Economic theories can be expressed in words, numbers, graphs and symbols. The existing traditional economics textbooks cover all four methods, but the general focus is often more on writing about the theory and methods, with few practical examples. With an increasing number of universities having introduced mathematical economics at undergraduate level, Basic mathematics for economics students aims to fill this gap in the field. Basic mathematics for economics students begins with a comprehensive chapter on basic mathematical concepts and methods (suitable for self-study, revision or tutorial purposes) to ensure that students have the necessary foundation. The book is written in an accessible style and is extremely practical. Numerous mathematical economics examples and exercises are provided as well as fully worked solutions using numbers, graphs and symbols. Basic mathematics for economics students is aimed at all economics students. It focuses on quantitative aspects and especially complements the three highly popular theoretical economics textbooks, Understanding microeconomics, Understanding macroeconomics and Economics for South African students, all written by Philip Mohr and published by Van Schaik Publishers.

Sociopolitical occurrences in recent years have, if anything, brought to the fore the close relationship between developments in the labour market and progress on the socio-econo-political terrain. The ideological divides in South Africa are especially apparent in the labour market, and these compound the basic conflict between the objectives of protecting basic worker rights on the one hand, and increasing economic growth on the other. The South African labour market contains an abundance of information about labour markets in general and the South African labour market in particular. The South African labour market has a down-to-earth and practical approach. It considers the evidence and identifies some urgent discussion points about the sensitivity of employment to economic growth. Three appendix chapters deal extensively with the impact of globalisation on the labour market, how other countries have managed the challenges of globalisation, and consensus-seeking institutions such as Nedlac. Questions and study suggestions are included at the end of each chapter. The South African labour market is aimed at economics students as well as general readers wanting an overview of the South African labour market. The late Dr Frans Barker was a senior executive at the Chamber of Mines. During his career, he was also vice-president of the Economic Society of South Africa and president of the Industrial Relations Association of South Africa. He served on governing structures of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), was a commissioner for the Commission for Employment Equity and was also involved in Nedlac in various roles. Dr Barker lectured at a number of universities and was the author of several publications related to labour issues. Derek Yu is an associate professor at the Department of Economics at the University of the Western Cape. He has a decade of teaching experience in undergraduate and postgraduate Labour Economics, and has published comprehensively in this area. He is also the author of the first edition of Basic mathematics for economics students: theory and applications. Pietman Roos has a decade's experience in different civil society organisations including national government, news media and organised business. He has worked on economic policy formulation, commentary, negotiation and advocacy, and has lectured undergraduate economics and jurisprudence.

Economic indicators covers all the recent revisions of the GDP, the CPI, the PPI, the various labour market surveys, the balance of payments and other economic indicators. All the data that are used to illustrate and explain the various indicators have been updated and, as always, a wealth of data on the South African economy is provided.

A special forces soldier is spending time in confinement for disobeying an order and killing a notorious drug lord. His extraordinary marksmanship earns himself recruitment into the elite Wolf Warrior squadron.

But before long, the squadron is ambushed by a troop of deadly foreign mercenaries who have sworn to avenge their drug lord's death.

Nanostructured Materials: Physicochemical Chemistry Fundamentals for Energy and Environmental Applications summarizes research knowledge and helps advanced students, researchers and industrial technicians understand specific applications of nanomaterials in energy and the environment. Sections bring a strong foundational focus on the physicochemical basis of nanomaterials for these applications, the basic theory and physicochemical basis of nanomaterials, an energy and environment applications examination of typical cases, and progress. This book will appeal to researchers in the chemical sciences (inorganic and physical chemistry, coordination chemistry, molecular dynamics, electrochemistry, photocatalysis, thermocatalysis, thermodynamics, etc.), nanoscience (graphene, carbon nanotubes, nanocrystals, nano catalysis, energy, and environment-nano science), and more. Efficient use of energy, eco-friendly environmental systems, and technologies play an important role in global sustainable development. Multifunctional nanocomposites have excellent properties and can meet the practical needs of energy development and environmental treatment. They have been gradually applied in chemical materials, energy preparation, pollution control and other fields and have achieved impressive development.

Electrospinning: Nanofabrication and Applications presents an overview of the electrospinning technique, nanofabrication strategies and potential applications. The book begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of electrospinning, discussing fundamental principles of the electrospinning process, controlling parameters, materials and structures. Nanofabrication strategies, including coaxial electrospinning, multi-needle electrospinning, needleless electrospinning, electro-netting, near-field electrospinning, and three-dimensional macrostructure assembling are also covered. Final sections explore the applications of electrospun nanofibers in different fields and future prospects. This is a valuable reference for engineers and materials scientist working with fibrous materials and textiles, as well as researchers in the areas of nanotechnology, electrospinning, nanofibers and textiles.

In this illuminating study of a vital but long overlooked aspect of Chinese religious life, Jimmy Yu reveals that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, self-inflicted violence was an essential and sanctioned part of Chinese culture. He examines a wide range of practices, including blood writing, filial body-slicing, chastity mutilations and suicides, ritual exposure, and self-immolation, arguing that each practice was public, scripted, and a signal of certain cultural expectations. Yu shows how individuals engaged in acts of self-inflicted violence to exercise power and to affect society, by articulating moral values, reinstituting order, forging new social relations, and protecting against the threat of moral ambiguity. Self-inflicted violence was intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of the various religions of the period: Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and other religions. Self-inflicted violence as a category reveals scholarly biases that tend to marginalize or exaggerate certain phenomena in Chinese culture. Yu offers a groundbreaking contribution to scholarship on bodily practices in late imperial China, challenging preconceived ideas about analytic categories of religion, culture, and ritual in the study of Chinese religions.

The neutron is an elementary particle that has been extensively studied, both theoretically and experimentally. This book reviews and analyses the results of the mainly experimental research on the neutron and rationalizes what is known so far about its intrinsic properties. The book covers topics that have not previously been dealt with in detail, including the gravitational properties of the neutron, precise determination of its mass, beta-decay, and its electromagnetic properties. This translation is an updated version of the original Russian text and also covers the more recent advances made during the past 7-8 years, including the application of methods based on the storage of ultra-cold neutrons to the study of beta-decay, new precise measurement of the mass of the neutron, and confirmation of modern theories of the internal structure of the neutron.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Approx.480 pages

Sociopolitical occurrences in recent years have, if anything, brought to the fore the close relationship between developments in the labour market and progress on the socio-econo-political terrain. The ideological divides in South Africa are especially apparent in the labour market, and these compound the basic conflict between the objectives of protecting basic worker rights on the one hand, and increasing economic growth on the other. The South African labour market contains an abundance of information about labour markets in general and the South African labour market in particular.

The South African labour market has a down-to-earth and practical approach. It considers the evidence and identifies some urgent discussion points about the sensitivity of employment to economic growth. Four appendix chapters deal extensively with globalisation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, labour market outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic period, consensus-seeking institutions such as Nedlac, as well as detailed labour market statistics from 1995–2021. Questions and study suggestions are included at the end of each chapter.

The South African labour market is aimed at economics students as well as general readers wanting an overview of the South African labour market.

Nanocomposite Manufacturing Technologies: Fundamental Principles, Mechanisms, and Processing provides the latest research in innovative manufacturing methods to produce nanocomposite materials for a range of applications. Nanocomposite material research has advanced rapidly in the past decade, revealing important insights into the nature of fiber reinforcement, unique properties and specific new-generation applications. This book draws the most important of these research findings into a single volume, together with the latest advances in relevant manufacturing technology, to provide a coherent resource helping students, researchers and industrial R&D staff to navigate this field. Detailed descriptions of nanocomposite manufacturing processes help readers understand differences between them, also helping them choose which process or combination of processes will lead to the material that solves their design challenge.

Robotics for Cell Manipulation and Characterization provides fundamental principles underpinning robotic cell manipulation and characterization, state-of-the-art technical advances in micro/nano robotics, new discoveries of cell biology enabled by robotic systems, and their applications in clinical diagnosis and treatment. This book covers several areas, including robotics, control, computer vision, biomedical engineering and life sciences using understandable figures and tables to enhance readers' comprehension and pinpoint challenges and opportunities for biological and biomedical research.

Advances in Engineered Cementitious Composite: Materials, Structures and Numerical Modelling focuses on recent research developments in high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites, covering three key aspects, i.e., materials, structures and numerical modeling. Sections discuss the development of materials to achieve high-performance by using different type of fibers, including polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyethylene (PE) polypropylene (PP) and hybrid fibers. Other chapters look at experimental studies on the application of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites on structures and the performance of structural components, including beams, slabs and columns, and recent development of numerical methods and modeling techniques for modeling material properties and structural behavior. This book will be an essential reference resource for materials scientists, civil and structural engineers and all those working in the field of high-performance fiber-reinforced cementitious composites and structures.

Graphene Oxide-Metal Oxide and other Graphene Oxide-Based Composites in Photocatalysis and Electrocatalysis reflects on recent progress and challenges in graphene-metal oxide composites. The book reviews synthetic strategies, characterization methods and applications in photocatalysis and electrocatalysis. Graphene-metal oxides, graphene-novel metals and other composites intended for sustainable energy production, energy storage, and environmental development such as H2 production, CO2 reduction, pollutant removal, supercapacitors and lithium ion batteries are covered. Overall, this book presents a comprehensive, systematic, and up-to-date summary on graphene oxide-based materials. Graphene oxide and related composite materials bring new perspectives and prospects to both photocatalysts and electrocatalysts. The collective and synergistic effect between graphene oxide and metal oxide are manifold. The significance of the relationship among these groups of materials, their structures and performance is emphasized.

Adversarial Robustness for Machine Learning summarizes the recent progress on this topic and introduces popular algorithms on adversarial attack, defense and veri?cation. Sections cover adversarial attack, veri?cation and defense, mainly focusing on image classi?cation applications which are the standard benchmark considered in the adversarial robustness community. Other sections discuss adversarial examples beyond image classification, other threat models beyond testing time attack, and applications on adversarial robustness. For researchers, this book provides a thorough literature review that summarizes latest progress in the area, which can be a good reference for conducting future research. In addition, the book can also be used as a textbook for graduate courses on adversarial robustness or trustworthy machine learning. While machine learning (ML) algorithms have achieved remarkable performance in many applications, recent studies have demonstrated their lack of robustness against adversarial disturbance. The lack of robustness brings security concerns in ML models for real applications such as self-driving cars, robotics controls and healthcare systems.

Titanium Alloys for Biomedical Development and Applications: Design, Microstructure, Properties and Application systematically introduces basic theories and progress in the research of biomedical ss-Ti alloys achieved by researchers from different fields. It focuses on a high-strength and low elastic modulus biomedical ss-Ti alloy (TLM), etc. designed by the authors. The alloy design methods, microstructural characteristics, mechanical properties, surface treatment methods and biocompatibility of the TLM alloy are discussed in detail, along with a concise description of the medical devices made from this alloy and the application examples. This book will appeal to researchers as well as students from different disciplines, including materials science, biology, medicine and engineering fields.

This book examines how presidents utilize their emergency powers, as well as factors that influence presidential rhetoric in U.S. foreign policy and declarations of national emergencies. Although scholars have examined presidential rhetoric and the influence it has on various policy arenas, this project is the first to take a text analytic approach to assess the nature of presidential rhetoric in the area of U.S. foreign policy and declarations of national emergencies. Broadly, Ouyang and Morgan seek to understand (1) how presidents exercise their authority to declare national emergencies and (2) how presidential rhetoric associated with each declaration of national emergencies changes over time. They begin by providing an overview of the development of presidential emergency powers. Then, they analyze the nature of presidential rhetoric in the context of U.S. foreign policy and national emergencies. Finally, they assess the strategic use of rhetoric in national emergency declarations and evaluate how this influences the implementation of economic sanctions stemming from these policies. In addressing these questions, this book helps to advance our understanding of U.S. foreign policy generally, national emergencies specifically, as well as the impact of presidential rhetoric on the policy selection and execution.

Composite materials have been well developed to meet the challenges of high-performing material properties targeting engineering and structural applications. The ability of composite materials to absorb stresses and dissipate strain energy is vastly superior to that of other materials such as polymers and ceramics, and thus they offer engineers many mechanical, thermal, chemical and damage-tolerance advantages with limited drawbacks such as brittleness. Composite Materials: Manufacturing, Properties and Applications presents a comprehensive review of current status and future directions, latest technologies and innovative work, challenges and opportunities for composite materials. The chapters present latest advances and comprehensive coverage of material types, design, fabrication, modelling, properties and applications from conventional composite materials to advanced composites such as nanocomposites, self-healing and smart composites. The book targets researchers in the field of advanced composite materials and ceramics, students of materials science and engineering at the postgraduate level, as well as material engineers and scientists working in industrial R& D sectors for composite material manufacturing.