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Looking Inside the Brain: The Power of Neuroimaging
Par 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.Winning: Reflections on an American Obsession
Par Francesco Duina. 2010
Why winning doesn’t always lead to happinessMost of us are taught from a young age to be winners and avoid…
being losers. But what does it mean to win or lose? And why do we care so much? Does winning make us happy? Winning undertakes an unprecedented investigation of winning and losing in American society, what we are really after as we struggle to win, our collective beliefs about winners and losers, and much more.Francesco Duina argues that victory and loss are not endpoints or final destinations but gateways to something of immense importance to us: the affirmation of our place in the world. But Duina also shows that competition is unlikely to provide us with the answers we need. Winning and losing are artificial and logically flawed concepts that put us at odds with the world around us and, ultimately, ourselves. Duina explores the social and psychological effects of the language of competition in American culture.Primarily concerned with our shared obsessions about winning and losing, Winning proposes a new mind-set for how we can pursue our dreams, and, in a more satisfying way, find our proper place in the world.Heavenly Mathematics: The Forgotten Art of Spherical Trigonometry
Par 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.Agents of Apocalypse: Epidemic Disease in the Colonial Philippines
Par Ken De Bevoise. 1995
As waves of epidemic disease swept the Philippines in the late nineteenth century, some colonial physicians began to fear that…
the indigenous population would be wiped out. Many Filipinos interpreted the contagions as a harbinger of the Biblical Apocalypse. Though the direct forebodings went unfulfilled, Philippine morbidity and mortality rates were the world's highest during the period 1883-1903. In Agents of Apocalypse, Ken De Bevoise shows that those "mourning years" resulted from a conjunction of demographic, economic, technological, cultural, and political processes that had been building for centuries. The story is one of unintended consequences, fraught with tragic irony.De Bevoise uses the Philippine case study to explore the extent to which humans participate in creating their epidemics. Interpreting the archival record with conceptual guidance from the health sciences, he sets tropical disease in a historical framework that views people as interacting with, rather than acting within, their total environment. The complexity of cause-effect and agency-structure relationships is thereby highlighted. Readers from fields as diverse as Spanish, American, and Philippine history, medical anthropology, colonialism, international relations, Asian studies, and ecology will benefit from De Bevoise's insights into the interdynamics of historical processes that connect humans and their diseases.This book presents a comprehensive overview of the sum rule approach to spectral analysis of orthogonal polynomials, which derives from…
Gábor Szego's classic 1915 theorem and its 1920 extension. Barry Simon emphasizes necessary and sufficient conditions, and provides mathematical background that until now has been available only in journals. Topics include background from the theory of meromorphic functions on hyperelliptic surfaces and the study of covering maps of the Riemann sphere with a finite number of slits removed. This allows for the first book-length treatment of orthogonal polynomials for measures supported on a finite number of intervals on the real line. In addition to the Szego and Killip-Simon theorems for orthogonal polynomials on the unit circle (OPUC) and orthogonal polynomials on the real line (OPRL), Simon covers Toda lattices, the moment problem, and Jacobi operators on the Bethe lattice. Recent work on applications of universality of the CD kernel to obtain detailed asymptotics on the fine structure of the zeros is also included. The book places special emphasis on OPRL, which makes it the essential companion volume to the author's earlier books on OPUC.Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream
Par Chris Bail. 2014
In July 2010, Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fundamentalist church in Florida, announced plans to burn two hundred…
Qur'ans on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Though he ended up canceling the stunt in the face of widespread public backlash, his threat sparked violent protests across the Muslim world that left at least twenty people dead. In Terrified, Christopher Bail demonstrates how the beliefs of fanatics like Jones are inspired by a rapidly expanding network of anti-Muslim organizations that exert profound influence on American understanding of Islam.Bail traces how the anti-Muslim narrative of the political fringe has captivated large segments of the American media, government, and general public, validating the views of extremists who argue that the United States is at war with Islam and marginalizing mainstream Muslim-Americans who are uniquely positioned to discredit such claims. Drawing on cultural sociology, social network theory, and social psychology, he shows how anti-Muslim organizations gained visibility in the public sphere, commandeered a sense of legitimacy, and redefined the contours of contemporary debate, shifting it ever outward toward the fringe. Bail illustrates his pioneering theoretical argument through a big-data analysis of more than one hundred organizations struggling to shape public discourse about Islam, tracing their impact on hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, television transcripts, legislative debates, and social media messages produced since the September 11 attacks. The book also features in-depth interviews with the leaders of these organizations, providing a rare look at how anti-Muslim organizations entered the American mainstream.Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories
Par Federico Varese. 2011
"A compelling read and an impeccable work of reference."—John le CarréOrganized crime is spreading like a global virus as mobs…
take advantage of open borders to establish local franchises at will. That at least is the fear, inspired by stories of Russian mobsters in New York, Chinese triads in London, and Italian mafias throughout the West.As Federico Varese explains in this compelling and daring book, the truth is more complicated. Varese has spent years researching mafia groups in Italy, Russia, the United States, and China, and argues that mafiosi often find themselves abroad against their will, rather than through a strategic plan to colonize new territories. Once there, they do not always succeed in establishing themselves. Varese spells out the conditions that lead to their long-term success, namely sudden market expansion that is neither exploited by local rivals nor blocked by authorities. Ultimately the inability of the state to govern economic transformations gives mafias their opportunity.In a series of matched comparisons, Varese charts the attempts of the Calabrese 'Ndrangheta to move to the north of Italy, and shows how the Sicilian mafia expanded to early twentieth-century New York, but failed around the same time to find a niche in Argentina. He explains why the Russian mafia failed to penetrate Rome but succeeded in Hungary. In a pioneering chapter on China, he examines the challenges that triads from Taiwan and Hong Kong find in branching out to the mainland. Based on ground-breaking field work and filled with dramatic stories, this book is both a compelling read and a sober assessment of the risks posed by globalization and immigration for the spread of mafias.More than any other advanced industrial democracy, the United States is besieged by firearms violence. Each year, some 30,000 people…
die by gunfire. Over the course of its history, the nation has witnessed the murders of beloved public figures; massacres in workplaces and schools; and epidemics of gun violence that terrorize neighborhoods and claim tens of thousands of lives. Commanding majorities of Americans voice support for stricter controls on firearms. Yet they have never mounted a true national movement for gun control. Why? Disarmed unravels this paradox. Based on historical archives, interviews, and original survey evidence, Kristin Goss suggests that the gun control campaign has been stymied by a combination of factors, including the inability to secure patronage resources, the difficulties in articulating a message that would resonate with supporters, and strategic decisions made in the name of effective policy. The power of the so-called gun lobby has played an important role in hobbling the gun-control campaign, but that is not the entire story. Instead of pursuing a strategy of incremental change on the local and state levels, gun control advocates have sought national policies. Some 40% of state gun control laws predate the 1970s, and the gun lobby has systematically weakened even these longstanding restrictions. A compelling and engagingly written look at one of America's most divisive political issues, Disarmed illuminates the organizational, historical, and policy-related factors that constrain mass mobilization, and brings into sharp relief the agonizing dilemmas faced by advocates of gun control and other issues in the United States.Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method
Par Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, T. L. Taylor. 2013
A practical guide to the ethnographic study of online virtual worldsEthnography and Virtual Worlds is the only book of its…
kind—a concise, comprehensive, and practical guide for students, teachers, designers, and scholars interested in using ethnographic methods to study online virtual worlds, including both game and nongame environments. Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongameDraws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of WarcraftProvides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issuesGuides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research resultsAddresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnographyBirds of New Guinea: Second Edition (Princeton Field Guides #97)
Par 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
Par 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.Social Movement Discourse: An Introduction
Par Teun A. van Dijk. 2024
This is both the first systematic introduction to Discourse Studies for students and scholars of social movements and a study…
of discourses on the European “refugee crisis”, by leading theorist, Teun A. van Dijk.Concrete examples of different kinds of discourse are vital for the study of social movements because their activities are not limited to such well-known forms of contention as marches, occupations or strikes, but also daily discursive activities, such as meetings, assemblies, interviews, press conferences, manifestos, pamphlets, banners, graffiti, websites, blogs, social media posts and everyday talk.This book proposes that empirical analyses of these discourses should go beyond the popular but vague notion of “frame”and engage in more detailed and explicit analyses of the text and talk of social movements.This is a much-needed introduction to the most important structures of discourse and a detailed theoretical account of the notion of “solidarity” defining the Refugees Welcome movement.Property Valuation: The Five Methods
Par 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.Arendt and Heidegger: The Fate of the Political
Par Dana Villa. 1996
Theodor Adorno once wrote an essay to "defend Bach against his devotees." In this book Dana Villa does the same…
for Hannah Arendt, whose sweeping reconceptualization of the nature and value of political action, he argues, has been covered over and domesticated by admirers (including critical theorists, communitarians, and participatory democrats) who had hoped to enlist her in their less radical philosophical or political projects. Against the prevailing "Aristotelian" interpretation of her work, Villa explores Arendt's modernity, and indeed her postmodernity, through the Heideggerian and Nietzschean theme of a break with tradition at the closure of metaphysics. Villa's book, however, is much more than a mere correction of misinterpretations of a major thinker's work. Rather, he makes a persuasive case for Arendt as the postmodern or postmetaphysical political theorist, the first political theorist to think through the nature of political action after Nietzsche's exposition of the death of God (i.e., the collapse of objective correlates to our ideals, ends, and purposes). After giving an account of Arendt's theory of action and Heidegger's influence on it, Villa shows how Arendt did justice to the Heideggerian and Nietzschean criticism of the metaphysical tradition while avoiding the political conclusions they drew from their critiques. The result is a wide-ranging discussion not only of Arendt and Heidegger, but of Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Habermas, and the entire question of politics after metaphysics.Nature: An Economic History
Par 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)
Par 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 the autumn of 1912, C. G. Jung, then president of the International Psychoanalytic Association, set out his critique and…
reformulation of the theory of psychoanalysis in a series of lectures in New York, ideas that were to prove unacceptable to Freud, thus creating a schism in the Freudian school. Jung challenged Freud's understandings of sexuality, the origins of neuroses, dream interpretation, and the unconscious, and Jung also became the first to argue that every analyst should themselves be analyzed. Seen in the light of the subsequent reception and development of psychoanalysis, Jung's critiques appear to be strikingly prescient, while also laying the basis for his own school of analytical psychology. This volume of Jung's lectures includes an introduction by Sonu Shamdasani, Philemon Professor of Jung History at University College London, and editor of Jung's Red Book.Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring
Par Frances Rosenbluth, Michael F. Thies. 2010
With little domestic fanfare and even less attention internationally, Japan has been reinventing itself since the 1990s, dramatically changing its…
political economy, from one managed by regulations to one with a neoliberal orientation. Rebuilding from the economic misfortunes of its recent past, the country retains a formidable economy and its political system is healthier than at any time in its history. Japan Transformed explores the historical, political, and economic forces that led to the country's recent evolution, and looks at the consequences for Japan's citizens and global neighbors. The book examines Japanese history, illustrating the country's multiple transformations over the centuries, and then focuses on the critical and inexorable advance of economic globalization. It describes how global economic integration and urbanization destabilized Japan's postwar policy coalition, undercut the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's ability to buy votes, and paved the way for new electoral rules that emphasized competing visions of the public good. In contrast to the previous system that pitted candidates from the same party against each other, the new rules tether policymaking to the vast swath of voters in the middle of the political spectrum. Regardless of ruling party, Japan's politics, economics, and foreign policy are on a neoliberal path. Japan Transformed combines broad context and comparative analysis to provide an accurate understanding of Japan's past, present, and future.In 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.