Antiviral Drug Development: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Nato Science Series: A:)

Book Description

Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay between mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and compactness), and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their wholes? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.

Customer Reviews:

Splendid intro to contemporary mereology.......2003-06-10

I like this book very much but cannot say that I have assimilated much of it yet. But it describes a line of thinking which I think is going to come into its own over the course of this new century. The bibliography is excellent.

Mereology all begins with Husserl's Logical Investigations in 1901. These had almost no impact until translated into English in 1970. Whitehead wrote on related topics but made for notoriously hard reading. (In the 1980s, Bowman Clarke splendidly corrected Whitehead's theory.) The American Theodore De Laguna adds his 2 cents worth in 1922. Lesniewski in Poland writes fascinating stuff starting in 1916, but nobody understands him except his brilliant student Tarski, who writes a nice little introduction but buries it as a technical appendix to a British book on mathematical biology. The USA philosopher Nelson Goodman finally produces a user-friendly version, and calls it the calculus of individuals. Again, nobody pays much attention and that's a pity.

The formal theory of part and whole finally takes off in the 1960s and now flourishes. Parts and Places is an excellent university level introduction to this theory, known as mereology.
Mereology can be viewed as a type of formal philosophy, and Casati and Varzi are most definitely highly competent philosophers writing in the relaxed manner of contemporary English language philosophy.

But I submit that mereology is also a form of math, altho' one unlike the chicken tracks that pass for math nowadays. This is math as math should be. Here's a little giveaway. C&S, like Peter Simons, refuse to apply mereology to abstract entities, and focus exclusively on material ones. Result? They are, IMHO, doing a sort of proto-geometry. Another giveaway: C&S often mention topology.

Mereology is first order logic with equality and a primitive dyadic predicate interpreted as "is included in" or "is part of".
If you grant the useful fiction of a null individual, then much
of the mathematics of mereology is good old Boolean algebra. Otherwise mereology is a join semilattice.

Like it or not, contemporary metaphysics has grown ever more mereological in flavor. Mereology is also useful for cognitive science, and probably for linguistics (mass/count nouns, etc). It may find applications in physics, can't say for sure. David Lewis, in his "Parts of Classes" convinced me that a mereological refoundation of ZF set theory was possible. Richard Martin (1916-85) argued that much of mathematics can be recast on mereological lines. David Bostock has argued that mereology should be the foundation of the theory of measurement. Peter Roeper has laid out a mereological refoundation of topology. If mereology displaces set theory, P&P and "Holes" become classics.

This book has a close competitor: Peter Simons's "Parts" of 1987.
The first 100 pages of Parts is a richer introduction to the formalities of classical mereology than P&P. Simons is also philosophically deeper than Parts and Places. The main strength of the latter is its coverage of the substantial recent progress in mereotopology, and of the applications of mereology to machine intelligence.

Nice to see some new ideas..........2001-02-03

Sometimes it seems like philosophy has been caught in amber since the days of Aristotle and Plato with the same tired arguments simply being restated. Or perhaps it is simply the fact that to be anywhere outside of the "box" in philosophy immediately makes one a crank.

Casati and Varzi have bucked the trend to rehash old ideas and have broken a lot of new and very interesting ground in mereotopology. That is, they have put the study of parts and wholes (mereology) on some firm footing by starting with some ideas from topology and creating a first level theory.

Funny as it seems, the area of describing the ontology of wholes and their parts has been very fuzzy since the days of Aristotle. Only in a very literary sense have this "minor" (only kidding, of course) area been explored in the history of philosophy; something the reader realizes very quickly a chapter into this book.

This book is not for the faint of heart or those without some background in formal expressions. I believe the authors have English as a second language and, although the language is proper, it is also somewhat formal. I kept hoping for some breaks for humour or at least some variation in language but this book is a bit relentless.

The authors develop many axioms for mereotopology for everything from "standard" topological relations up to holes and boundaries. Many relations we would consider to be basic (read: boring) and mundane are revealed in a new light when one attempts to formalize them.

The only possible nit I would pick with the book is the fact that many areas have now recieved further treatment from the authors. In other words, I feel this book was released a bit too soon since, if one reads the papers at the author's websites, one sees the interesting developments. Particularly fiat boundaries, which are very interesting for many reasons, recieve only passing treatment in the book. One must read papers for more.

Book Description

Anapolitanos critically examines and evaluates three basic characteristics of the Leibnizian metaphysical system: Leibniz's version of representation; the principle of continuity; and space, time, and the phenomenally spatio-temporal. Chapter I discusses representation, especially as it refers to the connection between the real and the phenomenal levels of Leibniz's system. Chapter II examines the principle of continuity, including continuity as a general feature of every level of Leibniz's metaphysics. The position adopted is that the problem of the composition of the continuum played a central role on the development of Leibniz's non-spatial and non-temporal monadic metaphysics. The machinery developed is then used to offer a new interpretation of Leibniz' metaphysics of space and time. The notion of indirect representation is used to construct appropriate models that clarify the nature of the correspondence between the real and the phenomenal levels in the case of the relations `spatially between' and `temporally between', as well as in the cases of spatial and temporal density. Finally, Leibniz's solution to the problem of the continuum is discussed, arguing that it is not entirely satisfactory. A non-anachronistic alternative is proposed, compatible with Leibniz's metaphysics of substance.

Paradigms of Indian Architecture: Space and Time in Representation and Design (Soas Collected Papers on South Asia, 13)

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Paradigms of Indian Architecture: Space and Time in Representation and Design (Soas Collected Papers on South Asia, 13)
G. Tillotson
Manufacturer: RoutledgeCurzon
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0700710388

Past, Space, and Self (Representation and Mind)

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Past, Space, and Self (Representation and Mind)
John Campbell
Manufacturer: Mit Pr
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0262032155

Book Description

Humans were thought to be unique among the species in having minds, but recent results showing the richness and diversity in animal psychology makes this view untenable. Yet there remains the question of whether we can map the features of a particularly human psychology that are responsible for its overall structure. In this book John Campbell shows that the general structural features of human thought can be seen as having their source in the distinctive ways in which we think about space and time. He describes the contrasts between animal representations of space and time and distinctively human ways of thinking about them. In particular, he shows what is special about the human ability of to think about the past.

Campbell looks at how self-consciousness exploits these particular abilities in thinking about space and the past. He discusses at length the relation between self-consciousness and the first person and how fundamental the first person is in ordinary thought. Campbell shows that the structured character of ordinary thinking can be explained by reference to the demands of first-person thinking and the way in which first-person thiinking exploits distinctively human respresentations of space and time. Finally, he considers the metaphysical implications of this approach, in particular, how ordinary self-consciousness relies on a realist view of the past.

Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the Representation

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Arrest and Movement: An Essay on Space and Time in the Representation
H.A. Groenewegen-Frankfort
Manufacturer: University of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LXZPO2

Cleisthenes the Athenian: An Essay on the Representation of Space and Time in Greek Political Thought from the End of the Sixth Century to the Death of Plato

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Cleisthenes the Athenian: An Essay on the Representation of Space and Time in Greek Political Thought from the End of the Sixth Century to the Death of Plato
Pierre Leveque , and Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
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ASIN: 1573923338

Book Description

This classic study of the reforms in Athens in 507 / 506 b.c.e. that led to the birth of democracy is the only book-length treatment ever to have examined their philosophical, political, and aesthetic setting and significance. Focusing on the creation of a secular civic space and time, the book has influenced a generation of scholars in anthropology, sociology, urban planning, political science, philosophy, and classical studies.

Espaces en representation (Travaux / Universite de Saint-Etienne, Centre interdisciplinaire d'etudes et de recherche sur l'expression contemporaine)

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Espaces en representation (Travaux / Universite de Saint-Etienne, Centre interdisciplinaire d'etudes et de recherche sur l'expression contemporaine)

Manufacturer: Universite de Saint-Etienne, Centre interdisciplinaire d'etudes et de recherche sur l'expression contemporaine
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Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 290155900X

La representation de l'espace dans l'euvre poetique de O.V. de L. Milosz: Lointains fanes et silencieux

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La representation de l'espace dans l'euvre poetique de O.V. de L. Milosz: Lointains fanes et silencieux
Olivia Cohen
Manufacturer: L'Harmattan
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Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: 2738453120

Mapping the Spectrum: Techniques of Visual Representation in Research and Teaching

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Mapping the Spectrum: Techniques of Visual Representation in Research and Teaching
Klaus Hentschel
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198509537

Book Description

Ever since the boom of spectrum analysis in the 1860s, spectroscopy has become one of the most fruitful research technologies in analytic chemistry, physics, astronomy, and other sciences. This book is the first in-depth study of the ways in which various types of spectra, especially the sun's Fraunhofer lines, have been recorded, displayed, and interpreted. The book assesses the virtues and pitfalls of various types of depictions, including hand sketches, woodcuts, engravings, lithographs and, from the late 1870s onwards, photomechanical reproductions. The material of a 19th-century engraver or lithographer, the daily research practice of a spectroscopist in the laboratory, or a student's use of spectrum posters in the classroom, all are looked at and documented here. For pioneers of photography such as John Herschel or Hermann Wilhelm Vogel, the spectrum even served as a prime test object for gauging the color sensitivity of their processes. This is a broad, contextual portrayal of the visual culture of spectroscopy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The illustrations are not confined to spectra - they show instruments, laboratories, people at work, and plates of printing manuals.The result is a multifacetted description, focusing on the period from Fraunhofer up to the beginning of Bohr's quantum theory. A great deal of new and fascinating material from two dozen archives has been included. A must for anyone interested in the history of modern science, or in research practice using visual representations.

Book Description

Statistical Physics I discusses the fundamentals of equilibrium statistical mechanics, focussing on basic physical aspects. No previous knowledge of thermodynamics or the molecular theory of gases is assumed. Illustrative examples based on simple materials and photon systems elucidate the central ideas and methods.

Customer Reviews:

Good on stochastic processes.......2003-05-27

This text provides a good, readable introduction to Markov processes, including Fokker-Planck equations, from the standpoint of typical physical examples. A weakness is that (by only mentioning and not developing Ito calculus) the book does not make it clear to the reader that most stochastic processes are nonstationary. This is important: today, we are interested in far from equilibrium dynamics, much less so in dynamics near equilibrium where the fluctuation-dissipation theorem holds. On the other hand, the standard financial math texts (Baxter and Rennie, Steele, ...) do us no service in this direction either. The book goes beyond the older reference by Wax, which is still a very good introduction to Markov processes. In any case, no existing reference treats the general case of a space-time-dependent diffusion coefficient adequately, the case of most interest for the dynamics of financial markets. Now for details of the weak spots.

There are two mistakes on pages 65-68. The discussion is based on the sde dx=-R(x)dt+D(x,t)^1/2dB(t) where B(t) is a Wiener process. First, it is claimed that the random force D(x,t)^1/2dB is Gaussian with a white spectrum. In general, the random force is not even stationary unless D is independent of x. The unstated assumption is that the random force is always stationary, so that with R(x) <0 there is an approach to equilibrium. When the diffusion coefficient depends on x (or more generally on (x,t)) then there is no approach to equilibrium for the case of unbounded x even with R <0, as the lognormal model of standard finance theory so vividly shows. Second, even if an equilibrium solution of the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation 'exists', it cannot be reached dynamically when the force is nonstationary. Again, the lognormal model illustrates this point. Arguments (typical in economics) that an equilibrium solution 'exists' are meaningless are useless if the dynamics can't approach that solution.

The best book on Statistical Mechanics.......2000-03-26

Statistical Mechanics (1&2) by Toda and Kubo is the best textbook on statistical mechanics I've read. This book has some material such as Linear response theory(in vol 2), ergotic problems(in vol 1) which is difficult to find in other ones. I like the way the author write in linear response part. It is beautiful.

The best book on Statistical Mechanics.......2000-03-26

Foundations of Statistical Mechanics: Volume I: Equilibrium Theory (Fundamental Theories of Physics)

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Foundations of Statistical Mechanics: Volume I: Equilibrium Theory (Fundamental Theories of Physics)
W.T. Grandy Jr.
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 902772489X

Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics (Monographs in statistical physics and thermodynamics)

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Non-equilibrium statistical mechanics (Monographs in statistical physics and thermodynamics)
I Prigogine
Manufacturer: Interscience Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006AWXOU

On the definition of equilibrium [An article from: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics]

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On the definition of equilibrium [An article from: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics]
I. Pitowsky
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000P6O5KK

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Boltzmann's approach to statistical mechanics is widely believed to be conceptually superior to Gibbs' formulation. However, the microcanonical distribution often fails to behave as expected: the ergodicity of the motion relative to it can rarely be established for realistic systems; worse, it can often be proved to fail. Also, the approach involves idealizations that have little physical basis. Here we take Khinchin's advice and propose a definition of equilibrium that is more realistic: the definition reflects the fact that the system is made of a great number of particles, and implies that all measurable macroscopic observables have steady values.

Investigations in non equilibrium statistical physics;: Final scientific report. Feb. 1969-Jan. 1971

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Investigations in non equilibrium statistical physics;: Final scientific report. Feb. 1969-Jan. 1971
I Prigogine
Manufacturer: Reproduced by National Technical Information Service
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Starts out like Austen, but...

The worst gossip holds a grain of truth...

Victorian English Life: A Blend of Eliot and Dickens

Deerbrook (Penguin Classics)
Harriet Martineau , and Valerie Sanders
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

19th Century | British | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Hester (Oxford World's Classics)

Cranford (Penguin Classics)

Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics)

Wives and Daughters (Penguin Classics)

East Lynne (Oxford World's Classics)

ASIN: 0141439394

Book Description

Told with humor and compassion, Deerbrook prefigures the later Victorian novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brontës, and George Eliot. When the Ibbotson sisters, Hester and Margaret, arrive at the village of Deerbrook to stay with their cousin Mr. Grey and his wife, speculation is rife that one of them might marry the local apothecary, Edward Hope. Although he is immediately attracted to Margaret, Hope is ultimately persuaded to marry the beautiful Hester and becomes trapped in an unhappy marriage. His troubles are compounded when a malicious village gossip accuses Hope of grave-robbing, threatening his career. A powerful exploration of the nature of ignorance and prejudice, Deerbrook also may be regarded as one of the first Victorian novels of English domestic life.

Customer Reviews:

Starts out like Austen, but..........2006-06-14

Not unlike a Jane Austen novel, Deerbrook focuses on the romantic ups and downs of a pair of sisters, the Miss Ibbotsons: both virtuous young ladies, but one (Hester) rather emotionally tempestuous, and the other (Margaret) of a more outwardly serene temper. Their parents have died, leaving them very little money, so they come to stay with a family of cousins, among "three or four families in a country village". The main characters belong to a class slightly lower than Austen normally wrote about: Mr Grey, the Ibbotsons' cousin, is a partner in a coal, corn & timber business.

Hester falls in love with Edward Hope, a surgeon of very high repute throughout the community of Deerbrook. Margaret is strongly drawn to Philip Enderby, who doesn't live in Deerbrook, but often visits his elderly mother there. Margaret also befriends Maria Young, once a prosperous young lady, but now a lame and lonely governess. There is a somewhat vaguely delineated former connection between Philip Enderby and Maria Young, and Margaret is unaware that her new friend is still in love with him.

Though Hester is the more beautiful of the two Ibbotson sisters, both Hope and Enderby are attracted to Margaret. Serious problems arise when Hope, about to propose to Margaret, learns from Mrs Grey that everyone expects him to marry Hester. He is persuaded to think himself honor-bound to make her an offer, and marries her. Fretful Hester, who is prone to unreasonable jealous outbursts, seems at first a difficult and disagreeable wife. To add to Hope's misery, her sister - the woman he loves - shares the couple's troubled household.

Philip Enderby's sister, Mrs Rowland, is the wife of Mr Grey's business partner, and for some unfathomable reason, views the entire Grey family not merely as rivals, but as enemies. When Mr Hope, once one of her favorites, "marries into the Grey connection", her animosity reaches fever pitch, and she sets to work spreading malicious reports throughout Deerbrook concerning Hope's medical practices, and rumors about his wretched marriage. Meanwhile, Philip Enderby comes and goes, leaving Margaret uncertain as to the state of his affections. His own uncertainties about Margaret's feelings for him are fostered by his sister's lies.

So far, so good. But for me the novel deteriorates as it goes along, because good and evil seem too starkly drawn: there is too much mindless malignancy in Mrs Rowland, and too much unalloyed goodness in Hope and the two women he loves. I do expect proper heroes and heroines to show their strength and character in adversity, of course; but I admit to a preference for heroes and heroines who also evince some natural human weaknesses as they try to cope with affliction. Margaret does nearly despair when she thinks Philip Enderby is lost to her. But the behavior of Edward Hope and his wife in the face of enormous personal and professional hardship becomes very close to saintly, their religious faith upholding them so utterly that they seem on the whole more delighted than not with the poverty and calumny being heaped upon them by the venomous machinations of Mrs Rowland.

Still, despite its flaws, Deerbrook is interesting enough to warrant at least one reading.

The worst gossip holds a grain of truth..........2005-08-14

This precursor of elegant Victoriana of the Bronte Sisters and Jane Austen, is an accurate portrayal of 19th century manners and the damage inflicted by carefully injected gossip. In the village of Deerbrook, two families are in constant rivalry, the Grey's and the Rowland's, each vying for the highest social standing, the best regard of their neighbors. But when the Misses Ibbotson come to the Grey's after the death of their father, the delicate status quo is disturbed. By far the most eligible bachelor, Mr. Edward Hope, the local physician, is drawn to both the sisters, but marries Hester, who remains innocent of his affections for Margaret. For her part, Margaret cares only for her sister's happiness and has set her affections on another gentleman, Philip Enderby, brother of the formidable Priscilla Rowland.

When Enderby announces his engagement to Margaret Ibbotson, his sister's wrath is incurred, as Mrs. Rowland considers her family superior to the Grey's, and by relation, the newly married Hester and Edward Hope. Using her considerable resources, an active imagination, warped sense of injustice and acid tongue, Mrs. Rowland contrives to interfere with Dr. Hope's good name, as well as Margaret's impending marriage. Wrapped in the convoluted morals of their restricted society, Margaret, Hester and Edward Hope struggle to maintain their position, while undermined daily by cruel and insidious gossip. Priscilla Rowland is merciless in her endeavors, too often successful in her malicious interference, setting the stage for good to triumph over evil, as it must in any Victorian drama.

Only after considerable heartbreak and noble stoicism do the wronged characters find a measure of peace, although, as morally superior individuals, they turn their sacrifices into successes. The sisters and Edward Hope join forces in facing down their altered circumstances, Mr. Enderby caught in the middle by his love for Margaret and his trust in his sister's motives. With matchmaking and courtship as the central theme, Martineau indulges in the philosophical and social discourse common to the era, a middle-class existence in contrast to Dickens' later attention to the disenfranchised. The women in the novel are restricted by their own futures; only marriage can save one from spinsterhood or the quiet life of a governess. Yet the men are just as constrained in Deerbrook, the women controlling their serenity n the home front.

This is a society of esoteric discourses, lengthy conversations on the meaning of life and ritualistic behavior concealing subtle relationships and formal, tentative understandings, a mannered mating dance. Mrs. Rowland's gossip sweeps the story along, the scold's denouement all the more satisfying when it finally occurs. Amid the chaos, backbiting, broken commitments and the Hope's loss of fortune, the plague, the great leveler, descends upon Deerbrook to teach the harshest lesson of all, death striking randomly in the village with no concern for wealth or position. This pastoral countryside, for all its fine manners and pretensions, is a cauldron of discontent and unhappiness until wrongs are set right and love prevails. Luan Gaines/2005.

Victorian English Life: A Blend of Eliot and Dickens.......2004-02-06

The subtitle of my review, "A Blend of (George) Eliot and (Charles) Dickens" may seem impossible to those familiar with both authors' work. Martineau, however, combines the serious tone of Eliot with social satire that evokes some of the humor of Dickens. There is some village politics, some discussion of religion, but never with the kind of boring dullness I occassionally experienced when reading Eliot's Middlemarch or Daniel Deronda. Like with a Dicken's novel, you get sucked into a particular world and enjoy a vast range of characters from poor to titled. There is also the sort of melodramic action and exposure of the social horrors of the poor that remind me of Dickens. This is a novel about five young people (a female governess, a doctor, a law student, and two young middle class ladies) and their tangled love affairs. The persecution of four of the five by the novel's villain has dramatic and extreme consequences. Three of the five characters are suicidally depressed for a rather long stretch of the book. But always in every chapter there is some social satire or some comic turn that balances out the character's melancholy. The children in the novel are particularly realistic and add lots of humor to the book. The true hardship caused by the villain's persecution (as well as by genuine social ills) forces the characters to overcome their depressions and become better human beings. Their choice to embrace love and integrity is celebrated and ultimately rewarded in this tale of village life. Martineau periodically inserts little mini-essays of a paragraph or two on various issues ranging from what activities drive away depression to the impact of near-death experiences that are wonderful little pieces. But my strongest memories of the novel are of the dramatic village events: the day the village scold goes crazy; the two big near-death accidents; the riot; the robbery; and of course, the deathbeds.

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Deerbrook
Harriet Martineau
Manufacturer: Dial Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O89LE4

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Deerbrook
HARRIET MARTINEAU
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJ8A54

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