This chapter describes three main numerical methods to model hazards which cannot be simplified by analytical expressions (as covered in Chapter 2): cellular automata, agent-based models (ABMs), and system dynamics. Both cellular automata and ABMs are algorithmic approaches while system dynamics is a case of numerical integration. Energy dissipation during the hazard process is a dynamic process, that is, a process that evolves over time. Reanalysing all perils from a dynamic perspective is not always justified, since a static footprint (as defined in Chapter 2) often offers a reasonable approximation for the purpose of damage assessment. However, for some specific perils, the dynamics of the process must be considered for their proper characterization. A variety of dynamic models is presented here, for armed conflicts, blackouts, epidemics, floods, landslides, pest infestations, social unrest, stampedes, and wildfires. Their implementation in the standard catastrophe (CAT) model pipeline is also discussed.

This Handbook brings together a global team of private law experts and computer scientists to examine the interface between private law and AI, which includes issues such as whether existing private law can address the challenges of AI and whether and how private law needs to be reformed to reduce the risks of AI while retaining its benefits.

Through textually grounded "reverse engineering" of Sun Tzu’s ideas, this study challenges widely held assumptions. Sun Tzu is more straightforward, less "crafty," than often imagined. The concepts are more structural, less aphoristic. The fourteen themes approach provides a way of addressing Sun Tzu’s tendency to speak to multiple, often shifting, audiences at once ("multivocality"). It also sheds light on Sun Tzu’s limitations, including a pervasive zero-sum mentality; focus mostly on conventional warfare; a narrow view of human nature. Sun Tzu’s enduring value is best sought in the text’s extensive attention to warfare’s information aspects, where Sun Tzu made timeless contributions having implications for modern information warfare and especially its human aspects (e.g., algorithm sabotage by subverted insiders). The text points opportunities for small, agile twenty-first-century strategic actors to exploit cover provided by modern equivalents to Sun Tzu’s "complex terrain" (digital systems, social networks, complex organizations, and complex statutes) to run circles around large, sluggish, established institutional actors, reaping great profit from applying Sun Tzu’s insights.

There are two Sun Tzu verses which, by Sun Tzu’s own affirmations, may be seen as summations of the active ingredient of his way of war. One is Theme #6’s centerpiece verse III.4 (Passage #6.1).

Through textually grounded "reverse engineering" of Sun Tzu’s ideas, this study challenges widely held assumptions. Sun Tzu is more straightforward, less "crafty," than often imagined. The concepts are more structural, less aphoristic. The fourteen themes approach provides a way of addressing Sun Tzu’s tendency to speak to multiple, often shifting, audiences at once ("multivocality"). It also sheds light on Sun Tzu’s limitations, including a pervasive zero-sum mentality; focus mostly on conventional warfare; a narrow view of human nature. Sun Tzu’s enduring value is best sought in the text’s extensive attention to warfare’s information aspects, where Sun Tzu made timeless contributions having implications for modern information warfare and especially its human aspects (e.g., algorithm sabotage by subverted insiders). The text points opportunities for small, agile twenty-first-century strategic actors to exploit cover provided by modern equivalents to Sun Tzu’s "complex terrain" (digital systems, social networks, complex organizations, and complex statutes) to run circles around large, sluggish, established institutional actors, reaping great profit from applying Sun Tzu’s insights.

Among the rhetorical pleas that follow most instances of public dissatisfaction is the call for more or better accountability. Accountability is a lauded notion, a “golden concept” that is considered widely as critical to the success of democratic government. Such pleas, I will argue, are misplaced. Rather than starting from the premise of accountability as an idea that no one can be against, I consider the possibility that accountability undermines the very notion it ostensibly promotes: self-government. The concept of accountability in modern political theory is tied more closely to the emergence of an impersonal administrative state than it is to the hopeful horizon of a democratic one. In practice and in theory, it is a concept of irresponsibility, a technological approach to government that provides the comforts of impersonal rationality.

One of the most innovative changes to the practice of human embryo culture was the introduction of sophisticated time-lapse imaging (TLI) systems that eventually became part of the incubation unit. TLI allows continuous, uninterrupted monitoring of embryo development. Embryo selection at either the cleavage or the blastocyst stage using algorithms developed with tens of thousands or more of embryos with known implantation is robust and repeatable. The technology has continued to evolve, with improvements to the physical technology as well as software enhancements, including artificial intelligence (AI)-based embryo selection algorithms and machine learning.

Bioinformatics is discussed in Chapter 11. The complex nature of the subject and its interaction with other disciplines are outlined, and the inter-dependence of bioinformatics, the development of computer hardware and the internet is stressed. The nature and range of biological databases are outlined, from the inception of nucleic acid databases in the 1970s to the present breadth of primary and secondary databases that are repositories for information on nucleic acid and protein sequences, interactions between cellular components, biochemical pathways, pharmacological targets and many other data sets derived from existing information. Genome sequence databases are used to illustrate the tools needed to assemble, collate, annotate and interrogate the data, and the impact of bioinformatics in enabling experiments and protocols to to be conducted in silico is discussed.

Media and communication influence, shape, and change our societies. Therefore, this first chapter aims to explain the implications of digital communication for our societies and the relationship between media, technology, and society. The chapter introduces the concept of society from a sociological perspective and explains how societies change because of the effects technological developments have on them, and vice versa. It illustrates this interplay with the example of digital divides.

In order to explain the significance and changes of public communication in a digital society, the chapters zooms in on the media landscape and explicates the difference between new media and old (or traditional) media. It pays particular attention to the ideas of Marshall McLuhan, as his work remains a cornerstone when studying the relationship between media, technology, and society. The chapter then outlines the discipline of media linguistics and explains how media linguistics can help to make digital media and digital communication more tangible. It focuses on three key terms crucial for understanding public digital communication: multimodality, media convergence, and mediatization.