Essentials of the US Health Care System


Book Description

In a clear, cohesive format, this book provides a concise survey of the basic structures and operations of the U.S. health system from ists historical origins and resources, to its individual services, cost, and quality.




Building Electro-Optical Systems


Book Description

Building Electro-Optical Systems In the newly revised third edition of Building Electro-Optical Systems: Making It All Work, renowned Dr. Philip C. D. Hobbs delivers a birds-eye view of all the topics you’ll need to understand for successful optical instrument design and construction. The author draws on his own work as an applied physicist and consultant with over a decade of experience in designing and constructing electro-optical systems from beginning to end. The book’s topics are chosen to allow readers in a variety of disciplines and fields to quickly and confidently decide whether a given device or technique is appropriate for their needs. Using accessible prose and intuitive organization, Building Electro-Optical Systems remains one of the most practical and solution-oriented resources available to graduate students and professionals. The newest edition includes comprehensive revisions that reflect progress in the field of electro-optical instrument design and construction since the second edition was published. It also offers approximately 350 illustrations for visually oriented learners. Readers will also enjoy: A thorough introduction to basic optical calculations, including wave propagation, detection, coherent detection, and interferometers Practical discussions of sources and illuminators, including radiometry, continuum sources, incoherent line sources, lasers, laser noise, and diode laser coherence control Explorations of optical detection, including photodetection in semiconductors and signal-to-noise ratios Full treatments of lenses, prisms, and mirrors, as well as coatings, filters, and surface finishes, and polarization Perfect for graduate students in physics, electrical engineering, optics, and optical engineering, Building Electro-Optical Systems is also an ideal resource for professional designers working in optics, electro-optics, analog electronics, and photonics.




The Logical Alien


Book Description

“A remarkable book capable of reshaping what one takes philosophy to be.” —Cora Diamond, Kenan Professor of Philosophy Emerita, University of Virginia Could there be a logical alien—a being whose ways of talking, inferring, and contradicting exhibit an entirely different logical shape than ours, yet who nonetheless is thinking? Could someone, contrary to the most basic rules of logic, think that two contradictory statements are both true at the same time? Such questions may seem outlandish, but they serve to highlight a fundamental philosophical question: is our logical form of thought merely one among many, or must it be the form of thought as such? From Descartes and Kant to Frege and Wittgenstein, philosophers have wrestled with variants of this question, and with a range of competing answers. A seminal 1991 paper, James Conant’s “The Search for Logically Alien Thought,” placed that question at the forefront of contemporary philosophical inquiry. The Logical Alien, edited by Sofia Miguens, gathers Conant’s original article with reflections on it by eight distinguished philosophers—Jocelyn Benoist, Matthew Boyle, Martin Gustafsson, Arata Hamawaki, Adrian Moore, Barry Stroud, Peter Sullivan, and Charles Travis. Conant follows with a wide-ranging response that places the philosophical discussion in historical context, critiques his original paper, addresses the exegetical and systematic issues raised by others, and presents an alternative account. The Logical Alien challenges contemporary conceptions of how logical and philosophical form must each relate to their content. This monumental volume offers the possibility of a new direction in philosophy.




Challenges to Mean-Based Analysis in Psychology: The Contrast Between Individual People and General Science


Book Description

In a recent paper we (Speelman & McGann, 2013) argued that psychology’s reliance on data analysis methods that are based on group averages has resulted in a science of group phenomena that may be misleading about the nature of and reasons for individual behaviour. The paper highlighted a tension between a science in search of general laws on the one hand, and the individual, variable, and diverse nature of human behaviour on the other. This Research Topic explored this concern about the pitfalls of using the mean for the basis of psychological science. The problem is universal in its applicability to psychology, and opinion papers, reviews, and original empirical research from all areas of the discipline were invited. A total of 16 authors contributed 9 articles to the Topic. The range of issues that the authors viewed through the lens provided is impressive. The papers in this collection include a range of perspectives that provide concrete examples of how to approach research design, data collection, and analysis differently. No one contribution will provide a solution to our multifarious challenges, but nor should it. Our subject matter is complex and subtle, our investigations and methodological techniques will need to be equally so.




Dialectic, Rhetoric and Contrast: The Infinite Middle of Meaning


Book Description

By compiling an experimental method combining both dialectic and rhetoric, ‘Dialectic, Rhetoric and Contrast: The Infinite Middle of Meaning’ demonstrates how singular meanings can be rendered in a spectrum of 12 repeating concepts that are in a continuum, gradated and symmetrical. The ability to arrange meaning into this pattern opens enquiry into its ontology, and presents meaning as closer to the sensation of colours or musical notes than the bivalent oppositions depicted in classical logic. However, the experiment does not assert that this pattern suggests some sort of constant or absolute principle; instead, it theorises on the ways in which meaning can be considered to be recursive. To explain this, the book explores the concept of contrast itself. No exactitude on the precise existence of contrast can ever be struck because the answer varies infinitely depending upon the scale of measurement used to gauge the meeting point. This characteristic of contrast helps to define a whole new dimension from which sensation, meaning, cognition and consciousness can be analogised to the infinite forms between forms. At a time when the widest consensus in philosophy is the exhaustion of its central themes, the significance of such a hypothesis provides fresh impetus to revise some of the key meanings and concepts underpinning contemporary thought. To do this, the method explores the opposing themes of idealism and realism that run throughout western philosophy from Plato to the Speculative turn. This book will be of interest to professional academic audiences in the humanities and social sciences, from graduates to senior scholars. It will also be an interesting read to anyone wishing to keep abreast of developments in continental philosophy, epistemology, metaphysics, and the sociology of knowledge.







Double contrast barium enema


Book Description

The book presents the final version of a technique to perform the double-contrast barium enema examination of the colon, which has been thoroughly tested and proven in the field for more than 15 years of its application. It discusses the reasons for using this (the Genoa) technique, the indications for performing the double-contrast barium enema versus the single-contrast examination, the steps necessary to obtain a clear colon and the optimal barium sulfate suspensions to be employed. The book deals also with the barium enema examination in children and frankly discusses the relative merits of colonscopy versue DCBE.