This is a modern textbook for courses in continuum mechanics. It provides both the theoretical framework and the numerical methods required to model the behaviour of continuous materials. This self-contained textbook is tailored for advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate students with numerous step-by-step derivations and worked-out examples. The author presents both the general continuum theory and the mathematics needed to apply it in practice. The derivation of constitutive models for ideal gases, fluids, solids and biological materials, and the numerical methods required to solve the resulting differential equations, are also detailed. Specifically, the text presents the theory and numerical implementation for the finite difference and the finite element methods in the Matlab® programming language. It includes thirteen detailed Matlab® programs illustrating how constitutive models are used in practice.
The world is simultaneously facing many crises that humanity is failing to solve. Yet, at the same time, humans are smarter (with IQs on average thirty points higher than a century ago) and more knowledgeable (with the world's knowledge base at our fingertips), and scientific advances are accelerating. However, intelligence and knowledge are not enough: wisdom harnesses these strengths to serve the common good. Education is focused on acquiring knowledge, but schools would do better also to teach and test for the development of wisdom. To a lot of people, wisdom is an abstraction, but there is a growing body of scientific research into what wisdom is and how it works. This introduction sets out why wisdom is so important. Drawing on insights from psychology, philosophy, science, and common sense, this book provides a complete account of wisdom and how we can develop it throughout our lives.
The world is simultaneously facing many crises that humanity is failing to solve. Yet, at the same time, humans are smarter (with IQs on average thirty points higher than a century ago) and more knowledgeable (with the world's knowledge base at our fingertips), and scientific advances are accelerating. However, intelligence and knowledge are not enough: wisdom harnesses these strengths to serve the common good. Education is focused on acquiring knowledge, but schools would do better also to teach and test for the development of wisdom. To a lot of people, wisdom is an abstraction, but there is a growing body of scientific research into what wisdom is and how it works. This introduction sets out why wisdom is so important. Drawing on insights from psychology, philosophy, science, and common sense, this book provides a complete account of wisdom and how we can develop it throughout our lives.
As interest in creativity explodes, it has become more complicated to decide how to best nurture creativity in our schools. There are the controversial Common Core Standards in many states. Meanwhile, the classroom has become increasingly digital; it is easier to access information, communicate ideas, and learn from people across the world. Many countries now include cultivating creativity as a national educational policy recommendation, yet there is still debate over best practices. Indeed, many well-intentioned educators may institute programs that may not reach the desired outcome. The notion that schools 'kill creativity' has become a widespread social meme. We view such beliefs as both hyperbolic and problematic: they allow us to recognize there is a problem but not solve it. In this book, a wide array of international experts addresses these issues, discussing theories and research that focus on how to nurture creativity in K-12 and college-level classrooms.
Implement programming best practices from the ground upImagine how much easier it would be to solve a programming problem, if you had access to the best practices from all the top experts in the field
When multinational corporations cause mass harms to lives, livelihoods, and the environment in developing countries, it is nearly impossible for victims to find a court that can and will issue an enforceable judgment. In this work, Professor Maya Steinitz presents a detailed rationale for the creation of an International Court of Civil Justice (ICCJ) to hear such transnational mass tort cases. The world's legal systems were not designed to solve these kinds of complex transnational disputes, and the absence of mechanisms to ensure coordination means that victims try, but fail, to find justice in country after country, court after court. The Case for an International Court of Civil Justice explains how an ICCJ would provide victims with access to justice and corporate defendants with a non-corrupt forum and an end to the cost and uncertainty of unending litigation - more efficiently resolving the most complicated types of civil litigation.
Using sample administrative and clinical protocols that any hospital can use, this book gives a detailed account of how to set up and run an observation unit and reviews all medical conditions in which observation medicine may be beneficial. In addition to clinical topics such as improving patient outcomes and avoiding readmissions, it also includes practical topics such as design, staffing, and daily operations; fiscal aspects, such as coding, billing, and reimbursement; regulatory concerns, such as aligning case management and utilization review with observation; nursing considerations; and more. The future of observation medicine, and how it can help solve the healthcare crisis from costs to access, is also discussed. Although based on US practices, this book is also applicable to an international audience, and contains instructions for implementing observation in any setting or locale and in any type of hospital or other appropriate facility.
Political Consumerism captures the creative ways in which citizens, consumers and political activists use the market as their arena for politics. This book theorizes, describes, analyzes, compares and evaluates the phenomenon of political consumerism and how it attempts to use market choice to solve complex globalized problems. It investigates theoretically and empirically how and why consumers practice citizenship and have become important political actors. Dietlind Stolle and Michele Micheletti describe consumers' engagement as an example of individualized responsibility taking, examining how political consumerism nudges and pressures corporations to change their production practices, and how consumers emerge as a force in global affairs. Unlike other studies, it also evaluates if and how consumer actions become effective mechanisms of global change. Stolle and Micheletti offer a candid discussion of the limitations of political consumerism as a form of participation and as a problem
It’s time to get your head in the cloud! In today’s business environment, more and more people are requesting cloud-based solutions to help solve their business challenges. So how can you
Optimization methods play a central role in financial modeling. This textbook is devoted to explaining how state-of-the-art optimization theory, algorithms, and software can be used to efficiently solve problems in computational finance. It discusses some classical mean–variance portfolio optimization models as well as more modern developments such as models for optimal trade execution and dynamic portfolio allocation with transaction costs and taxes. Chapters discussing the theory and efficient solution methods for the main classes of optimization problems alternate with chapters discussing their use in the modeling and solution of central problems in mathematical finance. This book will be interesting and useful for students, academics, and practitioners with a background in mathematics, operations research, or financial engineering. The second edition includes new examples and exercises as well as a more detailed discussion of mean–variance optimization, multi-period models, and add
In this 1991 book, Hilbers discusses the general case of how to use processors simultaneously in order to solve a single problem rather than any specific application, and develops a theory independent of particular architectures. He starts by introducing distributed computing with graph theory, and considers processor networks and their price/performance ratios. He goes on to look at obtaining homogeneous distributions of work over networks and considers examples. Finally he discusses message routing within a processor network. This is intended to be a fundamental treatment of the relevant subjects and is aimed at computer scientists and graduate students in computer science who have experience with parallel processing: it will also be useful to others interested in processor networks.
Transfer learning deals with how systems can quickly adapt themselves to new situations, tasks and environments. It gives machine learning systems the ability to leverage auxiliary data and models to help solve target problems when there is only a small amount of data available. This makes such systems more reliable and robust, keeping the machine learning model faced with unforeseeable changes from deviating too much from expected performance. At an enterprise level, transfer learning allows knowledge to be reused so experience gained once can be repeatedly applied to the real world. For example, a pre-trained model that takes account of user privacy can be downloaded and adapted at the edge of a computer network. This self-contained, comprehensive reference text describes the standard algorithms and demonstrates how these are used in different transfer learning paradigms. It offers a solid grounding for newcomers as well as new insights for seasoned researchers and developers.
The second edition of this popular introductory undergraduate textbook uses examples, applications, and profiles of biomedical engineers to show students the relevance of the theory and how it can be used to solve real problems in human medicine. The essential molecular biology, cellular biology, and human physiology background is included for students to understand the context in which biomedical engineers work. Updates throughout highlight important advances made over recent years, including iPS cells, microRNA, nanomedicine, imaging technology, biosensors, and drug delivery systems, giving students a modern description of the various subfields of biomedical engineering. Over two hundred quantitative and qualitative exercises, many new to this edition, help consolidate learning, whilst a solutions manual, password-protected for instructors, is available online. Finally, students can enjoy an expanded set of leader profiles in biomedical engineering within the book, showcasing the bro
This book provides an argumentation model for means end-reasoning, a distinctive type of reasoning used for problem-solving and decision-making. Means end-reasoning is modelled as goal-directed argumentation from an agent's goals and known circumstances, and from an action selected as a means, to a decision to carry out the action. Goal-based Reasoning for Argumentation provides an argumentation model of this kind of reasoning showing how it is employed in settings of intelligent deliberation where agents try to collectively arrive at a conclusion on what they should do to move forward in a set of circumstances. The book explains how this argumentation model can help build more realistic computational systems of deliberation and decision-making, and shows how such systems can be applied to solve problems posed by goal-based reasoning in numerous fields, from social psychology and sociology, to law, political science, anthropology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, multi-agent
Why solve a problem when you can dissolve it? In Dissolve The Problem, bestselling author and spiritual explorer Richard Dotts tackles one of the most pertinent aspects of everyday living—how to deal
Maple is a powerful symbolic computation system that is widely used in universities around the world. This short introduction gives readers an insight into the rules that control how the system works, and how to understand, fix, and avoid common problems. Topics covered include algebra, calculus, linear algebra, graphics, programming, and procedures. Each chapter contains numerous illustrative examples, using mathematics that does not extend beyond first-year undergraduate material. Maple worksheets containing these examples are available for download from the author's personal website. The book is suitable for new users, but where advanced topics are central to understanding Maple they are tackled head-on. Many concepts which are absent from introductory books and manuals are described in detail. With this book, students, teachers and researchers will gain a solid understanding of Maple and how to use it to solve complex mathematical problems in a simple and efficient way.
Since the 1990s, mainstream political parties have failed to address the problem of growing inequality, resulting in political backlash and the transformation of European party systems. Most attempts to explain the rise of inequality in political science take a far too narrow approach, considering only economic inequality and failing to recognize how multiple manifestations of inequality combine to reinforce each other and the underlying political features of advanced welfare states. Combining training in public health with a background in political science, Julia Lynch brings a unique perspective to debates about inequality in political science and to public health thinking about the causes of and remedies for health inequalities. Based on case studies of efforts to reduce health inequalities in England, France and Finland, Lynch argues that inequality persists because political leaders chose to frame the issue of inequality in ways that made it harder to solve.
In this accessible introduction, Mike Sharwood Smith provides a working model or 'map' of the mind, with language as its centrepiece. Drawing on cutting-edge research across linguistics, psychology and neuroscience, it allows students to quickly grasp how each separate aspect of the mind's operations can be related. This 'big picture' view includes the way the mind makes, stores and loses memories of all kinds as well how its various 'expert systems' combine and collaborate to solve, typically beyond our conscious awareness, the myriad of tasks we are faced with every minute and millisecond of our existence. The book also focuses on language, that is, the mind of monolingual, bilingual and multilingual speakers. It will be of interest to all students wishing to learn more about the complex relationship between language - one of the most important ways in which we define ourselves as human - and the mind.
This book provides an argumentation model for means end-reasoning, a distinctive type of reasoning used for problem-solving and decision-making. Means end-reasoning is modelled as goal-directed argumentation from an agent's goals and known circumstances, and from an action selected as a means, to a decision to carry out the action. Goal-based Reasoning for Argumentation provides an argumentation model of this kind of reasoning showing how it is employed in settings of intelligent deliberation where agents try to collectively arrive at a conclusion on what they should do to move forward in a set of circumstances. The book explains how this argumentation model can help build more realistic computational systems of deliberation and decision-making, and shows how such systems can be applied to solve problems posed by goal-based reasoning in numerous fields, from social psychology and sociology, to law, political science, anthropology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, multi-agent
Over the past decade, astronomers, planetary scientists, and cosmologists have answered - or are closing in on the answers to - some of the biggest questions about the universe. David J. Eicher presents a spectacular exploration of the cosmos that provides a balanced and precise view of the latest discoveries. Detailed and entertaining narratives on compelling topics such as how the Sun will die, the end of life on Earth, why Venus turned itself inside-out, the Big Bang Theory, the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, and the meaning of life in the universe are supported by numerous color illustrations including photos, maps and explanatory diagrams. In each chapter the author sets out the scientific history of a specific question or problem, before tracing the modern observations and evidence in order to solve it. Join David J. Eicher on this fascinating journey through the cosmos!
