Download or read book Critical Point of View written by Geert Lovink and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For millions of internet users around the globe, the search for new knowledge begins with Wikipedia. The encyclopedia's rapid rise, novel organization, and freely offered content have been marveled at and denounced by a host of commentators. This book moves beyond unflagging praise, well-worn facts, and questions about its reliability and accuracy, to unveil the complex, messy, and controversial realities of a distributed knowledge platform. The essays, interviews and artworks brought together in this reader form part of the overarching 'Critical Point of View' research initiative, which began with a conference in Bangalore (January 2010), followed by events in Amsterdam (March 2010) and Leipzig (September 2010). With an emphasis on theoretical reflection, cultural difference and indeed, critique, contributions to this collection ask: What values are embedded in Wikipedia's software? On what basis are Wikipedia's claims to neutrality made?

Download or read book Linking Methods in Critical Point Theory written by Martin Schechter and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1999-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As is well known, The Great Divide (a.k.a. The Continental Divide) is formed by the Rocky Mountains stretching from north to south across North America. It creates a virtual "stone wall" so high that wind, rain, snow, etc. cannot cross it. This keeps the weather distinct on both sides. Since railroad trains cannot climb steep grades and tunnels through these mountains are almost formidable, the Canadian Pacific Railroad searched for a mountain pass providing the lowest grade for its tracks. Employees discovered a suitable mountain pass, called the Kicking Horse Pass, el. 5404 ft., near Banff, Alberta. (One can speculate as to the reason for the name.) This pass is also used by the Trans-Canada Highway. At the highest point of the pass the railroad tracks are horizontal with mountains rising on both sides. A mountain stream divides into two branches, one flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and the other into the Pacific. One can literally stand (as the author did) with one foot in the Atlantic Ocean and the other in the Pacific. The author has observed many mountain passes in the Rocky Mountains and Alps. What connections do mountain passes have with nonlinear partial dif ferential equations? To find out, read on ...

Download or read book The Cortex and the Critical Point written by John M. Beggs and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the cerebral cortex operates near a critical phase transition point for optimum performance. Individual neurons have limited computational powers, but when they work together, it is almost like magic. Firing synchronously and then breaking off to improvise by themselves, they can be paradoxically both independent and interdependent. This happens near the critical point: when neurons are poised between a phase where activity is damped and a phase where it is amplified, where information processing is optimized, and complex emergent activity patterns arise. The claim that neurons in the cortex work best when they operate near the critical point is known as the criticality hypothesis. In this book John Beggs—one of the pioneers of this hypothesis—offers an introduction to the critical point and its relevance to the brain. Drawing on recent experimental evidence, Beggs first explains the main ideas underlying the criticality hypotheses and emergent phenomena. He then discusses the critical point and its two main consequences—first, scale-free properties that confer optimum information processing; and second, universality, or the idea that complex emergent phenomena, like that seen near the critical point, can be explained by relatively simple models that are applicable across species and scale. Finally, Beggs considers future directions for the field, including research on homeostatic regulation, quasicriticality, and the expansion of the cortex and intelligence. An appendix provides technical material; many chapters include exercises that use freely available code and data sets.

Download or read book DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE written by APARAJITA MUKHERJEE and published by PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.. This book was released on 2016-05-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Development economics is a branch of study that focuses on improving the economies of developing countries examining both macroeconomic and microeconomic factors relating to the structure of a developing economy. The main objective of the book is to present major issues of development economies. It takes up an analysis of the limitations of accumulation-centric growth process and introduces the readers to alternative development paradigms along with their critics. Organised into fourteen chapters, the initial chapters discuss historical background of less developed economies, post-colonial development patterns in the context of establishment of the World Bank, the IMF and the GATT, economic models like classical development ideas, Marxian model, the Marginalist economies, Alfred Marshall and the neoclassical school and ideas of Keynes. The book skillfully explains some of the development macro models based on industry-agriculture interactions, structure of agriculture, population and role of market and state in economic development. The later chapters delve on capability approaches to development and thematic deficiency of traditional development economics, and relation between inequality, poverty and development. In this context the book takes up the analysis of the concept of ‘Development Management’ and its application to less developed economies.

Download or read book Critical Point Theory and Submanifold Geometry written by Richard S. Palais and published by Springer. This book was released on 2006-11-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Thinking about Film written by Dean Duncan and published by Allyn & Bacon. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfect for the student who wants to learn to be a more active, intelligent film viewer, this supplement encourages critically thinking about films and also explains how to write a film review. The booklet also includes two helpful appendices, one with a list of essential films that serious movie watchers should see and the other with additional readings to help students keep learning.

Download or read book Critical Point written by S. L. Huang and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: S. L. Huang's Critical Point is a breakout SF thriller for fans of John Scalzi and Greg Rucka. Math-genius mercenary Cas Russell has stopped a shadow organization from brainwashing the world and discovered her past was deliberately erased and her superhuman abilities deliberately created. And that's just the start: when a demolitions expert targets Cas and her friends, and the hidden conspiracy behind Cas's past starts to reappear, the past, present, and future collide in a race to save one of her dearest friends.

Download or read book Critical Point Theory and Its Applications written by Wenming Zou and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-09-10 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents some of the latest research in critical point theory, describing methods and presenting the newest applications. Coverage includes extrema, even valued functionals, weak and double linking, sign changing solutions, Morse inequalities, and cohomology groups. Applications described include Hamiltonian systems, Schrödinger equations and systems, jumping nonlinearities, elliptic equations and systems, superlinear problems and beam equations.

Download or read book The Politics of Mainstreaming in Critical Perspective written by Sharleene May Bibbings and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender mainstreaming (GM) has been identified in academic literature as a crucial topic for both public attention and academic research. This is because GM is currently considered an essential strategy for achieving the highly sought-after outcome of gender equality in public organisations. However, an exhaustive degree of academic, practitioner and advocate attention has been paid to challenges observed in the GM process. Specifically, concerns have crystallised on the following twin “puzzles”: (i) conceptual confusion and (ii) the challenges of operationalising the process. The central purpose of this book has been to make a contribution in relation to both of these academic and practice-based issues at a time when questions appertaining to gender equality are reaching critical mass. Moreover, we are simply not there yet in terms of our aspirations for gender equality in public organisations and new insights on strategies used to move us forward need to be brought to the foreground to engender progress. To address the aims of the book, the author uses three novel argumentative-turns to interrogate the politics of mainstreaming from a critical perspective. First is the challenge related to conceptual confusion. It is important to clarify that this book does not intend to investigate and define the issue of gender inequality in organisations per se, something that is beyond the scope of this book and deserves attention in its own right. Instead, this work focuses on the specific processes of change (mainstreaming) rather than the content of change (gender). Secondly, the practice element was also approached in a inimitable way by concentrating on local government in the UK which has had a long history with GM, despite the dearth of books on the issue, and thus an opportunity to analyse instructive and empirically rich cases. Finally, through a longitudinal view of local government history, this has included previously excluded evidence for consideration. Using these argumentative-turns, the book has met its three aims by mapping out: (i) the core conceptual features of mainstreaming across a range of organisational settings; (ii) developed an evaluation framework for understanding the outcomes of GM through a national level review and primary research; and (iii) interrogated the findings through a productive theory–practice dialogue using the work of social learning theory. This book should be of interest to a wide-ranging audience. As the study at the broadest level is essentially a study into the politics of change over time, students and academics may wish to utilise the books findings as they point to some of the challenges and difficulties associated with analysis of change within organisations. Feminists should also find the theoretical and methodological approach of interest in the sense that it challenges conventional wisdom and provides novel argumentative turns. Historical specialist may also find this book of interest for those concerned with process tracing methods and diachronic analysis. Finally, practitioners involved in different forms of mainstreaming/organisational change and development should be interested in the experiences encountered by the local government officers in adopting and implementing GM in the case studies. These include, but are and not limited, to Program Management Specialists, Development Officers, Policy Experts, Equality Practitioners and Gender Experts in a variety of organisational contexts from the local to the supranational levels, private, public and mixed economy sectors.

Download or read book Duality and Perturbation Methods in Critical Point Theory written by Nassif Ghoussoub and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1993-08-19 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The calculus of variations has been an active area of mathematics for over 300 years. Its main use is to find stable critical points of functions for the solution of problems. To find unstable values, new approaches (Morse theory and min-max methods) were developed, and these are still being refined to overcome difficulties when applied to the theory of partial differential equations. Here, Professor Ghoussoub describes a point of view that may help when dealing with such problems. Building upon min-max methods, he systematically develops a general theory that can be applied in a variety of situations. In so doing he also presents a whole array of duality and perturbation methods. The prerequisites for following this book are relatively few; an appendix sketching certain methods in analysis makes the book reasonably self-contained. Consequently, it should be accessible to all mathematicians, pure or applied, economists and engineers working in nonlinear analysis or optimization.

Download or read book The Cortex and the Critical Point written by John M. Beggs and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the cerebral cortex operates near a critical phase transition point for optimum performance. Individual neurons have limited computational powers, but when they work together, it is almost like magic. Firing synchronously and then breaking off to improvise by themselves, they can be paradoxically both independent and interdependent. This happens near the critical point: when neurons are poised between a phase where activity is damped and a phase where it is amplified, where information processing is optimized, and complex emergent activity patterns arise. The claim that neurons in the cortex work best when they operate near the critical point is known as the criticality hypothesis. In this book John Beggs—one of the pioneers of this hypothesis—offers an introduction to the critical point and its relevance to the brain. Drawing on recent experimental evidence, Beggs first explains the main ideas underlying the criticality hypotheses and emergent phenomena. He then discusses the critical point and its two main consequences—first, scale-free properties that confer optimum information processing; and second, universality, or the idea that complex emergent phenomena, like that seen near the critical point, can be explained by relatively simple models that are applicable across species and scale. Finally, Beggs considers future directions for the field, including research on homeostatic regulation, quasicriticality, and the expansion of the cortex and intelligence. An appendix provides technical material; many chapters include exercises that use freely available code and data sets.

Download or read book Critical Point Theory written by Martin Schechter and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-30 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph collects cutting-edge results and techniques for solving nonlinear partial differential equations using critical points. Including many of the author’s own contributions, a range of proofs are conveniently collected here, Because the material is approached with rigor, this book will serve as an invaluable resource for exploring recent developments in this active area of research, as well as the numerous ways in which critical point theory can be applied. Different methods for finding critical points are presented in the first six chapters. The specific situations in which these methods are applicable is explained in detail. Focus then shifts toward the book’s main subject: applications to problems in mathematics and physics. These include topics such as Schrödinger equations, Hamiltonian systems, elliptic systems, nonlinear wave equations, nonlinear optics, semilinear PDEs, boundary value problems, and equations with multiple solutions. Readers will find this collection of applications convenient and thorough, with detailed proofs appearing throughout. Critical Point Theory will be ideal for graduate students and researchers interested in solving differential equations, and for those studying variational methods. An understanding of fundamental mathematical analysis is assumed. In particular, the basic properties of Hilbert and Banach spaces are used.

Download or read book Basic Notions Of Condensed Matter Physics written by Philip W. Anderson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2018. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

Download or read book Lectures On Phase Transitions And The Renormalization Group written by Nigel Goldenfeld and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering the elementary aspects of the physics of phases transitions and the renormalization group, this popular book is widely used both for core graduate statistical mechanics courses as well as for more specialized courses. Emphasizing understanding and clarity rather than technical manipulation, these lectures de-mystify the subject and show precisely "how things work." Goldenfeld keeps in mind a reader who wants to understand why things are done, what the results are, and what in principle can go wrong. The book reaches both experimentalists and theorists, students and even active researchers, and assumes only a prior knowledge of statistical mechanics at the introductory graduate level.Advanced, never-before-printed topics on the applications of renormalization group far from equilibrium and to partial differential equations add to the uniqueness of this book.

Download or read book Liquid Organization written by Jerzy Kociatkiewicz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely known as a leading intellectual, Zygmunt Bauman’s thinking is often categorized as sociology or philosophy. But his work has been hugely influential in other fields as well, not least within organization studies. From increasing management control and growing standardization of work activities, to the increase in uncertainty and insecurity experienced by contemporary workers, organizations themselves are becoming ever more ephemeral entities. Bauman’s themes: globalization, liquid modernity and postmodern ethics are arguably fundamental to contemporary notions of organization and management and his thinking has never been more relevant. However, despite the obvious and continuing influence of Bauman’s ideas on business studies, there has been no comprehensive attempt to chart his impact on organization theory. In this innovative and insightful collection, an international selection of leading management scholars explore key topics in current organizational discourse, including networked organizations, control and ambiguity, technologies, work and responsibility, extending Bauman’s liquid modernity to the "liquid organization". The book will be essential reading for scholars and academics and students in management and organizational theory, and also sociology, managing culture and organizational ethnography.

Download or read book Critical Point Theory in Global Analysis and Differential Topology written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical Point Theory in Global Analysis and Differential Topology

Download or read book Exotic Smoothness and Physics written by Torsten Asselmeyer-Maluga and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2007 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many Christians have an easier time being saved by grace than they do living in grace every day. But grace is at the center of the life God calls us to--and reflects the heart of the One who calls.These studies in Grace will help you make the connection between grace as a remote biblical concept and grace as a lifestyle--a reality you experience day in, day out. Through an unfolding study of Psalm 23, you'll learn how God--our Good Shepherd--is for you, how he longs to walk with you through temptation, sorrow, and even deep regret. You'll discover God's desire to make his joy your joy. Throughout, you'll learn how enduring, powerful, and life-affirming God's work in your life can be---and rediscover why it's called amazing grace.Leader's guide included!Grace group sessions are:Living in GraceGrace for RegretsSustaining GraceDelighting in GraceA Legacy of GraceGrace ForeverGrace to Share