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Elsevier

Books in Arts and humanities

Elsevier's Arts and Humanities titles encompass a rich spectrum of scholarship that explores human culture, history, philosophy, and creative expression. These works offer deep insights into language, literature, visual arts, and critical theory, supporting the academic community in understanding diverse perspectives and cultural legacies. Designed for scholars, educators, and students, this collection bridges classic studies with contemporary issues, fostering a deeper appreciation and knowledge of the human experience.

  • Woman

    An Historical Gynæcological and Anthropological Compendium
    • 1st Edition
    • Hermann Heinrich Ploss + 2 more
    • Eric John Dingwall
    • English
    Woman: An Historical Gynælogical and Anthropological Compendium, Volume Two provides information pertinent to relationships of women to the male sex. This book discusses the concepts of modesty, chastity, and respects for women in cultural history. Organized into 39 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the sexual relation of woman to man. This text then explores various topics, including love and the artificial arousing of love, various forms of betrothal, marriage, procreation, impregnation, and conception. Other chapters consider the position of woman in the family and in the nation. This book discusses as well the reciprocal relations between husband and wife, which are of the highest significance for the stage of morality to which each people has attained. The final chapter deals with the different kinds of customs that are associated with or directly attached to parturition. This book is a valuable resource for anthropologists, ethnologists, and research workers.

  • Concept Formation

    Knowledge and Experience in Unsupervised Learning
    • 1st Edition
    • Douglas H. Fisher + 2 more
    • English
    Concept Formation: Knowledge and Experience in Unsupervised Learning presents the interdisciplinary interaction between machine learning and cognitive psychology on unsupervised incremental methods. This book focuses on measures of similarity, strategies for robust incremental learning, and the psychological consistency of various approaches. Organized into three parts encompassing 15 chapters, this book begins with an overview of inductive concept learning in machine learning and psychology, with emphasis on issues that distinguish concept formation from more prevalent supervised methods and from numeric and conceptual clustering. This text then describes the cognitive consistency of two concept formation systems that are motivated by a rational analysis of human behavior relative to a variety of psychological phenomena. Other chapters consider the merits of various schemes for representing and acquiring knowledge during concept formation. This book discusses as well the earliest work in concept formation. The final chapter deals with acquisition of quantity conservation in developmental psychology. This book is a valuable resource for psychologists and cognitive scientists.

  • Living with Cerebral Palsy

    A Study of School Leavers Suffering from Cerebral Palsy in Eastern Scotland
    • 1st Edition
    • T. T. S. Ingram + 2 more
    • English
    Living with Cerebral Palsy correlates studies made in early life in patients with cerebral palsy with the status and social adjustment of the same individuals when they become adult. This book discusses the problem of fitting handicapped patients for life in the community after leaving school. Organized into eight chapters, this book begins with an overview of the fate of patients suffering from cerebral palsy once they outgrow childhood and come to seek employment or vocation in adult life. This text then examines the classification of cerebral palsy. Other chapters consider the likelihood of the handicapped being able to work in open employment or sheltered conditions, or of being unemployable. This book discusses as well information about personal relationships and social life of patients. The final chapter deals with the prevalence of cerebral palsy and the types of cerebral palsy encountered in a given community. This book is a valuable resource for teachers, social workers, therapists, psychologists, and physicians.

  • Reward and Punishment in Human Learning

    Elements of a Behavior Theory
    • 1st Edition
    • Joseph Nuttin + 1 more
    • English
    Reward and Punishment in Human Learning: Elements of a Behavior Theory provides a different approach to the study of reward and punishment, emphasizing what is learned when a response is rewarded and how does this differ from what is learned when a response is punished. This book discusses the distortions in impressions of success, accuracy in recall of reward and punishment, and determinants of outcome-recall. The role of open-task attitudes in motor learning, effects of isolated punishments, and structural isolation in the closed-task situation are also elaborated. This publication is intended for psychologists, but is also helpful to teachers, executives, prison officials, psychotherapists, and parents.

  • Legal Reminders for Architects

    • 1st Edition
    • Elizabeth Phillips + 1 more
    • English
    Legal Reminders for Architects provides a basic introduction to the range of legislation which encompasses all planning and building work in England and Wales. The book contains a summary of each law that may affect an architect, and where appropriate, suggestions for a suitable procedure to follow. It also explains less well known terms in planning, building, and employment. The text is organized into 19 chapters, which elucidates the legislation on such aspects as town and country planning, site appraisal, building control, and health and safety. The laws governing the conduct of businesses and partnerships, the employment protection law, and building regulations are elaborated as well. This book is intended for use by architects and architectural students.

  • Words, Meaning, and Messages

    Theory and Experiments in Psycholinguistics
    • 1st Edition
    • Ragnar Rommetveit
    • English
    Words, Meaning, and Messages: Theory and Experiments in Psycholinguistics focuses on the advancements of approaches, methodologies, and theories in psycholinguistics. The publication first elaborates on the studies of languages within a general science of signs and the search of psychological design features of natural languages. Discussions focus on characteristic features of sign processes, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic aspects of an artificial language, linguistic medium, and characteristic features of psychological inquiries. The text then takes a look at the word as a stimulus and response variable and word meanings, including interdependence among meaning components, associative word meaning, emotive meaning, and preliminary evidence for efferent mechanisms in word perception. The book examines word meanings and nonlinguistic factors in message transmission; different psychological approaches to syntactic processes; and psychological inquiries into the semantic and pragmatic aspects of utterances. Topics include linguistic form and efficiency of message transmission; acquisition of grammar and the learning of word meanings; and word combinations, conditioning, and temporary modification of word meanings. The manuscript is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the theories and experiments in psycholinguistics.

  • Instruments of Communication

    An Essay on Scientific Writing
    • 1st Edition
    • Patrick Meredith
    • English
    Instruments of Communication: An Essay on Scientific Writing provides an introduction to the instruments of logic and language. This book focuses on what people use in their communications, such as the materials and forms by means of which people share their experiences, meanings, intentions, feelings, hopes, and understandings. Organized into five parts encompassing 20 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the different forms of inter-organic communication. This text then examines the particular case of rational communication wherein it results in a shared understanding. Other chapters consider a certain concept of brain-function that underlies the treatment of language. This book discusses as well the concept of communication, which is not simply a process of transmitting messages but a process of sharing experiences. The final chapter deals with the different ways of classifying social behavior and explores the associative basis of communication. This book is a valuable resource for scientists, physicists, physiologists, and psychologists.

  • Insanity, Art, and Culture

    • 1st Edition
    • Francis Reitman
    • English
    Insanity, Art, and Culture reviews the pictorial products of the mentally ill from a cultural point of view. This book investigates the artistic abilities of the mentally ill. Organized into six chapters, this book begins with an overview of the definition of terms used in the study and the features of the art of the insane within the western hemisphere. This text then explains the hypothesis of cultural conditioning and discusses the schizophrenic characteristics in paintings. Other chapters consider the symptomatic value of psychotic art from the point of views of cultural anthropology. This book examines as well the art products of great artists who in the course of their lives suffered from mental illness. The final chapter deals with the negative interrelation between art and illness, which arise when refined cognitive activities were preserved intact. This book is a valuable resource for artists, psychiatrists, cultural anthropologists, and occupational therapists.

  • Scientific Uncertainty, and Information

    • 1st Edition
    • Leon Brillouin
    • English
    Scientific Uncertainty and Information focuses on the validation of theories developed in physics, chemistry, biology, and other fields of science. The book first elaborates on thermodynamics, statistics, and information and the importance of scientific laws. Discussions focus on the importance and value of theories, empirical and theoretical laws, scientific laws and negentropy, principles of thermodynamics, entropy and value, negentropy, and energy degradation, and thermodynamics and information theory. The text then ponders on mathematical theorems and physical theories, imagination and invention in a theory, and causality and determinism. The manuscript underscores the weaknesses and limitations of mechanics and Poincare and the shortcomings of the Hamilton-Jacobi method for classical or quantized mechanics. Topics include the discussion of a simple example with two variables; degeneracy conditions and the possibility of finding a Hamilton-Jacobi transformation function; approximations for nondegenerate systems; methods of analytical dynamics for separated variables; and the objective world and the problem of determinism. The publication is a dependable reference for researchers interested in the validation of theories in science.

  • Locomotion from Pre- to Post-Natal Life

    How the Newborn Begins to Acquire Psycho-Sensory Functions
    • 1st Edition
    • André Thomas + 1 more
    • English
    Clinics in Developmental Medicine, No. 24: Locomotion from Pre- to Post-Natal Life: How the Newborn Begins to Acquire Psycho-Sensory Functions describes the examinations conducted to newborn infants. This book consists of five chapters. Chapter I discusses the methods of investigation such as the observations related to walking upwards on an inclined plane or stepping over. A case report of the neurological examination of a 15-minute-old newborn child is also deliberated. The first reactions to visual and auditory stimuli are covered in Chapter II, while the role of the upper limbs in equilibrium is emphasized in Chapter III. In Chapter IV, the “cloth on the face” test is described. The last chapter focuses on sympathetic reactivity, a study that has been limited to general cerebrospinal motility. This publication is valuable to pediatricians and medical practitioners concerned with the reactions of the infant during his first days of life.

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