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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics
The issues surrounding Darwin's theory of evolution as a function of the survival of the fittest have hardly abated since they were initially promulgated about 150 ago. The reason is clear: behind the theory of evolution is a doctrine of the structure of organisms that can be explained only by fitting the adaptation to the external world. The older doctrines of creation have been at odds with evolutionism from the outset--sometimes utilizing straight theological arguments and at other times employing sophisticated scientific arguments. Into the breach steps Friedrich S. Rothschild, a trained neurologist, psychologist and physician. On the basis of his research in comparative embryology, Rothschild argues that the central nervous system of animals as well as humans conveys meaning just like language, and is not just a system aimed at adaptation to the external environment. His theory of biosemiotics introduces the concept of inner adaptation. This adaptation to the principal forces assigns meaning to life. In monotheistic religions this force is called God. The issue of adaptation is therefore both external and internal, related to the growth of the person no less than it is to the environment. This book is intended for those who are interested in life and its varied meanings, to students of sociobiology and medicine as well as those concerned with humanities. " Friedrich S. Rothschild" graduated from medical school in 1923, went on to specialize in psychiatry, studying under Erich Fromm and Kurt Goldstein. In 1936 he emigrated from Germany to Palestine. After the establishment of the State of Israel, he served as professor of psychiatry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of "Symbolism of Brain Structure; The Ego and the Regulation of the Perception Process; "and "The Central Nervous System as Symbolic Perception. "
Technology and animals often serve as the boundaries by which we define the human. In this issue contributors explore these categories as necessary supplements or as porous membranes which disturb the scaffolding of how the human is constructed. A lingering question throughout is whether we have ever been human or if such a category is a non-localizable ideal or perhaps a misnomer. In this collection of essays, internationally known theorists muddle the categorical boundaries such that animals and technologies become necessary components rather than limits for what it means to be human. They examine a range of subjects, including apophatic animality, critical media objects-to-think-with, biosemiotic insect resonances, the monstrous and horrific which dislodges our cultural animals, and the problem of thinking of animality as stupidity. Novels, films, digital objects, scientific laboratories, philosophical texts, animals on the road and in the fields serve as sites for inquiry. The result of these investigations is the spectral possibility that we are not the humans we make ourselves out to be. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.
Chronic diseases-cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes-are not only the principal cause of world-wide mortality but also are now responsible for a striking increase in the percentage of sickness in developing countries still grappling with the acute problems of infectious diseases. This "double disease burden" poses demanding questions concerning the organisation of health care, allocation of scarce resources and strategies for disease prevention, control and treatment; and it threatens not only improvement in health status but economic development in the many poorer countries of the Asia Pacific region. This book presents an historical account of the development of the double disease burden in Asia and the Pacific, a region which has experienced great economic, social, demographic and political change. With in-depth analysis of more than fifteen countries, this volume examines the impact of the double disease burden on health care regimes, resource allocation, strategies for prevention and control on the wealthiest nations in the region, as well as the smallest Pacific islands. In doing so, the contributors to this book elaborate on the notion of the double disease burden as discussed by epidemiologists, and present real policy responses, whilst demonstrating how vital health is to economic development. Health Transitions and the Double Disease Burden in Asia and the Pacific will be of great value to both scholars and policy makers in the fields of public health, the history of medicine, as well as to those with a wider interest in the Asia-Pacific region.
From a biomedical engineering perspective, this book takes an analytic, quantitative approach to describing the basic components of physiological regulators and control systems (PRCs). In Endogenous and Exogenous Regulation and Control of Physiological Systems, the author provides grounding in the classical methods of designing linear and nonlinear systems. He also offers state-of-the-art material on the potential of PRCs to treat immune system ailments, most notably AIDS and cancer.
This is an analysis of the nature and impact of the Indian presence in Britain, and British reactions to it. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the number of Indians arriving in Britain, to gain qualifications and learn about British society, began to grow. The greater visibility of Indians at the Inns of Court and universities fuelled British fears, arising out of popular culture and the political situation in India, about the damaging effects of students' residence in Britain. The British authorities took measures to restrict the size of the Indian student population and control political activities, placing themselves in direct conflict with the students. Indians resented this encroachment of the state into their lives, which were already beset by problems of racial discrimination, isolation, and, in some cases, deprivation. Many students turned to politics, and this study shows how indigenous elites from dependent colonies, in this case India, were able to appropriate ideas and institutions, to challenge, subvert - and sometimes prove their affinity with - British metropolitan society.
This is an analysis of the nature and impact of the Indian presence in Britain, and British reactions to it. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the number of Indians arriving in Britain, to gain qualifications and learn about British society, began to grow. The greater visibility of Indians at the Inns of Court and universities fuelled British fears, arising out of popular culture and the political situation in India, about the damaging effects of students' residence in Britain. The British authorities took measures to restrict the size of the Indian student population and control political activities, placing themselves in direct conflict with the students. Indians resented this encroachment of the state into their lives, which were already beset by problems of racial discrimination, isolation, and, in some cases, deprivation. Many students turned to politics, and this study shows how indigenous elites from dependent colonies, in this case India, were able to appropriate ideas and institutions, to challenge, subvert - and sometimes prove their affinity with - British metropolitan society.
Understanding one's health conditions plays a key role in a
patient's response to illness, influencing stress levels and the
likelihood of following treatment regimens and advice. Thus, the
explanation of illness is a critical component of the interactions
between health care providers and their patients. Emphasizing these
exchanges and their potential for improving health and well being,
Bryan B. Whaley has assembled this collection to serve both as a
foundation for further research on explaining illness and as a
resource for provider-patient interaction.
White Identities provides a comprehensive overview of this debate, drawing together the various strands of recent research into an accessible but challenging introduction. The author argues that 'White Studies', as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflecting American interpretations of race and history. However the book shows that the impact of white identities is international in scope and significance. Thus, only a thorough historical and international perspective on whiteness can provide a proper introduction to the subject, an introduction that has relevance to students worldwide.
This work contributes to a better understanding of the growing subnational involvement in foreign affairs. It offers a general view of the most prominent aspects in the development of subnational foreign action around the world, dealing with topics such as the repercussions upon subnational autonomy of the progressive constitution of diverse international regimes like the European Union, NAFTA, and APEC, or the complex relation between the growing subnational foreign action and the contemporary conditions for the formulation and implementation of foreign policy in federal and quasifederal states.
This work contributes to a better understanding of the growing subnational involvement in foreign affairs. It offers a general view of the most prominent aspects in the development of subnational foreign action around the world, dealing with topics such as the repercussions upon subnational autonomy of the progressive constitution of diverse international regimes like the European Union, NAFTA, and APEC, or the complex relation between the growing subnational foreign action and the contemporary conditions for the formulation and implementation of foreign policy in federal and quasifederal states.
This book questions the value of the concept of 'agency', a term used in sociological and philosophical literature to refer to individual free will in archaeology. On the one hand it has been argued that previous generations of archaeologists, in explaining social change in terms of structural or environmental conditions, have lost sight of the 'real people' and reduced them to passive cultural pawns, on the other, introducing the concept of agency to counteract this can be said to perpetuate a modern, Western view of the autonomous individual who is free from social constraints. This book discusses the balance between these two opposites, using a range of archaeological and historical case studies, including European and Asian prehistory, classical Greece and Rome, the Inka and other Andean cultures. While focusing on the relevance of 'agency' theory to archaeological interpretation and using it to create more diverse and open-ended accounts of ancient cultures, the authors also address the contemporary political and ethical implications of what is essentially a debate about the definition of human nature.
"Though America had been rightfully portrayed as born of democratic principles, to no less an extent was it born of undemocratic ones. America is thus a living contradiction of many dimensions -- historical, sociological, and psychological -- that have manifested themselves at every level of society -- individual, communal, and natural". So writes Philip Perlmutter, whose Legacy of Hate explores this "living contradiction" by tracing the development of American minority group relations, beginning with the arrival of white Europeans and moving through the eighteenth and industrially expanding nineteenth centuries; the explosion of immigration and its attendant problems in the twentieth century; and a final chapter exploring how prejudice (racial, religious, and ethnic) has been institutionalized in the educational systems and laws. Throughout this provocative book, Perlmutter focuses on where and why various groups encountered prejudice and discrimination and how their experiences have shaped the society we live in and how we think about one another.
Developed as a question-and-answer field research report into the status of Buraku people in Japan today, this text also looks at the wider issues of prejudice as found within Japanese society, from old people to women, ethnicity and nationality.
When the golfer Tiger Woods proclaimed himself a "Caublinasian," affirming his mixed Caucasian, Black, Native American and Asian ancestry, a storm of controversy was created in a world still perceived in terms of "black" and "white." This book is about ordinary lives facing similar dilemmas of racial identity, of belonging and not belonging. It tells the stories of six women of mixed African/ African Caribbean and white European heritage to show how the often painful experience of being a stranger in two cultures can be named and celebrated. Jayne Ifekwunigwe explores the cultural and historical roots of the popular discourses of race. She analyzes the problem of theorizing mixed racial and/or cultural identity in a global context, always relating it to the real-life experiences of these women.
The rapid growth of the study of apoptosis-mechanism-driven, regulated cell death-has created an urgent need for reliable documentation of t he different approaches to and methods of studying the various aspects of the field. Apoptosis in Neurobiology is an important resource for researchers in this emerging frontier of biomedical study. This volume allows the uninitiated neuroscientist intellectual and practical acce ss to the study of apoptosis, with special consideration to the nervou s system. The first section concentrates on conceptual approaches to t he study of apoptosis in neurobiology and its significance to the nerv ous system. The second section provides a user-friendly approach to me thods and techniques in the study of apoptosis as applied to neurobiol ogy.
Racist Violence and the State is the first serious study to apply a comparative research-based approach to the study of racist violence in Britain, France and The Netherlands since 1945. Setting racist violence within a historical background of the post-imperialist legacy, the author presents an accessible, fascinating and highly original analysis of the development of public and state attitudes to racist violence over the past 50 years.
Acts of public defiance towards biomedical public health policies have occurred throughout modern history, from resistance to early smallpox vaccines in 19th-century Britain and America to more recent intransigence to efforts to contain the Ebola outbreak in Central and West Africa. Thinking through Resistance examines a diverse range of case studies of opposition to biomedical public health policies - from resistance to HPV vaccinations in Texas to disputes over HIV prevention research in Malawi - to assess the root causes of opposition. It is argued that far from being based on ignorance, resistance instead serves as a form of advocacy, calling for improvements in basic health-care delivery alongside expanded access to infrastructure and basic social services. Building on this argument, the authors set out an alternative to the current technocratic approach to global public health, extending beyond greater distribution of medical technologies to build on the perspectives of a political economy of health. With contributions from medical anthropologists, sociologists, and public health experts, Thinking through Resistance makes important reading for researchers, students, and practitioners in the fields of public health, medical anthropology, and public policy. |
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