Introduction to Programming Concepts With Case Studies in Python

Rapid ethnographies are used in a wide range of fields to speed up research quickly and effectively. This book is the first practical guide to rapid ethnographies, helping readers to improve skills in the design, implementation, dissemination and use of findings generated through rapid ethnographic research. It gives advice and guidelines for carrying out rapid and rigorous research and provides details of tools used in the field. Vignettes reflecting on the author's research are included throughout, including observations on research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, to highlight how challenges of conducting rapid ethnographies can be overcome. Case studies across a range of subjects are also included, to demonstrate how rapid ethnographies can be applied in practice. With its useful tools and easy-to-read format, it will be used by teachers and students, as well as researchers wanting to successfully implement rapid ethnographies in their own work.

Rapid ethnographies are used in a wide range of fields to speed up research quickly and effectively. This book is the first practical guide to rapid ethnographies, helping readers to improve skills in the design, implementation, dissemination and use of findings generated through rapid ethnographic research. It gives advice and guidelines for carrying out rapid and rigorous research and provides details of tools used in the field. Vignettes reflecting on the author's research are included throughout, including observations on research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, to highlight how challenges of conducting rapid ethnographies can be overcome. Case studies across a range of subjects are also included, to demonstrate how rapid ethnographies can be applied in practice. With its useful tools and easy-to-read format, it will be used by teachers and students, as well as researchers wanting to successfully implement rapid ethnographies in their own work.

Irish Revivalist playwright J. M. Synge is often regarded as a realist. Yet what happens when his work is analysed through wider performance studies and situated alongside less familiar historical contexts? By addressing this question, Hélène Lecossois offers new and valuable perspectives on Synge's plays while at the same time engaging with the complexity of his treatment of a range of performance practices – from keening at rural funerals to the performances of 'native villagers' in the entertainment section of International Exhibitions. What emerges from her study is a dramatist acutely aware of the ability of theatre in performance to counteract relentless forward-moving narratives of modernity. Through detailed, contextualized case studies, the book simultaneously makes meaningful contributions to performance studies and opens up theoretical questions of performance relating to the status of the object on stage, the body on stage and theatrical time.

In the field of socio-legal studies or law and society scholarship, it is rare to find empirically rich and conceptually sophisticated understandings of actual legal practice. This book, in contrast, connects the conceptual and the empirical, the abstract and the concrete, and in doing so shows the law to be an irreducibly social, material and temporal practice. Drawing on cutting-edge work in the social study of knowledge, it grapples with conceptual and methodological questions central to the field: how and where judgment empirically takes place; how and where facts are made; and how researchers might study these local and concrete ways of judging and knowing. Drawing on an ethnographic study of how narratives and documents, particularly case files, operate within legal practices, this book's unique and innovative approach consists of rearticulating the traditional boundaries separating judgment from knowledge, urging us to rethink the way truths are made within law.

Journal publication and grant writing are two core professional skills for new scholars today. However, systematic training is not typically offered in graduate programs worldwide. This book equips readers with the current scientific knowledge by providing a concise introduction to the science of journal article publication. The overall structure generally matches the curriculum of a graduate course and each chapter features a learning sequence based on Daniel Kahneman's intuitive judgement theory. The volume analyzes the intuitive thoughts of new authors from a variety of countries, uses over fifty real-life cases, and focuses on core concepts from nearly 100 research articles. It provides scientific advice for new authors, junior researchers, and graduate students to publish their scholarly work and advance their academic careers.

This unique introduction to the foundational concepts of cyber-physical systems (CPS) describes key design principles and emerging research trends in detail. Several interdisciplinary applications are covered, with a focus on the wide-area management of infrastructures including electric power systems, air transportation networks, and health care systems. Design, control and optimization of cyber-physical infrastructures are discussed, addressing security and privacy issues of networked CPS, presenting graph-theoretic and numerical approaches to CPS evaluation and monitoring, and providing readers with the knowledge needed to operate CPS in a reliable, efficient, and secure manner. Exercises are included. This is an ideal resource for researchers and graduate students in electrical engineering and computer science, as well as for practitioners using cyber-physical systems in aerospace and automotive engineering, medical technology, and large-scale infrastructure operations.

This first full-length study of the Arabic reception of Plato's Timaeus considers the role of Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 216 CE) in shaping medieval perceptions of the text as transgressing disciplinary norms. It argues that Galen appealed to the entangled cosmological scheme of the dialogue, where different relations connect the body, soul, and cosmos, to expand the boundaries of medicine in his pursuit for epistemic authority – the right to define and explain natural reality. Aileen Das situates Galen's work on disciplinary boundaries in the context of medicine's ancient rivalry with philosophy, whose professionals were long seen as superior knowers of the cosmos vis-à-vis doctors. Her case studies show how Galen and four of the most important Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers in the Arabic Middle Ages creatively interpreted key doctrines from the Timaeus to reimagine medicine and philosophy as well as their own intellectual identities.

Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but also within the same societies according to social groups, ethnicity and gender. They also demonstrate how studying past disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods and epidemics, can provide a lens through which to understand the social, economic and political functioning of past societies and reveal features of a society which may otherwise remain hidden from view. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but also within the same societies according to social groups, ethnicity and gender. They also demonstrate how studying past disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods and epidemics, can provide a lens through which to understand the social, economic and political functioning of past societies and reveal features of a society which may otherwise remain hidden from view. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

The discovery of artificial electromagnetic materials, called metamaterials, not only redefines the human perception of constitutive parameters in electromagnetic theory, but also brings forward new phenomena, such as negative refraction. We provide a comprehensive introduction to the unique characteristics of metamaterials, starting with Maxwell's equations and the kDB coordinate system, and moving through to theoretical concepts and design principles of negative refraction in metamaterials. For each kind of media, including isotropic, anisotropic and bianisotropic metamaterials, we discuss the characteristic waves and their properties. We show examples of negative refraction both theoretically and experimentally.

Engaging with contemporary debates about the sources that shape our understanding of the early Muslim world, Najam Haider proposes a new model for Muslim historical writing that draws on Late Antique historiography to challenge the imposition of modern notions of history on a pre-modern society. Haider discusses three key case studies - the revolt of Mukhtar b. Abi 'Ubayd (d. 67/687), the life of the Twelver Shi'i Imam Musa al-Kazim (d. 183/799) and the rebellion and subsequent death of the Zaydi Shi'i Imam Yahya b. 'Abd Allah (d. 187/803) - in calling for a new line of inquiry which focuses on larger historiographical questions. What were the rules that governed historical writing in the early Muslim world? What were the intended audiences for these works? In the process, he rejects artificial divisions between Sunni and Shi'i historical writing.

Policy Shock examines how policy-makers in industrialized democracies respond to major crises. After the immediate challenges of disaster management, crises often reveal new evidence or frame new normative perspectives that drive reforms designed to prevent future events of a similar magnitude. Such responses vary widely - from cosmetically masking inaction, to creating stronger incentive systems, requiring greater transparency, reorganizing government institutions and tightening regulatory standards. This book situates post-crisis regulatory policy-making through a set of conceptual essays written by leading scholars from economics, psychology and political science, which probe the latest thinking about risk analysis, risk perceptions, focusing events and narrative politics. It then presents ten historically-rich case studies that engage with crisis events in three policy domains: offshore oil, nuclear power and finance. It considers how governments can prepare to learn from crisis ev

Focusing on the latest management trends, Transformational HRM Practices for Hong Kong provides HR professionals with a comprehensive and accessible guide to human resource management in Hong Kong. Written by a leading team of HR professionals, psychologists, legal experts, and academics, the book provides up-to-date coverage of current practices, laws and procedures, as well as guidance on the professional skills required to operate successfully in the region. Suitable for practitioners and students alike, the book contains authentic case studies in local context and sets out the latest strategies for talent acquisition and assessment as well as performance and rewards management. It provides essential coverage of organizational change management, recent technological advancements in the field, and outlines the development of Hong Kong’s employment laws and their likely implications for professionals. In one volume, this book provides the key information, guidance, and context HR pro

My First Book of the Cosmos is the latest title from the awarding winning illustrator and author duo Eduard Altarriba and Sheddad Kaid-Salah Ferrón. Cosmology is closely related to astronomy and studies the origin and evolution of the universe. As with Eduard and Sheddad’s first book published by Button Books My First Book of Quantum Physics, My First Book of the Cosmos introduces children to what is an incredibly complex subject in a fun and entertaining way, using highly attractive and absorbing illustrations to explain the basic principals and concepts of this complex and fascinating subject.

In this book, Brett Maiden employs the tools, research, and theories from the cognitive science of religion to explore religious thought and behavior in ancient Israel. His study focuses on a key set of distinctions between intuitive and reflective types of cognitive processing, implicit and explicit concepts, and cognitively optimal and costly religious traditions. Through a series of case studies, Maiden examines a range of topics including popular and official religion, Deuteronomic theology, hybrid monsters in ancient iconography, divine cult statues in ancient Mesopotamia and the biblical idol polemics, and the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16. The range of media, including ancient texts, art, and archaeological data from ancient Israel, as well theoretical perspectives demonstrates how a dialogue between biblical scholars and cognitive researchers can be fostered.

Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania - this study examines jihadist movements from the inside, uncovering their activities and internal struggles over the past three decades. Highlighting the calculations that jihadist field commanders and clerics make, Alexander Thurston shows how leaders improvise, both politically and religiously, as they adjust to fast-moving conflicts. Featuring critical analysis of Arabic-language jihadist statements, this book offers unique insights into the inner workings of jihadist organisations and sheds new light on the phe

In the age of data-driven problem-solving, applying sophisticated computational tools for explaining substantive phenomena is a valuable skill. Yet, application of methods assumes an understanding of the data, structure, and patterns that influence the broader research program. This Element offers researchers and teachers an introduction to clustering, which is a prominent class of unsupervised machine learning for exploring and understanding latent, non-random structure in data. A suite of widely used clustering techniques is covered in this Element, in addition to R code and real data to facilitate interaction with the concepts. Upon setting the stage for clustering, the following algorithms are detailed: agglomerative hierarchical clustering, k-means clustering, Gaussian mixture models, and at a higher-level, fuzzy C-means clustering, DBSCAN, and partitioning around medoids (k-medoids) clustering.

Tau functions are a central tool in the modern theory of integrable systems. This volume provides a thorough introduction, starting from the basics and extending to recent research results. It covers a wide range of applications, including generating functions for solutions of integrable hierarchies, correlation functions in the spectral theory of random matrices and combinatorial generating functions for enumerative geometrical and topological invariants. A self-contained summary of more advanced topics needed to understand the material is provided, as are solutions and hints for the various exercises and problems that are included throughout the text to enrich the subject matter and engage the reader. Building on knowledge of standard topics in undergraduate mathematics and basic concepts and methods of classical and quantum mechanics, this monograph is ideal for graduate students and researchers who wish to become acquainted with the full range of applications of the theory of tau f

Shakespeare and Emotion devotes sustained attention to the emotions as a novel way of exploring Shakespeare's works in their original contexts. A variety of disciplinary approaches drawn from literary, theatrical, historical, cultural and film studies brings the recent upsurge of interest in affect into conversation with some of the most urgent debates in Shakespeare studies. The volume provides both a comprehensive account of the current state of scholarship and a speculative forum for new research. Its chapters outline some important contexts for understanding Shakespeare's creativity through an emotional lens – from religion, rhetoric, and medicine, to language, acting and Bollywood – and offer a range of case studies which reveal particular emotions at work. Considering emotional and passionate experience as an animating and sometimes alienating force within the plays and poems, the volume highlights the continuing importance of Shakespeare today: for our sense of who we are and wh

The period from birth to 12 years is crucial in a child's development and can significantly impact future educational success, resilience and participation in society. Health and Wellbeing in Childhood provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to a wide range of topics and issues in health and wellbeing education, including child safety, bullying and social emotional wellbeing, resilience, physical education, communication development and friendships. It explores relevant policies, standards and frameworks, including the Early Years Learning Framework and the Australian Curriculum. The third edition provides a cohesive and accessible reading experience and includes updated and expanded coverage of nutrition, body image and community partnerships. Each chapter has been revised to include the latest research and developments in childhood health and wellbeing, and features definitions of key terms, case studies, pause and reflect activities and end-of-chapter questions. Supplemen

Discover the subject of optimization in a new light with this modern and unique treatment. Includes a thorough exposition of applications and algorithms in sufficient detail for practical use, while providing you with all the necessary background in a self-contained manner. Features a deeper consideration of optimal control, global optimization, optimization under uncertainty, multiobjective optimization, mixed-integer programming and model predictive control. Presents a complete coverage of formulations and instances in modelling where optimization can be applied for quantitative decision-making. As a thorough grounding to the subject, covering everything from basic to advanced concepts and addressing real-life problems faced by modern industry, this is a perfect tool for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in chemical and biochemical engineering.

Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania - this study examines jihadist movements from the inside, uncovering their activities and internal struggles over the past three decades. Highlighting the calculations that jihadist field commanders and clerics make, Alexander Thurston shows how leaders improvise, both politically and religiously, as they adjust to fast-moving conflicts. Featuring critical analysis of Arabic-language jihadist statements, this book offers unique insights into the inner workings of jihadist organisations and sheds new light on the phe

Fully revised and updated, Australian Commercial Law offers a comprehensive, accessible introduction to key aspects of Australian commercial law. Part 1 introduces the fundamentals of contract law and business structures before examining the sale of goods, agency, bailment and personal property. Part 2 covers the Australian Consumer Law, focusing on areas important to commercial entities that interact with consumers. Part 3 examines international commercial law, providing a detailed introduction to the World Trade Organization and to agreements central to trade between countries. The second edition includes: detailed discussion of key concepts in commercial law; four new chapters on contract law basics, business structures, bankruptcy and international commercial law; thorough integration of digital and e-commerce transactions; and end-of-chapter discussion questions designed to test reader knowledge of key points and themes. Written in a clear and concise style by an expert author tea

What does police violence against minorities, or violent clashes between minorities and the police tell us about citizenship and its internal hierarchies? Indicative of deep-seated tensions and negative perceptions; incidents such as these suggest how minorities are vulnerable, suffer from or are subject to police abuse and neglect in Israel. Marked by skin colour, negatively stigmatized or rendered security threats, their encounters with police provide a daily reminder of their defunct citizenship. Taking as case studies the experiences and perceptions of four minority groups within Israel including Palestinian/Arab citizens, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Ben-Porat and Yuval are able to explore different paths of citizenship and the stratification of the citizenship regime through relations with and perceptions of the police in Israel. Touching on issues such as racial profiling, police brutality and neighbourhood neglect, their study questions the notions

Dress and fashion are central to our understanding of art. From the stylization of the body to subtle textile embellishments and richly symbolic colors, dress tells a story and provides clues as to the cultural beliefs of the time in which artworks were produced. This concise and accessible book provides a step-by-step guide to analysing dress in art, including paintings, photographs, drawings and art installations.The first section of the book includes an introduction to visual analysis and explains how to 'read' fashion and dress in an artwork using the checklists. The second section offers case studies which demonstrate how artworks can be analysed from the point of view of key themes including status and identity, modernity, ideals of beauty, gender, race, globalization and politics. The book includes iconic as well as lesser known works of art, including work by Elisabeth Vigee le Brun, Thomas Gainsborough, James Jacques Tissot, Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, Yinka Shonibare, Mickale

The updated sixth edition of International Human Resource Management is an authoritative resource that focuses on international human resource management (IHRM) within multinational enterprises (MNEs). The book includes fifteen chapters with rich pedagogy students have come to expect and is organized into four sections:1.Strategic Context2.National and Cultural Context3.Global Talent Management4.Role and the Future of IHRMEach chapter has been designed to lead readers through key topics in a highly engaging and approachable way with learning goals, relevant data, exhibits, figures, vignettes, end-of-chapter case studies, discussion questions, up-to-date content, and numerous references. The sixth edition includes discussions on evolving IHRM topics such as international experiences and adult third culture kids, expanded analyses on health and safety statistics and global workforce analytics, as well as updated and revised illustrations, cases, references.Uncovering precisely why IHRM i

In this book, an international team of experts draws upon a rich range of Latin and Greek texts to explore the roles played by individuals at ports in activities and institutions that were central to the maritime commerce of the Roman Mediterranean. In particular, they focus upon some of the interpretative issues that arise in dealing with this kind of epigraphic evidence, the archaeological contexts of the texts, social institutions and social groups in ports, legal issues relating to harbours, case studies relating to specific ports, and mercantile connections and shippers. While much attention is inevitably focused upon the richer epigraphic collections of Ostia and Ephesos, the papers draw upon inscriptions from a very wide range of ports across the Mediterranean. The volume will be invaluable for all scholars and students of Roman history.

This cross-disciplinary volume provides an overview of how complexity theory and the tools of statistical mechanics can be applied to linguistic problems to help reveal language groups, and to model the evolution and competition of languages in space and time. Illustrated with a series of case studies and worked examples, it presents an interdisciplinary framework to enable researchers from the mathematical, physical and social sciences to collaborate on linguistic problems. It demonstrates the complexity of linguistic databases and provides a mathematical toolkit for analyzing and extracting useful information from them - helping to conceptualize empirical facts better than a mere ethnographic view. Providing an important bridge to facilitate collaboration between linguists and mathematical modelers, this book will stimulate new ideas and avenues for research, and will form a valuable resource for advanced students and academics working across complex systems, sociolinguistics, and la

How do some dictatorships become institutionalized ruled-based systems, while others remain heavily personalist? Once implemented, do executive constraints actually play an effective role in promoting autocratic stability? To understand patterns of regime institutionalization, this book studies the emergence of constitutional term limits and succession procedures, as well as elite power-sharing within presidential cabinets. Anne Meng argues that institutions credibly constrain leaders only when they change the underlying distribution of power between leaders and elites by providing elites with access to the state. She also shows that initially weak leaders who institutionalize are less likely to face coup attempts and are able to remain in office for longer periods than weak leaders who do not. Drawing on an original time-series dataset of 46 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa from 1960 to 2010, formal theory, and case studies, this book ultimately illustrates how some dictatorships evolv

Data-driven computational neuroscience facilitates the transformation of data into insights into the structure and functions of the brain. This introduction for researchers and graduate students is the first in-depth, comprehensive treatment of statistical and machine learning methods for neuroscience. The methods are demonstrated through case studies of real problems to empower readers to build their own solutions. The book covers a wide variety of methods, including supervised classification with non-probabilistic models (nearest-neighbors, classification trees, rule induction, artificial neural networks and support vector machines) and probabilistic models (discriminant analysis, logistic regression and Bayesian network classifiers), meta-classifiers, multi-dimensional classifiers and feature subset selection methods. Other parts of the book are devoted to association discovery with probabilistic graphical models (Bayesian networks and Markov networks) and spatial statistics with po

Master the design and operation of perfusion cell cultures with this authoritative reference. Discover the current state-of-the-art in the design and operation of continuous bioreactors, with emphasis on mammalian cell cultures for producing therapeutic proteins. Topics include the current market for recombinant therapeutic proteins, current industry challenges and the potential contribution of continuous manufacturing. Provides coverage of every step of process development and reactor operation, including small scale screening to lab-scale and scale-up to manufacturing scale. Illustrated through real-life case studies, this is a perfect resource for groups active in the cell culture field, as well as graduate students in areas such as chemical engineering, biotechnology, chemistry and biology, and to those in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly biopharma, biotechnology and food or agro industry.

Dynamics of conversion and religious change more generally are extremely complex, yet it is crucial for contemporary societies to understand them. This volume contributes to this understanding by focussing on the processes and modalities of conversion within, between and across various religious traditions (Hinduism, Islamic Reformism, Christianity, indigenous religions) from a multi-disciplinary perspective, including anthropology, sociology, religious studies, history and theology. While the book deals with Indian case studies, the introduction, preface (by Piers Vitebsky) and afterword (by Aparecida Vilaça) also offer a comparative perspective linking the Indian situation to contexts of conversion in other parts of the world. The introduction not only provides an overview of important research on conversion in India, it also intends to advance the general theoretical reflection on conversion, considers analytical tools for further research and discusses the work of important theoris

Prioritising the practical over the technical, Modern Systems Analysis and Design presents the concepts, skills, methodologies, techniques, tools, and perspectives essential for systems analysts to develop information systems. The authors assume students have taken an introductory course on computer systems and have experience designing programs in at least one programming language. By drawing on the systems development life cycle, the authors provide a conceptual and systematic framework while progressing through topics logically. The 9th edition has been completely revised to adapt to the changing environment for systems development, with a renewed focus on agile methodologies.

What explains contemporary variations in African legislative institutions – including their strengths and weaknesses? Compared with the more powerful executive branches, legislatures throughout the continent have historically been classified as weak and largely inconsequential to policy-making processes. But, as Ken Ochieng' Opalo suggests here, African legislatures actually serve important roles, and under certain conditions, powerful and independent democratic legislatures can emerge from their autocratic foundations. In this book, Opalo examines the colonial origins of African legislatures, as well as how postcolonial intra-elite politics structured the processes of adapting inherited colonial legislatures to local political contexts and therefore continued legislative development. Through case studies of Kenya and Zambia, Opalo offers a comparative longitudinal study of the evolution of legislative strength and institutionalization as well as a regional survey of legislative develo

This volume is the first holistic investigation of Roman literature and literary culture under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian (AD 96–138). With case studies from Frontinus, Juvenal, Martial, Pliny the Younger, Plutarch, Quintilian, Suetonius and Tacitus among others, the eighteen chapters offer not just innovative readings of literary (and some 'less literary') texts, but a collaborative enquiry into the networks and culture in which they are embedded. The book brings together established and novel methodologies to explore the connections, conversations and silences between these texts and their authors, both on and off the page. The scholarly dialogues that result not only shed fresh light on the dynamics of literary production and consumption in the 'High Roman Empire', but offer new provocations to students of intertextuality and interdiscursivity across classical literature. How can and should we read textual interactions in their social, literary and cultural contexts?

C is for Coconut, O is for Organic, and P is for Plants in this beautiful ABC book designed to teach very young children the basic concepts of veganism.C is for Coconut, O is for Organic, and P is for Plants in this beautiful ABC book designed to teach very young children the basic concepts of veganism.Baby Loves is a new range of giftable preschool ABC books that taps into the trends that matter. Stunningly illustrated with a cut-to-white aesthetic, each pocket-sized book is a perfect introduction to a key topic for babies.

Biologists rely on theories, apply models and construct explanations, but rarely reflect on their nature and structure. This book introduces key topics in philosophy of science to provide the required philosophical background for this kind of reflection, which is an important part of all aspects of research and communication in biology. It concisely and accessibly addresses fundamental questions such as: Why should biologists care about philosophy of science? How do concepts contribute to scientific advancement? What is the nature of scientific controversies in the biological sciences? Chapters draw on contemporary examples and case studies from across biology, making the discussion relevant and insightful. Written for researchers and advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the life sciences, its aim is to encourage readers to become more philosophically minded and informed to enable better scientific practice. It is also an interesting and pertinent read for philosophers o

Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, this book combines his original research with an up-to-date introduction to key concepts, to provide a holistic, original theory of contact linguistics. Going beyond a descriptive outline of contact phenomena, it introduces a theory of contact-induced language change, linking structural change to motivations in discourse and language processing. Since the first edition was published, the field has rapidly grown, and this fully revised edition covers all of the most recent developments, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students in linguistics.

Biologists rely on theories, apply models and construct explanations, but rarely reflect on their nature and structure. This book introduces key topics in philosophy of science to provide the required philosophical background for this kind of reflection, which is an important part of all aspects of research and communication in biology. It concisely and accessibly addresses fundamental questions such as: Why should biologists care about philosophy of science? How do concepts contribute to scientific advancement? What is the nature of scientific controversies in the biological sciences? Chapters draw on contemporary examples and case studies from across biology, making the discussion relevant and insightful. Written for researchers and advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the life sciences, its aim is to encourage readers to become more philosophically minded and informed to enable better scientific practice. It is also an interesting and pertinent read for philosophers o

Language contact occurs when speakers of different languages interact and their languages influence one another. Drawing on the author's own first-hand observations of child and adult bilingualism, this book combines his original research with an up-to-date introduction to key concepts, to provide a holistic, original theory of contact linguistics. Going beyond a descriptive outline of contact phenomena, it introduces a theory of contact-induced language change, linking structural change to motivations in discourse and language processing. Since the first edition was published, the field has rapidly grown, and this fully revised edition covers all of the most recent developments, making it an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students in linguistics.