This companion provides a definitive and cutting-edge guide to the study of imaginary and virtual worlds across a range of media, including literature, television, film, and games. From the Star Trek universe, Thomas More’s classic Utopia, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s Arda, to elaborate, user-created game worlds like Minecraft, contributors present interdisciplinary perspectives on authorship, world structure/design, and narrative. The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds offers new approaches to imaginary worlds as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of world-building, and studies of specific worlds and worldbuilders.

Network Optimization in Intelligent Internet of Things Applications: Principles and Challenges sheds light on the optimization methods that form the basis of effective communication between networked devices. It is an excellent resource as it provides readers with a thorough understanding of the methods, ideas, and tactics essential to attaining seamless connectivity and improving performance. This book presents the fundamental ideas that govern network optimization, from maximizing throughput and lowering latency to handling a variety of communication protocols and minimizing energy use. It also addresses scalability issues, security flaws, and constantly changing IoT environments along with optimization techniques. This book uses cutting-edge research and real-world examples to give readers the knowledge and skills to address the complex problems associated with network optimization in intelligent IoT applications. It also examines machine learning-driven predictive analytics, robust security protocols, flexible routing algorithms, and the integration of edge computing - all crucial instruments for overcoming obstacles and attaining peak performance. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of the principles, challenges, and cutting-edge solutions in IoT network optimization for all kinds of readers, whether it is students, academicians, researchers, or industry professionals. This book unleashes the potential of networked smart devices, which can be unleashed in various sectors.

The edited volume deals with different contours of data science with special reference to data management for the research innovation landscape. The data is becoming pervasive in all spheres of human, economic and development activity. In this context, it is important to take stock of what is being done in the data management area and begin to prioritize, consider and formulate adoption of a formal data management system including citation protocols for use by research communities in different disciplines and also address various technical research issues. The volume, thus, focuses on some of these issues drawing typical examples from various domains. The idea of this work germinated from the two day workshop on “Big and Open Data – Evolving Data Science Standards and Citation Attribution Practices”, an international workshop, led by the ICSU-CODATA and attended by over 300 domain experts. The Workshop focused on two priority areas (i) Big and Open Data: Prioritizing, Addressing and Establishing Standards and Good Practices and (ii) Big and Open Data: Data Attribution and Citation Practices. This important international event was part of a worldwide initiative led by ICSU, and the CODATA-Data Citation Task Group. In all, there are 21 chapters (with 21st Chapter addressing four different core aspects) written by eminent researchers in the field which deal with key issues of S&T, institutional, financial, sustainability, legal, IPR, data protocols, community norms and others, that need attention related to data management practices and protocols, coordinate area activities, and promote common practices and standards of the research community globally. In addition to the aspects touched above, the national / international perspectives of data and its various contours have also been portrayed through case studies in this volume.

Making a vital contribution to our understanding of North American borderlands history through its examination of the northernmost stretches of the U.S.-Canada border, Andrea Geiger highlights the role that the North Pacific borderlands played in the construction of race and citizenship on both sides of the international border from 1867, when the United States acquired Russia's interests in Alaska, through the end of World War II. Imperial, national, provincial, territorial, reserve, and municipal borders worked together to create a dynamic legal landscape that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people negotiated in myriad ways as they traversed these borderlands. Adventurers, prospectors, laborers, and settlers from Europe, Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Asia made and remade themselves as they crossed from one jurisdiction to another. Within this broader framework, Geiger pays particular attention to the ways in which Japanese migrants and the Indigenous people who had made this borderlands region their home for millennia—Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian among others—negotiated the web of intersecting boundaries that emerged over time, charting the ways in which they infused these reconfigured national, provincial, and territorial spaces with new meanings.

Logics of Worlds is the sequel to Alain Badiou's masterpiece, Being and Event. Tackling the questions that had been left open by Being and Event, and answering many of his critics in the process, Badiou supplements his pioneering treatment of multiple being with a daring and complex theory of the worlds in which truths and subjects make their mark - what he calls a materialist dialectic. Drawing on his most ambitious philosophical predecessors - Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Lacan, Deleuze – Badiou ends this important later work with an impassioned call to 'live for an Idea'.

This unusual encyclopedia brings together in-depth information on more than 450 natural geographic features from around the world and offers an array of creative tools to promote critical thinking and classroom discussion. With Earth undergoing rapid environmental change, students and the general public alike should be knowledgeable about the world's geographic features. This authoritative, two-volume reference enables readers do just that. It describes continents and oceans; individual mountains, islands, caves, and rivers; and ecological entities such as wildlife refuges and national parks. Each entry provides a geographic overview of the feature's significance, location, description, geologic history, biota, protected areas, and environmental issues. But the coverage goes even deeper so that entries also discuss the cultural importance of each natural place, covering everything from indigenous beliefs to traditional folklore to contemporary legends. The encyclopedia stands apart from other works not only in the depth of its coverage but also in its range. It discusses lesser known as well as prominent geographical features and offers critical thinking aids that will help students see how the natural world relates to their daily lives. Teaching and learning tools include an appendix called "Opposing Viewpoints" that allows students to understand landforms involved in current conflicts and disputes as well as an "Activities/Discussion Questions" appendix.