiction and his critical writing.
Aesthetes Abroad
Authors: Ackerley Chris
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on Evelyn Waugh and Somerset Maugham as pre-eminent examples of ‘aesthetes abroad’: writers who travelled, sometimes to the most obscure corners of the empire, to observe the curiosities of their age through a quizzical perspective that nevertheless retained something distinctively ‘British’ at its centre. Waugh gained a lasting reputation, first as an aesthete and stylist who mocked and elegized the ancient ways as they fell into futility; then, more controversially, as a Catholic writer who deplored in what he saw disdainfully as the age of the common man a rise of mediocrity and the decline of the virtues of courtesy and the aristocratic. Meanwhile, Maugham's journey to Tahiti to research The Moon and Sixpence (1919) established him in popular opinion as the chronicler par excellence of empire.
Critical Contexts
Authors: Williams Mark
Published: June 2018

This concluding chapter argues that the critical contexts of the literary texts dealt with in this volume cannot be so confined inside the period before 1950, not merely for writers whose works have maintained or increased their esteem, but also for the bulk of that work belonging to the large categories of colonial, Victorian, and even nationalist writing that exhibits the values and attitudes of empire. Much of the postcolonial criticism of colonial fiction treats it as symptomatic of imperial views on race, nature, gender, or progress rather than as literature Criticism in this volume means something distinct from that applied to nineteenth-century English literature or American modernist fiction where the specifically literary qualities and values of the writing remain central concerns of its criticism, even where the values and ideology of modernism, for example, have been sharply contested.
Thin Objects
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

Are there objects that are “thin” in the sense that their existence does not make a substantial demand on the world? Frege famously thought so. He claimed that the equinumerosity of the knives and the forks suffices for there to be objects such as the number of knives and the number of forks, and for these objects to be identical. The idea of thin objects holds great philosophical promise but has proved hard to explicate. This book attempts to develop the needed explanations by drawing on some Fregean ideas. First, to be an object is to be a possible referent of a singular term. Second, singular reference can be achieved by providing a criterion of identity for the would-be referent. The second idea enables a form of easy reference and thus, via the first idea, also a form of easy being. Paradox is avoided by imposing a predicativity restriction on the criteria of identity. But the abstraction based on a criterion of identity may result in an expanded domain. By iterating such expansions, a powerful account of dynamic abstraction is developed.
Dynamic Abstraction
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

Any abstractionist approach to thin objects faces the threat of paradox, as illustrated by Frege’s inconsistent Basic Law V. The neo-Fregeans Hale and Wright respond by severely restricting the class of acceptable abstraction principles. Their approach is static in the sense that they hold the domain fixed. This approach to abstraction is criticized, and an alternative approach is developed which permits abstraction on a vast class of equivalence relations. This alternative approach is dynamic in the sense that abstraction on an extensionally specified domain (i.e. a domain specified by means of a plurality of objects) may result in a larger such domain. A form of absolute generality is nevertheless possible, provided that the associated domain is understood in an intensional sense (i.e. it cannot be specified by means of a plurality).
Unbearable Lightness of Being
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

This book defends an undemanding conception of objecthood according to which any acceptable criterion of identity suffices for the existence of objects governed by this criterion. Some even less demanding conceptions have been defended where not even criteria of identity are required. These ultra-thin conceptions are clarified and then criticized on two counts. First, they ascribe reference to terms that are semantically idle in the sense that their reference plays no role in the determination of the reference of more complex expressions. Second, the ultra-thin conceptions result in inexplicable relations of reference where a term is said to refer to an object although it is inexplicable why the term refers to this object rather than some other.
Predicative vs. Impredicative Abstraction
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

According to Frege and many of his followers, there is no “metaphysical distance” between the two sides of an acceptable abstraction principle. How should this attractive idea be understood? An analysis is developed in terms of the existence of a translation from the language concerned with the relevant abstract objects to a language not committed to such objects, such that this translation maps one side of the abstraction principle to the other. Next, two different notions of predicativity are distinguished: one pertaining to the background higher-order logic, and another associated with the abstraction principle itself. Finally, it is shown that only abstraction which is predicative in the latter sense satisfies our explication of the attractive idea about no “metaphysical distance”. This provides a reason to favor a conception of abstraction which is predicative in this sense.
Dynamic Set Theory
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

The dynamic abstractionist approach to set theory canvassed in Chapter 3 is properly developed. We begin with a plural version of Frege’s Basic Law V. While this law is inconsistent in the ordinary static setting, it becomes consistent when transposed to a dynamic setting. Thus transposed, the law ensures that any objects whatsoever can be used to define a set. This is an intuitive and highly explanatory principle of set formation, which traces its roots back to Cantor. The resulting dynamic approach to set theory justifies all of ordinary ZF set theory and provides an explication of the celebrated iterative conception of sets.
Phenomenal Presence
Authors: Dorsch Fabian
Published: June 2018

This chapter provides an overview of the debate about the phenomenal presence of features in perceptual experience. First, it delineates the theme of the volume by characterizing phenomenal presence and drawing four important related distinctions: (i) between the phenomenal presence of features pertaining to the objects of experience and features pertaining to the experiences themselves; (ii) between sensory and non-sensory phenomenal presence in perceptual experience; (iii) between the phenomenal presence of features of objects that are in view and of objects that are out of sight; and (iv) between qualitative and categorical features of perceptual experiences. Then, the chapter contrasts the debate about phenomenal presence with the closely related debates about intrinsic qualia, cognitive phenomenology, and higher-level perception. Finally, it provides detailed descriptions of the content of the contributions to the volume and highlights their main claims and their philosophical significance for the debate about phenomenal presence and beyond.
Colours and Shapes
Authors: Nida-Rümelin Martine
Published: June 2018

The property which perceptual experiences of a given phenomenal kind enable the subject to track is not always identical with the property objects appear to have (in a phenomenally manifest manner) in the kind of experience at issue. Tracked properties and apparent properties come apart in colour perception but they are identical in the perception of three-dimensional shape. In order to defend these claims, this chapter proposes a criterion for the identity of tracked property and apparent property in a given experience. The view developed leads to an account of the traditional distinction between primary and secondary qualities. In order to capture what it is to instantiate a given secondary quality, one must specify the phenomenal kind of perceptual experience an instantiation of the property would render veridical.
The Visual Presence of Determinable Properties
Authors: Stazicker James
Published: June 2018

This chapter explains and defends a way of understanding the idea that properties of things, such as their shapes and colours, are visually present to a subject of experience. One central challenge to this idea concerns the discrimination of visible properties which, like shape and colour, admit of continuous variation. In response to this challenge, it is argued that the idea of the visual presence of a property is coherent, well-motivated, and empirically plausible, provided that we reject two traditional assumptions: (i) that maximally determinate properties, rather than just determinable properties, are visually present; (ii) that we can tell through introspection exactly which properties are visually present to us.
The Phenomenal Presence of Perceptual Reasons
Authors: Dorsch Fabian
Published: June 2018

This chapter argues for Phenomenal Rationalism about perceptual experiences: the claim that our basic awareness of reasons for perceptual belief is phenomenal and non-conceptual. The main idea is that, from the inside, perceptual experiences seem to be reason-giving insofar as they seem to be relations to, and determined by, external objects and their features. The argumentation centres partly on the claim that assuming the phenomenal presence of the relationality and determination of perceptual experiences provides the best explanation of why so many good philosophers were convinced of the soundness of the argument from hallucination. That we enjoy phenomenal access to reasons prior to any normative beliefs also helps to reconcile the Humean insight that infants (who lack concepts like ‘reason for’) can be motivated to act or form attitudes with the Kantian insight that motivation is a matter of recognizing and responding to reasons.
Projectivism and Phenomenal Presence
Authors: Brown Derek H.
Published: June 2018

Projectivism asserts that we project subjective aspects of perception into what we experience as the world outside ourselves. It is minimally familiar from various phantom pains, afterimages, and hallucinations. Views like sense-datum theory arguably assert a more global, Strong Projectivism: all perceptual experiences involve and only involve direct awareness of projected elements. Strong Projectivism is an underappreciated variety of intentionalism. It straightforwardly explains the transparency of experience, and phenomena qualia theorists offer to avoid intentionalism, including blurry vision and spectrum inversion. Finally, projectivism illuminates residual qualia-friendly cases involving imagination and emotion. Although some cases may provide instances of non-projected, non-intentional aspects of experience, most do not. Thus, the notion of phenomenal presence drawn from projectivism does justice to a great many of the forces at play in debates surrounding qualia and intentionalism. We should bound toward Strong Projectivism.
How to Study Extralegal Groups
Authors: Cheng Christine
Published: June 2018

Chapter 1 introduces key concepts for studying and comparing extralegal groups. It begins by differentiating extralegal groups from conceptual cousins such as warlords and mafias—politicized terms which are commonly used as shorthand for “bad guy” or “actors that the UN and the West disapprove of.” The chapter then turns to two ideas for analyzing extralegal groups: conflict capital and time horizons. First, conflict capital helps to explain the stickiness of wartime bonds, the ease with which extralegal groups can form, and the difficulty of dismantling them. After war, these wartime social connections allow for violence to be committed more readily because there already exists a repertoire of violence. Second, incorporating time horizons into statebuilding discussions is key to understanding the incentives of the state, of international actors, and of extralegal groups. The findings from Liberia show that sectors with lower barriers to entry had more extralegal groups.
Rubber
Authors: Cheng Christine
Published: June 2018

In Chapter 5, both the situations on the Guthrie and Sinoe rubber plantations serve as vivid examples of how extralegal groups emerge, develop, and become entrenched. The theoretical framework guides the analysis of the Guthrie and Sinoe Groups, as well as the failure of two other nascent extralegal groups in the rubber sector. The relatively low barriers to entry (minimal capital and skills) allow extralegal groups to flourish in the rubber sector. Where and how these groups emerged was a function of the demand for contract enforcement and the supply of ex-combatants available to meet this demand, as with the Sinoe Group. On the Guthrie plantation, the group’s emergence came near the end of the war. In both cases, the tax collection process strengthened these extralegal groups organizationally, allowing them to develop their own local power bases, which was then further strengthened by bribing and coercing local authorities.
Coda. Research Design Scaffolding
Authors: Cheng Christine
Published: June 2018

A typical social science study begins by justifying the research question within the context of the existing academic literature. Yet there is minimal discussion on why one question is chosen over another. There is little reflection on the mistakes, uncertainties, wrong turns, and obstacles that are encountered on the way to formulating a particular research question. This chapter takes the opposite approach and shows that the detritus of our efforts to construct a research question is useful for unveiling how research is actually conducted. This chapter revisits the extralegal groups project to show how it was originally conceived and how different iterations of the research question evolved over time. It argues that research is inherently messy and that scholars should be more willing to adopt a reflective “Show Your Work” approach so that the reader can make sense of the methods used and the research design decisions that were taken.
A roadmap for Living Machines research
Authors: Lepora Nathan F. , Verschure Paul F. M. J. , Prescott Tony J.
Published: June 2018

This roadmap identifies current trends in biomimetic and biohybrid systems together with their implications for future research and innovation. Important questions include the scale at which these systems are defined, the types of biological systems addressed, the kind of principles sought, the differences between biologically based and biologically inspired approaches, the role in the understanding of living systems, relevant application domains, common benchmarks, the relation to other fields, and developments on the horizon. We interviewed and collated answers from experts who have been involved a series of events organized by the Convergent Science Network. These answers were then collated into themes of research. Overall, we see a field rapidly expanding in influence and impact. As such, this report will provide information to researchers and scientific policy makers on contemporary biomimetics and its future, together with pointers to further reading on relevant topics within this handbook.
Self-organization
Authors: Wilson Stuart P.
Published: June 2018

Self-organization describes a dynamic in a system whereby local interactions between individuals collectively yield global order, i.e. spatial patterns unobservable in their entirety to the individuals. By this working definition, self-organization is intimately related to chaos, i.e. global order in the dynamics of deterministic systems that are locally unpredictable. A useful distinction is that a small perturbation to a chaotic system causes a large deviation in its trajectory, i.e. the butterfly effect, whereas self-organizing patterns are robust to noise and perturbation. For many, self-organization is as important to the understanding of biological processes as natural selection. For some, self-organization explains where the complex forms that compete for survival in the natural world originate from. This chapter outlines some fundamental ideas from the study of simulated self-organizing systems, before suggesting how self-organizing principles could be applied through biohybrid societies to establish new theories of living systems.
Chemosensation
Authors: Pearce Tim C.
Published: June 2018

Olfaction in animals still surpasses any technological solution to chemical sensing yet conceived. While certain classes of molecular detection technologies may be capable of high sensitivity to a restricted number of compounds, unique to the biological system is its astonishing dynamic range (over 10 orders of magnitude), combining both extreme levels of sensitivity to certain key compounds of behavioural importance and varying levels of discrimination between an almost infinite variety of ligands, presented both individually and in complex combinations. For over 30 years the olfactory system of insects and mammals has provided biological sensing factors, rich inspiration, and processing principles for use in developing chemical sensing technologies. Here we focus on three such technological translations: recent rapid progress in measuring directly from olfactory binding/receptor proteins and chemosensory neurons as a biohybrid solution to chemical sensing; olfactory system based processing principles and architectures that have been applied to existing chemosensor technologies to achieve real-world sensing performance gains; and full-blown neuromorphic implementations of the olfactory pathways of animals.
Proprioception and body schema
Authors: Asada Minoru
Published: June 2018

Proprioception is our ability to sense the position of our own limbs and other body parts in space, and body schema is a body representation that allows both biological and artificial agents to execute their actions based on proprioception. The proprioceptive information used by current artificial agents (robots) is mainly related to posture (and its change) and consists of joint angles (joint velocities) given a linked structure. However, the counterpart in biological agents (humans and other animals) includes more complicated components with associated controversies concerning the relationship between the body schema and the body image. A new trend of constructive approaches has been attacking this topic using computational models and robots. This chapter provides an overview of the biology of proprioception and body representation, summarizes the classical use of body schema in robotics, and describes a series of constructive approaches that address some of the mysteries of body representation.
Pattern generation
Authors: Cruse Holk , Schilling Malte
Published: June 2018

The faculty to generate patterns is a basic feature of living systems. This chapter concentrates on patterns used in the context of control of behavior. Spatio-temporal patterns appear as quasi-rhythmic patterns mainly in the domain of locomotion (e.g. swimming, flying, walking). Such patterns may be rooted directly in the nervous system itself, or may emerge in interaction with the environment. The examples given show simulation of the corresponding behaviors that in most cases are applied to robots (e.g. walking in an unpredictable environment). In addition, non-rhythmic patterns will be explained which are linked to internal states and are required to select specific behaviors and control behavioral sequences. Such states may be relevant for top-down attention and may or may not be accompanied with subjective experiences, then called mind patterns. Specific cases concern the application of an internal body model, as well as states characterized as cognitive or as conscious.
Reach, grasp, and manipulate
Authors: Cutkosky Mark R.
Published: June 2018

This chapter seeks to identify principles that we can glean from nature regarding the design and operation of hands, and to show how they influence robotic hands and can improve their performance. The need to grasp and manipulate objects is faced by a wide range of animals, from insects to humans. The corresponding variety of solutions is immense, ranging from pincers to hands. However, a number of strategies appear repeatedly including the use of compliant, articulated appendages to achieve a large workspace and the use of automatic responses to tactile stimuli. Mobile robots face similar challenges and can exploit similar solutions. Numerical simulation is useful for analyzing hands that are required to grasp a range of objects and impart desired forces and motions. However, grasp simulation is inherently complex and the design search space is large. Hence, it is useful to examine natural exemplars to guide the design process.
A chronology of Distributed Adaptive Control
Authors: Verschure Paul F. M. J.
Published: June 2018

This chapter presents the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) theory of the mind and brain of living machines. DAC provides an explanatory framework for biological brains and an integration framework for synthetic ones. DAC builds on several themes presented in the handbook: it integrates different perspectives on mind and brain, exemplifies the synthetic method in understanding living machines, answers well-defined constraints faced by living machines, and provides a route for the convergent validation of anatomy, physiology, and behavior in our explanation of biological living machines. DAC addresses the fundamental question of how a living machine can obtain, retain, and express valid knowledge of its world. We look at the core components of DAC, specific benchmarks derived from the engagement with the physical and the social world (the H4W and the H5W problems) in foraging and human–robot interaction tasks. Lastly we address how DAC targets the UTEM benchmark and the relation with contemporary developments in AI.
Humans and humanoids
Authors: Metta Giorgio
Published: June 2018

This chapter outlines a number of research lines that, starting from the observation of nature, attempt to mimic human behavior in humanoid robots. Humanoid robotics is one of the most exciting proving grounds for the development of biologically inspired hardware and software—machines that try to recreate billions of years of evolution with some of the abilities and characteristics of living beings. Humanoids could be especially useful for their ability to “live” in human-populated environments, occupying the same physical space as people and using tools that have been designed for people. Natural human–robot interaction is also an important facet of humanoid research. Finally, learning and adapting from experience, the hallmark of human intelligence, may require some approximation to the human body in order to attain similar capacities to humans. This chapter focuses particularly on compliant actuation, soft robotics, biomimetic robot vision, robot touch, and brain-inspired motor control in the context of the iCub humanoid robot.
Biohybrid systems
Authors: Lepora Nathan F.
Published: June 2018

This chapter introduces the “biohybrid systems” section of the Handbook of Living Machines and briefly reviews some important examples of systems formed by coupling biological to engineered components. These include brain–machine interfaces, both non-invasive, using different external measurement and scanning devices, and invasive approaches focusing on implantable probes. Next we consider fabrication methods for micro- and nanobiohybrid systems and an example of a biohybrid system at the organism level, in the form of a robot–animal biohybrid, developed using methods from synthetic biology. There are many application for biohybrid systems in healthcare: we include exemplar chapters describing intelligent prostheses such as artificial hands with tactile sensing capabilities, sensory organ–chip hybrids in the form of cochlear implants, and artificial implants designed to replace damaged neural tissue and restore lost memory function.
Biohybrid robots are synthetic biology systems
Authors: Ayers Joseph
Published: June 2018

This chapter describes how synthetic biology and organic electronics can integrate neurobiology and robotics to form a basis for biohybrid robots and synthetic neuroethology. Biomimetic robots capture the performance advantages of animal models by mimicking the behavioral control schemes evolved in nature, based on modularized devices that capture the biomechanics and control principles of the nervous system. However, current robots are blind to chemical senses, difficult to miniaturize, and require chemical batteries. These obstacles can be overcome by integration of living engineered cells. Synthetic biology seeks to build devices and systems from fungible gene parts (gene systems coding different proteins) integrated into a chassis (induced pluripotent eukaryotic cells, yeast, or bacteria) to produce devices with properties not found in nature. Biohybrid robots are examples of such systems (interacting sets of devices). A nascent literature describes genes that can mediate organ levels of organization. Such capabilities, applied to biohybrid systems, portend truly biological robots guided, controlled, and actuated solely by life processes.
Implantable hearing interfaces
Authors: Lehmann Torsten , van Schaik André
Published: June 2018

The chapter Implantable hearing interfaces describes the fundamental operation of a commonly available biohybrid system, the cochlear implant, or bionic ear. This neuro-stimulating biomedical implant is very successful in restoring hearing function to people with profound hearing loss. The fundamental operation of the biological cochlea is described and parallels are drawn between key aspects of the biological system and the biohybrid implementation: dynamic range compression, translation of sound to neural activity, and tonotopic mapping. Critical considerations are discussed for simultaneously meeting biological, surgical, and engineering restrictions in successful biohybrid systems design. Finally, challenges in present and future cochlear implants are outlined and directions of current research given.
Perspectives
Authors: Szollosy Michael
Published: June 2018

This chapter introduces the “Perspectives” section of the Handbook of Living Machines offering an overview of the different contributions gathered here that consider how biomimetic and biohybrid systems will transform our personal lives and social organizations, and how we might respond to the challenges that these transformations will inevitably pose to our ‘posthuman’ worlds. The authors in this section see it as essential that those who aspire to create living machines engage with the public to confront misconceptions, deep anxieties, and unrealistic aspirations that presently dominate the cultural imagination, and to include potential users in questions of design and utility as new technologies are being developed. Human augmentation and enhancement are other important themes addressed, raising important questions about what it means fundamentally to be ‘human’. These questions and challenges are addressed through the lens of the social and personal impacts of new technologies on human selves, the public imagination, ethics, and human relationships.
Human augmentation and the age of the transhuman
Authors: Hughes James
Published: June 2018

Human augmentation is discussed in this chapter in three axes: the technological means, the ability being augmented, and the social systems that will be affected. The technological augmentations considered range from exocortical information and communication systems, to pharmaceuticals, tissue and genetic engineering, and prosthetic limbs and organs, to eventually nanomedical robotics, brain–computer interfaces and cognitive prostheses. These technologies are mapped onto the capabilities which we are in the process of enabling and augmenting, which include extending longevity and physical, sensory, and cognitive abilities, and enabling control over emotions, moral behavior, and spiritual experience. The impacts of biohybridicity via augmentation on the family, education, economy, politics, and religion are considered individually, but their aggregate effects will be non-linear and drive complex adaptations in the living machine that is our co-evolved techno-social civilization.
Can machines have rights?
Authors: Gunkel David J.
Published: June 2018

One of the enduring concerns of ethics is determining who is deserving of moral consideration. Although initially limited to “other men,” ethics has developed in such a way that it challenges its own restrictions and comes to encompass what had been previously excluded entities. Currently, we stand on the verge of another fundamental challenge to moral thinking. This challenge comes from the autonomous and increasingly intelligent machines of our own making, and it puts in question many deep-seated assumptions about who or what can be a moral subject. This chapter examines whether machines can have rights. Because a response to this query primarily depends on how one characterizes “moral status,” it is organized around two established moral principles, considers how these principles apply to artificial intelligence and robots, and concludes by providing suggestions for further study.
A sketch of the education landscape in biomimetic and biohybrid systems
Authors: Mura Anna , Prescott Tony J.
Published: June 2018

The Living Machines approach, which can be seen as an exemplar methodology for a wider initiative towards “convergent science,” implies and requires a transdisciplinary understanding that bridges from between science and engineering and to the social sciences, arts, and humanities. In addition, it emphasizes a mix of basic and applied approaches whilst also requiring an awareness of the societal context in which modern research and innovation activities are conducted. This chapter explores the education landscape for postgraduate programs related to the concept of Living Machines, highlighting some challenges that should be addressed and providing suggestions for future course development and policy making. The chapter also reviews some of the within-discipline and across-discipline programs that currently exist, particularly within Europe and the US, and outlines an exemplar degree program that could provide the multi-faceted training needed to pursue research and innovation in Living Machines.
Editorial Note
Authors: Howells Coral Ann , Sharrad Paul , Turcotte Gerry
Published: June 2018

THE system of referencing adopted in this volume depends on a distinction between primary and secondary works. Primary works (novels, short stories, and essays) are referred to by title and date in the text, and do not appear in the bibliography. Quotations from novels are normally identified by a chapter reference, so that they can be easily found without referring to a specific edition. However, in the case of novels without numbered chapter breaks (such as Michael Ondaatje’s ...
South Pacific
Authors: Crowl Linda
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines book history in the anglophone South Pacific, focusing on how creative writing as well as reading developed from small localized efforts within systems of colonial management and then as part of international pressures to decolonize. The discussion begins with a look at the role of European missionaries in promoting literacy in the South Pacific, and how colonial administrators used missions in pacification and to provide education to Indigenous populations. The chapter then considers the publishing activities of colonial governments and how the history of the novel in the Pacific was shaped by regional and international organizations. It also describes publishing by nation states after independence and by groups and individuals despite numerous challenges.
The Novel in Australia from the 1950s
Authors: Rooney Brigid
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines the history of the Australian novel from the 1950s, focusing on the socio-cultural context in which the Australian novel has become heterogeneous in size, outlook, and ethnic composition. It first considers developments in the 1950s–1970s, when Patrick White emerged as a powerful canonical agent in the modernization of Australian literary culture by challenging white Australian conservatism. It then turns to the period 1972–1988, which saw the emergence of novels that reflected progressive nationalism, multicultural diversity reflecting Australia’s changing demographic, the appearance of Indigenous writing, and the new perspectives brought by feminist and revisionist history. It also discusses publishing in the 1990s and beyond, when Australian fiction contested the deep silences brought by colonization and made a shift to transnationalism. The chapter concludes with an assessment of recipients of the Miles Franklin Literary Award and an analysis of the ways in which the novel in Australia has affirmed the interconnectedness of Australian literature with its region and the world.
Canada
Authors: Sugars Cynthia
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines the history of the English-language novel in Canada since 1950. It first considers how the promotion of Canadian cultural identity and attempts to articulate a distinctly Canadian social ethos became increasingly mobilized in the decades following World War II. It then discusses the newfound optimism about the future of Canadian literature and culture that flourished following the Massey Commission initiatives, as well as Canadian novels published during the 1960s and 1970s — a period regarded as a time of social emancipation, sexual freedom, and counter-culture revolution. It also explores developments in the 1980s and 1990s and during the period 2000–2015, citing a number of important novels published in these years, including Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees (1996), Austin Clarke's The Polished Hoe (2002), Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For (2005), and David Chariandy's Soucouyant (2007).
Aotearoa/New Zealand
Authors: Moffat Kirstine
Published: June 2018

The post-1950 novel in New Zealand can be described in terms of transition and innovation, as writers were energized by a sense of ferment, excitement, and shifting identities. This reflects the profound social, political, and cultural changes of the period. In the 1950s and 1960s, literary novelists were driven by two desires: to create a genuine local literature that was not derivative of British models and to awaken society from its socially conservative and ethnically homogeneous complacency. The chapter considers how the New Zealand novel has been shaped by postcolonial and feminist sensibilities since the 1970s together with a wider sense of its Pacific and Asian identity. It also discusses the authors' exploration of shifting identities, which can be divided into four broadly chronological, overlapping phases: social realism and social protest; the Maōri Renaissance; cultural change and stylistic experimentation; and boundary-crossing.
Realist Fiction since 1950
Authors: Coates Donna
Published: June 2018

In Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, realism was the traditional mode for fiction throughout the first half of the twentieth century, harnessed to the call of establishing distinctive national identities. Realism evolved very differently in these three nations, but it remained the dominant mode in the post-war decade, albeit always and increasingly in contention with and affected by modernist and, later, postmodernist influences. In the South Pacific, literary writing often began with the transcription of myths and stories from local languages, but otherwise most fiction has relied on realism, especially in the decolonizing effort to assert an accurate picture of local life as a counter to white colonial narratives. The chapter examines how the realist novel has evolved in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Pacific.
Historical Fiction
Authors: Wevers Lydia
Published: June 2018

Since the latter part of the twentieth century, there has been a noticeable turn towards fiction that draws on historical materials, people, and events to reframe the politics of both the past and the present. This turn was signalled by Linda Hutcheon in 1988 as part of postmodernism. In recent years, and particularly in the postcolonial settler literatures of Australia, Canada, New Zealand the intersections of history and fiction have become significantly political. The chapter considers novels in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Pacific that deploy a more traditional form of historicity, including those written by Patrick White; historical novels by Indigenous writers; the regionalism of Canadian literature by contrast with New Zealand or Australian historical fiction; and historical fiction that parodies or reframes famous novels of the past.
The Short Story in Australia
Authors: Webby Elizabeth
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines the history of the short story in Australia. Australia's tradition of short fiction writing dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. In the days when Australian novels were mainly published in England, the short story was a source of income for many authors. By the 1950s, the type of realist story favoured by Henry Lawson — using a colloquial, usually male, voice and featuring working-class characters and bush settings — had been established as the Australian tradition. The chapter first considers short stories written in the 1950s and 1960s, which reflect versions of realism and modernism, before discussing works published in the 1970s and 1980s that deal with postmodernism and feminism. It also looks at short stories published since the 1990s, such as Gail Jones' The House of Breathing, Tony Birch's Father's Day (2009), and Cate Kennedy's Like a House on Fire (2012).
The Short Story in Canada
Authors: New W. H.
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses the history of short fiction in Canada. The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed several social changes that affected the publication of short stories in Canada. Electronic media began to impinge on print media, and bookstores, especially the small independents, were forced to shut down due to competition from big box stores, online companies, and electronic downloading practices. The chapter examines important developments that contributed to the growth of the Canadian short story, including the establishment in 1970-71 of the Montreal Storytellers Fiction Performance Group and the publication in 1985 of the first collection of contemporary Canadian speculative fiction, Tesseracts, edited by Judith Merril. It also considers works by late twentieth-century writers, who focused on post-nationalism, third-wave feminism, post-realism, and post-temporality.
Indigenous Novels in Canada
Authors: Hyland-Russell Tara
Published: June 2018

Canadian Indigenous novels emerged as a specific genre within the last thirty years, rooted in a deep, thousands-year-old ‘performance art and poetic tradition’ of oratory, oral story, poetry, and drama. In addition to these oral and performance traditions are the ‘unique and varying methods of written communication’ that flourished long before contact with Europeans. The chapter considers Canadian novels by Indigenous writers. It shows that Indigenous fiction is deeply intertwined with history, politics, and a belief in the power of story to name, resist, and heal; that novel-length Aboriginal fiction in Canada built on a growing body of other forms of Indigenous literature; and that many Indigenous novels foreground their relationship with place and identity as key features of the resistance against systemic and institutional racism. It also examines coming-of-age novels of the 1980s and 1990s that are grounded in realism.