Cognitive flexibility is the cornerstone of learning and enables us to cope with a constantly changing environment. By adapting our knowledge and habits in order to respond to new situations, cognitive flexibility plays a fundamental role in learning. This book proposes a study of the fundamental notions of cognitive flexibility: its measurement and development, its links with metacognition and critical thinking and the role of context in its expression, as well as its involvement in discovering solutions, transferring knowledge and processing analogies. Convergent perspectives are also presented in order to paint a clear picture of cognitive flexibility and to discuss the issues at stake. Thanks to the combined views of specialists in cognitive and developmental psychology, Cognitive Flexibility suggests new educational possibilities based on the results of empirical work on the subject.

This volume contains the fruit of three decades of Ronald Clements's researches on prophecy in the Old Testament. In sixteen papers, seven of them not previously published, he broaches several leading questions about the origins of written prophecy in the Old Testament. A major focus is on the impact of the events of 701 BCE on the formation of the Isaiah book as a whole and the rise of Jerusalem as a centre of religious hope. Further studies deal with the role of the Isaiah book in current biblical interpretation and the failure of twentieth-century interpreters to explain its unity. Other subjects concern ideas of divine providence, theodicy, and the links between ancient scribal methods of book formation and canonical authority. Special attention is given to the attempts to retain traditional Christian approaches to a book, the interpretation of which has been greatly transformed by modern critical study.

"The multidisciplinary aesthetics of Walter Pater, the nineteenth century's most provocative critic, are explored by an international team of scholars. True aesthetic criticism takes place working across the arts, Pater insists: acknowledging the differences between media, but seeking possibilities of interconnection"--

Rather than being content with atomistic approaches to a text, recent scholarship has increasingly seen the value of tracing motifs and their variations as they run through biblical books, and even across book boundaries. Williamson takes up the important but inadequately explored messianic theme, tracing its development and variations through the canonical Isaiah. He sets this unifying thematic study against a counterpoint of redactional analysis, which exploits and builds on his previous work in The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah's Role in Composition and Redaction (1994). The current work was composed to serve as the source material for the 1997 Didsbury Lectures at the ^Nazarene Theological College near Manchester, England. In his introductory chapter, Williamson sets the foundation of his theme against the broader backdrop of the king, which moves from the minor tones of the human, Davidic king in the earlier chapters of Isaiah to the major key of the divine king later in the book. He goes against much recent scholarship in holding that the former derive most probably from before the exile. The second variation concerns Immanuel, looking in detail at chapters 6-9. He presents and critiques Buddes' century-old hypothesis that Isaiah 6-8 were an Isaianic Memoir which originally opened the book. Rather than taking the call narratives of other prophets as a comparison, Williamson finds closer parallels between the calls of Isaiah and of Micaiah (1 Kgs 22) and the literary shape of Amos 7-8. He sees the chief interest in the Immanuel figure being in fulfilling the role of righteous rule within the Davidic dynasty, rather than in identifying any specific individual. The third variation, the "Servant" is drawn from Deutero-Isaiah. There the original Davidic relationship with God is transferred to the nation of Israel. She will be God's witness and mediator to the world. As a Christian, Williamson brings up the interpretation that Jesus is the servant according to the NT. He defends his view by stating that "Jesus fulfills, but does not thereby exhaust, the prophecy" (p. 53). The theme of justice and righteousness in association with the servant ties his role to that of the king in the first section.

This critical assessment of the book of Jeremiah enables the reader to rediscover many of the most profound and relevant features of Jeremiah's message and of the agonies and fears of those to whom it was first given. The picture that emerges of the prophet is an intensely moving one, often at variance with the conventional image of earlier popular reconstructions. Having witnessed the loss of most of the treasured and revered religious support of his day, Jeremiah discovered that the only secure foundation of hope is in God.

Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.

This monograph presents both classical and recent results in the theory of nilpotent groups and provides a self-contained, comprehensive reference on the topic. While the theorems and proofs included can be found throughout the existing literature, this is the first book to collect them in a single volume. Details omitted from the original sources, along with additional computations and explanations, have been added to foster a stronger understanding of the theory of nilpotent groups and the techniques commonly used to study them. Topics discussed include collection processes, normal forms and embeddings, isolators, extraction of roots, P-localization, dimension subgroups and Lie algebras, decision problems, and nilpotent groups of automorphisms. Requiring only a strong undergraduate or beginning graduate background in algebra, graduate students and researchers in mathematics will find The Theory of Nilpotent Groups to be a valuable resource.

Steven Clemente describes how conservative traditions and artistocratic values were preserved in the selection and training of German army officers prior to World War I despite changing times and the influx of many middle-class recruits into the army. He demonstrates how "right thinking" and service to the King and the Kaiser were the basis for Prussian officer education in the period from 1860 to 1914. The history provides considerable detail about German secondary school education, the selection of officers, the curriculum, and life in the cadet and war schools, the life of a subaltern, and the education of the Prussian War Academy. The book concludes with an analysis of the attitudes and loyalties of the officers that entered World War I. Students of European history and military affairs will find this study one that raises a number of provocative questions about German performance in World War I and in subsequent years.

Instrumentation for Trace Organic Monitoring provides comprehensive coverage of instrumental analysis techniques for trace organic analytes in environmental analysis. Sampling/sample preparation is discussed, in addition to mass spectrometry techniques, including GC-MS, HRMS, LCMS, APIMS, and MS-MS. This important book also covers new chromatography techniques, supercritical fluid, solid-phase extraction, and ion mobility spectrometry, which is a new ultra-sensitive technique. Difficult problems, such as dioxin/furan analysis, organometallic speciation, atmospheric organic vapors, water analysis, and flyash toxicity testing are addressed.

The World of Ancient Israel is especially concerned to explore in greater depth than comparable studies the areas and degrees of overlap between approaches to the subject of Old Testament research adopted by scholars and students of theology and the social sciences. Increasing numbers of scholars have recognized the valuable insights that can be gained from a cross-disciplinary approach, and it is becoming clear that the early Biblical traditions must be examined in the light of comparative anthropology if useful historical conclusions are to be drawn from them.

Dr Clements' volume, like others in the series, contains the text in the New English Bible translation, divided into sections, with introductory material preceding, and a commentary directly following each section of the text. Dr Clements discusses the content and historical background of the book, and the theories about the authorship of Exodus, identifying briefly the four main sources. Although the content of Exodus is largely devoted to the narrative of the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, Dr Clements treats the book as a truly religious work, in which history and faith are inseparably woven together.