Search results for ""Diffusion""

Dr Harryson develops the principle of 'know-who' - first propounded and practised by Japanese companies but now increasingly championed by multinationals. Case studies are used from companies such as Kodak, Ericsson, IBM and Philips to highlight the networking patterns deployed by these companies and to ultimately confirm or deny the relevance of 'know-who' management. The book explains why, in a world where knowledge and intellectual value is widely acknowledged as crucial, companies can achieve both innovativeness and productivity through 'know-who'. By enhancing our understanding of 'know-who' based management of knowledge and innovation, the author suggests new approaches to dealing with the knowledge economy and to solving the paradoxical organizational needs of creative invention and rapid innovation. This approach is based on new networking patterns and new ways of using the results of extra-corporate networking such as: gathering global market intelligence in cooperation with R&D staff internal networks promoting the diffusion of external and internal knowledge aligning R&D staff with marketing and production by internal 'know-who' mechanisms Written by a leading management consultant, the theories discussed will be essential reading for business managers, international scholars and researchers of R&D, innovation and the knowledge economy.

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The insight that institutions, and the communicative practices that create, sustain, and challenge them, are multimodal accomplishments has garnered increasing attention from scholars in organization and management research over the last decade. Traditional understanding of social knowledge and meaning as being constituted primarily through verbal discourse has been challenged and extended by work that has promoted the centrality of visual, material, and other sign systems (e.g., audio, gestures, layout) for constructing social reality. While some discursive approaches to organizations and institutions have acknowledged the existence and relevance of modes other than the verbal for some time, systematic research on multimodality has remained rather sparse. In particular, the interaction and orchestration of multiple modes remains terra incognita with considerable empirical, methodological, and theoretical stakes. Together, 54A and 54B of Research in the Sociology of Organizations investigate these issues with innovative research that focuses on the relationship between different modes in the emergence, diffusion, maintenance, and challenge of social meanings and institutions. Individual contributions demonstrate the potential of multimodal approaches to rejuvenate and extend the study of institutions, they revisit research on classic phenomena in organization theory through a multimodal lens, and advance the design of relevant and rigorous methods of analysis for the study of multimodal communicative practices.

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The motivations behind those who went on the Third Crusade examined through close investigation of their social networks. The Third Crusade (1189-1192) was an attempt by Latin Christendom to reconquer the Holy Land, following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. Tens of thousands responded to a call for a crusade by Pope Gregory VIII and the efforts of his preachers at mass cross-taking ceremonies, rallying to the expedition's leaders - Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard the Lionheart. This book analyses the communal and cultural factors that influenced nobles from north-western Europe who embarked on the Third Crusade, bringing out the motives, dynamics, and extent of their participation, and placing that participation in the broader social and geographical context of crusading and medieval life. It shows that significant numbers of them were themselves descended from crusaders, and that the majority of them travelled to the Levant in the company of friends, family, and neighbours, as well as through membership of a military household. It also highlights the role of key individuals - both male and female - who influenced the decision to undertake the crusade, and identifies the significant role played by particular religious institutions in the diffusion of crusading ideology.

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This fully revised and updated fourth edition of Motion Picture and Video Lighting explores the technical, aesthetic, and practical aspects of lighting for film and video. It covers not only how to light, but also why. The process of lighting is emphasized, as well as practical techniques and visual storytelling with light.Written by experienced filmmaker, film school teacher, and author Blain Brown, this book emphasizes how the image, the mood, and the visual impact of a film are, to a great extent, determined by the skill and sensitivity of the director of photography in using lighting. It provides an indispensable, highly illustrated, and comprehensive guide to making every scene look its best.This new edition has been expanded to provide further guidance at the introductory level for students, those just starting their careers, and people already working in the business who want to move up.Topics include: Lighting Sources LEDs The Lighting Process Lighting Basics Controlling Light Lighting Scenes A Lighting Playbook Storytelling With Light Electricity and Distribution Gripology Set Operations Technical Issues A robust accompanying companion website also includes video tutorials and other resources for students and professionals alike, including lighting demonstrations, basic methods of lighting, using diffusion, color control, and other topics.

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Rules for the Global Economy is a timely examination of the conditions under which international rules of globalization come into existence, enabling world economic and financial systems to function and stabilize. Horst Siebert, a leading figure in international economics, explains that these institutional arrangements, such as the ones that govern banking, emerge when countries fail to solve economic problems on their own and cede part of their sovereignty to an international order. Siebert demonstrates that the rules result from a trial-and-error process--and usually after a crisis--in order to prevent pointless transaction costs and risks. Using an accessible and nonmathematical approach, Siebert links the rules to four areas: international trade relations, factor movements, financial flows, and the environment. He looks at the international division of labor in the trade of goods and services; flow of capital; diffusion of technology; migration of people, including labor and human capital; protection of the global environment; and stability of the monetary-financial system. He discusses the role of ethical norms and human rights in defining international regulations, and argues that the benefits of any rules system should be direct and visible. Comprehensively supporting rules-based interactions among international players, the book considers future issues of the global rules system.

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In this much needed examination of Mike Leigh, Sean O'Sullivan reclaims the British director as a practicing theorist--a filmmaker deeply invested in cinema's formal, conceptual, and narrative dimensions. In contrast with Leigh's prevailing reputation as a straightforward crafter of social realist movies, O'Sullivan illuminates the visual tropes and storytelling investigations that position Leigh as an experimental filmmaker who uses the art and artifice of cinema to frame tales of the everyday and the extraordinary alike. O'Sullivan challenges the prevailing characterizations of Leigh's cinema by detailing the complicated constructions of his realism, positing his films not as transparent records of life but as aesthetic transformations of it. Concentrating on the most recent two decades of Leigh's career, the study examines how Naked, Secrets and Lies, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake, and other films engage narrative convergence and narrative diffusion, the tension between character and plot, the interplay of coincidence and design, cinema's relationship to other systems of representation, and the filmic rendering of the human figure. The book also spotlights such earlier, less-discussed works as Four Days in July and The Short and Curlies, illustrating the recurring visual and storytelling concerns of Leigh's cinema. With a detailed filmography, this volume also includes key selections from O'Sullivan's several interviews with Leigh.

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Studies of complexity, singularity, and anomaly using nonlocal continuum models are steadily gaining popularity. This monograph provides an introduction to basic analytical, computational, and modeling issues and to some of the latest developments in these areas.Nonlocal Modeling, Analysis, and Computation includes motivational examples of nonlocal models, basic building blocks of nonlocal vector calculus, elements of theory for well-posedness and nonlocal spaces, connections to and coupling with local models, convergence and compatibility of numerical approximations, and various applications, such as nonlocal dynamics of anomalous diffusion and nonlocal peridynamic models of elasticity and fracture mechanics.A particular focus is on nonlocal systems with a finite range of interaction to illustrate their connection to traditional local systems represented by partial differential equations and fractional PDEs. These models are designed to represent nonlocal interactions explicitly and to remain valid for complex systems involving possible singular solutions and they have the potential to be alternatives to as well as bridges to existing local continuum and discrete models.The author discusses ongoing studies of nonlocal models to encourage the discovery of new mathematical theory for nonlocal continuum models and offer new perspectives on existing discrete models and local continuum models and the connections between them.

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Jacob Böhme (1575–1624) has been recognized as one of the internationally most influential German authors of the Early Modern period. Even today, his writings continue to impact fields as diverse as literature, philosophy, religion and art. Yet Böhme and his reception remain understudied. As a lay author, his works were often suppressed and circulated underground. Borrowing Böhme’s idea of “three worlds” or planes of existence, this volume traces the transmission of his thought through three stations: from his first underground readers in Central and Eastern Europe, to the Netherlands, where most of his writings were first published, to Britain, where early translations made him a popular author for generations to come. Drawing on the work of both established and younger researchers from around the world, this volume charts new territory. It fills many lacunae and reveals a number of exciting discoveries, especially regarding the production and diffusion of manuscripts and previously overlooked sites of engagement. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars interested in the development of philosophical, religious, literary and artistic thought from the 17th century to the present day.

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Due to the increase in computational power and new discoveries in propagation phenomena for linear and nonlinear waves, the area of computational wave propagation has become more significant in recent years. Exploring the latest developments in the field, Effective Computational Methods for Wave Propagation presents several modern, valuable computational methods used to describe wave propagation phenomena in selected areas of physics and technology.Featuring contributions from internationally known experts, the book is divided into four parts. It begins with the simulation of nonlinear dispersive waves from nonlinear optics and the theory and numerical analysis of Boussinesq systems. The next section focuses on computational approaches, including a finite element method and parabolic equation techniques, for mathematical models of underwater sound propagation and scattering. The book then offers a comprehensive introduction to modern numerical methods for time-dependent elastic wave propagation. The final part supplies an overview of high-order, low diffusion numerical methods for complex, compressible flows of aerodynamics. Concentrating on physics and technology, this volume provides the necessary computational methods to effectively tackle the sources of problems that involve some type of wave motion.

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Quantifying the timescales of current geological processes is critical for constraining the physical mechanisms operating on the Earth today. Since the Earth’s origin 4.55 billion years ago magmatic processes have continued to shape the Earth, producing the major reservoirs that exist today (core, mantle, crust, oceans and atmosphere) and promoting their continued evolution. But key questions remain. When did the core form and how quickly? How are magmas produced in the mantle, and how rapidly do they travel towards the surface? How long do magmas reside in the crust, differentiating and interacting with the host rocks to yield the diverse set of igneous rocks we see today? How fast are volcanic gases such as carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere? This book addresses these and other questions by reviewing the latest advances in a wide range of Earth Science disciplines: from the measurement of short-lived radionuclides to the study of element diffusion in crystals and numerical modelling of magma behaviour. It will be invaluable reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as igneous petrologists, mineralogists and geochemists involved in the study of igneous rocks and processes.

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Featuring interviews with nineteen leading U.S. literary and cultural critics, Critics at Work offers a unique picture of recent developments in literary studies, critical theory, American studies, gay and lesbian studies, philosophy, and other fields. It provides informative, timely, and often provocative commentary on a broad range of topics, from the state of theory today and the prospects for cultural studies to the role of public intellectuals and the place of political activism. These conversations also elicit illuminating and sometimes surprising insights into the personal and professional lives of its contributors. Individually, each interview gives a significant overview of a critic's work. Taken together, they provide an assessment of literary and cultural studies from the establishment of theory and its diffusion, in recent years, into various cultural and identity studies. In addition to the interviews themselves, the volume includes useful short introductions to each critic's work and biography. Interviewees: K. Anthony Appiah, Lauren Berlant, Cathy Davidson, Morris Dickstein, Stanley Fish, Barbara Foley, Nancy Fraser, Gerald Graff, Alice Kaplan, E. Ann Kaplan, Robin D.G. Kelley, Paul Lauter, Louis Menand, Richard Ohmann, Andrew Ross, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Jane Tompkins, Marianna Torgovnick, and Alan Wald.

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While homophobia is commonly characterized as individual and personal prejudice, this collection of essays instead explores homophobia as a transnational political phenomenon. Editors Meredith L. Weiss and Michael J. Bosia theorize homophobia as a distinct configuration of repressive state-sponsored policies and practices with their own causes, explanations, and effects on how sexualities are understood and experienced in a variety of national contexts. The essays cover a broad range of geographic cases, including France, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, Poland, Singapore, and the United States. Combining rich empirical analysis with theoretical synthesis, these studies examine how homophobia travels across complex and ambiguous transnational networks, how it achieves and exerts decisive power, and how it shapes the collective identities and strategies of those groups it targets. The first comparative volume to focus specifically on the global diffusion of homophobia and its implications for an emerging worldwide LGBT movement, Global Homophobia opens new avenues of debate and dialogue for scholars, students, and activists. Contributors are Mark Blasius, Michael J. Bosia, David K. Johnson, Kapya J. Kaoma, Christine (Cricket) Keating, Katarzyna Korycki, Amy Lind, Abouzar Nasirzadeh, Conor O'Dwyer, Meredith L. Weiss, and Sami Zeidan.

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Too often we think of the modern political state as a universal institution, the inevitable product of History rather than a specific creation of a very particular history. Bertrand Badie and Pierre Birnbaum here persuasively argue that the origin of the state is a social fact, arising out of the peculiar sociohistorical context of Western Europe. Drawing on historical materials and bringing sociological insights to bear on a field long abandoned to jurists and political scientists, the authors lay the foundations for a strikingly original theory of the birth and subsequent diffusion of the state. The book opens with a review of the principal evolutionary theories concerning the origin of the institution proposed by such thinkers as Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Rejecting these views, the authors set forward and defend their thesis that the state was an "invention" rather than a necessary consequence of any other process. Once invented, the state was disseminated outside its Western European birthplace either through imposition or imitation. The study concludes with concrete analyses of the differences in actual state institutions in France, Prussia, Great Britain, the United States, and Switzerland.

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Athenes est la premiere cite du monde grec dont l'economie fut veritablement monetarisee. Les riches gisements argentiferes du Laurion lui permettaient, en effet, d'emettre un monnayage abondant qui, de proche en proche, essaima dans tous les pays mediterraneens et contribua a populariser l'instrument monetaire. Les celebres " chouettes ", toutefois, ne se pretent guere aux methodes d'investigation traditionnelles en numismatique. Il est illusoire, par exemple, avec les moyens mis en ?uvre actuellement, d'aboutir a un denombrement des coins utilises a la production des abondantes series du Ve siecle. Cette difficulte bien connue est relevee ici comme un defi. Dans cet ouvrage, l'auteur s'essaye a reconstituer le cadre socio-economique dans lequel s'inscrit la production monetaire, depuis l'extraction du minerai jusqu'a la fabrication ultime des petits lingots d'argent que sont les tetradrachmes, en tirant notamment parti de la riche documentation epigraphique. Il etudie aussi les conditions particulieres de l'exploitation miniere, tente d'evaluer ses couts et, partant, le benefice des producteurs et ses modalites. Il s'efforce aussi de reconstituer les circuits de diffusion en Mer Egee et d'evaluer la place reelle prise par la monnaie dans le developpement de l'Empire athenien, de determiner ainsi les parametres qui dictaient le rythme et l'ampleur des frappes en Grece ancienne.

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Nations have powerful reasons to get their military alliances right. When security pacts go well, they underpin regional and global order; when they fail, they spread wars across continents as states are dragged into conflict. We would, therefore, expect states to carefully tailor their military partnerships to specific conditions. This expectation, Raymond C. Kuo argues, is wrong. Following the Leader argues that most countries ignore their individual security interests in military pacts, instead converging on a single, dominant alliance strategy. The book introduces a new social theory of strategic diffusion and emulation, using case studies and advanced statistical analysis of alliances from 1815 to 2003. In the wake of each major war that shatters the international system, a new hegemon creates a core military partnership to target its greatest enemy. Secondary and peripheral countries rush to emulate this alliance, illustrating their credibility and prestige by mimicking the dominant form. Be it the NATO model that seems so commonsense today, or the realpolitik that reigned in Europe of the late nineteenth century, a lone alliance strategy has defined broad swaths of diplomatic history. It is not states' own security interests driving this phenomenon, Kuo shows, but their jockeying for status in a world periodically remade by great powers.

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Silicon Valley has become shorthand for a globally acclaimed way to unleash the creative potential of venture capital, supporting innovation and creating jobs. In The Venture Capital State Robyn Klingler-Vidra traces how and why different states have adopted distinct versions of the Silicon Valley model. Venture capital seeks high rewards but is enveloped in high risk. The author’s deep investigations of venture capital policymaking in East Asian states (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore) show that success does not reflect policymakers’ ability to replicate the Silicon Valley model. Instead, she argues, performance reflects their skill in adapting a highly lauded model to their local context. Policymakers are "contextually rational" in their learning; their context-rooted norms shape their preferences. The normative context for learning about policy—how elites see themselves and what they deem as locally appropriate—informs how they design their efforts. The Venture Capital State offers a novel conceptualization of rationality, bridging diametrically opposed versions of bounded and conventional rationality. This new understanding of rationality is simultaneously fully informed and context based, and it provides a framework by which analysts can bring domestic factors to the very heart of international diffusion of policy. Klingler-Vidra concludes that states have a visible hand in constituting even quintessentially neoliberal markets.

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Annual Plant Reviews, Volume 23 A much clearer picture is now emerging of the fine structure of the plant cuticle and its surface, the composition of cuticular waxes and the biosynthetic pathways leading to them. Studies assessing the impact of UV radiation on plant life have emphasized the role of the cuticle and underlying epidermis as optical filters for solar radiation. The field concerned with the diffusive transport of lipophilic organic non-electrolytes across the plant cuticle has reached a state of maturity. A new paradigm has recently been proposed for the diffusion of polar compounds and water across the cuticle. In the context of plant ecophysiology, cuticular transpiration can now be placed in the perspective of whole-leaf water relations. New and unexpected roles have been assigned to the cuticle in plant development and pollen-stigma interactions. Finally, much progress has been made in understanding the cuticle as a specific and extraordinary substrate for the interactions of the plant with microorganisms, fungi and insects. This volume details the major developments of recent years in this important interdisciplinary area. It is directed at researchers and professionals in plant biochemistry, plant physiology, plant ecology, phytopathology and environmental microbiology, in both the academic and industrial sectors.

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Advanced surfaces enriches the high-throughput engineering of physical and chemical phenomenon in relatin to electrical, magnetic, electronics, thermal and optical controls, as well as large surface areas, protective coatings against water loss and excessive gas exchange. A more sophisticated example could be a highly selective surface permeability allowing passive diffusion and selective transport of molecules in the water or gases. The smart surface technology provides an interlayer model which prevents the entry of substances without affecting the properties of neighboring layers. A number of methods have been developed for coatings, which are essential building blocks for the top-down and/or bottom-up design of numerous functional materials. Advanced Surface Engineering Materials offers a detailed up-to-date review chapters on the functional coatings and adhesives, engineering of nanosurfaces, high-tech surface, characterization and new applications. The 13 chapters in this book are divided into 3 parts (Functional coatings and adhesives; Engineering of nanosurfaces; High-tech surface, characterization and new applications) and are all written by worldwide subject matter specialists. The book is written for readers from diverse backgrounds across chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering, medical science, environmental, bio- and nano- technologies and biomedical engineering. It offers a comprehensive view of cutting-edge research on surface engineering materials and their technological importance.

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Extensively using experimental and numerical illustrations, CombustionPhenomena: Selected Mechanisms of Flame Formation, Propagation, and Extinction provides a comprehensive survey of the fundamental processes of flame formation, propagation, and extinction.Taking you through the stages of combustion, leading experts visually display, mathematically explain, and clearly theorize on important physical topics of combustion. After a historical introduction to the field, they discuss combustion chemistry, flammability limits, and spark ignition. They also study counterflow twin-flame configuration, flame in a vortex core, the propagation characteristics of edge flames, instabilities, and tulip flames. In addition, the book describes flame extinction in narrow channels, global quenching of premixed flames by turbulence, counterflow premixed flame extinction limits, the interaction of flames with fluids in rotating vessels, and turbulent flames. The final chapter explores diffusion flames as well as combustion in spark- and compression-ignition engines. It also examines the transition from deflagration to detonation, along with the detonation wave structure. With downloadable resources of images that beautifully illustrate a range of combustion phenomena, this book facilitates a practical understanding of the processes occurring in the conception, spread, and extinguishment of a flame. It will help you on your way to finding solutions to real issues encountered in transportation, power generation, industrial processes, chemical engineering, and fire and explosion hazards.

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Rules for the Global Economy is a timely examination of the conditions under which international rules of globalization come into existence, enabling world economic and financial systems to function and stabilize. Horst Siebert, a leading figure in international economics, explains that these institutional arrangements, such as the ones that govern banking, emerge when countries fail to solve economic problems on their own and cede part of their sovereignty to an international order. Siebert demonstrates that the rules result from a trial-and-error process--and usually after a crisis--in order to prevent pointless transaction costs and risks. Using an accessible and nonmathematical approach, Siebert links the rules to four areas: international trade relations, factor movements, financial flows, and the environment. He looks at the international division of labor in the trade of goods and services; flow of capital; diffusion of technology; migration of people, including labor and human capital; protection of the global environment; and stability of the monetary-financial system. He discusses the role of ethical norms and human rights in defining international regulations, and argues that the benefits of any rules system should be direct and visible. Comprehensively supporting rules-based interactions among international players, the book considers future issues of the global rules system.

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Networks of relationships help determine the careers that people choose, the jobs they obtain, the products they buy, and how they vote. The many aspects of our lives that are governed by social networks make it critical to understand how they impact behavior, which network structures are likely to emerge in a society, and why we organize ourselves as we do. In Social and Economic Networks, Matthew Jackson offers a comprehensive introduction to social and economic networks, drawing on the latest findings in economics, sociology, computer science, physics, and mathematics. He provides empirical background on networks and the regularities that they exhibit, and discusses random graph-based models and strategic models of network formation. He helps readers to understand behavior in networked societies, with a detailed analysis of learning and diffusion in networks, decision making by individuals who are influenced by their social neighbors, game theory and markets on networks, and a host of related subjects. Jackson also describes the varied statistical and modeling techniques used to analyze social networks. Each chapter includes exercises to aid students in their analysis of how networks function. This book is an indispensable resource for students and researchers in economics, mathematics, physics, sociology, and business.

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The greatest mathematicians, such as Archimedes, Newton, and Gauss, always united theory and applications in equal measure. Felix Klein There exists the remarkable possibility that one can master a subject mathemati­ cally, without really understanding its essence. Albert Einstein Don't give us numbers: give us insight! A contemporary natural scientist to a mathematician Numerous questions in physics, chemistry, biology, and economics lead to nonlinear problems; for example, deformation of rods, plates, and shells; behavior of plastic materials; surface waves of fluids; flows around objects in fluids or gases; shock waves in gases; movement of viscous fluids; equilibrium forms of rotating fluids in astrophysics; determination of the shape of the earth through gravitational measu- ments; behavior of magnetic fields of astrophysical objects; melting processes; chemical reactions; heat radiation; processes in nuclear reactors; nonlinear oscillation in physics, chemistry, and biology; 2 Introduction existence and stability of periodic and quasiperiodic orbits in celestial mechanics; stability of physical, chemical, biological, ecological, and economic processes; diffusion processes in physics, chemistry, and biology; processes with entropy production, and self-organization of systems in physics, chemistry, and biology; study of the electrical potential variation in the heart through measure­ ments on the body surface to prevent heart attacks; determining material constants or material laws (e. g.

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This book covers comprehensive bifurcation theory and its applications to dynamical systems and partial differential equations (PDEs) from science and engineering, including in particular PDEs from physics, chemistry, biology, and hydrodynamics.The book first introduces bifurcation theories recently developed by the authors, on steady state bifurcation for a class of nonlinear problems with even order nondegenerate nonlinearities, regardless of the multiplicity of the eigenvalues, and on attractor bifurcations for nonlinear evolution equations, a new notion of bifurcation.With this new notion of bifurcation, many longstanding bifurcation problems in science and engineering are becoming accessible, and are treated in the second part of the book. In particular, applications are covered for a variety of PDEs from science and engineering, including the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the Cahn-Hillard equation, the Ginzburg-Landau equation, reaction-diffusion equations in biology and chemistry, the Benard convection problem, and the Taylor problem. The applications provide, on the one hand, general recipes for other applications of the theory addressed in this book, and on the other, full classifications of the bifurcated attractor and the global attractor as the control parameters cross certain critical values, dictated usually by the eigenvalues of the linearized problems. It is expected that the book will greatly advance the study of nonlinear dynamics for many problems in science and engineering.

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An Introduction to Stellar Astrophysics aspires to provide the reader with an intermediate knowledge on stars whilst focusing mostly on the explanation of the functioning of stars by using basic physical concepts and observational results. The book is divided into seven chapters, featuring both core and optional content: Basic concepts Stellar Formation Radiative Transfer in Stars Stellar Atmospheres Stellar Interiors Nucleosynthesis and Stellar Evolution and Chemically Peculiar Stars and Diffusion. Student-friendly features include: Detailed examples to help the reader better grasp the most important concepts A list of exercises is given at the end of each chapter and answers to a selection of these are presented. Brief recalls of the most important physical concepts needed to properly understand stars. A summary for each chapter Optional and advanced sections are included which may be skipped without interfering with the flow of the core content. This book is designed to cover the most important aspects of stellar astrophysics inside a one semester (or half-year) course and as such is relevant for advanced undergraduate students following a first course on stellar astrophysics, in physics or astronomy programs. It will also serve as a basic reference for a full-year course as well as for researchers working in related fields.

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Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter's theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a 'New Economy' and how these 'opportunity explosions', focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises. These findings are illustrated with examples from the past two centuries: the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel and electricity, the emergence of mass production and automobiles, and the current information revolution/knowledge society.By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, this seminal book sheds new light on some of the most pressing economic problems of today.A bold interpretation of how the changing relationship between technological advances and financial capital shapes the patterns of economic cycles, this path-breaking book will provide essential insights for business leaders, policymakers, academics and others concerned with managing change in the world economy.

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It can be said of South Asia what has long been said of its great epic poem, the Mahabharata: "there is nothing in it that cannot be found elsewhere in the world and nothing in the world that cannot be found there." South Asia's historic trans-regional connections to the wider world include the trade between its most ancient civilization with Sumer and central Asia, the diffusion beyond its shores of three of the world's major religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), its cultural encounters with the Greeks, Islam, European imperialism, the spread of it cuisine (from crystalized sugar to "curry"), and its architecture (including the world's most recognized building, the Taj Mahal). While these connections have insured that South Asia has always loomed large in the consideration of the world's collective past, its societies are currently undergoing a transformation that may enable them to rival the United States and China as the world's largest economy. This study employs accessible language and an engaging narrative to provide insight into how world historical processes, from changes in environment to the movement of peoples and ideas, have shaped and continue to shape the history of South Asia and its place in the wider world.

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F. AUBAILLE-SALLENAVE, "Al-Khidr, "L'homme au manteau vert" en pays musulmans: ses fonctions, ses caracteres, sa diffusion", P. CHARLIER, "Intemperies et magie en Mesopotamie ancienne", D. DE SMET, "L'alphabet secret des Ismaeliens ou la force magique de l'ecriture", T. FAHD, "La magie comme "source" de la sagesse, d'apres l'oeuvre d'al-Buni", M. GAILLARD, "Foi heroique contre magie demoniaque: une lutte exemplaire", R. LEMAY, "Books of Magic in translation from the Arabic and the birth of a theology of the Sacraments of the Church in the twelfth century", C. MULLER-KESSLER, "Die aramaische Beschworung und ihre Rezeption in den mandaisch-magischen Texten am Beispiel ausgewahlter aramaischer Beschworungsformulare", E. SANZI, "Mithras: a deus invictus among Persia, stars, Oriental cults and magical gems", M. SCHWARTZ, "Qumran, Turfan, Arabic Magic, and Noah's Name", G. SFAMENI GASPARRO, "Magie et magiciens. Le debat entre chretiens et paiens aux premiers siecles de notre ere", N. THIERRY, "Le devenir du carre magique "sator" en Cappadoce dite "archaique"", B. THIERRY de CRUSSOL des EPESSE, "Le sang et les intailles magiques gynecologiques greco-egyptiennes", J. VAN REETH, "Les magazil de Amrit et la Table d'Emeraude", A. WYPUSTEK, "Calumnia magiae. Towards a New Study of the Relationship Between Greek-Roman Magic and Early Christianity".

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Tramonto is a contemporary single-family home that integrates the natural beauty of the adjacent state park and ocean views. The placement of the home overlooks the canyon, the surrounding Santa Monica Mountains, and the California coastline. The diffusion of the built form defines the approach for this 17,000 sqft single-family residence (14,500 sqft main house and 2,500 sqft accessory building) into the surrounding landscape. The two-acre site embraces the steep topography, contending with the context to inform the building's siting and orientation. The project is terraced into the natural contours of the hillside, breaking up the overall building mass while using its sub-grade structure to reinforce the hillside. The book provides a look into the 17,000 sqft home and its indoor-outdoor lifestyle. Emphasis on significant custom elements highlights the detail-oriented approach that can be found throughout the entirety of the home. From the initial conceptualisation of the exterior form to the construction process and key moments, this book presents the visual story of the home's integration into the Southern California landscape. Tramonto embodies a truly contemporary Southern California attitude, the essential principles of indoor/outdoor living afforded by embracing the temperate region and the natural beauty of the coastal landscape.

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Moving Towards the Virtual Workplace provides the first comprehensive overview of the many impacts of telework/telecommuting adoption, from both a managerial and societal perspective. This book argues that telework will be increasingly adopted in the twenty-first century, representing a far-reaching move toward the virtual workplace, with dramatic implications for the management of the workforce and for society at large.Telework, like mass production, has the potential to change society. It permits the significant reduction of the spatial and temporal constraints faced by the conventional organization of the workplace. The new virtual workplace constitutes a key step in the evolution towards a virtual society.In order to realistically assess telework's diffusion potential, the book studies, both conceptually and empirically, the technological, institutional, organizational and individual-level parameters that influence the decision to adopt telework, and the likelihood of telework's success.The book concludes that telework can have enormous socioeconomic impacts, both as a macro-level tool, reducing road transport externalities, and as a managerial instrument to motivate highly skilled workers in knowledge-based industries. As such this fascinating book will be invaluable to scholars of management, transport, economics and industrial and union relations. The telework and business community, both scholarly and practical will also find the book of great interest.

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An introductory text for broad areas of nuclear reactor physics Nuclear Reactor Physics and Engineering offers information on analysis, design, control, and operation of nuclear reactors. The author—a noted expert on the topic—explores the fundamentals and presents the mathematical formulations that are grounded in differential equations and linear algebra. The book puts the focus on the use of neutron diffusion theory for the development of techniques for lattice physics and global reactor system analysis. The author also includes recent developments in numerical algorithms, including the Krylov subspace method, and the MATLAB software, including the Simulink toolbox, for efficient studies of steady-state and transient reactor configurations. In addition, nuclear fuel cycle and associated economics analysis are presented, together with the application of modern control theory to reactor operation. This important book: Provides a comprehensive introduction to the fundamental concepts of nuclear reactor physics and engineering Contains information on nuclear reactor kinetics and reactor design analysis Presents illustrative examples to enhance understanding Offers self-contained derivation of fluid conservation equations Written for undergraduate and graduate students in nuclear engineering and practicing engineers, Nuclear Reactor Physics and Engineering covers the fundamental concepts and tools of nuclear reactor physics and analysis.

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Scientists at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) have developed powerful new tools to improve the effectiveness of their maize research, enabling the rapid development and successful transfer of maize technology in Kenya. The Kenya Maize Data Base Project (MDBP) was established in 1992 with the help of the Rockefeller Foundation, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the US Agency for International Development. This has allowed scientists to use advanced technology to prioritize and evaluate maize research options more effectively, by taking into account such variables as climatic effects and the socioeconomic conditions of farmers. This book describes in detail the development and application of the MDBP, which uses spatial analysis to integrate data from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) with the results of biological experiments, socioeconomic statistics (including interviews with farmers) and agroclimatic information. This provides a powerful planning tool for targeting new technology to the needs of farmers. The book contains sections on survey methods, ex ante research evaluation and priority setting, and patterns of maize technology diffusion and the impact of research. It concludes with a synthesis of the MDBP results and assessment of future choices. This book is essential reading for maize agronomists, crop modellers, agricultural and development economists, extension workers and planners.

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The Egyptian pharmaceutical industry serves as a case study for understanding the impact of the global intellectual property regime in this fascinating new addition to the University of Toronto Press Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy Series. The Illusive Trade-off examines the Egyptian pharmaceutical industry within a broader context of intellectual property policy making and the multilateral agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Basma Abdelgafar offers a fascinating discussion of Egypt's role in the trade negotiations that led to the establishment of the World Trade Organization, and makes the case that predominant perspectives on intellectual property rights are based on the false assumption that the innovation process is discrete and segmented. Abdelgafar contends that, in fact, innovation relies upon diffusion, and that inappropriately strong property rights interfere with this process. She uses the case of Egypt's pharmaceutical industry to argue that we must consider relevant aspects of individual countries' systems of innovation as well as public health, if we are to adequately understand the implication of stronger patent protection for the pharmaceutical industries of developing nations. The Illusive Trade-off is an original and important study crossing the disciplines of political science, law, public policy, and public health.

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Préfacée par Roger ChartierAu XVIIIe siècle, les libraires jouissent d'un monopole inégalé sur le monde du livre à Paris, laissant peu de place aux auteurs qui souhaitent profiter seuls du fruit de leur travail. Toutefois, le vent tourne en 1777: les auteurs acquièrent enfin le droit d'éditer et de vendre leurs propres ouvrages sans l'intermédiaire d'un libraire. Bien que les risques associés à l'édition autonome − longtemps sous-estimée par l'historiographie − aient été réels, cette pratique fait partie du cheminement de quelques centaines d’auteurs avant la Révolution.Après avoir exploré les différents discours traitant de l’émergence de l’auteur moderne, maître de son ouvrage, Marie-Claude Felton démontre comment des écrivains de tous horizons, du plumitif au philosophe, choisissent de garder une mainmise sur les droits et les retombées de leurs œuvres. Elle révèle aussi que les auteurs-éditeurs, sensibles à la qualité matérielle des livres imprimés à leurs frais, en assurent la diffusion tant par le recours à la publicité que par l'organisation des ventes à domicile. Grâce à une analyse minutieuse et originale, Marie-Claude Felton apporte une contribution importante à l’histoire du livre et jette un regard neuf sur la place insoupçonnée qu’occupent les auteurs sur le marché littéraire d’Ancien Régime.

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In business, as in other aspects of life, we learn and grow from the examples set by others. Imitation can lead to innovation. But in order to grow innovatively, how do businesses decide what firms to imitate? And how do they choose what practices to follow? Learning by Example takes an unprecedented look at the benchmarking initiative of a major financial institution. David Strang closely follows twenty-one teams of managers sent out to observe the practices of other companies in order to develop recommendations for change in their own organization. Through extensive interviews, surveys, and archival materials, Strang reveals that benchmarking promotes a distinctive managerial regime with potential benefits and pitfalls. He explores the organizations treated as models of best practice, the networks that surround a bank and form its reference group, the ways managers craft calls for change, and the programs implemented in the wake of vicarious learning. Strang finds that imitation does not occur through mindless conformity. Instead, managers act creatively, combining what they see in external site visits with their bank's strategic objectives, interpreted in light of their understanding of rational and progressive management. Learning by Example opens the black box of interorganizational diffusion to show how managers interpret, advocate, and implement innovations

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From the earliest scratches on stone and bone to the languages of computers and the internet, "A History of Writing" offers an investigation into the origin and development of writing throughout the world. Commencing with the first stages of information storage knot records, tally sticks, pictographic storytelling the book then focuses on the emergence of complete writing systems in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, and their diffusion to Egypt, the Indus Valley and points east, with special attention given to Semitic writing systems and their eventual spread to the Indian subcontinent. Also documented is the rise of Phoenician and its effect on the Greek alphabet, generating the many alphabetic scripts of the West. Chinese, Korean and Japanese writing systems and scripts are dealt with in depth, as is writing in pre-Colombian America. Also explored are Western Europe's medieval manuscripts and the history of printing, leading to the innovations in technology and spelling rules of the 19th and 20th centuries. Illustrated with numerous examples, this book offers a global overview in a form that everyone can follow.The author also reveals his own discoveries made since the early 1980s, making it a useful reference for both students and specialists as well as the general reader.

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Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital presents a novel interpretation of the good and bad times in the economy, taking a long-term perspective and linking technology and finance in an original and convincing way.Carlota Perez draws upon Schumpeter's theories of the clustering of innovations to explain why each technological revolution gives rise to a paradigm shift and a 'New Economy' and how these 'opportunity explosions', focused on specific industries, also lead to the recurrence of financial bubbles and crises. These findings are illustrated with examples from the past two centuries: the industrial revolution, the age of steam and railways, the age of steel and electricity, the emergence of mass production and automobiles, and the current information revolution/knowledge society.By analyzing the changing relationship between finance capital and production capital during the emergence, diffusion and assimilation of new technologies throughout the global economic system, this seminal book sheds new light on some of the most pressing economic problems of today.A bold interpretation of how the changing relationship between technological advances and financial capital shapes the patterns of economic cycles, this path-breaking book will provide essential insights for business leaders, policymakers, academics and others concerned with managing change in the world economy.

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Do you often lash out at people? Do you let your emotions rule your interactions with others? Do you find it difficult to see things from others' point of view? You are not alone. Despite the fact that we all have to deal with other people our daily lives, many of us have difficulties with interpersonal relationships.Written by psychologist and bestselling author Matthew McKay, The Interpersonal Problems Workbook combines research and evidence-based techniques for strengthening relationships in all areas in life-whether it's at home, at work, with a significant other, a parent, or a child. The skills in this workbook are based in both schema therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and are designed to help you connect and communicate effectively with those around them.ACT has been proven effective in helping people improve their relationships with others. The ACT skills detailed in this book include present moment awareness, diffusion, and flexibility-all of which will help you to improve your relationships with others. In this book you will learn what your schema is, and how to act on your values to communicate and get along with others.If you are ready to stop building walls and start connecting with those around you, this book presents powerful, effective tools for change.

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The first comprehensive look at the origins and diffusion across Europe of the etched print during the late 15th and early 16th centuries The etching of images on metal, originally used as a method for decorating armor, was first employed as a printmaking technique at the end of the 15th century. This in-depth study explores the origins of the etched print, its evolution from decorative technique to fine art, and its spread across Europe in the early Renaissance, leading to the professionalization of the field in the Netherlands in the 1550s. Beautifully illustrated, this book features the work of familiar Renaissance artists, including Albrecht Dürer, Jan Gossart, Pieter Breughel the Elder, and Parmigianino, as well as lesser known practitioners, such as Daniel Hopfer and Lucas van Leyden, whose pioneering work paved the way for later printmakers like Rembrandt and Goya. The book also includes a clear and fascinating description of the etching process, as well as an investigation of how the medium allowed artists to create highly detailed prints that were more durable than engravings and more delicate than woodblocks.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (October 23, 2019–January 19, 2020)

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One World of Welfare offers a systematic, comparative examination of Japan's welfare policies and a critical assessment of previous research. Gregory J. Kasza rejects the view that the Japanese welfare system is unique; he challenges the nearly universal belief that the postwar Japanese state neglected welfare to promote rapid economic growth; he rejects the claim that there is a regional welfare model in East Asia; and he uses the Japanese case to question the dominant framework for comparative welfare research. The author explores the relevance of both convergence and divergence theories for understanding the Japanese record and spotlights the importance of international influences on the timing and content of Japan's welfare policies. This book offers a fresh comparative template for research on Japanese public policy. Case studies of Japan have often exaggerated its distinctiveness. Comparative research documents points of similarity as well as difference; it unearths the foreign models that have swayed Japan's policymakers; and it reveals what others might learn from Japan's experience. Most of the welfare challenges that Japan has faced over the last century have resembled those confronting other nations, and the Japanese have often patterned their welfare policies after those of Western countries. Japan's welfare system must be understood within a broader pattern of global policy diffusion.

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The subject of transport phenomena has long been thoroughly and expertly addressed on the graduate and theoretical levels. Now Transport Phenomena and Unit Operations: A Combined Approach endeavors not only to introduce the fundamentals of the discipline to a broader, undergraduate-level audience but also to apply itself to the concerns of practicing engineers as they design, analyze, and construct industrial equipment. Richard Griskey's innovative text combines the often separated but intimately related disciplines of transport phenomena and unit operations into one cohesive treatment. While the latter was an academic precursor to the former, undergraduate students are often exposed to one at the expense of the other. Transport Phenomena and Unit Operations bridges the gap between theory and practice, with a focus on advancing the concept of the engineer as practitioner. Chapters in this comprehensive volume include: Transport Processes and Coefficients Frictional Flow in Conduits Free and Forced Convective Heat Transfer Heat Exchangers Mass Transfer; Molecular Diffusion Equilibrium Staged Operations Mechanical Separations Each chapter contains a set of comprehensive problem sets with real-world quantitative data, affording students the opportunity to test their knowledge in practical situations. Transport Phenomena and Unit Operations is an ideal text for undergraduate engineering students as well as for engineering professionals.

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This book covers comprehensive bifurcation theory and its applications to dynamical systems and partial differential equations (PDEs) from science and engineering, including in particular PDEs from physics, chemistry, biology, and hydrodynamics.The book first introduces bifurcation theories recently developed by the authors, on steady state bifurcation for a class of nonlinear problems with even order nondegenerate nonlinearities, regardless of the multiplicity of the eigenvalues, and on attractor bifurcations for nonlinear evolution equations, a new notion of bifurcation.With this new notion of bifurcation, many longstanding bifurcation problems in science and engineering are becoming accessible, and are treated in the second part of the book. In particular, applications are covered for a variety of PDEs from science and engineering, including the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation, the Cahn-Hillard equation, the Ginzburg-Landau equation, reaction-diffusion equations in biology and chemistry, the Benard convection problem, and the Taylor problem. The applications provide, on the one hand, general recipes for other applications of the theory addressed in this book, and on the other, full classifications of the bifurcated attractor and the global attractor as the control parameters cross certain critical values, dictated usually by the eigenvalues of the linearized problems. It is expected that the book will greatly advance the study of nonlinear dynamics for many problems in science and engineering.

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As DIY digital maker culture proliferates globally, research on these practices is also maturing. Still, particular terminologies dominate beyond their Western contexts, and technocultural histories of making are often rendered as over-simplified technomyths that render invisible diverse local practices. This special issue brings together contributions that highlight how historicising plays a role in mythmaking and the creation of social imaginaries. The peer-reviewed articles present cultural-historical perspectives, technology and design histories and historiographies, and alternative histories related to postcolonial resistance. The contributions illustrate the relevance of craft to making as a reparative practice after the Salvadoran Civil War and as a leisure activity to spark "innovation" in mid-century corporate culture; the political-economic background to the diffusion and differentiation of community workshops in contemporary Spain and post-war Germany; and the various aesthetics and politics of technology culture manifestos over the years.The issue features an interview with Peter Harper of the Alternative Technology movement by Simon Sadler, as well as an interview with Felix Holm and Suné Stassen on the antecedents of making and design in South Africa. The special issue is rounded off with six short alternative (hi)stories of DIY making including multiple practices, geographies and temporalities.

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Companies today are moving rapidly to integrate generative AI into their products and services. But there's a great deal of hype (and misunderstanding) about the impact and promise of this technology. With this book, Chris Fregly, Antje Barth, and Shelbee Eigenbrode from AWS help CTOs, ML practitioners, application developers, business analysts, data engineers, and data scientists find practical ways to use this exciting new technology. You'll learn the generative AI project life cycle including use case definition, model selection, model fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, reinforcement learning from human feedback, and model quantization, optimization, and deployment. And you'll explore different types of models including large language models (LLMs) and multimodal models such as Stable Diffusion for generating images and Flamingo/IDEFICS for answering questions about images. Apply generative AI to your business use cases Determine which generative AI models are best suited to your task Perform prompt engineering and in-context learning Fine-tune generative AI models on your datasets with low-rank adaptation (LoRA) Align generative AI models to human values with reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) Augment your model with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) Explore libraries such as LangChain and ReAct to develop agents and actions Build generative AI applications with Amazon Bedrock

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Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family’s history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes—the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)—Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict—Arabs and Jews—have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.

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A landmark reference work in the field, this Elgar Encyclopedia presents over 60 entries from scholars that have shaped the economics of innovation as a distinct and specialised field of investigation. Comprehensive and accessible, it further elaborates the relationship between the economics of knowledge and the economics of innovation.The Encyclopedia offers an overview of the classical origins of the early economics of technical change, and the role of Schumpterian legacies and the Arrovian economics of knowledge as indispensable ingredients to understanding innovation. The entries demonstrate that the analysis of the full array of feedbacks, interactions and transactions that take place within economic systems show how and why out-of-equilibrium conditions in both factor and product markets are the cause and consequence of the introduction and diffusion of innovations.This will be a critical read for economics scholars, particularly those focusing on knowledge and innovation as it offers an understanding of the definitions of key terms in the field, the founding tenets of the topic, and the economics of knowledge and innovation in more specific contexts. It will also be a useful reference tool for business school students.Key Features: Contributions from 67 scholars in the field of the economics of knowledge and innovation Informative table offering thematic groupings of the entries in a thorough introduction Provides readers with the framework to elaborate innovation policies and firms’ strategies

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Exploring the impact of the rise of digital media over the last few decades, this timely Handbook highlights the major role it plays in preserving and protecting heritage as well as its ability to promote and support sustainable tourism at heritage sites. Particularly relevant at this time due to the diffusion of smartphones and use of social media, chapters look at the experience and expectation of being ‘always on’, and how this interacts with heritage and tourism. Interdisciplinary contributions from leading scholars analyse how heritage and cultural destinations can benefit from digital media providing a range of relevant services and experiences, which can increase access to information for people participating in and visiting heritage sites. With critical overview chapters introducing and synthesizing connected topics in the Handbook, it further offers insights on how digital media can improve the experiences of visitors, connect both residents and visitors to heritage sites, remove barriers among actors in the field of heritage and tourism, and educate relevant stakeholders. Utilizing critical case studies throughout the text, this Handbook will be an invigorating read for social and cultural geography scholars as well as those focusing more specifically on digital media, heritage and tourism. Practitioners and policy makers working in heritage and tourism will find advice to integrate digital media into their actions.

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Lina Bolzoni's impressive study of the memory culture of sixteenth-century Italy appears here for the first time in English translation. Since its original incarnation as La stanza della memoria: Modelli letterari e iconografici nell'età della stampa, published by Einaudi of Torino in 1995, Bolzoni's study has been praised by critics and ranked with the classic texts in its field - those by Paolo Rossi, Frances Yates and Mary Carruthers. The book takes as its starting point a striking paradox: that the antique tradition of the art of memory - created by an oral culture - reached its moment of greatest diffusion during an age that saw the birth of the printed book. Bolzoni's examination of this phenomenon, in which archaic and modern elements came together in a precarious equilibrium, reveals the profound ties that existed at the time between memory and creativity, and between words and images. Drawing on the multiplicity of practices that relied on techniques of memory, Bolzoni presents diagrams, cipher alphabets, rebuses and emblemlike pictures characteristic of the late-Medieval and early-modern periods, indicating their use for literary games and preaching. In doing so, she skilfully reconstructs a particular mentality, a way of apprehending words and images that was of central importance for a long period of time but that has since been forgotten.

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A definitive new investigation of the science of snowflakes by the world’s leading expertA snowflake’s sophisticated symmetry emerges when crystalline ice grows from water vapor within the winter clouds. While certain iconic snowflake shapes are visually familiar to us, microscopic close-ups of falling snow reveal a rich menagerie of lesser-known forms, including slender needle clusters, hollow columns, bullet rosettes, triangular crystals, and exotic capped columns. What explains the myriad and unusual structures of snowflakes that materialize under different atmospheric conditions? In Snow Crystals, Kenneth Libbrecht delves into the science of snowflakes, examining why ice crystals grow the way they do, how patterns emerge, and what they illuminate about the fundamental physics of crystal growth, structure formation, and self-assembly.Libbrecht—the world’s foremost expert on snowflakes—describes the full range of physical processes underlying their occurrence. He explores such topics as the centuries-long development of snow crystal science, the crystalline structure of ice, molecular dynamics at the ice surface, diffusion-limited growth, surface attachment kinetics, computational models of snow crystal growth, laboratory techniques for creating and studying snow crystals, different types of natural snowflakes, and photographing snow crystals. Throughout, Libbrecht’s extensive detailed discussions are accompanied by hundreds of beautiful full-color images.From the molecular dynamics of surface premelting to the aerodynamics of falling snow, Snow Crystals chronicles the continuing quest to fully understand this fascinating phenomenon.

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