This is an introductory textbook on general and algebraic topology, aimed at anyone with a basic knowledge of calculus and linear algebra. It provides full proofs and includes many examples and exercises. The covered topics include: set theory and cardinal arithmetic; axiom of choice and Zorn's lemma; topological spaces and continuous functions; con- nectedness and compactness; Alexandrov compactification; quotient topol- ogies; countability and separation axioms; prebasis and Alexander's theorem; the Tychonoff theorem and paracompactness; complete metric spaces and function spaces; Baire spaces; homotopy of maps; the fundamental group; the van Kampen theorem; covering spaces; Brouwer and Borsuk's theorems; free groups and free product of groups and basic category theory. While it is very concrete at the beginning, abstract concepts are gradually introduced. This second edition contains a new chapter with a topological introduction to sheaf cohomology and applications. It also corrects some inaccuracies and some additional exercises are proposed. The textbook is suitable for anyone needing a basic, comprehensive introduction to general and algebraic topology and its applications.
This book furnishes a comprehensive treatment of differential graded Lie algebras, L-infinity algebras, and their use in deformation theory. We believe it is the first textbook devoted to this subject, although the first chapters are also covered in other sources with a different perspective. Deformation theory is an important subject in algebra and algebraic geometry, with an origin that dates back to Kodaira, Spencer, Kuranishi, Gerstenhaber, and Grothendieck. In the last 30 years, a new approach, based on ideas from rational homotopy theory, has made it possible not only to solve long-standing open problems, but also to clarify the general theory and to relate apparently different features. This approach works over a field of characteristic 0, and the central role is played by the notions of differential graded Lie algebra, L-infinity algebra, and Maurer–Cartan equations. The book is written keeping in mind graduate students with a basic knowledge of homological algebra and complex algebraic geometry as utilized, for instance, in the book by K. Kodaira, Complex Manifolds and Deformation of Complex Structures. Although the main applications in this book concern deformation theory of complex manifolds, vector bundles, and holomorphic maps, the underlying algebraic theory also applies to a wider class of deformation problems, and it is a prerequisite for anyone interested in derived deformation theory. Researchers in algebra, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, deformation theory, and noncommutative geometry are the major targets for the book.
Modern approaches to the study of symplectic 4-manifolds and algebraic surfaces combine a wide range of techniques and sources of inspiration. Gauge theory, symplectic geometry, pseudoholomorphic curves, singularity theory, moduli spaces, braid groups, monodromy, in addition to classical topology and algebraic geometry, combine to make this one of the most vibrant and active areas of research in mathematics. It is our hope that the five lectures of the present volume given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, September 2-10, 2003 will be useful to people working in related areas of mathematics and will become standard references on these topics. The volume is a coherent exposition of an active field of current research focusing on the introduction of new methods for the study of moduli spaces of complex structures on algebraic surfaces, and for the investigation of symplectic topology in dimension 4 and higher.
In a context of growing social and environmental concerns, the role of large enterprises and corporations in encouraging sustainability has drawn increasing attention in recent years. Both academic debates and public-opinion research have called into question the extended responsibilities of firms in our increasingly inter-connected world. By studying issues associated with the greatest challenges mankind is currently facing — from climate change to social exclusion — the scientific community is aware of the need to account for the actions and agendas of companies, especially large ones. They are becoming important global political actors with great power, but also unprecedented responsibilities. With this in mind, the authors believe that it is more important than ever that large enterprises, on the one hand, take into account the opinion of their stakeholder while defining their strategies and, on the other hand, disclose material and relevant information on their ability to contribute to sustainability while delivering value for all of their stakeholders. A consensus is being reached on the responsibility of large enterprises to report in a triple bottom perspective — not only on their financial performances, but also on their social and environmental outcomes. Consequently, it is important to understand what elements organizations need to report on in order to provide stakeholders with relevant and comprehensive sustainability reports. Against this background, this book presents a significant and original contribution, both empirically and theoretically, to the social and environmental accounting literature by studying the various features of stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting.
Modern approaches to the study of symplectic 4-manifolds and algebraic surfaces combine a wide range of techniques and sources of inspiration. Gauge theory, symplectic geometry, pseudoholomorphic curves, singularity theory, moduli spaces, braid groups, monodromy, in addition to classical topology and algebraic geometry, combine to make this one of the most vibrant and active areas of research in mathematics. It is our hope that the five lectures of the present volume given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, September 2-10, 2003 will be useful to people working in related areas of mathematics and will become standard references on these topics. The volume is a coherent exposition of an active field of current research focusing on the introduction of new methods for the study of moduli spaces of complex structures on algebraic surfaces, and for the investigation of symplectic topology in dimension 4 and higher.
This is an introductory textbook on general and algebraic topology, aimed at anyone with a basic knowledge of calculus and linear algebra. It provides full proofs and includes many examples and exercises. The covered topics include: set theory and cardinal arithmetic; axiom of choice and Zorn's lemma; topological spaces and continuous functions; connectedness and compactness; Alexandrov compactification; quotient topologies; countability and separation axioms; prebasis and Alexander's theorem; the Tychonoff theorem and paracompactness; complete metric spaces and function spaces; Baire spaces; homotopy of maps; the fundamental group; the van Kampen theorem; covering spaces; Brouwer and Borsuk's theorems; free groups and free product of groups; and basic category theory. While it is very concrete at the beginning, abstract concepts are gradually introduced. It is suitable for anyone needing a basic, comprehensive introduction to general and algebraic topology and its applications.
This book furnishes a comprehensive treatment of differential graded Lie algebras, L-infinity algebras, and their use in deformation theory. We believe it is the first textbook devoted to this subject, although the first chapters are also covered in other sources with a different perspective. Deformation theory is an important subject in algebra and algebraic geometry, with an origin that dates back to Kodaira, Spencer, Kuranishi, Gerstenhaber, and Grothendieck. In the last 30 years, a new approach, based on ideas from rational homotopy theory, has made it possible not only to solve long-standing open problems, but also to clarify the general theory and to relate apparently different features. This approach works over a field of characteristic 0, and the central role is played by the notions of differential graded Lie algebra, L-infinity algebra, and Maurer–Cartan equations. The book is written keeping in mind graduate students with a basic knowledge of homological algebra and complex algebraic geometry as utilized, for instance, in the book by K. Kodaira, Complex Manifolds and Deformation of Complex Structures. Although the main applications in this book concern deformation theory of complex manifolds, vector bundles, and holomorphic maps, the underlying algebraic theory also applies to a wider class of deformation problems, and it is a prerequisite for anyone interested in derived deformation theory. Researchers in algebra, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, deformation theory, and noncommutative geometry are the major targets for the book.
This previously unpublished work is essential reading for anyone who has followed Marco Frascari’s scholarship and teachings over the last three decades. It also provides the perfect introduction for anyone new to his writings. As ever, Frascari does not offer prescriptive tools and frameworks to enact his theories of drawing and imagination; instead, he teaches how to build one’s own through individual practice. An illuminating introduction places the text in a wider context, providing the reader with a fascinating and important context and understanding to this posthumous work. Frascari's sketchbooks are reproduced faithfully in full colour to provide the reader with a remarkable insight into the design process of this influential mind.
This book proposes an integrated approach to sustainability reporting, the goal being to overcome certain limitations of the well-established additive approach, where the reporting of environmental, social and economic issues is sequential, but separate. It argues that, in order to successfully communicate its commitment to sustainability, a company should report on how environmental and social issues impact its way of doing business, namely its business model, contributing to value creation. Thus, a reporting framework for business models that encompasses sustainability is presented. In turn, a number of illustrative examples are examined to show how business model reporting could be optimally used to provide effective and integrated sustainability reporting. The book also offers a broad analysis of corporate sustainability reporting, which includes a discussion of the theoretical background, an explanation of why companies provide sustainability reporting, a description of the current regulatory framework for sustainability disclosure, and a review of sustainability reporting literature that shows the main characteristics of sustainability disclosure practices. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to all researchers and practitioners working for companies or organizations that aim to support, implement and improve their sustainability reporting, by adopting a more integrated approach that interconnects environmental and social aspects with the economic and financial results via the business model. The book also offers a valuable reference guide for social science researchers, including PhD students, interested in a discussion of the latest literature on sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and the communication of business models.
In a context of growing social and environmental concerns, the role of large enterprises and corporations in encouraging sustainability has drawn increasing attention in recent years. Both academic debates and public-opinion research have called into question the extended responsibilities of firms in our increasingly inter-connected world. By studying issues associated with the greatest challenges mankind is currently facing — from climate change to social exclusion — the scientific community is aware of the need to account for the actions and agendas of companies, especially large ones. They are becoming important global political actors with great power, but also unprecedented responsibilities. With this in mind, the authors believe that it is more important than ever that large enterprises, on the one hand, take into account the opinion of their stakeholder while defining their strategies and, on the other hand, disclose material and relevant information on their ability to contribute to sustainability while delivering value for all of their stakeholders. A consensus is being reached on the responsibility of large enterprises to report in a triple bottom perspective — not only on their financial performances, but also on their social and environmental outcomes. Consequently, it is important to understand what elements organizations need to report on in order to provide stakeholders with relevant and comprehensive sustainability reports. Against this background, this book presents a significant and original contribution, both empirically and theoretically, to the social and environmental accounting literature by studying the various features of stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting.
This volume is an introductory textbook to K-theory, both algebraic and topological, and to various current research topics within the field, including Kasparov's bivariant K-theory, the Baum-Connes conjecture, the comparison between algebraic and topological K-theory of topological algebras, the K-theory of schemes, and the theory of dg-categories.
Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this practical analysis of the structure, competence, and management of Italy provides substantial and readily accessible information for lawyers, academics, and policymakers likely to have dealings with its activities and data. No other book gives such a clear, uncomplicated description of the organization’s role, its rules and how they are applied, its place in the framework of international law, or its relations with other organizations. The monograph proceeds logically from the organization’s genesis and historical development to the structure of its membership, its various organs and their mandates, its role in intergovernmental cooperation, and its interaction with decisions taken at the national level. Its competence, its financial management, and the nature and applicability of its data and publications are fully described. Systematic in presentation, this valuable time-saving resource offers the quickest, easiest way to acquire a sound understanding of the workings of Italy for all interested parties. Students and teachers of international law will find it especially valuable as an essential component of the rapidly growing and changing global legal milieu.
An examination of the influential Italian architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri's historical construction of contemporary architecture. The influential Italian architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri (1935–1994) invoked the productive possibilities of crisis, writing that history is a "project of crisis" (progetto di crisi). In this entry in the Writing Architecture series, Marco Biraghi explores Tafuri's multifaceted and often knotty oeuvre, using the historian's concept of a project of crisis as a lens through which to examine his historical construction of contemporary architecture. Mindful of Tafuri's statement that there is no such thing as criticism, only history, Biraghi carefully maps the influences on Tafuri's writing—Walter Benjamin, Karl Krauss, Massimo Cacciari, and the architect Ludovico Quaroni, among others—in order to create a portrait of one of the most complex minds in twentieth-century architecture and architectural history. Tracing an arc from Tafuri's first articles in the magazine Contropiano to the idea of contradiction at the center of the project of crisis, Biraghi cites Tafuri's writing on some of his contemporaries, including Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Robert Venturi, Aldo Rossi, and the "Five Architects" (Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, and Richard Meier). Tafuri's historical construction of the contemporary, Biraghi explains, is based on the idea that the past is open, providing the present with ever-changing and indeterminate form. There is no contradiction between Tafuri the historian and Tafuri the contemporary critic, only the greatest possible integration. The importance of Tafuri's interpretation of architecture goes beyond mere academic or historiographic interest, Biraghi argues; Tafuri's notion of the project of crisis is fundamentally important in understanding our present-day architectural condition
This book explores the historical, foundational, and applied elements of sustainability theory and practice as relevant to the leadership, management, and innovation of organizations, companies and enterprises. It provides analytical and critical reviews of the current evolution of sustainability for people, planet, prosperity, innovation and impact. Divided into four parts, the work offers an integrated model of development for creating and delivering sustainability values at the personal, organizational, societal and environmental levels. The different sections examine sustainability leadership (focusing on of ethics, values, and purpose), sustainability management (focusing on organizational effectiveness and stakeholders’ wellbeing), sustainability innovation (focusing on social and environmental entrepreneurship), and sustainability impact (focusing on resilience, interconnectedness, consciousness, systemic thinking, and cosmic empathy for the common good and common future). Combining theoretical and practical applications that give the reader a deeper, scientific, and critical understanding of the urgent, complex, and necessary values for a sustainable future for all, this comprehensive text is a must-read for researchers and students alike, providing a framework for effective globally responsible leadership.
„Sozomena“ bedeutet auf Griechisch „Gerettetes“. Die Reihe widmet sich der Erschließung von Texten, die aus der griechischen und römischen Antike nur durch ausserordentliche Fund-Umstände erhalten geblieben sind - allen voran durch Papyri, von denen Tausende in Universitäten und Bibliotheken unentziffert vorhanden sind. Die Reihe soll hauptsächlich Texte edieren und interpretieren, aber auch die Methoden der Erschließung diskutieren. Verschiedene Buchtypen werden daher hier veröffentlicht: Texteditionen, Kommentare, Monographien und Sammelbände. Die Hauptsprache der Publikationen ist Englisch, daneben auch Deutsch und Italienisch. Herausgegeben werden die Sozomena von Alessandro Barchiesi (Harvard, MA), Robert Fowler (Bristol), Dirk Obbink (Oxford und Ann Arbor, MI) und Nigel Wilson (Oxford) im Namen der Herculaneum Society, die zur Förderung der Erschließung des wichtigsten Fundkomplexes antiker Papyri gegründet wurde: der Villa dei Papiri im Pompeji benachbarten antiken Herculaneum mit ihren zum Teil noch nicht ausgegrabenen Schätzen an Textrollen.
The authors of this book demonstrate that compared to other citizens, ambivalent partisans perceive the political world accurately, form their policy preferences in a principled manner, and communicate those preferences by making issues an important component of their electoral decisions.
The goal of this book is to foster better knowledge of the mammalian fauna of the Mediterranean islands. The atlas presents the current state of knowledge of the past and present distribution of the non-flying terrestrial mammals of the Ionian and Aegean islands. It provides a distribution map for each species with extensive references and a description of all the mammalian taxa. The book also focuses on the important role of human beings in the redefinition of the insular ecological equilibrium, as well as on the environmental impact of biological invasions. The protection and study of this fauna can provide an opportunity for testing a range of different evolutionary theories.
Why is the history of art so often construed as a history of artists, when its alleged focus is art? This book responds to this question by examining Giorgio Vasari's Lives and the artist it features most centrally, Michelangelo. More than any other artist in the Lives, Michelangelo exemplifies art as an expression of the individual. Yet at the same time, as this book aims to show, the Lives fashions Michelangelo as the founder of a new academic era in which art develops collectively as a discipline. Paradoxically, Vasari's celebration of Michelangelo mobilizes a conception of art as teachable and transmissible that is antithetical to Michelangelo's aesthetic ideals and unique style."--Page 4 of cover.
A family cloaked in secrets. A beguiling woman. A unique setting. Inspector Bordelli is back to solve one of the most difficult cases of his entire career in the sixth book in this atmospheric crime noir series - perfect for fans of Andrea Camilleri. Florence, 1967. It is winter, and one year has passed since the historic and devastating flood of the Arno, though the memories of that day still linger with the stains on the city walls. The anniversary of the flood brings with it a new case for Inspector Bordelli, who is weighed down with remorse for having taken justice into his own hands, and yearning for Eleonora, the woman he's lost, when the mystery opens. A local wealthy industrialist - fiercely loved and respected by everyone he knew - has been found murdered in his grand villa in the Fiesole hills, and the killer has left no trace. With no obvious leads to follow, Bordelli is patiently retracing the victim's last days when he encounters an old friend from the war. Inviting the frail man into his home with the aim of restoring him to strength with good food and wine, Bordelli is yet to realise that this very friend will lead him ever closer to the secrets at the heart of the mystery - starting with a mysterious woman . . .
The book... succeeds at refining elements in the problem that semiotics and theater represent to and for one another." -- Choice "The Semiotics of Performance surprisingly retains its revelatory freshness, and actually opens up areas of reseach that could very well supply new incentives for further probing into what semiotics can offer to the study of theatre." -- Theatre Survey
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