Essential Fish Biology provides an introductory overview of the functional biology of fish and how this may be affected by the widely contrasting habitat conditions within the aquatic environment. It describes the recent advances in comparative animal physiology which have greatly influenced our understanding of fish function as well as generating questions that have yet to be resolved. Fish taxa represent the largest number of vertebrates,with over 25,000 extant species. However, much of our knowledge, apart from taxonomy and habitat descriptions, has been based on relatively few of them, usually those which live in fresh water and/or are ofcommercial interest. Unfortunately there has also been a tendency to base our interpretation of fish physiology on that of mammalian systems, as well as to rely on a few type species of fish. This accessible textbook will redress the balance by using examples of fish from a wide range of species and habitats, emphasizing diversity as well as recognizing shared attributes with other vertebrates.
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed, taking the Cold War down with it. The next twelve years passed in a haze of self-congratulation, Republican confusion, and angst, and economic prosperity -- until they ended abruptly with a stunning catastrophe on September 11, 2001. In America Between The Wars, Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier blend deep expertise with broad access to both parties' political and policy establishments to find out how -- and why -- America failed to recognize that when we became the sole superpower with responsibility for the world's oversight, we overlooked how the new world actually worked.
Speculative science fiction, with its underlying socio-political dialogue, represents an important intersection of popular culture and public discourse. As a pop culture text, the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars offers critical commentary on contemporary issues, marking a moment of interplay whereby author and audience come together in what Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin called collaborative meaning making. This book critically examines the series as a voice in the political dialogues concerning human cloning, torture, just war theory, peace and drone warfare.
Describes how President Obama has changed and improved the course of American foreign policy through the way he approached difficult global challenges including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, turbulence in Syria and the rise of ISIS, "--NoveList.
AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ are the latest in a string of blunders that includes Vietnam and an unintended war with China from 1950 to ’53, those four fiascoes being just the worst moments in nearly a lifetime of false urgencies, intelligence failures, grandiose designs, and stereotyping of enemies and allies alike. America brought down the Soviet empire at the cold war’s most dangerous juncture, but even that victory was surrounded by myths, such as the conviction that we can easily shape the destinies of other people. Magic and Mayhem is a strikingly original, closely informed investigation of two generations of America’s avoidable failures. In a perfectly timed narrative, Derek Leebaert reveals the common threads in these serial letdowns and in the consequences that await. He demonstrates why the most enterprising and innovative nation in history keeps mishandling its gravest politico-military dealings abroad and why well-credentialed men and women, deemed brilliant when they arrive in Washington, consistently end up leading the country into folly. Misjudgments of this scale arise from a pattern of self-deception best described as "magical thinking." When we think magically, we conjure up beliefs that everyone wants to be like us, that America can accomplish anything out of sheer righteousness, and that our own wizardly policymakers will enable gigantic desires like "transforming the Middle East" to happen fast. Mantras of "stability" or "democracy" get substituted for reasoned reflection. Faith is placed in high-tech silver bullets, whether drones over Pakistan or helicopters in Vietnam. Leebaert exposes these magical notions by using new archival material, exclusive interviews, his own insider experiences, and portraits of the men and women who have succumbed: George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and George W. Bush all appear differently in the light of magic, as do wise men from Harvard, Georgetown, Stanford, and think tanks such as RAND and Brookings, as well as influential players from the media and, occasionally, the military, including General David Petraeus as he personifies the nation’s latest forays into counterinsurgency. Magic and Mayhem offers vital insights as to how Americans imagine, confront, and even invite danger. Only by understanding the power of illusion can we break the spell, and then better apply America’s enduring strengths in a world that will long need them.
How our colleges and universities can respond to the changing hopes and needs of society In recent decades, cognitive psychologists have cast new light on human development and given colleges new possibilities for helping students acquire skills and qualities that will enhance their lives and increase their contributions to society. In this landmark book, Derek Bok explores how colleges can reap the benefits of these discoveries and create a more robust undergraduate curriculum for the twenty-first century. Prior to this century, most psychologists thought that creativity, empathy, resilience, conscientiousness, and most personality traits were largely fixed by early childhood. What researchers have now discovered is that virtually all of these qualities continue to change through early adulthood and often well beyond. Such findings suggest that educators may be able to do much more than was previously thought possible to teach students to develop these important characteristics and thereby enable them to flourish in later life. How prepared are educators to cultivate these qualities of mind and behavior? What do they need to learn to capitalize on the possibilities? Will college faculties embrace these opportunities and make the necessary changes in their curricula and teaching methods? What can be done to hasten the process of innovation and application? In providing answers to these questions, Bok identifies the hurdles to institutional change, proposes sensible reforms, and demonstrates how our colleges can help students lead more successful, productive, and meaningful lives.
Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on "living linguistic fossils" such as "ape talk," the "two-word" stage of small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive "protolanguage" could have offered Homo erectus a novel ecological niche. He goes on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into the languages we speak today. "You are drawn into [Bickerton's] appreciation of the dominant role language plays not only in what we say, but in what we think and, therefore, what we are."—Robert Wright, New York Times Book Review "The evolution of language is a fascinating topic, and Bickerton's Language and Species is the best introduction we have."—John C. Marshall, Nature
“What this book proposes to do,” writes Derek Bickerton, “is to stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its head: instead of the human species growing clever enough to invent language, it will view that species as blundering into language and, as a direct result of that, becoming clever.” According to Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is the result of the rapid growth and unusual size of human brains. Bickerton argues that each of the properties distinguishing human intelligence and consciousness from that of other animals can be shown to derive straightforwardly from properties of language. In essence, language arose as a representational system, not a means of communication or a skill, and not a product of culture but an evolutionary adaptation. The author stresses the necessity of viewing intelligence in evolutionary terms, seeing it not as problem solving but as a way of maintaining homeostasis—the preservation of those conditions most favorable to an organism, the optimal achievable conditions for survival and well-being. Nonhumans practice what he calls “on-line thinking” to maintain homeostasis, but only humans can employ off-line thinking: “only humans can assemble fragments of information to form a pattern that they can later act upon without having to wait on that great but unpunctual teacher, experience.” The term protolanguage is used to describe the stringing together of symbols that prehuman hominids employed. “It did not allow them to turn today’s imagination into tomorrow’s fact. But it is just this power to transform imagination into fact that distinguishes human behavior from that of our ancestral species, and indeed from that of all other species. It is exactly what enables us to change our behavior, or invent vast ranges of new behavior, practically overnight, with no concomitant genetic changes.” Language and Human Behavior should be of interest to anyone in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences and to all those concerned with the role of language in human behavior.
The "Great White Fleet" was sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 and consisted of sixteen new battleships of the Atlantic Fleet. The battleships were painted white except for gilded scrollwork on their bows, hence the nickname. When word was received of an earthquake in Sicily, thus affording an opportunity for the United States to show friendship to Italy by offering aid to the sufferers, President Roosevelt sent the American fleet in response. These simple historical facts led author Derek Hart to conduct extensive research into the lives and duties of the USS Illinois, the officers, crew, and especially the contingent of US Marines on board. Between 5:20 and 5:30 AM on December 28, 1908, the Monday after Christmas weekend, a major earthquake and tsunami (tidal wave) totally destroyed Messina (pop. 150,000), Reggio Calabria (pop. 50,000), and dozens of nearby towns. With about 100,000 fatalities in total, this was the deadliest earthquake in European history. Even larger numbers were left injured or homeless, losing everything. In the most severely affected towns, roughly half the population perished, with most victims either entombed in the rubble of their homes or struck down in the streets by collapsing three to five-story buildings. This disaster was the building block for Derek Hart's grand romantic adventure, as US Marine Corps Captain Richard Danforth is thrust into the middle of a relief expedition to assist earthquake survivors. Little does he know that this mission will lead to murder, intrigue, the heist of an enormous fortune of gold, and of course, falling in love with local teacher Maria Vitale. The lengths to which these young lovers go to realize their dreams together are what adventures are made of and Flag of Her Choosing is no exception.
Debates on security became more intense following the unanticipated end of the Cold War conflict and took on added force after the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Generally viewed as a part of the wider 'West' despite its separation by enormous geographical distances from both Europe and the United States, Australia is a regional power in its own right. It has been an active and loyal member of the US-led coalitions of the willing, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. The terrorist attacks in Bali one year after the attacks in the United States brought home to Australia the direct nature of the new global terrorist threats to its own security. This volume brings together leading experts on international security and Australia's foreign and security policies in a critical examination of Australia's adaptations to the new security challenges. It is the first in-depth and comprehensive analysis of Australia's defence and security policies as well as the country's role in countering regional and global challenges to international security since the war on terrorism began.
Whether it was organizing Canada's first G-7 Summit or concluding the Free Trade Agreement, Derek Burney fused politics, public policy, and diplomacy into a fine art. His tenure as chief of staff to Brian Mulroney is often cited as a model of how the Prime Minister's Office should work. As Canada's ambassador to the United States from 1989-1993 he had an insider's perspective on ways in which Canada manages, and sometimes mismanages, it relationship with the world's superpower. His career in Canada's foreign service spanned three decades, with assignments in Japan and Korea, and he served in Ottawa as deputy minister." "In a candid memoir, Burney paints a vivid picture of leading politicians, including Pierre Trudeau using an off-colour joke to break the ice with Ronald Reagan, Colin Powell becoming upset about Canadian concerns over collateral damage in the first Gulf War, and George Bush Sr. chafing at the excessive European flavour of G-7 summits."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In The Middle Way, Derek Chollet identifies the surprising similarities in foreign policy leadership among three consequential and widely-admired presidents: Dwight Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama. The Middle Way unpacks how these leaders navigated foreign policy challenges through a measured, even-handed, and pragmatic approach. Tied together by history, their common outlooks, experiences, and struggles bear special relevance giventhe current levels of polarization in America. At a moment when many Americans are deeply worried about America's role in the world, this book reveals an inspiring history that can guide us forward.
A neuroscientist and a linguist show how evolution could have given rise to structured language. A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying the language specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents. Linguists such as Noam Chomsky talk about machinelike "modules" in the brain for syntax, arguing that language is more an instinct (a complex behavior triggered by simple environmental stimuli) than an acquired skill like riding a bicycle. But structured language presents the same evolutionary problems as feathered forelimbs for flight: you need a lot of specializations to fly even a little bit. How do you get them, if evolution has no foresight and the intermediate stages do not have intermediate payoffs? Some say that the Darwinian scheme for gradual species self-improvement cannot explain our most valued human capability, the one that sets us so far above the apes, language itself. William Calvin and Derek Bickerton suggest that other evolutionary developments, not directly related to language, allowed language to evolve in a way that eventually promoted a Chomskian syntax. They compare these intermediate behaviors to the curb-cuts originally intended for wheelchair users. Their usefulness was soon discovered by users of strollers, shopping carts, rollerblades, and so on. The authors argue that reciprocal altruism and ballistic movement planning were "curb-cuts" that indirectly promoted the formation of structured language. Written in the form of a dialogue set in Bellagio, Italy, Lingua ex Machina presents an engaging challenge to those who view the human capacity for language as a winner-take-all war between Chomsky and Darwin.
Conquering the Electron offers readers a true and engaging history of the world of electronics, beginning with the discoveries of static electricity and magnetism and ending with the creation of the smartphone and the iPad. This book shows the interconnection of each advance to the next on the long journey to our modern-day technologies. Exploring the combination of genius, infighting, and luck that powered the creation of today's electronic age, Conquering the Electron debunks the hero worship so often plaguing the stories of great advances. Want to know how AT&T’s Bell Labs developed semiconductor technology—and how its leading scientists almost came to blows in the process? Want to understand how radio and television work—and why RCA drove their inventors to financial ruin and early graves? Conquering the Electron offers these stories and more, presenting each revolutionary technological advance right alongside blow-by-blow personal battles that all too often took place.
Drawing on a body of empirical evidence, this book examines how much progress college students actually make toward widely accepted goals of undergraduate education. It describes the changes that faculties and academic leaders can make to help students accomplish more.
“A compelling combination of literate storytelling and action-packed thriller laced with humor.” — Library Journal (starred review) Finalist for the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year 1991: One hundred miles from the Kuwaiti border, Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a British journalist who reports from war zones in part to avoid his lackluster marriage and a daughter he loves but cannot connect with; Arwood is an American private who might be an insufferable ignoramus or might be a genuine lunatic with a death wish—it's hard to tell. Desert Storm is over, peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both. Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she? “Swift, gripping, and mined with surprises…Arwood Hobbes is as intriguing an operative as Graham Greene's quiet American, but without the quiet.”—David Shafer, author of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot “[A] stellar, electrifying story with a knockout ending.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A penetrating, poetic, and unexpectedly disarming book about the ageless conflict in the Middle East.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “A Catch-22 for the twenty-first century.”—Madison Smartt Bell, National Book Award finalist and author of All Souls' Rising
How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than any hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, set humans outside normal evolution. Darwin thought use of language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but this remained an intriguing guess--until now. Combining state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking about language origins, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a crucial problem that biology and the cognitive sciences have systematically avoided. Before language or advanced cognition could be born, humans had to escape the prison of the here and now in which animal thinking and communication were both trapped. Then the brain's self-organization, triggered by words, assembled mechanisms that could link not only words but the concepts those words symbolized--a process that had to be under conscious control. Those mechanisms could be used equally for thinking and for talking, but the skeletal structures they produced were suboptimal for the hearer and had to be elaborated. Starting from humankind's remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary synthesis that shows specifically and in a principled way how and why the synthesis came about.
This lively and stimulating book looks at some of the myths and realities surrounding Britain's legendary enthusiasm for sport; and aims to chronicle how sporting traditions were shaped and how they, in turn, contributed to the shaping of British social conventions and attitudes.
This work analyzes the strategic underpinnings of US defense strategy and foreign policy since 1945. Primarily intended to be a supplemental textbook, it explains how the United States became a superpower, examines the formation of the national security establishment, and explores the inter-relationship between foreign policy, defense strategy, and commercial interests. It differs from most of the existing teaching texts because its emphasis is not on narrating the history of US foreign policy or explaining the policymaking process. Instead, the emphasis is on identifying drivers and continuities in US national security interests and policy, and it has a special emphasis on developing a greater understanding of the intertwined nature of foreign and defense policies. The book will conclude by examining how the legacy of the last sixty-five years impacts future developments, the prospect for change, and what US national security policy may look like in the future.
First published in 1999. Detailed accounts of major ant-road campaigns, both in the UK and internationally, are included, describing confrontations at Twyford, Newbury, Glasgow and the Autobahn in Germany, as well as information on the globalisation of Earth First!, with details of protests in Australia, Ireland, Germany, France, Holland, Eastern Europe and North America. Earth Fist! and the Anti-Roads Movement traces the origins of the movement and the history of anti-roads activism in Britain since the 1880s. Showing how green social and political theory can be linked to practical struggles for environmental and social change, Derek Wall investigates key topics of political and sociological interest.
This book explores the ways in which television has engaged directly and indirectly with the new realities of the post-9/11 world. It offers detailed analysis of a number of key programmes and series that engage with, or are haunted by, the aftermath of the events of September 11 in the USA and what is unavoidably through problematically and contentiously referred to as the resulting ‘war on terror’. The substantive part of the book is a series of independent chapters, each written on a different topic and considering different programmes. It includes series and single dramas representing the invasion of Iraq (The Mark of Cain, Occupation and Generation Kill), comedic representations (Gary, Tank Commander), documentary (the BBC Panorama’s coverage of 9/11), ‘what if’ docudramas (Dirty War), 9/11 in popular series (CSI:NY) and representations of Tony Blair in drama and docudrama. The book concludes with an extended reflection on contemporary docudrama and an interview with filmmaker and docudramatist Peter Kosminsky.
This study offers an explicit theory of media pressure - what it is, how it works, how it can be measured - based in part on the 'positioning theory' in discursive psychology. This offers the first independent and comparative history and analysis of media pressure vs. coverage, through the lens of the insurrection against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
One of the world's leading researchers into the evolution of language argues that the acquisition of words changed the structure of early human's brains, which set into motion the limitless creativity that allowed people to make the world that exists today.
Fed up with business as usual, Californians recalled Governor Gray Davis in 2003 and replaced him with a celebrity who pledged to clean up government. The Recall's Broken Promise details how Arnold Schwarzenegger then shattered political fundraising records, attacked campaign finance laws, crossed ethical boundaries, and how politicians of both parties have killed needed reforms.
This new textbook is the definitive evidence-based resource for pediatric critical care. It is the first ostensibly evidence-based pediatric critical care textbook and will prove an invaluable resource for critical care professionals across the globe.
Occupational hazards have plagued human civilisation since time immemorial and much of the progress in making workplaces safer is reflected by, and recorded in, the academic periodicals of environmental and occupational health. As a result, careful examination of these journals provides an interesting record of the field itself, as well as documenting the concerns and issues deemed important by editorial boards and contributors over time. 'Derek Smith has established himself as a pioneer in analyzing the literature of environmental and occupational health. Thanks to his fine work, we may use this resource to understand both the history of EOH for its own sake and the dynamics of publishing in one medium-sized, but largely self-contained, scientific field.' Tee L. Guidotti
Techniques on facial reconstruction are presented with videos demonstrating many of the procedures. Topics include: 3D imaging and modeling for treatment planning in facial trauma; Intraoperative Use of CT Imaging; Contemporary management of traumatic fractures of the frontal sinus; Surgical treatment of traumatic injuries of the cranial base; Surgical management of complex mid facial fractures; Current management of condylar and subcondylar fractures; Management of Pediatric mandible fractures; Management of dental injuries associated with maxillomandibular trauma; Injuries of the eye and periorbital structures; Managing the facial nerve after trauma; Reconstruction of the avulsed auricle after trauma; Secondary repair of acquired enophthalmos; Secondary management of telecanthus; Improving post traumatic facial scars; Potential application of Face transplantation in massive traumatic tissue loss; Potential application of autologous free tissue transfer in massive traumatic tissue loss. Guest Editors leading this publication are Kofi Boahene of Johns Hopkins, whose practice and teaching encompasses corrective surgery for congenital facial defects, cleft lip and palate repair, craniofacial surgery, minimally invasive and endoscopic skull base surgery, microsurgery, reconstruction of cancer patients and extensive post-traumatic deformities, among others and Anthony Brissett of Baylor University, whose research and teaching include craniofacial surgery and wound healing, among other reconstructive and cosmetic surgeries.
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