The first four chapters of this book give a comprehensive and unified theory of the Krylov methods. Many of these are shown to be particular examples ofthe block conjugate-gradient algorithm and it is this observation thatpermits the unification of the theory. The two major sub-classes of thosemethods, the Lanczos and the Hestenes-Stiefel, are developed in parallel asnatural generalisations of the Orthodir (GCR) and Orthomin algorithms. Theseare themselves based on Arnoldi's algorithm and a generalised Gram-Schmidtalgorithm and their properties, in particular their stability properties,are determined by the two matrices that define the block conjugate-gradientalgorithm. These are the matrix of coefficients and the preconditioningmatrix.In Chapter 5 the"transpose-free" algorithms based on the conjugate-gradient squared algorithm are presented while Chapter 6 examines the various ways in which the QMR technique has been exploited. Look-ahead methods and general block methods are dealt with in Chapters 7 and 8 while Chapter 9 is devoted to error analysis of two basic algorithms.In Chapter 10 the results of numerical testing of the more important algorithms in their basic forms (i.e. without look-ahead or preconditioning) are presented and these are related to the structure of the algorithms and the general theory. Graphs illustrating the performances of various algorithm/problem combinations are given via a CD-ROM.Chapter 11, by far the longest, gives a survey of preconditioning techniques. These range from the old idea of polynomial preconditioning via SOR and ILU preconditioning to methods like SpAI, AInv and the multigrid methods that were developed specifically for use with parallel computers. Chapter 12 is devoted to dual algorithms like Orthores and the reverse algorithms of Hegedus. Finally certain ancillary matters like reduction to Hessenberg form, Chebychev polynomials and the companion matrix are described in a series of appendices. · comprehensive and unified approach· up-to-date chapter on preconditioners· complete theory of stability· includes dual and reverse methods· comparison of algorithms on CD-ROM· objective assessment of algorithms
Seafarers were the first workers to inhabit a truly international labour market, a sector of industry which, throughout the early modern period, drove European economic and imperial expansion, technological and scientific development, and cultural and material exchanges around the world. This volume adopts a comparative perspective, presenting current research about maritime labourers across three centuries, in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, to understand how seafarers contributed to legal and economic transformation within Europe and across the world. Focusing on the three related themes of legal systems, labouring conditions, and imperial power, these essays explore the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between seafarers' individual and collective agency, and the social and economic frameworks which structured their lives.
In 1905, scandalous reports of torture in France's overseas colonies rocked Paris. Brazza was sent to investigate. Born an Italian nobleman, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza had spent twenty years exploring equatorial Africa as a French naval officer. His attempts to reconcile African development and prosperity with French colonial policy had already cost him his career. Now his commitment to expose colonial abuses would cost him his life. Already divided by the anti-Semitic currents of the Dreyfus Affair, France was about to discover the reality of its administration in central Africa. The European economy's greed for rubber had created a hidden world of slave labor and violence, with scenes that inspired the "horror" of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Brazza, A Life for Africa is the first English-language biography of a man who lived an extraordinary life. Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was a nobleman, a naval cadet, an explorer, a glamorous idol to 19th-century Parisians, a colonial governor, and a human rights investigator, as well as a husband, father, and friend. By turns thrilling, romantic, and tragic, Brazza's story blends exotic adventures with all-too-human emotions and experiences.
It's all relative'. In a world of increasing cultural diversity, it can seem that everything is indeed relative. But should we concede that there is no such thing as right and wrong, and no objective truth? Can we reconcile relativism and pluralism? Relativism surveys the different varieties of relativism and the arguments for and against them, and examines why relativism has survived for two thousand years despite all the criticisms levelled against it. Beginning with a historical overview of relativism, from Pythagoras in ancient Greece to Derrida and postmodernism, Maria Baghramian explores the resurgence of relativism throughout the history of philosophy. She then turns to the arguments for and against the many subdivisions of relativism, including Kuhn and Feyerabend's ideas of relativism in science, Rorty's relativism about truth, and the conceptual relativism of Quine and Putnam. Baghramian questions whether moral relativism leads to moral indifference or even nihilism, and whether feminist epistemology's concerns about the very notion of objectivity can be considered a form of relativism. She concludes the relativism debate by assessing the recent criticisms such as Quine's argument from translation and Davidson's claim that even the motivations behind relativism are unintelligible. Finding these criticisms lacking, Baghramian proposes a moderate form of pluralism which addresses the legitimate worries that give rise to relativism without incurring charges of nihilism or anarchy. Relativism is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy, sociology and politics.
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