This monograph provides researchers, engineers, postgraduates and lecturers working in the field of ferroelectric or piezoelectric and related materials with features of the structure-property relationships in modern piezo-active composites. These are piezoelectric composites which are active dielectric materials, which can be poled ferroelectric ceramics or domain-engineered single crystals poled along specific crystallographic directions. Current knowledge of the effective physical properties of these materials is lacking especially due to gaps of information in physical, chemical, microgeometric and technological factors. For composite and transducer design purposes, the expected properties of these piezo-active materials have been theorized through models by the authors and proven in experiments. Various well-known journals have published this research, among many others: Smart Materials and Structures; Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics; IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control; Acta Materialia.The book summarises and generalises a series of authors' works on the problem of the effective properties and related parameters of modern two- and three-component piezo-active composites wherein the microgeometric factor plays the dominating role. Specific examples of the performance of composites based on domain-engineered single crystals are also discussed. New trends are described in the research of modern piezo-active composites with the aim of filling the gaps in piezoelectric materials science. The primary goal of the book is to show advantages of different methods being applied to manufacture and study the functional composites that are suitable for piezoelectric energy harvesting, hydroacoustic, sensor, actuator, and other transducer applications.

The book is devoted to the problem of microgeometry properties and anisotropy relations in modern piezo-active composites. These materials are characterized by various electromechanical properties and remarkable abilities to convert mechanical energy into electric energy and vice versa. Advantages of the performance of the composites are discussed in the context of the orientation effects, first studied by the authors for main connectivity patterns and with due regard to a large anisotropy of effective piezoelectric coefficients and electromechanical coupling factors. The novelty of the book consists in the systematization results of orientation effects, the anisotropy of piezoelectric properties and their role in forming considerable hydrostatic piezoelectric coefficients, electromechanical coupling factors and other parameters in the composites based on either ferroelectric ceramic or relaxor-ferroelectric single crystals.

This book covers the topic of vibration energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric materials are analyzed in the context of their electromechanical coupling, heterogeneity, microgeometry and interrelations between electromechanical properties. Piezoelectric ceramics and composites based on ferroelectrics are advanced materials that are suitable for harvesting mechanical energy from vibrations using inertial energy harvesting which relies on the resistance of a mass to acceleration and kinematic energy harvesting which couples the energy harvester to the relative movement of different parts of a source. In addition to piezoelectric materials, research efforts to develop optimization methods for complex piezoelectric energy harvesters are also reviewed. The book is important for specialists in the field of modern advanced materials and will stimulate new effective piezotechnical applications.

Accelerating progress in the application of radioactive and stable isotope analysis to a varied range of geologicla and geochemical problems in geology has required a complete revision of Isotopes in the Earth Sciences, published in 1988. This new book comprises four parts: the first introduces isotopic chemistry and examines mass spectroscopic methods; the second eeals with radiometric dating methods. Part Three examines the importance of isotopes in climato-environmental studies, and increasingly significant area of research. The last part looks at extra-terrestrial matter, geothermometry and the isotopic geochemistry of the Earth's lithosphere. Post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers in geochemistry, as well as final year undergraduates in the earth and environmental sciences, will find Radioactive and Stable Isotope Geology an invaluable, uo-to-date and thorough treatment of the theory and practice of isotopie geology.

This book provides an overview of the current state of the art in novel piezo-composites based on ferroelectrics. Covering aspects ranging from theoretical materials simulation and manufacturing and characterization methods, to the application and performance of these materials, it focuses on the optimization of the material parameters. Presenting the latest findings on modern composites and highlighting the applications of piezoelectric materials for sensors, transducers and hydro-acoustics, the book addresses an important gap in the physics of active dielectrics and materials science and describes new trends in the research on ferroelectric composites.

'The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.' ALBERT EINSTEIN, 1950 The tremendous progress of recent years in the field of isotopes in the earth sciences has proved invaluable in attempting to solve a varied spectrum of geological and geochemical problems. The lunar exploration programmes provided rocks for analysis, stimulating refinements in mass spectrometry which were later used for terrestrial samples too. Among significant advances was the development of electrostatic tandem accelerator mass spectrometers allowing the precise measure ment of abundances of cosmic radionuclides. Also, new geochronometers were devised, for instance those dependent upon the radioactive decay of samarium-I47 to neodymium-I43, lutetium-176 to hafnium-176, rhenium-I87 to osmium-I87 and potassium-40 to calcium40, these supplementing prior dating methods. Their impact as regards the origin of igneous rocks was considerable. Isotopic compositions of neodymium, strontium, lead and hafnium in these rocks showed that magmas from the mantle are often crustally contaminated. In addition, isotopic compositions of carbon, oxygen and sulphur aided the elucidation of aspects of petrogenesis. These and many other facets of the subject are discussed in this book."

This book examines a range of critical concepts that are central to a shift in the social sciences toward "pragmatic inquiry," reflecting a twenty-first century concern with particular problems and themes rather than grand theory. Taking a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, the collection demonstrates a shared commitment to using analytical concepts for empirical exploration and a general orientation to research that favors an attention to objects, techniques, and practices. The chapters draw from broad-based and far-reaching social theory in order to analyze new, specific challenges, from grasping the everyday workings of markets, courtrooms, and clinics, to inscribing the transformations of practice within research disciplines themselves. Each contributor takes a key concept and then explores its genealogies and its circulations across scholarly communities, as well as its proven payoffs for the social sciences and, often, critical reflections on its present and future uses. This carefully crafted volume will significantly expand and improve the analytical repertoires or toolkits available to social scientists, including scholars in sociology or anthropology and those working in science and technology studies, public health, and related fields.

This book is devoted to the systematic description of the role of microgeometry of modern piezo-active composites in the formation of their piezoelectric sensitivity. In five chapters, the authors analyse kinds of piezoelectric sensitivity for piezo-active composites with specific connectivity patterns and links between the microgeometric feature and piezoelectric response. The role of components and microgeometric factors is discussed in the context of the piezoelectric properties and their anisotropy in the composites. Interrelations between different types of the piezoelectric coefficients are highlighted. This book fills a gap in piezoelectric materials science and provides readers with data on the piezoelectric performance of novel composite materials that are suitable for sensor, transducer, hydroacoustic, energy-harvesting, and other applications.

This book should be of interest to postgraduate and professional earth scientists.

"[This] collection of essays by 16 authorities, each devoted to a specific subject or work . . . belong[s] in any library of basic Joyce criticism." Choice

This concluding volume of the Future of the Religious Past series approaches contemporary religion through the lens of practice: the rituals, performances, devotions, and everyday acts through which humans do religion. In spite of predictions about the inevitability of secularism, religion in the twenty-first century remains stubbornly resilient, and Gestures: The Study of Religion as Practice offers a new vantage point from which to see the religious as a category shaped and reshaped by modernity and to encounter religion not as something bounded by doctrines and sacred texts but as lived experience. Twenty-four globally based scholars look to practice to examine such diverse phenomena as human rights, memory, martyrdom, dress and fashion, colonial legacies, blasphemy, mass political action, and the future of secularism.

This concluding volume of the Future of the Religious Past series approaches contemporary religion through the lens of practice: the rituals, performances, devotions, and everyday acts through which humans do religion. In spite of predictions about the inevitability of secularism, religion in the twenty-first century remains stubbornly resilient, and Gestures: The Study of Religion as Practice offers a new vantage point from which to see the religious as a category shaped and reshaped by modernity and to encounter religion not as something bounded by doctrines and sacred texts but as lived experience. Twenty-four globally based scholars look to practice to examine such diverse phenomena as human rights, memory, martyrdom, dress and fashion, colonial legacies, blasphemy, mass political action, and the future of secularism.

Intelligent tutoring technology is on the verge of a breakthrough into the mainstream of training and education. Over the past 25 years, researchers have learned not only what it takes to develop an effective intelligent tutoring system (ITS), but also what it takes to deploy and use one--the true barometer of a technology's success. This volume brings together a cross-section of ITS researchers from academia, industry, and the government to talk about their experiences in ITS development and technology transfer, both successful and unsuccessful.
Section 1 is devoted to detailed descriptions of tools and methods ITS developers can employ during development to facilitate technology adoption. It includes discussions of the paradigmatic change in learning and instructional design that ITS fosters, techniques for gathering design information for ITS domains where empirical or knowledge-based methods are inappropriate, and the conduct of cost-benefits analyses to facilitate ITS funding decisions. Sections 2 and 3 offer numerous case studies of ITS deployment from both industry and the government. All of these case studies--regardless of outcome--provide valuable insights into the dos and don'ts of ITS technology transfer.
This volume will be an invaluable resource for all researchers and developers of ITS, as well as for managers and personnel in education and training organizations who must adopt and use ITS technology, and information systems and computing support organization professionals who must support it if it is to succeed.

This book examines a range of critical concepts that are central to a shift in the social sciences toward "pragmatic inquiry," reflecting a twenty-first century concern with particular problems and themes rather than grand theory. Taking a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, the collection demonstrates a shared commitment to using analytical concepts for empirical exploration and a general orientation to research that favors an attention to objects, techniques, and practices. The chapters draw from broad-based and far-reaching social theory in order to analyze new, specific challenges, from grasping the everyday workings of markets, courtrooms, and clinics, to inscribing the transformations of practice within research disciplines themselves. Each contributor takes a key concept and then explores its genealogies and its circulations across scholarly communities, as well as its proven payoffs for the social sciences and, often, critical reflections on its present and future uses. This carefully crafted volume will significantly expand and improve the analytical repertoires or toolkits available to social scientists, including scholars in sociology or anthropology and those working in science and technology studies, public health, and related fields.

This book is devoted to the systematic description of the role of microgeometry of modern piezo-active composites in the formation of their piezoelectric sensitivity. In five chapters, the authors analyse kinds of piezoelectric sensitivity for piezo-active composites with specific connectivity patterns and links between the microgeometric feature and piezoelectric response. The role of components and microgeometric factors is discussed in the context of the piezoelectric properties and their anisotropy in the composites. Interrelations between different types of the piezoelectric coefficients are highlighted. This book fills a gap in piezoelectric materials science and provides readers with data on the piezoelectric performance of novel composite materials that are suitable for sensor, transducer, hydroacoustic, energy-harvesting, and other applications.

The book is devoted to the problem of microgeometry properties and anisotropy relations in modern piezo-active composites. These materials are characterized by various electromechanical properties and remarkable abilities to convert mechanical energy into electric energy and vice versa. Advantages of the performance of the composites are discussed in the context of the orientation effects, first studied by the authors for main connectivity patterns and with due regard to a large anisotropy of effective piezoelectric coefficients and electromechanical coupling factors. The novelty of the book consists in the systematization results of orientation effects, the anisotropy of piezoelectric properties and their role in forming considerable hydrostatic piezoelectric coefficients, electromechanical coupling factors and other parameters in the composites based on either ferroelectric ceramic or relaxor-ferroelectric single crystals.

Accelerating progress in the application of radioactive and stable isotope analysis to a varied range of geologicla and geochemical problems in geology has required a complete revision of Isotopes in the Earth Sciences, published in 1988. This new book comprises four parts: the first introduces isotopic chemistry and examines mass spectroscopic methods; the second eeals with radiometric dating methods. Part Three examines the importance of isotopes in climato-environmental studies, and increasingly significant area of research. The last part looks at extra-terrestrial matter, geothermometry and the isotopic geochemistry of the Earth's lithosphere. Post-graduate and post-doctoral researchers in geochemistry, as well as final year undergraduates in the earth and environmental sciences, will find Radioactive and Stable Isotope Geology an invaluable, uo-to-date and thorough treatment of the theory and practice of isotopie geology.

Since the Arab oil embargo of 1974, it has been clear that the days of almost limitless quantities of low-cost energy have passed. In addition, ever worsening pollution due to fossil fuel consumption, for instance oil and chemical spills, strip mining, sulphur emission and accumulation of solid wastes, has, among other things, led to an increase of as much as 10% in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in this century. This has induced a warming trend through the 'greenhouse effect' which prevents infrared radiation from leaving it. Many people think the average planetary temperatures may rise by 4 DegreesC or so by 2050. This is probably true since Antarctic ice cores evidence indicates that, over the last 160000 years, ice ages coincided with reduced levels of carbon dioxide and warmer interglacial episodes with increased levels of the gas in the atmosphere. Consequently, such an elevation of temperature over such a relatively short span of time would have catastrophic results in terms of rising sea level and associated flooding of vast tracts of low-lying lands. Reducing the burning of fossil fuels makes sense on both economic and environmental grounds. One of the most attractive alternatives is geothermal resources, especially in developing countries, for instance in El Salvador where geothermal energy provides about a fifth of total installed electrical power already. In fact, by the middle 1980s, at least 121 geothermal power plants were operating worldwide, most being of the dry steam type.

'The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.' ALBERT EINSTEIN, 1950 The tremendous progress of recent years in the field of isotopes in the earth sciences has proved invaluable in attempting to solve a varied spectrum of geological and geochemical problems. The lunar exploration programmes provided rocks for analysis, stimulating refinements in mass spectrometry which were later used for terrestrial samples too. Among significant advances was the development of electrostatic tandem accelerator mass spectrometers allowing the precise measure ment of abundances of cosmic radionuclides. Also, new geochronometers were devised, for instance those dependent upon the radioactive decay of samarium-I47 to neodymium-I43, lutetium-176 to hafnium-176, rhenium-I87 to osmium-I87 and potassium-40 to calcium40, these supplementing prior dating methods. Their impact as regards the origin of igneous rocks was considerable. Isotopic compositions of neodymium, strontium, lead and hafnium in these rocks showed that magmas from the mantle are often crustally contaminated. In addition, isotopic compositions of carbon, oxygen and sulphur aided the elucidation of aspects of petrogenesis. These and many other facets of the subject are discussed in this book."

This book covers the topic of vibration energy harvesting using piezoelectric materials. Piezoelectric materials are analyzed in the context of their electromechanical coupling, heterogeneity, microgeometry and interrelations between electromechanical properties. Piezoelectric ceramics and composites based on ferroelectrics are advanced materials that are suitable for harvesting mechanical energy from vibrations using inertial energy harvesting which relies on the resistance of a mass to acceleration and kinematic energy harvesting which couples the energy harvester to the relative movement of different parts of a source. In addition to piezoelectric materials, research efforts to develop optimization methods for complex piezoelectric energy harvesters are also reviewed. The book is important for specialists in the field of modern advanced materials and will stimulate new effective piezotechnical applications.

"This book casts a great deal of light on the events leading up to the French law banning Muslim headscarves in schools. Bowen takes us through the strange and often distorted debate that culminated in the decision to pass a new law. He shows the roots of this decision in French history and politics, with a marvelous eye for nuance and a sensitivity to the many positions which clashed in the debate. The result is a work that not only is tremendously important for an understanding of France today, but that also has relevance for similar debates that are now in train in many other Western societies."--Charles Taylor, Northwestern University

"This book, ostensibly an account of the French debates on Muslim headscarves in public schools, is a thoughtful and deep probe into French political culture, the legacy of colonialism, and the difficulty for a state that refuses to recognize communal differences in the public sphere to accommodate millions of Muslim immigrants. It is a timely, learned, and provocative work."--Stanley Hoffmann, Harvard University

"France's decision to ban religious signs in public schools was quite puzzling, if not downright crazy, to many outsiders. In "Why the French Don't Like Headscarves," John Bowen manages to make sense of the apparent madness by carefully tracing the disparate threads of the issue, in particular by replacing the debate within the specific French context of the long, complicated relationship between Church and State. This book should be read by all those who seek a fair and comprehensive analysis of the headscarves decision and of the broader question of the place of Muslims in contemporary French society."--Sophie Meunier, PrincetonUniversity, author of "The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization"

"This extremely important book brings us a fresh and innovative analysis of its subject. What is new is that it is not by a French scholar--who would be immersed in the heated passions of the issue--but by an American anthropologist who decodes for us the chronology and the political and philosophical foundations of this particular debate."--Malika Zeghal, University of Chicago Divinity School, author of "Les islamistes marocains"