"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."—Edward B. Garside, New York Times Book Review Ancient Mesopotamia—the area now called Iraq—has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East. Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun. "To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."—Leonard Cottrell, Book Week "Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."—Samuel Noah Kramer, Archaeology A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

This book addresses the point of intersection between cognition, metacognition, and culture in learning and teaching Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). We explore theoretical background and cutting-edge research about how various forms of cognitive and metacognitive instruction may enhance learning and thinking in STEM classrooms from K-12 to university and in different cultures and countries. Over the past several years, STEM education research has witnessed rapid growth, attracting considerable interest among scholars and educators. The book provides an updated collection of studies about cognition, metacognition and culture in the four STEM domains. The field of research, cognition and metacognition in STEM education still suffers from ambiguity in meanings of key concepts that various researchers use. This book is organized according to a unique manner: Each chapter features one of the four STEM domains and one of the three themes—cognition, metacognition, and culture—and defines key concepts. This matrix-type organization opens a new path to knowledge in STEM education and facilitates its understanding. The discussion at the end of the book integrates these definitions for analyzing and mapping the STEM education research. Chapter 4 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com

The book presents a comprehensive discussion on software quality issues and software quality assurance (SQA) principles and practices, and lays special emphasis on implementing and managing SQA. Primarily designed to serve three audiences; universities and college students, vocational training participants, and software engineers and software development managers, the book may be applicable to all personnel engaged in a software projects Features: A broad view of SQA. The book delves into SQA issues, going beyond the classic boundaries of custom-made software development to also cover in-house software development, subcontractors, and readymade software. An up-to-date wide-range coverage of SQA and SQA related topics. Providing comprehensive coverage on multifarious SQA subjects, including topics, hardly explored till in SQA texts. A systematic presentation of the SQA function and its tasks: establishing the SQA processes, planning, coordinating, follow-up, review and evaluation of SQA processes. Focus on SQA implementation issues. Specialized chapter sections, examples, implementation tips, and topics for discussion. Pedagogical support: Each chapter includes a real-life mini case study, examples, a summary, selected bibliography, review questions and topics for discussion. The book is also supported by an Instructor’s Guide.

Currently we are at the beginnings of widespread wireless connectivity and ubiquitous computing. The Web is merging with a variety of technologies: cell phones, laptop computers, hand held organisers, information appliances, and GPS and other sensors. The capability for access anytime and anywhere is here. The increasing frequency of cell phone calls at inappropriate times testifies that people no longer can easily control access. Devices can determine where they are located and can make a range of information available to users as well as make users available to others or their devices. We have proposed a general technique that promises to assist in mediating access. It capitalises on advantages afforded by computation(Hollan & Stometta, 1992). We first described the negotiation technique in the context of problems involved in scheduling meetings and then showed that similar issues, which at first may seem unrelated but in fact have much in common, arise in other contexts. One such activity, gaining immediate access, is currently of growing importance because of expanding connectivity via wireless technology. Cell phones and related technologies make it possible to be constantly available for synchronous interaction. At times, this can be advantageous but the associated costs and benefits result in a complex tradeoff space for designers as well as users.

Provides a comprehensive introduction to theoretical and applied issues relating to the global banking industry. The text is organised into four main Sections: Introduction to Banking; Central Banking and Bank Regulation; Issues in Bank Management and Comparative Banking Markets. Over recent years there has been a lack of a comprehensive yet accessible textbook that deals with a broad spectrum of introductory banking issues. This text fills that gap. This book is suitable for all undergraduate students taking courses in banking. It is also great background reading for postgraduate students.

The present stage of the human civilization is the e-society, which is build over the achievements obtained by the development of the information and communication technologies. It affects everyone, from ordinary mobile phone users to designers of high quality industrial products, and every human activity, from taking medical care to improving the state governing. The science community working in computer sciences and informatics is therefore under constant challenge; it has to solve the new appeared theoretical problem as well as to find new practical solutions. The fourth ICT Innovations Conference, held in September 2012 in Ohrid, Macedonia, was one of the several world-wide forums where academics, professionals and practitioners presented their last scientific results and development applications in the fields of high performance and parallel computing, bioinformatics, human computer interaction, security and cryptography, computer and mobile networks, neural networks, cloud computing, process verification, improving medical care, improving quality of services, web technologies, hardware implementations, cultural implication. In this book the best 37 ranked articles are presented.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International IFIP WG 2.13 Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2010, held in Notre Dame, IN, USA, in May/June 2010. The 23 revised full papers presented together with 17 short papers, 5 workshop abstracts and 4 panel descriptions were carefully reviewed and selected from 51 submissions. The papers reflect the international communities of active OSS researchers and present a broad range of perspectives on open source systems ranging from software engineering through organizational issues to law.