This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on chance, with contributions from distinguished researchers in the areas of biology, cognitive neuroscience, economics, genetics, general history, law, linguistics, logic, mathematical physics, statistics, theology and philosophy. The individual chapters are bound together by a general introductio...
In the light of growing political and religious fundamentalism, this book defends the idea of freedom as paramount for the attempt to find common ethical ground in the age of globality. The book sets out to examine as yet unexhausted ways to boost the resilience of the principle of liberalism. Critically reviewing the last 200 years of the philosop...
The average person can name more bird species than they think, but do we really know what a bird "species" is? This book takes up several fascinating aspects of bird life to elucidate this basic concept in biology. From genetic and physiological basics to the phenomena of bird song and bird migration, it analyzes various interactions of b...
This book presents an Empirical Model of Global Climate developed by the authors and uses that model to show that global warming will likely remain below 2ºC, relative to preindustrial, throughout this century provided: a) both the unconditional and conditional Paris INDC commitments are followed; b) the emission reductions needed to achieve the P...
This volume starts with an elementary introduction covering stem cell methodologies used to produce specific types of neurons, possibilities for their therapeutic use, and warnings of technical problems. In addition the authors report successes in achieving the derivation of a specific type of neuron. The dopamine neuron offers an important example...
The second volume in the SIRCA book series investigates the impact of information society initiatives by extending the boundaries of academic research into the realm of practice. Global in scope, it includes contributions and research projects from Asia, Africa and Latin America. The international scholarly community has taken a variety of approach...
This book presents Nils Petter Gleditsch, a staff member of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO) since 1964, a former editor of the Journal for Peace Research (1983-2010), a former president of the International Studies Association (2008-2009) and the recipient of several academic awards as a pioneer in the scientific analysis of war and pea...
Turkey has witnessed significant social, cultural, and political change over the last decades. This transformation has manifested itself in all segments of society and resulted in the alteration of political ideologies and institutions. The twelve authors of this volume shed light on the complexities of a changing Turkey through an interdisciplinar...
This book focuses on both the theory and practice associated with the tools and approaches for decisionmaking in the face of deep uncertainty. It explores approaches and tools supporting the design of strategic plans under deep uncertainty, and their testing in the real world, including barriers and enablers for their use in practice. The book broa...
This book offers a concise and gentle introduction to finite element programming in Python based on the popular FEniCS software library. Using a series of examples, including the Poisson equation, the equations of linear elasticity, the incompressible Navier - Stokes equations, and systems of nonlinear advection - diffusion - reaction equations, it...
The overarching aim of this book is to present self-contained theory and algorithms for investigation and prediction of electric demand peaks. A cross-section of popular demand forecasting algorithms from statistics, machine learning and mathematics is presented, followed by extreme value theory techniques with examples.In order to achieve carbon t...
It relates to the III Annual Conference hosted by the Russian Federal Ministry of Education and Science in December 2016. This event has summarized, analyzed and discussed the interim results, academic outputs and scientific achievements of the Russian Federal Targeted Programme for Research and Development in priority areas of development of the R...
This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. In addition, it develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for eva...
This book utilizes new data to thoroughly analyze the main factors currently shaping the African housing market. Some of these factors include the supply and demand for housing finance, land tenure security issues, construction cost conundrum, infrastructure provision, and low-cost housing alternatives. Through detailed analysis, the authors invest...
This book discusses the important issue of the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of agricultural residue burning, common in agricultural practices in many parts of the world. In particular, it focuses on the pollution caused by rice residue burning using primary survey data from Punjab, India. It discusses emerging solutions to agricultural w...
The overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture ...
Just how strong is the movement of big data analytics to the cloud? This report, based on a survey by O'Reilly data analyst John King, reveals that the desire among corporations to adopt big data-as-a-service is gaining momentum-and that many organizations with big data cloud experience are likely to expand their use.
King's recent sur...
Welcome to InnerSource, the powerful movement for developing open source software within the walls of a single organization, where the "openness" of a project extends across teams inside the company. In this report, O'Reilly editor and author Andy Oram takes you inside InnerSource, first by reviewing the principles that make open sou...
Cloud computing is a game changer. Being able to automate and constantly adjust infrastructure is one important reason to use cloud computing for your clients. And developing and operating systems that are able to recover from failure automatically has never been easier. Cloud providers offer you the needed infrastructure for a very reasonable pric...
Cloud Computing is enabling many trends in IT today: microservices, pay-as-you-go pricing, and serverless architectures, to name three. The biggest player in the market's Amazon, who offers the most mature cloud systems through their Amazon Web Services (AWS). Other companies are gaining traction as well: Google invests into their Google Cloud...
Complexity science uses computation to explore the physical and social sciences. In Think Complexity, you'll use graphs, cellular automata, and agent-based models to study topics in physics, biology, and economics.
Whether you're an intermediate-level Python programmer or a student of computational modeling, you'll delve into exam...
If you know how to program, you have the skills to turn data into knowledge, using tools of probability and statistics. This concise introduction shows you how to perform statistical analysis computationally, rather than mathematically, with programs written in Python.
By working with a single case study throughout this thoroughly revised book, ...
Neo4j is the world's leading graph database and offers users a radical new way of dealing with connected data. This book has been created to help you get to grips with it, providing you with an accessible route through a tool built to contend with the complexity of modern data. Learn the fundamental concepts behind Neo4j, and put them into pra...
The title of this book was originally Think Perl 6, but since Perl 6 has been renamed Raku, we have also changed the title of the book.
Want to learn how to program and think like a computer scientist? This practical guide gets you started on your programming journey with the help of Raku (Perl 6), the younger sister of the popular Perl programm...
Learn how graph algorithms can help you leverage relationships within your data to develop intelligent solutions and enhance your machine learning models. With this practical guide, developers and data scientists will discover how graph analytics deliver value, whether they're used for building dynamic network models or forecasting real-world ...
This book provides a fresh, updated and science-based perspective on the current status and prospects of the diverse array of topics related to the potato, and was written by distinguished scientists with hands-on global experience in research aspects related to potato. The potato is the third most important global food crop in terms of consumption...
This book presents computer programming as a key method for solving mathematical problems. This second edition of the well-received book has been extensively revised: All code is now written in Python version 3.6 (no longer version 2.7). In addition, the two first chapters of the previous edition have been extended and split up into five new chapte...
This book offers both conceptual and empirical descriptions of how to "frame" sustainability challenges. It defines "framing" in the context of sustainability science as the process of identifying subjects, setting boundaries, and defining problems. The chapters are grouped into two sections: a conceptual section and a case sect...
This free book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped resources, it takes the reader on a journey from the courtrooms of Scotland to the theatre of the gallows. It introduces them to seve...
This free book analyses the interplay of sustainable development and human rights from different perspectives including fight against poverty, health, gender equality, working conditions, climate change and the role of private actors. Each aspect is addressed from a more human rights-focused angle and a development-policy angle. This allows compari...
This free book focuses on family diversity from a legal, demographical and sociological perspective. It investigates what is at stake in the life of homosexuals in the field of family formation, parenting and parenthood, what it brings to everyday life, the support of the law, and what its absence implies. The book shows the paths leading to the ad...
This open access edited collection explores obstacles that impede, and potential pathways toward improving, the material and psychological well-being of youth in and from West Africa. Contributors range from researchers to practitioners, offering a transatlantic, transcontinental set of perspectives on the mounting evidence that, whether they resid...