Skip to main content

Books in Social sciences and humanities

  • Biosecurity and Bioterrorism

    Containing and Preventing Biological Threats
    • 2nd Edition
    • February 12, 2016
    • Jeffrey Ryan
    • English
    Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Second Edition, takes a holistic approach to biosecurity, with coverage of pathogens, prevention, and response methodology. It addresses these hazards in the context of vulnerability assessments and the planning strategies government and industry can use to prepare for and respond to such events. The book is organized into four thematic sections: Part I provides a conceptual understanding of biowarfare, bioterrorism and the laws we have to counteract this; Part II investigates known bioagents and the threat from emerging diseases; Part III focuses on agricultural terrorism and food security; and Part IV outlines international, US, and local initiatives for biodefense and biosecurity. Case studies illustrate biodefense against both intentional terrorism and natural outbreaks.
  • Alzheimer's Disease

    Life Course Perspectives on Risk Reduction
    • 1st Edition
    • February 11, 2016
    • Amy Borenstein + 1 more
    • English
    Alzheimer's Disease: Lifecourse Perspectives on Risk Reduction summarizes the growing body of knowledge on the distribution and causes of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in human populations, providing the reader with knowledge on how we define the disease and what its risk and protective factors are in the context of a life-course approach. At the conclusion of the book, the reader will understand why Alzheimer’s disease likely begins at conception, then progresses through early-life and adult risk factors that ultimately impact the balance between pathologic insults in the brain and the ability of the brain to modify disease symptoms. In contrast to edited volumes that may have little cohesion, this book focuses on an integrated life-course approach to the epidemiology of dementia, in particular, Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Health Information Exchange: Navigating and Managing a Network of Health Information Systems

    • 1st Edition
    • February 9, 2016
    • Brian Dixon
    • English
    Health Information Exchange (HIE): Navigating and Managing a Network of Health Information Systems allows health professionals to appropriately access, and securely share, patients’ vital medical information electronically, thus improving the speed, quality, safety, and cost of patient care. The book presents foundational knowledge on HIE, covering the broad areas of technology, governance, and policy, providing a concise, yet in-depth, look at HIE that can be used as a teaching tool for universities, healthcare organizations with a training component, certification institutions, and as a tool for self-study for independent learners who want to know more about HIE when studying for certification exams. In addition, it not only provides coverage of the technical, policy, and organizational aspects of HIE, but also touches on HIE as a growing profession. In Part One, the book defines HIE, describing it as an emerging profession within HIT/Informatics. In Part Two, the book provides key information on the policy and governance of HIE, including stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, sustainability, etc. Part Three focuses on the technology behind HIE, defining and describing master person indexes, information infrastructure, interfacing, and messaging, etc. In Part Four, the authors discuss the value of HIE, and how to create and measure it. Finally, in Part Five, the book provides perspectives on the future of HIE, including emerging trends, unresolved challenges, etc.
  • Measurements and Time Reversal in Objective Quantum Theory

    International Series in Natural Philosophy
    • 1st Edition
    • February 9, 2016
    • F. J. Belinfante
    • D. Ter Haar
    • English
    Measurements and Time Reversal in Objective Quantum Theory is a three-chapter book that begins with a discussion on the fundamentals of conventional quantum theory. The second chapter focuses on the time arrow of quantum theory. It specifically presents a schematized account of the results of an interesting paper on time reversal in quantum theory published by Aharonov, Bergmann, and Lebowitz. The last chapter presents the authors' conclusions and additional comments in this field. This book will be valuable to students of wave mechanics and will serve as a supplement to textbooks, which fail to present an appropriate discussion of these matters.
  • Practical Airport Operations, Safety, and Emergency Management

    Protocols for Today and the Future
    • 1st Edition
    • February 9, 2016
    • Jeffrey Price + 1 more
    • English
    Practical Airport Operations, Safety, and Emergency Management: Protocols for Today and the Future focuses on the airport itself, not the aircraft, manufacturers, designers, or even the pilots. The book explores the safety of what's been called ‘the most expensive piece of pavement in any city’— the facility that operates, maintains, and ensures the safety of millions of air passengers every year. The book is organized into three helpful sections, each focusing on one of the sectors described in the title. Section One: Airport Safety, explores the airport environment, then delves into safety management systems. Section Two: Airport Operations, continues the conversation on safety management systems before outlining airside and landside operations in depth, while Section Three: Airport Emergency Management, is a careful, detailed exploration of the topic, ending with a chapter on the operational challenges airport operations managers can expect to face in the future. Written by trusted experts in the field, users will find this book to be a vital resource that provides airport operations managers and students with the information, protocols, and strategies they need to meet the unique challenges associated with running an airport.
  • Virtual Business Models

    Entrepreneurial Risks and Rewards
    • 1st Edition
    • February 5, 2016
    • Karin Bryder + 2 more
    • English
    Virtual Business Models: Entrepreneurial Risks and Rewards focuses on companies with technology development, offering inspiration, guidance, and hands-on advice on how to utilize the potential of a virtual company format. The book provides an overview of key aspects of the company's activities, putting them into a comprehensive structure. In addition, both the rewards and risks of using the virtual company format are explored. The virtual company format is here defined as a company with a small dedicated core staff. The company's development is performed by strategic alliances with external resource providers. In this way, the utilization of financial resources can be optimized with cost-effective product development. The book explores this concept and why it is attractive in a start-up phase for both companies who want to remain virtual and those that eventually want to develop into integrated traditional companies.
  • Forensic Fingerprints

    • 1st Edition
    • February 3, 2016
    • Max M. Houck
    • English
    Forensic Fingerprints, the latest in the Advanced Forensic Science Series which grew out of the recommendations from the 2009 NAS Report: Strengthening Forensic Science: A Path Forward, serves as a graduate level text for those studying and teaching fingerprint detection and analysis, and will also prove to be an excellent reference for forensic practitioner libraries and for use in casework. Coverage includes fingerprint science, friction ridge print examination, AFIS, foot and palm prints, and the professional issues practitioners may encounter. Edited by a world-renowned leading forensic expert, this book is a long overdue solution for the forensic science community.
  • Blinding as a Solution to Bias

    Strengthening Biomedical Science, Forensic Science, and Law
    • 1st Edition
    • January 30, 2016
    • Christopher T Robertson + 1 more
    • English
    What information should jurors have during court proceedings to render a just decision? Should politicians know who is donating money to their campaigns? Will scientists draw biased conclusions about drug efficacy when they know more about the patient or study population? The potential for bias in decision-making by physicians, lawyers, politicians, and scientists has been recognized for hundreds of years and drawn attention from media and scholars seeking to understand the role that conflicts of interests and other psychological processes play. However, commonly proposed solutions to biased decision-making, such as transparency (disclosing conflicts) or exclusion (avoiding conflicts) do not directly solve the underlying problem of bias and may have unintended consequences. Robertson and Kesselheim bring together a renowned group of interdisciplinary scholars to consider another way to reduce the risk of biased decision-making: blinding. What are the advantages and limitations of blinding? How can we quantify the biases in unblinded research? Can we develop new ways to blind decision-makers? What are the ethical problems with withholding information from decision-makers in the course of blinding? How can blinding be adapted to legal and scientific procedures and in institutions not previously open to this approach? Fundamentally, these sorts of questions—about who needs to know what—open new doors of inquiry for the design of scientific research studies, regulatory institutions, and courts. The volume surveys the theory, practice, and future of blinding, drawing upon leading authors with a diverse range of methodologies and areas of expertise, including forensic sciences, medicine, law, philosophy, economics, psychology, sociology, and statistics.
  • The Search for Sanity

    The Commonwealth and International Library
    • 1st Edition
    • January 26, 2016
    • S. Leff + 1 more
    • Robert Robinson + 1 more
    • English
    The Search for Sanity provides a comprehensive discussion of the issue of mental illness. The book begins by addressing the question of whether society is sick. This is followed by separate chapters on the social aspects of mental health; the problems caused by sex such as prostitution, sexually transmitted disease, and illegitimate births; how the quest for power can destroy people; and ways people try to escape from reality, including drug use and alcohol consumption. Subsequent chapters cover the treatment for mental illness, how treatment helps, hospital care, and ways the community can help. The final chapter deals with the promotion of mental health and prevention of mental illness.
  • Stress and Distress in Response to Psychosocial Stimuli

    Laboratory and Real-Life Studies on Sympatho-Adrenomedullary and Related Reactions
    • 1st Edition
    • January 26, 2016
    • Lennart Levi
    • English
    Stress and Distress in Response to Psychosocial Stimuli is a book based on a study spanning over four years about the different psychosocial stimuli and the body's different reactions towards them, especially stress and disease. The book includes a short introduction to psychosocial stimuli and its physiological mechanisms, psychophysiological reactions; psychosomatic research; and psychosocially mediated disease and its hypotheses. Also covered are the study's methodological considerations; sympathoadrenomedull... responses to pleasant and unpleasant pyschosocial stimuli; sympathoadrenomedull... activity; the effects of work conditions; the emotional reactions during visual stimulation; stressor-induced changes to plasma lipids; and the psychological and physiological reactions and psychomotor performance during prolonged and complex stressor exposure. The text is recommended for psychologists and medical doctors, especially those who wish to study further about psychosocial stimuli and what it can do to the human body.