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Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights: Ethical and Philosophical Issues (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
by Michael Cholbi Jaime AhlbergProcreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights explores important issues at the nexus of two burgeoning areas within moral and social philosophy: procreative ethics and parental rights. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little scholarly engagement across these subdisciplinary boundaries, despite the fact that parental rights are paradigmatically ascribed to individuals responsible for procreating particular children. This collection thus aims to bring expert practitioners from these literatures into fruitful and innovative dialogue around questions at the intersection of procreation and parenthood. Among these questions are: Must individuals be found competent in order to have the right to procreate or to parent? What, if anything, can justify parents' special authority over, or special obligations toward, their children, particularly children they biologically procreate? How is the relationship between the right to procreate and the right to parent best understood? How ought liberal societies understand the parent-child relationship and the rights and claims it gives rise to? A distinguishing feature of the collection is that several of its chapters address these issues by drawing on philosophical work in the realm of education, one of the most controversial areas in the ethics of parenthood. This book represents a distinctive synthesis of topics and literatures likely to appeal to scholars and advanced students working across a wide range of disciplines.
Procreative Responsibility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
by Davide BattistiThis book rethinks procreative responsibility considering the continuous development of Assisted Reproductive Technologies. It presents a person-affecting moral argument, highlighting that the potential availability of future Assisted Reproductive Technologies brings out new procreative obligations.Traditionally, Assisted Reproductive Technologies are understood as practices aimed at extending the procreative freedom of prospective parents. However, some scholars argue that they also give rise to new moral constraints. This book builds on this viewpoint by presenting a person-affecting perspective on the impact of current and future Assisted Reproductive Technologies on procreative responsibility, with a specific focus on reproductive Genome Editing and ectogenesis. The author shows that this perspective is defensible both from a consequences-based person-affecting perspective and from a person-affecting account that considers morally relevant intuitions and attitudes.Procreative Responsibility and Assisted Reproductive Technologies will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in bioethics and procreative ethics.
Producing History in Spanish Civil War Exhumations: From the Archive to the Grave (World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence)
by Zahira Aragüete-ToribioThis book reflects on the new histories emerging from the exhumation of mass graves that contain the corpses of the Republicans killed in extrajudicial executions during and after the conflict, nearly eighty years after the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). In the search for, location and unearthing of these unmarked burials, the corpse, the document and the oral testimony have become key traces through which to demand the recognition of past Francoist crimes, which were never atoned, from a lukewarm Spanish state and judiciary. These have become objects of evidence against the politics of silence entertained by national institutions since the transition to democracy. Working alongside archaeologists, historians, memory activists and families, this book explores how new versions of the history of the killings are constructed at the cross-roads between science, history and family experience. It does so considering the workings of truth-seeking in the absence of criminal justice and the effects of the process on Spanish collective memory and identity.
Producing Success: The Culture of Personal Advancement in an American High School
by Peter DemerathMiddle- and upper-middle-class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds. Most attempts to redress this inequality focus on the issue of access to financial resources, but as Producing Success makes clear, the problem goes beyond mere economics. In this eye-opening study, Peter Demerath examines a typical suburban American high school to explain how some students get ahead. Demerath undertook four years of research at a Midwestern high school to examine the mercilessly competitive culture that drives students to advance. Producing Success reveals the many ways the community's ideology of achievement plays out: students hone their work ethics and employ various strategies to succeed, from negotiating with teachers to cheating; parents relentlessly push their children while manipulating school policies to help them get ahead; and administrators aid high performers in myriad ways, even naming over forty students "valedictorians. " Yet, as Demerath shows, this unswerving commitment to individual advancement takes its toll, leading to student stress and fatigue, incivility and vandalism, and the alienation of the less successful. Insightful and candid, Producing Success is an often troubling account of the educationally and morally questionable results of the American culture of success.
Producing Women's Poetry, 1600-1730
by Gillian WrightProducing Women's Poetry is the first specialist study to consider English-language poetry by women across the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Gillian Wright explores not only the forms and topics favoured by women, but also how their verse was enabled and shaped by their textual and biographical circumstances. She combines traditional literary and bibliographical approaches to address women's complex use of manuscript and print and their relationships with the male-generated genres of the traditional literary canon, as well as the role of agents such as scribes, publishers and editors in helping to determine how women's poetry was preserved, circulated and remembered. Wright focuses on key figures in the emerging canon of early modern women's writing, Anne Bradstreet, Katherine Philips and Anne Finch, alongside the work of lesser-known poets Anne Southwell and Mary Monck, to create a new and compelling account of early modern women's literary history.
Product Lifecycle Management to Support Industry 4.0: 15th Ifip Wg 5. 1 International Conference, Plm 2018, Turin, Italy, July 2-4, 2018, Proceedings (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology #540)
by Abdelaziz Bouras José Ríos Paolo Chiabert Frédéric NoëlThis book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th IFIP WG 5.1 International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management, PLM 2018, held in Turin, Spain, in July 2018.The 72 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 82 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: building information modeling; collaborative environments and new product development; PLM for digital factories and cyber physical systems; ontologies and data models; education in the field of industry 4.0; product-service systems and smart products; lean organization for industry 4.0; knowledge management and information sharing; PLM infrastructure and implementation; PLM maturity, implementation and adoption; 3D printing and additive manufacturing; and modular design and products and configuration and change management.
Production & Consumption of Music
by Alan Bradshaw Avi ShankarThis collection considers music within the spheres of production and consumption and pulls together an interdisciplinary collection of music studies from around the world, ranging from an ethnomusicological analysis of the condition of Tibetan music and its role within the Chinese state, the changing reception of anti-apartheid music by white musicians in South Africa according to new configurations of society and its memory of recent history, a lyrical exploration of jazz as a signifier of crime and other nefarious activities within film history, an analysis of how music charts and maps the social network and gender roles in Jamaica and a landmark commentary on how music is framed by David Hemsondalgh. As opposed to other studies which explore music just in terms of its reception or its composition and distribution, this collection should make necessary reading for anybody interested in the wider nexus of music’s existence and how it waxes and wanes with ideology, politics, gender, business and much more besides.
Production Diseases in Farm Animals: Pathophysiology, Prophylaxis and Health Management
by Josef Johann GrossThis textbook deals comprehensively with livestock production diseases and their prevention in the major species: ruminants, swine, and poultry. It gives an interdisciplinary view on pathophysiology, prophylaxis, and health management.Livestock breeding and husbandry is often accompanied by a conflict of interest between the animal´s biological requirements and economic producer needs. This conflict is increasingly gaining attention not only by producers, animal scientists, and veterinarians, but also by the public. It creates significant future challenges, which are described and addressed in this book. The main topics covered are: • the use of antimicrobials with emphasis on security and safety for producers/consumers• the impact of locomotion disorders on performance and welfare of farm animals • the interactions of gut microbiome, genetics, climate change, metabolic status and mineral homeostasis with reproduction, performance, animal health and welfare• infectious and respiratory diseases• the raising of neonatesA special section is devoted to behavioural signs indicating an impaired animal welfare. These are the basis for precision livestock farming (PLF) technology and the development of new management concepts. The present work is a valuable resource for veterinarians, students, as well as expert readers from animal and agricultural sciences, food safety and technology. Supplementary videos can be accessed online as well as directly from the print book; simply download the Springer Nature More Media App for free and scan the links with the play button.
Production, Presentation, and Acceleration of Educational Research: Could Less be More? (Educational Research #11)
by Paul Smeyers Marc DepaepeIs educational research chasing the trends one can observe in big sciences, mimicking what happens, some would say successfully, elsewhere in academia? The question in the title of this edited collection took its inspiration from a verse by Goethe: Wer Großes will, muss sich zusammenraffen. In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister. Such confinement or limitation that may show mastery does not characterize at all the present state of the educational research publication scene. Instead, there have never been more of such publications which follow each other with an increasing speed. It may therefore be interesting to delve into the reasons of this development that is characteristic of what is published in this field as in many or almost all fields of scholarly work. The chapters in this collection address aspects of the (re)presentation, dissemination and reception, and the production and acceleration of educational research. An international group of scholars, philosophers and historians of education, address questions such as ‘Why publish?’, ‘The lust for academic fame’, ‘Why educational historiography is not an unnecessary luxury?’, and ‘Ways of knowing’. The twelve chapters are preceded by an introduction where issues of plurality and diversity in the study of education are at centre stage and followed by an Epilogue written by the Editors of the Springer Series Educational Research. Paul Smeyers and Marc Depaepe offer some final reflections after a journey of two decades that took them and the colleagues participating in the Research Community from 1999 till 2018 floating on the current of the Zeitgeist that carried the Discipline of Education. They claim finally that mastery in the study of education requires restraint.
Productive Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy: The Concept of Technê
by Thomas Kjeller JohansenThis work investigates how ancient philosophers understood productive knowledge or technê and used it to explain ethics, rhetoric, politics and cosmology. In eleven chapters leading scholars set out the ancient debates about technê from the Presocratic and Hippocratic writers, through Plato and Aristotle and the Hellenistic age (Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics), ending in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus. Amongst the many themes that come into focus are: the model status of ancient medicine in defining the political art, the similarities between the Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of technê, the use of technê as a paradigm for virtue and practical rationality, technê´s determining role in Platonic conceptions of cosmology, technê´s relationship to experience and theoretical knowledge, virtue as an 'art of living', the adaptability of the criteria of technê to suit different skills, including philosophy itself, the use in productive knowledge of models, deliberation, conjecture and imagination.
Profanations
by Giorgio AgambenThe Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has always been an original reader of texts, understanding their many rich and multiple historical, aesthetic, and political meanings and effects. In Profanations, Agamben has assembled for the first time some of his most pivotal essays on photography, the novel, and film. A meditation on memory and oblivion, on what is lost and what remains, Profanations proves yet again that Agamben is one of the most provocative writers of our times. In ten essays, Agamben rethinks approaches to a series of literary and philosophical problems: the relation between genius, ego, and theories of subjectivity; the problem of messianic time as explicated in both images and lived experience; parody as a literary paradigm; the potential of magic to provide an ethical canon. <P><P>The range of topics and themes addressed here attest to the very creativity of Agamben’s singular mode of thought and his persistent pursuit to grasp the act of witnessing, sometimes futile, sometimes earth-shattering — the talking cricket in Pinocchio; “helpers” in Kafka’s novels; pictorial representations of the Last Judgment, of anonymous female faces, and of Orson Wells’s infamous object of obsession Rosebud. “In Praise of Profanity,” the central essay of this small but dense book, confronts the question of profanity as the crucial political task of the moment. An act of resistance to every form of separation, the concept of profanation — as both the “return to common usage” and “sacrifice” — reorients perceptions of how power, consumption, and use interweave to produce an urgent political modality and desire: to profane the unprofanable. In short, Agamben provides not only a new and potent theoretical model but also a writerly style that itself forges inescapable links between literature, politics, and philosophy.
Profession 2011 (Profession Ser.)
by The Modern Language Association of AmericaThis issue of Profession contains Sidonie Smith's introduction to her Presidential Forum (held at the 2011 MLA convention) and the essays of forum participants Hillary Chute, Marianne Hirsch, Leigh Gilmore, Craig Howes, Françoise Lionnet, Nancy K. Miller, David Palumbo-Liu, Brian Rotman, Leo Spitzer, Robert Warrior, and Gillian L. Whitlock. The issue also features a section on evaluating digital scholarship. Introduced by Susan Schreibman, Laura Mandell, and Stephen Olsen, the section includes essays by Steve Anderson, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Jerome McGann, Tara McPherson, Bethany Nowviskie, and Geoffrey Rockwell. The issue's other essays are by Reed Way Dasenbrock, Gillian Gane, Laurie Grobman, Joyce Kinkead, David Porter, and Richard Yarborough. The issue concludes with two sets of MLA guidelines--on professional employment practices for non-tenure-track faculty members and on evaluating translations as scholarship--and a listing of reports, surveys, statements, and other resources recently added to the MLA Web site.
Profession 2012 (Profession Ser.)
by The Modern Language AssociationThis issue of Profession contains Russell A. Berman's introduction to his Presidential Forum, Language, Literature, Learning, held at the 2012 MLA convention, and the essays of the forum participants Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Christopher Freeburg, Jack Halberstam, B. Venkat Mani, and Imani Perry. To mark the journal's thirty-fifth anniversary, the issue also features a retrospective sampling of articles that illustrate the evolution of the profession and of the professional issues the journal has addressed since its inception in 1977. The retrospective section includes articles by Leon Anderson; Wayne C. Booth; Heidi Byrnes; James A. Castaeda; Erik D. Curren; Reed Way Dasenbrock; Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Gerald Graff; John Guillory; Carolyn G. Heilbrun; Mara Holt; Dorothy James; Claire J. Kramsch; George Levine; Philip Lewis; Alan Liu; Helene Moglen; Christopher Newfield; Mary Louise Pratt; Judith Ryan; Jack H. Schuster; and Domna C. Stanton.
Profession 2013
by The Modern Language AssociationThis issue of Profession contains Michael Bérubé's introduction to his Presidential Forum, Avenues of Access, which was held at the 2013 MLA convention, and the essays of the forum participants: Joshua A. Boldt, Beth Landers, Maria Maisto, and Robert Samuels. The issue also features a section on a statistical study documenting the participation of people of color in humanities doctoral programs. Curated by the MLA Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada, the section includes an introduction by Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo and Richard T. Rodríguez; articles by Frances R. Aparicio, Robert Warrior, and Dana A. Williams; and a conclusion by Doug Steward. The issue's four other essays cover a variety of topics. Disability and access in higher education is the subject of a collaborative article by Brenda Jo Brueggemann, Jay Dolmage, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Susan Ghiaciuc, Stephanie L. Kerschbaum, Craig A. Meyer, Sushil K. Oswal, Margaret Price, Ellen Samuels, and Amy Vidali. Rogelio Miñana writes about a curricular experiment; superliteracy and doctoral programs are the focus of Joseph R. Urgo's article; and Julia M. Wright's topic is faculty governance.
Professional Autonomy: A Guidebook for the Caring Professions (SpringerBriefs in Ethics)
by Ricardo A. AyalaAimed at supporting their emancipatory project, this book explores strategies for resisting dominance and enhancing agency within the caring professions. It helps bridge the gap between theoretical and practical autonomy in these fields, which have long been overshadowed by other professional groups. The book scrutinises the often-misunderstood notion of autonomy, which is frequently equated with mere independence—an equation that can paradoxically undermine, rather than improve, care quality. Additionally, it critiques the prevailing lack of a specific philosophical framework for practice. Existing literature typically approaches professional autonomy through a liberal philosophy lens or loosely assigns moral agency to groups, leading to a view of autonomous professions as analogous to autonomous individuals. By presenting a critical overview of the main schools of thought on autonomy—emphasising group autonomy and the specific challenges faced by caring professions—this book aims to fill a significant gap. It includes case studies to ground its theoretical insights in practical examples from real-world scenarios, helping the caring professions identify both autonomy issues and opportunities for enhancing autonomous practice.
Professional Error Competence of Preservice Teachers
by Jürgen Seifried Eveline WuttkeThis book discusses competence, teacher competence, and professional error competence of teachers, and emphasizes the need for a training programme that supports the latter. The book starts out by presenting results from previous studies that underline the necessity to train professional error competence of teachers, especially in the field of accounting. The studies analysed include research in the field of accounting, and on the efficacy of teacher training. Next, considerations on training programmes are presented. From these analyses, a training programme was designed to support professional error competence in accounting. This training programme aims for increased knowledge about students' errors (content knowledge) and offers strategies to handle these errors (pedagogical content knowledge). Both are central facets of professional error competence. The book describes the development, characteristics, implementation, and evaluation of this programme. It details the test platform that was developed and used for the assessment of professional error competence, and critically discusses the results from the evaluation of the training programme from various perspectives. The current discussion on teacher training and expertise is influenced by empirical results obtained in international large-scale studies such as PISA and TIMSS. The findings of the studies underpin the discussion on teaching quality and teachers' professional competences. The key issue is that teacher competence has an impact on teaching quality and this, in turn, influences students' achievements. International comparative studies reveal that teachers often lack central competence facets, and therefore it is assumed that standard teacher training programmes may fail to successfully prepare student teachers for their tasks. Therefore, customized training programmes are currently being discussed. Their focus is mostly on pedagogical content knowledge and classroom practices, because these competence facets are essential for teaching quality.
Professional Ethics for Research and Development Activities
by Dag Slotfeldt-EllingsenThis book provides a thorough introduction to research ethics and ethically responsible research practice in a research organization. It is relevant for all research areas. Morality, however, is not something one can just “learn”. Therefore, the book is written with a different basic tone than regular textbooks, so that it makes the reader aware of how morality plays a role in the various daily tasks one has in a research organization. The book conveys knowledge and experience material about the society’s and the research community’s view of how different ethical issues should be solved. From this, the reader will acquire the basic ethical principles they need to know and understand and be aware of, in order to be qualified in an ethical context as employees of a research organization, and to be able to deal with common ethical issues associated with research.
Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching (Professional Ethics #2)
by David CarrProfessionalism and Ethics in Teaching presents a thought-provoking and stimulating study of the moral dimensions of the teaching professions. After discussing the moral implications of professionalism, Carr explores the relationship of education theory to teaching practice and the impact of this relationship on professional expertise. He then identifies and examines some central ethical and moral issues in education and teaching. Finally David Carr gives a detailed analysis of a range of issues concerning the role of the teacher and the managements of educational issues. Professionalism and Ethics in Teaching presents a thought-provoking and stimulating study of the moral dimensions of the teaching professions.
Professionalism for the Built Environment (Building Research and Information)
by Simon FoxellIn the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, this new book provides thought provoking commentary on the nature of the relationship between society, the prevailing economic system and professionalism in the built environment. It addresses the changing responsibilities of professionals and in particular their obligation to act in the wider public interest. It is both an introduction to and an examination of professionalism and professional bodies in the sector, including a view of the future of professionalism and the organisations serving it. Simon Foxell outlines the history of professionalism in the sector, comparing and contrasting the development of the three major historic professions working in the construction industry: civil engineering, architecture and surveying. He examines how their systems have developed over time, up to the current period dominated by large professional services firms, and looks at some options for the future, whilst asking difficult questions about ethics, training, education, public trust and expectation from within and outside the industry. The book concludes with a six-point plan to help, if not ensure, that the professions remain an effective and essential part of both society and the economy; a part that allows the system to operate smoothly and easily, but also fairly and to the benefit of all. Essential reading for built environment professionals and students doing the professional studies elements of their training or in the process of applying for chartership or registration. The issues and lessons are applicable across all building professions.
Professionelles Handeln Pflegelehrender angesichts ethischer Herausforderungen
by Anne-Christin LindeDie Pflegebildung unterliegt aktuell vielfältigen Veränderungen und wachsenden Anforderungen. Lernende in der Pflegeausbildung sind zunehmend heterogen hinsichtlich ihrer Bildungsbiografien. Die Bedingungen in der praktischen Pflegeausbildung sind vermehrt geprägt durch Arbeitsverdichtung bei gleichzeitig komplexer werdenden Pflegesituationen. Professionelles Handeln bedarf gerade angesichts dieser konstitutiven und aktuellen Anforderungen einer Verantwortungsübernahme durch Pflegelehrende sowie ermöglichende Rahmenbedingungen. Professionell zu handeln bedeutet auch, situativ im Einzelfall ethisch begründete Entscheidungen zu treffen. Hierfür bedarf es einer ethischen Orientierung in Form einer Berufsethik. Für die Entwicklung einer Berufsethik Pflegelehrender muss mehr über deren ethische Herausforderungen in Erfahrung gebracht werden. Das vorliegende Buch beschreibt ethische Herausforderungen Pflegelehrender, um einen professionellen Umgang damit zu befördern.
Professor Lundy's Guide to Rock Music Connoisseurship: Developing Defendable Aesthetic Judgment and Discovering the Most Worthwhile Music Experiences
by Duane E. LundyThis empirical and theoretical book should be of interest to anyone who dares to consider the contentious topic of measuring and justifying aesthetic value in music, as well as the issue of how experts compare to nonexperts in terms of aesthetic fluency,
Professor at Large: The Cornell Years
by John CleeseAnd now for something completely different. Professor at Large features beloved English comedian and actor John Cleese in the role of Ivy League professor at Cornell University. His almost twenty years as professor-at-large has led to many talks, essays, and lectures on campus. This collection of the very best moments from Cleese under his mortarboard provides a unique view of his endless pursuit of intellectual discovery across a range of topics. Since 1999, Cleese has provided Cornell students and local citizens with his ideas on everything from scriptwriting to psychology, religion to hotel management, and wine to medicine.His incredibly popular events and classes—including talks, workshops, and an analysis of A Fish Called Wanda and The Life of Brian—draw hundreds of people. He has given a sermon at Sage Chapel, narrated Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with the Cornell Chamber Orchestra, conducted a class on script writing, and lectured on psychology and human development. Each time Cleese has visited the campus in Ithaca, NY, he held a public presentation, attended and or lectured in classes, and met privately with researchers. From the archives of these visits, Professor at Large includes an interview with screenwriter William Goldman, a lecture about creativity entitled, "Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind," talks about Professor at Large and The Life of Brian, a discussion of facial recognition, and Cleese's musings on group dynamics with business students and faculty.Professor at Large provides a window into the workings of John Cleese's scholarly mind, showcasing the wit and intelligence that have driven his career as a comedian, while demonstrating his knack of pinpointing the essence of humans and human problems. His genius on the screen has long been lauded; now his academic chops get their moment in the spotlight, too.
Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes
by Jerry Z. MullerThe controversial Jewish thinker whose tortured path led him into the heart of twentieth-century intellectual lifeScion of a distinguished line of Talmudic scholars, Jacob Taubes (1923–1987) was an intellectual impresario whose inner restlessness led him from prewar Vienna to Zurich, Israel, and Cold War Berlin. Regarded by some as a genius, by others as a charlatan, Taubes moved among yeshivas, monasteries, and leading academic institutions on three continents. He wandered between Judaism and Christianity, left and right, piety and transgression. Along the way, he interacted with many of the leading minds of the age, from Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem to Herbert Marcuse, Susan Sontag, and Carl Schmitt. Professor of Apocalypse is the definitive biography of this enigmatic figure and a vibrant mosaic of twentieth-century intellectual life.Jerry Muller shows how Taubes&’s personal tensions mirrored broader conflicts between religious belief and scholarship, allegiance to Jewish origins and the urge to escape them, tradition and radicalism, and religion and politics. He traces Taubes&’s emergence as a prominent interpreter of the Apostle Paul, influencing generations of scholars, and how his journey led him from crisis theology to the Frankfurt School, and from a radical Hasidic sect in Jerusalem to the center of academic debates over Gnosticism, secularization, and the revolutionary potential of apocalypticism.Professor of Apocalypse offers an unforgettable account of an electrifying world of ideas, focused on a charismatic personality who thrived on controversy and conflict.
Profiles in Courage
by John F. KennedyWritten in 1955 by the then junior senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage has served as a clarion call to every American. A collection of eight inspiring, unsung, and heroic acts by American patriots at different junctures in our nation's history, Kennedy's book became required reading and an instant classic and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Now, a half-century later, it remains a moving, powerful, and relevant testament to the indomitable national spirit and an unparalleled celebration of that most noble of human virtues.Along with vintage photographs and an extensive author biography, this book features Kennedy's correspondence about the writing project, contemporary reviews, a letter from Ernest Hemingway, and two rousing speeches from recipients of the Profile in Courage Award.
Profinite Semigroups and Symbolic Dynamics (Lecture Notes in Mathematics #2274)
by Dominique Perrin Jorge Almeida Alfredo Costa Revekka KyriakoglouThis book describes the relation between profinite semigroups and symbolic dynamics. Profinite semigroups are topological semigroups which are compact and residually finite. In particular, free profinite semigroups can be seen as the completion of free semigroups with respect to the profinite metric. In this metric, two words are close if one needs a morphism on a large finite monoid to distinguish them. The main focus is on a natural correspondence between minimal shift spaces (closed shift-invariant sets of two-sided infinite words) and maximal J-classes (certain subsets of free profinite semigroups). This correspondence sheds light on many aspects of both profinite semigroups and symbolic dynamics. For example, the return words to a given word in a shift space can be related to the generators of the group of the corresponding J-class. The book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in mathematics or theoretical computer science.