In this fascinating book, the author traces the careers, ideas, discoveries, and inventions of two renowned scientists, Athanasius Kircher and Galileo Galilei, one a Jesuit, the other a sincere man of faith whose relations with the Jesuits deteriorated badly. The Author documents Kircher’s often intuitive work in many areas, including translating the hieroglyphs, developing sundials, and inventing the magic lantern, and explains how Kircher was a forerunner of Darwin in suggesting that animal species evolve. Galileo’s work on scales, telescopes, and sun spots is mapped and discussed, and care is taken to place his discoveries within their cultural environment. While Galileo is without doubt the “winner” in the comparison with Kircher, the latter achieved extraordinary insights by unconventional means. For all Galileo’s fine work, the author believes that scientists do need to regain the power of dreaming, vindicating Kirchner’s view.
The Sicilian Mafia is the most famous criminal organisation in the world. While its own code of honour, rustic chivalry and violence methods have been adopted by other illicit groups, very little is known about how the Mafia, Cosa Nostra, is actually organised and embedded in its territory. Who runs the day-to-day operations? What does it take for a Mafioso to raise the ranks and become a boss? How can the organisation protect itself and re-group after arrests? This book explores for the first time the structure of this criminal organisation through the lens of spatial and social network analysis and answers these questions. This is done by looking at the relationships of 176 members of the organisation that have been recently involved in building the Cupola, the highest ruling and judicial body in the organisation. Starting from the arrest warrant that uncovered this criminal restructuring, a method and several alternatives are offered, explained and commented on how to analyse and visualise criminal networks. The book confirms the assumption that the Sicilian Mafia is a criminal organisation that is deeply rooted in its territory. Mafiosi live, work and interact only in the remit of their own neighbourhood. Bosses are evasive, even to their own affiliates, and mid-level members are in charge of keeping the whole network operational. This book is particularly useful to students, researchers and law enforcement agencies that look at new ways to understand and disrupt the operations and structure of criminal organisations around the world.
This invaluable proceedings contains contributions from leading scientists in astrophysics, cosmology and related fields such as gravitation and elementary particles physics. It provides a general review of the status and the prospects of research in these fields for an audience of astrophysicists and physicists. The book includes both in depth reviews of various fields of relativistic astrophysics and shorter contributions on the latest results and developments in more specific areas. Some of the topics discussed are: physics of the early universe, cosmological parameters, formation of galaxies, black holes and compact objects, gravitational waves, cosmic rays, high energy radiation, dark matter, cosmic background, active galactic nuclei, supernovae and gravitational lensing.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in: ? Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)
Written by the three leading experts in the field, this book combines an introduction to the sources and methods of epidemiological criminology and an application of these methods to some of the most vexing problems now confronting researchers and practitioners in public health and criminology. The book describes, explains, and applies the newly formulated practice of epidemiological criminology, an emerging discipline that links methods and statistical models of public health, particularly epidemiological theory, methods, and models, with the corresponding tools of their criminal justice counterparts. The book also applies epidemiological criminology as a practical tool to address population issues of violence and crime on a national and global basis"--Provided by publisher.
In this fascinating book, the author traces the careers, ideas, discoveries, and inventions of two renowned scientists, Athanasius Kircher and Galileo Galilei, one a Jesuit, the other a sincere man of faith whose relations with the Jesuits deteriorated badly. The Author documents Kircher’s often intuitive work in many areas, including translating the hieroglyphs, developing sundials, and inventing the magic lantern, and explains how Kircher was a forerunner of Darwin in suggesting that animal species evolve. Galileo’s work on scales, telescopes, and sun spots is mapped and discussed, and care is taken to place his discoveries within their cultural environment. While Galileo is without doubt the “winner” in the comparison with Kircher, the latter achieved extraordinary insights by unconventional means. For all Galileo’s fine work, the author believes that scientists do need to regain the power of dreaming, vindicating Kirchner’s view.
For the first time since the publication of his internationally bestselling novel, Gomorrah, Roberto Saviano shares his early-life experience with the violence of the Neapolitan Mafia and how exposing them irrevocably changed his life. Italian journalist Roberto Saviano was twenty-six years old when he published his first book, Gomorrah, to international acclaim. The book, which has gone on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, was a detailed exposé of the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, whose organized crime tactics have permeated all matters of industry in Naples: government, infrastructure, high fashion, and drugs. Over fifteen years after Gomorrah’s release, Saviano's life has been under constant threat from would be assassins who forced him to leave his native Italy and to live under constant police protection. For the first time since then, Saviano shares his deepest thoughts and experiences of early life in Naples, witnessing the power and violence of Camorra firsthand, his current existence living under guard, all the while continuing to call attention to the deeply rooted crime and corruption that plagues his home. Collaborating with award-winning cartoonist Asaf Hanuka (The Realist, The Divine), both writer and artist examine a life behind armed guard whose best recourse against oppression is through old fashioned pen and paper.
Roberto Saviano is best known for his work on the Italian mafia, but Beauty and the Inferno also tackles universal themes with great insight and humanity, with urgency, and often with anger. This important collection includes essays on the legacy of the earthquake at L'Aquila, a town at risk of becoming overrun by mafia; on boxing as an escape route; on the life of the legendary South African jazz singer, Miriam Makeba; on an encounter with Salman Rushdie, and a tribute to Frank Miller, author of the graphic novel 300; on Michael Herr's Dispatches. One essay reflects on the aftermath of the publication of his book and subsequent film, Gomorrah, and how his life has been conditioned by the mafia's death threats, and the final essay in the collection celebrates the life of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
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