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Antioxidants and Exercise
Jan Karlsson
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Free Radicals in Aging
Byung Pal Yu
Manufacturer: Informa Healthcare
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Free Radicals in Aging presents new findings regarding the involvement of free radicals in the aging process. It covers the basic elements of free radical biochemistry, free radicals in cellular damage, anti-oxidant defenses, implications of free radicals in a variety of age-related diseases, and future directions of free radicals in gerontology. The effects of exercise on free radicals and the aging process are discussed as well. Free Radicals in Aging is an excellent reference for gerontologists, pathologists, and other researchers interested in this increasingly important topic.
Book Description
Inflammation is the local response of a complex organism to an injury that serves as a mechanism initiating the elimination of noxious agents and of damaged tissues. It is now well understood that damaging mechanisms at the basis of very common human pathologies, such as atherosclerosis, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer, i.e. the most common human pathologies are driven by the inflammatory process. Free radicals, and the very special free radical nitric oxide, are playing a relevant role in the pathogenesis of inflammation. The initial chapters introduce to the general knowledge necessary to understand the inflammatory process and the role played by free radical and oxidative stress. The interplay between inflammatory molecules and cell signaling is also dealt with in depth. A second part is dedicated to nitric oxide, redox regulation and antioxidant function in inflammation. The final chapters are devoted to diseases where inflammation plays the dominant role: septic shock, end-stage renal disease, neurodegenerative, ischemic and lung diseases. This book, while not covering the whole gamut of the massive literature on inflammation and human diseases, gives an updated and concise view on the major issues concerning the pivotal role of inflammation in so many different human pathologies. At the same time it gives directions for future paths of research leading to a control of the pathologic process.
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General Aspects of the Chemistry of Radicals
Manufacturer: Wiley
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General Aspects of the Chemistry of Radicals Edited by Z. B. Alfassi Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel Free radicals are used as reactive intermediates in a wide range of organic syntheses as well as playing an important role in biological systems and industrial processes. Free radical chemistry is a rapidly developing area, with applications not only in chemistry but also in processes related to the environment, biology, drug research and medicine. General Aspects of the Chemistry of Radicals is an introductory book, discussing methods of formation and detection of free radicals, the rate of their reactions and their thermochemistry. The book closely examines the reactivity of free radical reactions, rate constants and temperature dependence, important in predicting the behaviour of yet unstudied systems and validating reaction mechanisms. General Aspects of the Chemistry of Radicals is written for researchers working in environmental and material sciences, organic, inorganic and physical organic chemistry. It will also be of interest to biochemists and molecular biologists working with the effects of free radicals on living systems.
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Uniquely important to our times, How to maintain your health.......1999-04-17
This book is worth six books! It tells you the crucial facts on how to maintain and enhance your health within the context of our increasingly polluted Earth. This bookis NOT "Thin Thighs in THirty Days". It is nitty gritty. Medical research tells usthat all degenerative disease states are related to EXCESS free radical production. How to counter this is the KEY to survival. And what causes these excess free radicals? The soup of toxins we are nowrom pesticides in your food to radioactivity in your air. Finally, to be trulyh healthy we MUST have a healthy Earth, and this book also makes this point clear. And this is the point most authors do not want to touch. Here you get the bare truth. Forthose who care and those who are willing to make an effort. sarasara
Uniquely important to our times, How to maintain your health.......1999-04-17
This book is worth six books! It tells you the crucial facts on how to maintain and enhance your health within the context of our increasingly polluted Earth. This bookis NOT "Thin Thighs in THirty Days". It is nitty gritty. Medical research tells usthat all degenerative disease states are related to EXCESS free radical production. How to counter this is the KEY to survival. And what causes these excess free radicals? The soup of toxins we are nowrom pesticides in your food to radioactivity in your air. Finally, to be trulyh healthy we MUST have a healthy Earth, and this book also makes this point clear. And this is the point most authors do not want to touch. Here you get the bare truth. Forthose who care and those who are willing to make an effort. sarasara
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Humic Substances: Structural, Photophysical, Photochemical and Free Radical Aspects and Interactions with Environmental Chemicals (Current Topics in Environmental and Toxicological Chemistry)
G. G. Choudhry
Manufacturer: Routledge
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The Membrane Hypothesis of Aging
Imre Zs.-Nagy
Manufacturer: CRC
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The Membrane Hypothesis of Aging offers the most comprehensive, multidisciplinary description of the cell maturation and aging process. The membrane hypothesis of aging (MHA) described in this book is based on the actual multidisciplinary knowledge of cell morphology, physiology, and biochemistry. The solid basis of known facts explains the destructive, progressive, intrinsic, and universal character of the aging process. The book interprets other aging theories, including free radical theory of aging, dysdifferentiation hypothesis of aging and cancer, and the accumulation theories. It presents important issues for future research. The book also outlines the possibilities of an efficient, preventive, anti-aging drug design, and presents the first promising results of such research activity.
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Lecture Outlines and Study Guide for Human Heredity and Society
Michael L. Foster
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill College
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- Everybody's havin' them dreams
- A violin in a void
- Not up to the standard that Nabokov set for himself later on
- Off with his head!
- A real crowd pleaser!
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Invitation to a Beheading
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Vintage
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Despair
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The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
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Lolita
ASIN: 0679725318
Release Date: 1989-09-19 |
Book Description
Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude." an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers. an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws. who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills his executioners out of existence: they disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.
Customer Reviews:
Everybody's havin' them dreams.......2007-08-24
I only came to know of this early Nabokov novel by reading the wonderful "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (highly recommended), a study of the relevance of literature in the personal quest for freedom from the crushing weight of oppression. Certainly the protagonist of "Invitation to a Beheading," Cincinnatus C., is a relevant case in point, given that he has been sentenced to death for an obscure crime (gnostical turpitude)and is constantly under the manipulatory pressures of absurd agents of the state. In this he is not at all unlike Nafisi and all the other victims of Khomeini's revolutionary guards who interpret the crimes as they go along. Others may find some parallels in modern America.
Many have compared this Nabokov (written in 1935) to Franz Kafka, but the wellspring is really more deeply rooted in the existential guilt that plagues the modern psyche. In earlier times, all shared in the social code of justice and understood the right and wrong, whether or not they agreed with it; but in the 20th century, there emerged a certain arbitrainess of authority that made potential criminals of all somewhere inside their minds. I think of the French author Celine in this context, as well as an unpublished novel of my own written almost 40 years ago.
So it is easy to see how Nafisi could apply the parallels to her situation in Tehran, forced to veil, forced to accept, unable to flee, to the situation of Cincinnatus C. I think that anyone who has lived an even mildly contemplative life can feel the constriction that such or any arbitrary authority causes.
But what I really want to say about "Invitation to a Beheading" is a bit more personal in nature. Have you ever awoken from a complex dream and thought, "I wish I could write this down, it's really a good story"? No one I have ever read, including Joyce, has done as well at capturing a dream state as Nabokov does in the early pages of "Invitation." And, as if to prove it is not a fluke or a lucky break, he comes back to it again and again, right up until the powerful closing scene.
"Invitation to a Beheading" is a powerful dream that too many of us have had, deep in our own gnostical turpitude. It is almost miraculous that one could capture it so well, especially one such as Nabokov whom we know for his open-eyed precision in the later works. But miraculous or not, our heightened ability to relate to it does not say good things about where we have come in the early days of the 21st century.
A violin in a void.......2007-07-08
Invitation to a Beheading is a short novel written during Nabokov's prolific Berlin phase in his late 20s and 30s, (if you have only read Nabokov's more famous later works, written in English, such as Lolita, Ada and Pale Fire then I urge you to pick up his emigre period novels, all of them available in translation). It is not one of his greatest works, but it is a compelling tale of the last 19 days of Cincinattus, a mild mannered non conformist who is imprisoned in bizzarre and surreal circumstances (his crime: gnostical turpitude) and spends his final days leading up to his execution, the date of which he is not told despite his repeated exhortions to his jailers.
The story is a touching piece of dystopian literature (a genre I confess to not being overly familiar with, I have read The Trial by Kafka, but not 1984 by Orwell - a shocking solecism I know, I vow to rectify it soon). Cincinattus is tormented by his captors who eat his food, use his cell as an office and play games which Cincinattus has to muster all of his remaning dignity to avoid falling into. The most tender scenes are those where he writes - a doomed literature, much like the censored writers struggling under Stalinism, who knows his work will never be read. He writes, to preserve something of himself, to avoid his essence vanishing alltogether: 'I am trembling over the paper, chewing the pencil through to the lead, hunching over to conceal myself from the door through which a piercing eye stings me in the nape.'
Those little stylistic bursts of pure writing talent are the main reason I read Nabokov. For me he is the greatest stylist of 20th Century Literature. Only Nabokov could produce a sentence like the following, the final sentence of chapter 7, when Cincinattus's reading has been interrupted by the bullying guards, who have snatched a vase of peonies, splashing water: 'Cincinnatus kept staring into the book. A drop had fallen onto the page. Through the drop several letters turned from brevier to pica, having swollen as if a reading glass were lying over them.'
Joyce, Updike et all, would kill to be able to write prose that beautiful.
Not up to the standard that Nabokov set for himself later on.......2007-06-23
"Invitation" gives you a glimpse at the ghosts of Nabokov future. It shows off his love of little turns of phrase; eventually his style became more abstract, and the words themselves -- rather than the images they represented -- the center of attention. It also contains the barest outlines of his future cynicism toward reviewers, other writers, and even his reader. (Indeed, I'm never sure whether he likes anyone. I suspect he's the perfect misanthrope.)
This book, though, is not nearly as captivating as his later works. It only inspires me to go to the opposite end of his career and read "Ada, or Ardor." Those who've not experienced Nabokov would do well to read "Lolita," which despite its fame as some kind of highbrow erotica is not even vaguely so; indeed, the Vintage edition comes with Nabokov's (as always, astringent) response to those who think it pornographic. You could also try his autobiography "Speak, Memory," but it's always felt like Nabokov's flights of imagery were getting too self-satisfied in that book: yes, Nabokov, we know you're a stylist; now say something.
After "Lolita," I'd recommend "Pale Fire." It's Nabokov as his best and worst: stylistic fun, a maddeningly elusive story, and the sense that you're the victim of a very long joke.
As with all the Nabokov I've read, "Invitation to a Beheading" is worth reading. It's just that some of his books are more worth reading than others. In a life with finite time, I don't think one has time for "Invitation to a Beheading."
Off with his head!.......2007-04-08
Often compared to "The Trial" and "The Castle", "Invitation to a Beheading" was written, according to Nabokov in the introduction to this edition, *before* he ever read Kafka. One can believe that or not; either way, Nabokov's book is much more surreal and slapstick than anything Kafka wrote. It is, however, a quintessentially Kafkanaian situation that we find the protagonist Cincinnatus C. facing as the novel opens. He's been sentenced to die; he's not sure why, but it seems it has something to do with his refusal--or constitutional inability--to make a show of enjoying the absurdities and inanities of the world around him. This rejection of conformity, of the communal bond, it seems, has caused society to condemn him for what is the greatest crime on can commit against the group: individuality.
Society demands complicity in its upholding of the consensual reality no matter how insane--and Cincinnatus C. won't endorse the insanity and thus he is a threat to reality itself, a destabilizing force.
I really enjoyed the first fifty pages or so of "Invitation," but one pretty much gets the idea after fifty pages and the routines and jokes wear stale. I found the book hard to finish, primarily, I think, for this very reason. But persevere I did. One thing that didn't help is that whoever the knuckleheads are over at Vintage who wrote the copy on this edition actually gave away the entire story, including the ending, right on the back cover! I mean, this isn't "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Christmas Carol" that we're talking about--we don't all know how it comes out in the end. Come on guys, use your heads.
Anyway, the back end of *Invitation to a Beheading* does have some rewarding moments, and Nabokov's prose is impeccable as always, his observations sharp, and his wit often laugh-out-loud funny. To give the book three stars, as I do, is simply to say that compared to Nabokov's best, it falls somewhere in the middle of the scale. An early work, perhaps not essential reading, but of continued interest nonetheless...even when you do know how it turns out in the end.
A real crowd pleaser!.......2007-03-05
Take a deep breath and think of this: you are on Death Row, in the final weeks of your life. It is a harrowing thought. Whenever I donate blood, I always think of what it must be like to be a condemned person strapped to a gurney as a medical professional administers one last lethal "stick."
The present book is an examination of the final weeks of a man who is ostensibly convicted of murder. Strangely enough, the crime itself is not discussed @ length. We are given access to his thoughts, his fears and the dread of his upcoming execution.
Along the way, we are introduced to a variety of extremely eccentric characters. Some are such buffoons as to make the book almost a comedy - in a morose sort of way. The persona is alone in more ways than one as the jailers, prison administrators and even his wife & family seem to have little else but apathy for his plight.
One of the puzzling things about the book is its locale and epoch of time. It obviously takes place in the 20th century as there are electric lights & cameras alluded to. However, we're not told what country. The main character has an Italian name (Cincinnatus) but there are also French & Russian names. The country is never named.
Most anachronistic is the method of execution: Cincinnatus is to be beheaded via an executioner with an ax. Perhaps the guioltinne is still used in some remote places in the world, but I've not heard of people being executed in this manner in civilized countries since the middle ages.
In any case, this is a worthwhile book for persons who have an infatuation with Death Row life & Death Row themes. Just one note: I would recommend that anyone interested in this book NOT read the back cover. Thankfully, I did not do so until after I had finished. I don't like to have the whole story "given away" and there is an interesting plot twist that is far better to be encountered while reading the novel rather than during the perusal of the back cover.
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Nabokov's "Invitation to a Beheading": A Critical Companion (AATSEEL)
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 081011271X |
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Invitation To A Beheading
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Weidenfeld And Nicolson
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Binding: Hardcover
Nabokov, Vladimir
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ASIN: 0297167472 |
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Invitation to a Beheading
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Putnam
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ASIN: B000NQKEFW |
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Invitation to a Beheading
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Crest Book
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ASIN: B000MTUPY0 |
Product Description
This page was created by "Russian-Books".
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INVITATION TO A BEHEADING
Vladimir Nabokov
Manufacturer: Putnam's
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Nabokov, Vladimir
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ASIN: B000J5Q0N2 |
Average customer rating:
- After the first few chapters, throw it away...
- The River Why, by David James Duncan
- David James Duncan: a unique writer and excellent human being.
- Good, but a bit uneven
- Life Defining, Life Changing
|
The River Why, Twentieth-Anniversary Edition
David James Duncan
Manufacturer: Sierra Club Books
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A River Runs through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
ASIN: 1578050847 |
Amazon.com
David James Duncan's first novel has gained an increasingly wide audience over the years--some might even call it a following. This coming-of-age tale of Gus Orviston's search for the Pacific Northwest's elusive steelhead, a metaphor for Gus's internal quest for self-knowledge, appeals to all who cherish a good yarn and memorable characters. Uncle Zeke's colorful rendition of Gus's conception on the banks of the Deschutes River is itself worth the price of purchase.
Book Description
Since its publication by Sierra Club Books nearly two decades ago, The River Why has become a classic, standing with Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It as the most-read fiction about fly-fishing of our era. Duncan's protagonist, Gus Orviston, is an irreverent young flyfisherman--a vibrant character who makes us laugh easily and feel deeply, and who speaks with startling truth about the way we live.
Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus embarks on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery along his beloved Oregon rivers. What he unexpectedly finds is man's wanton destruction of nature and a burning desire to commit himself to its preservation.
The River Why is a tale that gives a contemporary voice to the concerns and hopes of all living things on this beautiful, watery planet. It is the story of one man's search for meaning, for love, and for a sane way to live.
Customer Reviews:
After the first few chapters, throw it away..........2007-06-20
Even though I hate fishing and have maybe done it once, the first few chapters of this book are humorous and interesting, in particular Bill Bob, Gus' younger brother. Unfortunately, Bill Bob's role is small to almost nonexistent as the book goes on and the author makes him say some pretty idiotic pseudo-philosophical/religious ramblings, such as a long discussion with Gus about how shadows are our guardians.
The book is largely predictable from the beginning until the end and it's almost like a bunch of authors get together to provide the same theme. The overall structure of the book is Gus starts to question life, including death, ultimate meaning, his meaning, and other philosophy 101 questions. And, of course, Gus ends up finding his meaning in the eyes of some backwoods hippie chick and has a religious experience (if you can call it that) while walking home from a long, incredibly drawn out trip down a river following a fish in his line.
I'm sure many people will see this book as being "deep" or "an interesting discussion of blah blah blah", but if you've even remotely dipped your foot in philosophy this book is hardly enlightening. I pushed through the book simply because I got past the half way point, then promptly threw it in the trash when I was done.
The River Why, by David James Duncan.......2007-01-18
Duncan delivers a heart warmingstory about family and love and even a little about fishing. While set in Oregon, near Portland and the coast, I believe that this "why" river might actually be in Northern California. You be the judge. His writing style is imaginative and fluid. I would reccomend this book to anyone who can read.
David James Duncan: a unique writer and excellent human being........2006-11-05
Dear reader of reviewers,
I am completely in awe of Mr. Duncan's writing. He writes as though he's lived 7 lives and had 14 different siblings, and 3 or 4 unique sets of parents. He transcends many writing barriers...his lines of words often have uniquely heightened states of dream-like consciousness. All lines and passages, stories and musings, conversations and descriptions, are very very alive. The lines of the River Why have a fascinating youthfulness. It is an excellent book.
The freshmen honor students at UM Missoula were supposed to read The Brother's K the summer before arriving in Fall 2002. But, for me, it was MUCH too thick for the time allotted. (I eventually finished that novel, and appreciate it very much, and reccomend it every time the word "book" comes up in conversation.) But, being a trout nut fly fisherman, I decided to tackle the relatively thinner "River." A good choice it was.
I have found myself, like the adolescent, going back again and again to the fishing scene where Gus meets his match. I actually get a rush from reading that part...when she jumps from the tree, my palms sweat. The dream sections with Bill Bob are amazing, like peering into the eyes of a glowing extraterrestrial cat. I wish William James could have read Duncan.
If baseball afficionados tend to love the Brother's K, fishermen will surely love this book. Indeed, I rate "River" as a valuble fishing book that can whack a fly fisherperson out of the intermediate rut and into creative angling. I would bet that Duncan is a supurb fisherman himself.
He is also a superb human being, even though he wriggled his way free when I asked him to go fishing with me, saying something like, "Well, we all have our favorite spots [to fish], and I'm sure you do too." Wanting to do far more than simply protect his fishing spots, he has a tremendous heart for the land and her rivers and forests and inhabitants, especially birds and trout. I feel very honored to have met him and read a few of his works. The River Why is my favorite novel, and I've read it and referred to it multiple times.
With continued thoughfulness and honing of leadership, Duncan could make a great fisher of men, for he holds the capacity to whack people's minds out of many ruts and into ones of positive personal and social change. He is rather disturbed by wars and habitat destruction and would very much like to see them altogether stop.
Bravo, David James, for providing us with your writings. The earth is very lucky to have you. I look forward to reading more of your works, especially the ones about water.
With Enthusiasm,
Clark Rector
Good, but a bit uneven.......2006-05-06
Although it took me a while to decide if I should keep reading, by the end of THE RIVER WHY I was glad I did. Duncan basically makes the argument that a life worth living arises from building loving connections with the people around us, and from loving God and respecting nature. I enjoyed the subject matter and in many ways identified with the narrator's way of experiencing the world, so ultimately I enjoyed the book.
But with that said, here's a little warning: In the acknowledgments Duncan writes that, without his editor, the book "would at times perchance exhibit a not unperverse and not unmaddening which is to say not unstupid verbosity not unlike this here." Unfortunately, I can hardly tell the difference between this self-deprecating example of bad writing and a number of equally indulgent passages in the book as published. The dialogue can be unconvincing in parts, the narrative gets bogged down at times, and while the book has some great moments, the execution can be a bit uneven.
Life Defining, Life Changing.......2006-03-07
I tend not to read philosphy. I suppose I don't trust others to define how I should think about life or God or death. Nor do I tend to read the writings of mystics and prophets, including the Holy Bible. I have little patience with priests and ministers and their rantings and their judgements.
This book, however, with all of its humor and anguish and conflict, has served for me as a philosophical treatise of the greatest depth of understanding and beauty. It looks at life in a totally unique manner - through the eyes of a fanatical fly fisherman - who learns that there is more to life than fishing.
As a fly fisherman myself, though perhaps not so fanatical, I fished right along side of Gus - wading his creeks and rivers in the cold, dawn mist or the still of evening with the Oregon chill and damp as our third companion. I suffered along with him as he found his way in the wilderness of the headlands rising up from the Oregon coast.
You don't have to be a fisherman to enjoy this book or to absorb its messages. You will laugh out loud, you will shed some tears and you will think a great deal about life and love and death.
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- Applications of Numerical Methods in Molecular Spectroscopy (Chemometrics)
- Asbestos Toxicity
- Biologically Active Natural Products: Pharmaceuticals
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- Candid Science III: More Converstations With Famous Chemists
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- Chemical Topology: Introduction and Fundamentals (Mathematical Chemistry, Volume 5)
- Chemistry of the Solid-Water Interface: Processes at the Mineral-Water and Particle-Water Interface in Natural Systems
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