Nobel laureate’s brilliant attempt to develop a simple, unified standard method of dealing with all cases of statistical thermodynamics (classical, quantum, Bose-Einstein, Fermi-Dirac, etc.). Discussions of Nernst theorem, Planck’s oscillator, fluctuations, the n-particle problem, problem of radiation, much more.

The object of this seminar is to develop briefly one simple, unified standard method, capable of dealing, without changing the fundamental attitude, with all cases (classical, quantum, Bose-Einstein, Fermi-Dirac, etc.) and with every new problem that may arise. The interest is focused on the general procedure, and examples are dealt with as illustrations thereof. It is not a first introduction for newcomers to the subject, but rather a 'repetitorium '. The treatment of those topics which are to be found in everyone of a hundred text~ books is severely condensed; on the other hand, vital points vvhich are usually passed over in all but the large monographs (such as Fowler's and Tolman's) are dealt with at greater length.

This concise guide offers relevant, rigorous and approachable methods... thoughtfully structured series of chapters, with clear definitions... this book [is] a valuable resource for developing a useful understanding of methods of persuasion. - Times Educational Supplement

Attempts to persuade us - to believe something, to do something, to buy something - are everywhere. What is less clear is how to think critically about such attempts and how to distinguish those that are sound arguments. Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide is a much needed guide to argument analysis and a clear introduction to thinking clearly and rationally for oneself. Accessibly written, this book equips readers with the essential skills required to discuss a good argument from a bad one.

Key features of the book include:
* Clear, jargon-free discussion of key concepts in argumentation
* How to avoid common confusions surrounding words such as "truth," "knowledge" and "opinion"
* How to identify and evaluate the most common types of argument
* How to spot fallacies and tell good reasoning from bad
* Chapter summaries, exercises, examples, and a glossary

The second edition has been updated to include topical new examples from politics, sport, medicine and music, as well as new exercises throughout.

About the Author

Gary Kemp is lecturer of Philosophy at Glasgow University. Tracy Bowell is lecturer of Philosophy at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. 

Discover the materials set to revolutionize the electronics industry

The search for electronic materials that can be cheaply solution-processed into films, while simultaneously providing quality device characteristics, represents a major challenge for materials scientists. Continuous semiconducting thin films with large carrier mobilities are particularly desirable for high-speed microelectronic applications, potentially providing new opportunities for the development of low-cost, large-area, flexible computing devices, displays, sensors, and solar cells.

To date, the majority of solution-processing research has focused on molecular and polymeric organic films. In contrast, this book reviews recent achievements in the search for solution-processed inorganic semiconductors and other critical electronic components. These components offer the potential for better performance and more robust thermal and mechanical stability than comparable organic-based systems.

Solution Processing of Inorganic Materials covers everything from the more traditional fields of sol-gel processing and chemical bath deposition to the cutting-edge use of nanomaterials in thin-film deposition. In particular, the book focuses on materials and techniques that are compatible with high-throughput, low-cost, and low-temperature deposition processes such as spin coating, dip coating, printing, and stamping. Throughout the text, illustrations and examples of applications are provided to help the reader fully appreciate the concepts and opportunities involved in this exciting field.

In addition to presenting the state-of-the-art research, the book offers extensive background material. As a result, any researcher involved or interested in electronic device fabrication can turn to this book to become fully versed in the solution-processed inorganic materials that are set to revolutionize the electronics industry.

About the Author

David B. Mitzi, PhD, is a Research Staff Member in the Physical Sciences Department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. His research examines the solid-state chemistry, thin-film deposition and device opportunities for a variety of materials with potentially useful electronic or optical properties. Most recently, his focus has been on organic-inorganic hybrids and the development of solution-processed high-mobility inorganic semiconductors for thin-film devices (e.g., TFTs, LEDs, solar cells). Dr. Mitzi holds a number of patents and has authored or coauthored more than one hundred papers.

Debate about organization and workplace learning has now moved on from viewing learning as a way of fostering control. This book suggests that by focusing on learning as a way of living, the needs of production can be reconciled with the need for employees to have satisfying engagement with their work.

This book draws together two important strands of study about the world of work: organizational and workplace learning. They are not the same conceptually or even linguistically but are brought together here because they are two sides of the same coin. However, it is necessary to see why they are two sides of the same coin and then to look at each side separately. The common word in these two terms is ‘learning’, a concept that conveys a sense of continuity and change, but especially the latter.

In order to try to capture the way that the world is changing, Bauman (2000) has introduced us to the concept of liquid modernity – a world of change, a place where people travel light and are flexible in the face of the forces of change. It is as if stasis has ceased to be and change is the norm of existence. It is endemic. This is a world that changes so rapidly that decisions have to be implemented before their possible outcomes can be properly tested – it is a risk society (Beck, 1992). What has caused such haste? Clearly this is a structural phenomenon and it might best be seen under the broad heading of globalization.

This book will help you prepare for and pass the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform SE 6 (CX-310-065) Exam. It is written for any experienced programmer (with or without previous knowledge of Java) interested in mastering the Java programming language and passing the SCJP 1.6 Exam.

 

A Programmer’s Guide to Java™ SCJP Certification, Third Edition, provides detailed coverage of all exam topics and objectives, readily runnable code examples, programming exercises, extensive review questions, and a new mock exam. In addition, as a comprehensive primer to the Java programming language, this book is an invaluable reference tool.

This new edition has been thoroughly updated to focus on the latest version of the exam (CX-310-065). In particular, it contains in-depth explanations of the language features. Their usage is illustrated by way of code scenarios, as required by the exam. The companion Web site (www.ii.uib.no/~khalid/pgjc3e/) contains a version of the SCJP 1.6 Exam Simulator developed by the authors. The site also contains the complete source code for all the book’s examples, as well as solutions to the programming exercises.

What you will find in this book:

• Extensive coverage of all the objectives defined for the Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform, Standard Edition 6 (CX-310-065) Exam
• An easy-to-follow structure with chapters organized according to the exam objectives, as laid out by Sun Microsystems
• Summaries that clearly state and differentiate the exam objectives and the supplementary objectives to be covered in each chapter
• A list of Sun’s objectives for the SCJP 1.6 Exam and a guide to taking the exam
• A complete mock exam with new questions (not repeats of review questions)
• Numerous exam-relevant review questions to test your understanding of each major topic, with annotated answers
• Programming exercises and solutions at the end of each chapter
• Copious code examples illustrating concepts, where the code has been compiled and thoroughly tested on multiple platforms
• Program output demonstrating expected results from running the examples
• Extensive use of UML (Unified Modeling Language) for illustration purposes
• An introduction to basic terminology and concepts in object-oriented programming
• Advice on how to avoid common pitfalls in mastering the language and taking the exam
• Platform- and tool-independent coverage
• Information about the SCJP 1.6 Upgrade (CX-310-066) Exam

About the Author

Khalid A. Mughal is an Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen, Norway. Professor Mughal is responsible for designing and implementing various courses, which use Java, at the Department of Informatics. Over the years, he has taught Programming Languages (Java, C/C++, Pascal), Software Engineering (Object-Oriented System Development), Data bases (Data Modeling and Database Management Systems), and Compiler Techniques. He has also given numerous courses and seminars at various levels in object-oriented programming and system development, using Java and Javarelated technology, both at the University and for the IT industry. He is the principal author of the book, responsible for writing the material covering the Java topics.

Rolf W. Rasmussen is the System Development Manager at vizrt, a company that develops solutions for the TV broadcast industry, including real-time 3D graphic renderers, and content and control systems.

Rasmussen works mainly on control and automation systems, video processing, typography, and real-time visualization. He has worked on clean room implementations of the Java class libraries in the past, and is a contributor to the Free Software Foundation.

Lionel de Rothschild's hard-fought entry into Parliament in 1858 marked the emancipation of Jews in Britain--the symbolic conclusion of Jews' campaign for equal rights and their inclusion as citizens after centuries of discrimination. Jewish life entered a new phase: the post-emancipation era. But what did this mean for the Jewish community and their interactions with wider society? And how did Britain's state and society react to its newest citizens?

Emancipation was ambiguous. Acceptance carried expectations, as well as opportunities. Integrating into British society required changes to traditional Jewish identity, just as it also widened conceptions of Britishness. Many Jews willingly embraced their environment and fashioned a unique Jewish existence: mixing in all levels of society; experiencing economic success; and organising and translating its faith along Anglican grounds. However, unlike many other European Jews, Anglo-Jews stayed loyal to their faith. Conversion and outmarriage remained rare, and connections were maintained with foreign kin. The community was even willing at times to place its Jewish and English identity in conflict, as happened during the 1876-8 Eastern Crisis--which provoked the first episode of modern antisemitism in Britain.

The nature of Jewish existence in Britain was unclear and developing in the post-emancipation era. Focusing upon inter-linked case studies of Anglo-Jewry's political activity, internal government, and religious development, Michael Clark explores the dilemmas of identity and inter-faith relations that confronted the minority in late nineteenth-century Britain. This was a crucial period in which the Anglo-Jewish community shaped the basis of its modern existence, whilst the British state explored the limits of its toleration.

About the Author

Michael Clark was educated at the Universities of Exeter and Sheffield before receiving his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in 2006. He has worked for HM Treasury since 2005.

The importance of mathematics competitions has been widely recognized for three reasons: they help to develop imaginative capacity and thinking skills whose value far transcends mathematics; they constitute the most effective way of discovering and nurturing mathematical talent; and they provide a means to combat the prevalent false image of mathematics held by high school students, as either a fearsomely difficult or a dull and uncreative subject. This book provides a comprehensive training resource for competitions from local and provincial to national Olympiad level, containing hundreds of diagrams, and graced by many light-hearted cartoons. It features a large collection of what mathematicians call "beautiful" problems - non-routine, provocative, fascinating, and challenging problems, often with elegant solutions. It features careful, systematic exposition of a selection of the most important topics encountered in mathematics competitions, assuming little prior knowledge. Geometry, trigonometry, mathematical induction, inequalities, Diophantine equations, number theory, sequences and series, the binomial theorem, and combinatorics - are all developed in a gentle but lively manner, liberally illustrated with examples, and consistently motivated by attractive "appetiser" problems, whose solution appears after the relevant theory has been expounded.

Each chapter is presented as a "toolchest" of instruments designed for cracking the problems collected at the end of the chapter. Other topics, such as algebra, co-ordinate geometry, functional equations and probability, are introduced and elucidated in the posing and solving of the large collection of miscellaneous problems in the final toolchest.

An unusual feature of this book is the attention paid throughout to the history of mathematics - the origins of the ideas, the terminology and some of the problems, and the celebration of mathematics as a multicultural, cooperative human achievement.

As a bonus the aspiring "mathlete" may encounter, in the most enjoyable way possible, many of the topics that form the core of the standard school curriculum.

About the Author

Alexander Zawaira was born in Zimbabwe in 1978. He studied Mathematics and Biochemistry at the University of Zimbabwe where Dr Gavin Hitchcock was one of his teachers. He won a Beit Trust Scholarship to study at Oxford University (England) where he obtained a PhD in Structural Biology. His research interests focus on bridging the gap between bioinformatics and "wet-lab" biochemistry by deriving and experimentally investigating hypotheses from bioinformatics analyses. He is also interested in the general application of mathematics in biology.

Gavin Hitchcock was born in Zimbabwe in 1946. He won scholarships to study mathematics at the Universities of Oxford and Keele, where he took his PhD with a thesis in general topology. He is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics, University of Zimbabwe, and his research interests are in topology and the history of mathematics. He is internationally known for his writings concerned with the communication of mathematical ideas and their history through theatre and dialogue. He spearheads the mathematical talent search and mathematical Olympiad training programmes in Zimbabwe, and is editor of Zimaths Magazine. He mounts workshops in Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries for teachers, for learners, and for parents, on such topics as "touching and seeing mathematics", "using the history of mathematics to enliven teaching", and "creative problem solving". He also conducts seminars on creative problem solving for workers and for management in commerce and industry.

Heroin is universally considered the world's most harmful illegal drug. This is due not only to the damaging effects of the drug itself, but also to the spread of AIDS tied to its use. Burgeoning illegal mass consumption in the 1960s and 1970s has given rise to a global market for heroin and other opiates of nearly 16 million users. The production and trafficking of opiates have caused crime, disease, and social distress throughout the world, leading many nations to invest billions of dollars trying to suppress the industry. The failure of their efforts has become a central policy concern. Can the world heroin supply actually be cut, and with what consequences?

The result of a five-year-long research project involving extensive fieldwork in six Asian countries, Colombia, and Turkey, this book is the first systematic analysis of the contemporary world heroin market, delving into its development and structure, its participants, and its socio-economic impact. It provides a sound and comprehensive empirical base for concluding that there is little opportunity to shrink the global supply of heroin in the long term, and explains why production is concentrated in a handful of countries--and is likely to remain that way. On the basis of these findings, the authors identify a key set of policy opportunities, largely local, and make suggestions for leveraging them. This book also offers new insights into market conditions in India, Tajikistan, and other countries that have been greatly harmed by the production and trafficking of illegal opiates.

A deft integration of economics, sociology, history, and policy analysis, The World Heroin Market provides a rigorous and vital look into the complex--and resilient--global heroin trade.

About the Author

Letizia Paoli is Professor of Criminology at the K.U. Leuven Faculty of Law, Belgium.

Victoria A. Greenfield is the Crowe Chair Professor in the Economics of the Defense Industrial Base in the Department of Economics at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Peter Reuter is Professor in the School of Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.

...the notebook offers a rich and vivid demonstration of the ways in which Hardy, astonishingly creative even into his mid-80s, worked persistently with ideas towards so many of the poems which were gathered into the remarkable final volume, Winter Words. With particular value from a biographical standpoint, we can catch tantalising glimpses of the mind of a genius work. Geoff Ward, Western Daily Press

Thomas Hardy's "Poetical Matter" notebook, the last to be published from among the small group of notebooks not destroyed by Hardy himself or by his executors, has now been meticulously edited with full scholarly annotation. Through its inclusion of so many notes copied by Hardy from old pocket-books subsequently destroyed, "Poetical Matter" reaches back to all periods of his life, and is especially valuable from a biographical standpoint for its expansion and enhancement of knowledge of Hardy's final years and for its preservation of such intimate records as his richly revealing memories of the Bockhampton of his childhood and his sexually charged impressions of a woman glimpsed during a trip on a pleasure steamer in 1868. Its special distinctiveness nevertheless lies in its uniqueness as a late working notebook devoted specifically to verse. Florence Hardy, Hardy's widow, recalled his having experienced a great outburst of late creativity, feeling that he could go on writing almost indefinitely, and "Poetical Matter" bears direct witness to his actively thinking about poetry and projecting and composing new poems until shortly before his death at the age of eighty-seven. As such, it contains an abundance of new ideas for poems and sequences of poems and demonstrates Hardy's characteristic creative progression, his working variously with initial ideas, with gathered notes, whether old or new, and with tentative prose formulations, verse fragments, metrical schemes, and rhyme patterns, towards the writing of the drafts from which, yet further worked and reworked, the completed poem would ultimately emerge.

About the Author

Pamela Dalziel is Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia and General Editor of the Clarendon Dickens Edition. Her scholarly editions include Thomas Hardy: The Excluded and Collaborative Stories (1992), Thomas Hardy's 'Studies, Specimens &c.' Notebook (co-edited with Michael Millgate, 1994), and Dickens's Hard Times (in progress). Her monograph Visual Hardy: Representing Gender and Genre in the Illustrated Novels will be published in 2009.

Michael Millgate retired from the University of Toronto with the honorific title of University Professor. His later work--as critic, biographer, and editor--has been primarily devoted to Thomas Hardy. His Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist appeared in 1971, Thomas Hardy: A Biography in 1982, Testamentary Acts: Browning, Tennyson, James, Hardy in 1992, and Thomas Hardy: A Biography Revisited in 2004. His editorial work has included the seven-volume Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, co-edited with Richard Little Purdy (1978-88), The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy (1985), Thomas Hardy's 'Studies, Specimens &c.' Notebook, co-edited with Pamela Dalziel (1994), Letters of Emma and Florence Hardy (1996), and Thomas Hardy's Public Voice. (2001).