Monte Carlo methods are among the most used and useful computational tools available today, providing efficient and practical algorithims to solve a... wide range of scientific and engineering problems. Applications covered in this book include optimization, finance, statistical mechanics, birth and death processes, and gambling systems. Explorations in Monte Carlo Methods provides a hands-on approach to learning this subject. Each new idea is carefully motivated by a realistic problem, thus leading from questions to theory via examples and numerical simulations. Programming exercises are integrated throughout the text as the primary vehicle for learning the material. Each chapter ends with a large collection of problems illustrating and directing the material. This book is suitable as a textbook for students of engineering and the sciences, as well as mathematics.

The origins of the Ottomans, whose enterprise ruled much of the Near East for more than half a millennium, have long tantalized and eluded scholars,... many of whom have thrown up their hands in exasperation. While the later fourteenth- and fifteenth-century history of the Ottomans has become better known, the earlier years have proved an alluring and recalcitrant puzzle. A reconsideration of the sources and a canvass of new ones has long been overdue. Rudi Paul Lindner’s Explorations in Ottoman Prehistory is the first book in over sixty years to reassess the overture to Ottoman history.In addition to conducting a critical examination of the Ottoman chronicles and the Byzantine annals, Lindner develops hitherto unutilized geographic data and previously unknown numismatic evidence and also draws on travelers’ descriptions of the Anatolian landscape in an earlier epoch. By investigating who the Ottomans were, where they came from, and where they settled and why, as well as what sort of relationships they had with their neighbors in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Lindner makes an engaging and lucid contribution to an otherwise very small store of knowledge of Ottoman history in the early stages of the empire.Rudi Paul Lindner is Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia, part of Indiana University’s Uralic and Altaic Series.

What is this thing called planning? What is its domain? What do planners do? How do they talk? What are the limits and possibilities for planning... imposed by power, politics, knowledge, technology, interpretation, ethics, and institutional design? In this comprehensive volume, the foremost voices in planning explore the foundational ideas and issues of the profession. Explorations in Planning Theory is an extended inquiry into the practice of the profession. As such, it is a landmark text that defines the field for today’s planners and the next generation. As Seymour J. Mandelbaum notes in the introduction, "the shared framework of these essays captures a pervasive interest in the behavior, values, character, and experience of professional planners at work." All of the chapters in this volume are written to address arguments that are important in the community of planning theoreticians and are crafted in the language of that community. While many of the contributors included here differ in their styles, the editors note that students, experienced practitioners, and scholars of city and regional planning will find this work illuminating and helpful in their research.

Arny's "Explorations: An Introduction to Astronomy, 6th Edition", is built on the foundation of its well known writing style, accuracy, and emphasis on... current information. This new edition continues to offer the most complete technology/new media support package available. That technology/new media package includes: Interactives, Animations, and introducing Connect - online homework and course management.

Arny: Explorations-An Introduction to Astronomy, 6th edition, is built on the foundation of its well known writing style, accuracy, and emphasis on... current information. This new edition continues to offer the most complete technology/new media support package available. That technology/new media package includes: Interactives, Animations, and introducing Connect - online homework and course management.

Explorations in Typography: Mastering the Art of Fine Typesetting (A Visual Textbook for Intermediate to Advanced Typography) is a vast collection of... beautiful typesetting examples. Page after page, a brief article by Erik Spiekermann has been set in hundreds of ways in hundreds of typefaces, creating an extended visual taxonomy of typesetting that allows you to learn by looking. Beautifully printed and bound, with complete type specifications on every page and examples set in hundreds of faces (many from the FontFont library), the book is a valuable and extensive resource of typesetting ideas. Explorations in Typography along with its companion website and iPad/iPhone app is sure to be instructive and inspirational to students and professionals alike.

EXPLORATIONS combines engaging literary readings at the intermediate level with a step-by step approach to reading development. Through a progressive... and systematic application of reading strategies, students become more sophisticated readers and interpreters of the written text.

EXPLORATIONS combines engaging literary readings at the intermediate level with a step-by step approach to reading development. Through a progressive... and systematic application of reading strategies, students become more sophisticated readers and interpreters of the written text.

The text takes all of the features that have made Arny Explorations a top-selling textbook and applies them under a stars-first approach. This new... edition continues to offer the most complete technology/new media support package available. That technology/new media package includes: 6 NEW Interactives; PowerWeb (web-based research and interactive quizzing - very current); Online Learning Center (that allows instructors to take their course to the web if they choose); and a new CD-ROM that offers new and different text material/animations/links to even further enhance student comprehension.

In Chicago, there is a long history of celebrating architecture as a building art—not merely a graphic one—where lofty rhetoric takes a back seat to... clear-headed pragmatism. John Ronan is a leading figure of a new generation of architects that are not only steeped in the grounded, rigorous, and self-critical Chicago tradition, but are also focused on design innovation. Ronan's decade-old practice has garnered critical praise and awards inrecognition of its subtle integration of sustainable technology, spatial composition, and material detail. His beautifully simple spaces convey a recurring theme of adaptability and flexibility across multiple functions that, when activated by a specific use, do not deter from a holistic architectural intent. Explorations features twelve projects ranging in scale from private residences and adaptive renovations to large public buildings.John Ronan Architects' award-winning Gary Comer Youth Center was designed specifically to support the activities of Chicago's South Shore Drill Team; however, during the design process, the function of the space continued to evolve along with the client's goals, resulting in an architectural program that grew from a simple gym into a multifunctional space supporting a range of community and educational services. Explorations also features fully documented design processes for the recently completed Poetry Foundation in Chicago; the transformation of Washington, D.C.'s historic Yale Steam Laundry building into condominiums; the Urban Model High School, a new prototype school developed for the Public Building Commission of Chicago; and Precast Chapel, an economical concrete chapel for promoting interfaith dialogue and religious understanding. Explorations features a foreword by architectect Toshiko Mori; an essay by highly respected Chicago-based architect Brad Lynch; and an interview with John Ronan conducted by architectural historian Robert McAnulty.

This volume presents the important concepts required for implementing two disciplines of factor analysis - exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and... confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with an emphasis on EFA/CFA linkages. Modern extensions of older data analysis methods (e.g., ANOVA, regression, MANOVA, and descriptive discriminant analysis) have brought theory-testing procedures to the analytic forefront. Variations of factor analysis, such as the factoring of people or time, have great potential to inform psychological research. Thompson deftly presents highly technical material in an appealing and accessible manner. The book is unique in that it presents both exploratory and confirmatory methods within the single category of the general linear model (GLM). Canons of best factor analytic practice are presented and explained. An actual data set, generated by 100 graduate students and 100 faculty from the United States and Canada, is used throughout the book, allowing readers to replicate reported results and explore variations on reported analyses. Different combinations of these variables and participants are used to illustrate EFA and CFA applications. The book also includes a glossary, a notation summary, and various SPSS syntax files that readers may use to implement elegant factor analytic solutions. Instructors or students who seek a clear and concise text about factor analysis will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

The approach in this introductory book is that of informal study of the data. Methods range from plotting picture-drawing techniques to rather... elaborate numerical summaries. Several of the methods are the original creations of the author, and all can be carried out either with pencil or aided by hand-held calculator.

Contains supplementary exercises and projects designed to facilitate students' understanding of the fundamental concepts in real analysis, a subject... notoriously hard for beginners. The exercises can be used in a number of ways: to motivate a lecture; to serve as a basis for in-class activities; in lab sessions where students work in small groups and submit reports of their investigations. For the last of these, programs in Maple are supplied with further ancillary material available via from http://www.saintmarys.edu/~jsnow/maplets.html.