The second edition of this handbook provides a state-of-the-art overview on the various aspects in the rapidly developing field of robotics. Reaching for the human frontier, robotics is vigorously engaged in the growing challenges of new emerging domains. Interacting, exploring, and working with humans, the new generation of robots will increasingly touch people and their lives. The credible prospect of practical robots among humans is the result of the scientific endeavour of a half a century of robotic developments that established robotics as a modern scientific discipline. The ongoing vibrant expansion and strong growth of the field during the last decade has fueled this second edition of the Springer Handbook of Robotics. The first edition of the handbook soon became a landmark in robotics publishing and won the American Association of Publishers PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences & Mathematics as well as the organization’s Award for Engineering & Technology. The second edition of the handbook, edited by two internationally renowned scientists with the support of an outstanding team of seven part editors and more than 200 authors, continues to be an authoritative reference for robotics researchers, newcomers to the field, and scholars from related disciplines. The contents have been restructured to achieve four main objectives: the enlargement of foundational topics for robotics, the enlightenment of design of various types of robotic systems, the extension of the treatment on robots moving in the environment, and the enrichment of advanced robotics applications. Further to an extensive update, fifteen new chapters have been introduced on emerging topics, and a new generation of authors have joined the handbook’s team. A novel addition to the second edition is a comprehensive collection of multimedia references to more than 700 videos, which bring valuable insight into the contents. The videos can be viewed directly augmented into the text with a smartphone or tablet using a unique and specially designed app. Springer Handbook of Robotics Multimedia Extension Portal: http://handbookofrobotics.org/

From the palace hotels of the elite to cheap lodging houses, residential hotels have been an element of American urban life for nearly two hundred years. Since 1870, however, they have been the target of an official war led by people whose concept of home does not include the hotel. Do these residences constitute an essential housing resource, or are they, as charged, a public nuisance? Living Downtown, the first comprehensive social and cultural history of life in American residential hotels, adds a much-needed historical perspective to this ongoing debate. Creatively combining evidence from biographies, buildings and urban neighborhoods, workplace records, and housing policies, Paul Groth provides a definitive analysis of life in four price-differentiated types of downtown residence. He demonstrates that these hotels have played a valuable socioeconomic role as home to both long-term residents and temporary laborers. Also, the convenience of hotels has made them the residence of choice for a surprising number of Americans, from hobo author Boxcar Bertha to Calvin Coolidge. Groth examines the social and cultural objections to hotel households and the increasing efforts to eliminate them, which have led to the seemingly irrational destruction of millions of such housing units since 1960. He argues convincingly that these efforts have been a leading contributor to urban homelessness. This highly original and timely work aims to expand the concept of the American home and to recast accepted notions about the relationships among urban life, architecture, and the public management of residential environments.

Collected together here are seven of the most iconic novels of H. G. Wells, the father of science fiction himself. With each story, he presents a unique and exciting twist. In The Invisible Man, a scientist's experimentation with visibility goes disastrously wrong. The Time Machine features a traveller recounting his adventures into the future, and The Island of Doctor Moreau explores the terrifying boundaries of human and animal morality. Other stories included are The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon, When the Sleeper Wakes and The World Set Free. This array of thrilling stories ranges from scenes of alien invasions to visions of dystopian futures.

Imagine a landscape alternating between groves of majestic hardwood and vast prairies. Filled with lush grasses, native plants, and sweet, clear streams and abundant with wildlife, it is a gracious land filled with promise. In the distance, smoke rises above a Native American village along one of the many trails in the area. A gathering of 10 to 15 wigwams is situated near a dancing ground and round council house in the area that would come to be known as Coral. So it had to be for the early settlers--Richard Tompkins, the Spencers, and the Brayton, Sponable, Blakesley, Belden, Tower, Bache, and Dunham men--who were the first to arrive in the fall of 1835. From these environs, these men continued toward the nearby valley that would become Marengo. While the majority staked their claims a short distance from the present-day intersection of Routes 20 and 23, it was Calvin Spencer, officially recognized as the city's founder, who built his cabin on the ground that was initially called Pleasant Grove, then Marengo.