The standard rules of probability can be interpreted as uniquely valid principles in logic. In this book, E. T. Jaynes dispels the imaginary distinction between 'probability theory' and 'statistical inference', leaving a logical unity and simplicity, which provides greater technical power and flexibility in applications. This book goes beyond the conventional mathematics of probability theory, viewing the subject in a wider context. New results are discussed, along with applications of probability theory to a wide variety of problems in physics, mathematics, economics, chemistry and biology. It contains many exercises and problems, and is suitable for use as a textbook on graduate level courses involving data analysis. The material is aimed at readers who are already familiar with applied mathematics at an advanced undergraduate level or higher. The book will be of interest to scientists working in any area where inference from incomplete information is necessary.

This beginning graduate textbook describes both recent achievements and classical results of computational complexity theory. Requiring essentially no background apart from mathematical maturity, the book can be used as a reference for self-study for anyone interested in complexity, including physicists, mathematicians, and other scientists, as well as a textbook for a variety of courses and seminars. More than 300 exercises are included with a selected hint set.
Contents
Part I. Basic Complexity Classes: 1. The computational model - and why it doesn’t matter; 2. NP and NP completeness; 3. Diagonalization; 4. Space complexity; 5. The polynomial hierarchy and alternations; 6. Boolean circuits; 7. Randomized computation; 8. Interactive proofs; 9. Cryptography; 10. Quantum computation; 11. PCP theorem and hardness of approximation: an introduction; Part II. Lower Bounds for Concrete Computational Models: 12. Decision trees; 13. Communication complexity; 14. Circuit lower bounds; 15. Proof complexity; 16. Algebraic computation models; Part III. Advanced Topics: 17. Complexity of counting; 18. Average case complexity: Levin’s theory; 19. Hardness amplification and error correcting codes; 20. Derandomization; 21. Pseudorandom constructions: expanders and extractors; 22. Proofs of PCP theorems and the Fourier transform technique; 23. Why are circuit lower bounds so difficult?; Appendix A: mathematical background.
Reviews
Pre-Publication Review: "This text is a major achievement that brings together all of the important developments in complexity theory. Student and researchers alike will find it to be an immensely useful resource."
Michael Sipser, MIT, author of Introduction to the Theory of Computation
Pre-Publication Review: "Computational complexity theory is at the core of theoretical computer science research. This book contains essentially all of the (many) exciting developments of the last two decades, with high level intuition and detailed technical proofs. It is a must for everyone interested in this field."
Avi Wigderson, Professor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Pre-Publication Review: "This book by two leading theoretical computer scientists provides a comprehensive,insightful and mathematically precise overview of computational complexity theory, ranging from early foundational work to emerging areas such as quantum computation and hardness of approximation. It will serve the needs of a wide audience, ranging from experienced researchers to graduate students and ambitious undergraduates seeking an introduction to the mathematical foundations of computer science. I will keep it at my side as a useful reference for my own teaching and research."
Richard M. Karp, University Professor, University of California at Berkeley

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages is the first comprehensive reference work treating all of the languages of antiquity. Clear and systematic in its approach, the Encyclopedia combines full linguistic coverage of all the well documented ancient languages, representing numerous language families from around the globe. Each chapter of the work focuses on an individual language or, in some instances, a set of closely related varieties of a language. Providing a full descriptive presentation, each of these chapters examines the writing system(s), phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of that language, and places the language within its proper linguistic and historical context. The Encyclopedia brings together an international array of scholars, each a leading specialist in ancient language study. While designed primarily for linguistic professionals and students, this work will prove invaluable to all whose studies take them into the realm of ancient language.

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since 1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons.

In early modern England, housewives, clergymen, bloodletters, herb women, and patients told authoritative tales about the body. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, medicine had begun to drown out these voices. This book uses patients' perspectives to argue that changes in the relationship between rich and poor underlay this rise in medicine's authority. In a detailed examination of health, healing, and poor relief in eighteenth-century Bristol, the author shows how the experiences of the hospitalized urban poor laid the foundations for modern doctor-patient encounters. Within the hospital, charity patients were denied the power to interpret their own illnesses, as control of the institution shifted from lay patrons to surgeons. Outside the hospital, reforms of popular culture stigmatized ordinary people's ideas about their own bodies. Popular medicine became working-class medicine, associated with superstition and political unrest.

Evolution has not typically been recognised by linguists as a constraining factor when developing linguistic theories. This book demonstrates that our theories of language must reflect the fact that language has evolved. It critiques a currently dominant framework in the field of linguistics - the Minimalist Program - by showing how it fails to take evolution into account. It approaches the question of the evolution of human language in a novel way by applying findings from the field of evolutionary biology to language. Key properties associated with typically evolving systems are identified in language, and the shortcomings of the Minimalist Program in its outright rejection of these features are exposed. The book will be of interest to individual researchers and advanced students in linguistics, psychology, biology, anthropology and cognitive science.

A large body of knowledge has accumulated on the cognitive processes and brain mechanisms underlying language. Much of this knowledge has come from studies of Indo-European languages, in particular English. Chinese, spoken by one-fifth of the world's population, differs significantly from most Indo-European languages in its grammar, its lexicon, and its written and spoken forms - features which have profound implications for the learning, representation and processing of language. This handbook, first published in 2006 as the first in a three-volume set on East Asian psycholinguistics, presents a discussion of the psycholinguistic study of Chinese. With contributions by over fifty leading scholars, it covers topics in first- and second-language acquisition, language processing and reading, language disorders in children and adults, and the relationships between language, brain, culture, and cognition. It will be invaluable to all scholars and students interested in the Chinese language, as well as cognitive psychologists, linguists, and neuroscientists.

How did the biological, brain and behavioural structures underlying human language evolve? When, why and where did our ancestors become linguistic animals, and what has happened since? This book provides a clear, comprehensive but lively introduction to these interdisciplinary debates. Written in an approachable style, it cuts through the complex, sometimes contradictory and often obscure technical languages used in the different scientific disciplines involved in the study of linguistic evolution. Assuming no background knowledge in these disciplines, the book outlines the physical and neurological structures underlying language systems, and the limits of our knowledge concerning their evolution. Discussion questions and further reading lists encourage students to explore the primary literature further, and the final chapter demonstrates that while many questions still remain unanswered, there is a growing consensus as to how modern human languages have arisen as systems by the interplay of evolved structures and cultural transmission.

A concise but unusually comprehensive handbook for the students of Old French. Based on Dr Einhorn's very successful introductory lecture course for undergraduates, this book describes the phonology, morphology and syntax of standard Old French, paying attention also to the main dialect forms. There are numerous examples in the text; the book also gives representative passages of some length, and a glossary. Students taking university courses and scholars teaching themselves should find in this book an ideal combination of features in a handy format.

People of European descent form the bulk of the population in most of the temperate zones of the world--North America, Australia and New Zealand. The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain because in many cases they were achieved by using firearms against spears. Alfred Crosby, however, explains that the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. Now in a new edition with a new preface, Crosby revisits his classic work and again evaluates the ecological reasons for European expansion. Alfred W. Crosby is the author of the widely popular and ground-breaking books,The Measure of Reality (Cambridge, 1996), and America's Forgotten Pandemic (Cambridge, 1990). His books have received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Medical Writers Association Prize and been named by the Los Angeles Times as among the best books of the year. He taught at the University of Texas, Austin for over 20 years. First Edition Hb (1986): 0-521-32009-7 First Edition Pb (1987): 0-521-33613-9

Linguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expertise of a stellar selection of scholars, this Handbook highlights linguistic typology as a major discipline within the field of linguistics.

Southeast Asia was the scene of one of the world's major civilisations, that of Angkor, until it was sacked in the early fifteenth century. The origins of Angkor were barely known until recent archaeological excavation and field research began to reveal the region's dynamic development and to raise new questions to serve in its understanding. This important new synthesis focuses on the social world of early mainland Southeast Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos and adjacent areas. The book begins when the area was occupied 12,000 years ago by hunters and gatherers. The author stresses the importance of sedentism and domestication. These encouraged the spread of coastal communities into the interior valleys. Particular relevance is seen in the exchange of valuables, including bronze, as symbols of status. The origins of civilisation, for long assumed to result from Indian expansion in the region, are seen as rooted in local changes, along with the selective adoption of Indian religious and political ideas within coastal cheifdoms. In bridging the gap between prehistory and history, this book will appeal not only to archaeologists but to those interested in the general history, culture and arts of Asia.

The great empires of the vast Eurasian continent have captured the imagination of many. Awe-inspiring names such as ancient Rome, Han and Tang China, Persia, Assyria, the Huns, the Kushans and the Franks have been the subject of countless scholarly books and works of literature. However, very rarely, if at all, have these vast pre-industrial empires been studied holistically from a comparative, interdisciplinary and above all Eurasian perspective. This collection of studies examines the history, literature and archaeology of these empires and others thus far treated separately as a single inter-connected subject of inquiry. It highlights in particular the critical role of Inner Asian empires and peoples in facilitating contacts and exchange across the Eurasian continent in antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

This book explores the roles of agricultural development and advancing social complexity in the processes of state formation in China. Over a period of about 10,000 years, it follows evolutionary trajectories of society from the last Palaeolithic hunting-gathering groups, through Neolithic farming villages and on to the Bronze Age Shang dynasty in the latter half of the second millennium BC. Li Liu and Xingcan Chen demonstrate that sociopolitical evolution was multicentric and shaped by inter-polity factionalism and competition, as well as by the many material technologies introduced from other parts of the world. The book illustrates how ancient Chinese societies were transformed during this period from simple to complex, tribal to urban, and preliterate to literate.
• Covers major topics including the roles of agricultural development, advancing social complexity and state formation in ancient China • Considers the origins of archaic states in the Yellow River valley • Includes discussion of regional interactions within China and between China and the outside world

One of the first accounts of social variation in language, this groundbreaking study founded the discipline of sociolinguistics, providing the model on which thousands of studies have been based. In this second edition, Labov looks back on forty years of sociolinguistic research, bringing the reader up to date on its methods, findings and achievements. In over thirty pages of new material, he explores the unforeseen implications of his earlier work, addresses the political issues involved, and evaluates the success of newer approaches to sociolinguistic investigation. In doing so, he reveals the outstanding accomplishments of sociolinguistics since his original study, which laid the foundations for studying language variation, introduced the crucial concept of the linguistic variable, and showed how variation across age groups is an indicator of language change. Bringing Labov's pioneering study into the 21st century, this classic volume will remain the benchmark in the field for years to come.