Conceptual Dynamics is an innovative textbook designed to provide students with a solid understanding of the underlying concepts required to master complex dynamics problems. This textbook uses a variety of problem types including, conceptual, traditional dynamics, computer based and design problems. Use of these diverse problems strengthens students understanding of core concepts and encourages them to become more active in the learning process. Conceptual Dynamics has an extensive companion website (ConceptualDynamics.com) containing interactive quizzes and animations for students. At a net price of only $55 Conceptual Dynamics is the most affordable dynamics textbook available. Throughout this book, sets of “conceptual” problems are included that are meant to test the understanding of fundamental ideas presented in the text without requiring significant calculation. These problems can be assigned as homework or can be employed in class as exercises that more actively involve the students in lecture. When employed in class, these problems can provide the instructor with real-time feedback on how well the students are grasping the presented material. In order to assist the instructor, PowerPoint lecture slides are provided to accompany the book. Boxes are included throughout the text leaving places where students can record important definitions and the correct responses to the conceptual questions presented within the PowerPoint slides. In this sense, the book is meant to be used as a tool by which students can come to learn and appreciate the subject of dynamics. Students are further encouraged to be active participants in their learning through activities presented at the end of each chapter. These activities can be performed in class involving the students or as demonstrations, or can be assigned to the students to perform outside of class. These activities help the students build physical intuition for the sometimes abstract theoretical concepts presented in the book and in lecture. Along with the standard dynamics problems that are assigned as part of a student's homework, this book also includes computer based and design problems. The computer based problems in this book require the student to derive the equation of motion and to sometimes solve the resulting differential equation. The computer problems range from problems that may be completed using a spreadsheet to problems that require coding or a specialized software package (such as Mathematica, Maple, or MATLAB/Simulink). Design problems are included in each chapter in order to emphasize the importance of the material for students, as well as to get the students to think about real world considerations. The application of the fundamental subject material to various design problems helps students see the material from a different perspective. It will also help them solidify their understanding of the material. This textbook may be used as a standalone text or in conjunction with on-line lectures and effectively assist an instructor in “inverting the classroom”.

This book offers a model for concepts and their dynamics. A basic assumptionis that concepts are composed of specified components, which are representedby large binary patterns whose psychological meaning is governed by the interaction between conceptual modules and other functional modules. A recurrent connectionist model is developed in which some inputs are attracted faster than others by an attractor, where convergence times can beinterpreted as decision latencies. The learning rule proposed is extracted from psychological experiments. The rule has the property that that whena context becomes more familiar, the associations between the concepts of the context spontaneously evolve from loose associations to a more taxonomicorganization.

"This book describes a new theoretical approach--Dynamic Field Theory (DFT)--that explains how people think and act"--

Extensively revised from a successful first edition, this book features a wealth of clear illustrations, numerous worked examples, and many problem sets. It provides the quantitative perspective missing from more descriptive texts, without requiring an advanced background in mathematics, and as such will be welcomed for use in courses such as biomechanics and orthopedics, rehabilitation and industrial engineering, and occupational or sports medicine.

Strategic Dynamics: Concepts and Cases, by Burgelman, Grove, and Meza offers unique and valuable insight into strategy making for companies in information technology-driven industries. It is the product of over twelve years of teaching and research based on a unique combination of academic (Stanford’s Robert Burgelman) and industry (Intel’s Andy Grove) experience. The key themes and conceptual frameworks discussed in this book, along with its case studies and industry notes, provide instructors and students with a more complete viewpoint on the dynamic interactions of companies within industries and between industries than is typically found in books on strategy and technology strategy.

An account that analyzes the dynamic reasoning processes implicated in a fundamental problem of creativity in science: how does genuine novelty emerge from existing representations? How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting forth in a blinding flash of inspiration is mistaken. Instead, novel concepts are shown to arise out of the interplay of three factors: an attempt to solve specific problems; the use of conceptual, analytical, and material resources provided by the cognitive-social-cultural context of the problem; and dynamic processes of reasoning that extend ordinary cognition. Focusing on the third factor, Nersessian draws on cognitive science research and historical accounts of scientific practices to show how scientific and ordinary cognition lie on a continuum, and how problem-solving practices in one illuminate practices in the other. Her investigations of scientific practices show conceptual change as deriving from the use of analogies, imagistic representations, and thought experiments, integrated with experimental investigations and mathematical analyses. She presents a view of constructed models as hybrid objects, serving as intermediaries between targets and analogical sources in bootstrapping processes. Extending these results, she argues that these complex cognitive operations and structures are not mere aids to discovery, but that together they constitute a powerful form of reasoning—model-based reasoning—that generates novelty. This new approach to mental modeling and analogy, together with Nersessian's cognitive-historical approach, make Creating Scientific Concepts equally valuable to cognitive science and philosophy of science.

The study of dynamical systems is a well established field. This book provides a panorama of several aspects of interest to mathematicians and physicists. It collects the material of several courses at the graduate level given by the authors, avoiding detailed proofs in exchange for numerous illustrations and examples. Apart from common subjects in this field, a lot of attention is given to questions of physical measurement and stochastic properties of chaotic dynamical systems.

This intermediate textbook is appropriate for students in vehicle dynamics courses, in their last year of undergraduate study or their first year of graduate study. It is also appropriate for mechanical engineers, automotive engineers, and researchers in the area of vehicle dynamics for continuing education or as a reference. It addresses fundamental and advanced topics, and a basic knowledge of kinematics and dynamics, as well as numerical methods, is expected.The contents are kept at a theoretical-practical level, with a strong emphasis on application. This third edition has been reduced by 25%, to allow for coverage over one semester, as opposed to the previous edition that needed two semesters for coverage. The textbook is composed of four parts: Vehicle Motion: covers tire dynamics, forward vehicle dynamics, and driveline dynamics Vehicle Kinematics: covers applied kinematics, applied mechanisms, steering dynamics, and suspension mechanisms Vehicle Dynamics: covers applied dynamics, vehicle planar dynamics, and vehicle roll dynamics Vehicle Vibration: covers applied vibrations, vehicle vibrations, and suspension optimization Vehicle dynamics concepts are covered in detail, with a concentration on their practical uses. Also provided are related theorems and formal proofs, along with case examples. Readers appreciate the user-friendly presentation of the science and engineering of the mechanical aspects of vehicles, and learn how to analyze and optimize vehicles’ handling and ride dynamics.

While the volumes hitherto published in the Springer Series in Synergetics have been devoted almost exclusively to the self-organized formation of structures in physics, chemistry and biology, the present monograph by Weidlich and Haag deals with the formation of "structures" (or "patterns") in society. At first glance it would seem a daring enterprise to deal with the complex processes in society using concepts and methods first developed in physics. But over the past decade it has been shown that there is a large class of phenomena in a variety of fields to which unifying concepts can be applied. This is particulary true of situations in which a system composed of many parts or individuals acquires a new structure on macroscopic scales. Indeed, this is the definition of synergetics which I formulated more than a decade ago, and which formed the basis of my survey on the profound analogies in the behaviour of complex systems, includ ing those of sociology (H. Haken: Synergetics. An Introduction, Volume 1 of this series). As I have pointed out on many occasions, the universal validity of these concepts is neither accidental nor is it caused by a mere extension of physical rules to other fields, but is instead a consequence of deep-rooted struc tural properties of systems of interacting parts which are due to rigorous mathe maticallaws. Generally speaking, concepts and methods originally used in physics can be applied to sociological phenomena in two ways.

Everyday life is defined and characterised by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this essential book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. In working through core propositions about social practices and how they change the book is clear and accessible; real world examples, including the history of car driving, the emergence of frozen food, and the fate of hula hooping, bring abstract concepts to life and firmly ground them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation addressing questions such as: how do practices emerge, exist and die? what are the elements from which practices are made? how do practices recruit practitioners? how are elements, practices and the links between them generated, renewed and reproduced? Precise, relevant and persuasive this book will inspire students and researchers from across the social sciences. Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Mika Pantzar is Research Professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at University of Sheffield.