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Mathematical Modelling of Physical Systems

Reflection Positivity: A Representation Theoretic Perspective (SpringerBriefs in Mathematical Physics #32)

Refection Positivity is a central theme at the crossroads of Lie group representations, euclidean and abstract harmonic analysis, constructive quantum field theory, and stochastic processes.This book provides the first presentation of the representation theoretic aspects of Refection Positivity and discusses its connections to those different fields on a level suitable for doctoral students and researchers in related fields.It starts with a general introduction to the ideas and methods involving refection positive Hilbert spaces and the Osterwalder--Schrader transform. It then turns to Reflection Positivity in Lie group representations. Already the case of one-dimensional groups is extremely rich.For the real line it connects naturally with Lax--Phillips scattering theory and for the circle group it provides a new perspective on the Kubo--Martin--Schwinger (KMS) condition for states of operator algebras. For Lie groups Reflection Positivity connects unitary representations of a symmetric Lie group with unitary representations of its Cartan dual Lie group.A typical example is the duality between the Euclidean group E(n) and the Poincare group P(n) of special relativity. It discusses in particular the curved context of the duality between spheres and hyperbolic spaces. Further it presents some new integration techniques for representations of Lie algebras by unbounded operators which are needed for the passage to the dual group. Positive definite functions, kernels and distributions and used throughout as a central tool.

The Origins of Radical Criminology: From Homer to Pre-Socratic Philosophy

This book critically explores the development of radical criminology through a range of written Ancient Greek works including epic and lyrical poetry, drama and philosophy, across different chapters. It traces the development of political power and the concepts of law, legitimacy, crime, justice and deviance in the Ancient Greek world and the political struggles that propelled that development, using the conflict perspective as a conceptual tool of the sociological analysis of reality. Theoretical discussions of crime and justice typically stem from the better known works of Plato or Aristotle although this book explores the works preceding these. This book will appeal to those interested in the (pre)history of criminology and the historical production of criminological knowledge.

Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives (Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies)

Drawing on new research material from ten European countries, Asylum Determination in Europe: Ethnographic Perspectives brings together a range of detailed accounts of the legal and bureaucratic processes by which asylum claims are decided. The book includes a legal overview of European asylum determination procedures, followed by sections on the diverse actors involved, the means by which they communicate, and the ways in which they make life and death decisions on a daily basis. It offers a contextually rich account that moves beyond doctrinal law to uncover the gaps and variances between formal policy and legislation, and law as actually practiced. The contributors employ a variety of disciplinary perspectives – sociological, anthropological, geographical and linguistic – but are united in their use of an ethnographic methodological approach. Through this lens, the book captures the confusion, improvisation, inconsistency, complexity and emotional turmoil inherent to the process of claiming asylum in Europe.

Biotechnologies of Crop Improvement, Volume 3: Genomic Approaches

During the past 15 years, cellular and molecular approaches have emerged as valuable adjuncts to supplement and complement conventional breeding methods for a wide variety of crop plants. Biotechnology increasingly plays a role in the creation, conservation, characterization and utilization of genetic variability for germplasm enhancement. For instance, anther/microspore culture, somaclonal variation, embryo culture and somatic hybridization are being exploited for obtaining incremental improvement in the existing cultivars. In addition, genes that confer insect- and disease-resistance, abiotic stress tolerance, herbicide tolerance and quality traits have been isolated and re-introduced into otherwise sensitive or susceptible species by a variety of transgenic techniques. Together these transformative methodologies grant access to a greater repertoire of genetic diversity as the gene(s) may come from viruses, bacteria, fungi, insects, animals, human beings, unrelated plants or even be artificially derived. Remarkable achievements have been made in the production, characterization, field evaluation and commercialization of transgenic crop varieties worldwide. Likewise, significant advances have been made towards increasing crop yields, improving nutritional quality, enabling crops to be raised under adverse conditions and developing resistance to pests and diseases for sustaining global food and nutritional security. The overarching purpose of this 3-volume work is to summarize the history of crop improvement from a technological perspective but to do so with a forward outlook on further advancement and adaptability to a changing world. Our carefully chosen “case studies of important plant crops” intend to serve a diverse spectrum of audience looking for the right tools to tackle complicated local and global issues.

Structural Dynamics: Theory and Computation

The sixth edition of Structural Dynamics: Theory and Computation is the complete and comprehensive text in the field. It presents modern methods of analysis and techniques adaptable to computer programming clearly and easily. The book is ideal as a text for advanced undergraduates or graduate students taking a first course in structural dynamics. It is arranged in such a way that it can be used for a one- or two-semester course, or span the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition, this text will serve the practicing engineer as a primary reference.The text differs from the standard approach of other presentations in which topics are ordered by their mathematical complexity. This text is organized by the type of structural modeling. The author simplifies the subject by presenting a single degree-of-freedom system in the first chapters, then moves to systems with many degrees-of-freedom in the following chapters. Finally, the text moves to applications of the first chapters and special topics in structural dynamics.This revised textbook intends to provide enhanced learning materials for students to learn structural dynamics, ranging from basics to advanced topics, including their application. When a line-by-line programming language is included with solved problems, students can learn course materials easily and visualize the solved problems using a program. Among several programming languages, MATLAB® has been adopted by many academic institutions across several disciplines. Many educators and students in the U.S. and many international institutions can readily access MATLAB®, which has an appropriate programming language to solve and simulate problems in the textbook. It effectively allows matrix manipulations and plotting of data. Therefore, multi-degree-of freedom problems can be solved in conjunction with the finite element method using MATLAB®.The revised version will include: · solved 34 examples in Chapters 1 through 22 along with MALAB codes. · basics of earthquake design with current design codes (ASCE 7-16 and IBC 2018). · additional figures obtained from MATLAB codes to illustrate time-variant structural behavior and dynamic characteristics (e.g., time versus displacement and spectral chart).This text is essential for civil engineering students. Professional civil engineers will find it an ideal reference.

Eurocentrism and the Politics of Global History

Global history locates national histories in the context of broader processes, in which the West is not necessarily synonymous with progress. And yet it often suffers from the same Eurocentrism that plagues national history, accepting Western categories and values uncritically and largely ignoring non-English historiographies. Alessandro Stanziani examines these tensions and asks what global history is and ought to be. Drawing upon a wide array of sources, he historicizes global history writing from the sixteenth century onward, tracing the forces of revolution, globalization, totalitarianism, colonization, decolonization and the Cold War. By considering global history in the context of a longue durée, multipolar perspective, this book assesses the strengths and limits of the field, and clarifies what is at stake.

Literary Cultures and Eighteenth-Century Childhoods

The essays in this volume offer fresh and innovative considerations both of how children interacted with the world of print, and of how childhood circulated in the literary cultures of the eighteenth century. They engage with not only the texts produced for the period’s newly established children’s book market, but also with the figure of the child as it was employed for a variety of purposes in literatures for adult readers. Embracing a wide range of methodological and disciplinary perspectives and considering a variety of contexts, these essays explore childhood as a trope that gained increasing cultural significance in the period, while also recognizing children as active agents in the worlds of familial and social interaction. Together, they demonstrate the varied experiences of the eighteenth-century child alongside the shifting, sometimes competing, meanings that attached themselves to childhood during a period in which it became the subject of intensified interest in literary culture.

Could the Versailles System have Worked?

This book explores the significance of the post-First World War peace settlement negotiated at Versailles in 1919. Versailles has always been a controversial subject and it has long been contended that the Treaty imposed unnecessarily severe conditions upon the defeated nations, particularly Germany, and in large part can be held responsible for the outbreak of war in 1939. This book considers the critical question as to whether the Treaty of Versailles established a new international settlement that could produce a peaceful and prosperous Europe, something that many have alleged was impossible. In an exhaustive analysis of the events that followed the Paris Peace Conference, Howard Elcock argues that the Versailles Treaty created a more stable diplomatic framework than has commonly been recognised, and challenges the traditional understanding that the delegates at Versailles can be held responsible for the failure to secure long-term peace in Europe.

Human–Robot Intimate Relationships (Human–Computer Interaction Series)

The idea of humans falling in love with artificial beings is not a modern conception. Our relationship with artificial partners has come a long way since Pygmalion and his ivory lover. In recent years, there has been a strong upsurge of interest and discussions in the various aspects of intimate relationships between humans and artificial partners. This interest is evidenced by the increase in media coverage, TV documentaries and films on this topic, as well as the active research efforts within the academic community. This book provides a comprehensive collection and overview of the latest development in the field of intimate relationships between humans and artificial partners, in particular robots and virtual agents. It includes relevant research work undertaken by the authors, the latest advancements in technology and commercial products, and future predictions and insights from leading experts in the area. This book contains an in-depth discussion of the engineering, philosophical, psychological, ethical, and sociological implications of relationships with artificial companions. It also gives a glimpse of some future directions of artificial intelligence, human-computer love and sexual interaction, robotics engineering etc. It is a great resource for researchers and professionals working in these areas. The narrative style of the book also makes it an enjoyable and educational read for everyone.

Languages of Care in Narrative Medicine: Words, Space and Time in the Healthcare Ecosystem

This book explains how narrative medicine can improve evidence based medicine (EBM), making it more effective and efficient, giving patients better quality of life and offering more satisfaction to all health care providers. It discusses not only the disease experienced by the person who is ill, but also focuses on the context and the culture, and investigates how narrative medicine can make other disciplines around the globe more applicable, less manipulative, and more “scientific”. Only by integrating the narrative aspects, can EBM become more effective and efficient, with fewer uncured patients, more satisfied patients with a better quality of life, and satisfaction for all health care providers. Every chapter is divided into two main sections: the first presents the latest research in the field, with comments and interviews with experts, while the second section provides a list of practical exercises and tasks. The book is intended for anyone with an interest in caring for and curing patients: all care providers of care, physicians, general practitioners, specialists nurses, psychotherapists, counselors, social workers, providers of aid, healthcare managers, scientific societies, academics and researchers.

The Palgrave Handbook of Race and Ethnic Inequalities in Education

This authoritative, state-of-the-art reference work builds on its first edition to provide a cutting-edge systematic review of the relationship between race/ethnicity and educational inequality. Studying 25 different national contexts drawn from every inhabited continent on earth and building upon material from the earlier edition, the work analyses educational policies, practices and research on minority students, immigrants and refugees. The editors and contributors explore principal research traditions from countries as diverse as Argentina, China, Norway and South Africa, examining the factors promoting social cohesion as well as considerations regarding the use of international test score data. Seamlessly integrating findings of national reviews, the editors and contributors analyse how national contexts of race/ethnic relations shape the character and content of educational inequalities, and deftly map out new directions for future research in the area.Global in its perspective and definitive in content, this one-stop volume will be an indispensable reference resource for a wide range of academics, students and researchers in the fields of education, sociology, race and ethnicity studies and social policy.Chapter 20 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

Social Equality in Education: France And England 1789 - 1939

This book explores the development of education in France and England from the French Revolution to the outbreak of World War II. The author uses social equality as a framework to compare and contrast the educational systems of both countries and to emphasise the distinctive ideological legacies at the heart of both systems. The author analyses how the French Revolution prompted the emergence of an egalitarian ideology in education that in turn was crucial for propagating the values of equality, patriotism and unity. In tandem, the volume discusses the equally dramatic consequences of the Industrial Revolution for English society: while England led the world by 1800 in trade, commerce and industry, a strict form of liberalism and minimal state intervention impeded the reduction of educational inequality. This pioneering book will be of interest to students and scholars of educational equality as well as the history of education in France and England.

Child Protection in England, 1960–2000: Expertise, Experience, and Emotion (Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This open access book explores how children, parents, and survivors reshaped the politics of child protection in late twentieth-century England. Activism by these groups, often manifested in small voluntary organisations, drew upon and constructed an expertise grounded in experience and emotion that supported, challenged, and subverted medical, social work, legal, and political authority. New forms of experiential and emotional expertise were manifested in politics – through consultation, voting, and lobbying – but also in the reshaping of everyday life, and in new partnerships formed between voluntary spokespeople and media. While becoming subjects of, and agents in, child protection politics over the late twentieth century, children, parents, and survivors also faced barriers to enacting change, and the book traces how long-standing structural hierarchies, particularly around gender and age, mediated and inhibited the realisation of experiential and emotional expertise.

Cosmological Implications of Quantum Anomalies (Springer Theses)

The successes of the standard models of particle physics and cosmology are many, but have proven incapable of explaining all the phenomena that we observe. This book investigates the potentially important role of quantum physics, particularly quantum anomalies, in various aspects of modern cosmology, such as inflation, the dynamical generation of the visible and dark matter in the universe, and gravitational waves. By doing so, the authors demonstrate that exploring the links between cosmology and particle physics is key to helping solve the mysteries of our Universe.

Úrsula Oswald Spring: With a Foreword by Birgit Dechmann (Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice #17)

This book aims to initiate among students and other readers critical and interdisciplinary reflections on key problems concerning development, gender relations, peace and environment, with a special emphasis on North-South relations. This volume offers a selection of the author's research in different parts of the world during 50 years of contributing to an interdisciplinary scientific debate and addressing social answers to urgent global problems. After the author's biography and bibliography, the second part analyses the development processes of several countries in the South that resulted in a dynamic of underdevelopment. The deep-rooted gender discrimination is also reflected in the destructive exploitation of natural resources and the pollution of soils, water and air. Since the beginning of the Anthropocene in the mid-20th century, the management of human society and global resources has been unsustainable and has created global environmental change and multiple conflicts over scarce and polluted resources. Peace and development policies aiming at gender equity and sustainable environmental management, where water and food are crucial for the survival of humankind, focus on systemic alternatives embedded in a path of sustainability transition.• This book reviews multiple influences from Europe, Africa and Latin America on a leading social scientist and activist on gender, development and environment aiming at a world with equity, sustainability, peace and harmony between nature and humans.• This pioneer volume analyses social and environmental conflicts and peace processes in Latin America, with a special focus on Mexico, by addressing the development of under-development, global environmental change, poverty, nutrition and the North-South gap.• This volume focuses on environmental deterioration with a special emphasis on food and water and proposes systemic changes towards a sustainability transition with peace, regional development and gender equity.• This pioneering work offers alternative approaches to regional development, food sovereignty and holistic development processes from a gender perspective.

Advances in Human Factors, Business Management and Society: Proceedings of the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Human Factors, Business Management and Society, July 21-25, 2018, Loews Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida, USA (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing #783)

This book presents practical approaches for facilitating the achievement of excellence in the management and leadership of organizational resources. It shows how the principles of creating shared value can be applied to ensure faster learning, training, business development, and social renewal. In particular, it presents novel methods and tools for tackling the complexity of management and learning in both business organizations and society. Discussing ontologies, intelligent management systems, methods for creating knowledge and value added, it offers novel insights into time management and operations optimization, as well as advanced methods for evaluating customers’ satisfaction and conscious experience. Based on two conferences, the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Human Factors, Business Management and Society, and the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Human Factors in Management and Leadership, held on July 21–25, 2018, in Orlando, Florida, USA, the book provides both researchers and professionals with new tools and inspiring ideas for achieving excellence in various business activities.

Advances in Ergonomics in Design: Proceedings of the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Ergonomics in Design, July 21-25, 2018, Loews Sapphire Falls Resort at Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida, USA (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing #777)

This book provides readers with a timely snapshot of ergonomics research and methods applied to the design, development and prototyping – as well as the evaluation, training and manufacturing – of products, systems and services. Combining theoretical contributions, case studies, and reports on technical interventions, it covers a wide range of topics in ergonomic design including: ecological design; educational and game design; cultural and ethical aspects in design; user research and human–computer interaction in design; as well as design for accessibility and extreme environments, and many others. The book particularly focuses on new technologies such as virtual reality, state-of-the-art methodologies in information design, and human–computer interfaces. Based on the AHFE 2018 International Conference on Ergonomics in Design, held on July 21–25, 2018, in Orlando, Florida, USA, the book offers a timely guide for both researchers and design practitioners, including industrial designers, human–computer interaction and user experience researchers, production engineers and applied psychologists.

Advances in Intelligent Informatics, Smart Technology and Natural Language Processing: Selected Revised Papers From The Joint International Symposium On Artificial Intelligence And Natural Language Processing (isai-nlp 2017) (Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing #807)

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th Joint International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, iSAI-NLP2017, held in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Thailand, in August 2017, and the 10th International Conference on Knowledge, Information and Creativity Support Systems, KICSS2015, held in Phuket, Thailand, in November 2015. It presents 22 carefully reviewed full papers on the following topics: artificial intelligence; machine learning; decision support systems; data mining; data analysis; natural language processing; multilingual processing; language and ontology unification; text classification; knowledge-based information systems; tracking systems; virtual reality; pattern recognition and image processing; signal classification; object detection and recognition; real-time sensor network; cloud-based services; and information security.

The Realizations of the Self

Recent discussions of self-realization have devolved into unscientific theories of self-help. However, this vague and often misused concept is connected to many important individual and social problems. As long as its meaning remains unclear, it can be abused for social, political, and commercial malpractices. To combat this issue, this book shares perspectives from scholars of various philosophical traditions. Each chapter takes new steps in asking what the meaning of self-realization is–both in terms of what it means to understand who or what one is, and also in terms of how one can, or should, fulfilll oneself. The conceptual elucidations achieved from both theoretical and practical perspectives allow for a more mature awareness of how to deal with discourses on self-realization and, in any case, can help to demystify the subject.

SFPE Guide to Human Behavior in Fire

This single resource for the fire safety community distills the most relevant and useful science and research into a consensus-based guide whose key factors and considerations impact the response and behavior of occupants of a building during a fire event.The Second Edition of SFPE's Engineering Guide: Human Behavior in Fire provides a common introduction to this field for the broad fire safety community: fire protection engineers/fire safety engineers, human behavior scientists/researchers, design professionals, and code authorities. The public benefits from consistent understanding of the factors that influence the responses and behaviors of people when threatened by fire and the application of reliable methodologies to evaluate and estimate human response in buildings and structures.This Guide also aims to lessen the uncertainties in the "people components" of fire safety and allow for more refined analysis with less reliance on arbitrary safety factors. As with fire science in general, our knowledge of human behavior in fire is growing, but is still characterized by uncertainties that are traceable to both limitation in the science and unfamiliarity by the user communities. The concepts for development of evacuation scenarios for performance-based designs and the technical methods to estimate evacuation response are reviewed with consideration to the limitation and uncertainty of the methods. This Guide identifies both quantitative and qualitative information that constitutes important consideration prior to developing safety factors, exercising engineering judgment, and using evacuation models in the practical design of buildings and evacuation procedures. Besides updating material in the First Edition, this revision includes new information on:Incapacitating Effects of Fire Effluent & Toxicity Analysis MethodsOccupant Behavior ScneariosMovement Models and Behavioral ModelsEgress Model Selection, Verification, and ValidationEstimation of Uncertainty and Use of Safety FactorsEnhancing Human Response to Emergencies & Notification of MessagingThe prediction of human behavior during a fire emergency is one of the most challenging areas of fire protection engineering. Yet, understanding and considering human factors is essential to designing effective evacuation systems, ensuring safety during a fire and related emergency events, and accurately reconstructing a fire.

The Clinician’s Vaccine Safety Resource Guide: Optimizing Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Across the Lifespan

This book provides clinicians and their staff with essential information on the vaccines that are recommended and not recommended for their patients, the diseases these vaccines prevent, and a broad range of potential vaccine safety issues that may be brought up by their patients. Each topic, from specific vaccines to safety concerns, is covered succinctly, based upon systematic reviews of the scientific literature, with talking points to be used with patients. The organization of the information makes it easy to reference specific topics and quickly find pertinent information, with the most practical details (such as recommendations and causality conclusions) highlighted at the very beginning of the respective sections. There are also sections outlining the vaccine safety system and evidence-based strategies for how to talk with patients about vaccines. This book aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical vaccine discussions with patients, leading to more informed patients and timely vaccination. This is an ideal resource for all clinicians administering vaccines and their healthcare teams.

Resilience to Climate Change: Communication, Collaboration and Co-production

The frequency and intensity of climate shocks such as heatwaves and flooding, are expected to increase under a changing climate with severe implications across the food, energy, water, environment nexus. This book critically explores how to improve resilience to climate shocks by examining the range of challenges and opportunities that exist in the aftermath of shocks and discusses factors that exacerbate and mitigate these. It innovatively discusses the importance of embedding communication, collaboration and co-production within resilience-building across sectors and stakeholders. Doing so with policy, practitioner and scientific communities, Candice Howarth argues, can pave the way to overcome challenges that emerge from climate shocks and facilitate the co-design of sustainable, robust and resilient responses.

Credit-Risk Modelling: Theoretical Foundations, Diagnostic Tools, Practical Examples, And Numerical Recipes In Python

The risk of counterparty default in banking, insurance, institutional, and pension-fund portfolios is an area of ongoing and increasing importance for finance practitioners. It is, unfortunately, a topic with a high degree of technical complexity. Addressing this challenge, this book provides a comprehensive and attainable mathematical and statistical discussion of a broad range of existing default-risk models. Model description and derivation, however, is only part of the story. Through use of exhaustive practical examples and extensive code illustrations in the Python programming language, this work also explicitly shows the reader how these models are implemented. Bringing these complex approaches to life by combining the technical details with actual real-life Python code reduces the burden of model complexity and enhances accessibility to this decidedly specialized field of study. The entire work is also liberally supplemented with model-diagnostic, calibration, and parameter-estimation techniques to assist the quantitative analyst in day-to-day implementation as well as in mitigating model risk. Written by an active and experienced practitioner, it is an invaluable learning resource and reference text for financial-risk practitioners and an excellent source for advanced undergraduate and graduate students seeking to acquire knowledge of the key elements of this discipline.

Charge Quantization and Kondo Quantum Criticality in Few-Channel Mesoscopic Circuits (Springer Theses)

This thesis explores several fundamental topics in mesoscopic circuitries that incorporate few electronic conduction channels. It reports a series of long-awaited experiments that establish a new state of the art. The first experiments address the quantized character of charge in circuits. We demonstrate the charge quantization criterion, observe the predicted charge quantization scaling and a crossover toward a universal behavior as temperature is increased. The second set of experiments addresses the unconventional quantum critical physics that arises in the multichannel Kondo model. We observe the predicted universal Kondo fixed points and validate the numerical renormalization group scaling curves. Away from the quantum critical point, we obtain a direct visualization of the development of a second-order quantum phase transition.