This edited volume gives a new and integrated introduction to item response models (predominantly used in measurement applications in psychology, education, and other social science areas) from the viewpoint of the statistical theory of generalized linear and nonlinear mixed models. The new framework allows the domain of item response models to be co-ordinated and broadened to emphasize their explanatory uses beyond their standard descriptive uses. The basic explanatory principle is that item responses can be modeled as a function of predictors of various kinds. The predictors can be (a) characteristics of items, of persons, and of combinations of persons and items; (b) observed or latent (of either items or persons); and they can be (c) latent continuous or latent categorical. In this way a broad range of models is generated, including a wide range of extant item response models as well as some new ones. Within this range, models with explanatory predictors are given special attention in this book, but we also discuss descriptive models. Note that the term "item responses" does not just refer to the traditional "test data," but are broadly conceived as categorical data from a repeated observations design. Hence, data from studies with repeated observations experimental designs, or with longitudinal designs, may also be modelled. The book starts with a four-chapter section containing an introduction to the framework. The remaining chapters describe models for ordered-category data, multilevel models, models for differential item functioning, multidimensional models, models for local item dependency, and mixture models. It also includes a chapter on the statistical background and one on useful software. In order to make the task easier for the reader, a unified approach to notation and model description is followed throughout the chapters, and a single data set is used in most examples to make it easier to see how the many models are related. For all major examples, computer commands from the SAS package are provided that can be used to estimate the results for each model. In addition, sample commands are provided for other major computer packages. Paul De Boeck is Professor of Psychology at K.U. Leuven (Belgium), and Mark Wilson is Professor of Education at UC Berkeley (USA). They are also co-editors (along with Pamela Moss) of a new journal entitled Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives. The chapter authors are members of a collaborative group of psychometricians and statisticians centered on K.U. Leuven and UC Berkeley.
This edited volume gives a new and integrated introduction to item response models (predominantly used in measurement applications in psychology, education, and other social science areas) from the viewpoint of the statistical theory of generalized linear and nonlinear mixed models. The new framework allows the domain of item response models to be co-ordinated and broadened to emphasize their explanatory uses beyond their standard descriptive uses. The basic explanatory principle is that item responses can be modeled as a function of predictors of various kinds. The predictors can be (a) characteristics of items, of persons, and of combinations of persons and items; (b) observed or latent (of either items or persons); and they can be (c) latent continuous or latent categorical. In this way a broad range of models is generated, including a wide range of extant item response models as well as some new ones. Within this range, models with explanatory predictors are given special attention in this book, but we also discuss descriptive models. Note that the term "item responses" does not just refer to the traditional "test data," but are broadly conceived as categorical data from a repeated observations design. Hence, data from studies with repeated observations experimental designs, or with longitudinal designs, may also be modelled. The book starts with a four-chapter section containing an introduction to the framework. The remaining chapters describe models for ordered-category data, multilevel models, models for differential item functioning, multidimensional models, models for local item dependency, and mixture models. It also includes a chapter on the statistical background and one on useful software. In order to make the task easier for the reader, a unified approach to notation and model description is followed throughout the chapters, and a single data set is used in most examples to make it easier to see how the many models are related. For all major examples, computer commands from the SAS package are provided that can be used to estimate the results for each model. In addition, sample commands are provided for other major computer packages. Paul De Boeck is Professor of Psychology at K.U. Leuven (Belgium), and Mark Wilson is Professor of Education at UC Berkeley (USA). They are also co-editors (along with Pamela Moss) of a new journal entitled Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives. The chapter authors are members of a collaborative group of psychometricians and statisticians centered on K.U. Leuven and UC Berkeley.
Offers a history of the monarchy of Belgium, a country artificially created in 1817. This book argues that the pan-European super-state resembles a 'Greater-Belgium' rather than a 'Greater-Switzerland'.
A Linguistic Handbook of French for Translators and Language Students offers the reader an in-depth contrastive study of French and English based on recent theories of linguistics and discourse analysis. At the same time it is a practical manual for the advanced language student or the translator with dozens of exercises in analyzing and translating French along with detailed corrections. Organized in three sections – Structure, Perspective and Coherence – the handbook first explores French word formation and syntax, then moves on to the use of tense and aspect, illocution and speech styles in various text types. Finally, problems concerning textual coherence and cohesion in both languages are discussed: anaphora and ellipsis, relevance and equivalence and information structure. Each chapter is followed by a list of suggested readings for further discussion and a detailed glossary at the end of the book explains all technical terms used. The handbook is designed to be used either as a textbook or for individuals working at home.
This book suggests adopting educational practices which encourage feelings of emotional security, promote trusting and supportive relationships and reflect students' views and feelings; essential qualities for healthy personal and social development in children and young people.
Well into the 1980s, Strasbourg, France, was the site of a curious and little-noted experiment: Ungemach, a garden city dating back to the high days of eugenic experimentation that offered luxury living to couples who were deemed biologically fit and committed to contractual childbearing targets. Supported by public authorities, Ungemach aimed to accelerate human evolution by increasing procreation among eugenically selected parents. In this fascinating history, Paul-André Rosental gives an account of Ungemach’s origins and its perplexing longevity. He casts a troubling light on the influence that eugenics continues to exert—even decades after being discredited as a pseudoscience—in realms as diverse as developmental psychology, postwar policymaking, and liberal-democratic ideals of personal fulfilment.
This provocative new history of early modern Europe argues that changes in the generation, preservation and circulation of information, chiefly on newly available and affordable paper, constituted an 'information revolution'. In commerce, finance, statecraft, scholarly life, science, and communication, early modern Europeans were compelled to place a new premium on information management. These developments had a profound and transformative impact on European life. The huge expansion in paper records and the accompanying efforts to store, share, organize and taxonomize them are intertwined with many of the essential developments in the early modern period, including the rise of the state, the Print Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, and the Republic of Letters. Engaging with historical questions across many fields of human activity, Paul M. Dover interprets the historical significance of this 'information revolution' for the present day, and suggests thought-provoking parallels with the informational challenges of the digital age.
All over the world, there is growing concern about the ramifications of globalization, late-modernity and general global social and economic restructuring on the lives and futures of young people. Bringing together a wide body of research to reflect on youth responses to social change in Africa, this volume shows that while young people in the region face extraordinary social challenges in their everyday lives, they also continue to devise unique ways to reinvent their difficult circumstances and prosper in the midst of seismic global and local social changes. Contributors from Africa and around the world cover a wide range of topics on African youth cultures, exploring the lives of young people not necessarily as victims, but as active social players in the face of a shifting, late-modernist civilization. With empirical cases and varied theoretical approaches, the book offers a timely scholarly contribution to debates around globalization and its implications and impacts for Africa's youth.
The modeling of item response data is governed by item response theory, also referred to as modern test theory. The eld of inquiry of item response theory has become very large and shows the enormous progress that has been made. The mainstream literature is focused on frequentist statistical methods for - timating model parameters and evaluating model t. However, the Bayesian methodology has shown great potential, particularly for making further - provements in the statistical modeling process. The Bayesian approach has two important features that make it attractive for modeling item response data. First, it enables the possibility of incorpor- ing nondata information beyond the observed responses into the analysis. The Bayesian methodology is also very clear about how additional information can be used. Second, the Bayesian approach comes with powerful simulation-based estimation methods. These methods make it possible to handle all kinds of priors and data-generating models. One of my motives for writing this book is to give an introduction to the Bayesian methodology for modeling and analyzing item response data. A Bayesian counterpart is presented to the many popular item response theory books (e.g., Baker and Kim 2004; De Boeck and Wilson, 2004; Hambleton and Swaminathan, 1985; van der Linden and Hambleton, 1997) that are mainly or completely focused on frequentist methods. The usefulness of the Bayesian methodology is illustrated by discussing and applying a range of Bayesian item response models.
Does MEMS technology offer advantages to your company's products? Will miniature machines on a chip solve your application objectives for ôsmaller, better, cheaper, and faster'ö If you are a product development engineer or manager, the decision to design a MEMS device implies having an application and market. This book offers you a practical guide to making this important business decision. Here, both veterans and newcomers to MEMS device design will get advice on evaluating MEMS for their business, followed by guidance on selecting solutions, technologies and design support tools. You will see how experts from around the world have explored MEMS possibilities and achieved new breakthrough devices such as RF-MEMS for mobile telecommunications, micro-optics for internet hardware, catheter-based minimal-invasive operating theatre tools, and in vivo monitoring of exact dosage of medication in ailing patients. This handbook offers a wealth of analytical techniques treating problematic areas such as alternative designs reliability, packaging, and cost effectiveness.
Sociologists have always been fascinated with music. In one way or another they have encountered music as an important social force in its own right, as an accompaniment or byproduct of phenomena they studied (such as youth culture or the drug scene), or as a means for obtaining social compliance (as in religious ceremonies or in the military). This book goes one step toward remedying this situation by culling the existing literature for building blocks toward introducing sociological synthesis and by presenting the English version of the extensive writings on music and society by Paul Honigsheim.
In twentieth-century Kenya, age and gender were powerful cultural and political forces that animated household and generational relationships. They also shaped East Africans’ contact with and influence on emergent colonial and global ideas about age and masculinity. Kenyan men and boys came of age achieving their manhood through changing rites of passage and access to new outlets such as town life, crime, anticolonial violence, and nationalism. And as they did, the colonial government appropriated masculinity and maturity as means of statecraft and control. In An Uncertain Age, Paul Ocobock positions age and gender at the heart of everyday life and state building in Kenya. He excavates in unprecedented ways how the evolving concept of “youth” motivated and energized colonial power and the movements against it, exploring the masculinities boys and young men debated and performed as they crisscrossed the colony in search of wages or took the Mau Mau oath. Yet he also considers how British officials’ own ideas about masculinity shaped not only young African men’s ideas about manhood but the very nature of colonial rule. An Uncertain Age joins a growing number of histories that have begun to break down monolithic male identities to push the historiographies of Kenya and empire into new territory.
Exclusion has come to hold a prominent place in the political discourse of all governments in the European Union and in the European Commission itself. As such, it figures importantly in various research agencies’ funding priorities attracting academics to develop and conduct major research programmes. But what does it mean? This book analyzes the different meanings the term exclusion has come to convey and surveys a wide variety of actual applications in different European countries.
It is the anthropologist’s fate to always be between things: countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us, changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we live in the world. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, The Power of the Between is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller’s life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped over decades of reading and research. Stoller imparts his accumulated wisdom not through grandiose pronouncements but by drawing on his gift for storytelling. Tales of his apprenticeship to a sorcerer in Niger, his studies with Claude Lévi-Strauss in Paris, and his friendships with West African street vendors in New York City accompany philosophical reflections on love, memory, power, courage, health, and illness. Graced with Stoller’s trademark humor and narrative elegance, The Power of the Between is both the story of a distinguished career and a profound meditation on coming to terms with the impermanence of all things.
The idea that spatial cognition provides the foundation of linguistic meanings, even highly abstract meanings, has been put forward by a number of linguists in recent years. This book takes this proposal into new dimensions and develops a theoretical framework based on simple geometric principles. All speakers are conceptualisers who have a point of view both in a literal and in an abstract sense, choosing their perspective in space, time and the real world. The book examines the conceptualising properties of verbs, including tense, aspect, modality and transitivity, as well as the conceptual workings of grammatical constructions associated with counterfactuality, other minds and the expression of moral force. It makes links to the cognitive sciences throughout and concludes with a discussion of the relationship between language, brain and mind.
Port Economics, Management and Policy provides a comprehensive analysis of the contemporary port industry, showing how ports are organized to serve the global economy and support regional and local development. Structured in eight sections plus an introduction and epilog, this textbook examines a wide range of seaport topics, covering maritime shipping and international trade, port terminals, port governance, port competition, port policy and much more. Key features of the book include: Multidisciplinary perspective, drawing on economics, geography, management science and engineering Multisector analysis including containers, bulk, break-bulk and the cruise industry Focus on the latest industry trends, such as supply chain management, automation, digitalization and sustainability Benefitting from the authors’ extensive involvement in shaping the port sector across five continents, this text provides students and scholars with a valuable resource on ports and maritime transport systems. Practitioners and policymakers can also use this as an essential guide towards better port management and governance.
Progress in Drug Research is a prestigious book series which provides extensive expert-written reviews on a wide spectrum of highly topical areas in current pharmaceutical and pharmacological research. It serves as an important source of information for researchers concerned with drug research and all those who need to keep abreast of the many recent developments in the quest for new and better medicines.
An indispensable introductory textbook that provides students with a genuinely comparative study of the different trajectories and experiences of independent African states. Paul Nugent explores a range of key concerns including the impact of HIV and AIDS, the contagion of warfare, and efforts at achieving national reconciliation both in the past and today. This is an ideal core text for modules on Modern African History, African Politics or Africa since Independence - or a supplementary text for broader modules on African History - which may be offered at the upper levels of an undergraduate History, Politics or African Studies degree. In addition it is a crucial resource for students who may be studying modern African history for the first time as part of a taught postgraduate degree in African History, African Politics or African Studies. New to this Edition: - Revised and updated throughout in light of the latest research - Reflects recent developments on issues such as AIDS, urbanization, the secession of South Sudan, questions of citizenship and the importance of transnational spaces - This second edition now features photographs
This book reflects the different efforts made by veterinary and medical doctors for better knowledge of the disease. It shows how much we depends on each other to understand better the clinical features, pathogenesis, and epidemiology of campylobacter infections and other diseases.
E=mc2 is known as the most famous but least understood equation in physics. This two-volume textbook illuminates this equation and much more through clear and detailed explanations, new demonstrations, a more physical approach, and a deep analysis of the concepts and postulates of Relativity. The first part of Volume I contains the whole Special Relativity theory with rigorous and complete demonstrations. The second part presents the main principles of General Relativity, including detailed explanations of the bending of light in the neighborhood of great masses, the gravitational time dilatation, and the principles leading to the famous equation of General Relativity: D(g) = k .T. The most important cosmological predictions are then described: the Big Bang theory, black holes, and gravitational waves. Plentiful historical information is contained throughout the book, particularly in an ending chapter depicting the scientific and epistemological revolution brought about by the theory of Relativity. Volume II progresses into further depth than Volume I, and its scope is more extended than most introductory books on Relativity. It includes the affine connection, the geodesic equation, and an introduction to cosmological models. The mathematical tools dedicated to Relativity are carefully explained for those without an advanced mathematical background (tensors, Lagrangians, covariant derivative). Both volumes place an emphasis on the physical aspects of Relativity to aid the reader’s understanding and contain numerous questions and problems (147 in total). Solutions are given in a highly detailed manner to provide the maximum benefit to students. This textbook fills a gap in the literature by drawing out the physical aspects and consequences of Relativity, which are otherwise often second place to the mathematical aspects. Its concrete focus on physics allows students to gain a full understanding of the underlying concepts and cornerstones of Relativity. More information can be found at: https://www.relativitybruma.com/
E=mc2 is known as the most famous but least understood equation in physics. This two-volume textbook illuminates this equation and much more through clear and detailed explanations, new demonstrations, a more physical approach, and a deep analysis of the concepts and postulates of Relativity. The first part of Volume I contains the whole Special Relativity theory with rigorous and complete demonstrations. The second part presents the main principles of General Relativity, including detailed explanations of the bending of light in the neighborhood of great masses, the gravitational time dilatation, and the principles leading to the famous equation of General Relativity: D(g) = k .T. The most important cosmological predictions are then described: the Big Bang theory, black holes, and gravitational waves. Plentiful historical information is contained throughout the book, particularly in an ending chapter depicting the scientific and epistemological revolution brought about by the theory of Relativity. Both volumes place an emphasis on the physical aspects of Relativity to aid the reader’s understanding and contain numerous questions and problems (147 in total). Solutions are given in a highly detailed manner to provide the maximum benefit to students. This textbook fills a gap in the literature by drawing out the physical aspects and consequences of Relativity, which are otherwise often second place to the mathematical aspects. Its concrete focus on physics allows students to gain a full understanding of the underlying concepts and cornerstones of Relativity.
This exhaustive reference includes new chapters and pedagogical features, as well as—for the first time—content on managing fragility factures. To facilitate fast, easy absorption of the material, this edition has been streamlined and now includes more tables, charts, and treatment algorithms than ever before. Experts in their field share their experiences and offer insights and guidance on the latest technical developments for common orthopaedic procedures, including their preferred treatment options.
E=mc2 is known as the most famous but least understood equation in physics. This two-volume textbook illuminates this equation and much more through clear and detailed explanations, new demonstrations, a more physical approach, and a deep analysis of the concepts and postulates of Relativity. Volume II contains, notably: In Special Relativity: complementary explanations, alternative demonstrations relying on more advanced means and revealing other aspects. Further topics: accelerated objects and the Relativistic force, nuclear reactions, the use of hyperbolic trigonometry, the Lagrangian approach, the Relativistic Maxwell’s equations. In General Relativity: tensors, the affine connection, the covariant derivative, the geodesic equation, the Schwarzschild solution with two of its great consequences: black holes and the bending of light; further axiomatic considerations on time, space, matter, energy and light speed. In Cosmology: the FLRW Metric, the Friedman equation, the cosmological constant, the four ideal cosmological Models. These subjects are presented in a concrete and incremental manner, and illustrated by many case studies. The emphasis is placed on the theoretical aspects, with rigorous demonstrations based on a minimum set of postulates. The mathematical tools dedicated to Relativity are carefully explained for those without an advanced mathematical background. Both volumes place an emphasis on the physical aspects of Relativity to aid the reader’s understanding and contain numerous questions and problems (147 in total). Solutions are given in a highly detailed manner to provide the maximum benefit to students. This textbook fills a gap in the literature by drawing out the physical aspects and consequences of Relativity, which are otherwise often second place to the mathematical aspects. Its concrete focus on physics allows students to gain a full understanding of the underlying concepts and cornerstones of Relativity.
Home to eighty thousand people, Accra's Old Fadama neighbourhood is the largest illegal slum in Ghana. Though almost all its inhabitants are Ghanaian born, their status as illegal 'squatters' means that they live a precarious existence, marginalised within Ghanaian society and denied many of the rights to which they are entitled as citizens. The case of Old Fadama is far from unique. Across Africa, over half the population now lives in cities, and a lack of affordable housing means that growing numbers live in similar illegal slum communities, often in appalling conditions. Drawing on rich, ethnographic fieldwork, the book takes as its point of departure the narratives that emerge from the everyday lives and struggles of these people, using the perspective offered by Old Fadama as a means of identifying wider trends and dynamics across African slums. Central to Stacey's argument is the idea that such slums possess their own structures of governance, grounded in processes of negotiation between slum residents and external actors. In the process, Stacey transforms our understanding not only of slums, but of governance itself, moving us beyond prevailing state-centric approaches to consider how even a society's most marginal members can play a key role in shaping and contesting state power.
The oil crisis during the 1970s turned interest towards the utilization of renewable resources and towards lignocellulosics in particular. The 1970s were also the cradle period of biotechnology, and the years when biotechnical utilization of lignocellulosic waste from agriculture and forestry gained priori ty. This was a logical conclusion since one of nature's most important biologi cal reactions is the conversion of wood and other lignocellulosic materials to carbon dioxide, water and humic substances. However, while biotechnology in other areas like medicine and pharmacology concerned production of expen sive products on a small scale, biotechnical utilization and conversion of ligno cellulosics meant production of inexpensive products on a large scale. Biotechnical utilization of lignocellulosic materials is therefore a very difficult task, and the commercial utilization of this technology has not progressed as rapidly as one would have desired. One reason for this was the lack of basic knowledge of enzyme mechanisms involved in the degradation and conversion of wood, other lignocellulosics and their individual components. There are also risks associated with initiating a technical development before a stable platform of knowledge is available. Several of the projects started with en thusiasm have therefore suffered some loss of interest. Also contributing to this failing interest is the fact that the oil crisis at the time was not a real one. At present, nobody predicts a rapid exhaustion of the oil resources and fuel production from lignocellulosics is no longer a high priority.
The majority of people around the world live in multilingual societies, and so it follows that plurilingualism should be considered normal. This book proposes a flexible and adaptive framework for designing and implementing language learning environments and tasks, which will be useful for practitioners working in classrooms where many languages are already spoken. The authors begin by presenting a state-of-the-art review of current research on language learning, language teaching and multilingual language acquisition. This is followed by a qualitative review of 37 multilingual research projects, which are treated as case studies to inform the practical guidance that constitutes the remainder of the book. The information and practical framework contained within this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers and teacher educators.
Winner of the 2005 Goethe Award in Psychoanalytic Scholarship The central argument of On Being Normal and Other Disorders is that psychic identity is acquired through one's primary intersubjective relationships. Thus, the diagnosis of potential pathologies must also be founded on this relation. Given that the efficacy of all forms of treatment depends upon the therapeutic relation, a diagnostic of this sort has wide-ranging applications. Paul Verhaeghe's critical evaluation of the contemporary DSM-diagnostic shows that the lack of reference to an updated governing metapsychology impinges on the therapeutic value of the DSM categories. In response to this problem, the author sketches out the foundations of such a metapsychology by combining a Freudo-Lacanian approach with contemporary empirical research. Close attention is paid to the processes of identity acquisition to show how the self and the Other are not two separate entities. Rather, subject formation is seen as a process in which both the subject's and the Other's identity, as well as the relationship between them, comes into being. By engaging this new theoretical approach in a constant dialogue with the findings of contemporary research, this book provides a compass for the practical applications of such a differential diagnostic. Post-modern categories of anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders are approached both through the well-known neurotic, psychotic, and perverse structures, as well as through the less familiar distinction between an actual pathology and a psychopathology. These two outlooks, which involve the role of language and the subject's relation to the Other, are spelled out to show their implications for treatment at every turn.
Need the go-to reference on adult bone and joint injuries? Get the definitive guide on fracture treatment, written by the world’s top orthopaedic surgeons: Rockwood and Green’s Fractures in Adults. This fully updated and expanded 8th edition offers up-to-the-minute research and recommendations from more than 80 leading orthopaedic experts from around the world. An essential resource on fractures for every orthopaedic surgeon or resident.. Features: NEW chapters on: Management of the Geriatric or Elderly Patient; Management of Bone Defects;; Psychological Aspect of Trauma NEW authors from countries including India, China, Columbia, Greece, and Denmark NEW 10 new full length videos added to the video library. All videos feature easy navigation so you can go directly to specific steps in the procedure, or watch the entire procedure from start to finish Pearls and Pitfalls and preventive measures listed for all procedures NEW Time-saving outline template for easy quick-reference “Before the Case” checklists of all necessary equipment for each surgical procedure Preferred Technique section provides algorithms explaining each author’s choice of preferred procedure Full-color operative photos, tables, x-rays, diagrams, and more than 500 line drawings of surgical procedures
Brussels has become the “capital” of Europe, serving as the headquarters for key regional and international agencies, including the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, UN organizations, multinational businesses, lobbying firms, governmental groups, and nongovernmental organizations. Its status as a diplomatic, political, and economic center assumes ever greater importance as the EU grows in depth and breadth. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Brussels covers its history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 900 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Brussels.
How do towns and cities divided by the harsh reality of an international border manage to get on with each other when their closest neighbour lives just next door, but in another country? Are they thriving or surviving? Utterly dependent on each other or with backs turned, socially and economically? We visit towns and cities that you may not have heard of or know little about. Places like distant Blagoveshchensk and Heihe, Narva and Ivangorod and Gorlitz and Zgorzelec. But also the better known Nicosia, Europe’s only divided capital, Detroit with its Canadian neighbour Windsor, Geneva and its French suburb Annemasse and the cities of Sarajevo and Mostar, divided not by international borders but ethnic divisions baked into everyday life. This is a fascinating and well-researched study of thirty-six towns and cities from across the world that are separated by borders. Paul Doe delves into the way in which these divisions came about and how the separated towns and cities manage to get along, or not, buffeted as they are by geopolitics, ethnic differences and historical animosities.
This book surveys the theory of free, linear, isentropic oscillations in spherically symmetric, gaseous equilibrium stars, from basic concepts to asymptotic representations of normal modes and with slow period changes in rapidly evolving pulsating stars.
The global success of football icons like Samuel Eto’o, Didier Drogba and Mohamed Salah has fuelled the migratory projects of countless young men across the African continent who dream of following – literally and figuratively – in their footsteps. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic research, African football migration captures and chronicles the aspirations, experiences and trajectories of those pursuing this highly prized form of transnational migration. In doing so, the book uncovers and traces the myriad actors, networks and institutions that affect the ability of young people across the continent to realise social mobility through football’s global production network. The book sheds critical light on the barriers to social mobility erected by neoliberal capitalism, and how these are negotiated by aspiring African footballers. It also generates original interdisciplinary perspectives on the complex interplay between structural forces and human agency, as young players navigate an industry rife with commercial speculation. While a select few reach the elite levels of the game and build a successful career overseas, the book vividly illustrates how for the vast majority, ‘trying their luck’ through football results in involuntary immobility in post-colonial Africa. These findings are complemented by rare empirical insights from transnational African migrants at the margins of the global football industry and those navigating precarious retirement from careers as players. African football migration offers essential coverage of why and how African youth and young men have become actors in the global football industry, revealing the complex implications of transnational mobility, both imagined and enacted.
Rudy Ricciotti was born in 1952 in Algier. He studied in Geneva and Marseilles before opening his own architectural office in Bandol (Bouches-du-Rhone) in 1980. His early works are characterized by a radical, carefree approach, displaying a variety of forms and full of energy. Since the beginning of the 1990s Ricciotti has been influenced by the Arte Povera and his buildings have become more austere and functional, making use of minimalist and "lowtech" solutions. With the opening of the concert hall in Potsdam, and the construction of a foot bridge in Seoul, Ricciotti has finally found international recognition. Our publication is a detailed yet critical analysis of his work to date. The first monograph on the work of Rudy Ricciotti whose architecture is extravagant yet radiates Mediterranean simplicity, is powerfully expressive yet gently ironic.
Revisit one of the most important pillars in modern philosophy with this new English translation—the first in more than 60 years—of Jean-Paul Sartre’s seminal treatise on existentialism. “This is a philosophy to be reckoned with, both for its own intrinsic power and as a profound symptom of our time” (The New York Times). In 1943, Jean-Paul Sartre published his masterpiece, Being and Nothingness, and laid the foundation of his legacy as one of the greatest twentieth century philosophers. A brilliant and radical account of the human condition, Being and Nothingness explores what gives our lives significance. In a new and more accessible translation, this foundational text argues that we alone create our values and our existence is characterized by freedom and the inescapability of choice. Far from being an internal, passive container for our thoughts and experiences, human consciousness is constantly projecting itself into the outside world and imbuing it with meaning. Now with a new foreword by Harvard professor of philosophy Richard Moran, this clear-eyed translation guarantees that the groundbreaking ideas that Sartre introduced in this resonant work will continue to inspire for generations to come.
Based on several years of ethnographic fieldwork, the book explores life in and around a Luo-speaking village in western Kenya during a time of death. The epidemic of HIV/AIDS affects every aspect of sociality and pervades villagers' debates about the past, the future and the ethics of everyday life. Central to such debates is a discussion of touch in the broad sense of concrete, material contact between persons. In mundane practices and in ritual acts, touch is considered to be key to the creation of bodily life as well as social continuity. Underlying the significance of material contact is its connection with growth – of persons and groups, animals, plants and the land – and the forward movement of life more generally. Under the pressure of illness and death, economic hardship and land scarcity, as well as bitter struggles about the relevance and application of Christianity and ‘Luo tradition’ in daily life, people find it difficult to agree about the role of touch in engendering growth, or indeed about the aims of growth itself.
The Elements of Cognitive Aging provides a qualitative overview (mostly using graphical meta-analysis) of the vast literature on aging and speeded tasks-bringing together, for the first time, almost everything we know about aging and processing speed. The book investigates age-related slowing in elementary tasks (including updated parameters for the Aging Human Information Processor) and tasks of executive control (inhibition, task shifting, and task coordination). It examines regularities in the age-related effects of these tasks that might hint at underlying brain-related mechanisms, while having a keen eye for alternative explanations (such as increased caution with age). It models the course of speed-of-processing over the lifespan and investigates the influence of generational differences on mental speed. Finally, it examines the influence of age-related mental slowing on other aspects of cognition (working memory, executive control episodic memory, aspects of fluid intelligence), and provides the first systematic review of age-speed-cognition mediation in a longitudinal context.
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