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Books in Information and uncertainty

    • Engine Testing

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • Bozzano G Luisa
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 9 2 0 7 6
      Engine Testing: Theory and Practice brings together the information on both the theory and practice of engine testing that engineers in this field must have available. Organized into 19 chapters, this book begins with a description of the engine test cell, including the salient features of its main types. Subsequent chapters deal with the other main components of an engine testing installation: the control room and the ventilation systems. Other chapters discuss the essential features of a test installation fuel supply system, as well as the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of the various types of dynamometer. The measurements of torque, power, speed, fuel consumption, air consumption, heat loss, and mechanical loss are also explained. Other topics of significance include the process of combustion, exhaust emissions, data logging, and statistical analysis. This material will be very useful to practicing test engineers and students.
    • Evolution

      • 1st Edition
      • Volume 10
      • October 22, 2013
      • E. R. Trueman + 1 more
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 9 3 6 6
      FROM THE GENERAL PREFACE: This multivolume work, The Mollusca, had its origins in the mid 1960s with the publication of two volumes entitled Physiology of Mollusca and edited by Wilbur and Yonge. In those volumes, 27 authors collaborated to summarize the status of the conventional topics of physiology as well as biochemistry, reproduction and development, and ecology. Within the past two decades, there has been a remarkable burgeoning of molluscan research generally and with it the development of new fields of investigation. During the same period, several excellent books on molluscs have appeared. However, they do not provide adequate information on the many recent advances or give the breadth of perspective of current knowledge of the phylum. Clearly, there was need for a larger work with a comprehensive treatment of major areas of molluscan research. The Mollusca, as a series of 12 volumes, attempts to fulfill this objective. Even here, practical considerations have meant that certain aspects of molluscan research have not been included.Each major area is treated by several authors, each reviewing his or her special field. The areas are structure and function, metabolic biochemistry, molecular biomechanics, environmental biochemistry, physiology, ecology, reproduction and development, neurobiology and behavior, and evolution. Throughout, the authors have given emphasis to recent advances and present status of molluscan biology. In so doing, directions of future research have become evident.The Mollusca is intended to serve several disciplines--zoology... biochemistry, physiology, and paleontology. It will prove useful to researchers and to all others with interests in molluscs.FROM THE PREFACE TO VOLUME 10: Recent events that have stimulated a great surge of investigation into the evolution of the Mollusca include the discovery of well-preserved microscopic molluscs at most levels of the Cambrian on five continents, the development of electron microscopy, the need to examine competing models of the early history of the phylum, new interest in interstitial fauna of littoral and near-littoral sands, and significant advances in our knowledge of shell ontogeny, construction, and evolution. It is timely that an up-to-date synthesis involving both paleontologists and zoologists should be published after a decade of such activity and advance when many of the long-held views on molluscan phylogeny have been overturned.This book deals with all molluscan classes except the Cephalopoda, which will be treated in Volume 12. The two books together provide an up-to-date introduction to the evolution of the Mollusca with adequate references to guide further work. They will be invaluable to specialists on molluscs, postgraduate research workers, and undergraduates with particular interests in this phylum. Authorities on the various molluscan groups were asked to express their views and to treat the subject as they wished; the book provides a valuable record of their opinions at this time.While the main groups are broadly and fully treated, focus has been narrowed toward a few selected minor groups of particular interest such as limpets, land snails, and the Anomalodesmata, in which recent work has been particularly significant.Because recent years have seen major revisions in classificatory terms, the editors have provided an outline classification into which the chapter topics fit.
    • Neurolinguistic Aspects of the Japanese Writing System

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • Michel Paradis
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 8 9 4 9
      Neurolinguistic Aspects of the Japanese Writing System provides an account and an analysis of cases of dissociation between kana (syllabic) and kanji (ideographic) script in reading and/or writing. Organized into five chapters, this book begins by discussing the aspects of the Japanese writing system relevant to neurolinguistic research. Experimental kanji/kana processing studies and clinical case reports are then presented. This book also explains the clinical dissociations in performance between aspects of the writing system. This book will serve as a model for further studies in which a similarly detailed analysis is attempted of the neurolinguistic structure of other non-Western orthographies.
    • Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • E. A. Hammel
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 9 3 5 9
      Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence investigates the meaning of fraternity in terms of the ritual relations created in religious brotherhoods or confraternities during that period. The book focuses on the sociability of the confraternity as revealed in the patterns of membership and in forms of ceremony. Florence's confraternities serve as a vehicle for examining the relationship between ritual behavior and social organization. The text discusses the ways in which Florentines use forms of ritual to define, protect, and alter their relations with one another. The book reviews the social relations in Renaissance Florence through the structure of social relations, the politics of amity or enmity, and social relations in relation to economic exchange. Social organization and ritual actions include confraternal organization, membership, symbolic fraternity, and the rites of community. The book explores the company of San Paolo in the fifteenth century where the confraternity offers an introduction to the nature of citywide community, its republican institutions, and its civic values. The book also examines traditional confraternities in crisis, the nature of the disruptions that leads to the emergence of new confraternal organizations and values. In the sixteenth-century, confraternities reveal major departures in ideology, ritual, and social organization. They have also introduced the principles of hierarchy into confraternal membership, as well as a new ethic of obedience. The book will prove delightful reading for sociologists, historians studying Florentine society, and researchers interested in the history of religious brotherhood and confraternities.
    • Brain Browser

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • Bozzano G Luisa
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 4 9 4 1
      Brain Browser is designed to assist researchers as well as beginning and advanced neuroscience students in their efforts to organise, analyse, and contribute to the growing detailed knowledge of the brain. Brain Browser serves as an electronic notebook for neuroanatomy and offers numerous educational and research applications.System Requirements:IBM PC or fully compatible with Intel 80286 (or later) processor Mouse or other pointing device.2 MB of RAM (minimum)1.44 MB 3.5" disk driveHard disk drive with 10 MB availableAny Windows-compatible videographics adaptor and monitorDOS 3.1 or later (5.0) recommendedMicrosoft Windows 3.1Department site licenses are available, as well as a buyer's frequency plan. Contact the publisher for complete details.
    • Semiotic Mediation

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • Elizabeth Mertz
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 8 8 6 4
      Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives provides the theoretical and empirical direction toward the synthesis of the subjective, developmental, or cognitive aspects of semiotic processes in a psychological context, and the historical, institutional, and ideological grounding of sign systems in sociocultural contexts. The book is divided into three sections that show the theoretical rationale and empirical consequences of cross-disciplinary research into semiotic processes. Part I provides a comprehensive theoretical foundation, with analysis and exegesis of work on semiotic mediation by theorists such as Peirce, Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Whorf, Saussure, and Frege. Part II presents empirical case studies that range across the fields of developmental psychology, cultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, and history of religion. Linking together these diverse data bases and research methodologies are crosscutting concerns with four dimensions of semiotic mediation. The third part is a section comprised of commentaries on the organization and themes of metasemiotic representation. The concluding chapter sketches the philosophical history of the notion of semiotic mediation and then synthesizes the volume's empirical studies in terms of directions for future research. Anthropologists, psycholinguists, psychosociologists, and linguistics experts will find the book invaluable.
    • Communication Theory

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • D.Lawrence Kincaid
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 8 7 5 8
      Communication Theory: Eastern and Western Perspectives focuses on the processes, methodologies, principles, and approaches involved in communication theory. The selection first elaborates on Asian perspectives on communication theory; Chinese philosophy and contemporary human communication theory; communication in Chinese narrative; and contemporary Chinese philosophy and political communication. Discussions focus on the structure and function of China's political communication system; philosophical principles of Chinese communism; embodiment of reason in experience; and dialectic completion of relative polarities. The text then examines Korean philosophy and communication, practice of Uye-Ri in interpersonal relationships, and the teachings of Yi Yulgok. The publication examines the double-swing model of intercultural communication between the East and the West; interpersonal cognition, message goals, and organization of communication; and the convergence theory of communication, self-organization, and cultural evolution. The book also ponders on the practice of Antyodaya in agricultural extension communication in India and communication within Japanese business organizations. The selection is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the Eastern and Western perspectives of communication theory.
    • Preferred Orientation in Deformed Metal and Rocks

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • Hans Rudolf Wenk
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 9 3 4 2
      This volume provides an introduction to the texture analysis of deformed materials and explores methods of determining and interpreting the preferred orientation of crystals in deformed polycrystalline aggregates.**The book reviews: 1) the techniques, procedures, and theoretical basis for the accumulation and analysis of orientation data; 2)the processes by which polycrystals deform and the microstructural mechanisms responsible for the development of the preferred orientation; 3) the textures in specific systems and application of principles to the solution of specific problems.**With a combination of metallurgic and geologic applications, Preferred Orientation in Deformed Metals and Rocks: An Introduction to Modern Texture Analysis will be an important source book for students and researchers in materials science, solid state physics, structural geology, and geophysics.**FROM THE PREFACE: Determination and interpretation of the preferred orientation of crystals in deformed polycrystalline aggregates (in this volume also referred to as texture) has been of longstanding concern to both materials scientists and geologists. A similar theoretical background--such as the dislocation theory of crystal plasticity--has been the basis of understanding flow in metals and rocks; and similar determinative techniques--includin... microscopy and x-ray diffraction--have been used to study textures and microstructures. Whereas many of the fundamental principles have been established early this century by scientists such as Jeffery, Sachs, Sander, Schmid, Schmidt, and Taylor, only in recent years has knowledge reached a level that provides a quantitative framework which has replaced a largely phenomenological approach. This is expressed in the sudden new emphasis on textural studies, as documented by the large number of recent publications.**This volume contains material to serve as an introduction for those who wish to enter this field as well as reviews for those who are already engaged in advanced research....**The book is divided into three parts. The first (Chapters 2*b17) deals with techniques, procedures, and theoretical bases for the accumulation and analysis of orientation data. The second (Chapters 8*b112) introduces processes by which polycrystals deform and the microstructural mechanisms responsible for the development of the preferred orientation. All those chapters emphasize basic principles and apply to metals as well as to minerals. The third part (Chapters 13*b126) illustrates textures in specific systems and the application of the principles set out in the earlier chapters to the solution of specific problems. Readers of these chapters will quickly become aware that metals have been more exhaustively studied than minerals; but they will also realize that, because of their structural symmetry, metals are in general much simpler than rocks and that the intepretation of metal textures is less involved. An extensive list of relevant references provides access to much of the original literature on textures....
    • Volcanic Hazards

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • R. J. Blong
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 8 2 0 8
      Volcanic Hazards: A Sourcebook on the Effects of Eruptions provides a comprehensive discussion of volcanic eruptions and their effects. This volume provides background data on volcanic activity with attention directed specifically at those types of activity and those characteristics which are hazardous. It establishes the direct effects of volcanic eruptions on humans in terms of death and injuries, and social aspects such as perception of eruption hazards, evacuation, panic, looting, and religious beliefs. It discusses the indirect consequences of volcanic eruptions for humans by illustrating the effects on buildings, utilities, communication networks and machinery, agriculture, and commercial activity. This book should be of interest to planners, engineers, city administrators, agriculturalists, and emergency services personnel who must deal with the effects of volcanic hazards; to volcanologists and geologists who did not know eruptions affected so many things; to geographers, environmentalists, and natural hazard scientists who are interested in the interrelatedness of phenomena; and to citizens who have experienced, or might yet experience, some of these effects.
    • Analytical Methods For Geochemical Exploration

      • 1st Edition
      • October 22, 2013
      • J. C. Van Loon + 1 more
      • English
      • eBook
        9 7 8 1 4 8 3 2 8 9 3 0 4
      Written for the practicing analyst, Analytical Methods for Geochemical Exploration offers thoroughly tested chemical analysis methods for determining what base or precious metals are in geochemical exploration samples, such as rocks, soil, or sediment. Theory is kept to a minimum and complete procedures are provided so that no additional sources are needed to conduct analyses.