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Looking Inside the Brain: The Power of Neuroimaging
By Denis Le Bihan. 2015
The remarkable story of how today's brain scanning techniques were developed, told by one of the field's pioneersIt is now…
possible to witness human brain activity while we are talking, reading, or thinking, thanks to revolutionary neuroimaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These groundbreaking advances have opened infinite fields of investigation—into such areas as musical perception, brain development in utero, and faulty brain connections leading to psychiatric disorders—and have raised unprecedented ethical issues. In Looking Inside the Brain, one of the leading pioneers of the field, Denis Le Bihan, offers an engaging account of the sophisticated interdisciplinary research in physics, neuroscience, and medicine that have led to the remarkable neuroimaging methods that give us a detailed look into the human brain.Introducing neurological anatomy and physiology, Le Bihan walks readers through the historical evolution of imaging technology—from the x-ray and CT scan to the PET scan and MRI—and he explains how neuroimaging uncovers afflictions like stroke or cancer and the workings of higher-order brain activities, such as language skills. Le Bihan also takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey through NeuroSpin, his state-of-the-art neuroimaging laboratory, and goes over the cutting-edge scanning devices currently being developed. Considering what we see when we look at brain images, Le Bihan weighs what might be revealed about our thoughts and unconscious, and discusses how far this technology might go in the future.Beautifully illustrated in color, Looking Inside the Brain presents the trailblazing story of the scanning techniques that provide keys to previously unimagined knowledge of our brains and our selves.Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry
By Glen Van Brummelen. 2012
An unparalleled illustrated history of spherical trigonometry from antiquity to todayHeavenly Mathematics traces the rich history of spherical trigonometry, revealing…
how the cultures of classical Greece, medieval Islam, and the modern West used this forgotten art to chart the heavens and the Earth. Once at the heart of astronomy and ocean-going navigation for two millennia, the discipline was also a mainstay of mathematics education for centuries and taught widely until the 1950s. Glen Van Brummelen explores this exquisite branch of mathematics and its role in ancient astronomy, geography, and cartography; Islamic religious rituals; celestial navigation; polyhedra; stereographic projection; and more. He conveys the sheer beauty of spherical trigonometry, providing readers with a new appreciation of its elegant proofs and often surprising conclusions. Heavenly Mathematics is illustrated throughout with stunning historical images and informative drawings and diagrams. This unique compendium also features easy-to-use appendixes as well as exercises that originally appeared in textbooks from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries.Birds of New Guinea: Second Edition (Princeton Field Guides #97)
By Thane K. Pratt, Bruce M. Beehler. 2015
The definitive field guide to the marvelous birds of New GuineaThis is the completely revised edition of the essential field…
guide to the birds of New Guinea. The world's largest tropical island, New Guinea boasts a spectacular avifauna characterized by cassowaries, megapodes, pigeons, parrots, cuckoos, kingfishers, and owlet-nightjars, as well as an exceptionally diverse assemblage of songbirds such as the iconic birds of paradise and bowerbirds. Birds of New Guinea is the only guide to cover all 780 bird species reported in the area, including 366 endemics. Expanding its coverage with 111 vibrant color plates—twice as many as the first edition—and the addition of 635 range maps, the book also contains updated species accounts with new information about identification, voice, habits, and range. A must-have for everyone from ecotourists to field researchers, Birds of New Guinea remains an indispensable guide to the diverse birds of this remarkable region.780 bird species, including 366 found nowhere else111 stunning color plates, twice the number of the first editionExpanded and updated species accounts provide details on identification, voice, habits, and range635 range mapsRevised classification of birds reflects the latest researchEnvironmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster
By Keith Smith, Carina J. Fearnley, Deborah Dixon, Deanne K. Bird, Ilan Kelman. 2024
The seventh edition of Environmental Hazards provides a much expanded and fully up-to-date overview of all the extreme environmental events…
that threaten people and what they value in the 21st century globally. It integrates cutting-edge materials to provide an interdisciplinary approach to environmental hazards and their management, illustrating how natural and human systems interact to place communities of all sizes, and at all stages of economic development, at risk. Part 1 defines basic concepts of hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster and explores the evolution of hazards theory. Part 2 employs a consistent chapter structure to demonstrate how individual hazards occur, their impacts and how the risks can be assessed and managed.This extensively revised edition includes: Fresh perspectives on the reliability of disaster data, disaster risk reduction, risk and disaster perception and communication, and new technologies available to assist with environmental hazard management The addition of several new environmental hazards including landslide and avalanches, cryospheric hazards, karst and subsidence hazards, and hazards of the Anthropocene More boxed sections with a focus on both generic issues and the lessons to be learned from a carefully selected range of up-to-date extreme events An annotated list of key resources, including further reading and relevant websites, for all chapters More colour diagrams and photographs, and more than 1,000 references to some of the most significant and recent published material New exercises to assist teaching in the classroom, or self-learning This carefully structured and balanced textbook captures the complexity and dynamism of environmental hazards and is essential reading for students across many disciplines including geography, environmental science, environmental studies and natural resources.Property Valuation: The Five Methods
By Douglas Scarrett, Sylvia Osborn. 2014
The third edition of Property Valuation: The Five Methods introduces students to the fundamental principles of property valuation theory by…
means of clear explanation and worked examples. An ideal text for those new to the subject, the book provides 1st year undergraduate students with a working knowledge and understanding of the five methods of valuation and the ways in which they are interlinked.In this fully revised edition, the new author team have: restructured the chapters to ensure a more logical order outlined the economic theory of value and the rules and constraints under which a valuer works provided detailed consideration of each of the five recognised approaches placed a larger emphasis on the Discounted Cash Flow approach These revisions are all written in the concise and accessible style which has made previous editions of the book so successful. The new edition of this textbook will be essential reading for undergraduates on all property, real estate, planning and built environment courses.Nature: An Economic History
By Geerat Vermeij. 2004
From humans to hermit crabs to deep water plankton, all living things compete for locally limiting resources. This universal truth…
unites three bodies of thought--economics, evolution, and history--that have developed largely in mutual isolation. Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics, and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems--competition, cooperation, adaptation, and feedback--govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle. Using a wealth of examples of evolutionary innovations, Vermeij argues that evolution and economics are one. Powerful consumers and producers exercise disproportionate controls on the characteristics, activities, and distribution of all life forms. Competition-driven demand by consumers, when coupled with supply-side conditions permitting economic growth, leads to adaptation and escalation among organisms. Although disruptions in production halt or reverse these processes temporarily, they amplify escalation in the long run to produce trends in all economic systems toward greater power, higher production rates, and a wider reach for economic systems and their strongest members. Despite our unprecedented power to shape our surroundings, we humans are subject to all the economic principles and historical trends that emerged at life's origin more than 3 billion years ago. Engagingly written, brilliantly argued, and sweeping in scope, Nature: An Economic History shows that the human institutions most likely to preserve opportunity and adaptability are, after all, built like successful living things.How the sciences of the mind can advance the study of religionThe essence of religion was once widely thought to…
be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central concept while bridging the divide between religious studies and the sciences.Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual. Taves addresses a series of key questions: how can we set up studies without obscuring contestations over meaning and value? What is the relationship between experience and consciousness? How can research into consciousness help us access and interpret the experiences of others? Why do people individually or collectively explain their experiences in religious terms? How can we set up studies that allow us to compare experiences across times and cultures?Religious Experience Reconsidered demonstrates how methods from the sciences can be combined with those from the humanities to advance a naturalistic understanding of the experiences that people deem religious.How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form? (Princeton Frontiers in Physics #1)
By Abraham Loeb. 2010
A concise introduction to cosmology and how light first emerged in the universeThough astrophysicists have developed a theoretical framework for…
understanding how the first stars and galaxies formed, only now are we able to begin testing those theories with actual observations of the very distant, early universe. We are entering a new and exciting era of discovery that will advance the frontiers of knowledge, and this book couldn't be more timely. It covers all the basic concepts in cosmology, drawing on insights from an astronomer who has pioneered much of this research over the past two decades.Abraham Loeb starts from first principles, tracing the theoretical foundations of cosmology and carefully explaining the physics behind them. Topics include the gravitational growth of perturbations in an expanding universe, the abundance and properties of dark matter halos and galaxies, reionization, the observational methods used to detect the earliest galaxies and probe the diffuse gas between them—and much more.Cosmology seeks to solve the fundamental mystery of our cosmic origins. This book offers a succinct and accessible primer at a time when breathtaking technological advances promise a wealth of new observational data on the first stars and galaxies.Provides a concise introduction to cosmologyCovers all the basic conceptsGives an overview of the gravitational growth of perturbations in an expanding universeExplains the process of reionizationDescribes the observational methods used to detect the earliest galaxiesIn brute-force struggles for survival, such as the two World Wars, disorganization and divisions within an enemy alliance are to…
one's own advantage. However, most international security politics involve coercive diplomacy and negotiations short of all-out war. Worse Than a Monolith demonstrates that when states are engaged in coercive diplomacy--combining threats and assurances to influence the behavior of real or potential adversaries--divisions, rivalries, and lack of coordination within the opposing camp often make it more difficult to prevent the onset of conflict, to prevent existing conflicts from escalating, and to negotiate the end to those conflicts promptly. Focusing on relations between the Communist and anti-Communist alliances in Asia during the Cold War, Thomas Christensen explores how internal divisions and lack of cohesion in the two alliances complicated and undercut coercive diplomacy by sending confusing signals about strength, resolve, and intent. In the case of the Communist camp, internal mistrust and rivalries catalyzed the movement's aggressiveness in ways that we would not have expected from a more cohesive movement under Moscow's clear control. Reviewing newly available archival material, Christensen examines the instability in relations across the Asian Cold War divide, and sheds new light on the Korean and Vietnam wars. While recognizing clear differences between the Cold War and post-Cold War environments, he investigates how efforts to adjust burden-sharing roles among the United States and its Asian security partners have complicated U.S.-China security relations since the collapse of the Soviet Union.Advances in Plant Biotechnology: In Vitro Production of Secondary Metabolites of Industrial Interest (Food Biotechnology and Engineering)
By Alma Angélica Del Villar-Martínez, Juan Arturo Ragazzo-Sánchez, Pablo Emilio Vanegas-Espinoza, and Octavio Paredes-López. 2024
The goal of Advances in Plant Biotechnology is to integrate the most recent knowledge on tissue culture, secondary metabolites production…
under controlled conditions, scaling up to produce them at bioreactor level, and their industrial applications. The biosynthetic pathways and the factors that affect them and the accumulation of metabolites, including metabolomics in medicinal plants, are key components as well. Several extraction and encapsulation technological procedures are reviewed. The structure and function of metabolites from selected commercial crops are reported in detail. Finally, items of paramount importance, such as bioavailability and stability of metabolites in pharma and food products are deeply analyzed.Key Features: Strategies for obtaining selected metabolites through in vitro culture Application of biotechnological and bioengineering principles to the management of plant metabolites Description of the encapsulation of selected metabolites Bioavailability and stability of metabolites in pharma, food, and industrial sectors This book is mainly addressed to research scientists, technical staff, and private and public organizations involved in plant biotechnology and in its processing industries. Last, but not least, students at all levels and postdoctoral researchers have received special attention from all editors and authors in this publication.Property Investment: Principles and Practice of Portfolio Management
By Martin Hoesli, Bryan D. Macgregor. 2000
Property investment markets and applied property research are now recognised as an increasingly important international phenomenon. Written by two of…
the most respected academics in the field, this authoritative guide provides a fresh and much needed perspective on this important subject. The book examines the unique characteristics of property investment within the context of other capital markets . The emphasis is strongly on the application of analytical tools from other markets to help academics and practitioners alike understand and apply the investment management of property with that of other asset classes. The book is split into three parts, each focusing mainly on direct commercial property: The characteristics of the various asset classes in the investment background The analyses necessary to develop a property portfolio strategy An examination of property in a wider context This book will be invaluable to all undergraduate and postgraduate students on property courses worldwide. It is also an essential tool to understanding this complex and exciting field for students on finance, business and accountancy courses which cover property. Its practical, applied approach means that the book will be a welcome addition to the bookshelf of any researchers or investment managers with an interest in property.Natural Products and Nano-Formulations in Cancer Chemoprevention (Advances in Bionanotechnology)
By Shiv Kumar Dubey. 2023
This book covers various aspects of cancer chemoprevention, including an overview of chemoprevention in the process of tumorigenesis; the roles…
of various phytochemicals, functional foods, and dietary interventions in disease prevention; and techniques such as cancer stem cell targeting, nano-formulations, and so forth. The nutrigenomic and epigenetic effects of natural products at the molecular and genetic levels are also covered alongside their potential for additive and synergistic effect, as well as overcoming drug resistance. The key selling features of the book are as follows: Discusses holistic and comprehensive areas of chemoprevention Includes diverse techniques, such as cancer stem cell targeting, nano-formulations, and nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems Introduces various mechanisms involved in prevention of the diseases, including targeting cancer stem cells Reviews various aspects which can reduce the toxicity and cost of treatment of diseases by alternative medicine Explores various sources, mechanisms, and ways to develop cancer chemopreventive agents with minimal toxicity compared to traditional cancer therapy drugs This book is focused on researchers and graduate students in drug delivery and formulation, nanobiotechnology, cancer chemoprevention, prevention, and therapeutics.The Princeton Guide to Evolution
By Jonathan B. Losos. 2013
The essential one-volume reference to evolutionThe Princeton Guide to Evolution is a comprehensive, concise, and authoritative reference to the major…
subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biology, from genes to mass extinctions. Edited by a distinguished team of evolutionary biologists, with contributions from leading researchers, the guide contains some 100 clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics in seven major areas: phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern society. Complete with more than 100 illustrations (including eight pages in color), glossaries of key terms, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, scientists in related fields, and anyone else with a serious interest in evolution.Explains key topics in some 100 concise and authoritative articles written by a team of leading evolutionary biologistsContains more than 100 illustrations, including eight pages in colorEach article includes an outline, glossary, bibliography, and cross-referencesCovers phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern societyWomen at the Beginning: Origin Myths from the Amazons to the Virgin Mary
By Patrick J. Geary. 2006
In these four artfully crafted essays, Patrick Geary explores the way ancient and medieval authors wrote about women. Geary describes…
the often marginal role women played in origin legends from antiquity until the twelfth century. Not confining himself to one religious tradition or region, he probes the tensions between women in biblical, classical, and medieval myths (such as Eve, Mary, Amazons, princesses, and countesses), and actual women in ancient and medieval societies. Using these legends as a lens through which to study patriarchal societies, Geary chooses moments and texts that illustrate how ancient authors (all of whom were male) confronted the place of women in their society. Unlike other books on the subject, Women at the Beginning attempts to understand not only the place of women in these legends, but also the ideologies of the men who wrote about them. The book concludes that the authors of these stories were themselves struggling with ambivalence about women in their own worlds and that this struggle manifested itself in their writings.How two charismatic, exceptionally talented physicists came to terms with the nuclear weapons they helped to createIn 1945, the United…
States dropped the bomb, and physicists were forced to contemplate disquieting questions about their roles and responsibilities. When the Cold War followed, they were confronted with political demands for their loyalty and McCarthyism's threats to academic freedom. By examining how J. Robert Oppenheimer and Hans A. Bethe—two men with similar backgrounds but divergent aspirations and characters—struggled with these moral dilemmas, one of our foremost historians of physics tells the story of modern physics, the development of atomic weapons, and the Cold War.Oppenheimer and Bethe led parallel lives. Both received liberal educations that emphasized moral as well as intellectual growth. Both were outstanding theoreticians who worked on the atom bomb at Los Alamos. Both advised the government on nuclear issues, and both resisted the development of the hydrogen bomb. Both were, in their youth, sympathetic to liberal causes, and both were later called to defend the United States against Soviet communism and colleagues against anti-Communist crusaders. Finally, both prized scientific community as a salve to the apparent failure of Enlightenment values.Yet their responses to the use of the atom bomb, the testing of the hydrogen bomb, and the treachery of domestic politics differed markedly. Bethe, who drew confidence from scientific achievement and integration into the physics community, preserved a deep integrity. By accepting a modest role, he continued to influence policy and contributed to the nuclear test ban treaty of 1963. In contrast, Oppenheimer first embodied a new scientific persona—the scientist who creates knowledge and technology affecting all humanity and boldly addresses their impact—and then could not carry its burden. His desire to retain insider status, combined with his isolation from creative work and collegial scientific community, led him to compromise principles and, ironically, to lose prestige and fall victim to other insiders.S. S. Schweber draws on his vast knowledge of science and its history—in addition to his unique access to the personalities involved—to tell a tale of two men that will enthrall readers interested in science, history, and the lives and minds of great thinkers.Seeds of Amazonian Plants (Princeton Field Guides #66)
By Fernando Cornejo, John Janovec. 2010
Seeds of Amazonian Plants is the first field guide to treat the extraordinary diversity of seeds and diaspores of plants…
commonly encountered in the Amazon and other lowland moist forests of the American tropics. This stunningly illustrated guide features an easy-to-use whole-plant approach to seed identification that provides detailed descriptions not only of the seeds but also of the habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit of Amazonian plants, as well as information about the known uses and distribution of each genus. Presenting these descriptions together with 750 full-color photos and a unique identification key, this premier field guide enables users to identify seeds of 544 genera and 131 families of plants. The most comprehensive field guide to Amazonian seeds Features 750 full-color photos that make identification easy Covers 544 genera and 131 families of Amazonian plants Describes seeds, habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit Includes unique seed identification key Compact, portable, and beautifully illustrated--the ideal field guidePhotosynthesis-Assisted Energy Generation: From Fundamentals to Lab Scale and In-Field Applications
By Sathish-Kumar Kamaraj, Iryna Rusyn. 2024
Photosynthesis-Assisted Energy Generation Describes the mechanisms of and potential for using microorganisms and plants as renewable power resources Bridging the…
knowledge gap between the fundamentals and the technological advances in biological photosynthesis-assisted energy generation, Photosynthesis-Assisted Energy Generation explores the various diverse light-harvesting biological systems for electricity generation and explains the fundamentals and applications from lab-scale to in-field. The text discusses the fundamentals of electron transfer mechanisms in photosynthetic systems, basic principles of bioelectricity generation, and materials involved in the construction of fuel cells, including not only the impact of higher plants, but also anoxygenic and oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria and microalgae on the performance of photosynthesis-assisted power generation systems. A timely resource, the text features case studies on emerging topics such as mosses in power generation on green roofs and photo-bioelectrochemical fuel cells for antibiotics and dyes removal, along with discussion of sustainability issues when scaling up bio-photo-electrochemical systems. Edited by two highly qualified and accomplished academics with significant research experience in the field, Photosynthesis-Assisted Energy Generation includes information on: Role of functional materials involved in photosynthesis-assisted power generation and non-noble electrocatalysts as air cathodes in biocells Electricity generation and intensified synthesis of nutrients by plant-based biofuel cells using duckweeds as biocatalysts Algae-based microbial fuel cells, photosynthetic bacteria-based microbial fuel cells, and bryophyte microbial fuel cell systems Progress and recent trends of application of low-energy consuming devices and IoT based on photosynthesis-assisted power generation Plant-based microbial fuel cells for bioremediation, biosensing, and plant health monitoring With full coverage of an attractive renewable energy generation system, Photosynthesis-Assisted Energy Generation is an essential resource on the subject for researchers and scientists interested in alternative renewable energetics and photosynthesis-assisted energy generation processes utilizing microorganisms, algae, plants, and other bioinspired materials.Food Webs (Monographs in Population Biology #50)
By Kevin S. McCann. 2012
Human impacts are dramatically altering our natural ecosystems but the exact repercussions on ecological sustainability and function remain unclear. As…
a result, food web theory has experienced a proliferation of research seeking to address these critical areas. Arguing that the various recent and classical food web theories can be looked at collectively and in a highly consistent and testable way, Food Webs synthesizes and reconciles modern and classical perspectives into a general unified theory. Kevin McCann brings together outcomes from population-, community-, and ecosystem-level approaches under the common currency of energy or material fluxes. He shows that these approaches--often studied in isolation--all have the same general implications in terms of population dynamic stability. Specifically, increased fluxes of energy or material tend to destabilize populations, communities, and whole ecosystems. With this understanding, stabilizing structures at different levels of the ecological hierarchy can be identified and any population-, community-, or ecosystem-level structures that mute energy or material flow also stabilize systems dynamics. McCann uses this powerful general framework to discuss the effects of human impact on the stability and sustainability of ecological systems, and he demonstrates that there is clear empirical evidence that the structures supporting ecological systems have been dangerously eroded. Uniting the latest research on food webs with classical theories, this book will be a standard source in the understanding of natural food web functions.Chance in Biology: Using Probability to Explore Nature
By Mark Denny, Steven Gaines. 2000
Life is a chancy proposition: from the movement of molecules to the age at which we die, chance plays a…
key role in the natural world. Traditionally, biologists have viewed the inevitable "noise" of life as an unfortunate complication. The authors of this book, however, treat random processes as a benefit. In this introduction to chance in biology, Mark Denny and Steven Gaines help readers to apply the probability theory needed to make sense of chance events--using examples from ocean waves to spiderwebs, in fields ranging from molecular mechanics to evolution. Through the application of probability theory, Denny and Gaines make predictions about how plants and animals work in a stochastic universe. Is it possible to pack a variety of ion channels into a cell membrane and have each operate at near-peak flow? Why are our arteries rubbery? The concept of a random walk provides the necessary insight. Is there an absolute upper limit to human life span? Could the sound of a cocktail party burst your eardrums? The statistics of extremes allows us to make the appropriate calculations. How long must you wait to see the detail in a moonlit landscape? Can you hear the noise of individual molecules? The authors provide answers to these and many other questions. After an introduction to the basic statistical methods to be used in this book, the authors emphasize the application of probability theory to biology rather than the details of the theory itself. Readers with an introductory background in calculus will be able to follow the reasoning, and sets of problems, together with their solutions, are offered to reinforce concepts. The use of real-world examples, numerous illustrations, and chapter summaries--all presented with clarity and wit--make for a highly accessible text. By relating the theory of probability to the understanding of form and function in living things, the authors seek to pique the reader's curiosity about statistics and provide a new perspective on the role of chance in biology.The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann
By Herman H. Goldstine. 1972
In 1942, Lt. Herman H. Goldstine, a former mathematics professor, was stationed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at…
the University of Pennsylvania. It was there that he assisted in the creation of the ENIAC, the first electronic digital computer. The ENIAC was operational in 1945, but plans for a new computer were already underway. The principal source of ideas for the new computer was John von Neumann, who became Goldstine's chief collaborator. Together they developed EDVAC, successor to ENIAC. After World War II, at the Institute for Advanced Study, they built what was to become the prototype of the present-day computer. Herman Goldstine writes as both historian and scientist in this first examination of the development of computing machinery, from the seventeenth century through the early 1950s. His personal involvement lends a special authenticity to his narrative, as he sprinkles anecdotes and stories liberally through his text.