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Matematica e cultura in Europa

Non è vero che la matematica susciti sempre poco interesse. Questa almeno è l'impressione che si ricava quando lo spunto per parlarne viene non solo dalla scienza e dalla tecnologia, ma anche dall'arte, dalla letteratura, dal cinema e dal teatro. Ce lo ha insegnato Michele Emmer con i suoi convegni Matematica e Cultura e lo abbiamo sperimentato a Bologna con le iniziative del 2000 per l'Anno Mondiale della Matematica e per Bologna Città Europea della Cultura. D’altra parte, negli ultimi anni abbiamo finalmente visto sullo schermo come protagonisti di film di successo dei matematici, non rappresentati come individui strani, ma come professionisti che svolgono il proprio lavoro, non necessariamente di insegnanti. Anche alcune opere teatrali di risonanza internazionale hanno parlato di matematici e questo ci ha spinto a organizzare per la prima volta in Italia, a Bologna, la rassegna Matematica e Teatro, che ha dato occasione non solo di assistere a spettacoli molto piacevoli, ma anche di parlare dei rapporti tra scienza, matematica e potere al tempo di Napoleone, di numeri primi, di teoria di Galois.

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Marxist Philosophy in China : From Qu Qiubai to Mao Zedong, 1923-1945

The book sets the philosophical writings of philosophers in the context of the development of Marxist philosophy internationally, and examines particularly the influence on these philosophers of Soviet Marxist philosophy. It argues that these Chinese Marxist philosophers’ interpretations of Marxist philosophy were quite orthodox when judged by the standards of contemporary Soviet Marxism. The book explores core themes in Marxist philosophy in China, including the dilemma of determinism, and investigates the way in which these Chinese Marxist philosophers sought a formula for the ‘Sinification’ of Marxist philosophy that both retained the universal dimensions of Marxism and allowed its application to the Chinese context. The book concludes with analysis of the role of the Yanan New Philosophy Association in developing from Soviet Marxist philosophy the philosophical dimension of Mao Zedong Thought, the official ideology of the Chinese Communist Party after 1945.

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Martens and Fishers (Martes) in human-altered environments : An international perspective

Examines the conditions where humans and martens are compatible and incompatible, and promotes land use practices that allow Martes to be representatively distributed and viable. All Martes have been documented to use forested habitats and 6 species (excluding the stone marten) are generally considered to require complex mid- to late-successional forests throughout much of their geographic ranges. All species in the genus require complex horizontal and vertical structure to provide escape cover protection from predators, habitat for their prey, access to food resources, and protection from the elements. Martens and the fisher have high metabolic rates, have large spatial requirements, have high surface area to volume ratios for animals that often inhabit high latitudes, and often require among the largest home range areas per unit body weight of any group of mammals. Resulting from these unique life history characteristics, this genus is particularly sensitive to human influences on their habitats, including habitat loss, stand-scale simplification of forest structure via some forms of logging, and landscape-scale effects of habitat fragmentation. Given their strong associations with structural complexity in forests, martens and the fisher are often considered as useful barometers of forest health and have been used as ecological indicators, flagship, and umbrella species in different parts of the world. Thus, efforts to successfully conserve and manage martens and fishers are associated with the ecological fates of other forest dependent species and can greatly influence ecosystem integrity within forests that are increasingly shared among wildlife and humans.We have made great strides in our fundamental understanding of how animals with these unique life history traits perceive and utilize habitats, respond to habitat change, and how their populations function and perform under different forms of human management and mismanagement.

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Maritime Archaeology and Social Relations : British Action in the Southern Hemisphere

This book goes beyond a descriptive analysis of wrecks by exploring them and their cargoes as embodiments of 18th century social relations. Maritime Archaeology and Social Relations challenges traditional maritime approaches providing a different perspective that emphasises the richness, diversity and complexity of British action.By applying the concept of praxis, British action is integrated in both land and maritime spaces. A closer look into the associated experienced landscapes enhances our understanding of how social identities were projected at local and global levels.

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Marine resource damage assessment : Liability and compensation for environmental damage

MARE-DASM research focused on: (i) the estimation and distribution of marine contaminants in order to assess their long term effects (ecotoxicology); (ii) the integration of these result into a Biological Effects SubModel and a mathematical model assessing the risks associated with accidental spillage of oil at sea and the damage this can cause (modelling); (iii) the assessment of the willingness to pay for ecological damage, based on the Contingent Valuation Method (economics); (iv) the development and evaluation of measures to be taken in order to guarantee a sustainable use of the Belgian part of the North Sea, taking into account the economic and social interests and values (social economics); (v) the potential to develop technical and legal procedures that allow ecological damage to the marine environment to be evaluated and compensated, taking into account constraints in national and international liability legislation (legal).

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Manufacturing Systems : Theory and Practice

The book has six chapters that have been arranged according to the sequence used when creating and operating a manufacturing system. Thus, the subjects emphasised are: the decision framework for manufacturing, the manufacturing processes, the manufacturing equipment and machine tools, the design for manufacturing and the operation of manufacturing systems. The book attempts a compromise between theory and practice in all addressed manufacturing systems issues, covering a long spectrum of issues from traditional manufacturing processes to innovative technologies such as Virtual Reality, Nanotechnology and Rapid Prototyping.

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Management of Intentional and Accidental Water Pollution

The goals of the workshop included a discussion of the state of the science in identification of new research and approaches for water pollution events and communication of the management of water pollution and sustainability of water resources. Critical to management of accidental and intentional pollution events is the assessment of the risk, an understanding of the hazards and lessons learned from events which may lead to preventative management and control strategies. Public health protection will ultimately be improved by the ability to develop management frameworks which are flexible and adaptable to the specific region, country or watershed problems and concerns and allow for prioritization in the decision making. The integration of scientific information regarding the types of hazards the environmental fate of the chemical/biological, exposure pathways and human and ecosystem impacts may be implemented from both a qualitative or descriptive approach or using a more classical quantitative risk assessment paradigm. Thus the frameworks for assessing the risk and managing the risk may be seen as preventive, early warning and responsive.

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Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images : Astrophotography with Affordable Equipment and Software

Professor Greg Parker's astronomical photographs are widely known for their excellence, and a selection of them has recently been shown as a public exhibition in the UK. In Making Beautiful Deep-Sky Images, he provides a detailed account of how spectacular deep-sky images can be taken by amateur astronomers using CCD cameras, and how they can subsequently be processed and enhanced in the "electronic darkroom" for maximum beauty and impact. Quite simply, this is a "how to do it" book for people who want to make stunning astronomical pictures.

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Magnetism : From Fundamentals to Nanoscale Dynamics

Gives an comprehensive account of magnetism, spanning the historical development, the physical foundations and the continuing research underlying the field, one of the oldest yet still vibrant field of physics. It covers both the classical and quantum mechanical aspects of magnetism and novel experimental techniques. Perhaps uniquely, it also discusses spin transport and magnetization dynamics phenomena associated with atomically and spin engineered nano-structures against the backdrop of spintronics and magnetic storage and memory applications.

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Loop Spaces, Characteristic Classes and Geometric Quantization

This book deals with the differential geometry of manifolds, loop spaces, line bundles and groupoids, and the relations of this geometry to mathematical physics. Various developments in mathematical physics (e.g., in knot theory, gauge theory, and topological quantum field theory) have led mathematicians and physicists to search for new geometric structures on manifolds and to seek a synthesis of ideas from geometry, topology and category theory. In this spirit, this book develops the differential geometry associated to the topology and obstruction theory of certain fiber bundles (more precisely, associated to grebes). The theory is a 3-dimensional analog of the familiar Kostant--Weil theory of line bundles. In particular the curvature now becomes a 3-form.

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Linking and Aligning Scores and Scales

In this book, experts in statistics and psychometrics describe classes of linkages, the history of score linkings, data collection designs, and methods used to achieve sound score linkages. They describe and critically discuss applications to a variety of domains including equating of achievement exams, linkages between computer-delivered exams and paper-and-pencil exams, concordances between the current version of the SAT® and its predecessor, concordances between the ACT® and the SAT®, vertical linkages of exams that span grade levels, and linkages of scales from high-stakes state assessments to the scales of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

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Light-Associated Reactions of Synthetic Polymers

This book presents a range of reactions and materials with some of the most exciting current and future applications. It includes a brief introduction to photochemistry; in-depth discussion of photosensitizers, photoinititiators, and the processes of light curing and crosslinking; listing of light responsive polymers and their uses; and a discussion of polymeric materials for use in non-linear optics.

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Light, Water, Hydrogen : The Solar Generation of Hydrogen by Water Photoelectrolysis

The development of a direct, inexpensive, and efficient method for converting solar energy into a portable, clean fuel would allow elimination of the growing problems associated with the ever increasing use of fossil fuels and the reality of their rapid depletion. As the title suggests, Light, Water, Hydrogen: The Solar Generation of Hydrogen by Water Photoelectrolysis, considers the combination of water and light with a suitable semiconductor to achieve a safe, renewable and therefore inexhaustable means for hydrogen generation via the splitting of the water molecule, or photoelectrolysis.

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Light and Light Sources : High-Intensity Discharge Lamps

Light and Light Sources gives an introduction to the working principles of high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps and points out challenges and problems associated with the development and operation of HID lamps. The state-of-the-art in electrode and plasma diagnostics as well as numerical methods used for the understanding of HID lamps are described. This volume addresses students as well as scientists and researchers at universities and in industry.

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Lie Theory Vol.229 : Unitary Representations and Compactifications of Symmetric Spaces

It focuses on two fundamental questions in the theory of semisimple Lie groups: the geometry of Riemannian symmetric spaces and their compactifications; and branching laws for unitary representations, i.e., restricting unitary representations to (typically, but not exclusively, symmetric) subgroups and decomposing the ensuing representations into irreducibles.Ji's introductory chapter motivates the subject of symmetric spaces and their compactifications with carefully selected examples. A discussion of Satake and Furstenberg boundaries and a survey of the geometry of Riemannian symmetric spaces in general provide a good background for the second chapter, namely, the Borel–Ji authoritative treatment of various types of compactifications useful for studying symmetric and locally symmetric spaces. Borel–Ji further examine constructions of Oshima, De Concini, Procesi, and Melrose, which demonstrate the wide applicability of compactification techniques. Kobayashi examines the important subject of branching laws. Important concepts from modern representation theory, such as Harish–Chandra modules, associated varieties, microlocal analysis, derived functor modules, and geometric quantization are introduced. Concrete examples and relevant exercises engage the reader.

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Lie Groups : An Approach through Invariants and Representations

Lie groups has been an increasing area of focus and rich research since the middle of the 20th century. Procesi's masterful approach to Lie groups through invariants and representations gives the reader a comprehensive treatment of the classical groups along with an extensive introduction to a wide range of topics associated with Lie groups: symmetric functions, theory of algebraic forms, Lie algebras, tensor algebra and symmetry, semisimple Lie algebras, algebraic groups, group representations, invariants, Hilbert theory, and binary forms with fields ranging from pure algebra to functional analysis.

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Lie Algebras and Applications

This book, designed for advanced graduate students and post-graduate researchers, provides an introduction to Lie algebras and some of their applications to the spectroscopy of molecules, atoms, nuclei and hadrons. In the first part, a concise exposition is given of the basic concepts of Lie algebras, their representations and their invariants. The second part contains a description of how Lie algebras are used in practice in the treatment of bosonic and fermionic systems. Physical applications considered include rotations and vibrations of molecules (vibron model), collective modes in nuclei (interacting boson model), the atomic shell model, the nuclear shell model, and the quark model of hadrons. One of the key concepts in the application of Lie algebraic methods in physics, that of spectrum generating algebras and their associated dynamic symmetries, is also discussed. The book contains many examples that help to elucidate the abstract algebraic definitions. It provides a summary of many formulas of practical interest, such as the eigenvalues of Casimir operators and the dimensions of the representations of all classical Lie algebras.

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Lie Algebras and Algebraic Groups

The theory of Lie algebras and algebraic groups has been an area of active research in the last 50 years. It intervenes in many different areas of mathematics : for example invariant theory, Poisson geometry, harmonic analysis, mathematical physics. The aim of this book is to assemble in a single volume the algebraic aspects of the theory so as to present the foundation of the theory in characteristic zero. Detailed proofs are included and some recent results are discussed in the last chapters. All the prerequisites on commutative algebra and algebraic geometry are included.

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Lectures in Astrobiology ; Vol. II

Based on material delivered at several summer schools, this book is the first comprehensive textbook at the graduate level encompassing all aspects associated with the emerging field of astrobiology. Volume II gathers another set of extensive lectures covering topics so diverse as the formation and the distribution of elements in the Universe, the concept of habitability from both the planetologists' and the biologists' point of view and artificial life. The contributions are held together by the common goal to understand better the origin of life, its evolution and possible existence outside the Earth's realm.

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Learning to Diagnose with Simulations : Examples from Teacher Education and Medical Education

Presents 8 novel approaches to measure and improve diagnostic competences with simulation. The book compares the effects of interventions on these diagnostic competences in both teacher and medical education. It includes analyses showing that important aspects of diagnostic competences and effects of instructional interventions aiming to facilitate them are comparable for teachers and doctors.

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