An urgent defense of reason, the essential method for resolving—or even discussing—divisive issues: “A timely masterpiece.”—Patricia S. Churchland, author of Touching a Nerve Reason, long held as the highest human achievement, is under siege. According to Aristotle, the capacity for reason sets us apart from other animals, yet today it has ceased to be a universally admired faculty. Rationality and reason have become political, disputed concepts, subject to easy dismissal. Julian Baggini argues eloquently that we must recover our reason and reassess its proper place, neither too highly exalted nor completely maligned. Rationality does not require a cold, sterile worldview—it simply involves the application of critical thinking wherever thinking is needed. Addressing such major areas of debate as religion, science, politics, psychology, and economics, the author calls for commitment to the notion of a “community of reason,” where disagreements are settled by debate and discussion, not brute force or political power. Baggini’s insightful book celebrates the power of reason, our best hope—indeed our only hope—for dealing with the intractable quagmires of our time. “The toxic gloating of ‘gut feelings,’ hateful politics and heart-over-head attacks on good sense urgently need an antidote. Baggini has risen to the occasion…compelling.”—Patricia S. Churchland, author of Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition
Edge explores the construct of reflexivity in teacher education, differentiating it from, while locating it in, reflective practice, and introduces a framework (Copying, Applying, Theorising, Reflecting, Acting) to help teacher educators become reflexive professionals.
Look for that extra chance! Chess champion Bobby Fischer once said: "You have found a good move--fine--now look for a better one." The same advice holds true in bridge. If you settle for second best, you will not achieve your full potential. Through a series of problems that are both fresh and a genuine test of skill, this book offers you the chance to become accustomed to looking for that extra edge. Whether or not you find the best answers first time round, you will surely develop new ways of thinking to strengthen your game."--Back cover.
This evocative, moving, and gorgeously detailed novel is the story of Alex Soberano, a contemporary man in crisis. A tremendously successful New York businessman, Alex finds it difficult to embrace joy and accept love. When his life threatens to boil over, he escapes for a brief respite on the West Coast. What waits for him there is something he never could have imagined. Intertwined with Alex's story are the stories of three people from different times and places whose lives affect him in surprising ways: * A woman from the South American city of Anhelo in 1928 that everyone knows as "Vidente." For decades, Vidente, has been one of Anhelo's most celebrated citizens because she has the ability to read colors that speak of a person's fate. However, during one such reading, she sees her own future - a future that includes her imminent death. * A man named Khaled who left his home in Bethlehem in 1920 to seek fortune in the South American town of Joya de la Costa. He has barely begun to gain a foothold when he learns that the wife and three children he left behind have been murdered. When a magical woman enters his life, he believes that destiny has smiled on him. However, destiny has only just begun to deal with Khaled. * A nineteen-year-old student named Dro who flies from the South American country of Legado to Boston in 1985 and immediately walks onto the campus of MIT expecting instant admission. Dro's skills at mastering complex, ever-changing differential equations intrigues the associate admissions director. However, the person he intrigues the most is the celebrated US ambassador from his country, and his relationship with her will define his life. How the stories of these four people merge is the central mystery of this arresting work of imagination. THE EDGE OF THE WORLD is a story that will sweep you up in its magic, enrich you with its wisdom, and compel you with its deep humanity.
[Includes 26 charts, 4 maps, 31 tables and 48 illustrations] "This monograph focuses on the use of analysis in combat operations and concentrates on the utilization of techniques in situations with which the authors were personally familiar. It covers primarily the systematic blending of military judgment, data collection, and simple problem solving techniques as utilized in the 9th Infantry Division and II Field Force, Vietnam in 1968, 1969 and 1970. The approach is rather tentative because it was not possible in many cases to determine exactly what factors made the operations go so well. Rather we have laid out the most important and interesting factors in the hopes that the readers will be stimulated and perhaps decide for themselves what the critical points were. Fortunately, a large amount of basic data was available to support the manuscript. On the other hand, some basic data has been lost. In these cases we drew on memory and tried to double check the accuracy of our recollections. We think any general statements are reasonably accurate. “The analytic approach when tried on the battlefield seemed to help produce sizable increases in both overall performance and efficiency. Whether these improvements were due more to good basic concepts or to good execution or both is difficult to determine. “We can say that first class officers and first class soldiers are capable of outstanding battlefield performance. To list the thousands of people who contributed to this tremendous team effort would be impossible. However, the monograph is dedicated to all those members of the 9th Infantry Division and of II Field Force Vietnam who acquitted themselves so well in Vietnam.”
Parallelism is the key to achieving high performance in computing. However, writing efficient and scalable parallel programs is notoriously difficult, and often requires significant expertise. To address this challenge, it is crucial to provide programmers with high-level tools to enable them to develop solutions easily, and at the same time emphasize the theoretical and practical aspects of algorithm design to allow the solutions developed to run efficiently under many different settings. This thesis addresses this challenge using a three-pronged approach consisting of the design of shared-memory programming techniques, frameworks, and algorithms for important problems in computing. The thesis provides evidence that with appropriate programming techniques, frameworks, and algorithms, shared-memory programs can be simple, fast, and scalable, both in theory and in practice. The results developed in this thesis serve to ease the transition into the multicore era. The first part of this thesis introduces tools and techniques for deterministic parallel programming, including means for encapsulating nondeterminism via powerful commutative building blocks, as well as a novel framework for executing sequential iterative loops in parallel, which lead to deterministic parallel algorithms that are efficient both in theory and in practice. The second part of this thesis introduces Ligra, the first high-level shared memory framework for parallel graph traversal algorithms. The framework allows programmers to express graph traversal algorithms using very short and concise code, delivers performance competitive with that of highly-optimized code, and is up to orders of magnitude faster than existing systems designed for distributed memory. This part of the thesis also introduces Ligra+, which extends Ligra with graph compression techniques to reduce space usage and improve parallel performance at the same time, and is also the first graph processing system to support in-memory graph compression. The third and fourth parts of this thesis bridge the gap between theory and practice in parallel algorithm design by introducing the first algorithms for a variety of important problems on graphs and strings that are efficient both in theory and in practice. For example, the thesis develops the first linear-work and polylogarithmic-depth algorithms for suffix tree construction and graph connectivity that are also practical, as well as a work-efficient, polylogarithmic-depth, and cache-efficient shared-memory algorithm for triangle computations that achieves a 2–5x speedup over the best existing algorithms on 40 cores. This is a revised version of the thesis that won the 2015 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award.
A guide to refinishing suitable for complete beginners and more advanced technicians. This heavily illustrated guide will help students through their Level 2 and 3 vehicle refinishing qualifications and be useful as a reference and trouble shooter for more advanced technicians. It is set out in the order in which a vehicle is repaired. There are sections covering: identifying different substrates, with an explanation of how this affects the materials to be chosen and techniques to be used preparation work required prior to the application of foundation materials how to choose the correct foundation material shaping and sanding techniques different types of popular top coats and the required application techniques glossaries for tools and equipment health and safety considerations This book has been designed and written by a true ‘petrol head’ whose career and hobbies have revolved around motor vehicles and the refinishing trade. He has been in the motor trade for more than 16 years and has delivered Refinishing qualifications to students for over 11 years. Someone who has never before held a spray gun should be able to understand stage-by-stage, or they can dip in for precise trouble shooting and tips.
This text on the theory and applications of network science is aimed at beginning graduate students in statistics, data science, computer science, machine learning, and mathematics, as well as advanced students in business, computational biology, physics, social science, and engineering working with large, complex relational data sets. It provides an exciting array of analysis tools, including probability models, graph theory, and computational algorithms, exposing students to ways of thinking about types of data that are different from typical statistical data. Concepts are demonstrated in the context of real applications, such as relationships between financial institutions, between genes or proteins, between neurons in the brain, and between terrorist groups. Methods and models described in detail include random graph models, percolation processes, methods for sampling from huge networks, network partitioning, and community detection. In addition to static networks the book introduces dynamic networks such as epidemics, where time is an important component.
A call for landscape architects to leave the office and return to the garden. Addressing one of the most repressed subjects in landscape architecture, this book could only have been written by someone who is both an experienced gardener and a landscape architect. With Overgrown, Julian Raxworthy offers a watershed work in the tradition of Ian McHarg, Anne Whiston Spirn, Kevin Lynch, and J. B. Jackson. As a discipline, landscape architecture has distanced itself from gardening, and landscape architects take pains to distinguish themselves from gardeners or landscapers. Landscape architects tend to imagine gardens from the office, representing plants with drawings or other simulations, whereas gardeners work in the dirt, in real time, planting, pruning, and maintaining. In Overgrown, Raxworthy calls for the integration of landscape architecture and gardening. Each has something to offer the other: Landscape architecture can design beautiful spaces, and gardening can enhance and deepen the beauty of garden environments over time. Growth, says Raxworthy, is the medium of garden development; landscape architects should leave the office and go into the garden in order to know growth in an organic, nonsimulated way. Raxworthy proposes a new practice for working with plant material that he terms “the viridic” (after “the tectonic” in architecture), from the Latin word for green, with its associations of spring and growth. He builds his argument for the viridic through six generously illustrated case studies of gardens that range from “formal” to “informal” approaches—from a sixteenth-century French Renaissance water garden to a Scottish poet-scientist's “marginal” garden, barely differentiated from nature. Raxworthy argues that landscape architectural practice itself needs to be “gardened,” brought back into the field. He offers a “Manifesto for the Viridic” that casts designers and plants as vegetal partners in a renewed practice of landscape gardening.
Part of a three-stage American English course from false beginner to intermediate level. It aims to provide a communicative approach to grammar and has two-page units and one page lessons, controlled practice and learning to learn sections. There is also a choices section at the back of the book.
This brilliant, adult nonfiction debut from the acclaimed MG author and poet weaves two personal narratives of recovery and reclamation, spliced with a dazzle of pop-culture The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is a braided story of Julian Randall’s return from the cliff edge of a harrowing depression and his determination to retrace the hustle of a white-passing grandfather to the Mississippi town from which he was driven amid threats of tar and feather. Alternatively wry, lyrical, and heartfelt, Randall transforms pop culture moments into deeply personal explorations of grief, family, and the American way. He envisions his fight to stay alive through a striking medley of media ranging from Into the Spiderverse and Jordan Peele movies to BoJack Horseman and the music of Odd Future. Pulsing with life, sharp, and wickedly funny, The Dead Don’t Need Reminding is Randall’s journey to get his ghost story back.
Explores questions relating to the nature of representation in art. It asks how we recognize likeness in caricatures or portraits, for instance, and presents the conflicting arguments and opinions of an art historian, a psychologist and a philosopher.
Essentials of Chemical Biology Discover a detailed knowledge of concepts and techniques that shape this unique multi-discipline Chemical Biology is devoted to understanding the way that Biology works at the molecular level. This is a problem-driven multi-discipline, incorporating as it does Organic, Physical, Inorganic, and Analytical Chemistry alongside newer emerging molecular disciplines. In recent years, Chemical Biology has emerged as a vibrant and growing multi-discipline distinct from Biochemistry that is focused on the quantitative analyses of the structures and functions of biological macromolecules and macromolecular lipid assemblies, at first in isolation, then in vitro and in vivo. The second edition of the Essentials of Chemical Biology begins with a thorough introduction to the structure of biological macromolecules and macromolecular lipid assemblies, before moving on to the principles of chemical and biological synthesis, followed by descriptions of a comprehensive variety of research techniques and experimental methods. In addition, the second edition now includes new sections on the behaviour of biological macromolecules and macromolecular lipid assemblies in cells in vitro and in organisms in vivo. Given this, the second edition of the Essentials of Chemical Biology promises to cement itself as the leading introduction to Chemical Biology, incorporating descriptions of cutting-edge research wherever appropriate. Hence, readers of the second edition of the Essentials of Chemical Biology will find: a general expansion in understanding of basic molecular mechanisms in Biology moving towards cellular and organismal mechanisms entirely new chapters covering miniaturization and array technologies, Chemical Cell Biology, and the interface between Chemical Biology and Nanotechnology updates to chapters reflecting recent research developments an increased engagement with medical applications Essentials of Chemical Biology is ideal for advanced undergraduates or (post) graduate students in Chemical Biology and adjacent fields.
Based on their Financial Times Weekend column, philosopher Julian Baggini and his psychotherapist partner Antonia Macaro offer intriguing answers to life's questions. Can infidelity be good for you? What does it mean to stay true to yourself? Must we fulfil our potential? Self-help with a distinctly cerebral edge, the shrink and the sage - aka Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro - have been dispensing advice through their FT column since October 2010. Combining practical advice on personal dilemmas with meditations on the meaning of concepts like free will, spirituality and independence, this book - their first together - expands on these columns and adds much more. Through questions of existential unease, metaphysical trauma and - for instance - how much we should care about our appearance, intellectual agony uncle and aunt team Baggini and Macaro begin to piece together the answer that we'd all like to hear: what is the good life, and how we can live it?
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