The real world is perceived and broken down as data, models and algorithms in the eyes of physicists and engineers. Data is noisy by nature and classical statistical tools have so far been successful in dealing with relatively smaller levels of randomness. The recent emergence of Big Data and the required computing power to analyse them have rendered classical tools outdated and insufficient. Tools such as random matrix theory and the study of large sample covariance matrices can efficiently process these big data sets and help make sense of modern, deep learning algorithms. Presenting an introductory calculus course for random matrices, the book focusses on modern concepts in matrix theory, generalising the standard concept of probabilistic independence to non-commuting random variables. Concretely worked out examples and applications to financial engineering and portfolio construction make this unique book an essential tool for physicists, engineers, data analysts, and economists.

The theory of probability is a powerful tool that helps electrical and computer engineers to explain, model, analyze, and design the technology they develop. The text begins at the advanced undergraduate level, assuming only a modest knowledge of probability, and progresses through more complex topics mastered at graduate level. The first five chapters cover the basics of probability and both discrete and continuous random variables. The later chapters have a more specialized coverage, including random vectors, Gaussian random vectors, random processes, Markov Chains, and convergence. Describing tools and results that are used extensively in the field, this is more than a textbook; it is also a reference for researchers working in communications, signal processing, and computer network traffic analysis. With over 300 worked examples, some 800 homework problems, and sections for exam preparation, this is an essential companion for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. Further resources for this title, including solutions (for Instructors only), are available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521864701.

The Waves is one of the greatest achievements in modern literature. Commonly considered the most important, challenging and ravishingly poetic of Virginia Woolf's novels, it was in her own estimation 'the most complex and difficult of all my books'. This edition will be the most authoritative, most fully collated and annotated text available to scholars to date, and for considerable time to come. It maps the text of The Waves from the first British edition to all other editions published in Woolf's lifetime, as well as to all extant proofs. The text is presented in clearly readable form, with page-by-page direction to emendation, variants, and notes. The substantial introduction includes a detailed account of the novel's composition, publication and early critical reception. There are extensive explanatory notes on the text, a full chronology of composition and publication and a more general chronology covering Woolf's life and works.

Michael Wallerstein was a leader in developing a rigorous comparative political economy approach to understanding substantive issues of inequality, redistribution, and wage-determination. His early death from cancer left both a hole in the profession and a legacy that will surely provide the foundation for research on these topics. This volume collects his most important and influential contributions, organized by topic, with each topic preceded by an editorial introduction that provides overview and context.

What is Christian wisdom for living in the twenty-first century? Where is it to be found? How can it be learnt? In the midst of diverse religions and worldviews and the demands and complexities of our world, David Ford explores a Christian way of uniting love of wisdom with wisdom in love. Core elements are the 'discernment of cries', the love of God for God's sake, interpretation of scripture, and the shaping of desire in faith. Case studies deal with inter-faith wisdom among Jews, Christians and Muslims, universities as centres of wisdom as well as knowledge and know-how and the challenge of learning disabilities. Throughout, there is an attempt to do justice to the premodern, modern and postmodern while grappling with scripture, tradition and the cries of the world today. Ford opens up the rich resources of Christianity in engaging with the issues and urgencies of contemporary life.

European dominance of the shipping lanes in the early modern period was a prelude to the great age of European imperial power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet in the present age we can see that the pre-imperial age was in fact more an 'age of partnership' or an 'age of competition' when the West and Asia vied on even terms. The essays in this volume examine, on a global basis, the many different trading empires from the end of the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century.

This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry.

http://www.cambridge.org/cn/academic/subjects/history/cross-discipline-history-general-interest/science-and-civilisation-china-volume-6-part-4?format=HB
This volume offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of botanical knowledge in China from ancient times to the end of the seventeenth century. In this highly illustrated study, Georges Métailié explores the perception and use of a wealth of plants and vegetation in China before the introduction of modern botany. Drawing from a number of original Chinese texts, which have been translated for the first time, Métailié gives new insights into a variety of aspects of plant knowledge in ancient China. Chapters are devoted to traditional botany and sources of classification, aquatic plants, fungi, horticultural techniques, fruit production, grafting and the influences of ancient Chinese plant culture on Europe. This volume combines technical expertise in the identification of plants with historical and anthropological sensitivity to propose a new, non-teleological view of scientific knowledge about the botanical world in ancient China.
Offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of ancient botanical knowledge in China
Proposes a new, non-teleological, view of knowledge about the plant world in Ancient China
Draws from a number of original Chinese texts, which have been translated for the first time

The Xhosa-speaking peoples of south-eastern South Africa have a long tradition of oral poetry, extending back at least two hundred years. This book, first published in 1983, was the first detailed study of that tradition. Jeff Opland has assembled a large corpus of Xhosa oral poetry making his the first analysis of an active South African oral poetic tradition to be based on actual fieldwork. The book focuses in particular on the poetry produced by the imbongi, or court poet, and Professor Opland examines the poetry and careers of four such individuals. He describes the imbongi's informal training, the diction of his poetry and its improvisational character and the relationship of the poet to the chief and the community, revealing that the role of the poetry is essentially political. He also considers the nature of the poetry in relation to ritual. His discussion of Xhosa poetry in relation to theoretical constructs of oral poetry and of oral mental processes is an important contribution to the debate about the nature and distinctiveness of 'oral literature'. With its interdisciplinary approach, it will appeal to readers from many disciplines as well as to general readers interested in African culture.

In the last few years, social historians have discovered what might be called the 'linguistic dimension' of their discipline, just as sociolinguists have been discovering the 'historical dimension' and historians of language the 'social dimension'. They have become interested in language both as a source for social history and also as a historical phenomenon in its own right. This volume of essays brings together some of this recent work by social historians of Britain, France and Italy from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The authors concern themselves with the politics as well as the sociology of language; with dialect as well as standard languages; with writing as well as speech; with the language of women as well as that of men; with the language of politeness and the language of insult; the language of deference and the language of revolt; the language of sub-cultures and counter-cultures as well as those of the elites and 'the people'.

Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy, investigates the meanings and uses of literacy in different cultures and societies. In contrast to previous studies, where the focus of research has been on aspects of cognition, education and on the economic 'consequences' of literacy, these largely ethnographic essays bring together anthropological and linguistic work written over the last ten years. Accounts of literacy practices in a variety of locations, including Great Britain, the United States, Africa, the South Pacific and Madagascar, illustrate how these practices vary from one context to another, and challenge the traditional view that literacy is a single, uniform skill, essential to functioning in a modern society.

In l750, half the population were unable to sign their names; by l9l4 England, together with a handful of advanced Western countries, had for the first time in history achieved a nominally literate society. This book seeks to understand how and why literacy spread into every corner of English society, and what impact it had on the lives and minds of the common people.

Community, Trade, and Networks traces the economic and demographic history of a corner of China's southeast coast from the third to the thirteenth century, investigating the relationship between changes in the agrarian and urban economies of the area and the expanding role of domestic and foreign trade. It provides a fresh perspective on the role of commercialized production and trade in a regional economy in the premodern era and demonstrates that trade was able to drive change in a premodern economy in a way that has not generally been recognized.

The anthropological tradition approaches property as a 'bundle of rights' and property relationships as social relationships. Rejecting both liberal and socialist approaches, which often neglect the wider social and cultural contexts of property, the contributors to this volume renew and extend the anthropological perspective. The ethnographic case studies include accounts of sharing and intelligence gathering among hunter-gatherers and herders in Africa and in Siberia, land appropriation from native Americans, and the problems associated with the disposal of property in Melanesia. However the anthropological perspective can also illuminate capitalist property relations, and there are fascinating essays on property redistribution in Cyprus and Romania, and on the history of property rights in England and Japan.

This ambitious book treats urbanisation and urbanism all over the world, and from the earliest times to the present. Aidan Southall, a pioneer in the study of African cities, discusses the urban centres of ancient Sumeria, Greece and Rome, as well as medieval European cities, Chinese, Japanese, Islamic and Indic cities, colonial cities, and the great metropolises of the twentieth century. Drawing on this historical and comparative perspective, he offers a fresh analysis of world urbanisation in the contemporary period of globalisation. The study emphasises the enduring paradox of the city, which juxtaposes splendid cultural productions with the poverty and deprivation of the majority.

Key dimensions of Thomas Mann's writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. In addition to introductory chapters on all the main works of fiction, the essays and diaries, there are four chapters examining Mann's oeuvre in relation to major themes. These thematic explorations include his position as a realistic writer concerned with the history of his own times and as a commentator on German and American politics; his controversial reputation as an intellectual novelist; the literary techniques that enabled his challenging fictions to appeal to a wide audience; and the homosexual subtext running through his fiction and diaries. A final chapter looks at the pitfalls of translating Mann into English. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading. Altogether the volume provides an invaluable resource for scholars and students.