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Books in Social sciences and humanities

Adolescence
The Transitional Years
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
J. Roy Hopkins
English
Adolescence: The Transitional Years presents the intricate physical, emotional, and behavioral changes that occur during the years between childhood and adulthood. This book provides psychological studies of adolescence and the methods used to gain information about adolescent development. Organized into 12 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the contributions of psychology to understanding the transition from childhood to adulthood. This text then reviews the changes at puberty, including the sequence of development for girls and boys and the underlying physiological mechanisms responsible. Other chapters consider the cultural variations in the mode of transition from childhood to adulthood. This book provides as well a brief overview of the psychological dimensions of self-identity. The final chapter deals with the educational experience for adolescents and examines the factors associated with different levels of educational attainment. This book is a valuable resource for developmental psychologists, sociologists, geneticists, anthropologists, theorists, and research workers.
Alpacas, Sheep, and Men
The Wool Export Economy and Regional Society in Southern Peru
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Benjamin S. Orlove
E. A. Hammel
English
Alpacas, Sheep, and Men: The Wool Export Economy and Regional Society in Southern Peru investigates the response of the Sicuani region in southern Peru to the wool export economy and its consequent integration into the nation-state in the late nineteenth century. The book traces the economic and political conflicts engendered by the export economy, such as those between landlords and peasants in the countryside and landlords versus traders in town. It also examines how these conflicts shaped the metamorphosis of a closed, isolated, localized society into an open one and its incorporation into national politics as well as global economics. Comprised of 11 chapters, this book begins with a review of the theories of modernization and dependency, followed by a discussion on the development of the world market for wool and the component elements of the wool economy of the entire southern Peru. Subsequent chapters focus on the regional society in more detail, with emphasis on the concept of region and the economic activities of different sectors; variation in forms of land tenure and labor relations in two provinces; the relations among herders, peasants, and artisans; and regional politics. The three major groups of artisans and workers in the region who use wool are considered, namely, urban furriers, textile mill workers, and rural weavers. The book concludes with an analysis of the fundamental importance of the wool export economy in the Sicuani region using the sectorial model. This monograph should be of interest to students and anthropologists.
Aversive Conditioning and Learning
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
F. Robert Brush
English
Aversive Conditioning and Learning covers the significant advances in establishing the phenomena, principles, and other aspects of aversive conditioning and learning. This book is organized into three sections encompassing nine chapters. The first section deals with operant and classical conditioning of responses of the autonomic nervous system and with behavioral measurement of conditioned fear. The next section discusses the mechanism of avoidance learning and a number of problem areas, including the effects of response selection on the ease of acquisition and the nature and slow time course of the processes that reinforce avoidance learning. Other problems explore are the influence on avoidance learning of prior experience with uncontrollable shock and with reliable and unreliable predictors of shock, an analysis of avoidance learning in terms of a Markov model of short- and long-term memory, and the nature of retention of conditioned fear and the possible hormonal mechanisms that control performance motivated by fear. The last section examines some of the unexpected effects of punishment, which usually produces suppression of behavior. This section emphasizes the effects of noncontingent aversive stimuli that may account for the suppressive effects of punishment and on the paradoxical facilitation of behavior that sometimes results from response-contingent shock. This book will prove useful to medical psychologists, psychiatrists, and workers in the related fields.
Corporate Planning and LAN
Information Systems as Forums
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Ru Michael Sabre + 1 more
English
Corporate Planning and LAN: Information Systems as Forums provides information pertinent to the Forum Information System (FIS), a conceptual basis for all corporate planning. This book presents an information system which, by means of LAN, organizational development style prototyping, and organizational learning utilization, can open communications among managers, executives, owners, and employees in a corporate setting. Organized into 10 chapters, this book begins with an overview of the four phases to the eventual use of the FIS in a corporate setting. This text then explores FIS as part of a paradigm shift in corporate information systems, which began with the introduction of the use of computers. Other chapters consider the actual creation of the LAN-based FIS, the technical details of implementation, the programming, and the hardware configuration. This book discusses as well the organizational learning that occurs when using the system. This book is a valuable resource for executives, managers, employees, and corporate decision makers.
Understanding Language
An Information-Processing Analysis of Speech Perception, Reading, and Psycholinguistics
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Dominic W. Massaro
English
Understanding Language: An Information-Processi... Analysis of Speech Perception, Reading, and Psycholinguistics focuses on the progress of approaches, principles, and practices involved in speech perception, reading, and psycholinguistics. The selection first offers information on language and information processing, articulatory and acoustic characteristics of speech sounds, and acoustic features in speech perception. Discussions focus on vowel and consonant recognition, production of speech sounds, general acoustic properties and occurrence of speech sounds, vowel phonemes of English, and information, auditory, and visual information processing. The text then examines preperceptual images, processing time, and perceptual units in speech perception, theories of perception, and visual features, preperceptual storage, and processing time in reading. Topics include processing time, visual features, summary of information-processi... analysis of speech perception, role of linguistic structure in model building, and preperceptual images and processing time. The manuscript takes a look at an analysis of psychological studies of grammar, word and phrase recognition in speech processing, and linguistic theory and information processing, including psychological function of certain transformation rules, psychological reality of constituent structure, and linguistics and psychology. The selection is a vital source of data for researchers interested in speech perception, reading, and psycholinguistics.
Language Development and Neurological Theory
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Sidney J. Segalowitz + 1 more
English
Language Development and Neurological Theory presents a neuropsychological theory of language development. The discussions are organized around the following themes: cerebral specialization for language in normal and brain-damaged individuals; development of cerebral dominance; and speech perception. Much emphasis is placed on the issue of cerebral specialization, or lateralization. Comprised of 20 chapters, this volume begins with a review of some of the methods used to correlate neurophysiological and behavioral functions, as well as some of the issues involved in trying to unite the empirical science of neuropsychology and the rationalist science of linguistics. The next chapter deals with lateralization for speech sounds shown by young infants and possible factors in the sound signal responsible for the differentiation. Subsequent chapters focus on asymmetries in young children during continuous verbal-nonvisual and visual-nonverbal story tasks; the effects of multi-language elementary school program on the degree of lateralization for language; intramodal and cross-modal pattern perception in stroke patients with lateralized lesions; and visual half-field asymmetries in deaf and hearing children. Several hypotheses as to why language is lateralized to the left hemisphere rather than to the right are also examined. This book is addressed to researchers and students of the neuropsychology of language, whether they call themselves psychologists, neuropsychologists, neurologists, or linguists.
Nonhuman Primates and Medical Research
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Geoffrey H. Bourne
English
Nonhuman Primates and Medical Research focuses on the contributions of nonhuman primates to biomedical research. The selection first elaborates on monkeys and yellow fever, cell cultures, and tuberculosis and bacterial infection. Discussions focus on bacterial diseases, tuberculosis, radiobiology, antibody formation and pharmacologic studies, cell-culture media and methods, the rhesus monkey and early history of yellow fever research, and monkeys and yellow fever in the future. The text then elaborates on virus research, models for investigation in parasitology, and primates as organ donors in transplantation studies in man. The manuscript examines the importance of monkeys for the study of malignant tumors in man; use of primates in cardiovascular research; and humanlike diseases in anthropoid apes. Topics include etiology of humanlike disease in anthropoid apes, atherosclerosis, historical aspects of primate research, selection of a suitable primate, and preeclampsia. The text also ponders on primate studies and human evolution and mental retardation. The selection is a valuable reference for researchers interested in the contributions of nonhuman primates to biomedical research.
Noncooperative Approaches to the Theory of Perfect Competition
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Andreu Mas-Colell
English
Economic Theory, Econometrics, and Mathematical Economics: A Series of Monographs and Textbooks: Noncooperative Approaches to the Theory of Perfect Competition focuses on the application of noncooperative approaches to the theory of perfect competition, including Cournot game, no-surplus condition, and Nash equilibria. The selection first elaborates on collusive behavior in noncooperative epsilon-equilibria of oligopolies with long but finite lives and noncooperative price taking in large dynamic markets. Discussions focus on noncooperative equilibria which support the monopoly allocation, alternative definition of perfect epsilon-equilibrium, one-period Cournot game, fixed-demand case, and replication case. The book takes a look at noncooperative price taking in large dynamic markets, no-surplus condition as a characterization of perfectly competitive equilibrium, perfect competition, profit criterion, and the organization of economic activity. Topics include profits to individually improving welfare, structure of firms, competitive allocations as no surplus allocations, profits as rents, Walrasian and perfectly competitive equilibrium, and no-surplus and core equivalence as alternative characterizations of perfectly competitive equilibrium. The manuscript ponders on Nash equilibria of market games and efficiency properties of strategic market games, as well as commodities, agents, assignments, strategic markets games, proper and full Cournot-Nash equilibria, and finiteness and inefficiency. The selection is a valuable source of data for researchers interested in noncooperative approaches to the theory of perfect competition.
The Hamiltonian Approach to Dynamic Economics
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
David Cass + 1 more
English
The Hamiltonian Approach to Dynamic Economics focuses on the application of the Hamiltonian approach to dynamic economics and attempts to provide some unification of the theory of heterogeneous capital. Emphasis is placed on the stability of long-run steady-state equilibrium in models of heterogeneous capital accumulation. Generalizations of the Samuelson-Scheinkman approach are also given. Moreover, conditions are sought on the geometry of the Hamiltonian function (that is, on static technology) that suffice to preserve under (not necessarily small) perturbation the basic properties of the Hamiltonian dynamical system. Comprised of eight essays, this book begins with an introduction to Hamiltonian dynamics in economics, followed by a discussion on optimal steady states of n-sector growth models when utility is discounted. Optimal growth and decentralized or descriptive growth models in both continuous and discrete time are treated as applications of Hamiltonian dynamics. Theproblem of optimal growth with zero discounting is considered, with emphasis on a steepness condition on the Hamiltonian function. The general problem of decentralized growth with instantaneously adjusted expectations about price changes is also analyzed, along with the global asymptotic stability of optimal control systems with applications to the theory of economic growth. This monograph will be of value to mathematicians and economists.
Foundations of Decision Support Systems
1st Edition
May 10, 2014
Robert H. Bonczek + 2 more
J. William Schmidt
English
Foundations of Decision Support Systems focuses on the frameworks, strategies, and techniques involved in decision support systems (DSS). The publication first takes a look at information processing, decision making, and decision support; frameworks for organizational information processing and decision making; and representative decision support systems. Discussions focus on classification scheme for DSS, abilities required for decision making, division of information-processi... labor within an organization, and decision support. The text then elaborates on ideas in decision support, formalizations of purposive systems, and conceptual and operational constructs for building a data base knowledge system. The book takes a look at building a data base knowledge system, language systems for data base knowledge systems, and problem-processing systems for data base knowledge systems. Topics include problem processors for computationally oriented DSS, major varieties of logical data structures, and indirect associations among concepts. The manuscript also examines operationalizing modeling knowledge in terms of predicate calculus; combining the data base and formal logic approaches; and the language and knowledge systems of a DSS based on formal logic. The publication is a valuable reference for researchers interested in decision support systems.

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