Introduction to Information Retrieval


Book Description

Class-tested and coherent, this textbook teaches classical and web information retrieval, including web search and the related areas of text classification and text clustering from basic concepts. It gives an up-to-date treatment of all aspects of the design and implementation of systems for gathering, indexing, and searching documents; methods for evaluating systems; and an introduction to the use of machine learning methods on text collections. All the important ideas are explained using examples and figures, making it perfect for introductory courses in information retrieval for advanced undergraduates and graduate students in computer science. Based on feedback from extensive classroom experience, the book has been carefully structured in order to make teaching more natural and effective. Slides and additional exercises (with solutions for lecturers) are also available through the book's supporting website to help course instructors prepare their lectures.




Understanding Media


Book Description

When first published, Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media made history with its radical view of the effects of electronic communications upon man and life in the twentieth century.







Social Science Research


Book Description

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.




Fluid Mechanics


Book Description

Fluid Mechanics, Second Edition deals with fluid mechanics, that is, the theory of the motion of liquids and gases. Topics covered range from ideal fluids and viscous fluids to turbulence, boundary layers, thermal conduction, and diffusion. Surface phenomena, sound, and shock waves are also discussed, along with gas flow, combustion, superfluids, and relativistic fluid dynamics. This book is comprised of 16 chapters and begins with an overview of the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics, including Euler's equation and Bernoulli's equation. The reader is then introduced to the equations of motion of a viscous fluid; energy dissipation in an incompressible fluid; damping of gravity waves; and the mechanism whereby turbulence occurs. The following chapters explore the laminar boundary layer; thermal conduction in fluids; dynamics of diffusion of a mixture of fluids; and the phenomena that occur near the surface separating two continuous media. The energy and momentum of sound waves; the direction of variation of quantities in a shock wave; one- and two-dimensional gas flow; and the intersection of surfaces of discontinuity are also also considered. This monograph will be of interest to theoretical physicists.













Shock Waves


Book Description

Ending poverty and stabilizing climate change will be two unprecedented global achievements and two major steps toward sustainable development. But the two objectives cannot be considered in isolation: they need to be jointly tackled through an integrated strategy. This report brings together those two objectives and explores how they can more easily be achieved if considered together. It examines the potential impact of climate change and climate policies on poverty reduction. It also provides guidance on how to create a “win-win†? situation so that climate change policies contribute to poverty reduction and poverty-reduction policies contribute to climate change mitigation and resilience building. The key finding of the report is that climate change represents a significant obstacle to the sustained eradication of poverty, but future impacts on poverty are determined by policy choices: rapid, inclusive, and climate-informed development can prevent most short-term impacts whereas immediate pro-poor, emissions-reduction policies can drastically limit long-term ones.




LSD, My Problem Child


Book Description

This is the story of LSD told by a concerned yet hopeful father, organic chemist Albert Hofmann, Ph.D. He traces LSD's path from a promising psychiatric research medicine to a recreational drug sparking hysteria and prohibition. In LSD: My Problem Child, we follow Dr. Hofmann's trek across Mexico to discover sacred plants related to LSD, and listen in as he corresponds with other notable figures about his remarkable discovery. Underlying it all is Dr. Hofmann's powerful conclusion that mystical experiences may be our planet's best hope for survival. Whether induced by LSD, meditation, or arising spontaneously, such experiences help us to comprehend "the wonder, the mystery of the divine, in the microcosm of the atom, in the macrocosm of the spiral nebula, in the seeds of plants, in the body and soul of people." More than sixty years after the birth of Albert Hofmann's problem child, his vision of its true potential is more relevant, and more needed, than ever.