Forensic Science: An Anthology familiarizes readers with the methods and techniques currently employed by forensic scientists to identify and analyze evidence collected from a crime scene and presented at trial. The collection features carefully selected articles that present students with contemporary research and explore the depth and breadth of forensic science. The anthology is divided into 11 chapters. The opening chapter provides students with an historical overview of the development of forensic scientific evidence and the court's rule. Additional chapters examine how to properly identify, collect, transport, and preserve physical evidence, and why physical evidence plays an important role in most criminal court cases. Students read articles that explore trace evidence, drugs, arson investigation, forensic serology, and DNA. Fingerprinting and document examination are covered. The final chapter discusses technology and the future of forensic science. Each chapter provides additional information and challenging discussion questions to advance readers' knowledge and stimulate critical thought. Featuring modern perspectives, Forensic Science is an ideal supplementary resource for courses in criminal justice, criminology, sociology, and forensic psychology.

The book covers in particular state-of-the-art scientific research about product quality control and related health and environmental safety topics, including human, animal and plant safety assurance issues. These conference proceedings provide contemporary information on the general theoretical, metrological and practical issues of the production and application of reference materials. Reference materials play an integral role in physical, chemical and related type of measurements, ensuring their uniformity, comparability and the validity of quantitative analysis as well as, as a result, the objectivity of decisions concerning the elimination of technical barriers in commercial and economic, scientific and technical and other spheres of cooperation. The book is intended for researchers and practitioners in the field of chemistry, metrologists, technical physics, as well as for specialists in analytical laboratories, or working for companies and organizations involved in the production, distribution and use of reference materials.

Natural hazards and anthropic activities threaten the human environment. The gathering of field data is needed so as to quantify the impact of such activities. To gather the necessary data researchers nowadays use a great variety of new instruments based on electronics. Yet, the working principles of this new instrumentation might not be well understood by some potential users. All operators of these new tools must gain proper insight so as to be able to judge whether the instrument is selected appropriately and functions adequately. This book attempts to demonstrate some characteristics that are not easy to understand by the uninitiated in the use of electronic instruments. The material presented in this book was prepared with the purpose of reflecting the technological changes that have occurred in environmental modern instrumentation in the last few decades. The book is intended for students of hydrology, hydraulics, oceanography, meteorology and environmental sciences. Basic concepts of electronics, special physics principles and signal processing are introduced in the first chapters in order to enable the reader to follow the topics developed in the book, without any prior knowledge of these matters. The instruments are explained in detail and several examples are introduced to show their measuring limitations. Enough mathematical fundamentals are given to allow the reader to reach a good quantitative knowledge.

Throughout history, humans have dreamed of knowing the reason for the existence of the universe. In The Mind of God, physicist Paul Davies explores whether modern science can provide the key that will unlock this last secret. In his quest for an ultimate explanation, Davies reexamines the great questions that have preoccupied humankind for millennia, and in the process explores, among other topics, the origin and evolution of the cosmos, the nature of life and consciousness, and the claim that our universe is a kind of gigantic computer. Charting the ways in which the theories of such scientists as Newton, Einstein, and more recently Stephen Hawking and Richard Feynman have altered our conception of the physical universe. Davies puts these scientists' discoveries into context with the writings of philosophers such as Plato. Descartes, Hume, and Kant. His startling conclusion is that the universe is "no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here." By the means of science, we can truly see into the mind of God.

2D Materials contains the latest information on the current frontier of nanotechnology, the thinnest form of materials to ever occur in nature. A little over 10 years ago, this was a completely unknown area, not thought to exist. However, since then, graphene has been isolated and acclaimed, and a whole other class of atomically thin materials, dominated by surface effects and showing completely unexpected and extraordinary properties has been created. This book is ideal for a variety of readers, including those seeking a high-level overview or a very detailed and critical analysis. No nanotechnologist can currently overlook this new class of materials.

The authors provide practical, research-informed, guidelines and detailed lesson plans that improve learning of chemical, physical, biological, and Earth & space sciences. The context for learning is the myriad of exciting opportunities provided by informal science institutions such as zoos, museums, space centers and the outdoors. Many such institutions seek to educate the public and inspire budding scientists. Visits outside school help students relate science to everyday life, providing strong motivation to learn science for all abilities. This book shows the key to making such visits effective, is when they are linked to classroom learning using a learning management system, drawing upon modern students' fascination with digital technologies and mobile devices.

The confocal microscope is appropriate for imaging cells or the measurement of industrial artefacts. However, junior researchers and instrument users sometimes misuse imaging concepts and metrological characteristics, such as position resolution in industrial metrology and scale resolution in bio-imaging. And, metrological characteristics or influence factors in 3D measurement such as height assessment error caused by 3D coupling effect are so far not yet identified. In this book, the authors outline their practices by the working experiences on standardization and system design. This book assumes little previous knowledge of optics, but rich experience in engineering of industrial measurements, in particular with profile metrology or areal surface topography will be very helpful to understand the theoretical concerns and value of the technological advances. It should be useful for graduate students or researchers as extended reading material, as well as microscope users alongside their handbook.

Science Without Numbers caused a stir in philosophy on its original publication in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the ontology of mathematics and science. Hartry Field argues that we can explain the utility of mathematics without assuming it true. Part of the argument is that good mathematics has a special feature ("conservativeness") that allows it to be applied to "nominalistic" claims (roughly, those neutral to the existence of mathematical entities) in a way that generates nominalistic consequences more easily without generating any new ones. Field goes on to argue that we can axiomatize physical theories using nominalistic claims only, and that in fact this has advantages over the usual axiomatizations that are independent of nominalism. There has been much debate about the book since it first appeared. It is now reissued in a revised contains a substantial new preface giving the author's current views on the original book and the issues that were raised in the subsequent discussion of it.

Fact and Fiction explores the intersection between literature and the sciences, focusing on German and British culture between the eighteenth century and today. Observing that it was in the eighteenth century that the divide between science and literature as disciplines first began to be defined, the contributors to this collection probe how authors from that time onwards have assessed and affected the relationship between literary and scientific cultures. Fact and Fiction's twelve essays cover a wide range of scientific disciplines, from physics and chemistry to medicine and anthropology, and a variety of literary texts, such as Erasmus Darwin's poem The Botanic Garden, George Eliot's Daniel Deronda, and Goethe's Elective Affinities. The collection will appeal to scholars of literature and of the history of science, and to those interested in the connections between the two.

The book contains a detailed account of numerical solutions of differential equations of elementary problems of Physics using Euler and 2nd order Runge-Kutta methods and Mathematica 6.0. The problems are motion under constant force (free fall), motion under Hooke's law force (simple harmonic motion), motion under combination of Hooke's law force and a velocity dependent damping force (damped harmonic motion) and radioactive decay law. Also included are uses of Mathematica in dealing with complex numbers, in solving system of linear equations, in carrying out differentiation and integration, and in dealing with matrices.

A new wave of thinkers from across different disciplines within the analytical tradition in philosophy has recently focused on critical, societal challenges, such as the silencing and questioning of the credibility of oppressed groups, the political polarization that threatens the good functioning of democratic societies across the globe, or the moral and political significance of gender, race, or sexual orientation. Appealing to both well-established and younger international scholars, this volume delves into some of the most relevant problems and discussions within the area, bringing together for the first time different essays within what we deem to be a "political turn in analytic philosophy." This political turn consists of putting different conceptual and theoretical tools from epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics at the service of social and political change. The aim is to ensure a better understanding of some of the key features of our social environments in an attempt to achieve a more just and equal society.