This book deals with the theoretical and empirical questions of federalism in the context of five case studies: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. The central argument is that in the long run the political institutions of federalism adapt to achieve congruence with the underlying social structure. This change could be in the centralist direction reflecting ethno-linguistic homogeneity, or in decentralist terms corresponding to ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. In this context, the volume: fills a gap in the comparative federalism literature by analyzing the patterns of change and continuity in five federal systems of the industrial west, this is done by an in-depth empirical examination of the case studies through a single framework of analysis illustrates the shortcomings of new-institutionalist approaches in explaining change, highlighting the usefulness of society-based approaches in studying change and continuity in comparative politics. Explaining Federalism will be of interest to students and scholars of federalism, comparative government, comparative institutional analysis and comparative public policy.
This book deals with the theoretical and empirical questions of federalism in the context of five case studies: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. The central argument is that in the long run the political institutions of federalism adapt to achieve congruence with the underlying social structure. This change could be in the centralist direction reflecting ethno-linguistic homogeneity, or in decentralist terms corresponding to ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. In this context, the volume: fills a gap in the comparative federalism literature by analyzing the patterns of change and continuity in five federal systems of the industrial west, this is done by an in-depth empirical examination of the case studies through a single framework of analysis illustrates the shortcomings of new-institutionalist approaches in explaining change, highlighting the usefulness of society-based approaches in studying change and continuity in comparative politics. Explaining Federalism will be of interest to students and scholars of federalism, comparative government, comparative institutional analysis and comparative public policy.
This book offers an introduction to the key ideas, basic analysis, and efficient implementation of discontinuous Galerkin finite element methods (DG-FEM) for the solution of partial differential equations. It covers all key theoretical results, including an overview of relevant results from approximation theory, convergence theory for numerical PDE’s, and orthogonal polynomials. Through embedded Matlab codes, coverage discusses and implements the algorithms for a number of classic systems of PDE’s: Maxwell’s equations, Euler equations, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, and Poisson- and Helmholtz equations.
A fantastic collection of brand-new poems featuring a whole world of animals, birds and fish, including but not limited to penguins, cats, zebras, stick insects, dogs, salmon, crabs, giraffes, cows, eels, snails and lions, from two brilliant, funny and inspiring poets.
Does the territorial state organisation matter for effective policy making, and if so, in what way? So far, we know relatively little about its effects on policy making and policy outputs. Starting from the hypothesis that decentralised policy making has positive effects whereas federalism has a slightly negative impact on policy performance, this book systematically tests the independent and interdependent effects of different combinations of federal/unitary and decentralised/centralised structures of decision making and implementation. Based on a mixed methods design it first quantitatively tests the relationships for the OECD countries in cross-sectional as well as panel designs. In a second step, qualitative case studies are conducted for four countries: federal-centralised Austria, federal-decentralised Switzerland, unitary-decentralised Denmark, and unitary-centralised Ireland. The authors study two space-related policy areas, both with regard to the decision making and the implementation stage of the policy-making process: regional policy and transport policy.
This book describes applications of acridines for the treatment of various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and various prion diseases, and discusses the potential of acridines in neuro-regenerative medicine. Using modern data-mining software, it presents structures of acridines with nucleic acids and proteins and compares them with the native structures. Furthermore, the book presents modern methods of acridine synthesis, comparing them with the most useful conventional methods. Acridines interact with both nucleic acids and proteins, and due to their direct interactions with various enzymes, they can be suitable for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, immunological disorders, and protozoal diseases. The characteristic spectral properties of acridines can be employed in labeling proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and even cells and their compartments. Moreover, they can be applied in photodynamic therapy.
The aim of this study is to increase understanding of folk music within an historical, European framework, and to show the genre as a dynamic and changing art form. The book addresses a plethora of questions through its detailed examination of a wide range of music from vastly different national and cultural identities. It attempts to elucidate the connections between, and the varying development of, the music of peoples throughout Europe, firstly by examining the ways in which scholars of different ideological and artistic ambitions have collected, studied and performed folk music, then by investigating the relationship between folk and popular music. Jan Ling is Professor of Musicology at Göteborg University, Sweden.
Tissue Engineering is a comprehensive introduction to the engineering and biological aspects of this critical subject. With contributions from internationally renowned authors, it provides a broad perspective on tissue engineering for students coming to the subject for the first time. In addition to the key topics covered in the previous edition, this update also includes new material on the regulatory authorities, commercial considerations as well as new chapters on microfabrication, materiomics and cell/biomaterial interface. Effectively reviews major foundational topics in tissue engineering in a clear and accessible fashion Includes state of the art experiments presented in break-out boxes, chapter objectives, chapter summaries, and multiple choice questions to aid learning New edition contains material on regulatory authorities and commercial considerations in tissue engineering
Tissue Engineering is a comprehensive introduction to the engineering and biological aspects of this critical subject. With contributions from internationally renowned authors, it provides a broad perspective on tissue engineering for students and professionals who are developing their knowledge of this important topic. Key topics covered include stem cells; morphogenesis and cellular signaling; the extracellular matrix; biocompatibility; scaffold design and fabrication; controlled release strategies; bioreactors; tissue engineering of skin, cartilage, bone and organ systems; and ethical issues. Covers all the essentials from tissue homeostasis and biocompatibility to cardiovascular engineering and regulations 22 chapters from internationally recognized authors, provide a comprehensive introduction for engineers and life scientists, including biomedical engineers, chemical and process engineers, materials scientists, biologists and medical students Full colour throughout, with clear development of understanding through frequent examples, experimental approaches and the latest research and developments
The Harvey Society was founded in 1905 by thirteen New York scientists and physicians with the purpose of forging a "closer relationship between the purely practical side of medicine and the results of laboratory investigation." The Society distributes scientific knowledge in selected areas of anatomy, physiology, pathology, bacteriology, pharmacology, and physiological and pathological chemistry through public lectures, which are published annually. Series 94, 1998-1999 covers themes in neurogenetic studies, the role of tyrosine phosphorylation in cell growth and disease, the biology of the epidermis and its appendages, and the phenotypic diversity of monogenic disease.
Fascia in Sport and Movement, Second edition is a multi-author book with contributions from 51 leading teachers and practitioners across the entire spectrum of bodywork and movement professions. It provides professionals from all bodywork and movement specialisms with the most up-to-date information they need for success in teaching, training, coaching, strengthening, tackling injury, reducing pain, and improving mobility. The new edition has 21 new chapters, and chapters from the first edition have been updated with new research. This book is an essential resource for all bodywork professionals - sports coaches, fitness trainers, yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, dance teachers and manual therapists. It explains and demonstrates how an understanding of the structure and function of fascia can inform and improve your clinical practice. The book's unique strength lies in the breadth of its coverage, the expertise of its authorship and the currency of its research and practice base.
Protein synthesis is a fundamental aspect of gene expression across kingdoms. The regulation of translation is important for many biological processes including cell fate determination, development, and growth and is especially crucial to maintain cellular homeostasis during cellular stress and virus infection. Misregulation of protein translation can contribute to diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. In this chapter, we highlight the basic understanding of eukaryotic translation and the major regulations that control biological events. We focus on signaling pathways that regulate overall protein synthesis and also mechanisms that control translation of specific mRNAs such as cis-acting elements within the 5' and 3 untranslated regions (UTR). Understanding these mechanisms provide insights into the fundamental gene regulations that may provide new targets for combating disease and virus infections.
Fraud and manipulation in prediction markets are systematic results of incentive incompatibility, which, if present, have to be detected and balanced. ""Manipulations in Prediction Markets"" gives a critical insight into manipulations that are most likely to occur in prediction markets. In a general approach the book discusses the issue of incentives in markets and the breakdown of the incentive system. On this basis a new way of detecting irregular trading behaviour is introduced.
Aging has long been ascribed to the gradual accumulation of mutations in the genome. However, it is only recently that the necessary sophisticated technology has been developed to begin testing this theory and its consequences. This book reviews the concept of genomic instability as a possible universal cause of aging in complex organisms resulting from recent advances in functional genomics and systems biology.
This book presents a solution for direct and inverse heat conduction problems, discussing the theoretical basis for the heat transfer process and presenting selected theoretical and numerical problems in the form of exercises with solutions. The book covers one-, two- and three dimensional problems which are solved by using exact and approximate analytical methods and numerical methods. An accompanying CD-Rom includes computational solutions of the examples and extensive FORTRAN code.
An illuminating new biography of one of the most beloved of all composers, published on the hundredth anniversary of his death, brilliantly written by a finalist for the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award. Johannes Brahms has consistently eluded his biographers. Throughout his life, he attempted to erase traces of himself, wanting his music to be his sole legacy. Now, in this masterful book, Jan Swafford, critically acclaimed as both biographer and composer, takes a fresh look at Brahms, giving us for the first time a fully realized portrait of the man who created the magnificent music. Brahms was a man with many friends and no intimates, who experienced triumphs few artists achieve in their lifetime. Yet he lived with a relentless loneliness and a growing fatalism about the future of music and the world. The Brahms that emerges from these pages is not the bearded eminence of previous biographies but rather a fascinating assemblage of contradictions. Brought up in poverty, he was forced to play the piano in the brothels of Hamburg, where he met with both mental and physical abuse. At the same time, he was the golden boy of his teachers, who found themselves in awe of a stupendous talent: a miraculous young composer and pianist, poised between the emotionalism of the Romantics and the rigors of the composers he worshipped--Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. In 1853, Robert Schumann proclaimed the twenty-year-old Brahms the savior of German music. Brahms spent the rest of his days trying to live up to that prophecy, ever fearful of proving unworthy of his musical inheritance. We find here more of Brahms's words, his daily life and joys and sorrows, than in any other biography. With novelistic grace, Swafford shows us a warm-blooded but guarded genius who hid behind jokes and prickliness, rudeness and intractability with his friends as well as his enemies, but who was also a witty drinking companion and a consummate careerist skillfully courting the powerful. This is a book rich in secondary characters as well, including Robert Schumann, declining into madness as he hailed the advent of a new genius; Clara Schumann, the towering pianist, tormented personality, and great love of Brahms's life; Josef Joachim, the brilliant, self-lacerating violinist; the extraordinary musical amateur Elisabet von Herzogenberg, on whose exacting criticism Brahms relied; Brahms's rival and shadow, the malevolent genius Richard Wagner; and Eduard Hanslick, enemy of Wagner and apostle of Brahms, at once the most powerful and most wrongheaded music critic of his time. Among the characters in the book are two great cities: the stolid North German harbor town of Hamburg where Johannes grew up, which later spurned him; and glittering, fickle, music-mad Vienna, where Brahms the self-proclaimed vagabond finally settled, to find his sweetest triumphs and his most bitter failures. Unique to this book is the way in which musical scholarship and biography are combined: in a style refreshingly free of pretentiousness, Jan Swafford takes us deep into the music--from the grandeur of the First Symphony and the intricacies of the chamber work to the sorrow of the German Requiem--allowing us to hear these familiar works in new and often surprising ways. This is a clear-eyed study of a remarkable man and a vivid portrait of an era in transition. Ultimately, Johannes Brahms is the story of a great, backward-looking artist who inspired musical revolutionaries of the following generations, yet who was no less a prophet of the darkness and violence of our century. A biographical masterpiece at once wholly original and definitive.
Everything you need to know about the sleep-regulating hormone melatonin! We've always been told maintaining a healthy sleep cycle is of utmost importance to your day-to-day health. But have we ever been told why? Anyone familiar with chronobiology (the science of natural physiological rhythms) knows that the hormone melatonin is the foundation hormone for the circadian rhythm research. In fact, melatonin and sleep research is one of the most fundamental and best-known rhythms in the human body. Disturbance of the melatonin cycle due to any reason interferes with the sleep/wake cycle, which ultimately leads to a number of other neurobehavioral and psychological problems. Due to the widespread misuse of light at night, modern societies no longer hold a clear distinction between day and night. This increase in light pollution at night interferes with the ability of the pineal gland to produce and disperse melatonin properly. As a result, either no or a severely dampened melatonin rhythm exists in individuals exposed to artificial light during the normal dark hours, which includes most people living in cities and in all individuals who work at night. This suppression of a distinct melatonin rhythm and all other biological cycles represents a serious perturbation of the biological clock of many organs, contributing to pathophysiology. Dr. Fauteck also addresses the impact of proper supplemental melatonin and various studies and research done on the topic. Melatonin has been widely used to correct problems of sleep disorders, and while this book looks into that research further and breaks down the impact of melatonin and sleep, it also addresses research that addresses melatonin use for its ability to regulate the circadian clock in general and impact other areas of health such oxidative stress, neuropsychiatric disorders, headaches, chronic pain, digestion, diabetes, fertility, pregnancy, cancer, and many age-related diseases. In this book, Dr. Fauteck summarizes critical information related to the necessity of maintaining regular biological rhythms and describes the pathological consequences of circadian rhythm disturbances. He provides a clear description of how melatonin is produced and secreted, how the prevailing artificially imposed light/dark cycle can disturb its rhythm, and how this translates into other potential pathologies.
This volume deals with the redaction history of the Book of Micah vis-à-vis the alternation of the oracles of judgement and the oracles of salvation in chapters 2-5. The first part of the book offers a brief discussion of the most important hypotheses to account for the alternation of doom and hope that have been put forward over the last three or four decades: the composition model, the dialogue model and the redaction-historical model. The second part of the book offers a detailed study of the text of Micah 2-5 followed by a thorough analysis of the form and literary development of the individual pericopes. The study is concluded by a fresh presentation of the redaction history of the Book of Micah.
This book helps students, researchers, and practicing engineers to understand the theoretical framework of control and system theory for discrete-time stochastic systems so that they can then apply its principles to their own stochastic control systems and to the solution of control, filtering, and realization problems for such systems. Applications of the theory in the book include the control of ships, shock absorbers, traffic and communications networks, and power systems with fluctuating power flows. The focus of the book is a stochastic control system defined for a spectrum of probability distributions including Bernoulli, finite, Poisson, beta, gamma, and Gaussian distributions. The concepts of observability and controllability of a stochastic control system are defined and characterized. Each output process considered is, with respect to conditions, represented by a stochastic system called a stochastic realization. The existence of a control law is related to stochastic controllability while the existence of a filter system is related to stochastic observability. Stochastic control with partial observations is based on the existence of a stochastic realization of the filtration of the observed process.
Presenting an overview of the use of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) within buildings, this book discusses the performance of PCM-enhanced building envelopes. It reviews the most common PCMs suitable for building applications, and discusses PCM encapsulation and packaging methods. In addition to this, it examines a range of PCM-enhanced building products in the process of development as well as examples of whole-building-scale field demonstrations. Further chapters discuss experimental and theoretical analyses (including available software) to determine dynamic thermal and energy performance characteristics of building enclosure components containing PCMs, and present different laboratory and field testing methods. Finally, a wide range of PCM building products are presented which are commercially available worldwide. This book is intended for students and researchers of mechanical, architectural and civil engineering and postgraduate students of energy analysis, dynamic design of building structures, and dynamic testing procedures. It also provides a useful resource for professionals involved in architectural and mechanical-civil engineering design, thermal testing and PCM manufacturing.
This advanced historical linguistics course book deals with the historical and comparative study of African languages. The first part functions as an elementary introduction to the comparative method, involving the establishment of lexical and grammatical cognates, the reconstruction of their historical development, techniques for the subclassification of related languages, and the use of language-internal evidence, more specifically the application of internal reconstruction. Part II addresses language contact phenomena and the status of language in a wider, cultural-historical and ecological context. Part III deals with the relationship between comparative linguistics and other disciplines. In this rich course book, the author presents valuable views on a number of issues in the comparative study of African languages, more specifically concerning genetic diversity on the African continent, the status of pidginised and creolised languages, language mixing, and grammaticalisation.
In Early Arsakid Parthia (ca. 250-165 B.C.): At the Crossroads of Iranian, Hellenistic, and Central Asian History, Marek Jan Olbrycht depicts the early Arsakid Parthian state in northeastern Iran and Turkmenistan within the broader historical context of Western and Central Asia in the post-Achaemenid/Hellenistic period.
This volume is divided into four sections: late medieval devotion in the Netherlands; medieval Christian pilgrimage; the medieval cult of St. James the Great and Erasmiana. Variety and coherence sound the keynote in the title and the contents of the book. Religious concepts and expressions of religious faith such as pilgrimages and indulgences are representative of late-medieval Christianity. In this book they refer specifically to the medieval cult of St. James the Great, while for Erasmus they were an object of his critical consideration. The whole book can be read in the light of the debate about the tension between an appreciation for outward signs of faith, and the inward experience of religious belief, which Erasmus considered an absolute necessity.
This second volume of Analysis in Banach Spaces, Probabilistic Methods and Operator Theory, is the successor to Volume I, Martingales and Littlewood-Paley Theory. It presents a thorough study of the fundamental randomisation techniques and the operator-theoretic aspects of the theory. The first two chapters address the relevant classical background from the theory of Banach spaces, including notions like type, cotype, K-convexity and contraction principles. In turn, the next two chapters provide a detailed treatment of the theory of R-boundedness and Banach space valued square functions developed over the last 20 years. In the last chapter, this content is applied to develop the holomorphic functional calculus of sectorial and bi-sectorial operators in Banach spaces. Given its breadth of coverage, this book will be an invaluable reference to graduate students and researchers interested in functional analysis, harmonic analysis, spectral theory, stochastic analysis, and the operator-theoretic approach to deterministic and stochastic evolution equations.
Main description: The present work is the first in-depth cross-linguistic study on loan verbs and the morphological, syntactic and sociolinguistic aspects of loan verb accommodation, investigating claims that verbs generally are more difficult to borrow than other parts of speech, or that verbs could not be borrowed as verbs and needed a re-verbalization in the borrowing language.
At some point, in our lives, most of us will question who, what and why we are. PG and the Great I AM addresses those questions through the story of a young squirrel who goes through experiences similar to those of the human fledgling or even adult, for that matter. Sometimes humorous sometimes adventurous but always searching for the One thing to give him the answer he seeks. Other species offer their answers to only frighten or confuse PG and, just as he was about to give up, the answer comes. Enjoy the trip with PG as he searches and finds that the answer has always been right there inside him. The Author hopes this story will entertain and enlighten children of all ages and those who read this book will be able to find the Great I AM within themselves.
This first of three volumes starts with a short introduction to historical metrology as a scientific discipline and goes on with an anthology of acient and modern measurement systems of all kind, scientific measures, units of time, weights, currencies etc. It concludes with an exhaustive list of references. Units of measurement are of vital importance in every civilization through history. Since the early ages, man has through necessity devised various measures to assist him in everyday life. They have enabled and continue to enable us to trade in commonly and equitably understood amounts, and to investigate, understand, and control the chemical, physical, and biological processes of the natural world. The essence of the work is an alphabetically ordered, comprehensive list of measurement nomenclature, units and scales. It provides an understanding of almost all quantitative expressions observed in all imaginable situations, including spelling variants and the abbreviations and symbols for units, and various acronyms used in metrology. It will be of use not only to historians of science and technology, but also to economic and social historians and should be in every major academic and national library as standard reference work on the topic.
This book is based on research that, to a large extent, started around 1990, when a research project on fluid flow in stochastic reservoirs was initiated by a group including some of us with the support of VISTA, a research coopera tion between the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and Den norske stats oljeselskap A.S. (Statoil). The purpose of the project was to use stochastic partial differential equations (SPDEs) to describe the flow of fluid in a medium where some of the parameters, e.g., the permeability, were stochastic or "noisy". We soon realized that the theory of SPDEs at the time was insufficient to handle such equations. Therefore it became our aim to develop a new mathematically rigorous theory that satisfied the following conditions. 1) The theory should be physically meaningful and realistic, and the corre sponding solutions should make sense physically and should be useful in applications. 2) The theory should be general enough to handle many of the interesting SPDEs that occur in reservoir theory and related areas. 3) The theory should be strong and efficient enough to allow us to solve th,~se SPDEs explicitly, or at least provide algorithms or approximations for the solutions.
Trains pull into a railroad station and must wait for each other before leaving again in order to let passengers change trains. How do mathematicians then calculate a railroad timetable that accurately reflects their comings and goings? One approach is to use max-plus algebra, a framework used to model Discrete Event Systems, which are well suited to describe the ordering and timing of events. This is the first textbook on max-plus algebra, providing a concise and self-contained introduction to the topic. Applications of max-plus algebra abound in the world around us. Traffic systems, computer communication systems, production lines, and flows in networks are all based on discrete even systems, and thus can be conveniently described and analyzed by means of max-plus algebra. The book consists of an introduction and thirteen chapters in three parts. Part One explores the introduction of max-plus algebra and of system descriptions based upon it. Part Two deals with a real application, namely the design of timetables for railway networks. Part Three examines various extensions, such as stochastic systems and min-max-plus systems. The text is suitable for last-year undergraduates in mathematics, and each chapter provides exercises, notes, and a reference section.
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