Structural analysis

Isaac Levi's new book is concerned with how one can justify changing one's beliefs. The discussion is deeply informed by the belief-doubt model advocated by C. S. Peirce and John Dewey, of which the book provides a substantial analysis. Professor Levi then addresses the conceptual framework of potential changes available to an inquirer. A structural approach to propositional attitudes is proposed, which rejects the conventional view that a propositional attitude involves a relation between an agent and either a linguistic entity or some other intentional object such as a proposition or set of possible worlds. The last two chapters offer an account of change in states of full belief understood as changes in commitments rather than changes in performance; one chapter deals with adding new information to a belief state, the other with giving up information. The book builds upon topics discussed in some of Levi's earlier work. It will be of particular interest to discussion theorists, epis

Thrustbelts are likely to be productive sources of hydrocarbons well into the future. Many new technical tools are enabling new discoveries, or the more efficient recovery of known reserves. The authors provide a comprehensive account of thrust systems, including orogenic thrustbelts, transpressional ranges and accretionary prisms and discuss both thin-skin thrust systems and thick-skin inversion structures. The book includes major sections on the basic concepts, definitions and mechanics of thrust systems, the roles of syn-tectonic stratigraphy and fluid flow in determining structural style, the origins and nature of evolving thermal regimes in thrustbelts, and a thorough analysis of petroleum systems and hydrocarbon plays in thrustbelts. Case studies are presented with discussion of the potential applications of the technique, possible limitations and future developments. A comprehensive database of thrustbelts is available to download. This book will be an invaluable resource for re

Metaphysics is usually taken to be that part of analytical philosophy which offers an account of the most basic and persuasive concepts we use, an inventory and analysis of such fundamental structural features of our world as existence, substance, change and quality. But there is a revisionary as well as a descriptive metaphysics. Some philosophers and theologians have sought to reach beyond these familiar conceptual categories and to extend the scope of human understanding and language. What sort of an intellectual enterprise would that be, and what sort of facts, truths or understanding could it yield? Professor MacKinnon devotes this book to a study of these questions - the nature and possibility of a revisionary metaphysics.

The papers in this volume represent the first attempt at a coherent analysis of the institutional structure of French science and technology in the nineteenth century. They treat both research and education and cover the main developments in the period from the establishment of the Napoleonic University in 1808 to the outbreak of the First World War. The papers reflect the intense interest in the social history of French science since the Revolution and convey a vivid impression of different modes of thought in a particularly active field of research. The contributions stress and develop more clearly than in any previous study, the theme of structural change in a complex interlocking network of institutions. Far from being an unresponsive monolith, France's system of scientific research and education proved capable of significant modification and expansion, especially in the later nineteenth century. To an extent that has not been fully recognised by historians, the French did respond

This new book covers all the necessary tasks for gaining knowledge of collision repair and refinishing as outlined by NATEF. In-depth coverage includes structural and non-structural analysis and dam

Proper treatment of structural behavior under severe loading - such as the performance of a high-rise building during an earthquake - relies heavily on the use of probability-based analysis and decisi

This textbook on the mechanics of solids and static is designed for civil engineering students who need to absorb the fundamentals of structural analysis in mechanical applications. Bucciarelli (civil

Dr Thrane makes an original contribution to one of the central topics in syntax and semantics: the nature and mechanisms of reference in natural language. He makes a fundamental distinction between syntactic analyses that are internal to the structure of a language and analyses of the referential properties that connect a language with the 'outside world' - and therefore derive in some sense from common human capacities for perceptual discrimination. Dr Thrane argues that the failure to make this distinction and to attend separately to both kinds of analysis has vitiated previous general accounts of linguistic structure. The book focuses particularly on pronouns and on the role of determiners, quantifiers and other components of the noun phrase. Most of the data come from the modern Germanic languages, especially English, but Dr Thrane considers also the structural peculiarities of 'classifier languages' like Vietnamese. The book will be important for students of English language as we

Gift exchange plays a crucial role in the social and political organization of Mendi in Papua New Guinea. This book reveals how considerable light can be shed on Mendi society, particularly on its political economy, by examining both the well-known ceremonial exchange festivals and the hitherto relatively little-studied everyday gift-giving practices. The author shows that the latter are crucial for understanding inter-group politics, the process of leadership, male-female relationships and the status of women, and the production, distribution and circulation of wealth. Currently the only book available on this society, the work offers an unusual combination of a social structural analysis with a study of local history and change. It is also of interest for its integration of the study of gift exchange and politics with the study of gender roles and relationships.

Since its first appearance in Brazil in 1949, Victor Nunes Leal's Coronelismo, Enxada e Voto, here entitled Coronelismo: the Municipality and Representative Government in Brazil, has come to be recognized as a classic analysis of the system that emerges from 'the superimposition of structural forms evolved through the representative process on an inadequate social and economic structure'. The text is here published without any substantial change or addition, according to the author's wish. His insights and approach remain as suggestive as when they first appeared; as Barbosa Lima Sobrinho pointed out in the preface to the second Brazilian edition, the work is not only the analysis of a structure, but the record of that structure and of the arguments about it at a certain time, a record important in itself. Its place in the development of political analysis in Brazil is set out in Alberto Venancio Filho's introduction: 'a divide in the history of political science in Brazil... the first

Luigi Gioia provides a fresh description and analysis of Augustine's monumental treatise, De Trinitate, working on a supposition of its unity and its coherence from structural, rhetorical, and theolog

This is an innovative study of middle-class behaviour and property relations in English towns in Georgian and Victorian Britain. Through the lens of wills, family papers, property deeds, account books and letters, the author offers a reading of the ways in which middle-class families survived and surmounted the economic difficulties of early industrial society. He argues that these were essentially 'networked' families created and affirmed by a 'gift' network of material goods, finance, services and support, with property very much at the centre of middle-class survival strategies. His approach combines microhistorical studies of individual families with a broader analysis of the national and even international networks within which these families operated. The result is a significant contribution to the history, and to debates about the place of structural and cultural analysis in historical understanding.

This book provides an account of developments and applications of social accounts. It concentrates particularly on the methods of social accounting that Richard Stone, Nobel Laureate in Economics, developed and applied during his long and distinguished career. The contributors to the volume examine applications of social accounts in economics and demography, addressing issues of new formulations and specifications at the national and regional levels. Economic structure and issues of structural change are investigated within the context of social accounts matrices, and Linear Expenditure Systems are used to model population change and household consumption. The importance of social accounts matrices (SAM) in generating Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models and the enormous potential that both SAM and CGE models have for policy analysis are stressed.

These two volumes provide a comprehensive guide and source book on the marine use of composite materials. The first volume, Fundamental Aspects, provides a rigourous development of theory. Areas covered include materials science, environmental aspects, production technology, structural analysis, finite-element methods, materials failure mechanisms and the role of standard test procedures. An appendix gives tables of the mechanical properties of common polymeric composites and laminates in marine use. The second volume, Practical Considerations, examines how the theory can be used in the design and construction of marine structures, including boats, submersibles, offshore structures and other deep-ocean installations. These volumes will provide an up-to-date comprehensive introduction and reference to this important and fast-growing area.

The two volumes that comprise this work provide a comprehensive guide and source book on the marine use of composite materials. This first volume, Fundamental Aspects, provides a rigourous development of theory. Areas covered include materials science, environmental aspects, production technology, structural analysis and the role of standard test procedures. These volumes will provide an introduction to this important and fast-growing area for students and researchers in naval architecture and maritime engineering. It will also be of value to practising engineers as a comprehensive reference book.

The successful jihad of 1804 in Hausaland - perhaps the most important Islamic revolution in West African history, with consequences still apparent in Nigeria today - resulted in the establishment of the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest and most enduring West African polity in the nineteenth century. The book is a full length study of traditional Sudanic military history, and an authoritative analysis of warfare in its most prominent Islamic state. After a brief survey of the evolution of Sudanic warfare and military organisation before 1800, Dr Smaldone examines the historical development and sociological implications of the two important revolutions in military technology which occurred in the nineteenth century: the adoption of cavalry during the jihad period and the introduction of firearms in the latter half of the century. He argues that these two revolutions were causal factors in producing two structural transformations in the emirates of the Caliphate, first from relatively egali

Over the past three decades the effects of globalization and denationalization have created a division between 'winners' and 'losers' in Western Europe. This study examines the transformation of party political systems in six countries (Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK) using opinion surveys, as well as newly collected data on election campaigns. The authors argue that, as a result of structural transformations and the strategic repositioning of political parties, Europe has observed the emergence of a tripolar configuration of political power, comprising the left, the moderate right, and the new populist right. They suggest that, through an emphasis on cultural issues such as mass immigration and resistance to European integration, the traditional focus of political debate - the economy - has been downplayed or reinterpreted in terms of this new political cleavage. This new analysis of Western European politics will interest all students of European po

The field of credit risk and corporate bankruptcy prediction has gained considerable momentum following the collapse of many large corporations around the world, and more recently through the sub-prime scandal in the United States. This book provides a thorough compendium of the different modelling approaches available in the field, including several new techniques that extend the horizons of future research and practice. Topics covered include probit models (in particular bivariate probit modelling), advanced logistic regression models (in particular mixed logit, nested logit and latent class models), survival analysis models, non-parametric techniques (particularly neural networks and recursive partitioning models), structural models and reduced form (intensity) modelling. Models and techniques are illustrated with empirical examples and are accompanied by a careful explanation of model derivation issues. This practical and empirically-based approach makes the book an ideal resource

Over the past three decades the effects of globalization and denationalization have created a division between 'winners' and 'losers' in Western Europe. This study examines the transformation of party political systems in six countries (Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK) using opinion surveys, as well as newly collected data on election campaigns. The authors argue that, as a result of structural transformations and the strategic repositioning of political parties, Europe has observed the emergence of a tripolar configuration of political power, comprising the left, the moderate right, and the new populist right. They suggest that, through an emphasis on cultural issues such as mass immigration and resistance to European integration, the traditional focus of political debate - the economy - has been downplayed or reinterpreted in terms of this new political cleavage. This new analysis of Western European politics will interest all students of European po

The field of credit risk and corporate bankruptcy prediction has gained considerable momentum following the collapse of many large corporations around the world, and more recently through the sub-prime scandal in the United States. This book provides a thorough compendium of the different modelling approaches available in the field, including several new techniques that extend the horizons of future research and practice. Topics covered include probit models (in particular bivariate probit modelling), advanced logistic regression models (in particular mixed logit, nested logit and latent class models), survival analysis models, non-parametric techniques (particularly neural networks and recursive partitioning models), structural models and reduced form (intensity) modelling. Models and techniques are illustrated with empirical examples and are accompanied by a careful explanation of model derivation issues. This practical and empirically-based approach makes the book an ideal resource

This academic history of diamond mining in Kimberley is a major study of the beginning of South Africa's mineral revolution. It includes the first analysis of the formation of De Beers Consolidated Mines, one of the most successful companies ever to have been established in Africa. Based on documentary sources, notably in the Standard Bank Archive, the Rothschild Archive and the Philipson Stow Papers, it includes an interpretation of the Black Flag Revolt and of the celebrated amalgamation struggle between Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato for the control of the diamond-mining industry. It also contains a narrative and analysis of strikes in mines in South Africa and an extended treatment of the social and economic structure of illicit diamond buying. But at its heart lies the introduction of the compound system and the structural explanation of the role played by this institution in the accummulation of diamond-mining capital.

This book combines a lucid exposition of the fundamental categories of Marxian political economy with an interpretive analysis of advanced capitalist development. Unlike neo-Marxist economists, who attempt to reinterpret Marx in the light of Keynes, Professor Becker adopts an unalloyed Marxist approach to the leading problems of political economy. The book forthrightly defends the labour theory of value, argues that its alleged theoretical weaknesses are groundless, and demonstrates its continuing analytic fruitfulness in the age of monopoly capitalism. In the same vein, the author explains the importance of orthodox Marxist conceptions concerning both productive and unproductive labour and productive and unproductive consumption. Professor Becker uses Marx's celebrated theorem concerning the tendency of the rate of profit to fall to analyse the current 'stagflation' crisis. He argues that officially announced goals of full employment and growth are impossible without structural change

The original research papers collected in this volume continue the development of discrete choice analysis, of related structural models for analysis of choice behavior, and of the statistical theory

A good grasp of the theory of structures - the theoretical basis by which the strength, stiffness and stability of a building can be understood - is fundamental to structural engineers and architects. Yet most modern structural analysis and design is carried out by computer, with the user isolated from the processes in action. Plastic Design of Frames; Volume 1. Fundamentals provides a broad introduction to the mathematics behind a range of structural processes. Some of the techniques used in this book may be familiar to the reader, and some may not, but each of the topics examined will give the structural engineer valuable insight into the basis of the subject. This companion book Plastic Design of Frames; Volume 2. Applications provides additional advanced topics and case studies. This lucid second volume provides a valuable read for structural engineers and others who wish to deepen their knowledge of the structural analysis and design of buildings.

Peter Laslett's comment, in The World We Have Lost, that in the early modern period 'every relationship could be seen as a love-relationship' presents the governing idea of this book. In an analysis that includes Shakespeare's sonnets and a wide range of his plays from The Comedy of Errors to The Winter's Tale, David Schalkwyk looks at the ways in which the personal, affective relations of love are informed by the social, structural interactions of service. Showing that service is not a 'class' concept, but rather determined the fundamental conditions of identity across the whole society, the book explores the inter-penetration of structure and effect in relationships as varied as monarch and subject, aristocrat and personal servant, master and slave, husband and wife, and lover and beloved, in the light of differences of rank, gender and sexual identity.

Terence Mills' best-selling graduate textbook provides detailed coverage of research techniques and findings relating to the empirical analysis of financial markets. In its previous editions it has become required reading for many graduate courses on the econometrics of financial modelling. This third edition, co-authored with Raphael Markellos, contains a wealth of material reflecting the developments of the last decade. Particular attention is paid to the wide range of nonlinear models that are used to analyse financial data observed at high frequencies and to the long memory characteristics found in financial time series. The central material on unit root processes and the modelling of trends and structural breaks has been substantially expanded into a chapter of its own. There is also an extended discussion of the treatment of volatility, accompanied by a new chapter on nonlinearity and its testing.

Uncertainty is the watchword of contemporary world politics. Monumental changes are occurring throughout the international system and statespeople are wrestling with peaceful solutions to the transformation in relative power of the USA, Soviet Union and China, Japan and in Europe. In this book, Charles Doran proposes a managed solution to peaceful change. He presents a bold, original and wide-ranging analysis of the present balance of power, of future prospects for the international system and of the problems involved in this transformation. Professor Doran demonstrates why such change has often been accompanied by world war, providing new insights into the causes of the First World War. But, he argues, systems change can be both peaceful and secure. Developing a theory of the power cycle, the author reveals the structural bounds on statecraft and shows how the tides of history can suddenly and unexpectedly shift against the state.

More than forty years ago it was demonstrated that the African continent can be divided into four distinct language families. Research on African languages has accordingly been preoccupied with reconstructing and understanding similarities across these families. This has meant that an interest in other kinds of linguistic relationship, such as whether structural similarities and dissimilarities among African languages are the result of contact between these languages, has never been the subject of major research. This book shows that such similarities across African languages are more common than is widely believed. It provides a broad perspective on Africa as a linguistic area, as well as an analysis of specific linguistic regions. In order to have a better understanding of African languages, their structures, and their history, more information on these contact-induced relationships is essential to understanding Africa's linguistic geography, and to reconstructing its history and pre

In a wide-ranging 2007 study of Claude Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic thought, Boris Wiseman demonstrates not only its centrality within his oeuvre but also the importance of Levi-Strauss for contemporary aesthetic enquiry. Reconstructing the internal logic of Lévi-Strauss's thinking on aesthetics, and showing how anthropological and aesthetic ideas intertwine at the most elemental levels in the elaboration of his system of thought, Wiseman demonstrates that Lévi-Strauss's aesthetic theory forms an integral part of his approach to Amerindian masks, body decoration and mythology. He reveals the significance of Lévi-Strauss's anthropological analysis of an 'untamed' mode of thinking (pensée sauvage) at work in totemism, classification and myth-making for his conception of art and aesthetic experience. In this way, structural anthropology is shown to lead to ethnoaesthetics. Lévi-Strauss, Anthropology and Aesthetics adopts a broad-ranging approach that combines the different perspectives of ant

In this structural analysis of changing social and economic relations in western Sri Lanka in the mid-18th century, Dewasiri (history, U. of Colombo, Sri Lanka) explores the impact of colonial Dutch a

Japan's economy has long been described as network-centric. A web of stable, reciprocated relations among banks, firms, and ministries, is thought to play an important role in Japan's ability to navigate smoothly around economic shocks. Now those networks are widely blamed for Japan's faltering competitiveness. This book applies structural sociology to a study of how the form and functioning of this network economy has evolved from the prewar era to the late 90s. It asks whether, in the face of deregulation, globalization, and financial disintermediation, Japan's corporate networks - the keiretsu groupings particularly - have 'withered away', losing their cohesion and their historical function of supporting member firms in hard times. Using detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis, this book's conclusion is a qualified 'yes'. Relationships remain central to the Japanese way of business, but are much more subordinated to the competitive strategy of the enterprise than the network

Fictions of Labor considers William Faulkner's representation of the structural paradoxes of labour dependency in the Southern economy from the antebellum period through to the New Deal. This book seeks to link stylistic aspects of Faulkner's writing to a generative social trauma which constitutes its formal core. That trauma, Godden argues, is a labour trauma, centred on the debilitating discovery by the Southern owning class of its own production by those it subordinates. Using close textual analysis and careful historical contextualization, Richard Godden produces a persuasive account of the ways in which Faulkner's work rests on deeply submerged anxieties about the legacy of violently coercive labour relations in the American South.

In a relatively short period of time, data envelopment analysis (DEA) has grown into a powerful analytical tool for measuring and evaluating performance. DEA is computational at its core and this book

"This book offers an imaginatively conceived new model of combining structural analysis, meticulous social history, and fine-grained attention to the dynamic unfolding of political narratives. Anyone

Intermediate Mechanics of Materials provides an engaging treatment of three-dimensional stress and strain transformation, composites, non-linear and inelastic structural analysis, thin-walled structur

Distributed parameter systems encompass a broad range of engineering applications from stereo speakers to space structures. The dynamic behaviour of these systems is usually governed by one or more partial differential equations, which may accurately represent the physical system but are often difficult to solve exactly. Research in the dynamics and control of distributed parameter structural systems has grown dramatically in recent years, owing in part to the increasing complexity of these systems. Emerging technologies such as smart materials and mechatronics have contributed to growth in interest. The purpose of this book is to document progress in both theory and practical applications. Chapters discuss simulation, modelling, and analysis techniques used to investigate a variety of elastic, electromechanical and acoustic systems. With contributions by leading authorities, this book will serve as a resource for researchers and graduate students and also as a useful reference for pra

Money, Markets, and the State, first published in 2000, provides in-depth explanations behind the various successes and failures of the economic policies of social democratic governments in five Western European countries: Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands. Dr Notermans examines these economic systems from the inflation of the early twenties, through the Great Depression of the thirties and then continues his analysis up to present-day mass unemployment. Drawing on a wide range of historical and statistical sources, Dr Notermans argues that the fate of social democratic economic policy hinges critically on the political and institutional success of maintaining price stability and not on structural economic factors such as changing supply side conditions or increasing globalization of economic relations. Although social democracy has repeatedly been declared obsolete, the study concludes that even under present economic conditions, successful policies for full e

A good grasp of the theory of structures - the theoretical basis by which the strength, stiffness and stability of a building can be understood - is fundamental to structural engineers and architects. Yet most modern structural analysis and design is carried out by computer, with the user isolated from the processes in action. This book provides a broad introduction to the mathematics behind a range of structural processes. The basic structural equations have been known for at least 150 years, but modern plastic theory has opened up a fundamentally new way of advancing structural theory. Paradoxically, the powerful plastic theorems can be used to examine 'classic' elastic design activity, and strong mathematical relationships exist between these two approaches. Some of the techniques used in this book may be familiar to the reader, and some may not, but each of the topics examined will give the structural engineer valuable insight into the basis of the subject. This lucid volume provid

The control of vibrating systems is a significant issue in the design of aircraft, spacecraft, bridges and high-rise buildings. This 2001 book discusses the control of vibrating systems, integrating structural dynamics, vibration analysis, modern control and system identification. Integrating these subjects is an important feature in that engineers will need only one book, rather than several texts or courses, to solve vibration control problems. The book begins with a review of basic mathematics needed to understand subsequent material. Chapters then cover more recent and valuable developments in aerospace control and identification theory, including virtual passive control, observer and state-space identification, and data-based controller synthesis. Many practical issues and applications are addressed, with examples showing how various methods are applied to real systems. Some methods show the close integration of system identification and control theory from the state-space perspec

fMRI is a very popular method for researchers and clinicians to image human brain activity in response to given mental tasks. This book presents a comprehensive review of the methods for computing activity maps, while providing an intuitive and mathematical outline of how each method works. The approaches include statistical parametric maps (SPM), hemodynamic response modeling and deconvolution, Bayesian, Fourier and nonparametric methods. The newest activity maps provide information on regional connectivity and include principal and independent component analysis, crisp and fuzzy clustering, structural equation modeling, and dynamic causal modeling. Preprocessing and experimental design issues are discussed with references made to the software available for implementing the various methods. Aimed at graduate students and researchers, it will appeal to anyone with an interest in fMRI and who is looking to expand their perspectives of this technique.