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Elsevier

North Holland

  • Philosophy of Medicine

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 16
    • English
    This volume covers a wide range of conceptual, epistemological and methodological issues in the philosophy of science raised by reflection upon medical science and practice. Several chapters examine such general meta-scientific concepts as discovery, reduction, theories and models, causal inference and scientific realism as they apply to medicine or medical science in particular. Some discuss important concepts specific to medicine (diagnosis, health, disease, brain death). A topic such as evidence, for instance, is examined at a variety of levels, from social mechanisms for guiding evidence-based reasoning such as evidence-based medicine, consensus conferences, and clinical trials, to the more abstract analysis of experimentation, inference and uncertainty. Some chapters reflect on particular domains of medicine, including psychiatry, public health, and nursing. The contributions span a broad range of detailed cases from the science and practice of medicine, as well as a broad range of intellectual approaches, from conceptual analysis to detailed examinations of particular scientific papers or historical episodes.

  • Philosophy of Statistics

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 7
    • English
    Statisticians and philosophers of science have many common interests but restricted communication with each other. This volume aims to remedy these shortcomings. It provides state-of-the-art research in the area of philosophy of statistics by encouraging numerous experts to communicate with one another without feeling “restricted” by their disciplines or thinking “piecemeal” in their treatment of issues. A second goal of this book is to present work in the field without bias toward any particular statistical paradigm. Broadly speaking, the essays in this Handbook are concerned with problems of induction, statistics and probability. For centuries, foundational problems like induction have been among philosophers’ favorite topics; recently, however, non-philosophers have increasingly taken a keen interest in these issues. This volume accordingly contains papers by both philosophers and non-philosophers, including scholars from nine academic disciplines.

  • Inductive Logic

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 10
    • Dov M. Gabbay + 1 more
    • English
    Inductive Logic is number ten in the 11-volume Handbook of the History of Logic. While there are many examples were a science split from philosophy and became autonomous (such as physics with Newton and biology with Darwin), and while there are, perhaps, topics that are of exclusively philosophical interest, inductive logic — as this handbook attests — is a research field where philosophers and scientists fruitfully and constructively interact. This handbook covers the rich history of scientific turning points in Inductive Logic, including probability theory and decision theory. Written by leading researchers in the field, both this volume and the Handbook as a whole are definitive reference tools for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in the history of logic, the history of philosophy, and any discipline, such as mathematics, computer science, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence, for whom the historical background of his or her work is a salient consideration.

  • Philosophy of Complex Systems

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 10
    • English
    The domain of nonlinear dynamical systems and its mathematical underpinnings has been developing exponentially for a century, the last 35 years seeing an outpouring of new ideas and applications and a concomitant confluence with ideas of complex systems and their applications from irreversible thermodynamics. A few examples are in meteorology, ecological dynamics, and social and economic dynamics. These new ideas have profound implications for our understanding and practice in domains involving complexity, predictability and determinism, equilibrium, control, planning, individuality, responsibility and so on.Our intention is to draw together in this volume, we believe for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the manifold philosophically interesting impacts of recent developments in understanding nonlinear systems and the unique aspects of their complexity. The book will focus specifically on the philosophical concepts, principles, judgments and problems distinctly raised by work in the domain of complex nonlinear dynamical systems, especially in recent years.

  • Philosophy of Ecology

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 11
    • English
    The most pressing problems facing humanity today — over-population, energy shortages, climate change, soil erosion, species extinctions, the risk of epidemic disease, the threat of warfare that could destroy all the hard-won gains of civilization, and even the recent fibrillations of the stock market — are all ecological or have a large ecological component. in this volume philosophers turn their attention to understanding the science of ecology and its huge implications for the human project. To get the application of ecology to policy or other practical concerns right, humanity needs a clear and disinterested philosophical understanding of ecology which can help identify the practical lessons of science. Conversely, the urgent practical demands humanity faces today cannot help but direct scientific and philosophical investigation toward the basis of those ecological challenges that threaten human survival. This book will help to fuel the timely renaissance of interest in philosophy of ecology that is now occurring in the philosophical profession.

  • Handbook of Magnetic Materials

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 19
    • K.H.J. Buschow
    • English
    Volume 19 of the Handbook of Magnetic Materials, as the preceding volumes, has a dual purpose. As a textbook it is intended to help those who wish to be introduced to a given topic in the field of magnetism without the need to read the vast amount of literature published. As a work of reference it is intended for scientists active in magnetism research. To this dual purpose, Volume 19 is composed of topical review articles written by leading authorities. In each of these articles an extensive description is given in graphical as well as in tabular form, much emphasis being placed on the discussion of the experimental material in the framework of physics, chemistry and material science. It provides readers with novel trends and achievements in magnetism.

  • Numerical Methods for Non-Newtonian Fluids

    Special Volume
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 16
    • English
    Non-Newtonian flows and their numerical simulations have generated an abundant literature, as well as many publications and references to which can be found in this volume’s articles. This abundance of publications can be explained by the fact that non-Newtonian fluids occur in many real life situations: the food industry, oil & gas industry, chemical, civil and mechanical engineering, the bio-Sciences, to name just a few. Mathematical and numerical analysis of non-Newtonian fluid flow models provide challenging problems to partial differential equations specialists and applied computational mathematicians alike. This volume offers investigations. Results and conclusions that will no doubt be useful to engineers and computational and applied mathematicians who are focused on various aspects of non-Newtonian Fluid Mechanics.

  • Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 4A & B SET

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 4
    • Orley Ashenfelter + 1 more
    • English
    What new tools and models can economists use to understand how individuals participate in labor markets?"Development... in Resarch Methods and Their Applications" (volume 4A) and "New Developments and Research on Labor Markets" (volume 4B) propose answers to this and other questions on important topics of public policy. By mixing conceptual models and empirical research, leading labor economists demonstrate how better data and advanced experiments help them apply economic theory, yielding sharper analyses and conclusions. Their chapters reveal how labor economists are developing new and innovative ways to measure key parameters and test important hypotheses.

  • Essential Computational Modeling in Chemistry

    • 1st Edition
    • Philippe G. Ciarlet
    • English
    Essential Computational Modeling in Chemistry presents key contributions selected from the volume in the Handbook of Numerical Analysis: Computational Modeling in Chemistry Vol. 10(2005). Computational Modeling is an active field of scientific computing at the crossroads between Physics, Chemistry, Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. Sophisticated mathematical models are increasingly complex and extensive computer simulations are on the rise. Numerical Analysis and scientific software have emerged as essential steps for validating mathematical models and simulations based on these models. This guide provides a quick reference of computational methods for use in understanding chemical reactions and how to control them. By demonstrating various computational methods in research, scientists can predict such things as molecular properties. The reference offers a number of techniques and the numerical analysis needed to perform rigorously founded computations.

  • Handbook of Monetary Economics 3A

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 3A
    • English
    What tools are available for setting and analyzing monetary policy? World-renowned contributors examine recent evidence on subjects as varied as price-setting, inflation persistence, the private sector's formation of inflation expectations, and the monetary policy transmission mechanism. Stopping short of advocating conclusions about the ideal conduct of policy, the authors focus instead on analytical methods and the changing interactions among the ingredients and properties that inform monetary models. The influences between economic performance and monetary policy regimes can be both grand and muted, and this volume clarifies the present state of this continually evolving relationship.

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