This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems - whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies - present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, "Complex Adaptive Systems" focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents. John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended.
A field guide, which illustrates and describes various species of bird in Central America from Mexico to Panama, covering over 1,500 species. It includes information on key identification features, habitats, songs, and calls as well as distribution maps showing each species' location and prevalence.
NARUTO NeueditionDie fette Neuauflage des berühmtesten Ninja ever!In 700 Kapiteln bewies Naruto immer wieder, wie stark sein Wille war ein guter Ninja zu werden, aber auch wie unglaublich groß sein Hang zum Blödsinn war. Über die Jahre erlernte Naruto alle Ninja-Techniken und rettete die Welt vor ihrem sicheren Untergang!Nun kommt die Klopper-Neuausgabe mit zum Teil über 800 Seiten zum Monster-Hammer-Preis von 9,99 EUR!Die muss man haben!
Hannah, 15, hat schon viel durchgemacht. Von den Eltern vernachlässigt, musste sie früh lernen, für sich selbst zu sorgen. Im Café erkennt sie, dass sie immer eine Wahl hat und dass es ihre Entscheidung ist, wie ihr Leben weiter verläuft.
Cambridge Primary English is a flexible, endorsed course written specifically to support Cambridge International Examinations' curriculum framework (Stages 1-6). This write-in Activity Book includes the following features. Activities which support, enrich and reinforce the core teaching in the Learner's Book, using the same themes and texts to enhance comprehension. Activities which are designed to build, practise and consolidate the reading and writing skills of all learners. Further activities and games targeting specific grammar and language points, extra writing and spelling activities.
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, 'we have no theory'. Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
A guide to the nearly 1,300 species of non-passerine South American birds. This text concentrates on the key identification features of each species, and can be used in conjunction with regional and country field guides. It includes more than 150 color illustrations, and 1,270 maps.
In war, do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest, best equipped, information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error - with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing.The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. "Military Power" will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.
"Guesstimation" is a book that unlocks the power of approximation - it's popular mathematics rounded to the nearest power of ten! The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life. More and more leading businesses today use estimation questions in interviews to test applicants' abilities to think on their feet. "Guesstimation" enables anyone with basic math and science skills to estimate virtually anything - quickly - using plausible assumptions and elementary arithmetic. Lawrence Weinstein and John Adam present an eclectic array of estimation problems that range from devilishly simple to quite sophisticated and from serious real-world concerns to downright silly ones.How long would it take a running faucet to fill the inverted dome of the Capitol? What is the total length of all the pickles consumed in the US in one year? What are the relative merits of internal-combustion and electric cars, of coal and nuclear energy? The problems are marvelously diverse, yet the skills to solve them are the same.The authors show how easy it is to derive useful ballpark estimates by breaking complex problems into simpler, more manageable ones - and how there can be many paths to the right answer.The book is written in a question-and-answer format with lots of hints along the way. It includes a handy appendix summarizing the few formulas and basic science concepts needed, and its small size and French-fold design make it conveniently portable. Illustrated with humorous pen-and-ink sketches, "Guesstimation" will delight popular-math enthusiasts and is ideal for the classroom.
The past twenty years have seen great theoretical and empirical advances in the field of corporate finance. Whereas, once the subject addressed mainly the financing of corporations - equity, debt, and valuation - today it also embraces crucial issues of governance, liquidity, risk management, relationships between banks and corporations, and the macroeconomic impact of corporations. However, this progress has left in its wake a jumbled array of concepts and models that students are often hard put to make sense of. Here, one of the world's leading economists offers a lucid, unified, and comprehensive introduction to modern corporate finance theory. Jean Tirole builds his landmark book around a single model, using an incentive or contract theory approach. Filling a major gap in the field, "The Theory of Corporate Finance" is an indispensable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate students as well as researchers of corporate finance, industrial organization, political economy, development, and macroeconomics.Tirole conveys the organizing principles that structure the analysis of today's key management and public policy issues, such as the reform of corporate governance and auditing; the role of private equity, financial markets, and takeovers; the efficient determination of leverage, dividends, liquidity, and risk management; and the design of managerial incentive packages. He weaves empirical studies into the book's theoretical analysis. And he places the corporation in its broader environment, both microeconomic and macroeconomic, and examines the two-way interaction between the corporate environment and institutions. Setting a new milestone in the field, "The Theory of Corporate Finance" will be the authoritative text for years to come.
This book is a comprehensive study of cooperation among the advanced capitalist countries. Can cooperation persist without the dominance of a single power, such as the United States after World War II? To answer this pressing question, Robert Keohane analyzes the institutions, or "international regimes," through which cooperation has taken place in the world political economy and describes the evolution of these regimes as American hegemony has eroded. Refuting the idea that the decline of hegemony makes cooperation impossible, he views international regimes not as weak substitutes for world government but as devices for facilitating decentralized cooperation among egoistic actors. In the preface the author addresses the issue of cooperation after the end of the Soviet empire and with the renewed dominance of the United States, in security matters, as well as recent scholarship on cooperation. Autorid: Robert O. Keohane
How do we explain the remarkably abrupt changes that sometimes occur in nature and society--and can we predict why and when they happen? This book offers a comprehensive introduction to critical transitions in complex systems--the radical changes that happen at tipping points when thresholds are passed. Marten Scheffer accessibly describes the dynamical systems theory behind critical transitions, covering catastrophe theory, bifurcations, chaos, and more. He gives examples of critical transitions in lakes, oceans, terrestrial ecosystems, climate, evolution, and human societies. And he demonstrates how to deal with these transitions, offering practical guidance on how to predict tipping points, how to prevent "bad" transitions, and how to promote critical transitions that work for us and not against us. Scheffer shows the time is ripe for understanding and managing critical transitions in the vast and complex systems in which we live. This book can also serve as a textbook and includes a detailed appendix with equations. * Provides an accessible introduction to dynamical systems theory * Covers critical transitions in lakes, oceans, terrestrial ecosystems, the climate, evolution, and human societies * Explains how to predict tipping points * Offers strategies for preventing "bad" transitions and triggering "good" ones * Features an appendix with equations Autorid: Marten Scheffer
This is a comprehensive and richly illustrated textbook on the astrophysics of the interstellar and intergalactic medium--the gas and dust, as well as the electromagnetic radiation, cosmic rays, and magnetic and gravitational fields, present between the stars in a galaxy and also between galaxies themselves.Topics include radiative processes across the electromagnetic spectrum; radiative transfer; ionization; heating and cooling; astrochemistry; interstellar dust; fluid dynamics, including ionization fronts and shock waves; cosmic rays; distribution and evolution of the interstellar medium; and star formation. While it is assumed that the reader has a background in undergraduate-level physics, including some prior exposure to atomic and molecular physics, statistical mechanics, and electromagnetism, the first six chapters of the book include a review of the basic physics that is used in later chapters. This graduate-level textbook includes references for further reading, and serves as an invaluable resource for working astrophysicists.Essential textbook on the physics of the interstellar and intergalactic medium Based on a course taught by the author for more than twenty years at Princeton University Covers radiative processes, fluid dynamics, cosmic rays, astrochemistry, interstellar dust, and more Discusses the physical state and distribution of the ionized, atomic, and molecular phases of the interstellar medium Reviews diagnostics using emission and absorption lines Features color illustrations and detailed reference materials in appendices Instructor's manual with problems and solutions (available only to teachers) Autorid: Bruce T. Draine
The analysis of how institutions are formed, how they operate and change, and how they influence behavior in society has become a major subject of inquiry in politics, sociology, and economics. A leader in applying game theory to the understanding of institutional analysis, Elinor Ostrom provides in this book a coherent method for undertaking the analysis of diverse economic, political, and social institutions. Understanding Institutional Diversity explains the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, which enables a scholar to choose the most relevant level of interaction for a particular question. This framework examines the arena within which interactions occur, the rules employed by participants to order relationships, the attributes of a biophysical world that structures and is structured by interactions, and the attributes of a community in which a particular arena is placed. The book explains and illustrates how to use the IAD in the context of both field and experimental studies. Concentrating primarily on the rules aspect of the IAD framework, it provides empirical evidence about the diversity of rules, the calculation process used by participants in changing rules, and the design principles that characterize robust, self-organized resource governance institutions. Autorid: Elinor Ostrom
Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals. Interaction Ritual Chains is a major work of sociological theory that attempts to develop a "radical microsociology." It proposes that successful rituals create symbols of group membership and pump up individuals with emotional energy, while failed rituals drain emotional energy. Each person flows from situation to situation, drawn to those interactions where their cultural capital gives them the best emotional energy payoff. Thinking, too, can be explained by the internalization of conversations within the flow of situations; individual selves are thoroughly and continually social, constructed from the outside in. The first half of Interaction Ritual Chains is based on the classic analyses of Durkheim, Mead, and Goffman and draws on micro-sociological research on conversation, bodily rhythms, emotions, and intellectual creativity. The second half discusses how such activities as sex, smoking, and social stratification are shaped by interaction ritual chains. For example, the book addresses the emotional and symbolic nature of sexual exchanges of all sorts--from hand-holding to masturbation to sexual relationships with prostitutes--while describing the interaction rituals they involve. This book will appeal not only to psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, but to those in fields as diverse as human sexuality, religious studies, and literary theory. Autorid: Randall Collins
What is the world-historical importance of Jane Austen? An old maid writes with the detachment of a god. Here, the stigmatized condition of a spinster; there, a writer's unequalled display of absolute, impersonal authority. In between, the secret work of Austen's style: to keep at bay the social doom that would follow if she ever wrote as the person she is.For no Jane Austen could ever appear in Jane Austen. Amid happy wives and pathetic old maids, we see no successfully unmarried woman, and, despite the multitude of girls seeking to acquire "accomplishments," no artist either. What does appear is a ghostly No One, a narrative voice unmarked by age, gender, marital status, all the particulars that make a person - and might make a person peculiar. The Austen heroine must suppress her wit to become the one and not the other, to become, that is, a person fit to be tied in a conjugal knot. But for herself, Austen refuses personhood, with all its constraints and needs, and disappears into the sourceless anonymity of her style. Though often treasured for its universality, that style marks the specific impasse of a writer whose self-representation is impossible without the prospect of shame.D. A. Miller argues this case not only through the close reading that Austen's style always demands, but also through the close writing, the slavish imitation, that it sometimes inspires. What is the world-historical importance of Jane Austen? An old maid writes with the detachment of a god. Here, the stigmatized condition of a spinster; there, a writer's unequalled display of absolute, impersonal authority. In between, the secret work of Austen's style: to keep at bay the social doom that would follow if she ever wrote as the person she is. For no Jane Austen could ever appear in Jane Austen. Amid happy wives and pathetic old maids, we see no successfully unmarried woman, and, despite the multitude of girls seeking to acquire "accomplishments," no artist either. What does appear is a ghostly No One, a narrative voice unmarked by age, gender, marital status, all the particulars that make a person--and might make a person peculiar. The Austen heroine must suppress her wit to become the one and not the other, to become, that is, a person fit to be tied in a conjugal knot. But for herself, Austen refuses personhood, with all its constraints and needs, and disappears into the sourceless anonymity of her style. Though often treasured for its universality, that style marks the specific impasse of a writer whose self-representation is impossible without the prospect of shame. D.A. Miller argues this case not only through the close reading that Austen's style always demands, but also through the close writing, the slavish imitation, that it sometimes inspires. Autorid: D. A. Miller
Two teams battle to win the intergalactic football league cup: Earthlings Sector 5 and Planet Shine 21's Crust City. City's opponents always seem to fall ill and even die! Can Captain Dane Sky find their evil secret before it's too late? This hi-lo series for struggling and reluctant readers has been written for children aged between 11 and 14 years, whose current reading age is between 7.5 and 8.5 years. These age-appropriate short reads have 32 pages and are written by gifted authors writing stories with relatable characters. They incorporate a large font size and text separated into bite-sized chunks, along with carefully considered letter and paragraph spacing that can reduce visual stress. The series has plenty of practice at one level, allowing consolidation of learning before moving on to more challenging reads. Autorid: Jonny Zucker, Pete Smith
Paul South is small for his age, an easy target for bullies. But it all changes when the 'bubble' appears. Paul has a rollercoaster ride but what about the bubble's plans? They might be more sinister than he realises... This hi-lo series for struggling and reluctant readers has been written for children aged between 11 and 14 years, whose current reading age is between 7.5 and 8.5 years. These age-appropriate short reads have 32 pages and are written by gifted authors writing stories with relatable characters. They incorporate a large font size and text separated into bite-sized chunks, along with carefully considered letter and paragraph spacing that can reduce visual stress. The series has plenty of practice at one level, allowing consolidation of learning before moving on to more challenging reads. Autorid: Stan Cullimore, Seb Camagajevac
The twentieth century was a time of unprecedented development in mathematics, as well as in all sciences: more theorems were proved and results found in a hundred years than in all of previous history. In The Mathematical Century, Piergiorgio Odifreddi distills this unwieldy mass of knowledge into a fascinating and authoritative overview of the subject. He concentrates on thirty highlights of pure and applied mathematics. Each tells the story of an exciting problem, from its historical origins to its modern solution, in lively prose free of technical details. Odifreddi opens by discussing the four main philosophical foundations of mathematics of the nineteenth century and ends by describing the four most important open mathematical problems of the twenty-first century. In presenting the thirty problems at the heart of the book he devotes equal attention to pure and applied mathematics, with applications ranging from physics and computer science to biology and economics. Special attention is dedicated to the famous "23 problems" outlined by David Hilbert in his address to the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900 as a research program for the new century, and to the work of the winners of the Fields Medal, the equivalent of a Nobel prize in mathematics. This eminently readable book will be treasured not only by students and their teachers but also by all those who seek to make sense of the elusive macrocosm of twentieth-century mathematics.
"This exceptionally well-produced book, written by the leading authorities on shark systematics and conservation, is the only stand-alone field guide that covers all known shark species of the world. It is therefore an invaluable reference for shark scientists and enthusiasts alike. Nowhere are the identification, distribution, and conservation status of sharks more clearly presented."--Professor Dr. Marcelo R. de Carvalho, researcher of shark and ray evolution, Universidad de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil"The first field guide to cover all species of sharks, Sharks of the World is a welcome addition to the field bags of both professional and amateur naturalists. Filling a role heretofore satisfied only by owning a series of regional field guides, this volume offers one stop shopping for worldwide shark aficionados. Sharks of the World is a must-buy for anyone interested in identifying sharks."--George H. Burgess, Florida Program for Shark Research, Florida Museum of Natural History
