Piero Sraffa's work has had a lasting impact on economic theory and yet we know surprisingly little about the man behind it. This is the first intellectual biography of Sraffa and it details his working relationship with thinkers as diverse as Gramsci, Keynes, Wittgenstein as well as discussing the genesis of his major works.

A friend of Gramsci, a colleague of Keynes and a correspondent of Wittgenstein, Piero Sraffa made contributions to economics and philosophy for over 60 years. This book discusses his intellectual evolution from his student days in Italy to his extended period as librarian at the Marshall Library of Economics in Cambridge. Charting Sraffa's political development in Italy to the point where he was forced to flee Mussolini's regime, the book pays particular attention to his relationship with Gramsci, detailing both their protracted and wide-ranging philosophical discussions and his central role in preserving "The Prison Notebooks".

Written by leading academic and industry experts actively engaged in revenue management, research and teaching this is a new and original treatment of the whole field for students and professionals. The first part of the book provides academically rigorous challenging and contemporary material to get to the core of the subject and to make the theory and practice lively, relevant and engaging. Throughout this, and the second section, numerous references to past and present good practice are used- giving insight into best practice in cutting-edge companies leading the revenue management agenda in markets all over the world. The second part of the book is authored by a range of academics and practitioners all currently engaged in revenue management practice, balancing the theory with the best overview possible of best real world practice. Drawn from the widest possible range of sectors including hospitality, car rental, airlines, tour operators, restaurants and advertising it gives an unrivalled industry perspective. The book is designed for students at many levels in universities, business schools, schools of tourism and hospitality studying marketing, pricing, distribution, selling and commercial issues in the service industry. It will also be ideal for practitioners (consulting experts, revenue managers, pricing managers) studying part-time or on CPD programmes requiring a strong theoretical and practical orientation. It will be essential for those working in revenue management, reservations, operations and logistics and generic marketing.

The four lectures presented in this volume discuss recent ideas such as bifurcation, catastrophe and singular theory in elastic post-buckling but avoid advanced mathematics. The influence of imperfections and boundary conditions on the maximal load of stiffened shells of revolution is studied by numerical methods. Experimental methods to test compressed structures are presented and will serve as a useful guide for engineers and physicists. Also of practical importance is the thorough discussion of the state of the art in plastic buckling of plates and shells under the influence of the constitutive laws. The lectures are intended for postgraduate students, but at the same time they should serve as a review for researchers and engineers in solid mechanics.

fhere is a growing perception that the succesful design and ~xploitation of complex information systems is critically dependant on :he level of methods and support for performance modelling. Fast :echnological evolution creates a strong demand for analysis :echniques which can handle new hardware and software )rganisations. Performance modelling users are expecting improved :ools in terms of their user friendliness and their integration in the;ystem design and operation process. Providing an image as clear as possible of the recent advances in :hese areas is the objective of the serie of In t ern a t ion a 1 Conference on Modelling Techniques and Tools for Computer Performance Evaluation. We believe thst the 4th edition does respond to the objective. It illustrates the most recent trends in our jomain and gives insight into what we may expect in terms of new modelling techniques; tools and practices in the future years. The proceedings include the twenty seven papers accepted by the Program Committee (but of sixty six submitted) and three invited papers presented at the Conference. They cover the following topics: * Modelling Tools * Networking * Architecture and Workload * Protocols * Architecture Configuration * Parallelism ix * Performability * Algorithms We would like to express our sincere apprecIatIOn and gratitude to the members of the Program Committee and to the reviewers for their time and effort. Without their kind cooperation, the Conference would not have been possible.

This work consists of two sections on the moduli spaces of vector bundles. The first part tackles the classification of vector bundles on algebraic curves. The author also discusses the construction and elementary properties of the moduli spaces of stable bundles. In particular Le Potier constructs HilbertSHGrothendieck schemes of vector bundles, and treats Mumford's geometric invariant theory. The second part centers on the structure of the moduli space of semistable sheaves on the projective plane. The author sketches existence conditions for sheaves of given rank, and Chern class and construction ideas in the general context of projective algebraic surfaces. Professor Le Potier provides a treatment of vector bundles that will be welcomed by experienced algebraic geometers and novices alike.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.