springer netherlands sep 2016 (385 results)

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The book's main contribution is its interdisciplinary approach to the issue of sedation at the end-of-life. Because it occurs at the end of life, palliative sedation raises a number of important ethical and legal questions, including whether it is a covert form of euthanasia and for what purposes it may legally be used. Many of the book chapters address the first question and almost all deal with a specific form of the second: whether palliative sedation should be used for those experiencing 'existential suffering' This raises the question of what existential suffering is, a topic that is also discussed in the book. The different chapters address these issues from the perspectives of the relevant disciplines: Palliative Medicine, Bioethics, Law and Theology. Hence, helpful accounts of the clinical and historical background for this issue are provided and the importance of drawing accurate ethical and legal distinctions is stressed throughout the whole book. So the volume represents a valuable contribution to the emerging literature on this topic and should be helpful across a broad spectrum of readers: philosophers, theologians and physicians. 196 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -New biotechnologies have propelled the question of what it means to be human - or posthuman - to the forefront of societal and scientific consideration. This volume provides an accessible, critical overview of the main approaches in the debate on posthumanism, and argues that they do not adequately address the question of what it means to be human in an age of biotechnology. Not because they belong to rival political camps, but because they are grounded in a humanist ontology that presupposes a radical separation between human subjects and technological objects.The volume offers a comprehensive mapping of posthumanist discourse divided into four broad approaches-two humanist-based approaches: dystopic and liberal posthumanism, and two non-humanist approaches: radical and methodological posthumanism. The author compares and contrasts these models via an exploration of key issues, from human enhancement, to eugenics, to new configurations of biopower, questioning what role technology plays in defining the boundaries of the human, the subject and nature for each. Building on the contributions and limitations of radical and methodological posthumanism, the author develops a novel perspective, mediated posthumanism, that brings together insights in the philosophy of technology, the sociology of biomedicine, and Michel Foucault's work on ethical subject constitution. In this framework, technology is neither a neutral tool nor a force that alienates humanity from itself, but something that is always already part of the experience of being human, and subjectivity is viewed as an emergent property that is constantly being shaped and transformed by its engagements with biotechnologies. Mediated posthumanism becomes a tool for identifying novel ethical modes of human experience that are richer and more multifaceted than current posthumanist perspectives allow for.The book will be essential reading for students and scholars working on ethics and technology, philosophy of technology, poststructuralism, technology and the body, and medical ethics. 252 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference (LRR10) in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far as it is based on (classical) logic. Later, this belief came under attack and logic was deemed inadequate to explicate actual cases of human reasoning. Today, there is a growing interest in reconnecting logic, reasoning and rationality. A central motor for this change was the development of non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks.The book contains contributions in various non-classical formal frameworks, case studies that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns, and studies of the philosophical implications for our understanding of the notions of rationality. 296 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book demonstrates how the conceptual resources of contemporary French philosophy from the early 20thCentury to the present day can be applied to give us new perspectives on business ethics and the ethics of organizations. In providing an overview of possible applications, the book covers a wide range of philosophers, philosophical movements and perspectives and provides detailed analyses of core materials relevant to business ethics. It explores and analyzes French philosophy, taking into account phenomenology, existentialism, French epistemology, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction and postmodernism as well as recent discussions of philosophy of organizations and management.Each chapter contains suggestions for further reading and educational illustrations of possible applications to the mainstream business ethics and ethics of organization literature. 324 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book highlights religious faith from a positive psychology perspective, examining the relationship between religious faith and optimal psychological functioning. It takes a perspective of religious diversity that incorporates international and cross-cultural work. The empirical literature on the role of faith and cognition, faith and emotion, and faith and behaviour is addressed including how these topics relate to individuals' mental health, well-being, strength, and resilience. Information on how these faith concepts are relevant to the broader context of relational functioning in families, friendships, and communities is also incorporated.Psychologists have traditionally focused on the treatment of mental illness from a perspective of repairing damaged habits, damaged drives, damaged childhoods, and damaged brains. In recent years, however, many psychological researchers and practitioners have attempted to re-focus the field away from the study of human weakness and damage toward the promotion of a positive psychology of well-being among individuals, families, and communities. One domain within the field of positive psychology is the study of religious faith as a human strength that has the potential to enhance individuals' optimal existence and well-being. 268 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This anthology of essays presents a sample of studies from recent philosophy of medicine addressing issues which attempt to answer very general (interdependent) questions: (a) what is a disease and what is health (b) How do we (causally) explain diseases (c) And how do we distinguish diseases, i.e. define classes of diseases and recognize that an instance X of disease belongs to a given class B (d) How do we assess and choose cure/ therapy The book is divided into three sections: classification, disease and evidence. In general, attention is focused on statistics in medicine and epidemiology, issues in psychiatry and connecting medicine with evolutionary biology and genetics. Many authors position the theories that they address within their historical contexts.The nature of health and disease will be addressed in several essays that also touch upon very general questions about the definition of medicine and its status. Several chapters scrutinize classification because of its centrality within philosophical problems raised by medicine and its core position in the philosophical questioning of psychiatry. Specificities of medical explanation have recently come under a new light, particularly because of the rise of statistical methods and several chapters investigate these methods in specific contexts such as epidemiology or meta-analysis of random testing. Taken together this collection addresses the question of how we gather, use and assess evidence for various medical theories.The rich assortment of disciplines featured also includes epidemiology, parasitology and public health, while technical aspects such as the application of game theory to medical research and the misuse of the DSM in forensic psychiatry are also given an airing. The book addresses more than the construction of medical knowledge, however, adding cogent appraisal of the processes of decision making in medicine and the protocols used to justify therapeutic choices. 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book is based on the assumption that 'organic has lost its way'. Paradoxically, it comes at a time when we witness the continuing of growth in organic food production and markets around the world. Yet, the book claims that organic has lost sight of its first or fundamental philosophical principles and ontological assumptions. The collection offers empirically grounded discussions that address the principles and fundamental assumptions of organic farming and marketing practices. The book draws attention to the core principles of organic and offers different clearly articulated and well-defined conceptual frameworks that offer new insights into organic practices. Divided into five parts, the book presents new perspectives on enduring issues, examines standards and certification, gives insights into much-discussed and additional market and consumer issues, and reviews the interplay of organic and conventional farming. The book concludes with a framework for rethinking ethics in the organic movement and reflections on the positioning of organic ethics. 352 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware - This book deals with medieval Jewish authors who wrote in Arabic, such as Moses Maimonides, Judah Halevi, and Solomon Ibn Gabirol, as well as the Hebrew translations and commentaries of Judaeo-Arabic philosophy. It brings up to date a part of Moritz Steinschneider's monumental Die hebraeischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (The Hebrew Translations of the Middle Ages and the Jews as Transmitters), which was first published in 1893 and remains to this day the authoritative account of the transmission and development of Arabic and Latin, and, by way of those languages, Greek culture to medieval and renaissance Jews. In the work presented here, Steinschneider's bibliography has been updated, some of his scholarly judgments have been judiciously revised and an exhaustive listing of pertinent Hebrew manuscripts and their whereabouts has been provided. The volume opens with a long essay that describes the origin and genesis of Die Hebraeischen Übersetzungen, and with Steinschneider's prefaces to the French and German versions of his work. This publication is the first in a projected series that translates, updates and, where necessary, revises parts of Steinschneider's bio-bibliographical classic. Historians of medieval culture and philosophy, and also scholars of the transmission of classical culture to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, will find this volume indispensable. 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This notable collection provides an interdisciplinary platform for prominent thinkers who have all made significant recent contributions to exploring the nexus of philosophy and narrative. It includes the latest assessments of several key positions in the current philosophical debate. These perspectives underpin a range of thematic strands exploring the influence of narrative on notions of selfhood, identity, temporal experience, and the emotions, among others. Drawing from the humanities, literature, history and religious studies, as well as philosophy, the volume opens with papers on narrative intelligence and the relationship between narrative and agency. It features special sections of in-depth commentary on a range of topics. How, for example, do narrative and philosophical biography interact Do celebrated biographical and autobiographical accounts of the lives of philosophers contribute to our understanding of their work This new volume has a substantive remit that incorporates the intercultural religious view of philosophy's links to narrative together with its many secular aspects. A valuable new resource for more advanced scholars in all its constituent disciplines, it represents a significant addition to the literature of this richly productive area of research. 220 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The focus of the book is on different ways of knowing: the western scientific way (reductionist, dualistic and materialist) versus the indigenous approach (holistic, non-dualistic, and spiritual). It discusses both science and medicine in the context of the challenges experienced in introducing science and medicine into Africa through imperialism, colonization, and globalization. It looks at selected indigenous African paradigms, the dominant western paradigms, and the practitioners that represent these practices. The book deals with questions concerning compatibility and incompatibility of different ways of knowing and delves into epistemological stances, and the assumptions underlying these epistemologies. The volume investigates whether, and how a person can accommodate different epistemologies, and the nature of such accommodations. 172 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book explores schools and how they can function as social institutions that advance the interests and life chances of all young people, especially those who are already the most marginalized and at an educational disadvantage. Social justice is a key theme as the book examines the needs of youth, the concept of school culture, school/community relations, socially critical pedagogy, curriculum and leadership and a socially critical approach to work. The Socially Just School is based upon four decades of intensive writing and researching of young lives. This work presents an alternative to the damaging school reform in which schools are made to serve the interests of the economy, education systems, the military, corporate or national interests.Readers will discover the hallmarks of socially just schools:- They educationally engage young people regardless of class, race, family or neighbourhood location and they engage them around their own educational aspirations.- They regard all young people as being morally entitled to a rewarding and satisfying experience of school, not only those whose backgrounds happen to fit with the values of schools.- They treat young people as having strengths and being 'at promise' rather than being 'at risk' and with 'deficits' or as 'bundles of pathologies' to be remedied or 'fixed'.- They are 'active listeners' to the lives and cultures of their students and communities and they construct learning experiences that are embedded in young lives.This highly readable book will appeal to students and scholars in education and sociology, as well as to teachers and school administrators with an interest in social justice. 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book identifies key elements of an international framework to develop systems-level change to promote access to education, including higher education, for socio-economically marginalized groups. It is based on interviews with senior government officials and senior management in universities, non formal education and prisons across 12 countries in Europe. The book identifies systemic obstacles to and opportunities for promotion of access to education for socio-economically excluded groups that are issues transferable to other countries' contexts. It adopts a systemic focus on access across a range of domains of education, both formal higher education and non-formal education, as well as prison education. Through a focus on a more dynamic structuralist systems framework it develops an innovative post-Bronfenbrennerian view of system levels in lifespan developmental and educational psychology. It also develops an international agenda for reform in relation to these various system levels for access to education for socio-economically marginalized groups, through extraction of key structural indicators to evaluate reform progress in a transparent, culturally sensitive manner. The book identifies current gaps and strengths in policy, practice and structures that impact upon access to education, including higher education, across a range of countries. These gaps and strengths are illustrative and are to inform a strategic approach to system level change and development for the promotion of access to education for socio-economically marginalized groups in Europe and beyond.'Too many educational practices entrench social exclusion: it is an urgent priority across Europe that social justice policies are implemented for the inclusion of marginalised groups. Paul Downes' analysis of these issues is timely. His conclusions are considered and practical: this book is a valuable and constructive resource for practitioners, academics and the policy community.' Professor Alistair Ross, Jean Monnet ad Personam Professor of Citizenship Education in Europe, Emeritus Professor of Education, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University 288 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Ranging from Alan Turing's seminal 1936 paper to the latest work on Kolmogorov complexity and linear logic, this comprehensive new work clarifies the relationship between computability on the one hand and constructivity on the other. The authors argue that even though constructivists have largely shed Brouwer's solipsistic attitude to logic, there remain points of disagreement to this day.Focusing on the growing pains computability experienced as it was forced to address the demands of rapidly expanding applications, the content maps the developments following Turing's ground-breaking linkage of computation and the machine, the resulting birth of complexity theory, the innovations of Kolmogorov complexity and resolving the dissonances between proof theoretical semantics and canonical proof feasibility. Finally, it explores one of the most fundamental questions concerning the interface between constructivity and computability: whether the theory of recursive functions is needed for a rigorous development of constructive mathematics.This volume contributes to the unity of science by overcoming disunities rather than offering an overarching framework. It posits that computability's adoption of a classical, ontological point of view kept these imperatives separated. In studying the relationship between the two, it is a vital step forward in overcoming the disagreements and misunderstandings which stand in the way of a unifying view of logic. 228 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Descriptions of new varieties of European languages in postcolonial contexts have focused exceedingly on system-based indigenisation and variation. This volume-while further illustrating processes and instantiations of indigenisation at this level-incorporates investigations of sociolinguistic and pragmatic phenomena in daily social interaction-e.g. politeness, respect, compliment response, naming and address forms, and gender-through innovative analytic frameworks that view indigenisation from emic perspectives. Focusing on postcolonial Cameroon and using natural and questionnaire data, the book assesses the salience of linguistic and sociocultural hybridisation triggered by colonialism and, recently, globalisation in interaction in and across languages and cultures. The authors illustrate how the multilingual nature of the society and individuals' multilingual repertoires shape patterns in the indigenisation and evolution of the ex-colonial languages, English and French, and Pidgin English. 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The liberal enlightenment as well as the more radical left have both traditionally opposed religion as a reactionary force in politics, a view culminating in an identification of the politics of religion as fundamentalist theocracy. But recently a number of thinkers-Agamben, Badiou, Tabues and in particular Simon Critchley-have begun to explore a more productive engagement of the religious and the political in which religion features as a possible or even necessary form of human emancipation. The papers in this collection, deriving from a workshop held on and with Simon Critchley at the University of Texas at San Antonio in February 2010, take up the ways in which religion's encounter with politics transforms not only politics but also religion itself, molding it into various religions of politics, including not just heretical religious metaphysics, but also what Critchley describes as non-metaphysical religion, the faith of the faithless. Starting from Critchley's own genealogy of Pauline faith, the articles in this collection explore and defend some of the religions of politics and their implications. Costica Bradatan teases out the implications of Critchley's substitution of humor for tragedy as the vehicle for the minimal self-distancing required for any politics. Jill Stauffer compares Critchley's non-metaphysical religiosity with Charles Taylor's account of Christianity. Alistair Welchman unpacks the political theology of the border in terms of god's timeless act of creation. Anne O'Byrne explores the subtle dialectic between mores and morality in Rousseau's political ethics. Roland Champagne sees a kind non-metaphysical religion in Arendt's category of the political pariah. Davide Panagia presents Critchley's ethics of exposure as the basis for a non-metaphysical political bond. Philip Quadrio wonders about the political ramifications of Critchley's own 'mystical anarchism' and Tina Chanter re-reads the primal site in the Western tradition at which the political and the religious intersect, the Antigone story, side-stepping philosophical interpretations of the story (dominated by Hegel's reading) by means of a series of post-colonial re-imaginings of the play. The collection concludes with an interview with Simon Critchley taking up the themes of the workshop in the light of more recent political events: the Arab Spring and the rise and fall of the Occupy movement. 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book educates whilst also challenging the contemporary schools of thought within philosophical and religious ethics. In addition, it underlines the fact that the substance of ethics in general and bioethics/healthcare ethics specifically, is much more expansive and inclusive than is usually thought. Bioethics is a relatively new academic discipline. However, ethics has existed informally since before the time of Hippocrates. The indigenous culture of African peoples has an ethical worldview which predates the western discourse. This indigenous ethical worldview has been orally transmitted over centuries. The earliest known written African text containing some concepts and content of ethics is the 'Declaration of Innocence' written in 1500 B.C., found in an Egyptian text. Ubuntu is an example of African culture that presents an ethical worldview. This work interprets the culture of Ubuntu to explain the contribution of a representative indigenous African ethics to global bioethics. Many modern scholars have written about the meaning of Ubuntu for African societies over centuries. Some scholars have viewed Ubuntu as the greatest contribution of African cultures to other world cultures. None of the scholars, however has explored the culture of Ubuntu as providing a representative indigenous ethics that can contribute to global bioethics as discussed in this book. 272 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book disentangles the complex meanings of responsibility in nanotechnology development by focusing on its theoretical and empirical dimensions. The notion of responsibility is extremely diversified in the public discourse of nanoscale technologies. Addressed are major disciplinary perspectives working on nanotechnology, e.g. philosophy, sociology, and political science, as well as the major multidisciplinary areas relevant to the innovation process, e.g. technology assessment and ethics. Furthermore, the interplay between such expertises, disciplines, and research programmes in providing a multidisciplinary understanding of responsibility is emphasized. 220 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book gives practical advice and ready to use tips on the design and construction of subsurface reservoir models. The design elements cover rock architecture, petrophysical property modelling, multi-scale data integration, upscaling and uncertainty analysis. Philip Ringrose and Mark Bentley share their experience, gained from over a hundred reservoir modelling studies in 25 countries covering clastic, carbonate and fractured reservoir types. The intimate relationship between geology and fluid flow is explored throughout, showing how the impact of fluid type, production mechanism and the subtleties of single- and multi-phase flow combine to influence reservoir model design.Audience:The main audience for this book is the community of applied geoscientists and engineers involved in the development and use of subsurface fluid resources. The book is suitable for a range of Master's level courses in reservoir characterisation, modelling and engineering. Provides practical advice and guidelines for users of 3D reservoir modelling packages Gives advice on reservoir model design for the growing world-wide activity in subsurface reservoir modelling Covers rock modelling, property modelling, upscaling and uncertainty handling Encompasses clastic, carbonate and fractured reservoirs 268 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The present work investigates global politics and political implications of social science and management with the aid of the latest complexity and chaos theories. Until now, deterministic chaos and nonlinear analysis have not been a focal point in this area of research. This book remedies this deficiency by utilizing these methods in the analysis of the subject matter. The authors provide the reader a detailed analysis on politics and its associated applications with the help of chaos theory, in a single edited volume. 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Gastrointestinal (GI) physiology is a fundamental subject that is indispensable not only for undergraduate but also for graduate courses. The audience include, but are not limited to, medical, pharmacy, nursing, human biology, Chinese medicine, and science students, as well as other health-related subject students.The overall objectives of this textbook are to present basic concepts and principles of GI physiology and, more importantly, to convey an understanding of how to apply this knowledge to abnormal GI physiology in the clinical context. As such, the basic knowledge of GI physiology and its application in the form of clinical case studies should be grasped, which are critical for professional examinations and bedside, as well as for general practice in the future. In this handbook, we aim to achieve these elements by covering the breadth of GI, pancreatic, hepatobiliary, and nutritional physiology. Moreover, we include relevant scenario-based clinical case in each chapter so as to evaluate whether the students can apply the basic GI they learn to the clinical setting. 380 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Crystals are everywhere, from natural crystals (minerals) through the semiconductors and magnetic materials in electronic devices and computers or piezoelectric resonators at the heart of our quartz watches to electro-optical devices. Understanding them in depth is essential both for pure research and for their applications.This book provides a clear, thorough presentation of their symmetry, both at the microscopic space-group level and the macroscopic point-group level. The implications of the symmetry of crystals for their physical properties are then presented, together with their mathematical description in terms of tensors. The conditions on the symmetry of a crystal for a given property to exist then become clear, as does the symmetry of the property. The geometrical representation of tensor quantities or properties is presented, and its use in determining important relationships emphasized.An original feature of this book is that most chapters include exercises with complete solutions. This allows readers to test and improve their understanding of the material.The intended readership includes undergraduate and graduate students in materials science and materials-related aspects of electrical and optical engineering; researchers involved in the investigation of the physical properties of crystals and the design of applications based on crystal properties such as piezoelectricity, electro-optics, optical activity and all those involved in the characterization of the structural properties of materials. 548 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Beginning with an overview of data and concepts developed in the EU-project HABIT-CHANGE, this book addresses the need for sharing knowledge and experience in the field of biodiversity conservation and climate change. There is an urgent need to build capacity in protected areas to monitor, assess, manage and report the effects of climate change and their interaction with other pressures. The contributors identify barriers to the adaptation of conservation management, such as the mismatch between planning reality and the decision context at site level. Short and vivid descriptions of case studies, drawn from investigation areas all over Central and Eastern Europe, illustrate both the local impacts of climate change and their consequences for future management. These focus on ecosystems most vulnerable to changes in climatic conditions, including alpine areas, wetlands, forests, lowland grasslands and coastal areas. The case studies demonstrate the application of adaptation strategies in protected areas like National Parks, Biosphere Reserves and Natural Parks, and reflect the potential benefits as well as existing obstacles. A general section provides the necessary background information on climate trends and their effects on abiotic and biotic components. Often, the parties to policy change and conservation management, including managers, land users and stakeholders, lack both expertise and incentives to undertake adaptation activities. The authors recognise that achieving the needed changes in behavior - habit - is as much a social learning process as a matter of science-based procedure. They describe the implementation of modeling, impact assessment and monitoring of climate conditions, and show how the results can support efforts to increase stakeholder involvement in local adaptation strategies. The book concludes by pointing out the need for more work to communicate the cross-sectoral nature of biodiversity protection, the value of well-informed planning in the long-term process of adaptation, the definition of acceptable change, and the motivational value of exchanging experience and examples of good practice. 336 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The EQ-5D instrument, as a standardized, cross-culturally validated measure of self-assessed health has a hugely important role in understanding population health within and across countries. Over the past two decades a wealth of international population health survey data have been accumulated by the EuroQol Group from research conducted in many countries across four continents. One of the success factors of the EQ-5D instruments has been the easy availability of national or international sets of EQ-5D data, as well as clear explanations and guidance for users. There is an unmet need to produce a comprehensive book that captures up-to-date and expanded information of EQ-5D self-reported health and index values. EQ-5D population norms and cross-country analyses are provided from representative national surveys of 20 countries and additional regional surveys. This book will be a must for those who believe that how people report and value health is very important. 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book introduces transplantation in rodents as useful tools used in studying transplant immunobiology. Several solid organs (kidney, heart, liver) transplant models in rodents are described in this book. It can help surgical quality and save surgical time. The first part of the book provides a review of rodent transplant tolerance induction, the role of gender and body-weight in rodent transplantation, surgical instruments and organ preservation solutions. In the second part of the book, various organ-transplantation techniques in rodents are discussed in individual chapters. This book presents uniform surgical procedures in mouse and rats, which produce comparable data, efficiently enhancing the translational research from bench to non-human primates and beyond. It will be of great value to transplant researchers, research fellows and clinicians in many surgical specialties. 184 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Color perception plays an important role in object recognition and scene understanding both for humans and intelligent vision systems. Recent advances in digital color imaging and computer hardware technology have led to an explosion in the use of color images in a variety of applications including medical imaging, content-based image retrieval, biometrics, watermarking, digital inpainting, remote sensing, visual quality inspection, among many others. As a result, automated processing and analysis of color images has become an active area of research, to which the large number of publications of the past two decades bears witness. The multivariate nature of color image data presents new challenges for researchers and practitioners as the numerous methods developed for single channel images are often not directly applicable to multichannel ones. The goal of this volume is to summarize the state-of-the-art in the early stages of the color image processing pipeline. 444 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Developing and 'transition' economies face myriad challenges in their attempts to achieve and maintain political stability and foster the economic growth essential for national security, the social well-being of current citizens and sustainable environments for future generations. Governments in the Western Balkans have striven to achieve all of the above, and this volume assesses the nature of their experiences as well as the level of their success in doing so. Featuring detailed case studies of public policy reforms in the region as well as comparative analysis on a range of indicators, the book analyzes the role of key players in setting the political agenda as well as implementing policy reforms. It also distils the lessons that can be learned from the Western Balkan experience, recommending strategies for enhancing the policy making process. In addition, it examines the developmental role played by the full spectrum of policy actors, including the private sector, NGOs, special interest groupings, international financial institutions, donor nations and the EU.Each case study has been prepared by academics with deep knowledge and experience of the western Balkans and addresses a core set of questions: identifying the policy issue and its broader context, defining the roles of specific individuals in formulating policy and reform and assessing the influence of networks and coalitions in the policy making process. With so little detailed literature on public policy making in a group of nations strategically positioned between Europe, Russia and the near East, the detailed insights provided by this volume will be widely welcomed.Our book provides case studies of specific public policy reform episodes in selected Western Balkan post-conflict and transition countries. The focus of these case studies extends beyond the technical aspects and entails substantive examination of the policy actors, constituencies and politics that ultimately shape the policy that emerges from the policy making process. This analysis draws lessons for strengthening the quality of policies, the transparency, consistency, and governance of the policy making process and ultimately for contributing to economic and social development of the region. 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book offers innovative insights on South-South human mobility. It features a collection of papers that highlight often overlooked mobility patterns among and within regions in the global South as well as address critical realities faced by South-South migrants. This publication thoroughly investigates key issues of the migration debate, spanning from the terminological and contextual meaning of migration and development. It also critically examines some of the key features that human mobility in the global South is characterized by, including the prevalence of intra-regional and labor mobility, the role of diasporas communities in developing countries, South-South remittances patterns, the influence of environmental factors on the decision to migrate and the rising number of child migrants.By carefully moving the lens from the frequently examined South-North and North-North movements to human mobility within the Southern regions of the world, this book questions the traditional conception of the migration paradigm. It offers knowledge and insights that will help to expand the debate as well as stimulate further research on this important topic and, hopefully, promote future activities aimed at the protection of migrants and their families living in the South. As a result, it is an ideal resource for migration scholars, policy-makers and development practitioners. 188 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book offers a systematic view of social analysis that will advance the communication of results between different academic disciplines. It overcomes misunderstandings that are due to the use of an unstructured variety of methodological traditions in the analysis of complex socioeconomic and political processes. The book focuses on the special features of human society: humans as subjects, non-repetitiveness and irreversibility of social actions and the peculiar relations between necessity and possibility in human action. It defines methodological criteria, procedures and rules that enable researchers to select and classify realistic hypotheses to derive general principles and basic organizational features. It then applies these criteria in critical reviews of major theories and interpretations of society and history, offering clarifications and alternative proposals with regard to crucial aspects of anthropological, political, juridical, sociological and religious thought. 340 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book deals with the theoretical, methodological, and empirical implications of bounded rationality in the operation of institutions. It focuses on decisions made under uncertainty, and presents a reliable strategy of knowledge acquisition for the design and implementation of decision-support systems. Based on the distinction between the inner and outer environment of decisions, the book explores both the cognitive mechanisms at work when actors decide, and the institutional mechanisms existing among and within organizations that make decisions fairly predictable.While a great deal of work has been done on how organizations act as patterns of events for (boundedly) rational decisions, less effort has been devoted to study under which circumstances organizations cease to act as such reliable mechanisms. Through an empirical strategy on open-ended response data from a survey among junior judges, the work pursues two main goals. The first one is to explore the limits of 'institutional rationality' of the Spanish lower courts on-call service, an optimal scenario to observe decision-making under uncertainty. The second aim is to achieve a better understanding of the kind of uncertainty under which inexperienced decision-makers work. This entails exploring the demands imposed by problems and the knowledge needed to deal with them, making this book also a study on expertise achievement in institutional environments.This book combines standard multivariate statistical methods with machine learning techniques such as multidimensional scaling and topic models, treating text as data. Doing so, the book contributes to the collaboration between empirical social scientific approaches and the community of scientists that provide the set of tools and methods to make sense of the fastest growing resource of our time: data. 252 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book provides new insights into the significant gap that currently exists between desired and actual fertility in Europe. It examines how people make decisions about having children and demonstrates how the macro-level environment affects micro-level decision-making.Written by an international team of leading demographers and psychologists, the book presents the theoretical and methodological developments of a three-year, European Commission-funded project named REPRO (Reproductive Decision-Making in a Macro-Micro Perspective). It also provides an overview of the research conducted by REPRO researchers both during and after the project.The book examines fertility intentions from quantitative and qualitative perspectives, demonstrates how the macro-level environment affects micro-level decision-making, and offers a multi-level analysis of fertility-related norms across Europe.Overall, this book offers insight into how people make decisions to have children, when they are most likely to act on their decisions, and how different social and policy settings affect their decisions and actions. It will appeal to researchers, graduate students, and policy advisors with an interest in fertility, demography, and life-course decision making. 188 pp. Englisch.