The first edition of Quantitative Feedback Theory gained enormous popularity by successfully bridging the gap between theory and real-world engineering practice. Avoiding mathematical theorems, lemmas, proofs, and correlaries, it boiled down to the essential elements of quantitative feedback theory (QFT) necessary to readily analyze, develop, and implement robust control systems. Thoroughly updated and expanded, Quantitative Feedback Theory: Fundamentals and Applications, Second Edition continues to provide a platform for intelligent decision making and design based on knowledge of the characteristics and operating scenario of the plant. Beginning with the fundamentals, the authors build a background in analog and discrete-time multiple-input-single-output (MISO) and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) feedback control systems along with the fundamentals of the QFT technique. The remainder of the book links these concepts to practical applications. Among the many enhancements to this edition are a new section on large wind turbine control system, four new chapters, and five new appendices. The new chapters cover non-diagonal compensator design for MIMO systems, QFT design involving Smith predictors for time delay systems with uncertainty, weighting matrices and control authority, and QFT design techniques applied to real-world industrial systems. Quantitative Feedback Theory: Fundamentals and Applications, Second Edition includes new and revised examples and end-of-chapter problems and offers a companion CD that supplies MIMO QFT computer-aided design (CAD) software. It is the perfect guide to effectively and intuitively implementing QFT control.

The first edition of Quantitative Feedback Theory gained enormous popularity by successfully bridging the gap between theory and real-world engineering practice. Avoiding mathematical theorems, lemmas, proofs, and correlaries, it boiled down to the essential elements of quantitative feedback theory (QFT) necessary to readily analyze, develop, and implement robust control systems. Thoroughly updated and expanded, Quantitative Feedback Theory: Fundamentals and Applications, Second Edition continues to provide a platform for intelligent decision making and design based on knowledge of the characteristics and operating scenario of the plant. Beginning with the fundamentals, the authors build a background in analog and discrete-time multiple-input-single-output (MISO) and multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) feedback control systems along with the fundamentals of the QFT technique. The remainder of the book links these concepts to practical applications. Among the many enhancements to this edition are a new section on large wind turbine control system, four new chapters, and five new appendices. The new chapters cover non-diagonal compensator design for MIMO systems, QFT design involving Smith predictors for time delay systems with uncertainty, weighting matrices and control authority, and QFT design techniques applied to real-world industrial systems. Quantitative Feedback Theory: Fundamentals and Applications, Second Edition includes new and revised examples and end-of-chapter problems and offers a companion CD that supplies MIMO QFT computer-aided design (CAD) software. It is the perfect guide to effectively and intuitively implementing QFT control.

Relational Perspectives on Leading discusses leadership from a relational and social constructionism perspective as practiced on an everyday basis between people. The book pursues a fast growing, practice-based approach - particularly within the Anglo-Saxon parts of the world - to organization studies and organizational phenomena.

In most places on the African continent, multiple health care options exist and patients draw on a therapeutic continuum that ranges from traditional medicine and religious healing to the latest in biomedical technology. The ethnographically based essays in this volume highlight African ways of perceiving sickness, making sense of and treating suffering, and thinking about health care to reveal the range and practice of everyday medicine in Africa through historical, political, and economic contexts.

Powerful information technologies and the complex support systems they engender are evolving faster than people's ability to adjust to them. In the workplace, this leads to troublesome task performance, added stress on users, increased organizational inefficiency, and, in some cases, a heightened risk of wide-scale disaster. In the marketplace, it makes for consumer dissatisfaction. Clearly, traditional human-computer interaction (HCI) and system design (SD) solutions to this dilemma have proven woefully inadequate. What is needed is a fresh multidisciplinary approach offering a broader, more dynamic framework for assessing needs and designing usable, efficient systems. Taking modeling concepts from engineering, psychology, cognitive science, information science, and computer science, cognitive systems engineering (CSE) provides such a framework. This book is the first comprehensive guide to the emerging new field of CSE. Providing equal parts theory and practice, it is based on the authors' many years of experience with work systems in a wide range of work domains, including process control, manufacturing, hospitals, and libraries. Throughout, the emphasis is on powerful analytical techniques that enhance the systems designer's ability to see the "big picture", and to design for all crucial aspects of human-work interaction. Applicable to highly structured technical systems such as process plants, as well as less structured user-driven systems like libraries, these analytical techniques form the basis for the evaluation and design guidelines that make up the bulk of this book. And since the proof is in the pudding, the authors provide a chapter-length case history in which theydemonstrate the success of their approach when applied to a full-scale software design project. The project, a retrieval system for public libraries, is described in detail, from field studies to concept validation experiments, and, of course, the empirical evaluation of the system while in use by the library users and personnel. Computer-based information systems are rapidly becoming a fundamental part of the human landscape. How that landscape evolves over the next decade or so, whether it becomes a hostile one or one that generously supports the needs of future generations, is in the hands of all those involved with the study and design of information systems.

The tradition of the veil, which refers to various cloth coverings of the head, face, and body, has been little studied in Africa, where Islam has been present for more than a thousand years. These lively essays raise questions about what is distinctive about veiling in Africa, what religious histories or practices are reflected in particular uses of the veil, and how styles of veils have changed in response to contemporary events. Together, they explore the diversity of meanings and experiences with the veil, revealing it as both an object of Muslim piety and an expression of glamorous fashion.

The Reformer John Calvin has influenced America in a formative way. Calvin remains respected as a theologian to whose work intellectuals on both the right and left appeal. In the nineteen-nineties, Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) formed a politically influential ecumenical coalition to oppose abortion and change the culture. Its ecumenism of the trenches influenced the administration of George W. Bush and continues to influence religious elements in the Tea Party. Evangelicals in the coalition presume to speak for Calvin. This book provides a counter argument. Calvin rejects the ethics advocated by ECT, an ethics of individual virtue, conscience and natural right. Instead, he affirms an ethics of obedience to the authority of secular government as an institution with a divinely ordained mandate. This work considers the following themes in Calvin: *Calvin on Faith. Modern and postmodern philosophical approaches, including Reformed epistemology, do not explain how Calvin understood faith. Faith is divine activity. Belief is human activity. Faith is not a belief system or worldview on which to base a political theology. The author provides four Augustinian theses about Calvin on faith *Calvin on Sanctification. Calvin rejected virtue ethics or an ethics of individual conscience. His ethics require self-denial and service. An important requirement of his ethics is obedience to government. The author provides three theses about Calvin on sanctification, as a critique of attempts to revive virtue ethics. *Calvin on Natural Law. Calvin's doctrine of natural law is one of the most vexed issues in Calvin studies. The author provides five theses to clarify Calvin's doctrine of natural law. For Calvin, secular government transcends the authority of conscience, and Christians in conscience are required to obey it. In conclusion, the author discusses Karl Barth's interpretation of Calvin and its relevance for the church struggle against the Third Reich. Based on his analysis of Calvin, he provides a defense of gay marriage and the right to terminate a pregnancy, as well as an analysis of religious freedom. Calvin would reject ECT's theology of virtue, conscience and natural law. But he would affirm its ecumenism as a possible path out of culture war.

In over 300 densely packed, oversized pages (including 140 index pages), members of the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society have rendered a faithful accounting of over 5,000 marriages and applications for marriage on file from the county's inception until 1881. In all, these records touch on roughly 50,000 brides and grooms, plus their parents and witnesses.

This book provides a detailed record of the early history of the library at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from the foundation of the College in 1584 to the completion of the seventh major inventory of the library's contents in 1637. This half-century formed a dynamic period in the religious and political as well as the educational life of the nation. The influence of Emmanuel, a notoriously Puritan college from its founding, was felt especially in the striking prominence of its alumni among New World settlers (among them John Harvard) and, during the English Civil War, in the placement of Emmanuel men in many key positions, including the Masterships of numerous Cambridge colleges. While these men were being educated Emmanuel's library expanded dramatically, and the seven increasingly large inventories of library books recorded there during the period give an indication of their concerns and their scholarship. Now, for the first time, the intellectual resources - by no means narrowly 'Puritan' - of this major institutional library are available for the study of all who are interested in the history of the period.

Frequently (and often inappropriately) decision making in the work environment has been analyzed and modeled in terms of isolated decisions made by one person. In reality, decision making is a continuous, interpersonal process usually involving several ``decision makers'' aiming at dynamic and cooperative control of the state of affairs at work. Based on original contributions from researchers and research teams, this book provides an urgently needed cognitive approach to models of distributed decision making, exploring the basis for design of decision support systems in various complex, collective, modern work environments. It identifies the state of the art of modeling distributed decision making and the problems imposed by modern high-tech systems. A also formulates promising research avenues.

In most places on the African continent, multiple health care options exist and patients draw on a therapeutic continuum that ranges from traditional medicine and religious healing to the latest in biomedical technology. The ethnographically based essays in this volume highlight African ways of perceiving sickness, making sense of and treating suffering, and thinking about health care to reveal the range and practice of everyday medicine in Africa through historical, political, and economic contexts.

The Reformer John Calvin has influenced America in a formative way. Calvin remains respected as a theologian to whose work intellectuals on both the right and left appeal. In the nineteen-nineties, Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) formed a politically influential ecumenical coalition to oppose abortion and change the culture. Its ecumenism of the trenches influenced the administration of George W. Bush and continues to influence religious elements in the Tea Party. Evangelicals in the coalition presume to speak for Calvin. This book provides a counter argument. Calvin rejects the ethics advocated by ECT, an ethics of individual virtue, conscience and natural right. Instead, he affirms an ethics of obedience to the authority of secular government as an institution with a divinely ordained mandate. This work considers the following themes in Calvin: *Calvin on Faith. Modern and postmodern philosophical approaches, including Reformed epistemology, do not explain how Calvin understood faith. Faith is divine activity. Belief is human activity. Faith is not a belief system or worldview on which to base a political theology. The author provides four Augustinian theses about Calvin on faith *Calvin on Sanctification. Calvin rejected virtue ethics or an ethics of individual conscience. His ethics require self-denial and service. An important requirement of his ethics is obedience to government. The author provides three theses about Calvin on sanctification, as a critique of attempts to revive virtue ethics. *Calvin on Natural Law. Calvin's doctrine of natural law is one of the most vexed issues in Calvin studies. The author provides five theses to clarify Calvin's doctrine of natural law. For Calvin, secular government transcends the authority of conscience, and Christians in conscience are required to obey it. In conclusion, the author discusses Karl Barth's interpretation of Calvin and its relevance for the church struggle against the Third Reich. Based on his analysis of Calvin, he provides a defense of gay marriage and the right to terminate a pregnancy, as well as an analysis of religious freedom. Calvin would reject ECT's theology of virtue, conscience and natural law. But he would affirm its ecumenism as a possible path out of culture war.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used in military missions because they have the advantages of not placing human life at risk and of lowering operation costs via decreased vehicle weight. These benefits can be fully realized only if UAVs work cooperatively in groups with an efficient exchange of information. This book provides an authoritative reference on cooperative decision and control of UAVs and the means available to solve problems involving them. The contributors present the information in a manner that abstracts the challenges from the concrete problems, making it possible to leverage the solution methods over a broader range of applications. The first chapter offers representative scenarios to describe the problem and its challenges. The second chapter closely examines these challenges by providing an overview of the algorithms that could be used for cooperative control of UAV teams. Later chapters offer methods for performing multiple tasks on multiple targets and assigning multiple tasks to multiple UAVs in one step. Other topics addressed are the application of mixed integer linear programming and genetic algorithms in situations with strict time constraints, the cooperation of UAVs when there are communication delays, and effectiveness measures derived for operations in uncertain environments. The book has two appendices. The first describes the operation of the MultiUAV2 simulation software used to test the cooperation control algorithms, while the second details the UAV path planning problem and Dubins' optimal trajectories. A supplementary website offers a MultiUAV2 software manual and relevant code.

What is Machiavelli's place in the history of political thought? Did he seek to revive the civic virtues espoused by ancient Greek and Roman political theorists, or was he an intellectual rebel whose radical critique of the classical philosophic tradition made him a harbinger of the modern era? Almost every significant book on Machiavelli since the beginning of the twentieth century has addressed the question of his relation to classical thought in one form or another. Yet, there has never been a comprehensive study of the relationship between Machiavelli and Xenophon, the classical political theorist whose shrewd analysis of effective politics comes closest to Machiavelli's. Excellence Unleashedis a detailed comparison of Machiavelli and Xenophon's political philosophy, focusing on Xenophon's Education of Cyrus and Hiero or On Tyranny and Machiavelli's The Prince and Discourses on Livy. This study examines a number of major themes essential to both writers: the moral and political requirements of healthy republics; imperial expansion; the relationship between human nature, politics, and virtue; the role of religion in politics; the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate rule; and the influence of philosophy on politics. By elucidating the remarkable scope, depth, and subtlety of the debate between these two great thinkers, this book offers a fresh perspective on the philosophic and political significance of Machiavelli's proto-modern break from the classical tradition.

Among the Tuareg people in the Air Mountain region of Niger, women are sometimes possessed by spirits called 'the people of solitude'. The evening curing rituals of the possessed, featuring drumming and song, take place before an audience of young men and women, who joke and flirt as the ritual unfolds. In her analysis of this tolerated but unofficial cult, Susan Rasmussen analyses symbolism and aesthetic values, provides case studies of possessed women, and reviews what local people think about the meaning of possession.

This book provides a detailed record of the early history of the library at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from the foundation of the College in 1584 to the completion of the seventh major inventory of the library's contents in 1637. This half-century formed a dynamic period in the religious and political as well as the educational life of the nation. The influence of Emmanuel, a notoriously Puritan college from its founding, was felt especially in the striking prominence of its alumni among New World settlers (among them John Harvard) and, during the English Civil War, in the placement of Emmanuel men in many key positions, including the Masterships of numerous Cambridge colleges. While these men were being educated Emmanuel's library expanded dramatically, and the seven increasingly large inventories of library books recorded there during the period give an indication of their concerns and their scholarship. Now, for the first time, the intellectual resources - by no means narrowly 'Puritan' - of this major institutional library are available for the study of all who are interested in the history of the period.

Exploring the multiple communities of healing among the Tuareg people of Niger, this work examines the beliefs and practices that surround healing and the quest for medicine. In studying ideals of healing that face challenges from wider political and economic forces, the author enables us to understand these culturally and historically constructed processes. This leads us to comprehend how many Tuareg construct and deconstruct local notions of medicine and healers, how patients cope with current problems in health care, and more broadly, how medical knowledge is constructed in anthropology and ethnography.

Rasmussen reveals new perspectives on healing in systems of power and symbolism, bridging interpretive cultural and political economy approaches. This book explores the consequences and implications of the idea that in order to obtain medicine, one must submit to authority, but proceeds beyond merely demonstrating this idea, already largely a truism in anthropology. The Tuareg data show how local residents are not passive victims, but rather active agents in responding to and resisting authority structures of medicine and medical knowledge.

In this unique ethnographical study of the people of the Kel Ewey confederation of Tuareg, Rasmussen explores concepts of age and aging in an African culture. A seminomadic community in northern Niger, the Tuareg understand aging in a way that is distinctly nonlinear - a dimension of life they measure outside of a chronological time frame. Instead, rituals related to marriage, childbirth, and death mark the process of aging. In this way the life course of an individual is more important to the notion of age than the literal age. A sense of private power and transformation of self over time are thus achieved through ritual. Rasmussen draws on field experience conducted between 1974 and 1995. The longevity of her ethnological study provided the opportunity for extended interaction with local residents, who eventually took an active role in studying the researcher. She explores the mutual exchange of knowledge about aging and life course - an interaction that itself sheds light on the need to deconstruct standard age-related categories for studying other cultures. The Poetics and Politics of Tuareg Aging lays a foundation for deeper understanding of topics related to gender, social stratum, and kinship throughout the life course as well as aging. It will be an important resource for anthropologists and will offer a point of departure for all who are interested in alternative concepts of aging.