Search results for ""World Scientific Publishing""

In 2016, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and the UN Security Council respectively adopted resolutions on the review of the UN peacebuilding architecture, and the concept of 'sustaining peace' was formally presented. Since then, the 'sustaining peace' agenda has gradually become the core strategy of the peace cause of the UN. The agenda for sustaining peace emphasizes capacity-building for conflict prevention at the regional level.Faced with the escalation of the international security challenge, regional organizations are increasingly playing a prominent role. They have become important participants in the international peace and security agenda by enhancing cooperation with the UN. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as the centre of regional cooperation processes in the Asia-Pacific, established a series of norms and instruments related to conflict prevention. This book intends to promote discussions on linking conflict prevention and/or preventive diplomacy activities in the region with the sustaining peace agenda promoted by both the ASEAN on a regional scale and the UN on a global scale.In a collaboration between the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (ASEAN-IPR) and China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU), the book provides discussions from the perspective of both Chinese as well as ASEAN scholars on traditional, as well as emerging, topics on sustaining peace, as well as conflict prevention, conflict management, and conflict resolution.

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Cosmology, the study of the universe, arouses a great deal of public interest, with serious articles both in the scientific press and in major newspapers, with many of the theories and concepts (e.g. the 'big bang' and 'black holes') discussed, often in great depth.Accordingly the book is divided into three parts:Part 1 is readable (and understandable) by anyone with a nodding acquaintance with the basic language of cosmology: events, lights paths, galaxies, black holes and so on. It covers the whole story of the book in a way as untechnical as possible given the scope of the topics covered.Part 2 covers the same ground again but with enough technical details to satisfy a reader with basic knowledge of mathematics and/or physics.Part 3 consists of appendices which are referred to in the other parts and which also contain the highly technical material omitted from Section 2.

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Discourse on fundamentalism has gained much attention in recent years, particularly in a post-9/11 context where extremist or terrorist threats are more prominent, perilous, and pervasive. This edited volume seeks to spotlight the perspectives of academics and practitioners vis-à-vis global trends in religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremism over the past decade. It presents a collection of works from notable academics and practitioners; including a selection of case studies from Asia to illustrate the contemporary interplay of religion, politics and identity; alongside broader global trends of religious fundamentalism.The chapters that follow attempt to trace the sources and factors that led to the dramatic rise in these powerful forces of faith, which influence societies and politics around the world. Together, they present a carefully curated narrative of the interplay of religion and identity politics globally and across Asia. The prevailing differences in demographics, history and the extent of ethno-religious diversity across country contexts are perused across each chapter, and the ensuing circumstances deliberated upon.As these circumstances change, the ways people interpret their identities, engage in politics, and navigate their religion will also evolve. How we manage the effects of religious fundamentalism must hence begin with an understanding of how religion, identity, and politics interact — and this is what the upcoming chapters seek to illustrate.

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This monograph overviews classic and recent developments in theoretical statistical optics in connection with stationary and non-stationary (pulsed) optical source characterization and modeling, discusses various phenomena occurring with random light propagating in free space, on its interaction with optical systems, extended media and particulate collections. The text includes scalar, beam-like and general electromagnetic treatment of light. A brief statistical description of four fundamental experiments relating to random light: spatial and temporal field interference, intensity interferometry and phase conjugation, is also included in order to relate the analytical descriptions with practical observations.Rigorous mathematical methods for statistical manipulation of light sources useful for remote shaping of its various average properties, enhanced image resolution, optimized transmission in random media and for other applications are introduced. For illustration of efficient ways for manipulation of light polarization the generalized Stokes-Mueller calculus is applied for description of interaction of beam-like fields with classic and currently popular devices of polarization optics, including a spatial light modulator.Random light plays a special role in the image formation process. Three imaging modalities including the classic intensity-based system with structured source correlations, the polarization-based imaging system and the ghost interference approach are discussed in detail.Theoretical aspects of potential scattering of light from weakly scattering media are considered under a very broad range of assumptions: scalar/electromagnetic incident light, deterministic/random light/media, single/particulate media. Then, problems and methods in light characterization on interaction with extended, turbulent-like natural media, such as the Earth's atmosphere, oceans and soft bio-tissues that are currently widely used for communication, remote sensing and imaging purposes in these media, are provided.

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The book is based on lecture notes of a course 'from elementary number theory to an introduction to matrix theory' given at the Technion to gifted high school students. It is problem based, and covers topics in undergraduate mathematics that can be introduced in high school through solving challenging problems. These topics include Number theory, Set Theory, Group Theory, Matrix Theory, and applications to cryptography and search engines.

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Often overlooked or trampled underfoot as pests, insects in fact dominate the animal kingdom by sheer number — more than half of all animal species on the planet are insect species. Do you know which insect babies look nothing like their parents? Or why ants cultivate special relationships with aphids and treehoppers? Get ready for the buzz about bees and marvel at master aviator the monarch butterfly. From the creepy cockroach to the fascinating orchid mantis, our insect representatives will wow you with their winged or leggy exploits!The World of Science comics series engages, educates and entertains children, imparting scientific facts, while nurturing the love of Science through dynamic, full-colour comics. All topics covered are in line with the Singapore primary Science syllabus and the Cambridge primary Science curriculum, and also offer beyond-the-syllabus insights designed to stretch inquiring young minds.This book aligns with the following syllabi:

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Birds come in a dazzling array of sizes, shapes and colours, with abilities and behaviour worth making a song and dance about! Do you know how hornbills make a home? Or why sparrows hop? Get ready to admire the peacock's stunning plumage, glide with the wandering albatross and dive with penguins! From the everyday to the exotic, here are just some awesome representatives from this animal group that comprises more than 10,000 species worldwide.The World of Science comics series engages, educates and entertains children, imparting scientific facts, while nurturing the love of Science through dynamic, full-colour comics. All topics covered are in line with the Singapore primary Science syllabus and the Cambridge primary Science curriculum, and also offer beyond-the-syllabus insights designed to stretch inquiring young minds.This book aligns with the following syllabi:

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The Dark Side of Healthcare draws uncomfortable lessons from over 300 case studies of events that occurred in the healthcare sector. Health services have many skilled and dedicated professionals but there is a dark side that cannot be ignored. The unthinkable has happened and might have been prevented.The case studies from many countries include serial killers with a health background, drugs and medical devices that proved to be dangerous, negligent and poor clinical practices, as well as incompetent and weak management that led to failing hospitals and harm to patients. There are also corruption cases, accidents at work, and cases involving the sexual exploitation of children. Politicians' early responses to COVID-19 and the subsequent missteps are also scrutinised. Many of the errors and omissions that led to patient harm have been repeated.This book is not an attack on health services or health professionals. Instead, it is a search for ways of making health delivery safer for patients and staff who deliver care often in challenging circumstances. Its focus is learning rather than blame.

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This book honors the remarkable science and life of Shoucheng Zhang, a condensed matter theorist known for his work on topological insulators, the quantum Hall effect, spintronics, superconductivity, and other fields. It contains the contributions displayed at the Shoucheng Zhang Memorial Workshop held on May 2-4, 2019 at Stanford University.

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Birds come in a dazzling array of sizes, shapes and colours, with abilities and behaviour worth making a song and dance about! Do you know how hornbills make a home? Or why sparrows hop? Get ready to admire the peacock's stunning plumage, glide with the wandering albatross and dive with penguins! From the everyday to the exotic, here are just some awesome representatives from this animal group that comprises more than 10,000 species worldwide.The World of Science comics series engages, educates and entertains children, imparting scientific facts, while nurturing the love of Science through dynamic, full-colour comics. All topics covered are in line with the Singapore primary Science syllabus and the Cambridge primary Science curriculum, and also offer beyond-the-syllabus insights designed to stretch inquiring young minds.This book aligns with the following syllabi:

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Enigma of the Skies is a joint endeavor by a scientist and a photographer to present to readers everything there is to know about auroras in an easy-to-understand matter. It explains the phenomena and describes how to predict when auroras occur using simple physics alongside a collection of beautiful photos taken both from Earth and from space.

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'This is a book that required a great many research hours, the kind of volume you may be glad someone took the time to compile.'The Quarterly Review of Biology This is the ultimate guide to the life and work of Charles Darwin. The result of decades of research through a vast and daunting literature which is hard for beginners and experts alike to navigate, it brings together widely scattered facts including very many unknown to even the most ardent Darwin aficionados. It includes hundreds of new discoveries and corrections to the existing literature. It provides the most complete summaries of his publications, manuscripts, lifetime itinerary, finances, personal library, friends and colleagues, opponents, visitors to his home, anniversaries, hundreds of flora, fauna, monuments and places named after him and a host of other topics. Also included are the most complete lists (iconographies) ever created of illustrations of the Beagle, over 1000 portraits of Darwin, his wife and home as well as all known Darwin photographs, stamps and caricatures. The book is richly illustrated with 350 images, most previously unknown.

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This definitive volume will provide the reader with up to date information and the most recent science of the fast-evolving area of nanobiotherapeutic-based blood substitutes. Long studied, there are recent updates that make their use in patients more promising, and with one product approved for human use, many more in the pipeline. These include 2nd generations and even third generation ones, the later with enhancement of red blood cell functions. In addition, there are carefully written and referenced updates on the recent history and products in the field, complete with pathophysiologic and pharmacologic studies to validate and verify the efficacy and safety of many of these new products.

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Sports analytics has gathered tremendous momentum as one of the most dynamic fields. Diving deep into the numbers of sports can be game changing or simply a fun exercise for fans. How do you get in the game with numbers? What questions can be explored? What actionable insights can be gleaned?Do you like sports? This book will detail ways to analyze athletics to gain insight that can otherwise be obscured. Like math? You'll find many mathematical topics not involving sports. You'll also see how sports analytics can train you broadly in mathematics.From coaching at the highest levels to national media broadcasts, analytics are becoming increasingly indispensable. Dive into the numbers behind soccer to basketball to baseball to boxing to swimming, dive into the numbers. Learn how to get in the game with sports and mathematics.

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This is a self-contained book that covers the standard topics in introductory analysis and that in addition constructs the natural, rational, real and complex numbers, and also handles complex-valued functions, sequences, and series. The book teaches how to write proofs. Fundamental proof-writing logic is covered in Chapter 1 and is repeated and enhanced in two appendices. Many examples of proofs appear with words in a different font for what should be going on in the proof writer's head. The book contains many examples and exercises to solidify the understanding. The material is presented rigorously with proofs and with many worked-out examples. Exercises are varied, many involve proofs, and some provide additional learning materials.

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This set of lecture notes, written for those who are unfamiliar with mathematics and programming, introduces the reader to important concepts in the field of machine learning. It consists of three parts. The first is an overview of the history of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, and also includes case studies of well-known AI systems. The second is a step-by-step introduction to Azure Machine Learning, with examples provided. The third is an explanation of the techniques and methods used in data visualization with R, which can be used to communicate the results collected by the AI systems when they are analyzed statistically. Practice questions are provided throughout the book.

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This book shows the impact of the recent trade tensions between China and the US on the world trade order, and how parties have reached a deal (so called 'phase one', January 2020), which could lead to a more comprehensive agreement, and the consequences of these 'adjustments' in shaping new equilibriums.After 40 years, China has transformed into an economic superpower, which could now rival the US. This has evoked some concerns, and put the US in an uncomfortable position, as the US views the rise of China as a threat to its predominance and interests. However, China's development and its increasing economic power, which is a direct consequence of the ongoing reform process, is unstoppable.The confrontation between China and the US will favor Chinese expansion into the EU not only because the EU offers a more receptive environment for Chinese Foreign Direct Investment, but also because the EU and China have more in common if we consider the Belt And Road Initiative and the new bilateral investment agreement which is under negotiation. The EU, not only represents the final destination of the BRI, but also a more logical and convenient trade partner for China.The shift of Chinese attention toward the EU will also change the equilibrium between China, the EU and the US, bring forth the negotiation of new trade agreements, and move the entire international community towards a new world trade order and a new multilateralism which might evolve into a tripolarism.

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Cancer deaths per capita have decreased in recent years, but the improvement is attributed to prevention, not treatment. The difficulty in treating cancer may be due to its 'complexity', in the mathematical physics sense of the word. Tumors evolve and spread in response to internal and external factors that involve feedback mechanisms and nonlinear behavior. Investigations of the nonlinear interactions among cells, and between cells and their environment, are crucial for developing a sufficiently detailed understanding of the system's emergent phenomenology to be able to control the behavior. In the case of cancer, controlling the system's behavior will mean the ability to treat and cure the disease. Physicists have been studying various complex, nonlinear systems for many years using a variety of techniques. These investigations have provided insights that allow physicists to make unique contributions towards the treatment of cancer.This interdisciplinary book presents recent advancements in physicists' research on cancer. The work presented in this volume uses a variety of physical, biochemical, mathematical, theoretical, and computational techniques to gain a deeper molecular and cellular understanding of the horrific disease that is cancer.

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This book, Introduction to Islamic Banking and Finance: An Economic Analysis, covers the basic principles of Islamic economics and finance. It discusses both the theory of Islamic economics and finance as well as the applications in the design of instruments of finance as well as Islamic financial institutions. The book enables its readers to gain an understanding of the structures and operations of Islamic banking, Islamic capital market investments, risk management, and taxation for Islamic banking contracts. The book sets forth the following objectives: An overview of the principles of Islamic economics and understand their contrast with mainstream economics. An overview of basic rules of commercial law in Islamic jurisprudence. An overview of basic principles, structures and operations of Islamic banking both in the liability side and asset side operations. An understanding of Islamic capital market instruments and investment management including some unique activities peculiar to Islamic investments, such as stock screening and income purification. An illustration of different Takaful structures, which are applied for risk management by individuals and corporates. Supplementary materials are available to instructors who adopt this textbook for their courses. These include: Testbank PowerPoint Slides Self-Assessment Questions (SAQ) Answer Key

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Corporate purpose has become a global phenomenon in recent years. Increasingly, businesses are expected to 'produce profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet, and not to profit from producing problems for people or planet' (World Economic Forum). However, the literature on how companies can build purpose into their corporate DNA is still very nascent.This book, first of its kind, focuses on how companies in Asia are building purpose into their journey. It contains case studies of companies and their current journey to become more purpose driven, why they do it, and how they did it.

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Volume 2 applies the linear algebra concepts presented in Volume 1 to optimization problems which frequently occur throughout machine learning. This book blends theory with practice by not only carefully discussing the mathematical under pinnings of each optimization technique but by applying these techniques to linear programming, support vector machines (SVM), principal component analysis (PCA), and ridge regression. Volume 2 begins by discussing preliminary concepts of optimization theory such as metric spaces, derivatives, and the Lagrange multiplier technique for finding extrema of real valued functions. The focus then shifts to the special case of optimizing a linear function over a region determined by affine constraints, namely linear programming. Highlights include careful derivations and applications of the simplex algorithm, the dual-simplex algorithm, and the primal-dual algorithm. The theoretical heart of this book is the mathematically rigorous presentation of various nonlinear optimization methods, including but not limited to gradient decent, the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions, Lagrangian duality, alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), and the kernel method. These methods are carefully applied to hard margin SVM, soft margin SVM, kernel PCA, ridge regression, lasso regression, and elastic-net regression. Matlab programs implementing these methods are included.

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This book is a superposition of two distinct narratives: the first is historical, discussing the evolution of astronomical knowledge since the dawn of civilizations; the second is scientific, conveying mathematical and physical content of each advancement. Great scientists of antiquity, Middle Ages and modern times until the 18th century, are presented along with their discoveries, through short biographies and anecdotes. Special care is taken to explain their achievements using mathematical and physical concepts of their time, with modern perspective added only when ancient methodology is too cumbersome or its language hardly understandable to contemporary readers.The book conveys a lot of astronomical facts and data in a pleasant and accessible manner. Almost all findings and discoveries made in ancient times are followed by simple mathematical exercises using basic knowledge, so that the reader can check the assertions himself. The book contains a lot of inedited illustrations. Geometrical schemes are given extra attention to make the examples clear and understandable. The language is simple and accessible to the young audience.

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Regional Economics: Fundamental Concepts, Policies, and Institutions is a unique and unconventional economics textbook which emphasizes the role of 'space' in economics and highlights the importance of non-economic factors particularly the role of institutions in regional development. It also presents the approach on how to evaluate regional development performance based on economic, social, and environmental considerations, which is the organizing principle for meeting people-oriented development and sustainable development goals. Other essential concepts such as 'regional science' and 'spatial economics' are also explored in this book.Why activities tend to be spatially concentrated and can get more intensified despite efforts to disperse them toward other regions? Why infrastructure development intended to increase activities and improve the population's welfare can produce the opposite outcome of greater interregional inequality? What is the role of regional and national policies in affecting growth incentives, and how non-economic factors such as institutions and the quality of local leaders can make a difference in welfare achievement? Addressing these questions allows readers to better understand the various phenomena in the actual development process.

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This is an introductory text and laboratory manual to be used primarily in undergraduate courses. It is also useful for graduate students and research scientists who require an introduction to the theory and methods of nanopore sequencing. The book has clear explanations of the principles of this emerging technology, together with instructional material written by experts that describes how to use a MinION nanopore instrument for sequencing in research or the classroom.At Harvard University the book serves as a textbook and lab manual for a university laboratory course designed to intensify the intellectual experience of incoming undergraduates while exploring biology as a field of concentration. Nanopore sequencing is an ideal topic as a path to encourage students about the range of courses they will take in Biology by pre-emptively addressing the complaint about having to take a course in Physics or Maths while majoring in Biology. The book addresses this complaint by concretely demonstrating the range of topics — from electricity to biochemistry, protein structure, molecular engineering, and informatics — that a student will have to master in subsequent courses if he or she is to become a scientist who truly understands what his or her biology instrument is measuring when investigating biological phenomena.

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'Rapoport has written a remarkable family memoir about growing up in the loftiest of Soviet Kremlin medical circles, where her father (Yakov Rapoport) was a distinguished pathologist, a man of scientific brilliance, technical expertise, great humor, and even greater courage during the rule of Joseph Stalin, around whom many suffered violent and mysterious deaths. The author's tone is lively, direct, humorous, and bluntly honest about her family and the rarified scientific and political circles in which they lived and worked. She reveals the heights of greatness that brilliant Jews could attain under the Soviet system, and also the discriminatory prejudice and harms, including threats and likelihood of arrest, torture, and death, that they experienced under Stalin and his successors … This marvelous book is an accessible work of important historical memory and warm scholarly and personal analysis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.'CHOICEThis manuscript offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into some extraordinary moments of 20th century Russia. In a series of entrancing stories, the book demonstrates the disastrous consequences of a totalitarian regime's intervention in medicine and medical science. The narration is based on first-hand accounts the author gathered in conversations with her father, a world-renowned pathologist, and family friends, members of the Soviet intellectual elite.As one of the leading pathologists in the country, the author's father participated in many dramatic events that were hidden from the general public. The author describes Stalin's revenge on his doctors and the fabrication of the 'Doctors' Plot'; the thrilling story of the Moscow Brain Institute; the mysterious circumstances of the death of Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva; the outbreak of plague in the center of Moscow and the NKVD's approach to curbing an epidemic; the fraught drama associated with the death and autopsy of the 'father' of the H-bomb, Andrey Sakharov; and the world's first attempt at cancer biotherapy.In the Afterward entitled A Different Globe the author depicts the difficult and sometimes hilarious process of her family's adjustment to their new life in America.A number of TV programs, documentaries, and movies were shot in the author's Moscow apartment by Russian, European, and American media and movie companies.

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Sydney Brenner was born in South Africa and educated at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (Medicine and Science). He then moved to Oxford and received a D.Phil in 1952, before joining the MRC Unit in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1956. His various accomplishments include serving as the Director of MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, founding the Molecular Science Institute in Berkeley, holding the position of Distinguished Professor at the Salk Institute, La Jolla. And during his last years, Sydney Brenner played a key role in shaping research and development in the biomedical sector in Singapore as A*Star Senior Fellow.He was one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his pioneering work in the field of molecular biology. He was also known for his boundless curiosity, sharp intellect and courage to speak with clarity and characteristic wit as evident in this delightful book which is a compilation of the columns that he wrote for Current Biology in the late '90s.

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In the field of financial risk management, the 'sell side' is the set of financial institutions who offer risk management products to corporations, governments, and institutional investors, who comprise the 'buy side'. The sell side is often at a significant advantage as it employs quantitative experts who provide specialized knowledge. Further, the existing body of knowledge on risk management, while extensive, is highly technical and mathematical and is directed to the sell side.This book levels the playing field by approaching risk management from the buy side instead, focusing on educating corporate and institutional users of risk management products on the essential knowledge they need to be an intelligent buyer. Rather than teach financial engineering, this volume covers the principles that the buy side should know to enable it to ask the right questions and avoid being misled by the complexity often presented by the sell side.Written in a user-friendly manner, this textbook is ideal for graduate and advanced undergraduate classes in finance and risk management, MBA students specializing in finance, and corporate and institutional investors. The text is accompanied by extensive supporting material including exhibits, end-of-chapter questions and problems, solutions, and PowerPoint slides for lecturers.

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'The field of carbon materials is huge and often difficult to comprehend, but this book is easy to read and methodically covers the subject, including presenting materials properties and performance data with clear illustrations and graphs. References include relevant older and up-to-date sources of information. The book is tutorial style in nature and is an excellent resource for senior undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, and anyone who wants to learn more about carbon and incorporate carbon materials into new applications.'MRS BulletinElemental carbon materials take numerous forms including graphite, carbon fiber, carbon nanotube, graphene, carbon black, activated carbon, fullerene and diamond. These forms differ greatly in the structure, properties, fabrication method, and applications. The applications of these carbon forms include electronic, electromagnetic, electrochemical, environmental and biomedical applications. Carbon materials are a subject of intense research, with strong relevance to both science and technology.This book provides a tutorial-style and up-to-date coverage of the carbon forms. In addition to an introductory chapter on carbon materials, the book includes chapters on graphite, graphene, carbon black, activated carbon, carbon fibers, and carbon nanofibers/nanotubes. For example, the chapter on graphite covers various materials in the graphite family, including polycrystalline graphite, pyrolytic graphite, turbostratic carbon, intercalated graphite, graphite oxide, exfoliated graphite and flexible graphite, in addition to their electronic and mechanical properties.This book is suitable for use as a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students in science and engineering, and as a reference book for professionals. It is dedicated to the memory of the author's PhD thesis advisor, Professor M S Dresselhaus (1930-2017) of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Modelling with the Itô integral or stochastic differential equations has become increasingly important in various applied fields, including physics, biology, chemistry and finance. However, stochastic calculus is based on a deep mathematical theory.This book is suitable for the reader without a deep mathematical background. It gives an elementary introduction to that area of probability theory, without burdening the reader with a great deal of measure theory. Applications are taken from stochastic finance. In particular, the Black-Scholes option pricing formula is derived. The book can serve as a text for a course on stochastic calculus for non-mathematicians or as elementary reading material for anyone who wants to learn about Itô calculus and/or stochastic finance.

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For 15 years, author George Ropes has followed the unfolding story of climate change for the timely website ClimateYou.org. Along the way, he has covered myriad individual research studies, innovations, catastrophes, and signs of progress, from the resurgence of sustainable communities to lessons learned from the Australian wildfires. This enlightening book presents a selection of these key writings to describe the multifaceted ways that climate change affects

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'The overall book content is excellently coordinated to form a synchronised story, interesting to a broad scientific audience … The book summarises the present knowledge in the field, introduces fundamental concepts to the beginners, describes key measuring methods and presents several different typical demonstrative systems, some of them exhibiting an extraordinary rich spectrum of structures and superstructures. I am sure that with time the book will become an attractor to a broad audience (physicists, chemists, material scientists, engineers, etc.), ranging from students, beginners in the field to experienced researchers. To summarise, this is the book that I have been missing on my bookshelf.'Liquid Crystals TodayWhile liquid crystals are today widely known for their successful application in flat panel displays (LCDs), academic liquid crystal research is more and more targeting situations where these anisotropic fluids are put to completely different use, in varying contexts. A particularly strong focus is on colloidal liquid crystals, where particles, bubbles or drops are dispersed in a liquid crystal phase. The liquid crystal can act as a host phase, with the inclusions constituting foreign guests that disturb the local order in interesting ways, often resulting in large-scale positional arrangement and/or uniform alignment of the guests. But it may also be formed by solid particles themselves, if these are of nanoscale dimensions and of disc- or rod-shape, and if they are suspended in an isotropic liquid host at sufficient concentration.This book aims to cover both the modern research tracks, gathering pioneering researchers of the different subfields to give a concise overview of the basis as well as the prospects of their respective specialties. The scope spans from curiosity-driven fundamental scientific research to applied sciences. Over the course of the next decade, the former is likely to generate new tracks of the latter type, considering the exploratory and productive phase of this young research field.

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'Sidney Coleman was the master teacher of quantum field theory. All of us who knew him became his students and disciples. Sidney’s legendary course remains fresh and bracing, because he chose his topics with a sure feel for the essential, and treated them with elegant economy.'Frank WilczekNobel Laureate in Physics 2004Sidney Coleman was a physicist's physicist. He is largely unknown outside of the theoretical physics community, and known only by reputation to the younger generation. He was an unusually effective teacher, famed for his wit, his insight and his encyclopedic knowledge of the field to which he made many important contributions. There are many first-rate quantum field theory books (the venerable Bjorken and Drell, the more modern Itzykson and Zuber, the now-standard Peskin and Schroeder, and the recent Zee), but the immediacy of Prof. Coleman's approach and his ability to present an argument simply without sacrificing rigor makes his book easy to read and ideal for the student. Part of the motivation in producing this book is to pass on the work of this outstanding physicist to later generations, a record of his teaching that he was too busy to leave himself.

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The great works of world literature contribute to our understanding of history and humanity. The Nobel Prize for literature recognizes modern classics and the efforts of authors to bridge gaps among different countries, cultures, and time periods.List of Nobel laureates, their Prize motivations and Nobel Lectures:2006 — Orhan Pamuk (Turkey) “who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures”; Nobel Lecture: My Father's Suitcase; 2007 — Doris Lessing (UK) “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”; Nobel Lecture: On Not Winning the Nobel Prize; 2008 — Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (France) “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization”; Nobel Lecture: In the Forest of Paradoxes; 2009 — Herta Müller (Germany) “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”; Nobel Lecture: Every Word Knows Something of a Vicious Circle; 2010 — Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat”; Nobel Lecture: In Praise of Reading and Fiction.

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This is the first monograph dealing with the applications of the Lie group analysis to the modeling equations governing internal wave propagation in the deep ocean. A new approach to describe the nonlinear interactions of internal waves in the ocean is presented. While the central idea of the book is to investigate oceanic internal waves through the prism of Lie group analysis, it is also shown for the first time that internal wave beams, representing exact solutions to the equation of motion of stratified fluid, can be found by solving the given model as invariant solutions of nonlinear equations of motion. On the illustrative basis, it is also shown that the presence of the invariant solutions makes it possible to construct a more general class of disturbances, which represent wave beams propagating in certain direction coinciding with the beam energy.This book is designed for specialists in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Ocean and Atmospheric Modeling, as well as for researchers, teachers and students — mathematicians and nonmathematicians — interested in methods of applied group analysis for investigating nonlinear problems in physical, engineering and natural sciences. It can also serve as a textbook on practical applications of symmetries of nonlinear differential equations for graduate students in applied mathematics, physics and engineering.

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This book exposes and comments on the consequences of Reg NMS and MiFID on market microstructure. It covers changes in market design, electronic trading, and investor and trader behaviors. The emergence of high frequency trading and critical events like the'Flash Crash' of 2010 are also analyzed in depth.Using a quantitative viewpoint, this book explains how an attrition of liquidity and regulatory changes can impact the whole microstructure of financial markets. A mathematical Appendix details the quantitative tools and indicators used through the book, allowing the reader to go further independently.This book is written by practitioners and theoretical experts and covers practical aspects (like the optimal infrastructure needed to trade electronically in modern markets) and abstract analyses (like the use on entropy measurements to understand the progress of market fragmentation).As market microstructure is a recent academic field, students will benefit from the book's overview of the current state of microstructure and will use the Appendix to understand important methodologies. Policy makers and regulators will use this book to access theoretical analyses on real cases. For readers who are practitioners, this book delivers data analysis and basic processes like the designs of Smart Order Routing and trade scheduling algorithms.In this second edition, the authors have added a large section on orderbook dynamics, showing how liquidity can predict future price moves, and how High Frequency Traders can profit from it. The section on market impact has also been updated to show how buying or selling pressure moves prices not only for a few hours, but even for days, and how prices relax (or not) after a period of intense pressure.Further, this edition includes pages on Dark Pools, Circuit Breakers and added information outside of Equity Trading, because MiFID 2 is likely to push fixed income markets towards more electronification. The authors explore what is to be expected from this change in microstructure. The appendix has also been augmented to include the propagator models (for intraday price impact), a simple version of Kyle's model (1985) for daily market impact, and a more sophisticated optimal trading framework, to support the design of trading algorithms.

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Rapid technological developments have led to increasingly efficient sequencing approaches. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is increasingly common and has become cost-effective, generating an explosion of sequenced data that need to be analyzed. The skills required to apply computational analysis to target research on a wide range of applications that include identifying causes of cancer, vaccine design, new antibiotics, drug development, personalized medicine and higher crop yields in agriculture are highly sought after.This invaluable book provides step-by-step guides to complex topics that make it easy for readers to perform essential analyses from raw sequenced data to answering important biological questions. It is an excellent hands-on material for teachers who conduct courses in bioinformatics and as a reference material for professionals. The chapters are written to be standalone recipes making it suitable for readers who wish to self-learn selected topics. Readers will gain skills necessary to work on sequenced data from NGS platforms and hence making themselves more attractive to employers who need skilled bioinformaticians to handle the deluge of data.

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Practical Guide to VIVA and OSCE in Ophthalmology Examinations is an essential study guide presented in a direct, exam-style question-and-answer format. It combines detailed explanations with high quality clinical photographs tailor-made to help readers ace specialist oral examinations (MMed, MRCS, FRCS, FRCOphth, FAMS, FRANZCO).Co-authored by ophthalmology trainees who took the final MMed and FRCOphth (Oral) in 2016 and 2017, this is a book written by trainees, for trainees, with prominent author contribution by Prof Wong Tien Yin. This book provides invaluable guidance to readers in presenting their answers in a logical, succinct and elegant manner.Practical Guide to VIVA and OSCE in Ophthalmology Examinations aims to complement the book titled The Ophthalmology Examinations Review by Prof Tien Yin Wong to guide candidates onto the path of success in examinations. This book illustrates the answering techniques employed during examinations, utilizing clinical photographs accompanied by a full template answer script of various high yield conditions. The style and format has been intentionally designed to simulate examination conditions and to provide candidates with ample practice in preparation for the examination.Most major ophthalmic degrees require trainees to take and pass an oral ophthalmic exam. This book fills a significant void in the market for ophthalmic training, where texts combining clinical photos and actual exam answering techniques are severely lacking. Readers will be able to follow the answering techniques and examples provided within the book so as to better cope with the clinical exams.

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This book presents techniques for valuing derivative securities at a level suitable for practitioners, students in doctoral programs in economics and finance, and those in masters-level programs in financial mathematics and computational finance. It provides the necessary mathematical tools from analysis, probability theory, the theory of stochastic processes, and stochastic calculus, making extensive use of examples. It also covers pricing theory, with emphasis on martingale methods. The chapters are organized around the assumptions made about the dynamics of underlying price processes. Readers begin with simple, discrete-time models that require little mathematical sophistication, proceed to the basic Black-Scholes theory, and then advance to continuous-time models with multiple risk sources. The second edition takes account of the major developments in the field since 2000. New topics include the use of simulation to price American-style derivatives, a new one-step approach to pricing options by inverting characteristic functions, and models that allow jumps in volatility and Markov-driven changes in regime. The new chapter on interest-rate derivatives includes extensive coverage of the LIBOR market model and an introduction to the modeling of credit risk. As a supplement to the text, the book contains an accompanying CD-ROM with user-friendly FORTRAN, C++, and VBA program components.

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The two most important developments in nuclear physics were the shell model and the collective model. The former gives the formal framework for a description of nuclei in terms of interacting neutrons and protons. The latter provides a very physical but phenomenological framework for interpreting the observed properties of nuclei. A third approach, based on variational and mean-field methods, brings these two perspectives together in terms of the so-called unified models. Together, these three approaches provide the foundations on which nuclear physics is based. They need to be understood by everyone practicing or teaching nuclear physics, and all those who wish to gain an understanding of the foundations of the models and their relationships to microscopic theory as given by recent developments in terms of dynamical symmetries.This book provides a simple presentation of the models and theory of nuclear collective structure, with an emphasis on the physical content and the ways they are used to interpret data. Part 1 presents the basic phenomenological collective vibrational and rotational models as introduced by Bohr and Mottelson and their many colleagues. It also describes the extensions of these models to parallel unified models in which neutrons and protons move in a mean-field with collective degrees of freedom. Part 2 presents the predominant theories used to describe the collective properties of nuclei in terms of interacting nucleons. These theories, which are shared with other many-body systems, are shown to emerge naturally from the unified models of Part 1.

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This book provides an ideal introduction to the physics of biopolymers. The structure, dynamics, and properties of biopolymers subjected to various forms of confinement are covered, and special attention is paid to the effect of charge and electrostatic screening (polyelectrolyte effect). By focusing on the development of physical intuition rather than mathematical rigor, readers will be better prepared to address complicated, real issues in the life sciences or related fields such as material or food sciences. The book is designed to serve as a bridge between undergraduate textbooks in physical (bio)chemistry and the professional literature, and is thus especially suitable for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate students and professionals who have already acquired basic knowledge of physics, thermodynamics, and molecular biology.

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Systems theorists see common principles in the structure and operation of systems of all kinds and sizes. They promote an interdisciplinary science adapted for a universal application with a common language and area of concepts. In order to solve problems, make recommendations and predict the future, they use theories, models and concepts from the vast area of general systems theory. This approach is chosen as a means to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge and the isolation of the specialist but also to find new approaches to problems created by earlier 'solution of problems.'This revised and updated second edition of General Systems Theory — Ideas and Applications includes new systems theories and a new chapter on self-organization and evolution. The book summarizes most of the fields of systems theory and its application systems science in one volume. It provides a quick and readable reference guide for future learning containing both general theories and practical applications without the use of complicated mathematics.

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The commercial operation of the bullet train in 1964 in Japan marked the beginning of a new era for high-speed railways. Because of the huge amount of kinetic energy carried at high speeds, a train may interact significantly with the bridge and even resonate with it under certain circumstances. Equally important is the riding comfort of the train cars, which relates closely to the maneuverability of the train during its passage over the bridge at high speeds.This book is unique in that it is devoted entirely to the interaction between the supporting bridges and moving trains, the so-called vehicle-bridge interaction (VBI). Finite element procedures have been developed to treat interaction problems of various complexities, while the analytical solutions established for some typical problems are helpful for identifying the key parameters involved. Besides, some field tests were conducted to verify the theories established.This book provides an up-to-date coverage of research conducted on various aspects of the VBI problems. Using the series of VBI elements derived, the authors study a number of frontier problems, including the impact response of bridges with elastic bearings, the dynamic response of curved beam to moving centrifugal forces, the stability and derailment of trains moving over bridges shaken by earthquakes, the impact response of two trains crossing on a bridge, the steady-state response of trains moving over elevated bridges, and so on.

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This first course in statistics is designed for undergraduate students. There are dozens of statistics textbooks in the market. But most of these textbooks are either pitched at a level that is too high or too low for most undergraduate students. Many use calculus and are designed for graduate students in technical fields. Others provide black box formulas without any derivations. This textbook focuses on deriving everything from first principles without using calculus or linear algebra. It is important for students to understand why they are doing what they are doing. Otherwise students cannot distinguish meaningless results from significant results. This textbook gets to the major points quickly and is thus relatively short and very accessible.

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Publications are the currency of academia. And yet, many people in the sciences, and especially mathematics, are never actually taught how to write. More specifically, they are not taught how to edit, redraft and revise their material so that the presentation is optimal for the reader. Most academic articles are appallingly written, even by native English speakers. One of the core problems is that most scientists hate writing and put only the bare minimum of effort into it. Furthermore, academic articles too often read like a first draft, with little understanding that all writing is editing. However, academic writing is a skill like any other that can be broken down into stages. This book will go through the detailed process of assembling an article, from first drafts to writing abstracts to revision to responding to reviewers, illustrated with multiple versions of worked examples as well as what not to do.

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SCMP's reporting team looks back at Hong Kong's most wrenching political crisis since its return to Chinese rule in 1997. Anti-extradition bill protests that morphed rapidly into a wider anti-government movement in 2019 left no aspect of the city untouched, from its social compact to its body politic to its open economy. The demonstrations which continued well into 2020 have tested every institution of the city, from the civil service to the police to the courts and even its rail transport operator, and from offices and businesses to universities and schools, and from churches to families and even friends.This book is for anyone seeking to understand not just what Hong Kong has gone through but also the global phenomenon of increasingly leaderless protest movements. Fueled by profound angst about the place of millennial youth in society, widening income inequality, and the speed of digital communications, Hong Kong was in retrospect ripe to be the laboratory for a new-age protest movement, nearly a decade after the Middle East's Arab spring.The essays in the book collectively compose a picture of a society in trauma, bent and broken, but showing signs of an uncanny ability to bounce back. What shape it will be in a few years from now, however, is much harder to predict.Related Link(s)

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This book covers a broad range of up-to-date issues in non-classical logic that are of interest not only to philosophical and mathematical logicians but also to computer scientists and researchers in artificial intelligence. The problems addressed range from methodological issues in paraconsistent and deontic logic to the revision theory of truth and infinite Turing machines. The book identifies a number of important current trends in contemporary non-classical logic. Among them are dialogical and substructural logic, the classification of concepts of negation, truthmaker theory, and mathematical and foundational aspects of modal and temporal logic.

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Equally important to our understanding of history and humanity are the great works of literature. The Nobel Prize for literature recognizes modern classics and the efforts of authors to bridge gaps between different cultures, time-periods and styles.(1991) N GORDIMER — who through her magnificent epic writing has — in the words of Alfred Nobel — been of very great benefit to humanity; (1992) D WALCOTT — for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment; (1993) T MORRISON — who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality; (1994) K OE — who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today; (1995) S HEANEY — for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.

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Services Marketing: People, Technology, Strategy is the ninth edition of the globally leading textbook for Services Marketing by Jochen Wirtz and Christopher Lovelock, extensively updated to feature the latest academic research, industry trends, and technology, social media, and case examples.This book takes on a strong managerial approach presented through a coherent and progressive pedagogical framework rooted in solid academic research. It features cases and examples from all over the world and is suitable for students who want to gain a wider managerial view.Supplementary Material Resources:Resources are available to instructors who adopt this textbook for their courses. These include: (1) Instructor's Manual, (2) Case Teaching Notes, (3) PowerPoint deck, and (4) Test Bank. Please contact sales@wspc.com.Key Features:

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