The ability to navigate purposefully through its environment is fundamental to most animals and to every intelligent organism. In this book we examine the computational issues specific to the creation of machines that move intelligently in their environment. From the earliest modern speculation regarding the creation of autonomous robots, it was recognized that regardless of the mechanisms used to move the robot around or the methods used to sense the environment, the computational principles that govern the robot are of paramount importance. As Powell and Donovan discovered in Isaac Asimov’s story “Runaround,” subtle definitions within the programs that control a robot can lead to significant changes in the robot’s overall behavior or action. Moreover, interactions among multiple complex components can lead to large-scale emergent behaviors that may be hard to predict.

The increased interest that the topic of critical infrastructure resilience is attracting in academia, government, commerce, services, and industry is creating an alternative engineering field that could be called resilience engineering. However, the views of the meaning of resilience have varied, and even in some very relevant world languages, an exact translation of the word “resilience” has only recently been introduced – for example, the word “resiliencia” was added to the dictionary of the Royal Academy of Spanish Language in 2014 – or it still does not exist, as happens in Japanese. Thus, this chapter introduces the main concepts associated with the study of resilience engineering applicable to critical infrastructure systems with a focus on electric power grids and information and communication networks (ICNs) because these are the infrastructures that are identified as “uniquely critical” in US Presidential Policy Directive 21, which is the source for the definition of resilience that is used in this book.

How does a person curious about or wanting to do science learn it? The thesis of this book is learning science requires not only digging deeply into the subject but learning how to learn. It is not enough to learn facts about the history of science or to study chemistry, biology, or physics per se. One must also have a sense of the roles of psychological and social factors in science. We can read about the development of Newtonian mechanics or quantum physics, but that does not tell us why Newton, or Planck, Bohr, Born, or Heisenberg studied these subjects in the first place or what thought processes they used in their work. It does not tell us how their personalities and intuition drove their work. It also does not tell us why the work of these scientists was or was not accepted by the scientific community, rightly or wrongly. Most importantly, it does not tell us why we think we know what we do or even if what we study is real. Epistemology and metaphysics are required here. This chapter explains why such knowledge is obligatory if one is to do science well.

This chapter looks at scholarly assessment of traditional issues in relation to Proverbs such as provenance, historical and cultural context and literary-critical history across the debates of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries leading into the twenty-first. Beginning in the nineteenth century when the term “wisdom literature” was coined, changing ideas regarding compositional issues, original social context, and authorship and the effect of key Egyptian parallels on those debates are all discussed.

This chapter sets the context for the story of the Madagascar Youths. It outlines the history of European interest in Madagascar that led the first Malagasy to visit Europe and resulted in the emergence of the island as a significant supplier of provisions and slaves to European colonies in the region. It discusses the reasons for a specifically British focus on Madagascar that resulted in the 1816 mission and in the Britanno-Merina accord of 1817, and the main authorities involved. It analyses why that accord was undermined and the fallout of its failure. Finally, it examines the renewal of the alliance and its outcome in the form of the 1820 treaty, which included the decision to send a select group of 'Madagascar Youths' abroad for training under British supervision.

The manner of expression of human malaise has changed and evolved a lot over time. With regard to the specific relationship with the body, we can also observe that it has evolved over time in response to some contradictory hypermodern drives. It is therefore appropriate to investigate how people sometimes feel drawn into a social climate that is full of confusing and contradictory messages and dynamics that are often difficult to elaborate, and what the effects of this context are. Human symbolization and mentalization processes therefore seem rooted in the body and relationships, which in turn are rooted in a specific social context that is changing, adding further complexity and transforming the concept of the human body in turn.

As in Chapter 4, the list of Proverbial virtues produced in Chapter 3 is again compared with Aristotle’s list of moral virtues in order to discover the underlying factors that explain both. Assessing in depth the similarities and differences between the virtue lists of Proverbs and Aristotle, this chapter focuses on their notions of courage, work, speech and friendship. I examine apparent and actual differences in these virtues and discuss the historical, social and doctrinal factors that underlie them. Why, for instance, do Aristotle and Proverbs show marked interest in honor? Or how might Proverbs’ focus on work and Aristotle’s omission of the subject be explained?

The list of Proverbial virtues produced in Chapter 3 is compared with Aristotle’s list of moral virtues in order to discover the underlying factors that explain both. Assessing in depth the similarities and differences between the virtue lists of Proverbs and Aristotle, this chapter focuses on their notions of honor, shame, humility and pride. I examine apparent and actual differences in these virtues and discuss the historical, social and doctrinal factors that underlie them. Why, for instance, do Aristotle and Proverbs show marked interest in honor? Or how might Proverbs’ focus on work and Aristotle’s omission of the subject be explained?

Chapter 4 examines state, federal and other studies that have documented how African Americans were particularly targeted for predatory and subprime lending, even when they qualified for traditional mortgages. It examines the historical links between racism and limited access to traditional mortgage lenders, and how this historical treatment fostered the subprime market. This chapter also explores the critically important question of why African Americans were targeted. No other community was targeted as aggressively as were black Americans. The chapter concludes with a discussion of continued victimization, and why African Americans harmed by predatory lending are not getting the help they need to begin to recover from the wealth drain that has damaged individuals, families, and entire communities.