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Journeys to a Graveyard : Perceptions of Europe in Classical Russian Travel Writing

Journeys to a Graveyard examines the descriptions provided by eight Russian writers of journeys made to western European countries between 1697 and 1880. The descriptions reveal the mentality and preoccupations of the Russian social and intellectual elites during this period. The travellers' perceptions of western European countries are treated here as an ambivalent response to a civilization with which Russia was belatedly coming into close contact as a result of the imperial ambition of the Russian state and the westernization of the Russian elites. The travellers perceived the most advanced European countries as superior to Russia in terms of material achievement and the maturity and refinement of their cultures, but they also promoted a view of Russia as in other respects superior to the western nations. Heavily influenced from the late eighteenth century by Romanticism and by the rise of nationalism in the west, they tended to depict European civilization as moribund. By this means they managed to define their own emergent nation in a contrastive way as having youth and promising futurity.

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Italian Mathematics Between the Two World Wars

This book describes Italian mathematics in the period between the two World Wars. We analyze its development by focusing on both the interior and the external influences. Italian mathematics in that period was shaped by a colorful array of strong personalities who concentrated their efforts on a select number of fields and won international recognition and respect in an incredibly short time. Italy was also dominated by a fascist regime. This political situation and the social and academic structure of Italian society are included in the analysis as influences external to mathematics itself. The authors have provided a fascinating study of a most difficult time in the history of the world and of mathematics.

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Compressor Instability with Integral Methods

Compressor Instability with Integral Methods" is a book, to bring together the quick integral approaches and advances in the field for the prediction of stall and surge problem in compressor. This book is useful for people involved in the flow analysis, design and testing of rotating machinery. For students, it can be used as a specialized topic of senior undergraduate or graduate study. The book can also be served as a self-study material to those who keen to acquire this knowledge. In brief, this book focuses on the numerical/computational analysis for the effect of distorted inlet flow propagation on the rotating stall and surge in axial compressors. It gains insight into the basic phenomena controlling these flow instabilities, and reveals the influence of inlet parameters on rotating stall and surge.

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Composite Materials : Properties as Influenced by Phase Geometry

This book deals with the mechanical and physical behavior of composites as influenced by composite geometry. This monograph provides a comprehensive introduction for researchers and students to modern composite materials research with a special emphasis on the influence of geometry to materials properties. Composite Materials enables the reader to a better understanding of the behavior of natural composites, improvement of such materials, and design of new materials with prescribed properties.

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Complications and quandaries in the ICT sector : Standard essential patents and competition issues

Talks about how the regulatory agencies and courts in the United States, European Union and India are dealing with the rising allegations of anti-competitive behaviour by standard essential patent (SEP) holders. It also discusses the role of standards setting organizations / standards developing organizations (SSO/SDO) and the various players involved in implementing the standards that influence practices and internal dynamics in the ICT sector. The book includes discussions on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms and the complexities that arise when both licensors and licensees of SEPs differ on what they mean by “fair”, “reasonable” and “non-discriminatory” terms. It also addresses topics such as the appropriate royalty base, calculation of FRAND rates and concerns related to FRAND commitments and the role of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in collaborative standard setting process.

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Comparative Perspectives on Work-Life Balance and Gender Equality : Fathers on Leave Alone

This book portrays men’s experiences of home alone leave and how it affects their lives and family gender roles in different policy contexts and explores how this unique parental leave design is implemented in these contrasting policy regimes.   The book brings together three major theoretical strands: social policy, in particular the literature on comparative leave policy developments; family and gender studies, in particular the analysis of gendered divisions of work and care and recent shifts in parenting and work-family balance; critical studies of men and masculinities, with a specific focus on fathers and fathering in contemporary western societies and life-courses. Drawing on empirical data from in-depth interviews with fathers across eleven countries, the book shows that the experiences and social processes associated with fathers’ home alone leave involve a diversity of trends, revealing both innovations and absence of change, including pluralization as well as the constraining influence of policy, gender, and social context.

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Community Schools in Africa : Reaching the Unreached

Over the past decade, community schools similar to those supported by Save the Children have been established in many developing countries, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. As large numbers of children attend schools started and managed by their own communities and/or by nongovernmental organizations, questions have come up about the impact of such schools at large scale: "Can village-based or community schools have a national impact on access to education, spur improved long-term development strategies and education policy, or achieve or influence Education for All? This book explores these and related questions, drawing on Save the Children’s experience with community-based schooling in four countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, and Uganda.

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Communicative figurations : Transforming communications in times of deep mediatization

This open access volume is about how to research the influence of our changing media environment. Today, there is not one single medium that is the driving force of change. With the spreading of various technical communication media such as mobile phone and internet platforms, we are confronted with a media manifold of deep mediatization. But how can we investigate its transformative capability? This book answers this question by taking a non-media-centric perspective, researching the various figurations of collectivities and organizations humans are involved in. The first part of the book outlines a fundamental understanding of the changing media environment of deep mediatization and its transformative capacity. The second part focuses on collectivities and movements: communities in the city, critical social movements, maker, online gaming groups and networked groups of young people. The third part moves institutions and organizations into the foreground, discussing the transformation of journalism, religion, politics, and education, whilst the fourth and final part is dedicated to methodologies and perspectives.

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Cities in Transition : Globalization, Political Change and Urban Development

This book was written with the aim of showing that even in the era of globalization developments appearing in cities are not subject to almost unconditional global forces. Rather, universal forces are decisive eventualities in the process of urban restructuring, often influencing its course and speed, yet developments and particularities within a city strongly influence the course of events and the extent to which negative characteristics of globalization might occur.

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Charged Particle Traps : Physics and Techniques of Charged Particle Field Confinement

This book provides an introduction and guide to modern advances in charged particle (and antiparticle) confinement by electromagnetic fields. Confinement in different trap geometries, the influence of trap imperfections, classical and quantum mechanical description of the trapped particle motion, different methods of ion cooling to low temperatures, and non-neutral plasma properties (including Coulomb crystals) are the main subjects. They form the basis of such applications of charged particle traps as high-resolution optical and microwave spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, atomic clocks, and, potentially, quantum computing.

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Changing Forests : Collective Action, Common Property, and Coffee in Honduras

It merges political ecology, collective-action theories, and institutional analysis to study how the people and forests have changed through socioeconomic and political transitions. It studies the complex, often contradictory relationships between the people and their natural resources to understand why forest cover endures."Changing Forests" therefore encompasses three broad phases: (1) the premodern period, which considers historic perturbations in western Honduras from the period of colonialism into the middle of the twentieth century; (2) the period of state-led logging and intervention in La Campa, which caused major degradation in forest cover; and (3) the recent period in which export coffee production transformed property rights, and people’s perceptions of the forest gained new conservationist and economic dimensions. Each phase entails perspectives and experiences that influenced human use of forests, and shaped subsequent transformations.

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Catastrophic Events Caused by Cosmic Objects

Many times all of us could hear from mass media that an asteroid approached and swept past the Earth. Such an asteroid or comet will inevitably strike the planet some day. This volume considers hazards due to collisions with cosmic objects, particularly in light of recent investigations of impacts by the authors. Each chapter written by an expert contains an overview of an aspect and new findings in the field. The main hazardous effects – cratering, shock, aerial and seismic waves, fires, ejection of dust and soot, tsunami are described and numerically estimated. Numerical simulations of impacts and impact consequences have received much attention in the book. Fairly small impacting objects 50 -100 m in diameter pose a real threat to humanity and their influence on the atmosphere and ionosphere is emphasized.

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Carbon Nanotubes : Advanced Topics in the Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Applications

The carbon nanotubes field has evolved substantially since the publication of the bestseller "Carbon Nanotubes: Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Applications". The present volume builds on the generic aspects of the aforementioned book, which emphasizes the fundamentals, with the new volume emphasizing areas that have grown rapidly since the first volume, guiding future directions where research is needed and highlighting applications. The volume also includes an emphasis on areas like graphene, other carbon-like and other tube-like materials because these fields are likely to affect and influence developments in nanotubes in the next 5 years.

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Calvinisms First Battleground : Conflict and Reform in the Pays de Vaud, 1528-1559

A specifically Calvinist identity and theology emerged out of two key conflicts in the region: first, the fight to turn away from Catholic practices and traditions a population that had been forced to convert to Protestantism by the Bernese after their conquest of Vaud in 1536; second, the struggle against the Zwinglian political and theological ideas that dominated the Swiss Confederation and differed from the Calvinists' understanding of ecclesiastical discipline, the Eucharist, and predestination. The Pays de Vaud was central to this struggle, for it was subject politically to Zwinglian, German-speaking Bern, but many of its ministers were more strongly influenced by Calvin. Calvin himself was initially excited about the prospects for reform in the region, but frustrations with the Swiss led him and the Genevans increasingly to focus their efforts on France.

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Calculus of one variable

Aimed at first-year undergraduates in mathematics and the physical sciences, the only prerequisites are basic algebra, coordinate geometry and the beginnings of differentiation as covered in school. The transition from school to university mathematics is addressed by means of a systematic development of important classes of techniques, and through careful discussion of the basic definitions and some of the theorems of calculus, with proofs where appropriate, but stopping short of the rigour involved in Real Analysis.The influence of technology on the learning and teaching of mathematics is recognised through the use of the computer algebra and graphical package MAPLE to illustrate many of the ideas.

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Blameworthy Belief : A Study in Epistemic Deontologism

Believing the wrong thing may sometimes have drastic consequences. The question as to when a person is not only ill-guided, but genuinely at fault for holding a particular belief is an important one: It touches upon the roots of our understanding of such notions as criminal negligence and moral responsibility. The answer to this question may influence the extent to which we are willing to submit each other to punishments ranging from mild resentment to harsh prison terms. This book presents an extensive effort to shed light on the conditions under which we may appropriately deem someone blameworthy for holding a particular belief. It regiments and unifies several debates within contemporary epistemology, ethics and legal scholarship. Finally, the book brings a new philosophical look on issues like our power to control beliefs and the extent and nature of foresight.

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Biophotonics and Coherent Systems in Biology

Biophotonics and Coherent Systems in Biology offers a timely research volume derived from papers submitted at the 3rd International Alexander Gurwitsch Conference. Biophotonics and Coherent Systems in Biology covers the major aspects of modern biophotonics and related biological and biophysical problems of interest to researchers today.Key topics include: Coherency of biophoton emission and its related physical and biological properties , Biological effects of microwaves, Photon emission from living samples, starting from human bodies up to cell cultures, Fundamental role of water in bioenergetics and the influence of electromagnetic fields upon hydrophobic-hydrophilic balance

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Biological processes associated with impact events

The biological effects of asteroid and comet impacts have been widely viewed as primarily destructive. The role of an impactor in the K/T boundary extinctions has had a particularly important influence on thinking concerning the role of impacts in ecological and biological changes. th During the 10 and final workshop of the ESF IMPACT program during March 2003, we sought to investigate the wider aspects of the involvement of impact events in biological processes, including the beneficial role of these events from the prebiotic through to the ecosystem level. The ESF IMPACT programme (1998-2003) was an interdisciplinary effort that is aimed at understanding impact processes and their effects on the Earth environment, including environmental, geological and biological changes.

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Bioactive components of milk

Of all food products dairy foods have the most potential concerning functional foods. Therefore, there is a tremendous amount of interest in value-added milk products and the identification of components in food which have health benefits. Bioactive Components of Milk provides an overview of these derived components and their diverse activities including: the stimulation of beneficial microflora, alerting the immune system to the presence of potential pathogens and allergens, binding and eliminating toxins, etc. The book is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on bioactive milk lipid components, which very widely among mammalian species. The second part describes different aspects of biological active colostrums and milk proteins and their derivatives, with special concern on species specific effects. The third part reviews the production of recombinant human proteins in the milk of livestock animals - including ethical issues - and the aims of altering milk composition for the benefit of both the animals themselves and the consumers. The final part focuses on the influence of ruminants nutrition on the biological activity of milk.

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Between Necessity and Probability : Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life

This study investigates the major theories of the origins of life in light of modern research with the aim of distinguishing between the necessary and the optional and between deterministic and random influences in the emergence of what we call ‘life.’ Life is treated as a cosmic phenomenon whose emergence and driving force should be viewed independently from its Earth-bound natural history. The author synthesizes all the fundamental life-related developments in a comprehensive scenario, and makes the argument that understanding life in its broadest context requires a material-independent perspective that identifies its essential fingerprints.

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