bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Life Aboard Ship
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

From the way observers see an event taking place, it is not possible for them to tell if they themselves are at rest, or are moving with uniform rectilinear motion. This is confirmed by life aboard ship, and the famous illustration of the motion of various small living creatures and the fall of drops of water inside a cabin below deck, where everything occurs just as it would on dry land. The main arguments of Aristotelian philosophers in support of the thesis that the earth is immobile, are shown to be ineffectual. In this part of the dialogue the revolutionary idea (later to be completed by Newton) of linking the force acting on a body to its acceleration rather than to its velocity, makes its first appearance.
Towers Arrows Cannons and Birds
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

Using a wealth of arguments Galileo reaffirms his assertion that the phenomena invoked by Aristotelians to demonstrate that the earth is immobile do not prove their claim. He rejects the need for an “impressed force” and again states that it is inertia which ensures that motion continues— and explains the observed behavior—when a number of events are examined: the fall of a rock from a tower or from the mast of a moving ship; trajectories of artillery shots; the motion of projectiles shot from a moving carriage; the flight of birds—and others. Among the pearls we have the discussion about the independence of mutually perpendicular motions and that most famous of examples—the time it takes for cannon balls to fall to earth.
The Divine Harmonies
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

As a music-lover Galileo asked himself why certain chords sound consonant, while others sound dissonant. His explanation was rooted in the physical nature of sound (an oscillation of mechanical parts of a source system that becomes transferred to the air and eventually reaches our eardrums). Galileo perceived the similarity that exists between sound waves, which are oscillatory in nature, and the motion of pendulums—and, indeed, it was from the latter that his discussion started. His hypothesis that consonance arises from more synchronous and regular stimulations of the eardrum was a forerunner of modern psychoacoustics, which attributes consonance to a simpler configuration of nerve impulses reaching the brain from the ear.
The Crystal Moon
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

Galileo discovers the mountains of the moon. Aristotelian philosophers, refusing to accept that a celestial body can be other than spherical and smooth (canons of perfection), counter that the moon is like a transparent sphere of crystal within whose interior there are regions of higher and regions of lower density. After taking a look at the opening pages of Sidereus Nuncius, where the wonders of the telescope are described, this chapter will go on to illustrate some of the observations Galileo made using the telescope and, in closing, will present his arguments against the “crystal moon”.
Infinite Finite Infinitesimal*
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

In the dialogue presented here, the concepts of infinitesimal and finite quantities are discussed. Galileo felt a need for these not in an abstract sense, but rather in relation to the way real physical phenomena occur, and for the solution of concrete geometrical problems. In the discourse, which in this case is not always clear, Galileo advances some hypotheses that are not justified. Among these are the assertions that an infinite number cannot be said to be larger than finite numbers, and that it could have aspects in common with unity.
Archimedes and the Weight of Air*
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

After briefly recalling Archimedes’ principle of buoyancy, Galileo discusses in detail a method for determining the weight of air. Since the weight in question is very small, he uses extremely fine grains of sand as a counterweight. It is remarkable that, in spite of the crude instruments available to him, his result is not too far from the correct one.
Machines Large and Small*
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

The chapter opens with Galileo’s famous statement on the importance of applied science. Examples follow regarding mechanics, the resistance of beams, the greater tendency towards breakage in large machines than in small ones, aquatic animals, and land animals.
In Horror at a Vacuum
Authors: Frova Andrea , Marenzana Mariapiera , Mcmanus Jim
Published: November 2023

A celebrated passage, not without its difficulties, in which Galileo advances the hypothesis that within the interior of a body of condensed matter there are an infinite number of empty microspaces, and that it is these which are responsible for the bonding between its various constituent particles. This idea was inspired by the experimental observation that nature seems to oppose the creation of a vacuum—the famous horror vacui—a concept which Galileo here extends to the microscopic level. The key experiment is described, involving the measurement of the force needed to extract an airtight piston from a cylinder. Far from proving that a vacuum exercises forces, the measurement gives—without Galileo realizing it—the weight of the column of air in the atmosphere above us. In support of his model, he puts forward examples using metals, liquids, and powders.
The Electron Gas
Authors: Bruus Henrik , Flensberg Karsten
Published: November 2023

The study of the interacting electron gas moving in a charge-compensating background of positively charged ions is central in this book. Not only is this system a model of the solids that surround us, such as metals, semiconductors, and insulators, but historically this system played a major role as testing ground for the development of quantum field theory. In this chapter we shall study the basic properties of this system using the formalism of time-independent second quantization as developed in Chap. 1. The main emphasis will be on the non-interacting electron gas, since it will be clear that we need to develop our theoretical tools further to deal with the electron-electron interactions in full.
Linear Response Theory
Authors: Bruus Henrik , Flensberg Karsten
Published: November 2023

Linear response theory is an extremely widely used concept in all branches of physics. It simply states that the response to a weak external perturbation is proportional to the perturbation, and therefore all one needs to understand is the proportionality constant. Below we derive the general formula for the linear response of a quantum system exerted by a perturbation. The physical question we ask is thus: given some external perturbation H′, what is the measured consequence for an observable quantity, A.
Equation of Motion Theory
Authors: Bruus Henrik , Flensberg Karsten
Published: November 2023

In the previous chapters, we saw how various physical observables can be expressed in terms of retarded Green’s functions. In many cases we need to calculate the time dependence of these functions. There are several ways of attacking this problem, one of which is the equation of motion technique. The basic idea of this method is to generate a series of coupled differential equations by differentiating the function at hand a number of times. If these equations close, the problem is in principle solvable; and if not, one needs to invoke physical arguments to truncate the set of equations in a reasonable fashion. For example, one can neglect certain correlations. We shall study examples of both situations in this chapter.
The Interacting Electron Gas
Authors: Bruus Henrik , Flensberg Karsten
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, we reanalyze the Coulomb-interacting electron gas in the jellium model using the Feynman diagram technique, and we show how a meaningful finite groundstate energy can be found.
Green’s Functions and Phonons
Authors: Bruus Henrik , Flensberg Karsten
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, we develop and apply the Green’s function technique for free phonons and for the electron-phonon interaction. The point of departure is the second quantization formulation of the phonon problem presented in Chapter 3, in particular the bosonic phonon creation and annihilation operators b  ℅ and b  ℅  q introduced in Eqs. (3.10) and (3.22) and appearing in the jellium phonon Hamiltonian Eq. (3.4) and in the lattice phonon Hamiltonian Eq. (3.23).
Working With Eating Disorders
Authors: Turner Hannah
Published: November 2023

Although public awareness of eating disorders has increased considerably in recent years, many myths continue to surround these often severely debilitating disorders. Commonly misconstrued as ‘a diet that got out of hand ‘, the concept of an eating disorder can leave many feeling frustrated and perplexed, as they struggle to understand what appears to be an extraordinary state of obsession with eating, weight, and shape. However, beneath these worries there often lies a story of insecurity, anxiety, and fear. No one just wakes up one morning with an eating disorder—rather these are complex illnesses that develop over time and often as a result of multiple influences. The range of causative factors can be diverse and may include genetic and physical factors, personality traits, family dynamics, relationship problems, and adverse life events.
DNA topoisomerases
Authors: Bates Andrew D , Maxwell Anthony
Published: November 2023

Virtually every reaction that occurs in biological systems is catalysed by an enzyme. The interconversions of the different topological forms of DNA are no exceptions. The enzymes that catalyse these processes are known as DNA topoisomerases and constitute a widespread and fascinating group.

The first DNA topoisomerase was discovered by James Wang in 1971, the so-called ω protein from Escherichia coli (1). This enzyme, now called DNA topoisomerase I, was found to reduce the number of negative supercoils in bacteriophage λ DNA, as measured by changes in sedimentation coefficient (see Chapter 2, Section 2.2.2).
Cosmological spacetimes
Authors: Rindler Wolfgang
Published: November 2023

Introduction

Cosmology the inquiry into the largest-scale features of the universe has obviously excited Man’s curiosity since time immemorial. But in spite of the spectacular advances in astronomy since the days of Galileo and Kepler, cosmology remained more speculation than science until well into the twentieth century. Relevant observations were sparse, and so theories, however fanciful, could not be falsified. All this changed drastically with the advent of the giant telescopes early in the twentieth century, which suddenly brought a significant portion of the whole universe into view.
Clouds and aerosols
Authors: Taylor F W
Published: November 2023

Clouds are, in many ways, the most crucial part of the climate system, because they have a large effect on the energy balance of the atmosphere and surface, but are very variable and difficult to predict. On a warming Earth, would the amount of cloud cover increase? Would this result in an increase in the albedo of the planet, and would the cooling effect of this dominate the warming effect of adding further infrared opacity to the greenhouse effect, or vice versa? The answers to even these basic questions remain elusive. We will look at the role of clouds in the greenhouse effect and at attempts to model their contribution, in later chapters. Here we look at the basic physics of cloud formation and growth.
Radiative transfer
Authors: Taylor F W
Published: November 2023

We have already seen (Chapter 2) how the Sun delivers energy to the Earth as ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared radiation, and how the Earth maintains an overall energy balance by re-emitting an equal amount of energy as long-wave, thermal infrared radiation. We calculated the total amounts of energy, and the wavelength of peak emission, from the Sun and the Earth, using the Stefan-Boltzmann law and the Wien displacement law respectively, and noted that both of these can be derived from Planck’s Radiation law, one of the most important formulae in modern Physics.
Earth’s energy budget: The ‘greenhouse’ effect
Authors: Taylor F W
Published: November 2023

The presence of the atmosphere raises the mean temperature of the surface of the Earth considerably over what it would be on an airless sphere with the same size, albedo, and distance from the Sun. Ignoring clouds for the moment, the air is largely transparent to the incoming solar flux, but mostly opaque to outgoing thermal infrared radiation. Thus the atmosphere forms a blanket that is colder on the outside than the inside. It presents an effective emitting temperature of about 255K towards outer space, representing equilibrium with the incoming solar power, while the temperature at the base of the atmosphere is around 33K higher.
Climate models and predictions
Authors: Taylor F W
Published: November 2023

Studies of climate and climate change, like those of virtually all problems involving complex coupled systems and a multitude of different processes, rely on models.120 Simple models provide useful insight into the physics involved, while complex models are necessary to obtain the greatest possible accuracy and to attempt to incorporate all of the feedback process. The simplest climate models are zero or one-dimensional energy balance models, like those introduced in Chapter 7. These have low computational costs and explicit formulations, so that the links between individual parameters or processes and the climate can be seen and their dependence evaluated.
Pendulums somewhat simple
Authors: Baker Gregory L , Blackburn James A
Published: November 2023

There are many kinds of pendulums. In this chapter, however, we intro duce a simplified model; the small amplitude, linearized pendulum. For the present, we ignore friction and in doing so obviate the need for energizing the pendulum through some forcing mechanism. Our initial discussion will therefore assume that the pendulum’s swing is relatively small; and this approximation allows us to linearize the equations and readily determine the motion through solution of simplified model equations. We begin with a little history.
Coupled pendulums
Authors: Baker Gregory L , Blackburn James A
Published: November 2023

It has been asked, ‘‘You know the sound of two hands clapping; what is the sound of one hand clapping?’’ Of course one hand does not clap. But there are answers to a related question, ‘‘You know the sound of two hands clapping; what is the sound of manyhands clapping?’’ Zolten Neda and his physicist colleagues in Romania have studied this question extensively in concert halls, theaters and opera houses (Neda et al. 2000). One of their conclusions is that at some point during the applause the aggregate noise from hand clapping will be periodic. Probably, most of us have experienced this phenomenon. (Being physicists, Neda and his colleagues also learn a lot of other things that the casual observer might miss.) This periodicityof the applause is an example of synchronization. Each component system— each pair of hands—acts in concert with all the other component systems to create a uniform pattern of clapping. But the applause may not neces sarilystayperiodic. If some audience members are more enthusiastic than others and break the pattern by clapping more frequently, then the applause can again become chaotic. Thus the degree of synchronization seems to depend upon the audience members being mutuallycoupled bya common level of enthusiasm. As an example, Neda et al. note, historically, that clapping at now-defunct communist party rallies typically stayed in the rhythmic state. One might conclude that the level of enthusiasm was fairly low at such gatherings. But let us discuss pendulums.
The quantum pendulum
Authors: Baker Gregory L , Blackburn James A
Published: November 2023

The classical pendulum has a long and rich history in physics. On the other hand, the history of the quantum pendulum can only stretch back as far as the appearance of quantum mechanics itself in 1925–1926. Yet within three years of that exciting time, a paper on the quantum pendulum appeared in Physical Review authored by one of the pioneers of atomic physics, Edward Condon (Condon 1928). Condon’s paper laid out the basic problem and the means to its solution. Contributions to the study of the quantum pendulum continue to be made even in recent times. See, for example, (Pradhan and Khare 1973; Aldrovandi and Ferreira 1980; Cook and Zaidins 1986; Baker et al. 2002). In this tale we describe some of the novel and surprising features of the pendulum when it is analyzed according to the rules of quantum physics.
Superconductivity and the pendulum
Authors: Baker Gregory L , Blackburn James A
Published: November 2023

There is a quite unexpected connection between the classical pendulum— chaotic or otherwise—and quantum mechanics when it functions on a macroscopic scale, as happens in superconductors. More specifically, the connection arises through something known as the Josephson effect. It turns out that there is an exact correspondence between the dynamics of Josephson devices and the dynamics of the classical pendulum. To uncover this curious relationship, we first review some essential ideas about superconductors and superconducting devices.

The Dutch physicist H. Kamerlingh Onnes , noted in an earlier chapter for his Ph.D. dissertation on the Foucault pendulum, made his mark in the world of science for great discoveries in low temperature physics. Three years after receiving his degree in 1879, Onnes ascended to the chair in experimental physics at the University of Leiden in Holland. His research interest was low temperature physics and, like others in England and on the continent, he worked to achieve ever lower temperatures through the liquefaction of gases.
Drag and Lift
Authors: Darrigol Olivier
Published: November 2023

The problem of the forces that a fluid exerts on a solid body challenged hydrodynamics since d’Alembert’s foundational Essaiof 1752. It only found a quantitative, wide-ranging solution in the first third of the twentieth century, after a few partial successes in the nineteenth century and earlier. The first section of this chapter is devoted to these older attempts, including Newton’s molecular-impact theory, Rayleigh’s dead-water theory, and eddy-resistance theories by Poncelet and Saint-Venant. None of these theories truly succeeded in making quantitative predictions, and they all lacked a solid conceptual basis. Newton’s theory artificially neglected the mutual action of fluid molecules, Rayleigh’s implied an absurdly large wake, and Saint-Venant’s required some observational input. Yet they all contained important elements of the modern understanding of fluid resistance. Newton understood how a similitude argument constrained inertial resistance to be quadratic. Rayleigh’s theory foreshadowed the separation process now admitted for non-streamlined flow. Saint-Venant correctly described the eddy resistance resulting from the instability of separated flow.

Section 7.2 is devoted to ship resistance. The development of steam navigation in the Victorian empire motivated the efforts of a few learned engineers to reflect on the optimal shape of ship hulls. John Scott Russell saw how to minimize wave resistance. William Rankine clearly distinguished skin friction, large-eddy resistance, and wave resistance. Lastly, and most importantly, William Froude expressed the conditions for a rational use of models and developed the relevant experimental techniques. In his analysis of skin friction, he finely described what Prandtl later called a turbulent boundary layer. His and Rankine’s insights into the mechanisms of high-Reynolds-number resistance nevertheless remained qualitative. The means were still lacking to turn them into efficient computational schemes.
Murder on the Highway
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: November 2023

Type the words ‘retina’, ‘murder’ and ‘image’ into a Web search engine and one is soon led to the novel ‘The Story of Sevenoaks’, written in 1875 by the popular Dr J. G. Holland. ‘Sevenoaks’ has not worn well, but here is a re´sume´: ‘General’ Belcher, President of the Crooked Valley Railroad, and purveyor of the suspect Belcher rifle to the Prussian government, has forged the signature of Nicholas Johnston, for personal advantage. He is confronted in court by an expert on handwriting and chemistry. The expert is certain that the disputed signature is a forgery.
‘Whirling madly through the darkness’
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: November 2023

For it always happened that when I awoke like this, and my mind struggled in an unsuccessful attempt to discover where I was, everything would be moving about me through the darkness: things, places, years. My body, still too heavy with sleep to move, would make an effort to construe the form which its tiredness took as an orientation of its various members, so as to induce from that where the wall lay and the furniture stood, to piece together and give a name to the house in which it must be living. Its memory, the composite memory of its ribs, knees and shoulder blades offered it a whole series of rooms in which it had at one time or another slept; while the unseen walls kept changing, adapting themselves to the shape of each successive room that it remembered, whirling madly through the darkness.
Who Killed the Chauffeur?
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: November 2023

In Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep (1939), Owen Taylor is the chauffeur for the Sternwood family. Early in the book he is found dead at the wheel of one of the Sternwood cars in the surf off Lido fish pier. Private Investigator Philip Marlowe is present as the police and the medical examiner argue about whether Taylor’s death is murder or suicide. The ME thinks he was blackjacked before hitting the water.
Where is Fancy Bred?
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: November 2023

The history of electrical stimulation of the brain starts with the experiments of Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century. Early results were not exactly encouraging. A pullet given a powerful electric shock ran headlong against a wall, and ‘on examination appeared perfectly blind’. A turkey of 10 lb weight was even less fortunate and was struck stone dead, but did ‘eat uncommonly tender’ (an argument not yet advanced by advocates of the electric chair, oddly enough).
Into the Mill
Authors: Morgan Michael
Published: November 2023

If we imagine that there is a machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions, we could conceive it enlarged, having the same proportions, so that we could enter it, as one enters into a mill. Assuming that, when inspecting its interior, we will only find parts that push against each other, and we will never find anything to explain the perception. (G. W. Leibniz, The Monadology) The problem with Leibniz’s argument is that it assumes the truth of its conclusion in its premise – the error called petitio principi in the medievalschools.
Indistinguishability At A Distance
Authors: Scarani Valerio
Published: November 2023

During my first lecture at Saint-Michel College, I had sidestepped the question about randomness that the student had asked. As the reader will recall, it was the experiment of Fig. 1.1, as simple as it was, in which the particles arrived one after the other at a beam splitter. I had said that we do not know how to describe the behaviour of each particle, we do not know why a given particle is reﬂected rather than transmitted. Is it really uncertain, ran- dom (which is the current opinion among physicists) or is there a mechanism yet to be discovered? I had deliberately turned attention from this problem, in order to concentrate on the experiment of Fig. 1.3, the Mach–Zehnder interferometer. We have seen, then, that quantum randomness is a curious randomness – if we assemble two ‘randomness generators’ (beam splitters) in a certain way, we rediscover the certainty! I brieﬂy remind the assembled students of this, a week later, in the old granary of the College.
Orsay, Innsbruck, Geneva
Authors: Scarani Valerio
Published: November 2023

‘Do you have a permanent position?’. The young Alain Aspect, visiting John Bell in Geneva, was speechless for a moment. Alain has an ambitious objective for his doctoral thesis – to perform, in the optics laboratory at the Paris-Sud University at Orsay, an experiment that allows him to measure correlations between two particles and to see if Bell’s inequality is violated. An ambitious project. But the majority of the scientific community continues to regard Bell inequalities, non-locality, as ‘philosophy’. John Bell, then, is expressing legitimate concern for the future of the young man who has come to talk with him, who risks finding himself marginalized if he goes on with his project. ‘Do you have a permanent position?’. Yes, Alain has a permanent position, a small salary guaranteed for life – but he risks his prestige. The risk will pay off – Alain will perform his doctoral project and he will even have the pleasure of seeing the scientific community calling his experiment ‘the Aspect experiment’, with a worthy recognition that is not always guaranteed.
Traits, invariants, and theories of everything
Authors: Mayhew Peter J
Published: November 2023

The last two chapters were concerned with how natural selection can change the way a lineage looks (its phenotype). These changes have had profound effects, first on the complexity of organisms (Chapter 2), and second on the complexity of the ecology of the planet (Chapter 3). This chapter continues the theme, but deals with traits that are individually far more ordinary: life history traits. Nonetheless, they account for much of the diversity in form across species, thus collectively are of immense interest. A life history is a description of the major characteristics of an organism from its birth to its death. The traits are variables that can be measured or categorized across individuals and that collectively make up the description (Figure 4.1). In the past, most work on life history evolution proceeded on a trait-by-trait basis.
Doing adaptive things
Authors: Mayhew Peter J
Published: November 2023

Most of the traits we have considered so far involve characteristics that differ between populations or species, such as their average sex ratio, their average lifespan, and whether they are sexual or asexual. Individual organisms also possess the ability to modify what they do in response to changes they sense in their environment during their lifetime. In animals, where much of this change involves differences in what they do, we call this behaviour. In plants the differences result from changes in growth, development, and morphology.
Evolution and numbers
Authors: Mayhew Peter J
Published: November 2023

So far we have covered how ecology causes anagenetic change, the place of ecology being largely subsumed under the term ‘selection’. The present chapter, like Chapter 3, explores more the effect of evolution on ecology, thus closing a causation loop. Specifically, we will investigate the effects of anagenetic change on population dynamics, an ecological characteristic, and ask whether we can better understand population level phenomena by incorporating evolutionary assumptions. Further, we will explore an additional theoretical step in the evolutionary process by using assumptions about population dynamics to help estimate the path of evolutionary change. Thus, evolution influences ecology, which influences evolution again.
Birth of species
Authors: Mayhew Peter J
Published: November 2023

Until now we have been concerned almost exclusively with evolutionary change within lineages—anagenesis. Anagenesis creates differences between lineages and hence the diversity of form and function that we observe as a major feature of our planet. It is, however, just one of the two major evolutionary processes, the other being cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the creation of new lineages, speciation. Cladogenesis and anagenesis are jointly responsible for life’s diversity: without cladogenesis, anagenesis could not realize life’s potential for phenotypic diversity. Without anagenesis, as we shall see, speciation could not occur.
First Interlude: Wason ‘S Selection Task
Authors: Chiswell Ian , Hodges Wilfrid
Published: November 2023

These results are fairly typical. There are several ways of adjusting the experiment, and a good deal is known about which adjustments make it easier or harder to reach the ‘logically correct’ answer. One possible explanation is that human beings do not have any built-in understanding of truth tables. We can make quick decisions on the basis of rules that evolution built into us, and for some reason these rules tell us to choose card E but not card 7 in this experiment. Psychologists have made various suggestions of why this should be. An explanation should also explain why certain versions of the experiment make the task easier and some make it harder. See, for example, Keith E. Stanovich, Who is Rational? Studies of Individual Differences  in Reasoning, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 1999, or Keith Stenning, Seeing Reason: Image and Language in Learning to Think, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.
First-Order Logic
Authors: Chiswell Ian , Hodges Wilfrid
Published: November 2023

Now we turn to arguments that involve quantifier expressions ‘There is’ and ‘For all‐, as we promised at the beginning of Chapter 5. We study what these expressions mean in mathematics (Sections 7.1–7.2), we build a formal semantics that gives necessary and suﬃcient conditions for a first-order sentence to be true in a structure (Section 7.3), we find natural deduction rules for these sentences (Section 7.4) and we prove a completeness theorem for the proof calculus got by adding these rules to those of earlier chapters (Section 7.6). The logic that we reach by adding these expressions and rules is called first-order logic. Sometimes you will also hear it called predicate logic or elementary logic or classical logic. Do not confuse it with traditional logic, which is the logic that was studied up till the middle of the nineteenth century—see (7.8) below.
Between epiphenomenalism and rationality: Philosophical accounts of voluntary action
Authors: Vierkant Till
Published: November 2023

In our modern world, most people accept that everything ultimately has a physical cause. Thunderstorms are not caused by gods, but by friction, human life is best explained in terms of the operation of DNA sequences, and so on. Voluntary action is an interesting phenomenon because, although people believe the above-mentioned statements, they do believe, as well that they can choose their actions freely. This seems to be impossible should it hold true that ultimately everything, including voluntary actions, has a physical cause. This problem is not a new one (200 years ago it was the point of departure for Kant’s philosophy), but it has become even more pressing. In recent times, neuroscientists and psychologists find more and more evidence that, as Gerhard Roth expresses it, consciousness is not the ‘lord of the manor’ in our brains.
Questioning The Multidisciplinary Field
Authors: Maasen Sabine
Published: November 2023

This book has attempted to approach the issue of voluntary action anew. The questions we raised seemed simple enough. What counts as an action? What makes an action voluntary? What exactly is it that volition adds to the action? Our folk psychological expertise of what it means to act voluntarily notwithstanding, the concept becomes ever more multi-faceted the closer one looks at it. This is unfortunate because voluntary action is not only a matter of understanding the mental operation of individual minds, but also a matter of social practice. The notion of voluntarily acting persons is an essential ingredient of politics, law, economy, and ethics—therefore, it is high time to assess the available scientific expertise.
Population dynamics and extinction in heterogeneous environments: the Northern Spotted Owl
Authors: Lande Russell
Published: November 2023

Rapid destruction and fragmentation of natural environments caused by pressures from expanding human populations and economies, especially in developing tropical countries, is likely to cause the extinction of a large fraction of species recently existing on the earth (Meyers 1986; Simberl off 1986). To mitigate the loss of species diversity and the negative effects that this may have on future medical, industrial, and recreational development, and on regional and global climate change, it is necessary to educate the public and their political and economic leaders about the benefits of conserving biological diversity and restoring natural ecosystems. It is also increasingly important to understand the dynamics of small populations, and those in remaining fragmented habitats, in order for managers to reduce the risks of extinction.
Adopting a transaction processing model for a global plant species information system
Authors: Jinks Deidrie
Published: November 2023

Current transaction processing systems typically are large commercial or government applications, allowing multiple users, who may be geographically remote, to access data simultaneously. Such systems are found, for example, at the heart of large banking or telecommunications enterprises. Transaction processing interacts with the network, the database, and the physical machine on behalf of the application, but is technically within the field of communications, residing within the application layer of the OSI reference model. System requirements are examined and transaction processing is defined. Implementation of transaction processing is discussed within the context of current international standards and available technology, together with the special problems inherent in applying a transaction processing model to a global plant species information system.
Selection for mutants of Arabidopsis thaliana altered in solute uptake
Authors: Soave C , Vannini C , Gomarasca S
Published: November 2023

Ion transport in plants continues to be a subject of great theoretical and practical relevance. Much of our information concerning the nature of ion transport comes from analyses of the kinetics of in vivo ion uptake coupled with electrophysiological and biochemical studies aimed at understanding the physicochemical properties of membrane transporters. Genetic and biochemical studies of transport mutants in bacteria, fungi, and animals have contributed significantly to our knowledge of transport carriers (Rosen 1986; Salkoff and Tanouye 1986; Gaber et al. 1988; Vallejo and Serrano 1989). In plants this approach is limited by the paucity of well-characterized monogenic transport mutants (Lauchli 1976). It is with a genetic approach to the problem in mind that we have initiated studies of ion transport in Arabidopsis thaliana, a plant ideally suited for genetic experiments due to its short life cycle, small size, small genome, and well-established classical and molecular genetics. In addition, the plant can be grown until maturity on well-defined mineral media, allowing the development of specific selection systems for isolating ion-transport mutants.
Plant sugar transporters: their contribution to and their dependence on metabolism
Authors: Tanner Widmar
Published: November 2023

For carbon-heterotrophic organisms, sugar transporters of tissues or cells play an important role. Growth often depends on them obligatorily. The sugar transport systems identified on a molecular level correspond, to a large extent, to facilitators solely accelerating the equilibration of sugars between the intra- and extracellular compartment (Celenza et al. 1988; Silverman 1991). Others couple gradients of sodium ions (Hediger et al. 1987) or protons (Maiden et al. 1987; Sauer and Tanner 1989; Sauer et al. 1990) to sugar transport, and catalyse an accumulative transport process.
Mobilization of vacuolar calcium through the tonoplast
Authors: Canut H , Carrasco A , Thuleau P , Graziana A , Ranjeva R
Published: November 2023

Higher plants, anchored in the soil, are subjected to a great variety of external influences. They need to perceive and transduce different signals in order to integrate this external information effectively and regulate their developmental processes accordingly.
Metabolism-mediated control of ATP-driven H+ extrusion: some evidence and a working hypothesis
Authors: Marrè E , Marre M T , Moroni A , Venegoni A , Vergani P , Albergoni F
Published: November 2023

Consistent evidence, accumulated during the past two decades, has established the central role of ATP-driven H+ extrusion in solute transport at the plasma membrane of plant cells. Functional differentiation in the various plant tissues (or, for a single tissue, under different environmental conditions) implies changes in the activity of H+ extrusion, and this emphasizes the importance of understanding how proton pumping activity is regulated. Several factors regulating H+ extrusion in vivo, and the activity of the plasma-membrane H+ transporting ATPase in vitro have been identified; moreover, growing evidence indicates that different plasmalemma H+-ATPases exist in a single plant (Kimura et al. 1988; Harper and Sussman 1989; Cocucci and Marre 1991). It is reasonable to assume that these different f-H+-ATPases are influenced by different regulatory mechanisms, because the transport processes of cells such as those of phloem, mesophyll, storage parenchyma, stomata, and meristems are deeply differentiated. Thus, when studying the regulation of H+ extrusion, it would seem more appropriate to talk of proton pumps, rather than of a unique H+-pump (H+-ATPase) for all cells of a given organism.
The plasma-membrane Ca2+ pump: biochemical characteristics and regulatory properties
Authors: Rasi-Caldogno F , De Michelis M I
Published: November 2023

An increasing amount of evidence indicates that Ca2+ can act as a second messenger in the transduction of internal and environmental stimuli in higher plants (Poovaiah and Reddy 1987). The suitability of Ca2+ as a second messenger is suggested by its very low (about 0.1 µM) concentration in the cytosol under resting conditions, and by the immediate increase of its concentration in response to different stimuli (Felle 1988; Johannes et al. 1991; Schroeder and Thuleau 1991). Because of the enormous electrochemical gradient of Ca2+ existing between the cytosol and the apoplast or intracellular compartments, the rapid increase of cytosolic Ca2+ concentration induced by stimuli can be brought about by the opening of Ca2+ channels of the plasma membrane and/or of endomembranes (Tester 1990; Schroeder and Thuleau 1991). Re-establishment and maintenance of the resting level of cytosolic Ca2+ depends on the activity of active transport systems that catalyse Ca2+ extrusion from the cytoplasm to the apoplast or to intracellular compartments such as the vacuole, endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and chloroplasts.
Fusicoccin receptors: perception and transduction of the fusicoccin signal
Authors: Aducci P , Ballio A , Fullone M R , Marra M
Published: November 2023

The stimulus induced in plant cells by the fungal metabolite fusicoccin (FC) is perceived by specific receptors at the plasma membrane. They are responsible for coupling the primary signal to the ultimate physiological target, the H+-ATPase (Aducci et al. 1988). Evidence has been produced showing that this enzyme can be activated in vitro and in vivo by FC (Ballio et al. 1981; Rasi-Caldogno et al. 1986; Blum et al. 1988a), whereas it is insensitive to the toxin once solubilized from the plasma membrane (Blum et al. 1988a) or when re constituted into liposomes in the absence of FC receptors (Aducci et al. 1988).
The history of pictures, words, and numbers as records
Authors: Davies Duncan , Bathurst Diana , Bathurst Robin
Published: November 2023

David Attenborough, in his book. Life on Earth, calls men the ‘compulsive communicators. He says, ’Once we thought that we were the only creatures to make and use tools. We now know that this is not so: chimpanzees do so and so do finches in the Galapagos that cut and trim long thorns to use as pins for extracting grubs from holes in wood. Even our complex spoken language seems less special the more we learn about the communications used by chimpanzees and dolphins. But we are the only creatures to have painted representc1tional pictures and it is this talent which led to developments which ultimately transformed the life of mankind’. And Life on Earth is itself a splendid illustration of the balance that we are studying. In the form of a television documentary of a scicntitk analysis. it was compelling in a way that no book muld ever have been. Yet the text is also available as an attractively illustrated. traditiomil book.
Pictures, words, and numbers in childhood
Authors: Davies Duncan , Bathurst Diana , Bathurst Robin
Published: November 2023

The new technological capabilities for creating and disseminating pictures call for a re-assessment of the use of pictures in rel;ition to words .ind numbers. The present balance of use for any one person is a product. partly of inclination and innate skill. and partly of education and upbringing. Philosophy and methods of nurture cannot be changed quickly. This means that we need to begin to think urgently c1bout our treatment of children in relation to their natural inclinations in the use of pictures, words, and numbers, All ofus play a part in the child's development. Commonly. the unstructured education of children by parents, other relc1tives, friends, and their contempor-aries mc1y be more importcint than lhe slructured work done by teachers in school. It is certainly wrong to regard any rebalancing of the use of pictures us a matter for schools and teachers alone.
Alternative energy sources: the European story
Authors: Rae John
Published: November 2023

After taking his doctorate at the University of Glasgow and undertaking further research there, Dr John Rae pursued a distinguished academic career in physics, both as a lecturer and a researcher, at the University of Texas, at the Universite Libre in Brussels, and at Queen Mary College, London until 1974. He then moved to the Atomic Energy Authority (AEA) at Harwell as an Industrial Fellow; in 1976 he was appointed Leader of the AEA ‘s Theory of Fluids Group. Nine years later he moved to Whitehall to take up the appointment of Chief Scientist at the Department of Energy, as one of the successors to another Linacre Lecturer, Sir Hermann Bondi. Dr Rae was simultaneously a Member of both the Natural Environment Research Council and the Science and Engineering Research Council. In 1990, he returned to Harwell to take up his present position as Chief Executive of AEA Environment and Energy, a division of AEA Technology.
Symmetries of space and time
Authors: Baldomir D , Hammond P
Published: November 2023

At the beginning of Chapter 4 we briefly discussed the relationship between physical phenomena described in terms of variational principles and geometrical symmetry in terms of coordinate transformations. Most of that chapter was a digression in which we examined quantities which are invariant under such transformations of their coordinate mappings. These quantities are the tensors and we used tensor notation to describe electromagnetic equations and properties. In this chapter we return to the discussion of symmetry properties of the electromagnetic field based on the principle of relativity, which states that physical effects are independent of the motion of the observer. Observers in relative motion will use different space-time coordinates so there must be a link between physical observation and the transformation of coordinates. Moreover there is, as we noted in Section 4.1 a close connection between variational methods and coordinate transformations, so that we can relate energy processes to symmetry.
Basic semiconductor structures
Authors: Möschwitzer Albrecht
Published: November 2023

All semiconductors devices and integrated circuits are made with basic structure. These are doped semiconductor layers, ρ-n junction, MOS sandwich structure, contacts, and interconnection lines. The operation of these structure is based on the generation, distribution, and flow of charge carriers in semiconductors, insulation, and metals. Therefore, in this chapter, we consider the fundamentals, construction, electronic behaviour, and basic application of these elementary structures.
Physical design considerations
Authors: Möschwitzer Albrecht
Published: November 2023

There are many layout design styles, the choice of which depends on the type and size of the IC. Basically we have two main classes of I Cs: standard integrated circuits (SI Cs); and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). TTL, CMȮS, and ECL SSI and MSI circuits containing several kinds of logic gates and macrocells (registers, counters etc., see chapter 3) belong to the class of SICs. Standard large-scale integration (LSI) and (VLSI) circuits are microprocessors and semiconductor memories (see the memory chip in Fig. 5.2). The main features of standard integrated circuits are: support of a wide range of applications; high-volume production; and low price.
Classical and modern motor control
Authors: Yamamura Sakae
Published: November 2023

Almost all types of electric motors were invented before the end of the nineteenth century, and their practical use also began in that century. They have been used increasingly widely, and now they are the main driving machines in industry, transportation, homes and many other fields. There are many kinds of both DC and AC motors. They have various characteristics and performances and the most suitable motors can be chosen for various applications. High-performance elevators and steel mills, for example, use separately excited DC motors, and railway trains are driven by DC series motors. Pumps and blowers are driven by three-phase induction motors. In these drives, steady-state torque-speed characteristics of the motor and the driven machine must be well matched, and controls in these applications have been mostly steady-state speed controls.
Variable transformation theories for AC motor analysis
Authors: Yamamura Sakae
Published: November 2023

Sound analytical solutions of transient phenomena must precede AC motor control, otherwise an adequate control method cannot be developed. However, this area of analysis has remained vacant, and neither sound analysis nor sufficient investigation have been done, despite several existing theories of AC machines. This is why most of this book is devoted to transient analysis of AC motors. The author found that conventional analytical theories were not adequate for filling the vacant area of analysis, and therefore proposed the spiral vector method. It is utilized throughout this book to analyse AC motors, and seems to have succeeded in filling the vacant area of AC motor transient analysis.
Boundary-value problems
Authors: Neittaanmäki P , Rudnicki M , Savini A
Published: November 2023

The main difficulty with the nonhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition is related to the fact that problem (2.21) does not admit a suitable variational formulation. The standard way of handling (2.21) is based on extending the boundary data into the interior and then transforming the problem with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions.
Constrained optimization
Authors: Neittaanmäki P , Rudnicki M , Savini A
Published: November 2023

In optimization theory, when both objective and constraint functions are linear, the problem is called a linear-programming (LP) problem. The term programming refers to scheduling and not to computer programming. The idea goes back to Dantzig [1963] who put forward mathematical principles of scheduling and planning. There are several ways to write the general form of the LP problem. In the following we adopt the LP problem as a minimization of an objective function with equality constraints and nonnegativity bounds on the design variables. Other LP problems can be easily converted into this form using slack variables.