Genetics of Allergy and Asthma: Methods for Investigative Studies (Clinical Allergy and Immunology) Review
Extends investigative studies of allergic disease pathogenesis through a biological and environmental interaction approach-from historical grounding to genetic-nongenetic allergen identification in asthma and allergy development.
A Philosophical History of German Sociology (Routledge Studies in Critical Realism) Review
A Philosophical History of German Sociology presents a systematic reconstruction of critical theory, from the founding fathers of sociology (Marx, Simmel, Weber) via Lukács to the Frankfurt School (Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas). Through an in depth analysis of the theories of alienation, rationalisation and reification, it investigates the metatheoretical presuppositions of a critical theory of the present that not only highlights the reality of domination, but is also able to highlight the possibilities of emancipation.
Although not written as a textbook, its clear and cogent introduction to some of the main theories of sociology make this book a valuable resource for undergraduates and postgraduates alike. The following in-depth investigation of theories of alienation and reification offer essential material for any critique of the dehumanizing tendencies of today’s global world.
Recently translated into English from the original French for the first time, this text showcases Vandenberghe's mastery of the German, French and English schools of sociology study. The result is an important and challenging text that is essential reading for sociology students of all levels.
Frédéric Vandenberghe is a Sociology professor and researcher at Iuperj (Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His writings on a broad range of sociological topics have been published as books and articles around the world.
The John Fiske Collection: Television Culture (Studies in Communication Series) Review
A comprehensive introduction to television studies. Fiske analyzes both the economic and cultural aspects of television and investigates it in terms of both theory and text based criticism.
Rock Magnetism: Fundamentals and Frontiers (Cambridge Studies in Magnetism) Review
Rock Magnetism is a comprehensive treatment of fine particle magnetism and the magnetic properties of rocks. Starting from atomic magnetism and magnetostatic principles, the authors explain why domains and micromagnetic structures form in ferromagnetic crystals and how these lead to magnetic memory in the form of thermal, chemical and other remanent magnetizations. The phenomenal stability of these magnetizations, providing a record of plate tectonic motions over millions of years, is explained by thermal activation theory. One chapter is devoted to practical tests of domain state and paleomagnetic stability; another deals with pseudo-single-domain magnetism. The final four chapters place magnetism in the context of igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic, and extraterrestrial rocks. This book will be of great value to graduate students and researchers in geophysics and geology, particularly in paleomagnetism and rock magnetism, as well as physicists and electrical engineers interested in fine-particle magnetism and magnetic recording.
Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology (Studies in Classics) Review
This book concerns the relationship between ideas and power in the genesis of the Roman empire. The self-justification of the first emperor through the consensus of the citizen body constrained him to adhere to ‘legitimate’ and ‘traditional’ forms of self-presentation. Lobur explores how these notions become explicated and reconfigured by the upper and mostly non-political classes of Italy and Rome. The chronic turmoil experienced in the late republic shaped the values and program of the imperial system; it molded the comprehensive and authoritative accounts of Roman tradition and history in a way that allowed the system to appear both traditional and historical. This book also examines how shifts in rhetorical and historiographical practices facilitated the spreading and assimilation of shared ideas that allowed the empire to cohere.
Ode Consciousness (Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature) Review
Ode Consciousness examines a preeminent literary form in its three-thousand-year history, navigating between philosophy and literature, offering cross-cultural perspectives on a poetic logic informed by polar intensities of sensuous cognition. Making a double incision on the corpus, Robert Eisenhauer interprets works by Henry Vaughan and the modernist Frank OHara, foregrounding the text, but also the text(-ile) message, and the dialogical weave of enunciation. The ancient Chinese ode, translated by Karlgren and estranged by Pound, anchors sentience in the flora and fauna of physical nature, and the I Jing or Book of Changes offers insights on poetry, psychoanalysis, and aleatoriness per se.
The rise of the ode in the West is contemporary with that of a philosophical discourse concerning clarity and obscurity of thought. While Milton widens the esoteric scope, Lovelace concretizes ode consciousness through the image of a frozen grasshopper (green ice), whose non-longevity is contrasted with the human capacity for survival through friendship. Translating the Polish Horace (Sarbiewski), Coleridge prepares the ground for the lyricism of Keats and Shelley, raising the neural stakes through passages of lingering, delay, and intoxication. A negative capability inclusive of desire as well as nihilation inhabits Jalal al-Din Rumi and the Arabic qasida.
Affliction, a key concept for the Baroque, is discussed in the context of film noir, while Hegels privileging in the Aesthetics of Schillers Song of the Bell is seen as part of a larger attempt to censure the radical re-Pindarization and revolutionary retexting of the ode, most notably in Klopstock and Hölderlin. The author analyzes the role played by impersonality in Yeatss attempt to recrystallize Keatsian and Confucian sensibility through annotated seeing and the opening of windows of clairvoyant perception. Eisenhauer also suggests parallels between OHaras autumnal glimpses of New York City at the height of modernism and Keatsian sensibility. Ode Consciousness concludes by examining the return of the repressed in the graphic novels of Osamu Tezuka, thereby enriching our understanding of the odes perennial relevance.
Self-Representation: Life Narrative Studies in Identity and Ideology (Contributions in Psychology) Review
This innovative work offers a new approach to the study of self-representation, drawing on both the older "study of lives" tradition in personality psychology and recent work in "narrative psychology." Gary S. Gregg presents a generative theory of self-representation, applying methods of symbolic analysis developed by cultural anthropologists to the texts of life-historical interviews. This model accounts for the continual shifting of identity among contradictory "surface" discourses about the self, as it shows how each discourse is defined as a reconfiguration of a stable cluster of "deep" structurally-ambigious elements. Gregg not only examines the nature of narrative, but also addresses more mainstream issues in cognitive science, such as: How is knowledge of the self and its social world represented? What are the elementary units of self-cognition? How are cognition and affect linked? After a brief introduction, the book raises critical questions about self-representation by presenting re-analyses of two famous case studies--Freud's "Rat Man" and "Mack and Larry" from The Authoritarian Personality--and initial observations from Gregg's fieldwork in Morocco. A theoretical chapter then introduces the notion of structured ambiguity, which enables a person to shift between identities by figure or ground-like reversals of key symbols and metaphors. Three original life-narrative analyses follow, which, with increasing complexity, develop the model via analogies to basic structures of tonal music. The work concludes with a theoretical chapter that reexamines the ideas of William James, George Herbert Mead, and Erik Erikson about the self's unity and multiplicity, and then summarizes a generative model. The book presents a compelling alternative to prevailing views of self-cognition and identity, and will be a valuable resource for courses in psychology, anthropology, and sociology, as well as an important tool for researchers and professionals in these fields.
Fuzzy Modeling and Control (Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing) Review
In the last ten years, a true explosion of investigations into fuzzy modeling and its applications in control, diagnostics, decision making, optimization, pattern recognition, robotics, etc. has been observed. The attraction of fuzzy modeling results from its intelligibility and the high effectiveness of the models obtained. Owing to this the modeling can be applied for the solution of problems which could not be solved till now with any known conventional methods. The book provides the reader with an advanced introduction to the problems of fuzzy modeling and to one of its most important applications: fuzzy control. It is based on the latest and most significant knowledge of the subject and can be used not only by control specialists but also by specialists working in any field requiring plant modeling, process modeling, and systems modeling, e.g. economics, business, medicine, agriculture,and meteorology.
The Political Economy of Oil and Gas in Africa: The case of Nigeria (Routledge Studies in International Business and the World Economy) Review
The evolution of the Nigerian oil and gas industry spanned about a century during which several challenges were encountered and surmounted by major International Oil Companies (IOCs). This book provides a thoroughly researched guide to the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
The author examines the increasing role of Africa in the contribution of oil and gas resources to the global energy market and provides an overview of oil and gas exploration and production activities in Algeria , Libya , Egypt and Angola . The book presents an in-depth review of the growth and challenges of the Nigerian oil and gas industry. It also highlights the geological features of the oil and gas bearing regions of the country. In particular, the emerging prominence of the Gulf of Guinea as a prolific hydrocarbon bearing zone is extensively evaluated.
Crafting the Witch: Gendering Magic in Medieval and Early Modern England (Studies in Medieval History and Culture) Review
This book analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
In the earlier texts, magic is predominantly a masculine pursuit, garnering its user prestige and power, but in the later texts, magic becomes a primarily feminine activity, one that marks its user as wicked and heretical. This project explores both the literary and the social motivations for this transformation, seeking an answer to the question, 'why did the witch become wicked?'
Heidi Breuer traverses both the medieval and early modern periods and considers the way in which the representation of literary witches interacted with the culture at large, ultimately arguing that a series of economic crises in the fourteenth century created a labour shortage met by women. As women moved into the previously male-dominated economy, literary backlash came in the form of the witch, and social backlash followed soon after in the form of Renaissance witch-hunting. The witch figure serves a similar function in modern American culture because late-industrial capitalism challenges gender conventions in similar ways as the economic crises of the medieval period.
