Africa's Inland Fisheries. The Management Challenge

Book Description

This book intends to address the imbalance in research and information about fisheries and the management of natural resources between the North and the South. It takes into account the context of crippling poverty, high rates of population growth and political instability in which these discussions must take place. It addresses questions of community involvement in the management of resources, and the frequent conflicts between political and conservation goals, and suggests possible solutions.

Inland Fisheries: Ecology and Management

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Inland Fisheries: Ecology and Management

Manufacturer: Fishing News Books
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Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0852382847

Interactions Between Fish and Aquatic Macrophytes in Inland Waters: A Review (Fao Fisheries Technical Paper)

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Interactions Between Fish and Aquatic Macrophytes in Inland Waters: A Review (Fao Fisheries Technical Paper)
T. Petr
Manufacturer: Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN (FA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9251044538

Source Book for the Inland Fishery Resources of Africa (C I F a Technical Paper)

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Source Book for the Inland Fishery Resources of Africa (C I F a Technical Paper)
J. P. Vanden Bossche , and G. M. Bernacsek
Manufacturer: Food & Agriculture Org
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Binding: Paperback

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Rehabilitation of Rivers for Fish: A Study Undertaken by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission of Fao ("Fishing News" Books)

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Rehabilitation of Rivers for Fish: A Study Undertaken by the European Inland Fisheries Advisory Commission of Fao ("Fishing News" Books)

Manufacturer: Fishing News Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0852382472

Evaluating wildlife habitat for managing private forest ecosystems in the inland Northwest (Private forest ecosystem management series)

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Evaluating wildlife habitat for managing private forest ecosystems in the inland Northwest (Private forest ecosystem management series)
Pamela Town
Manufacturer: Idaho Forest, Wildlife and Range Experiment Station
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Wildlife | Conservation | Outdoors & Nature | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006QJ6TE

Book Description

Algebraic Theory of Molecules presents a fresh look at the mathematics of wave functions that provide the theoretical underpinnings of molecular spectroscopy. Written by renowned authorities in the field, the book demonstrates the advantages of algebraic theory over the more conventional geometric approach to developing the formal quantum mechanics inherent in molecular spectroscopy. Many examples are provided that compare the algebraic and geometric methods, illustrating the relationship between the algebraic approach and current experiments. The authors develop their presentation from a basic level so as to enable newcomers to enter the field while providing enough details and concrete examples to serve as a reference for the expert. Chemical physicists, physical chemists, and spectroscopists will want to read this exciting new approach to molecular spectroscopy.

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ALGEBRAIC THEORY OF MOLECULES
Levine Iachello
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press
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Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OKLP1Y

Electronic Structure of Molecules: Algebraic and Diagrammatic Methods in Many-Fernion Theory

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Electronic Structure of Molecules: Algebraic and Diagrammatic Methods in Many-Fernion Theory
F. E. Harris
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Molecular Physics | Physics | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0471896276

Book Description

A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics -- a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Gell-Mann, and Weinberg, is knit together in a thorough and accessible exposition of the revolutionary notions that underlie our current view of the fundamental nature of the physical world. Schumm, who has spent much of his life emmersed in the subatomic world, goes far beyond a mere presentation of the "building blocks" of matter, bringing to life the remarkable connection between the ivory tower world of the abstract mathematician and the day-to-day, life-enabling properties of the natural world. Schumm leaves us with an insight into the profound open questions of particle physics, setting the stage for understanding the progress the field is poised to make over the next decade or two.

Introducing readers to the world of particle physics, Deep Down Things opens new realms within which are many clues to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

Customer Reviews:

Particle Physics Made Easy.......2007-03-02

This book should be a must read for anyone that tries to understand particle physics. I've been looking for something like this for a long time. The Standard Model is explained with great skill and clarity, and with minimal use of math. This is not a mathematical book, but where minimal mathematics becomes necessary (group theory), it is introduced with the assumption that the reader knows next to nothing (which was my case) and developed to the point where, combined with physics, it makes sense. Most of the math only requires logic, not computations, and all you are required to memorize are a few rules -- conventions -- that only take a couple of lines. Beautiful.
The author limits himself to what is known and generally agreed about particle physics. The limits of the theory are also very well explained, but no significant steps into the unknown are made, which I think it is a good thing for once.
If you like Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, Lisa Randall, and others like them, do them, and yourself, a favor: read "Deep Down Things". It will open new horizons in the way you see, and appreciate, their work. These more popular authors cross into the unknown with beautiful, breathtaking constructs, but none explains the basics as Bruce Schumm does.

A Review From a Non-Physicist.......2007-01-01

Two items set this lay physics book apart: clarity of writing and minimum of speculation. It covers only material amenable to experimentation. This rules out both string theory and multiple universes - each mentioned only briefly. Nor does it dwell on Einstein's theories of special or general relativity - the gravitational physics of the large. "Deep Down Things" is like an introductory text on quantum phenomenon and particle physics without the explicit math and with more explicit wordage.

Particle physics studies the smallest units of matter and how they interact with each other. This led to ever larger particle accelerators during the last 68 years of the 20th century. More than 150 exotic particles have been discovered - every one having differing combinations of properties that boggle the mind. An exotic particle that results from the collision of two protons may exist for only 10 to the minus 12 seconds before it decays into something else. Traveling at close to the speed of light, this is just enough time to leave a (highly sought after) 1 mm mark on a recorder, documenting the brief life of that particle. The Particle Data Group from Berkeley exists just to keep physicists updated on these particles.

For something so fleeting, why do we bother? Because this research is centerstage in explaining the Big Bang and all of cosmology. As by-products, we achieved huge gains in any industry you can name. Unless you live like a Mennonite or are on a boy scout camp-out, these technologies effect the way you live your daily life - ground floor activity on the internet itself came about because physicists desired a more immediate way to share research with each other.

The use of common sense was not a factor in the investigations of particle physics. Instead, knowledge was and is gained through particle accelerators, predictions from abstract mathematical models, and meticulous use of the scientific method by thousands of physicists. The author mentions frequently that the math works out, predicts something, disproves something, needs a cheat factor, etc. This made me want to see the math, but I'm at least a couple of college courses from there, so I guess I'll have to take his word for it. For non-physics, non-math majors, consider reading on despite lack of total understanding or you might bog down in details. As the point of view changes, concepts are restated and you'll get another stab at it. The author starts a sentence on page 187, "If you've understood, even vaguely..." and ends it with "it gets even better (or worse...) as we move on to other properties of elementary particles."

On page 351, he closes with congratulations to anyone who made it to the end - then inserts a joke about the Higgs field that only an "insider" (a physicist or one who read the book) would understand. This is a great book that I highly recommend for any physicist who wants to brush up on particle physics, any undergrad or grad student in physics, or any other scientist types who are persistent enough to want a better handle on this fascinating but difficult subject.

It really is "Breathtaking".......2006-11-30

This is a book about quantum mechanics, and gauge theory in particular. It's essentially non-mathematical, having just a few equations, and requires little mathematical expertise. For readers with math anxiety, or those unfamiliar with partial differential equations, the few equations in the book can be skipped without missing much, as Schumm focuses almost exclusively on providing a qualitative understanding of what's at the heart of the Standard Model of quantum mechanics.

This isn't your typical book on quantum mechanics, aimed at your typical armchair scientists. There's virtually no discussion about various speculative macroscopic aspects of QM, such as freewill. God doesn't come into the picture except as a non-personal synonym for "the universe." Schrödinger's cat isn't discussed. Neither is tunneling, time travel, teleportation, or Bell's inequality. This text is what I'd describe as a nuts-and-bolts qualitative look or introduction to the Standard model. I think it would be excellent reading for anyone contemplating a class in QM, before taking a quantitative and detailed course on the subject. Of course, I'd also recommend it for casual yet serious readers who want to know the basis for modern quantum theory.

The first half of the book lays the groundwork with a discussion of forces of nature, patterns, the building blocks of nature, and symmetry. I particularly liked Schumm's explanation of how symmetry relates to conserved quantities. I think he does an especially nice job of describing Lie groups and segueing the topic into the heart of this book, which is gauge theory.

The gauge principle says that objects within a system are subject to precise laws of interaction. It also says that the wave equation is invariant with respect to local changes in phase. The connection between these two notions (phase invariance and laws of interaction) provides a quantitative theory for causation, known as the gauge principle. [pp. 276-277] I commend Schumm for presenting the basic principles and arguments of gauge theory in a way that can be clearly understood at a qualitative level. Here's a summary of how he does it.

Start with the Schrödinger wave equation. Next, apply the condition that information cannot be instantaneously transmitted or transmitted with arbitrary speed over arbitrary distances. This is a principle that seems deeply ingrained in Einstein's relativity, that no object with non-zero mass energy can travel faster than the speed of light, and is the position taken by Yang and Mills in their 1954 paper in the Physical Review, where they argue the following:

"As usually conceived, however, this arbitrariness is subject to the following limitations: once one chooses [the phase of the wave function] at one space-time point, one is then not free to make any choices at other space-time points. It seems that this is not consistent with the localized filed concept that underlies the usual physical theories. In the present paper we wish to explore the possibility of requiring all interactions to be invariant under independent [choices of phase] at all space-time points. [p. 217-218]

Back to the Schrödinger wave equation, Schumm considers the case of an isolated electron (no potential). To make the wave function invariant with respect to local changes in phase, Schumm describes a trick used by Yang and Mills, in which they added a new term to the wave equation, a so-called "cheating" term, A(x). A(x) changes when the phase of the wave function changes, in just the right way so that the overall wave function is unaltered by local changes in the wave function's phase. This might seem like an obvious and trivial thing to do, but interestingly, when you do this you find that the cheating function, A(x), represents the quantum of the electromagnetic field - the photon. As Schumm explains:

"The inclusion of A(x) thus incorporates, within the field-theoretical description of the particle's behavior, the possibility that the particle emits or absorbs a photon, that is, the possibility that the particle emits or absorbs a quantum of the electromagnetic field."

This is a nifty trick. Start with the Schrödinger equation for an isolated particle, apply the relativity principle by insisting on invariance of local phase shifts, add a "cheating" factor to make phase invariant, and the "cheating factor" ends up being the quantum force mediator of the particle described by the Schrödinger equation. The nature of the cheating term depends on the symmetry of possible changes to the wave function. That's where Lie groups come in, and that's why it's so helpful the way Schumm lays the conceptual foundation with his chapter on Lie groups.

Mathematically, the symmetry of a quantum particle is described by the Lie group that describes possible changes to the particle's wave equation. If the group has only simple phase-change symmetry we end up with quantum electrodynamics, or the quantum theory of the electromagnetic force. For wave functions described by more complicated Lie groups (wave equations that have rotational symmetry in some internal symmetry space), we must add different cheating terms, as many as there are generators of the Lie group. This is the basic idea behind the gauge principle, which is at the heart of the Standard model of quantum mechanics. Of the four known forces of nature, three (electromagnetic, weak nuclear, and the strong nuclear interactions) are explainable from the well-established methods of gauge theory.

This was one of the best books I've read this year. It's long (just short of 360 pages) with lots of material between the covers. You'll want to read the Appendix and notes, and you'll most likely find yourself reading over parts of the book several times, digesting the meaning behind the words. In the end, I think you'll agree with the author's assessment that quantum mechanics - the study of "deep down things" really does reveal a breathtaking beauty of the natural world.

A 'big-picture' conceptual guide to the Standard Model.......2006-08-28

Fed up with useless metaphors which equate the Higgs particle with hangers-on at a party slowing a celebrity's passage? Exasperated at continual references to Lie algebras and gauge theories, which are never explained?

In Peter Woit's recent book `Not Even Wrong', he comments (p. 205) that relativistic quantum field theory is not even studied until the second or third year of graduate school. For the rest of us, there is `Deep Down Things'.

Schumm's objective is to take us on a conceptual tour of the Standard Model of quantum mechanics, without requiring a mastery of the technical apparatus. The first half of the book introduces the four fundamental forces, wave-particle duality and the wave function itself. The approach is historical and visual - plenty of Feynman diagrams - and Schumm assumes the reader is happy with complex exponentials. By chapter 5 we are deep in the eightfold way, and the classification of quarks, leptons (electrons, muons, neutrinos) and bosons (the force quanta).

Chapter 6 begins the process of diving deeper with a discussion of Lie groups and Lie Algebra, motivated by plenty of examples. A Lie group is defined via: (i) a continuous set (i.e. a real or complex manifold such as R^n or C^n) with (ii) operators which are continuous functions over the manifold. Chapter 7 introduces Noether's theorem: `To every differentiable symmetry generated by local actions, there corresponds a conserved quality' and this is linked with symmetries under transformations by the Lie group operators (such as rotations in isospin space which interchange protons and neutrons).

Introductory quantum mechanics courses talk about the physical irrelevance of the phase of the wave function when it comes to the calculation of probabilities of observables. We thus have the concept of global phase invariance. However, this is unphysical - we cannot have the universe adjusting phase by the same amount everywhere at the same time. Yang and Mills in the mid-50s proposed to force the wave function to be invariant under local changes of phase: it turns out the only way to achieve this is to add a new term of the form gA(x)psi(x) where g is a charge parameter associated with the particle, psi(x) is the wave function and A(x) is a new term which turns out to be the field potential function for the relevant force field (electromagnetic in chapter 8). The freedom of choice in choosing the function A is called a gauge freedom, hence gauge theory.

Choose a fundamental particle. Write down its wave function. Identify the spaces in which the particle participates (space-time, isospin, ...). Identify the Lie group which rotates the wave function (state vector) in each of these spaces - U(1), SU(2), SU(3). By the principle of local phase invariance, adjust the original wave function with gauge terms gA(x)psi(x) as above. From making this work mathematically, out pop the corresponding force quanta (= the number of generators of the corresponding Lie algebra above). As the chapter heading puts it: `Physics by Pure Thought'!

Chapter 9 explains how the standard model assigns a mass of zero to all force-field quanta. Any attempt to add mass destroys the local phase invariance that we just discussed. The only way to retrieve the situation is to assume the existence of a new field (the Higgs field) which somehow pervades the universe and which interacts with non-zero-mass force quanta (via the weak force) in a `screening' way which gives them mass. The Higgs field is also responsible for the masses of quarks and leptons. If this is true, there should be a Higgs particle within reach of CERN's Large Hadron Collider in 2007.

This is a really excellent book. If you dimly recall how to solve a differential equation, and are unfazed by the notion of an abelian group, then this book is accessible. By book-end you have the sense that you `get' the big picture of the standard model and its remaining conceptual weaknesses. I would say that if you were an undergraduate interested in theoretical physics and wanted a tour d'horizon, this is the one book which will give it (Penrose's `The Road To Reality' is still too difficult for this purpose).

Best popular particle/quantum physics books I have read.......2006-05-02

Bottom line: Buy it.

If you are tired of books that throw out words like "symmetry" and "gauge theory" without ever explaining (at least conceptually) what these terms mean and how these concepts relate to a deep understanding of particle physics then this is the book to buy.

The author explains the mathematical concepts quite simply and in such a way that if you can read ANY popular book on physics then you can understand how Lie Algebras and Gauge Theories help derive the eightfold way, the charges on some bosons, the probability of the Higgs field/particle, and therefore lead to the Standard Model of particle physics.

Imagine a book which covers these topics (Lie Groups, Lie Algebras and Gauge Theories) without ever seeming mathematically challenging or complex. Here it is.

My only disappointed? It doesn't cover more, because this is the best exposition -- real teaching at a world class level -- of the subjects it does cover. If Schumm ever writes another book I will buy it, sight unseen.

If you have read, or wanted to read "The Road to Reality" by Penrose (which I highly recommend if you have the determination to read it), this will make several sections of that book much easier to understand -- were all of Penrose's explanations as high quality as "Deep Down Things" there would likely never be a better book on these subjects.

For anyone considering this book, the answer is simple: buy it and enjoy reading it.

Book Description

Here is one of the most important surviving works of pre-Columbian civilization, Rabinal Achi, a Mayan drama set a century before the arrival of the Spanish, produced by the translator of the best selling Popol Vuh. The first direct translation into English from Quiche Maya, based on the original text, Rabinal Achi is the story of city-states, war, and nobility, of diplomacy, mysticism, and psychic journeys. Cawek of the Forest People has been captured by Man of Rabinal, who serves a ruler named Lord Five Thunder. Cawek is a renegade, a warrior who has inflicted much suffering on Rabinal. Yet he is also the son of the lord of the allied city of Quiche--a noble who once fought alongside Man of Rabinal. The drama presents the confrontation between the two during the trial of Cawek, who defies his captors and proudly accepts death by beheading. Dennis Tedlock's translation is clear and vivid; more than that, it is rooted in an understanding of how the play is actually performed. Despite being banned for centuries by Spanish authorities, it survived in actual practice, and is still performed in the town of Rabinal today. Tedlock's photographs and diagrams accompany the text, capturing nuances not apparent in the dialogue alone. He also provides an introduction and commentary that explain the historical events compressed into the play, the Spanish influence on the Mayan dramatic tradition, and the cultural and religious world preserved in this remarkable play. Rabinal Achi ranks as a classic of Mayan literature--and a rare window on a world that had yet to be invaded by Europeans. Dennis Tedlock brings this drama to life in all its richness.

Customer Reviews:

A Cultural Treasure.......2004-04-11

This book is the follow up to the Popol Vuh (the Mayan Bible) by bestselling translator and author Dennis Tedlock. This is a beautiful and careful translation of a wonderful Mayan text which like his Popol Vuh will surely win translation prizes.

Tedlock spent many years studying the language, culture, and shamanic traditions of the highland Maya in Guatemala. Together with his wife he underwent a shamanic apprenticeship and later videotaped several performances of this dance drama. This is the only remaining pre-Columbian Mayan play in existence and as such it is a cultural treasure which this transaltor has treated with great respect. The dozens of photographs and line art bring the book alive!

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Rabinal Achi: A Mayan Drama of War and Sacrifice
Dennis Tedlock
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Mayan | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B000OKKVFU

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