Synopses & Reviews
When investigating the intricate interactions of the human body, how can one represent bodily function and activity on paper? Most biomedical research progresses through simplifying complex systems by reducing them to smaller subsystems. Network thermodynamics generalizes techniques used in various branches of engineering, making it possible to resynthesize complex wholes from the subsystems studied.
In this book, Donald C. Mikulecky makes accessible some of the most sophisticated techniques of the computer age and applies them to the most complicated of systems, the living organism. The book begins with a review of classical thermodynamic reasoning and shows what it can do and where it falls short. It then shows how network analysis revolutionized electronics by using a relatively simple methodology combining graph theory and the definitions of resistance, capacitance, and inductance. The book shows how the most complex of dynamics systems can be solved by this method, even in the areas of biofluid kinetics, pharmacokinetics, and other dynamics systems of living organisms.
To date, no book such as this, combining theory and application, has been available. This book is essential for students and researchers in biomedical engineering and advanced graduate students and researchers in physiology.
Review
"What [Willis does], and what he does extremely well, is explain how it all came about...he carefully traces the rise of Algerian Islamism from its early days during the 132 years of French colonial rule, its short moment of glory when it seemed about to take power in the late 1980s, and its subsequent crash...well-written, skillfully presented, and illuminating." -New York Review of Books,
Review
"A very readable and even-handed interpretation of a complex and controversial topic. The author integrates a wealth of diverse historical and contemporary data to provide as full an understanding as one can have about political Islam's severe challenge to state and society in Algeria . . . Highly recommended." -John P. Entelis,author of State and Society in Algeria
Review
"An informed and balanced political chronology that is of great utility to any analyst seeking to formulate his or her own interpretation of the Algerian tragedy. Willis has gathered together a wide range of sources allowing him to construct a political chronology that traces how a nation, endowed with political, cultural, and economic assets and moving toward democracy at the end of the 1980s, devolved into chaos through much of the 1990s. The book's careful documentation, multiple perspectives, and thoughtful refelctions willl challenge simplistic explanations of Algeria's latest tragedy."-Journal of World History,
Synopsis
In recent years, Algeria has been rocked by social upheaval, protest, and spasmodic violence. Like many countries caught between the tides of fundamentalist religion and secular culture, the very fiber of the nation seems to be fraying.
Michael Willis here charts the meteoric rise of one of the largest and most powerful Islamist movements in the Muslim world. Tracing its origins to the French colonial domination in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Islamism has always played a defining role in both the national struggle against the French and in the newly independent Algerian state.
The primary focus of Willis's book is on Algeria since 1988, when unprecedented social unrest led to political changes that allowed Algeria's Islamists to form political parties and compete in multi- party elections. The largest Islamist party, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), after rousing victories in local and national elections in 1990 and 1991, was subsequently crushed by the military regime.
Since then, despite the Rome Accord of January 1995, over 50,000 lives have been lost in an increasingly bloody conflict that threatens to spiral out of control. Banned by the army, the FIS splintered, with various factions arming themselves, leading to the current, ominous state of disarray.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-372) and index.
About the Author
Donald C. Mikulecky is Professor of Physiology, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University. He has used network theory to simulate complex physical systems for nearly twenty years.
Alexander M. Clarke, of Biomedical Engineering: Opening New Doors, also published by NYU Press.