Search results for ""experiment""

In The Sleep of Behemoth, Jehangir Yezdi Malegam explores the emergence of conflicting concepts of peace in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Ever since the early Church, Christian thinkers had conceived of their peace separate from the peace of the world, guarded by the sacraments and shared only grudgingly with powers and principalities. To kingdoms and communities they had allowed attenuated versions of this peace, modes of accommodation and domination that had tranquility as the goal. After 1000, reformers in the papal curia and monks and canons in the intellectual circles of northern France began to reimagine the Church as an engine of true peace, whose task it was eventually to absorb all peoples through progressive acts of revolutionary peacemaking. Peace as they envisioned it became a mandate for reform through conflict, coercion, and insurrection. And the pursuit of mere tranquility appeared dangerous, and even diabolical. As Malegam shows, within western Christendom’s major centers of intellectual activity and political thought, the clergy competed over the meaning and monopolization of the term "peace," contrasting it with what one canon lawyer called the "sleep of Behemoth," a diabolical "false" peace of lassitude and complacency, one that produced unsuitable forms of community and friendship that must be overturned at all costs. Out of this contest over the meaning and ownership of true peace, Malegam concludes, medieval thinkers developed theologies that shaped secular political theory in the later Middle Ages. The Sleep of Behemoth traces this radical experiment in redefining the meaning of peace from the papal courts of Rome and the schools of Laon, Liège, and Paris to its gradual spread across the continent and its impact on such developments as the rise of papal monarchism; the growth of urban, communal self-government; and the emergence of secular and mystical scholasticism.

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A definitive biography of the French aristocrat who became one of democracy’s greatest championsIn 1831, at the age of twenty-five, Alexis de Tocqueville made his fateful journey to America, where he observed the thrilling reality of a functioning democracy. From that moment onward, the French aristocrat would dedicate his life as a writer and politician to ending despotism in his country and bringing it into a new age. In this authoritative and groundbreaking biography, leading Tocqueville expert Olivier Zunz tells the story of a radical thinker who, uniquely charged by the events of his time, both in America and France, used the world as a laboratory for his political ideas.Placing Tocqueville’s dedication to achieving a new kind of democracy at the center of his life and work, Zunz traces Tocqueville’s evolution into a passionate student and practitioner of liberal politics across a trove of correspondence with intellectuals, politicians, constituents, family members, and friends. While taking seriously Tocqueville’s attempts to apply the lessons of Democracy in America to French politics, Zunz shows that the United States, and not only France, remained central to Tocqueville’s thought and actions throughout his life. In his final years, with France gripped by an authoritarian regime and America divided by slavery, Tocqueville feared that the democratic experiment might be failing. Yet his passion for democracy never weakened.Giving equal attention to the French and American sources of Tocqueville’s unique blend of political philosophy and political action, The Man Who Understood Democracy offers the richest, most nuanced portrait yet of a man who, born between the worlds of aristocracy and democracy, fought tirelessly for the only system that he believed could provide both liberty and equality.

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How Chile became home to the world’s most radical free-market experiment—and what its downfall suggests about the fate of neoliberalism around the globeIn The Chile Project, Sebastian Edwards tells the remarkable story of how the neoliberal economic model—installed in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship and deepened during three decades of left-of-center governments—came to an end in 2021, when Gabriel Boric, a young former student activist, was elected president, vowing that “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave.” More than a story about one Latin American country, The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century—but is now on the retreat.In 1955, the U.S. State Department launched the “Chile Project” to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago, home of the libertarian Milton Friedman. After General Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, Chile’s “Chicago Boys” implemented the purest neoliberal model in the world for the next seventeen years, undertaking a sweeping package of privatization and deregulation, creating a modern capitalist economy, and sparking talk of a “Chilean miracle.” But under the veneer of success, a profound dissatisfaction with the vast inequalities caused by neoliberalism was growing. In 2019, protests erupted throughout the country, and in 2022 Boric began his presidency with a clear mandate: to end neoliberalismo.In telling the fascinating story of the Chicago Boys and Chile’s free-market revolution, The Chile Project provides an important new perspective on the history of neoliberalism and its global decline today.

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A revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online—and how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social mediaIn an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible. Breaking the Social Media Prism challenges common myths about echo chambers, foreign misinformation campaigns, and radicalizing algorithms, revealing that the solution to political tribalism lies deep inside ourselves.Drawing on innovative online experiments and in-depth interviews with social media users from across the political spectrum, this book explains why stepping outside of our echo chambers can make us more polarized, not less. Bail takes you inside the minds of online extremists through vivid narratives that trace their lives on the platforms and off—detailing how they dominate public discourse at the expense of the moderate majority. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of user behavior and political opinion, he offers fresh solutions to counter political tribalism from the bottom up and the top down. He introduces new apps and bots to help readers avoid misperceptions and engage in better conversations with the other side. Finally, he explores what the virtual public square might look like if we could hit "reset" and redesign social media from scratch through a first-of-its-kind experiment on a new social media platform built for scientific research.Providing data-driven recommendations for strengthening our social media connections, Breaking the Social Media Prism shows how to combat online polarization without deleting our accounts.

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From a pioneer in experimental economics, an expanded and updated edition of a textbook that brings economic experiments into the classroomEconomics is rapidly becoming a more experimental science, and the best way to convey insights from this research is to engage students in classroom simulations that motivate subsequent discussions and reading. In this expanded and updated second edition of Markets, Games, and Strategic Behavior, Charles Holt, one of the leaders in experimental economics, provides an unparalleled introduction to the study of economic behavior, organized around risky decisions, games of strategy, and economic markets that can be simulated in class. Each chapter is based on a key experiment, presented with accessible examples and just enough theory.Featuring innovative applications from the lab and the field, the book introduces new research on a wide range of topics. Core chapters provide an introduction to the experimental analysis of markets and strategic decisions made in the shadow of risk or conflict. Instructors can then pick and choose among topics focused on bargaining, game theory, social preferences, industrial organization, public choice and voting, asset market bubbles, and auctions.Based on decades of teaching experience, this is the perfect book for any undergraduate course in experimental economics or behavioral game theory. New material on topics such as matching, belief elicitation, repeated games, prospect theory, probabilistic choice, macro experiments, and statistical analysis Participatory experiments that connect behavioral theory and laboratory research Largely self-contained chapters that can each be covered in a single class Guidance for instructors on setting up classroom experiments, with either hand-run procedures or free online software End-of-chapter problems, including some conceptual-design questions, with hints or partial solutions provided

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A Space on the Side of the Road vividly evokes an "other" America that survives precariously among the ruins of the West Virginia coal camps and "hollers." To Kathleen Stewart, this particular "other" exists as an excluded subtext to the American narrative of capitalism, modernization, materialism, and democracy. In towns like Amigo, Red Jacket, Helen, Odd, Viper, Decoy, and Twilight, men and women "just settin'" track a dense social imaginary through stories of traumas, apparitions, encounters, and eccentricities. Stewart explores how this rhythmic, dramatic, and complicated storytelling imbues everyday life in the hills and forms a cultural poetics. Alternating her own ruminations on language, culture, and politics with continuous accounts of "just talk," Stewart propels us into the intensity of this nervous, surreal "space on the side of the road." It is a space that gives us a glimpse into a breach in American society itself, where graveyards of junked cars and piles of other trashed objects endure along with the memories that haunt those who have been left behind by "progress." Like James Agee's portrayal of the poverty-stricken tenant farmers of the Depression South in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, this book uses both language and photographs to help readers encounter a fragmented and betrayed community, one "occupied" by schoolteachers, doctors, social workers, and other professionals representing an "official" America. Holding at bay any attempts at definitive, social scientific analysis, Stewart has concocted a new sort of ethnographic writing that conveys the immediacy, density, texture, and materiality of the coal camps. A Space on the Side of the Road finally bridges the gap between anthropology and cultural studies and provides us with a brilliant and challenging experiment in thinking and writing about "America."

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Winner of the Ray Allen Billington PrizeWinner of the Ellis W. Hawley PrizeWinner of the Sally and Ken Owens AwardWinner of the Vincent P. DeSantis Book PrizeWinner of the Caroline Bancroft History Prize“A powerful argument about racial violence that could not be more timely.”—Richard White“A riveting, beautifully written account…that foregrounds Chinese voices and experiences. A timely and important contribution to our understanding of immigration and the border.”—Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at DawnIn 1885, following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Must Go shows how American immigration policies incited this violence, and how this gave rise to the concept of the “alien” in America.Our story begins in the 1850s, before federal border control established strict divisions between citizens and aliens—and long before Congress passed the Chinese Restriction Act, the nation’s first attempt to bar immigration based on race and class. When this unprecedented experiment failed to slow Chinese migration, armed vigilante groups took the matter into their own hands. Fearing the spread of mob violence, policymakers redoubled their efforts to seal the borders, overhauling immigration law and transforming America’s relationship with China in the process. By tracing the idea of the alien back to this violent era, Lew-Williams offers a troubling new origin story of today’s racialized border.“The Chinese Must Go shows how a country that was moving, in a piecemeal and halting fashion, toward an expansion of citizenship for formerly enslaved people and Native Americans, came to deny other classes of people the right to naturalize altogether…The stories of racist violence and community shunning are brutal to read.”—Rebecca Onion, Slate

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If you've ever seen an especially cool Flash effect on the web, gone straight to your trusty Flash book to find out how to do it, then turned away empty-handed--Flash Hacks is for you. This unique book offers a collection of expert Flash tips and tricks for optimization, creating interesting effects, ActionScript programming, sound and video effects, and much more--and you don't need to be an expert to use them (although you'll certainly look like one). With Flash technology, you can create compelling web content, expressive user interfaces, and rich applications for the Internet--all of which dramatically enhance the user experience. But Flash is not just practical, it's a wellspring of opportunities to unleash your creativity and have fun. Flash Hacks dives straight into all that's fun and creative about Flash, while presenting useful programming techniques and practical--although never mundane--hacks that can make your work easier. Geared to cover Flash MX, Flash MX 2004, and Flash MX Professional 2004, Flash Hacks begins with hacks on authoring, testing, and web environments. You'll learn how to beat the Flash bloat bug, realistically simulate the web, create a JavaScript-free Flash sniffer, and hack a spellchecker for Flash. Other hacks in the book are grouped in the following areas: * Primitives * Timelines * Symbols * Flash Assets (sound, video, and bitmaps) * Code hacks * Events and event handling * Advanced animation * UI design hacks True to O'Reilly's popular Hacks series, Flash Hacks tackles problems and solutions that aren't dealt with elsewhere. You'll pick up insider tips from the experts, and learn about amazing and sometimes quirky aspects of Flash. If you want more than your average Flash user--you want to explore and experiment, unearth shortcuts, create useful tools, and come up with fun things to try on your own--Flash Hacks is the book you'll need.

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A simplified approach to applying the Finite Element Method to geotechnical problems Predicting soil behavior by constitutive equations that are based on experimental findings and embodied in numerical methods, such as the finite element method, is a significant aspect of soil mechanics. Engineers are able to solve a wide range of geotechnical engineering problems, especially inherently complex ones that resist traditional analysis. Applied Soil Mechanics with ABAQUS® Applications provides civil engineering students and practitioners with a simple, basic introduction to applying the finite element method to soil mechanics problems. Accessible to someone with little background in soil mechanics and finite element analysis, Applied Soil Mechanics with ABAQUS® Applications explains the basic concepts of soil mechanics and then prepares the reader for solving geotechnical engineering problems using both traditional engineering solutions and the more versatile, finite element solutions. Topics covered include: Properties of Soil Elasticity and Plasticity Stresses in Soil Consolidation Shear Strength of Soil Shallow Foundations Lateral Earth Pressure and Retaining Walls Piles and Pile Groups Seepage Taking a unique approach, the author describes the general soil mechanics for each topic, shows traditional applications of these principles with longhand solutions, and then presents finite element solutions for the same applications, comparing both. The book is prepared with ABAQUS® software applications to enable a range of readers to experiment firsthand with the principles described in the book (the software application files are available under "student resources" at www.wiley.com/college/helwany). By presenting both the traditional solutions alongside the FEM solutions, Applied Soil Mechanics with ABAQUS® Applications is an ideal introduction to traditional soil mechanics and a guide to alternative solutions and emergent methods. Dr. Helwany also has an online course based on the book available at www.geomilwaukee.com.

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As genomic science and potential gene therapies continue to develop, the detection of mutations plays an increasingly central role in diverse areas of biology. With innumerable detection techniques available spanning multiple disciplines, the choice of the best method for a particular study can prove exceedingly difficult. Complexity, equipment requirements, cost, and throughput are all factors to consider, along with the huge amount of information already available through genome sequencing projects. An essential go-to for informed decision-making, the Guide to Mutation Detection is the only single source for the theory and practice of mutation analysis needed to design an experiment. User-friendly, concise, and expertly edited by recognized leaders in the field, the text provides a cutting-edge reference that is still accessible to those with no experience in mutation analysis. The coverage is divided into two sections, with the first section reviewing such topics as: * Key technologies * Mutation scanning * Cleavage * Quality control * High throughput approaches * Databases * Nomenclatures The second section focuses on step-by-step protocols and discussion of methods, including: * Tag-array minisequencing * Electronic hybridization * Pyrosequencing * Fluorescent Single-Stranded Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) * Denaturing High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (DHPLC) * Array Comparative Genomic Hybridization (ACGH) * Microplate Array Diagonal Gel Electrophoresis (MADGE) Throughout the text, the emphasis remains on practical applications. The detailedprotocols derive from the well-regarded Human Genome Organization (HUGO) training course, particularly those in Montpellier, France, 2002, organized by Mirielle Claustres, Johan den Dunnen, and Graham Taylor. Useful appendices contain important safety data, supplier lists, and bioinformatics resources. Up-to-date, user friendly, and comprehensive, the Guide to Mutation Detection is an invaluable resource for students and practitioners working across a wide range of genetics-related disciplines.

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It is widely-believed that China's entrepreneur class has grown and their businesses are succeeding primarily due to their knowledge of the domestic market, quick adaptation to market changes, and their resourcefulness. But innovation? Forget about it. Well, not quite. Drawing on a wealth of on-the-ground stories and thorough research, Chinnovation: How Chinese Innovators Are Changing the World shows how Chinese companies of every stripe have dispelled this myth and overcome the barriers to successful, profitable innovation. How did Neil Shen, co-founder of CTRIP Capital China, see the opportunity for a Chinese travel site? How did Ray Zhang, CEO of Ehi, scale up one of the most innovative hybrid car-rental companies in China? How did Zhang Tao, CEO of Dianping, start a ZAGAT-inspired user-review site for restaurants and establish a continuous process of innovation? Yinglan Tan has spent more than five years learning the secrets of Chinese innovators, a fast-growing subculture playing key roles in China's transformative transition from "Made in China" to "Innovated in China." Learn: What is the path that an innovative Chinese private-owned enterprise take? How blue-chip innovators remix business models successfully in China? What are the capabilities that these innovative companies acquire? How they harness the necessary resources and navigate around legal restrictions? How do they attract, train and retain talent? How do these companies experiment with innovative approaches and also manage the risk of innovation? What are the lessons learnt and how would these entrepreneurial innovators advise others who are embarking on the same journey? China's rapid economic growth has made it a crucial market but multinational corporations are now competing with China's own homegrown businesses. Chinnovation: How Chinese Innovators Are Changing The World uncovers the common threads amongst Chinese entrepreneurs as they reach into a wider world.

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There are many Lhasas. One is a grid of uniform boulevards lined with plush hotels, all-night bars, and blue-glass-fronted offices. Another is a warren of alleyways that surround a seventh-century temple built to pin down a supine demoness. A web of Stalinist, rectangular blocks houses the new nomenklatura. Crumbling mansions, once home to noble ministers, famous lovers, nationalist spies, and covert revolutionaries, now serve as shopping malls and faux-antique hotels. Each embodiment of the city partakes of the others' memories, whispered across time and along the city streets. In this imaginative new work, Robert Barnett offers a powerful and lyrical exploration of a city long idealized, disregarded, or misunderstood by outsiders. Looking to its streets and stone, Robert Barnett presents a searching and unforgettable portrait of Lhasa, its history, and its illegibility. His book not only offers itself as a manual for thinking about contemporary Tibet but also questions our ways of thinking about foreign places. Barnett juxtaposes contemporary accounts of Tibet, architectural observations, and descriptions by foreign observers to describe Lhasa and its current status as both an ancient city and a modern Chinese provincial capital. His narrative reveals how historical layering, popular memory, symbolism, and mythology constitute the story of a city. Besides the ancient Buddhist temples and former picnic gardens of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa describes the urban sprawl, the harsh rectangular structures, and the geometric blue-glass tower blocks that speak of the anxieties of successive regimes intent upon improving on the past. In Barnett's excavation of the city's past, the buildings and the city streets, interwoven with his own recollections of unrest and resistance, recount the story of Tibet's complex transition from tradition to modernity and its painful history of foreign encounters and political experiment.

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Transitions are universal. They include the important and familiar milestones of starting kindergarten, graduating from high school or college, and becoming employed, parents, or retirees. These transitional moments, however, also include unexpected or unanticipated events like losing a job, joining a running club, or experiencing a global pandemic. In each of these moments, individuals, groups, and organizations experience the anxiety, self-doubt, worry, and uncertainty associated with these novel experiences. Our natural response to these moments is to avoid, side-step, or hurry through until this moment of transition is over. The problem with these strategies is that while we are trying to shut out the unpleasant feelings of those moments, we also miss all the possibilities and discovery. What if we invested time, training, and space to learn, experiment with and strengthen our ability to wrestle with and successfully navigate these moments of transition? Whether a significant transition like moving into a new school or just shifting from one project to the next, we need to build strategies and techniques to leverage and learn from the discomfort that individuals experience during these moments. This book offers names and faces for our feelings, thoughts, and reactions in our transitions. It is based on sound research and data collected by the author and other researchers but is also based on the author’s experiences, mistakes, reflection, and learning from doing the work in different contexts. It includes a framework to learn to stay in these transitions, embrace dissonance, and leverage these moments of discovery. Whether you want to introduce this transitions framework and strategies in a classroom, boardroom, or your own life, this book is for you and your organization to start the intentional work to create spaces, and time to name, feel, explore, reflect on, and move through the myriad transitions occurring during our personal and professional journeys.

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In the deep midwinter, there's a murder to solve... Christmas is coming and the snow is falling, but with the de Luce family finances in a parlous state, Colonel de Luce has been forced to rent out the family home to a film company.For Flavia and her sisters it's as if all their belated Christmases have come at once - but filming is soon slowed by a series of nasty accidents and then brought to a halt as a heavy snowstorm cuts Buckshaw off from the outside world. As they prepare to wait out the weather, they are stunned by a gruesomely dramatic murder - and suddenly Flavia, in the midst of designing an experiment to prove the existence of Father Christmas - has another, far deadlier mystery to solve.Praise for the historical Flavia de Luce mysteries: 'The Flavia de Luce novels are now a cult favourite' Mail on Sunday 'A cross between Dodie Smith's I Capture The Castle and the Addams family...delightfully entertaining' Guardian Fans of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin, Frances Brody and Alexander McCall Smith will enjoy the Flavia de Luce mysteries: 1. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie 2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag 3. A Red Herring Without Mustard 4. I Am Half Sick of Shadows 5. Speaking From Among the Bones 6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches 7. As Chimney Sweepers Come To Dust 8. Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd 9. The Grave's a Fine and Private Place If you're looking for a cosy crime series to keep you hooked then look no further than the Flavia de Luce mysteries. * Each Flavia de Luce mystery can be read as a standalone or in series order *

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Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan and formerly part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, is a city built on and with oil. In fact, oil and urbanism in Baku have been completely intertwined, economically, politically, and physically in the spaces of the city. Its first oil boom in the late 19th century was driven by the Russian branch of the Nobel family modernising the exploitation of oil fields around Baku, and local oil barons pouring their new wealth into building a cosmopolitan city centre. During the Soviet period, Baku became the site of an urban experiment: the shaping an oil city of socialist man. This project included Neft Dashlari, a city built on trestles in the Caspian Sea, housing thousands of workers, schools, shops, gardens, clinics, cinemas and more. This first off-shore rig in the world became the emblem of Baku's second oil boom. Today, Baku is experiencing its third oil boom. For Baku's city planners and business elites, that future is based on a careful reading of Baku as a project in which urbanism and oil are inextricably linked. This new book investigates how oil stimulated urban development in Baku, and explores in detail the more complex and important question of how the disparate spatial logics, knowledge bases, and practices of oil production and urban production intersected, impacted and transformed one another. Based on a vast research project and drawing on rich and previously unpublished material, Baku - Oil and Urbanism is organised into three broadly conceived historical periods defined by the political, economic, technological conditions in which the interwoven evolution of oil and urban production unfolded. The book also features a new photo essay by celebrated photographer Iwan Baan.

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This book is the introduction to Elixir for experienced programmers, completely updated for Elixir 1.6 and beyond. Explore functional programming without the academic overtones (tell me about monads just one more time). Create concurrent applications, but get them right without all the locking and consistency headaches. Meet Elixir, a modern, functional, concurrent language built on the rock-solid Erlang VM. Elixir's pragmatic syntax and built-in support for metaprogramming will make you productive and keep you interested for the long haul. Maybe the time is right for the Next Big Thing. Maybe it's Elixir. Functional programming techniques help you manage the complexities of today's real-world, concurrent systems; maximize uptime; and manage security. Enter Elixir, with its modern, Ruby-like, extendable syntax, compile and runtime evaluation, hygienic macro system, and more. But, just as importantly, Elixir brings a sense of enjoyment to parallel, functional programming. Your applications become fun to work with, and the language encourages you to experiment. Part 1 covers the basics of writing sequential Elixir programs. We'll look at the language, the tools, and the conventions. Part 2 uses these skills to start writing concurrent code-applications that use all the cores on your machine, or all the machines on your network! And we do it both with and without OTP. Part 3 looks at the more advanced features of the language, from DSLs and code generation to extending the syntax. This edition is fully updated with all the new features of Elixir 1.6, with a new chapter on structuring OTP applications, and new sections on the debugger, code formatter, Distillery, and protocols. What You Need: You'll need a computer, a little experience with another high-level language, and a sense of adventure. No functional programming experience is needed.

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Don't fly blind. See how the power of experiments works for you.When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out new business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often get it wrong. They discover that intuition, experience, and big data alone don't work. What does? Running disciplined business experiments. And what if companies roll out new products or introduce new customer experiences without running these experiments? They fly blind.That's what Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke shows in this rigorously researched and eye-opening book. It guides you through best practices in business experimentation, illustrates how these practices work at leading companies, and answers some fundamental questions: What makes a good experiment? How do you test in online and brick-and-mortar businesses? In B2B and B2C? How do you build an experimentation culture? Also, best practice means running many experiments. Indeed, some hugely successful companies, such as Amazon, Booking.com, and Microsoft, run tens of thousands of controlled experiments annually, engaging millions of users. Thomke shows us how these and many other organizations prove that experimentation provides significant competitive advantage.How can managers create this capability at their own companies? Essential is developing an experimentation organization that prizes the science of testing and puts the discipline of experimentation at the center of its innovation process. While it once took companies years to develop the tools for such large-scale experiments, advances in technology have put these tools at the fingertips of almost any business professional. By combining the power of software and the rigor of controlled experiments, today's managers can make better decisions, create magical customer experiences, and generate big financial returns.Experimentation Works is your guidebook to a truly new way of thinking and innovating.

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Assassin. Immortal. Spy.From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights comes the first book in a captivating new duology following an ill-matched pair of spies posing as a married couple to investigate a series of brutal murders in 1930s Shanghai. It's 1931 in Shanghai, and the stage is set for a new decade of intrigue. Four years ago, Rosalind Lang was brought back from the brink of death, but the strange experiment that saved her also stopped her from sleeping and aging - and allows her to heal from any wound. In short, Rosalind cannot die. Now, desperate for redemption for her traitorous past, she uses her abilities as an assassin for her country. Code name: Fortune. But when the Japanese Imperial Army begins its invasion march, Rosalind's mission pivots. A series of murders is causing unrest in Shanghai, and the Japanese are under suspicion. Rosalind's new orders are to infiltrate foreign society and identify the culprits behind the terror plot before more of her people are killed. To reduce suspicion, she must pose as the wife of another Nationalist spy, Orion Hong. Although Rosalind finds Orion's cavalier attitude and playboy demeanour infuriating, she is willing to work with him for the greater good. But Orion has an agenda of his own, and Rosalind has secrets that she wants to keep buried. As they both attempt to unravel the conspiracy, the two spies soon find that there are deeper and more horrifying layers to this mystery than they ever imagined.PRAISE FOR CHLOE GONG'An electrifying, swashbuckling tale of intrigue and assassins, romance and betrayal' CASSANDRA CLARE'Amazing, show-stopping, spectacular' XIRAN JAY ZHAO'A dark delight' RENEE AHDIEH'Foul Lady Fortune had my heart pounding from the first chapter' ELIZABETH LIM'Chloe Gong has outdone herself' JOAN HE

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A poignant look at empathetic encounters between staunch ideological rivals, all centered around our common need for food. While America's new reality appears to be a deeply divided body politic, many are wondering how we can or should move forward from here. Can political or social divisiveness be healed? Is empathy among people with very little ideological common ground possible? In A Decent Meal, Michael Carolan finds answers to these fundamental questions in a series of unexpected places: around our dinner tables, along the aisles of our supermarkets, and in the fields growing our fruits and vegetables. What is more common, after all, than the simple fact that we all need to eat? This book is the result of Carolan's career-long efforts to create simulations in which food could be used to build empathy, among even the staunchest of rivals. Though most people assume that presenting facts will sway the way the public behaves, time and again this assumption is proven wrong as we all selectively accept the facts that support our beliefs. Drawing on the data he has collected, Carolan argues that we must, instead, find places and practices where incivility—or worse, hate—is suspended and leverage those opportunities into tools for building social cohesion. Each chapter follows the individuals who participated in a given experiment, ranging from strawberry-picking, attempting to subsist on SNAP benefits, or attending a dinner of wild game. By engaging with participants before, during, and after, Carolan is able to document their remarkable shifts in attitude and opinion. Though this book is framed around food, it is really about the spaces opened up by our need for food, in our communities, in our homes, and, ultimately, in our minds.

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#1 New York Times Bestseller“An enlightening, laugh-aloud read. . . . Filled with open, honest glimpses into [Rubin’s] real life, woven together with constant doses of humor.” —Christian Science MonitorGretchen Rubin’s year-long experiment to discover how to create true happiness. Drawing on cutting-edge science, classical philosophy, and real-world examples, Rubin delivers an engaging, eminently relatable chronicle of transformation. This special 10th Anniversary edition features a Conversation with Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project Stories, a guide to creating your own happiness project, a list of dozens of free resources, and more.Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she realized. “Time is passing, and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.” In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.In this lively and compelling account—now updated with new material by the author—Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.This updated edition includes: An extensive new interview with the author Stories of other people’s life-changing happiness projects A resource guide to the dozens of free resources created for readers The Happiness Project Manifesto An excerpt from Rubin’s bestselling book The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too)

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This updated and up-to-date version of the first edition continues with the really interesting stuff to spice up a standard biophysics and biophysical chemistry course. All relevant methods used in current cutting edge research including such recent developments as super-resolution microscopy and next-generation DNA sequencing techniques, as well as industrial applications, are explained. The text has been developed from a graduate course taught by the author for several years, and by presenting a mix of basic theory and real-life examples, he closes the gap between theory and experiment. The first part, on basic biophysical chemistry, surveys fundamental and spectroscopic techniques as well as biomolecular properties that represent the modern standard and are also the basis for the more sophisticated technologies discussed later in the book. The second part covers the latest bioanalytical techniques such as the mentioned super-resolution and next generation sequencing methods, confocal fluorescence microscopy, light sheet microscopy, two-photon microscopy and ultrafast spectroscopy, single molecule optical, electrical and force measurements, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, optical tweezers, quantum dots and DNA origami techniques. Both the text and illustrations have been prepared in a clear and accessible style, with extended and updated exercises (and their solutions) accompanying each chapter. Readers with a basic understanding of biochemistry and/or biophysics will quickly gain an overview of cutting edge technology for the biophysical analysis of proteins, nucleic acids and other biomolecules and their interactions. Equally, any student contemplating a career in the chemical, pharmaceutical or bio-industry will greatly benefit from the technological knowledge presented. Questions of differing complexity testing the reader's understanding can be found at the end of each chapter with clearly described solutions available on the Wiley-VCH textbook homepage under: www.wiley-vch.de/textbooks

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What is a market? To most people it is a shopping center or an abstract space in which stock prices vary minutely. In reality, a market is something much more fundamental to being human, and it affects not just the price of tomatoes but the boundaries of everything we value.Reading the newspapers these days, you could be forgiven for thinking that markets are getting ever more efficient - and better. But as Tim Sullivan and Ray Fisman argue in this insightful book, that view is far from complete. For one thing, efficiency isn't always a good thing - illegal markets are very often more efficient than legal ones, because they are free of concern for laws and human rights. But even more importantly, the chatter about efficiency has obscured a much broader conversation about what kind of economic exchange we actually want. Every regulation, every sticker price, and every sale is part of an ever-changing ecosystem - one that affects us as much as we affect it.By tracing 50 years of economic thought on this subject, Fisman and Sullivan show how markets have evolved - and how we can keep making them better. This leads to fascinating and surprising insights, such as:- Why your £10,000 used car is likely to sell for £2,000 or less;- Why you should think twice before buying batteries on Amazon; and- Why it's essential that healthy people buy medical insurance.In the end, The Inner Lives of Markets argues for a new way of thinking about how you spend your money - it shows that every transaction you make is part of a grand social experiment. We are all guinea pigs running through a lab maze, and the sooner we realize it, the more effectively we can navigate the path we want.

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A dynamic new look at the legendary college that was a major incubator of the arts in midcentury America In 1933, John Rice founded Black Mountain College in North Carolina as an experiment in making artistic experience central to learning. Though it operated for only 24 years, this pioneering school played a significant role in fostering avant-garde art, music, dance, and poetry, and an astonishing number of important artists taught or studied there. Among the instructors were Josef and Anni Albers, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Karen Karnes, M. C. Richards, and Willem de Kooning, and students included Ruth Asawa, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly. Leap Before You Look is a singular exploration of this legendary school and of the work of the artists who spent time there. Scholars from a variety of fields contribute original essays about diverse aspects of the College—spanning everything from its farm program to the influence of Bauhaus principles—and about the people and ideas that gave it such a lasting impact. In addition, catalogue entries highlight selected works, including writings, musical compositions, visual arts, and crafts. The book’s fresh approach and rich illustration program convey the atmosphere of creativity and experimentation that was unique to Black Mountain College, and that served as an inspiration to so many. This timely volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in the College and its enduring legacy.Published in association with the Institute of Contemporary Art, BostonExhibition Schedule:The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (10/10/15–01/24/16)Hammer Museum, UCLA (02/21/16–05/14/16)Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University (09/17/16–01/01/17)

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Step back in time and discover the wonderful world of dinosaurs!Whether you're a dinosaur fan or just simply enjoy practical hands-on projects, this dynamic dinosaur book combines creativity with a prehistoric twist. Each of the super-fun make-and-do projects in this book comes with simple step-by-step photographs and instructions that will inspire imaginative minds and bring the dinosaur world to life!Join the journey back to prehistoric times and explore: - 24 hands-on projects that appeal to young readers aged 9+ - All materials used are inexpensive and easy-to-find- Crystal-clear instructions are easy-to-follow- Clear photography shows how to make each project step-by-stepPerfect for kids who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths), Dinosaur Activity Lab features activities that cover many aspects of prehistoric life, from the evolution of dinosaurs to what might have caused them to die out. You'll combine science and maths with art and craft by making your own dinosaur fossils, constructing a 3D diorama to learn about dinosaur habitats, designing a fearsome Tyrannosaurus mask, hatching your own mini dinosaur out of a bath bomb, and even creating a meteorite impact experiment to find out how dinosaurs may have become extinct! Throughout the book there are information boxes with incredible facts about prehistoric life and panels to explain how the skills you've learned are used in the real world.Dinosaur Activity Lab is perfect for children aged 9 + with an interest in dinosaurs, the prehistoric world and geology. The ideal package for creative kids who are interested in making dinosaurs roar back to life, discover how to make dinosaur-feet pen pots, dinosaur egg bath bombs and so much more!

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Keeping the whole household happy and well-fed can be difficult when there's a vegan in the house. Well, not anymore!Thinking of doing Veganuary this New Year but don't know where to start? We've got you covered! Introducing 'There's a Vegan in the House', a groundbreaking vegan cookbook, guiding you to the perfect start of a nourishing plant-based diet, featuring: -Over 100 vegan recipes for the whole family to enjoy -Perfect meals for families that are looking to adapt to a flexitarian diet -Expert nutritional know-how information to tailor individual -Advice on making the switch and maintaining a healthy vegan lifestyleThe days of cooking separate meals for the whole family are over! This vegan cooking book is jam-packed with crowd-pleasing family favourite recipe ideas that will satisfy both vegans and non-vegans alike, leaving everyone asking for seconds!Simple, affordable, healthy and delicious; There's a Vegan in the House is the essential vegan cookbook for any family venturing into veganism, featuring tons of tips and tricks on shopping and storing vegan products in the kitchen and vital information on vegan nutrition for both children and adults. Satisfy your appetite and embark on a voyage of easy vegan food discovery with nutritionally balanced vegan and veggie meals with flexible options for the whole family! From tropical fruit smoothie bowls to Mexican quinoa salad, this is everyday food for everyone. At DK we believe in the power of discovery. So why not explore this beautifully illustrated vegan recipe book, and discover how to improve your health and wellbeing with the power of a plant-based diet! Proving the perfect vegan gift for the plant-based foodie in your life or anyone looking to experiment with vegan cooking for the first time.

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A fun and engaging STEM activity book for kids that combines creativity and calculations - perfect for budding mathematicians!This is the perfect maths exercise book for kids interested in STEM topics. Choose between 27 creative projects and experiments that will turn your child into a maths whizz! It's the perfect book for curious minds interested in taking the mystery out of maths. Explore the exciting world of numbers and maths problem-solving! In the pages of this maths book for kids you'll discover:- 27 hands-on creative projects to engage reluctant mathematicians between the ages of 9-12 - Easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions will show you how to make each project - All materials used can be easily found around your home with no specialist equipment needed - Every project includes an explanation of how maths is involved in creating the project or the results of the experiment - Real-world maths projects show that maths isn't just abstract - it has an impact in the real world too! Produced in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, Maths Lab is designed to appeal to maths geeks and those that prefer practical projects. To complete these engaging projects, kids don't need to be maths genius or even know how to use a calculator. Each task comes with easy-to-follow instructions, photographs and illustrations to help whip up super cool maths creations!Maths Lab features interesting activities that cover many aspects of the subject including measurement, geometry and trigonometry. Kids will combine art and maths by learning to draw impossible objects - creating beautiful patterns to make things like a timetable dream-catcher or perfect the ratio for making refreshing fruit drinks. Each project has an explanatory box that demonstrates how maths is applied to the activity to demystify and make maths fun!

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A thought experiment in future-shock survivalism' Robert MacFarlane'Gripping ... of all science fiction's apocalypses, this is one of the most haunting' Financial TimesWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT MACFARLANEA post-apocalyptic vision of the world pushed to the brink by famine, John Christopher's science fiction masterpiece The Death of Grass includes an introduction by Robert MacFarlane in Penguin Modern Classics.At first the virus wiping out grass and crops is of little concern to John Custance. It has decimated Asia, causing mass starvation and riots, but Europe is safe and a counter-virus is expected any day. Except, it turns out, the governments have been lying to their people. When the deadly disease hits Britain, society starts to descend into barbarism. As John and his family try to make it across country to the safety of his brother's farm in a hidden valley, their humanity is tested to its very limits. A chilling psychological thriller and one of the greatest post-apocalyptic novels ever written, The Death of Grass shows people struggling to hold on to their identities as the familiar world disintegrates - and the terrible price they must pay for surviving.John Christopher (1922-2012) was the pen name of Samuel Youd, a prolific writer of science fiction. His novels were popular during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably The Death Of Grass (1956), The World in Winter (1962), and Wrinkle in the Skin (1965), all works depicting ordinary people struggling in the midst of apocalyptic catastrophes. In 1966 he started writing science-fiction for adolescents; The Tripods trilogy, the Prince in Waiting trilogy (also known as the Sword of the Spirits trilogy) and The Lotus Caves are still widely read today.Ifyou enjoyed The Death of Grass, you might like John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.

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In her “keenly observed” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) debut, Rachel Louise Snyder, author of the memoir Women We Buried, Women We Burned and the award-winning No Visible Bruises, chronicles the twenty-four hours following a mass burglary in a Chicago suburb and the suspicions, secrets, and prejudices that surface in its wake.Nestled on the edge of Chicago’s gritty west side, Oak Park is a suburb in flux. To the west, theaters and shops frame posh houses designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. To the east lies a neighborhood still recovering from urban decline. In the center of the community sits Ilios Lane, a pristine cul-de-sac dotted with quiet homes that bridge the surrounding extremes of wealth and poverty. On the first warm day in April, Mary Elizabeth McPherson, a lifelong resident of Ilios Lane, skips school with her friend Sofia. As the two experiment with a heavy dose of ecstasy in Mary Elizabeth’s dining room, a series of home invasions rocks their neighborhood. At first the community is determined to band together, but rising suspicions soon threaten to destroy the world they were attempting to create. Filtered through a vibrant pinwheel of characters, Snyder’s tour de force evokes the heightened tension of a community on edge as it builds towards an explosive conclusion. Incisive and panoramic, What We’ve Lost Is Nothing illuminates the evolving relationship between American cities and their suburbs, the hidden prejudices that can threaten a way of life, and the redemptive power of tolerance in a community torn asunder. “Ideas abound in this thoughtful story, a demonstration of the author’s years of experience as a community organizer. What We’ve Lost Is Nothing has the stamp of authenticity” (The Washington Post).

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Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the greatest commentators on the American political tradition, viewed it through the lens of two related ideas: liberty and equality. These ideas, so eloquently framed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, have remained inextricably and uniquely conjoined in American political thought: equality isunderstood as the equal possession of natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By considering American reflections on these core ideas over time—in relation to constitutional principles, religion, and race—this volume provides an especially insightful perspective for understanding our political tradition. The book is at once a summary of American history told through ideas and an inquiry into the ideas of liberty and equality through the lens of American history. To a remarkable extent, American politics has always been thoughtful and American thought has always been political. In these pages, we see how some of our greatest minds have grappled with the issues of liberty and equality: Tocqueville and Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton as Publius in The Federalist, James Madison, George Washington, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln debating Stephen Douglas, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. In essays responding to these primary sources, some of today’s finest scholars take up topics critical to the American experiment in liberal democracy—political inequality, federalism, the separation of powers, the relationship between religion and politics, the history of slavery and the legacy of racism. Together these essays and sources help to clarify the character, content, and significance of American political thought taken as awhole. They illuminate and continue the conversation that has animated and distinguished the American political tradition from the beginning—and, hopefully, better equip readers to contribute to that conversation.

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Management research has shown successful farmers have quite distinct personal characteristics which most farmers have seldom thought about. Farmers who are less successful tend to have processes and systems which are likely to be biased. The aim of this book is to help all farmers discover more about these personal attributes that impinge on the success of their management, and to show how their attitudes and personal resources can be improved. This book is not a straightforward textbook. Rather, it tells the story of a group of farmers who take part in an expert-guided experiment designed to test approaches to improving management skill. The group meet at each other's farms to learn about their issues and develop solutions to improving what is called their 'management style' with the aim of removing any identified decision system biases. The book covers issues like optimal decision rule systems and how they can become second nature. Each chapter is devoted to one of the common issues defining management approaches. One chapter, for example, has the farmers sorting out issues around succession planning, another covers the vexed problem of farmer anxiety, and still another has the farmers learning skills on self-critiquing. Overall, there are fifteen chapters covering both general and specific issues. The book is designed for all farmers but is also a valuable resource for students of farm management and agribusiness. A strong learning feature of the book are the references to formal theories and explanations provided in addenda to each chapter. These cover and list the main teaching points highlighted in each farmer meeting giving details of where the detailed methods of solving each situation can be found. Exercises and case studies can also be accessed both on line and in other CABI books.

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The Renaissance, scholars have long argued, was a period beset by the loss of philosophical certainty. In Possible Knowledge, Debapriya Sarkar argues for the pivotal role of literature—what early moderns termed poesie—in the dynamic intellectual culture of this era of profound incertitude. Revealing how problems of epistemology are inextricable from questions of literary form, Sarkar offers a defense of poiesis, or literary making, as a vital philosophical endeavor. Working across a range of genres, Sarkar theorizes “possible knowledge” as an intellectual paradigm crafted in and through literary form. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers such as Spenser, Bacon, Shakespeare, Cavendish, and Milton marshalled the capacious concept of the “possible,” defined by Philip Sidney as what “may be and should be,” to construct new theories of physical and metaphysical reality. These early modern thinkers mobilized the imaginative habits of thought constitutive to major genres of literary writing—including epic, tragedy, romance, lyric, and utopia—in order to produce knowledge divorced from historical truth and empirical fact by envisioning states of being untethered from “nature” or reality. Approaching imaginative modes such as hypothesis, conjecture, prediction, and counterfactuals as instruments of possible knowledge, Sarkar exposes how the speculative allure of the “possible” lurks within scientific experiment, induction, and theories of probability. In showing how early modern literary writing sought to grapple with the challenge of forging knowledge in an uncertain, perhaps even incomprehensible world, Possible Knowledge also highlights its most audacious intellectual ambition: its claim that while natural philosophy, or what we today term science, might explain the physical world, literature could remake reality. Enacting a history of ideas that centers literary studies, Possible Knowledge suggests that what we have termed a history of science might ultimately be a history of the imagination.

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How school reformers in the Progressive Era—who envisioned the public school as the quintessential American institution—laid the groundwork for contemporary battles over the structure and curriculum of public schools.Around the turn of the twentieth century, a generation of school reformers began touting public education's unique capacity to unite a diverse and diffuse citizenry while curing a broad swath of social and political ills. They claimed that investing in education would equalize social and economic relations, strengthen democracy, and create high-caliber citizens equipped for the twentieth century, all while preserving the nation's sacred traditions. More than anything, they pitched the public school as a quintessentially American institution, a patriotic symbol in its own right—and the key to perfecting the American experiment.In Making Schools American, Cody Dodge Ewert makes clear that nationalism was the leading argument for schooling during the Progressive Era. Bringing together case studies of school reform crusades in New York, Utah, and Texas, he explores what was gained—and lost—as efforts to transform American schools evolved across space and time. Offering fresh insight into the development and politicization of public schooling in America, Ewert also reveals how reformers' utopian visions and lofty promises laid the groundwork for contemporary battles over the mission and methods of American public schools. Despite their divergent political visions and the unique conditions of the states, cities, and individual districts they served, school reformers wielded nationalistic rhetoric that made education a rallying point for Americans across lines of race, class, religion, and region. But ultimately, Making Schools American argues, upholding education as a potential solution to virtually every societal problem has hamstrung broader attempts at social reform while overburdening schools.

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State-of-the-art algorithmic deep learning and tensoring techniques for financial institutions The computational demand of risk calculations in financial institutions has ballooned and shows no sign of stopping. It is no longer viable to simply add more computing power to deal with this increased demand. The solution? Algorithmic solutions based on deep learning and Chebyshev tensors represent a practical way to reduce costs while simultaneously increasing risk calculation capabilities. Machine Learning for Risk Calculations: A Practitioner’s View provides an in-depth review of a number of algorithmic solutions and demonstrates how they can be used to overcome the massive computational burden of risk calculations in financial institutions. This book will get you started by reviewing fundamental techniques, including deep learning and Chebyshev tensors. You’ll then discover algorithmic tools that, in combination with the fundamentals, deliver actual solutions to the real problems financial institutions encounter on a regular basis. Numerical tests and examples demonstrate how these solutions can be applied to practical problems, including XVA and Counterparty Credit Risk, IMM capital, PFE, VaR, FRTB, Dynamic Initial Margin, pricing function calibration, volatility surface parametrisation, portfolio optimisation and others. Finally, you’ll uncover the benefits these techniques provide, the practicalities of implementing them, and the software which can be used. Review the fundamentals of deep learning and Chebyshev tensors Discover pioneering algorithmic techniques that can create new opportunities in complex risk calculation Learn how to apply the solutions to a wide range of real-life risk calculations. Download sample code used in the book, so you can follow along and experiment with your own calculations Realize improved risk management whilst overcoming the burden of limited computational power Quants, IT professionals, and financial risk managers will benefit from this practitioner-oriented approach to state-of-the-art risk calculation.

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Explore this comprehensive discussion of the application of physiologically- and physicochemical-based models to guide drug delivery edited by leading experts in the field Drug Delivery Approaches: Perspectives from Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics delivers a thorough discussion of drug delivery options to achieve target profiles and approaches as defined by physical and pharmacokinetic models. The book offers an overview of drug absorption and physiological models, chapters on oral delivery routes with a focus on both PBPK and multiple dosage form options. It also provides an explanation of the pharmacokinetics of the formulation of drugs delivered by systemic transdermal routes. The distinguished editors have included practical and accessible resources that address the biological and delivery approaches to pulmonary and mucosal delivery of drugs. Emergency care settings are also described, with explorations of the relationship between parenteral infusion profiles and PK/PD. The future of drug delivery is addressed via discussions of virtual experiments to elucidate mechanisms and approaches to drug delivery and personalized medicine. Readers will also benefit from the inclusion of: A thorough introduction to the utility of mathematical models in drug development and delivery An exploration of the techniques and applications of physiologically based models to drug delivery Discussions of oral delivery and pharmacokinetic models and oral site-directed delivery A review of integrated transdermal delivery and pharmacokinetics in development An examination of virtual experiment methods for integrating pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and drug delivery mechanisms Alternative endpoints to pharmacokinetics for topical delivery Perfect for researchers, industrial scientists, graduate students, and postdoctoral students in the area of pharmaceutical science and engineering, Drug Delivery Approaches: Perspectives from Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics will also earn a place in the libraries of formulators, pharmacokineticists, and clinical pharmacologists.

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This edited book brings together leading researchers, academic scientists and research scholars to put forward and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of an inspection system for detection analysis for various machine vision applications. It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, methodology, applications, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the inspection system in terms of image processing and analytics of machine vision for real and industrial application. Machine vision inspection systems (MVIS) utilized all industrial and non-industrial applications where the execution of their utilities based on the acquisition and processing of images. MVIS can be applicable in industry, governmental, defense, aerospace, remote sensing, medical, and academic/education applications but constraints are different. MVIS entails acceptable accuracy, high reliability, high robustness, and low cost. Image processing is a well-defined transformation between human vision and image digitization, and their techniques are the foremost way to experiment in the MVIS. The digital image technique furnishes improved pictorial information by processing the image data through machine vision perception. Digital image pro­cessing has widely been used in MVIS applications and it can be employed to a wide diversity of problems particularly in Non-Destructive testing (NDT), presence/absence detection, defect/fault detection (weld, textile, tiles, wood, etc.,), automated vision test & measurement, pattern matching, optical character recognition & verification (OCR/OCV), barcode reading and traceability, medical diagnosis, weather forecasting, face recognition, defence and space research, etc. This edited book is designed to address various aspects of recent methodologies, concepts and research plan out to the readers for giving more depth insights for perusing research on machine vision using image processing techniques.

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A powerful study illuminates our nation's collective civic fault lines Recent events have turned the spotlight on the issue of race in modern America, and the current cultural climate calls out for more research, education, dialogue, and understanding. Race and Social Change: A Quest, A Study, A Call to Action focuses on a provocative social science experiment with the potential to address these needs. Through an analysis grounded in the perspectives of developmental psychology, adaptive leadership and complex systems theory, the inquiry at the heart of this book illuminates dynamics of race and social change in surprising and important ways. Author Max Klau explains how his own quest for insight into these matters led to the empirical study at the heart of this book, and he presents the results of years of research that integrate findings at the individual, group, and whole system levels of analysis. It's an effort to explore one of the most controversial and deeply divisive subject's in American civic life using the tools of social science and empiricism. Readers will: Review a long tradition of classic, provocative social science experiments and learn how the study presented here extends that tradition into new and unexplored territory Engage with findings from years of research that reveal insights into dynamics of race and social change unfolding simultaneously at the individual, group, and whole systems levels Encounter a call to action with implications for our own personal journeys and for national policy at this critical moment in American civic life At a moment when our nation is once again bitterly divided around matters at the heart of American civic life, Race and Social Change: A Quest, A Study, A Call to Action seeks to push our collective journey forward with insights that promise to promote insight, understanding, and healing.

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The thirty-nine poems of anima bring a distinctive, archetypal potency to the closing stages of Mario Petrucci's larger i tulips project, the 1111-strong sequence in which this sub-sequence crucially sits.Arising organically from prior modernist experiment, Petrucci's style nevertheless remains utterly contemporary. His mastery of the shape and sound of each poem makes for an intense and all-consuming experience, refocusing an array of influences through an acute lyrical sensibility. By yielding so completely to the power of linguistic transformation, these searing, necessary poems capture both the crisis and the beauty of the heart's innermost voyage."Mario Petrucci's anima is a revelation of the underside of a human heart submitting to the contradictions of love, doubt and mortality. This remarkable work reconfigures the soul as well as the mind, through language that shapes the ineffable into a visceral, triumphant poetry." Alexandra Burack, American poet and educator"The tensile delicacy of Petrucci's lines springs back with a very English baroque, Miltonic surprise: sense-ambush occurs in the next line, skewering what's gone before. Between these line-breaks rests a declamatory silence tested to snapping. This is major work to cast shadows." Álvaro de Campos [tr. Simon Jenner]"With a brio and tenderness all of their own, these new lyric poems are modernist marvels, word sculptures pared to their very essence… Petrucci's tulips promise to grow into a truly ambitious landmark body of work."Poetry Book Society Bulletin"Reminiscent of ee cummings at his best... vivid, generous and life-affirming." EnvoiMario Petrucci aspires to "Poetry on a geological scale" (Verse), whether exploring the tragedies of Chernobyl (Heavy Water, 2004) or immersing himself in heart-rending invention (i tulips, 2010).

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The Seneca Falls Convention is typically seen as the beginning of the first women's rights movement in the United States. Revolutionary Backlash argues otherwise. According to Rosemarie Zagarri, the debate over women's rights began not in the decades prior to 1848 but during the American Revolution itself. Integrating the approaches of women's historians and political historians, this book explores changes in women's status that occurred from the time of the American Revolution until the election of Andrew Jackson. Although the period after the Revolution produced no collective movement for women's rights, women built on precedents established during the Revolution and gained an informal foothold in party politics and male electoral activities. Federalists and Jeffersonians vied for women's allegiance and sought their support in times of national crisis. Women, in turn, attended rallies, organized political activities, and voiced their opinions on the issues of the day. After the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, a widespread debate about the nature of women's rights ensued. The state of New Jersey attempted a bold experiment: for a brief time, women there voted on the same terms as men. Yet as Rosemarie Zagarri argues in Revolutionary Backlash, this opening for women soon closed. By 1828, women's politicization was seen more as a liability than as a strength, contributing to a divisive political climate that repeatedly brought the country to the brink of civil war. The increasing sophistication of party organizations and triumph of universal suffrage for white males marginalized those who could not vote, especially women. Yet all was not lost. Women had already begun to participate in charitable movements, benevolent societies, and social reform organizations. Through these organizations, women found another way to practice politics.

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From twenty-seven of today’s leading writers, an anthology of original pieces on the author of WaldenFeatures essays by Jennifer Finney Boylan • Kristen Case • George Howe Colt • Gerald Early • Paul Elie • Will Eno • Adam Gopnik • Lauren Groff • Celeste Headlee • Pico Iyer • Alan Lightman • James Marcus • Megan Marshall • Michelle Nijhuis • Zoë Pollak • Jordan Salama • Tatiana Schlossberg • A. O. Scott • Mona Simpson • Stacey Vanek Smith • Wen Stephenson • Robert Sullivan • Amor Towles • Sherry Turkle • Geoff Wisner • Rafia Zakaria • and a cartoon by Sandra BoyntonThe world is never done catching up with Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), the author of Walden, “Civil Disobedience,” and other classics. A prophet of environmentalism and vegetarianism, an abolitionist, and a critic of materialism and technology, Thoreau even seems to have anticipated a world of social distancing in his famous experiment at Walden Pond. In Now Comes Good Sailing, twenty-seven of today’s leading writers offer wide-ranging original pieces exploring how Thoreau has influenced and inspired them—and why he matters more than ever in an age of climate, racial, and technological reckoning.Here, Lauren Groff retreats from the COVID-19 pandemic to a rural house and writing hut, where, unable to write, she rereads Walden; Pico Iyer describes how Thoreau provided him with an unlikely guidebook to Japan; Gerald Early examines Walden and the Black quest for nature; Rafia Zakaria reflects on solitude, from Thoreau’s Concord to her native Pakistan; Mona Simpson follows in Thoreau’s footsteps at Maine’s Mount Katahdin; Jennifer Finney Boylan reads Thoreau in relation to her experience of coming out as a trans woman; Adam Gopnik traces Thoreau’s influence on the New Yorker editor E. B. White and his book Charlotte’s Web; and there’s much more.The result is a lively and compelling collection that richly demonstrates the countless ways Thoreau continues to move, challenge, and provoke readers today.

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The surprising story of how George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson came to despair for the future of the nation they had createdAmericans seldom deify their Founding Fathers any longer, but they do still tend to venerate the Constitution and the republican government that the founders created. Strikingly, the founders themselves were far less confident in what they had wrought, particularly by the end of their lives. In fact, most of them—including George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—came to deem America’s constitutional experiment an utter failure that was unlikely to last beyond their own generation. Fears of a Setting Sun is the first book to tell the fascinating and too-little-known story of the founders’ disillusionment.As Dennis Rasmussen shows, the founders’ pessimism had a variety of sources: Washington lost his faith in America’s political system above all because of the rise of partisanship, Hamilton because he felt that the federal government was too weak, Adams because he believed that the people lacked civic virtue, and Jefferson because of sectional divisions laid bare by the spread of slavery. The one major founder who retained his faith in America’s constitutional order to the end was James Madison, and the book also explores why he remained relatively optimistic when so many of his compatriots did not. As much as Americans today may worry about their country’s future, Rasmussen reveals, the founders faced even graver problems and harbored even deeper misgivings.A vividly written account of a chapter of American history that has received too little attention, Fears of a Setting Sun will change the way that you look at the American founding, the Constitution, and indeed the United States itself.

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The fascinating untold story of digital cash and its creators—from experiments in the 1970s to the mania over Bitcoin and other cryptocurrenciesBitcoin may appear to be a revolutionary form of digital cash without precedent or prehistory. In fact, it is only the best-known recent experiment in a long line of similar efforts going back to the 1970s. But the story behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and its blockchain technology has largely been untold—until now. In Digital Cash, Finn Brunton reveals how technological utopians and political radicals created experimental money to bring about their visions of the future: protecting privacy or bringing down governments, preparing for apocalypse or launching a civilization of innovation and abundance that would make its creators immortal.The incredible story of the pioneers of cryptocurrency takes us from autonomous zones on the high seas to the world’s most valuable dump, from bank runs to idea coupons, from time travelers in a San Francisco bar to the pattern securing every twenty-dollar bill, and from marketplaces for dangerous secrets to a tank of frozen heads awaiting revival in the far future. Along the way, Digital Cash explores the hard questions and challenges that these innovators faced: How do we learn to trust and use different kinds of money? What makes digital objects valuable? How does currency prove itself as real to us? What would it take to make a digital equivalent to cash, something that could be created but not forged, exchanged but not copied, and which reveals nothing about its users?Filled with marvelous characters, stories, and ideas, Digital Cash is an engaging and accessible account of the strange origins and remarkable technologies behind today’s cryptocurrency explosion.

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"I had the privilege of working closely with Marvin and McKinsey for many years. This book makes Marvin come to life and perpetuates him as a role model." -Peter F. Drucker "A wonderful book about a wonderful man. In many ways, Marvin's McKinsey framed the hypotheses in our own search for excellence-for example, passion for values, belief in people as the prime resource, and willingness to let people experiment. As well as I thought I knew Marvin, however, this remarkable book, drawing on the collective memories of those who worked most closely with him, taught me a ton about how extraordinary the man really was and what made him that way. Many have called Drucker the man who invented management; I think history will conclude that both he and Marvin Bower share that pedestal." -Bob Waterman, coauthor of In Search of Excellence "Marvin Bower became a legend, not just within McKinsey & Company, but within professional services and the business world more broadly. In everything he did and said, he embodied the professional approach and the importance of values. This book sheds remarkable insight on a remarkable man and on the power of constancy of purpose." -Ian Davis, Worldwide Managing Director, McKinsey & Co. "It is as Marvin would have wanted it-simple, honest, fact-based, wonderful stories with a long-term perspective. An insightful read about the father of management consulting." -Lois Juliber, retired COO, Colgate-Palmolive "This book provides fascinating insight into the early days of modern management consulting. It is an extremely enlightening look at the origin of one of America's most important professions and one of America's most innovative leaders." -Thomas H. Lee, founder, Chairman, and President, Thomas H. Lee Partners L.P.

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A comprehensive presentation of control theory for the SPC community Quality control has become a major concern in today's competitive industrial environment, and industrial engineers are constantly seeking to make process adjustments that will optimize production efficiency and improve product quality. Statistical Process Adjustment for Quality Control fills the need for a comprehensive presentation of control theory at the elementary level, focusing on statistical methods used in process adjustment (Engineering Process Control Methods or EPC) and their relation to the classical methods of process monitoring, particularly those using SPC control charts. The author presents the severe effects of autocorrelated data on control chart performance and advocates the use of active adjustment methods for improving the quality of products and processes. He uses a detailed explanation of Deming's funnel experiment to illustrate the need for process adjustment when there are process dynamics, and presents an in-depth description of ARIMA models and Transfer Function models from a statistical point of view. He offers several adjustment strategies, including Minimum Variance Controllers, PID controllers, EWMA controllers, deadband policies, and constrained variance controllers. The book also offers integration strategies for SPC and EPC methods, discusses multivariate ARMAX models used for multivariate adjustment, and provides readers with a brief introduction to frequency domain and state-space methods. Statistical Process Adjustment for Quality Control is a timely resource for students, industrial engineers, and applied statisticians in both academic and industrial settings. Unique features include: * A strong focus on quality control of products and processes * Broad coverage of SPC, adjustments, and time series under one cover * Abundant examples using both real process data and simulations * Detailed explanations on how to use SAS and MATLAB on an accompanying ftp site * Coverage of spreadsheet simulation and optimization models in Microsoft(r) Excel * Numerous chapter problems and detailed bibliography of relevant literature for further reading

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We live in a world made by science. How and when did this happen? This book tells the story of the extraordinary intellectual and cultural revolution that gave birth to modern science, and mounts a major challenge to the prevailing orthodoxy of its history.Before 1492 it was assumed that all significant knowledge was already available; there was no concept of progress; people looked for understanding to the past not the future. This book argues that the discovery of America demonstrated that new knowledge was possible: indeed it introduced the very concept of 'discovery', and opened the way to the invention of science.The first crucial discovery was Tycho Brahe's nova of 1572: proof that there could be change in the heavens. The telescope (1610) rendered the old astronomy obsolete. Torricelli's experiment with the vacuum (1643) led directly to the triumph of the experimental method in the Royal Society of Boyle and Newton. By 1750 Newtonianism was being celebrated throughout Europe.The new science did not consist simply of new discoveries, or new methods. It relied on a new understanding of what knowledge might be, and with this came a new language: discovery, progress, facts, experiments, hypotheses, theories, laws of nature - almost all these terms existed before 1492, but their meanings were radically transformed so they became tools with which to think scientifically. We all now speak this language of science, which was invented during the Scientific Revolution.The new culture had its martyrs (Bruno, Galileo), its heroes (Kepler, Boyle), its propagandists (Voltaire, Diderot), and its patient labourers (Gilbert, Hooke). It led to a new rationalism, killing off alchemy, astrology, and belief in witchcraft. It led to the invention of the steam engine and to the first Industrial Revolution. David Wootton's landmark book changes our understanding of how this great transformation came about, and of what science is.

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In this enlightening and entertaining book, author and Skeptical Inquirer editor Kendrick Frazier takes readers on a journey to the contentious boundary zone between science and its antagonists: pseudoscience (pretend science) and anti-science (open hostility to science). Pseudoscience romps in the shadows of science but takes on the guise of science to excite, sell, mislead, and deceive the public. Anti-science denigrates, even denies, findings of science for ideological ends. In this dangerous age of misinformation (and dis-information), we need science’s remarkable truth-seeking tools more than ever to help counter society’s crazier impulses in which opinion, beliefs, and lies trump facts, evidence, and truth.In one sense, Shadows of Science is Frazier’s love letter to science, one of humanity’s greatest inventions, one we should exalt for its unique ability to find provisional truths about nature. In congenial prose he reports on recent discoveries and describes how science works and how its error-correcting mechanisms lead eventually to new knowledge. He tells the stories of some of our champions of science and reason. He describes the little-appreciated values of science, how it embraces uncertainty and humility, and its emphasis on fact-based observation and experiment. Pseudoscience adopts some of science’s language and has a beguiling appeal, but there the similarities end. Frazier has professionally reported on frontier scientific discoveries and observed and exposed the pretensions and dangers of pseudoscience and anti-science his entire career. Here he shares his experiences, his knowledge and insights, and his love and passion for our ability to learn what’s real about the natural world—and to identify and expose fake science, pretend science, and anti-science in all their multifarious forms.

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Jackie Robinson famously said that a life is not important except for the impact it has on other lives. As we celebrate Robinson’s 100th birthday in January 2019, A Fine Team Man profiles not only Robinson, but nine other figures whose lives were altered by the “great experiment,” as the integration of baseball was called then. Profiled here are Rachel Robinson, the stoic and enduring wife; Branch Rickey, the tight-fisted but far-sighted general manager/owner of the Dodgers; baseball commissioner ”Happy” Chandler, who navigated political factions as he paved the way for integration; Clyde Sukeforth, the jack of all trades whose assessment, instruction, and encouragement of Robinson were crucial to the player’s success; Red Barber, whose own views on integration were altered by Robinson’s example of grace under pressure; Wendell Smith, the prominent black journalist who helped Robinson navigate through the trappings of a racist society; Burt Shotton, whose low-key style of managing helped Robinson into his best seasons; Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers captain who united the team behind Robinson; and finally, Dixie Walker, the veteran Dodgers star who vowed never to play alongside Robinson, but who was eventually so changed by Robinson’s courage that he spent his last years working to improve the skills of such African-American players as Maury Wills, Jim Wynn, and Dusty Baker. While the story of Jackie Robinson has often been told and retold, seeing it through the lens of the lives he changed gives it a fresh shine. Perhaps more than ever, Robinson’s excellence sparkles through A Fine Team Man to demonstrate that change remains not only possible, but certain for both great heroes and for those who are savvy or fortunate enough to share the journey or at least stand in the wake during the hero’s finest moments.

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There are many Lhasas. One is a grid of uniform boulevards lined with plush hotels, all-night bars, and blue-glass-fronted offices. Another is a warren of alleyways that surround a seventh-century temple built to pin down a supine demoness. A web of Stalinist, rectangular blocks houses the new nomenklatura. Crumbling mansions, once home to noble ministers, famous lovers, nationalist spies, and covert revolutionaries, now serve as shopping malls and faux-antique hotels. Each embodiment of the city partakes of the others' memories, whispered across time and along the city streets. In this imaginative new work, Robert Barnett offers a powerful and lyrical exploration of a city long idealized, disregarded, or misunderstood by outsiders. Looking to its streets and stone, Robert Barnett presents a searching and unforgettable portrait of Lhasa, its history, and its illegibility. His book not only offers itself as a manual for thinking about contemporary Tibet but also questions our ways of thinking about foreign places. Barnett juxtaposes contemporary accounts of Tibet, architectural observations, and descriptions by foreign observers to describe Lhasa and its current status as both an ancient city and a modern Chinese provincial capital. His narrative reveals how historical layering, popular memory, symbolism, and mythology constitute the story of a city. Besides the ancient Buddhist temples and former picnic gardens of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa describes the urban sprawl, the harsh rectangular structures, and the geometric blue-glass tower blocks that speak of the anxieties of successive regimes intent upon improving on the past. In Barnett's excavation of the city's past, the buildings and the city streets, interwoven with his own recollections of unrest and resistance, recount the story of Tibet's complex transition from tradition to modernity and its painful history of foreign encounters and political experiment.

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Discover indigo; one of the most mystical yet widely used dyes in the world. Featuring inspirational images and presented with a luxurious exposed and patterned spine, this book shows you how to grow, extract and dye with indigo. From cowboys’ denim to the jeans in your wardrobe, indigo’s enduring popularity survives to this day. In this practical handbook, learn how to use this powerful pigment to breathe life into your clothes and craft projects. This book contains all the information you need to use natural or synthetic indigo, alongside a wealth of dying recipes with other plants and textile ideas. In the first chapter, learn how to grow indigo yourself, whether you have a windowsill or a full garden. No matter where you live, the authors provide gardening tips for the best species of indigo for your area. From there, a variety of different dyeing techniques are explained to achieve your desired results. Covering everything from warm or cold dyeing with indigo, fructose, hydrosulfite and fermented vats, as well as dyeing with other pigments for multi-coloured effects. A chapter explaining the science behind the dye also troubleshoots any problems to help you experiment further. Finally, the projects section includes guides on how to use your dyed textiles to create intricate moyo-sashi and hitome-sashi embroidery, patchwork quilts or resist-dyed patterns. Weave using traditional ikat or boro techniques and dye beautiful honeycomb, storm and geometric patterns. Take your ideas to the next level with this potent dye and create projects that are bound to astound. From plant to pigment, Indigo will encourage both beginners and experienced dyers to cultivate, dye and create with a wide range of innovative and exciting recipes and unique projects.

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