bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Gender-specific differences associated with living donor liver transplantation: A review study
Authors: Hermann Hanna C. , Klapp Burghard F. , Danzer Gerhard , Papachristou Christina
Published: December 2009

Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) has developed into an important therapeutic option for liver diseases. For living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT), gender-specific differences have been observed among both donors (two-thirds being women and one-third being men) and recipients (two-thirds being men and one-third being women). The aim of this study was to determine whether there is a gender disparity for LDLT. We contacted 89 national and international transplantation registries, single transplant centers, and coordinators. In addition, a sample of 274 articles dealing with LDLT and its outcomes was reviewed and compared with the registry data. The data included the gender of the donors and recipients, the country of transplantation, and the donor-recipient relationship. The investigation showed that overall there were slightly more men among the donors (53% male and 47% female). As for the recipients, 59% of the organs were distributed to males, and 41% were distributed to females. Differences in the gender distribution were observed with respect to individual countries. Worldwide, 80% of the donors were blood-related, 11% were not blood-related, and 9% were spouses. The data acquired from the publications were similar to the registry data. Our research has shown that there are hardly any registry data published, a lot of countries do not have national registries, or the access to these data is difficult. Even widely ranging published studies often do not give information on the gender distribution or the donor-recipient relationship. Further investigations are needed to understand the possible medical, psychosocial, or cultural reasons for gender distribution in LDLT and the differences in comparison with LDKT. Liver Transpl 16:375–386, 2010. © 2009 AASLD.
In situ Dynamic Rheological Study of Polyacrylamide during Gelation Coupled with Mathematical Models of Viscosity Advancement
Authors: Savart Thibaut , Dove Caroline , Love Brian J.
Published: December 2009

Acrylamide dynamic viscosity has been measured in aqueous solutions. Separate rheological measurements were performed on neat resins devoid of the curing agent over a range of shear rates to yield the initial resin viscosity. The gels were also characterized by sub‐ambient DSC to determine the phase structure as a function of formulation. The dynamic viscosity shows a marked sigmoidal behavior with a plateau viscosity. Mathematical interpretations of the gel time both by sigmoidal and power law models were comparable. The power law model allowed a direct determination of the gel time while the sigmoidal model yielded parameters associated with the initial viscosity, one associated with the plateau viscosity of the gel, and two time constants controlling the sharpness of the transition.

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QSPR Study for Estimation of Density of Some Aromatic Explosives by Multiple Linear Regression Approach
Authors: Luan Feng , Liu Huitao , Wen Yingying , Li Qingzhong , Zhang Xiaoyun , Sun Jiazhong
Published: December 2009

A quantitative structure‐property relationship (QSPR) model was proposed on the basis of the molecular structure of 43 aromatic explosives and their density. The best linear model composed of five molecular descriptors which were selected from 522 constitutional, geometrical, topological, and quantum‐mechanical types of descriptors. Statistical characteristics of the multiple linear model (R2=0.892, F=60.95, RMS=0.0539, AARD=2.41%) indicated satisfactory stability and predictive ability. The model may give some insight into the main structural factors that modulate the density of the investigated compounds.
Impulse Density Measurements after the Held Method
Authors: Held Manfred
Published: December 2009

The introduction shows the importance of the impulse on damage, if the high explosive amount is smaller than 1000 kg.
Output‐feedback tracking in causal nonminimum‐phase nonlinear systems using higher‐order sliding modes
Authors: Shtessel Yuri B. , Baev Simon , Edwards Christopher , Spurgeon Sarah K.
Published: December 2009

Asymptotic output‐feedback tracking in a class of causal nonminimum phase uncertain nonlinear systems is addressed via sliding mode techniques. Sliding mode control is proposed for robust stabilization of the output tracking error in the presence of a bounded disturbance. The output reference profile and the unknown input/disturbance are supposed to be described by unknown linear exogenous systems of a given order. Local asymptotic stability of the output tracking error dynamics along with the boundedness of the internal states are proven. The unstable internal states are estimated asymptotically via the proposed multistage observer that is based on the method of extended system center. A higher‐order sliding mode observer/differentiator is used for the exact estimation of the input–output states in a finite time. The bounded disturbance is reconstructed asymptotically. A numerical example illustrates the efficiency of the proposed output‐feedback tracking approach developed for causal nonminimum phase nonlinear systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dicistronic regulation of fluorescent proteins in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Authors: Edwards Sarah R. , Wandless Thomas J.
Published: December 2009

Fluorescent proteins are convenient tools for measuring protein expression levels in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Co‐expression of proteins from distinct vectors has been seen by fluorescence microscopy; however, the expression of two fluorescent proteins on the same vector would allow for monitoring of linked events. We engineered constructs to allow dicistronic expression of red and green fluorescent proteins and found that expression levels of the proteins correlated with their order in the DNA sequence, with the protein encoded by the 5′‐gene more highly expressed. To increase expression levels of the second gene, we tested four regulatory elements inserted between the two genes: the IRES sequences for the YAP1 and p150 genes, and the promoters for the TEF1 gene from both S. cerevisiae and Ashbya gossypii. We generated constructs encoding the truncated ADH1 promoter driving expression of the red protein, yeast‐enhanced Cherry, followed by a regulatory element driving expression of the green protein, yeast‐enhanced GFP. Three of the four regulatory elements successfully enhanced expression of the second gene in our dicistronic construct. We have developed a method to express two genes simultaneously from one vector. Both genes are codon‐optimized to produce high protein levels in yeast, and the protein products can be visualized by microscopy or flow cytometry. With this method of regulation, the two genes can be driven in a dicistronic manner, with one protein marking cells harbouring the vector and the other protein free to mark any event of interest. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sphingolipids and gangliosides of the nervous system in membrane function and dysfunction
Authors: Posse de Chaves Elena , Sipione Simonetta
Published: December 2009

Simple sphingolipids such as ceramide and sphingomyelin (SM) as well as more complex glycosphingolipids play very important roles in cell function under physiological conditions and during disease development and progression. Sphingolipids are particularly abundant in the nervous system. Due to their amphiphilic nature they localize to cellular membranes and many of their roles in health and disease result from membrane reorganization and from lipid interaction with proteins within cellular membranes. In this review we discuss some of the functions of sphingolipids in processes that entail cellular membranes and their role in neurodegenerative diseases, with an emphasis on SM, ceramide and gangliosides.
Effect of water source on intake and urine concentration in healthy cats
Authors: Grant David C.
Published: December 2009

Increasing water intake and decreasing urine concentration are recommended for cats with urolithiasis and with idiopathic cystitis. Fountains are advocated to encourage drinking; however, effects on drinking of fountains have not been reported in cats living in pet owners homes. Thirteen healthy cats were assigned to have 24-h water intake and urine osmolality and specific gravity measured when water was offered from a bowl or fountain. One cat developed excessive barbering, vomiting, and refusal to drink water offered from the fountain. For the remaining 12 cats, intake was slightly greater from the fountain. However, urine osmolality was not significantly different. In this study, a fountain failed to substantially increase water intake and dilute urine in cats. A similar study including a greater period of time and additional cats may clarify the results of this study.
Probabilistic Reasoning in Multiagent Systems
Authors: Xiang Yang
Published: December 2009

This 2002 book investigates the opportunities in building intelligent decision support systems offered by multi-agent distributed probabilistic reasoning. Probabilistic reasoning with graphical models, also known as Bayesian networks or belief networks, has become increasingly an active field of research and practice in artificial intelligence, operations research and statistics. The success of this technique in modeling intelligent decision support systems under the centralized and single-agent paradigm has been striking. Yang Xiang extends graphical dependence models to the distributed and multi-agent paradigm. He identifies the major technical challenges involved in such an endeavor and presents the results. The framework developed in the book allows distributed representation of uncertain knowledge on a large and complex environment embedded in multiple cooperative agents, and effective, exact and distributed probabilistic inference.
Chicano Poetics
Authors: Arteaga Alfred
Published: December 2009

Chicano Poetics: Heterotexts and Hybridities examines the crossing of literary and social forces – be they linguistic, political, poetic - that forms the context for being Chicano. It reveals how a poetry of the cross can influence identity, in readings ranging from the poetry of gender and race by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to that of the fragmentary, postmodern subject of Juan Felipe Herrara. How the text of Spanish and Indian miscegenation and the story of Aztlán propagate identity is demonstrated in texts from Bernal Diaz del Castillo to Gloria Anzaldúa. The international space and the interlingual language of the borderlands are read as factors of nationalism and postcoloniality in discussion ranging from cowboy lingo to the essential Mexicanism of Octavio Paz. Heterotextuality is the medium in which xicanismo is articulated and comes to be a hybrid subject of textual difference.
Dismembering the Body Politic
Authors: Halliday Paul D.
Published: December 2009

This is a major survey of how towns were governed in late Stuart and early Hanoverian England. A new kind of politics emerged out of England's Civil War: partisan politics. This happened first in the corporations governing the towns, and not at Parliament as is usually argued. Based on an examination of the records of scores of corporations, this book explains how war unleashed a cycle of purge and counter-purge which continued for decades. It also explains how a society that feared a system of politics based on division found the means to absorb it peacefully. As conflict sharpened in communities everywhere, local competitors turned to the court of King's Bench to resolve their differences. In doing so, they prompted the court to develop a new body of law that protected local governments from the divisive impulses within them.
Romantic Imperialism
Authors: Makdisi Saree
Published: December 2009

The years between 1790 and 1830 saw over a hundred and fifty million people brought under British imperial control, and one of the most momentous outbursts of British literary and artistic production, announcing a new world of social and individual traumas and possibilities. This book traces the emergence of new forms of imperialism and capitalism as part of a culture of modernisation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, and looks at the ways in which they were identified with and contested in Romanticism. Saree Makdisi argues that this process has to be understood in global terms, beyond the British and European viewpoint, and that developments in India, Africa, and the Arab world (up to and including our own time) enable us to understand more fully the texts and contexts of British Romanticism. New and original readings of texts by Wordsworth, Blake, Byron, Shelley, and Scott emerge in the course of this searching analysis of the cultural process of globalisation.
Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 1998.
The Polemics of Exile in Jeremiah 26-45
Authors: Leuchter Mark
Published: December 2009

Scholars typically view Jeremiah 26-45 as a collection of episodes constructed during the Babylonian exile that attempts to prove the authenticity of Jeremiah's prophetic status. But Jeremiah's prophetic legitimacy was already widely accepted during the period of the Babylonian exile. These chapters serve a different purpose, namely, to provide a response by the Deuteronomistic scribes to the rise of the Ezekiel tradition and the Zadokite priesthood that threatened their influence among the exilic population. By subsuming their work within an existing and earlier collection of Jeremianic literature, the ideology and political agenda of the Deuteronomists was fused with the literary legacy of a widely respected prophet, giving rise to a larger literary collection that left a profound and lasting impression on Israel's intellectual and social history.
The Cost of Counterterrorism
Authors: Donohue Laura K.
Published: December 2009

In the aftermath of a terrorist attack political stakes are high: legislators fear being seen as lenient or indifferent and often grant the executive broader authorities without thorough debate. The judiciary's role, too, is restricted: constitutional structure and cultural norms narrow the courts' ability to check the executive at all but the margins. The dominant 'Security or Freedom' framework for evaluating counterterrorist law thus fails to capture an important characteristic: increased executive power that shifts the balance between branches of government. This book re-calculates the cost of counterterrorist law to the United Kingdom and the United States, arguing that the damage caused is significantly greater than first appears. Donohue warns that the proliferation of biological and nuclear materials, together with willingness on the part of extremists to sacrifice themselves, may drive each country to take increasingly drastic measures with a resultant shift in the basic structure of both states.
The Preface to Luke's Gospel
Authors: Alexander Loveday
Published: December 2009

Luke's two-volume work begins with a formal preface unlike anything else in the New Testament, and it has long been academic orthodoxy that Luke's choice of style, vocabulary, and content in this short passage reveal a desire to present his work to contemporary readers as 'History' in the great tradition of Thucydides and Polybius. This study challenges that assumption: far from aping the classical historians, Dr Alexander argues, Luke was simply introducing his book in a style that would have been familiar to readers of the scientific and technical manuals which proliferated in the hellenistic world. The book contains a detailed study of these Greek 'scientific' prefaces as well as a word-by-word commentary on the Lucan texts. In her concluding chapters, Alexander seeks to explore the consequences of this alignment both for the literary genre of Luke-Acts (is it meant to be read as 'history'?) and for the social background of the author and the book's first readers.
The Past of Jesus in the Gospels
Authors: Lemcio Eugene E.
Published: December 2009

The aim of this study is to show that the Evangelists, to an extent hitherto unrecognized, wrote narratives which set out to distinguish Jesus's time from their own. Such an effort, Professor Lemcio explains, went beyond their merely putting verbs in past tenses and dividing their accounts into pre- and post-resurrection periods. Rather, they took care that terminology appropriate to the Easter appearances did not appear beforehand, and that vocabulary used prior to Easter fell by the wayside afterwards. The author shows that words common to both eras bear a different nuance in each, and that the idiom used is seen to suit the time. These are not routine or incidental expressions, but reveal what Jesus the protaganist and the Evangelists as narrators believed about the Gospel, the Christ, the messianic task, and the nature of salvation. This much becomes apparent from a study of the internal evidence, and by next turning to data outside the Gospels, the author attempts to show how biographical and historical writings of the ancient world may prove useful in separate efforts to reconstruct the course of Jesus's life. Lemcio shows how expectations for idiomatic and linguistic verisimilitude in Graeco-Roman historical and biographical writing were met and often exceeded by the Evangelists. His study thus makes a valuable contribution towards our understanding of the literary art of the Gospel narratives, and highlights a literary sensitivity on their writers' part which has failed to receive the critical attention it deserves.
People of the Zongo
Authors: Schildkrout Enid
Published: December 2009

Dr Schildkrout probes questions of ethnicity, religion, cultural change and the African national identity in this study of the immigrant community of Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city. She compares first- and second-generation immigrants - those born in their rural homelands, and those born in Ghana - in terms of their orientation to politics, to kinship, and to community participation. The author explores the meaning of ethnic identity for rural- and urban-born immigrants, and establishes certain generalizations about ethnicity based on these comparisons. The book discusses the issues of migration, particularly interregional migration; the position of the 'stranger'; questions of cultural change in modern Africa; the 'generational gap' in the African context; the questions of citizenship and national identity in Africa today, and the emergence of new identities, regional, national and religious. This book has importance not only as a local case study that gives a full description of West African urban life, but also as a theoretical reconsideration of ethnicity that has application outside the African context.
Identity, Interest and Action
Authors: Ringmar Erik
Published: December 2009

This book offers an original combination of cultural and narrative theory with an empirical study of identity and political action. It is at once a powerful critique of rational choice theories of action and a solution to the historiographical puzzle of why Sweden went to war in 1630. Erik Ringmar argues that people act not only for reasons of interest, but also for reasons of identity, and that the latter are, in fact, more fundamental. Deploying his alternative, non-rational theory of action in his account of the Swedish intervention in the Thirty Years War, he shows it to have been an attempt on behalf of the Swedish leaders to gain recognition for themselves and their country. Further to this, he demonstrates the importance of questions of identity to the study of war and of narrative theories of action to the social sciences in general.
The Province of Legislation Determined
Authors: Lieberman David
Published: December 2009

A comprehensive account of English legal thought in the age of Blackstone and Bentham for nearly a century, The Province of Legislation Determined advances an ambitious reinterpretation of eighteenth-century attitudes to social change and law reform. Professor Lieberman's bold synthesis rests on a wide survey of legal materials and on a detailed discussion of Blackstone's Commentaries, the jurisprudence of Lord Kames and the Scottish Enlightenment, the chief justiceship of Lord Mansfield, the penal theories of Eden and Romilly, and the legislative science of Jeremy Bentham. The study relates legal developments to the broader fabric of eighteenth-century social and political theory, and offers a novel assessment of the character of the common law tradition and of Bentham's contribution to the ideology of reform.
Peter des Roches
Authors: Vincent Nicholas
Published: December 2009

This is the first biography of one of the wealthiest and most influential bishops of medieval Europe, who for a period of over thirty years exercised a degree of power over the Plantagenet court second only to that of the king. The career of Peter des Roches and the activities of his fellow aliens are fundamental to an understanding of the process by which England and France developed as two separate kingdoms. As a politician, des Roches cast a shadow across the reigns of both John and Henry III. His biography encompasses the first detailed narrative yet attempted of English political history in the early 1230s and of the civil war of 1233–4. It sheds new light on such issues as the role of aliens in English politics, the reception of Magna Carta, the loss of Normandy, and the constitutional and administrative developments of the reign of Henry III.
The Historical Geography of Scotland since 1707
Authors: Turnock David
Published: December 2009

This is the first book to take a comprehensive view of the historical geography of Scotland since the Union. The period is divided into sections separated by the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, and each section offers a general view followed by detailed studies giving a balanced coverage of regional and urban-rural criteria, and the economic infrastructure. The book contains a number of original researches and Dr Turnock attempts to set the Scottish experience in a framework of general ideas on modernisation.
Benedetto Accolti and the Florentine Renaissance
Authors: Black Robert
Published: December 2009

This is the first biography of one of the outstanding humanists of the fifteenth-century Renaissance. Benedetto Accolti's interests ranged from rhetoric, humanism and Italian poetry to Roman law, from historical thought and medieval antiquarianism to the crusades and church history, and his work as a scholar, author and historian is placed in a wide context stretching from antiquity to the eighteenth century. The intellectual, political and economic milieu of Accolti's native city of Arezzo, neglected in modern scholarship, is explored, and the importance of Accolti's career as chancellor of Florence, his role in bringing the new learning to the chancery and his work as an administrative reformer are recognized for the first time. Florence's response to the Turkish menace and contribution to papal crusading efforts are reinterpreted, and new information regarding Accolti's connections with leading Florentine patricians is brought to light.
Kings, Commoners and Concessionaires
Authors: Bonner Philip
Published: December 2009

This is the first full-length study of the political economy of one of the African states which were formed in the course of the nineteenth-century Zulu revolution. The early chapters examine the evolution of the Swazi state and the dynamics of its stratified systems, paying particular attention to the 'layering' of inequality through marriage and inheritance patterns, and the simultaneous integration of age regiments and the elaboration of a national ideology based on the Swazi royalty. Dr Bonner then sets the Swazi state in the wider context of south-eastern Africa and discusses its relations with the surrounding Boer societies. The later chapters analyse the role played by the great mining companies and their white concessionaires in the partition of southern Africa and in bringing about the dissolution of the Swazi state.
Quantum Gravity in 2+1 Dimensions
Authors: Carlip Steven
Published: December 2009

This timely volume provides a broad survey of (2+1)-dimensional quantum gravity. It emphasises the 'quantum cosmology' of closed universes and the quantum mechanics of the (2+1)-dimensional black hole. It compares and contrasts a variety of approaches, and examines what they imply for a realistic theory of quantum gravity. General relativity in three spacetime dimensions has become a popular arena in which to explore the ramifications of quantum gravity. As a diffeomorphism-invariant theory of spacetime structure, this model shares many of the conceptual problems of realistic quantum gravity. But it is also simple enough that many programs of quantization can be carried out explicitly. After analysing the space of classical solutions, this book introduces some fifteen approaches to quantum gravity - from canonical quantization in York's 'extrinsic time' to Chern-Simons quantization, from the loop representation to covariant path integration to lattice methods. Relationships among quantizations are explored, as well as implications for such issues as topology change and the 'problem of time'. This book is an invaluable resource for all graduate students and researchers working in quantum gravity.
Consumption and Social Welfare
Authors: Slesnick Daniel T.
Published: December 2009

The most widely cited social welfare statistics in the United States are based on tabulations of family income. The picture that emerges gives cause for concern: median family income has hardly changed over the last twenty-five years while inequality has increased and poverty remains persistently high. Yet consumption-based statistics as employed in this work yield rigorous and quite different estimates of real individual and social welfare. Closely linked to economic theory, Professor Slesnick's examination of standards of living, inequality, and poverty reveal that the standard of US living has grown significantly while inequality and poverty have decreased to relatively low levels. His assessment is drawn from extended period data in order to chart long-run trends. The work will be of interest to economists, sociologists, economic historians, political scientists, and other readers in the social and policy sciences. Designed to be accessible to non-economists, technical details are relegated to appendices.
Prophecy and Politics
Authors: Frankel Jonathan
Published: December 2009

In the period from 1881 to 1917 socialist movements flourished in every major centre of Russian Jewish life, but, despite common foundations, there was often profound and bitter disagreement between them. This book describes the formation and evolution of these movements, which were at once united by a powerful vision and sundered by the contradictions of practical politics.
Drawing the Line
Authors: Eisenberg Carolyn Woods
Published: December 2009

In this fresh and challenging study of the origins of the Cold War, Professor Eisenberg traces the American role in dividing post-war Germany. Drawing upon many original documentary sources, she examines the Allied meeting on the Elbe, follows the Great Powers through their confrontation in Berlin, and culminates with the creation of the West German state in the fall of 1949. In contrast to many works in the field, the book argues that the partition of Germany was fundamentally an American decision. US policy-makers chose partition, mobilized reluctant West Europeans behind that approach, and, by excluding the Soviets from West Germany, contributed to the isolation of East Germany and the emergence of the post-World War II US-Soviet rivalry. The volume casts new light on the Berlin blockade, demonstrating that the United States rejected United Nations mediation and relied on its nuclear monopoly as the means of protecting its German agenda.
This Side Up
Authors: Wall Robert
Published: December 2009

During animal development the descendants of a single cell form many different tissues and organs in appropriate positions within an embryo. To do this they must recognise their position, and this book examines our knowledge of how this is done. It starts by considering how much spatial pattern is already laid down when the egg forms inside the mother, and ends just before the formation of visible organs. Within these limits it considers evidence obtained by a variety of techniques, both experimental and biochemical, and from the embryos of many different animal groups. This breadth of coverage and the amount of detail afforded, particularly to the experimental studies, distinguish it from competing works and will make it a very valuable review. Moreover, in the final chapter the author analyses this evidence in ways which will be new to most readers, and which call into question current ideas about spatial determination.
Astronomical Applications of Astrometry
Authors: Perryman Michael
Published: December 2009

The Hipparcos satellite, developed and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1989, was the first space mission dedicated to astrometry - the accurate measurement of positions, distances, and proper motions of stars. Amongst the key achievements of its measurements are refining the cosmic distance scale, characterising the large-scale kinematic motions in the Solar neighbourhood, providing precise luminosities for stellar modelling, and confirming Einstein's prediction of the effect of gravity on starlight. This authoritative account of the Hipparcos contributions over the following decade is an outstanding reference for astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists. It reviews the applications of the data in different areas, describing the subject and the state-of-the-art before Hipparcos, and summarising all major contributions to the topic made by Hipparcos. It contains a detailed overview of the Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues, their annexes and their updates. Each chapter ends with comprehensive references to relevant literature.
Building Party Systems in Developing Democracies
Authors: Hicken Allen
Published: December 2009

This book addresses the question of why a party system with a modest number of nationally oriented political parties emerges in some democracies but not others. The number of parties and nationalization are the product of coordination between voters, candidates, and party leaders within local electoral districts and coordination among candidates and elites across districts. Candidates and voters can do and do coordinate locally in response to electoral incentives, but coordination across districts, or aggregation, often fails in developing democracies. A key contribution of this book is the development and testing of a theory of aggregation incentives that focuses on the payoff to being a large party and the probability of capturing that payoff. The book relies on in-depth case studies of Thailand and the Philippines, and on large-n analysis to establish its arguments.
Experiments and Competition Policy
Authors: Normann Hans-Theo
Published: December 2009

Economists have begun to make much greater use of experimental methods in their research. The award of the Nobel Prize in 2002 to Vernon Smith confirmed that the use of such methods is now seen as an important and credible part of the economist's toolkit. In Experiments and Competition Policy, leading scholars in the field of experimental economics survey the use of experimental methods and show how they can help us to understand firm behaviour in relation to various forms of competition policy. Chapters are organized in terms of the main fields of competition policy - collusion, abusive practices and mergers - and there is also a separate section dealing with auctions and procurement. Written in a clear and non-technical style, this volume is an excellent introduction to what the increasingly important field of experimental economics can bring to the theory and practice of competition policy.
The Kaiser Wilhelm Society under National Socialism
Authors: Heim Susanne , Sachse Carola , Walker Mark
Published: December 2009

During the first part of the twentieth century, German science led the world. The most important scientific institution in Germany was the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, including institutes devoted to different fields of scientific research. These researchers were not burdened by teaching obligations and enjoyed excellent financial and material support. When the National Socialists came to power in Germany, all of German society, including science, was affected. The picture that previously dominated our understanding of science under National Socialism from the end of the Second World War to the recent past - a picture of leading Nazis ignorant and unappreciative of modern science and of scientists struggling to resist the Nazis - needs to be revised. This book surveys the history of Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes under Hitler, illustrating definitively the cooperation, if not collaboration, between scientists and National Socialists in order to further the goals of autarky, racial hygiene, war, and genocide.
Fabrication of Empire
Authors: Low D. A.
Published: December 2009

During the 1890s, the Scramble for Africa created the new country of Uganda. This inland territory carved out by British agents first encompassed some 20–30 African kingdoms. In his magisterial study, Anthony Low examines how and why the British were able to dominate these rulerships and establish a colonial government. At the same time, the book goes beyond providing a simple narrative account of events; rather, Low seeks to analyse the conditions under which such a transformation was possible. By skilfully negotiating the many complex political and social undercurrents of this period, Low presents a groundbreaking theoretical model of colonial conquest and rule. The result is a major contribution to debates about the making of empire that will appeal to Africanists and imperial historians alike.
Creditor Protection in Private Companies
Authors: Bachner Thomas
Published: December 2009

Limited liability companies form the backbone of our modern economy. However, there is a persistent danger of moral hazard on the part of directors and shareholders, particularly in closely held or private companies. Like all developed legal systems, English and German law both provide mechanisms designed to protect creditors from such risks. This book investigates some of these mechanisms, including the avoidance of pre-insolvency acts, capital maintenance and creditor-regarding duties of directors. By analysing the different conceptual and doctrinal perspectives inherent in the English and German systems, this book seeks to advance a discourse between audiences with different legal backgrounds. It will be an invaluable guide for those wishing to understand how the protective mechanisms operate and interact with each other, and how they do so in quite different ways in the two jurisdictions.
Desire and Dramatic Form in Early Modern England
Authors: Haber Judith
Published: December 2009

This wide-ranging study investigates the intersections of erotic desire and dramatic form in the early modern period, considering to what extent disruptive desires can successfully challenge, change or undermine the structures in which they are embedded. Through close readings of texts by Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Middleton, Ford and Cavendish, Haber counters the long-standing New Historicist association of the aesthetic with the status quo, and argues for its subversive potential. Many of the chosen texts unsettle conventional notions of sexual and textual consummation. Others take a more conventional stance; yet by calling our attention to the intersection between traditional dramatic structure and the dominant ideologies of gender and sexuality, they make us question those ideologies even while submitting to them. The book will be of interest to those working in the fields of early modern literature and culture, drama, gender and sexuality studies, and literary theory.
Language and Human Relations
Authors: Clyne Michael , Norrby Catrin , Warren Jane
Published: December 2009

The way in which people address one another is crucial to expressing social relationships and is closely linked with cultural values. In English we call some people by their first names, and others 'Mr' or 'Ms', followed by their surname. In some other languages there are different ways of saying 'you' depending on the degree of social distance. Exploring practices in the family, school, university, the workplace and in letters, this book reveals patterns in the varied ways people choose to address one another, from pronouns to first names, from honorifics to titles and last names. Examples are taken from contemporary English, French, German and Swedish, using rich data from focus group research, interviews, chat groups, and participant observation.
Shelley and the Revolution in Taste
Authors: Morton Timothy
Published: December 2009

This book brings together the themes of diet, consumption, the body, and human relationships with the natural world, in a highly original study of Shelley. A campaigning vegetarian and proto-ecological thinker, Shelley may seem to us curiously modern, but Morton offers an illuminatingly broad context for Shelley's views in eighteenth-century social and political thought concerning the relationships between humanity and nature. The book is at once grounded in the revolutionary history of the period 1790–1820, and informed by current theoretical issues and anthropological and sociological approaches to literature. Morton provides challenging new readings of much-debated poems, plays, and novels by both Percy and Mary Shelley, as well as the first sustained interpretation of Shelley's prose on diet. With its stimulating literary-historical reassessment of questions about nature and culture, this study will provoke fresh discussion about Shelley, Romanticism, and modernity.
Preserving the Monarchy
Authors: Price Munro
Published: December 2009

The comte de Vergennes is best known as one of the great foreign ministers of modern French history, but for much of the 1780s he was also first minister in all but name. This 1995 book was the first to deal in depth with the critical part he played in French domestic policies on the eve of the Revolution. It studies Vergennes' role in the context of the debate on the nature and future of the French monarchy in the two decades before the Revolution. His financial reforms, fully examined here, were the last attempt to restructure the monarchy in accordance with its traditional principles. The failure of this undertaking accelerated the final collapse of the royal government. Preserving the Monarchy is based on archival research, as well as reinterpretations of the established sources. The result is a significant study, not merely of Vergennes but of the end of the ancien régime.
Working for the Union
Authors: Kelly John , Heery Edmund
Published: December 2009

This book is a study of the relationship between full-time union officials and shop stewards across the whole of British industry (public and private, manufacturing and services) in 1986–91. It is the first major study of union officials for 20 years, and one of the most detailed studies of workplace collective bargaining and union organisation following the recession of the early 1980s. In the wake of recession, union decline, industrial restructuring, anti-union legislation, and changes in union policies (towards a new realism), Britain is said by some commentators to be entering a new era of industrial relations. This book provides a unique body of evidence that throws new light on this claim, and casts serious doubt on its validity. It combines survey, interview, questionnaire and observation data and thus overcomes the well known limitations of both large-scale surveys and individual case studies.
National Identity and Foreign Policy
Authors: Prizel Ilya
Published: December 2009

This book is based on the premise that the foreign policy of any country is heavily influenced by a society's evolving notions of itself. Applying his analysis to Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, the author argues that national identity is an ever-changing concept, influenced by internal and external events, and by the manipulation of a polity's collective memory. The interaction of the narrative of a society and its foreign policy is therefore paramount. This is especially the case in East-Central Europe, where political institutions are weak, and social coherence remains subject to the vagaries of the concept of nationhood. Ilya Prizel's study will be of interest to students of nationalism, as well as of foreign policy and politics in East-Central Europe.
Identity without Selfhood
Authors: Fraser Mariam
Published: December 2009

Identity Without Selfhood, first published in 1999, proposes a conception of identity and subjectivity in the context of recent post-structuralist and queer debates. The author argues that efforts to analyse and even 'deconstruct' identity and selfhood still rely on certain core Western techniques of identity such as individuality, boundedness, autonomy, self-realisation and narrative. In a detailed study of biographical, media and academic representations of Simone de Beauvoir, Dr Fraser illustrates that bisexuality, by contrast, is discursively produced as an identity which exceeds the confines of the self and especially the individuality ascribed to de Beauvoir. In the course of this analysis, she draws attention to the high costs incurred by processes of subjectification. it is in the light of these costs that, while drawing substantially on, and expanding, Foucault's notion of techniques of the self, the argument presented in the book also offers a critique of Foucault's work from a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective.
Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World
Authors: Garnsey Peter
Published: December 2009

The first full-length study of famine in antiquity. The study provides detailed case studies of Athens and Rome, the best known states of antiquity, but also illuminates the institutional response to food crisis in the mass of ordinary cities in the Mediterranean world. Ancient historians have generally shown little interest in investigating the material base of the unique civilisations of the Graeco-Roman world, and have left unexplored the role of the food supply in framing the central institutions and practices of ancient society.
Defending Einstein
Authors: Reichenbach Hans
Published: December 2009

Hans Reichenbach, a philosopher of science who was one of five students in Einstein's first seminar on the general theory of relativity, became Einstein's bulldog, defending the theory against criticism from philosophers, physicists, and popular commentators. This 2006 book chronicles the development of Reichenbach's reconstruction of Einstein's theory in a way that clearly sets out all of its philosophical commitments and its physical predictions as well as the battles that Reichenbach fought on its behalf, in both the academic and popular press. The essays include reviews and responses to philosophical colleagues; polemical discussions with physicists Max Born and D. C. Miller; as well as popular articles meant for the layperson. At a time when physics and philosophy were both undergoing revolutionary changes in content and method, this book is a window into the development of scientific philosophy and the role of the philosopher.
The Schwinger Action Principle and Effective Action
Authors: Toms David J.
Published: December 2009

This book, first published in 2007, is an introduction to the Schwinger action principle in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, with applications to a variety of different models including Bose–Einstein condensation, the Casimir effect and trapped Fermi gases. The book begins with a brief review of the action principle in classical mechanics and classical field theory. It then moves on to quantum field theory, focusing on the effective action method. This is introduced as simply as possible by using the zero-point energy of the simple harmonic oscillator as the starting point. The book concludes with a more complete definition of the effective action, and demonstrates how the provisional definition used earlier is the first term in the systematic loop expansion. The renormalization of interacting scalar field theory is presented to two-loop order. This book will interest graduate students and researchers in theoretical physics who are familiar with quantum mechanics.
Agile Testing
Authors: Watkins John
Published: December 2009

In an IT world in which there are differently sized projects, with different applications, differently skilled practitioners, and on-site, off-site, and off-shored development teams, it is impossible for there to be a one-size-fits-all agile development and testing approach. This book provides practical guidance for professionals, practitioners, and researchers faced with creating and rolling out their own agile testing processes. In addition to descriptions of the prominent agile methods, the book provides twenty real-world case studies of practitioners using agile methods and draws upon their experiences to propose your own agile method; whether yours is a small, medium, large, off-site, or even off-shore project, this book provides personalized guidance on the agile best practices from which to choose to create your own effective and efficient agile method.
Human Nature and Historical Knowledge
Authors: Pompa Leon
Published: December 2009

This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry.
Domestic Policy and Ideology
Authors: McKay David
Published: December 2009

Presidential leadership in America can and does make a great deal of difference to what is debated and eventually legislated. At the same time presidents are obviously constrained by what is always a complex and difficult political environment. In this study Dr McKay examines the interaction between presidential policy preferences and the political environment, concentrating on welfare and urban policy and intergovernmental relations under Johnson, Nixon, Carter and Reagan. McKay traces the origins of domestic initiatives, assesses the intellectual coherence of policies and examines the ways in which the four presidents adapted their strategies according to their legislative fortunes and the experience of implementing policies. Throughout the work, McKay measures the independent influence of the White House on policy and draws conclusions for theories of American political development, in particular for the opportunities and constraints provided by the fragmentation of the New Deal political regime.