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2016
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e-book
At its most basic definition the practice of law comprises conducting research to find relevant rules of law and then applying those rules to the specific set of circumstances faced by a client. However, in American law, the legal rules to be applied derive from myriad sources, complicating the process and making legal research different from other sorts of research. This text introduces first-year law students to the new kind of research required to study and to practice law. It seeks to demystify the art of legal research by following a “Source and Process” approach. First, the text introduces students to the major sources of American law and describes the forms the various authorities traditionally took in print. After establishing this base, the text proceeds to instruct students on the methods they will most likely use in practice, namely electronic research techniques and the consultation of secondary sources. Sources of Law incorporates screencasts currently hosted on YouTube that actively demonstrate the processes described in the static text. Finally, the text illustrates how the different pieces come together in the legal research process. Sources of Law focuses on realistic goals for 1Ls to learn in a relatively small amount of instruction time, and so focuses mainly on the basics. It does introduce some advanced material so that 1Ls can recognize pieces of information they may encounter in research, but it does not fully cover researching materials outside the scope of the traditional 1L course. As such, it is best-suited for introductory legal research courses for 1Ls.
- Keywords:
- United States Legal research Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
The founders of sociology in the United States wanted to make a difference. A central aim of the sociologists of the Chicago school was to use sociological knowledge to achieve social reform. A related aim of sociologists like Jane Addams, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others since was to use sociological knowledge to understand and alleviate gender, racial, and class inequality. It is no accident that many sociology instructors and students are first drawn to sociology because they want to learn a body of knowledge that could help them make a difference in the world at large. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World is designed for this audience. It presents a sociological understanding of society but also a sociological perspective on how to change society, while maintaining the structure and contents of the best mainstream texts. Several pedagogical features of the book convey the sociological perspective and change theme: Almost every chapter begins with a Social Issues in the News story from recent media coverage that recounts an event related to the chapter's topic and proceeds with thought-provoking discussion about the social issue related to the event. Additional discussion elsewhere in the chapter helps students understand the basis for this issue and related issues. This dual treatment of the news story will help students appreciate the relevance of sociology for newsworthy events and issues. Three types of boxes in almost every chapter reflect the U.S. founders' emphasis on sociology and social justice. The first box, Sociology Making a Difference, discusses a social issue related to the chapter's topic and shows how sociological insights and findings have been used, or could be used, to address the issue and achieve social reform. The second box, Learning from Other Societies, discusses the experience in another nation(s) regarding a social issue related to the chapter; this box helps students appreciate what has worked and not worked in other nations regarding the issue and thus better understand how social reform might be achieved in the United States. The third box, What Sociology Suggests, summarizes social policies grounded in sociological theory and research that hold strong potential for addressing issues discussed in the chapter. In addition, many chapters contain tables called Theory Snapshots. These tables provide a quick reference tool for students to understand the varying theoretical approaches to the sociological topic that the chapter is discussing. Finally, almost every chapter ends with a Using Sociology vignette that presents a hypothetical scenario concerning an issue or topic from the chapter and asks students to use the chapter's material in a decision-making role involving social change. These vignettes help students connect the chapter's discussion with real-life situations and, in turn, to better appreciate the relevance of sociological knowledge for social reform. Drawing on these features and other discussion throughout the book, a brief and unique final chapter, "Conclusion: Understanding and Changing the Social World,"sums up what students have learned about society and themselves and reviews the relevance of sociology for achieving social change. Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World makes sociology relevant for today's students by balancing traditional coverage with a fresh approach that ironically takes them back to sociology's American roots in the use of sociological knowledge for social reform.
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e-book
Social Problems: Continuity and Change is a realistic but motivating look at the many issues that are facing our society today. As this book's subtitle, Continuity and Change, implies, social problems are persistent, but they have also improved in the past and can be improved in the present and future, provided that our nation has the wisdom and will to address them. It is easy for students to read a social problems textbook and come away feeling frustrated by the enormity of the many social problems facing us today. Social Problems: Continuity and Change certainly does not minimize the persistence of social problems, but neither does it overlook the possibilities for change offered by social research and by the activities of everyday citizens working to make a difference. Readers the book will find many examples of how social problems have been improved and of strategies that hold great potential for solving them today and in the future. You will find several pedagogical features help to convey the “continuity and change” theme of this text and the service sociology vision in which it is grounded: Each chapter begins with a “Social Problems in the News” story related to the social problem discussed in that chapter. These stories provide an interesting starting point for the chapter's discussion and show its relevance for real-life issues. Three types of boxes in each chapter provide examples of how social problems have been changed and can be changed. In no particular order, A first box, “Applying Social Research,” discusses how the findings from sociological and other social science research have either contributed to public policy related to the chapter's social problem or have the potential of doing so. A second box, “Lessons from Other Nations,” discusses how another nation or nations have successfully addressed the social problem of that chapter. A third box, “People Making a Difference,” discusses efforts by individuals, non-profit organizations or social change groups, or social movements relating to the chapter's social problem. Students will see many examples in this box of how ordinary people can indeed make a difference. A fourth box in each chapter, “Children and Our Future,” examines how the social problem discussed in that chapter particularly affects children, and it outlines the problem's repercussions for their lives as adolescents and adults. This box reinforces for students the impact of social problems on children and the importance of addressing these problems for their well-being as well as for the nation's well-being.Each chapter ends with a “Using What You Know” feature that presents students with a scenario involving the social problem from the chapter and that puts them in a decision-making role. This feature helps connect the chapter's theoretical discussion with potential real-life situations. Each chapter also ends with a “What You Can Do” feature that suggests several activities, strategies, or other efforts that students might undertake to learn more about and/or to address the social problem examined in the chapter. Like other aspects of the book, this feature helps counter “doom and gloom” feelings that little can be done about social problems. Other pedagogical features in each chapter include Learning Objectives at the beginning of a major section that highlight key topics to be learned; Key Takeaways at the end of a major section that highlight important points that were discussed in the section; For Your Review questions, also at the end of a major section, that have students think critically about that section's discussion; and a Summary that reviews the major points made in the chapter. The founders of American sociology a century or more ago in cities like Atlanta and Chicago wanted to reduce social inequality, to improve the lives of people of color, and more generally to find solutions to the most vexing social problems of their times. A former president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, A. Javier Treviño, has used the term service sociology to characterize their vision of their new discipline. Social Problems: Continuity and Change is grounded in this vision by offering a sociological understanding of today's social problems and of possible solutions to these problems.
- Subjects:
- Sociology
- Keywords:
- Social change Social problems Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
In this book, you will learn how digital signals are captured, represented, processed, communicated, and stored in computers. The specific topics we will cover include: physical properties of the source information (such as sound or images), devices for information cap- ture (microphones, cameras), digitization, compression, digital signal representation (JPEG, MPEG), digital signal processing (DSP), and network communication. By the end of this book, you should understand the problems and solutions facing signal computing systems development in the areas of user interfaces, information retrieval, data structures and algo- rithms, and communications.
- Subjects:
- Computing
- Keywords:
- Signal processing -- Digital techniques Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Sales and Leases is a coursebook for a 3-credit course in personal property sales and leases – the subject matter of UCC Articles 2 and 2A. Adjustments could be made for other credit allocations and chapters can be used on a stand-alone basis. The course is designed so that students both review the rules and principles they studied in their first-year course in Contracts and learn the rules that apply to the subset of contracts for the sale and lease of goods. Students taking this course should be well-prepared to solve legal problems in contracts and sales, and should be well-prepared for those parts of the bar exam as well. While the course in Contracts focuses on the rules of common-law contracts, the focus of this course is the rules found in legislation. Therefore, instead of emphasizing case analysis, the book contains a good deal of narrative that assists students in working through the complexity of the statutes. Students will need to supplement the book with a complete copy of the UCC that includes the Official Comments. Discussion of other statutes, such as UETA and Magnuson-Moss, is incorporated where appropriate. The approach is problem-based, which we believe is more appropriate for an upper-division course based primarily on statutes. The narrative is interspersed with problems for class discussion that require students to apply the principles and rules to particular fact situations. Many times there is an issue of interpretation or policy in the Code, however, and therefore each chapter also contains at least one case that explores an issue arising under the statute. Please note that the publisher requires you to login to access and download the textbooks.
- Subjects:
- Law and Legislation
- Keywords:
- Sales Leases United States Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
This text is a free introductory text that introduces MS Access and relational database design. The motivation is to support a second-year course on database systems which, to the student, is either a service course providing an introduction to database concepts, or, as a prerequisite for more advanced study in the field.
- Subjects:
- Computing
- Keywords:
- Microsoft Access Relational databases Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
I never seemed to find the perfect data-oriented Python book for my course, so I set out to write just such a book. Luckily at a faculty meeting three weeks before I was about to start my new book from scratch over the holiday break, Dr. Atul Prakash showed me the Think Python book which he had used to teach his Python course that semester. It is a well-written Computer Science text with a focus on short, direct explanations and ease of learning.The overall book structure has been changed to get to doing data analysis problems as quickly as possible and have a series of running examples and exercises about data analysis from the very beginning. Chapters 2–10 are similar to the Think Python book, but there have been major changes. Number-oriented examples and exercises have been replaced with data- oriented exercises. Topics are presented in the order needed to build increasingly sophisticated data analysis solutions. Some topics like try and except are pulled forward and presented as part of the chapter on conditionals. Functions are given very light treatment until they are needed to handle program complexity rather than introduced as an early lesson in abstraction. Nearly all user-defined functions have been removed from the example code and exercises outside of Chapter 4. The word “recursion”1 does not appear in the book at all. In chapters 1 and 11–16, all of the material is brand new, focusing on real-world uses and simple examples of Python for data analysis including regular expressions for searching and parsing, automating tasks on your computer, retrieving data across the network, scraping web pages for data, object-oriented programming, using web services, parsing XML and JSON data, creating and using databases using Structured Query Language, and visualizing data. The ultimate goal of all of these changes is a shift from a Computer Science to an Informatics focus is to only include topics into a first technology class that can be useful even if one chooses not to become a professional programmer.
- Subjects:
- Computing
- Keywords:
- Computer programming Programming languages (Electronic computers) Textbooks Python (Computer program language)
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Introducing public health ethics poses two special challenges. First, it is a relatively new field that combines public health and practical ethics. Its unfamiliarity requires considerable explanation, yet its scope and emergent qualities make delineation difficult. Moreover, while the early development of public health ethics occurred in a western context, its reach, like public health itself, has become global. A second challenge, then, is to articulate an approach specific enough to provide clear guidance yet sufficiently flexible and encompassing to adapt to global contexts. Broadly speaking, public health ethics helps guide practical decisions affecting population or community health based on scientific evidence and in accordance with accepted values and standards of right and wrong. In these ways, public health ethics builds on its parent disciplines of public health and ethics. This dual inheritance plays out in the definition the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers of public health ethics: “A systematic process to clarify, prioritize, and justify possible courses of public health action based on ethical principles, values and beliefs of stakeholders, and scientific and other information” (CDC 2011). Public health ethics shares with other fields of practical and professional ethics both the general theories of ethics and a common store of ethical principles, values, and beliefs. It differs from these other fields largely in the nature of challenges that public health officials typically encounter and in the ethical frameworks it employs to address these challenges. Frameworks provide methodical approaches or procedures that tailor general ethical theories, principles, values, and beliefs to the specific ethical challenges that arise in a particular field. Although no framework is definitive, many are useful, and some are especially effective in particular contexts. This chapter will conclude by setting forth a straightforward, stepwise ethics framework that provides a tool for analyzing the cases in this volume and, more importantly, one that public health practitioners have found useful in a range of contexts. For a public health practitioner, knowing how to employ an ethics framework to address a range of ethical challenges in public health—a know-how that depends on practice—is the ultimate take-home message.
- Subjects:
- Public Health
- Keywords:
- Public health -- Moral ethical aspects Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
In a world that is becoming more virtual, more global, and more complex, the project manager's ability to function in this environment becomes critical to the success of the project. Project Management from Simple to Complex explores project management within this complex, virtual, and global environment. This is not a standard textbook that was adapted to the new publishing paradigm; it was designed from the beginning to utilize its capabilities. The book is written in collaboration by an expert in Project Management and an expert in writing instructional textbooks and using technology for communicating online to create a unique learning environment that prepares students to manage projects in a global, multicultural, and online environment. Project Management from Simple to Complex features a new model for managing projects, as well as, exploration into the personal dynamics of project management and the role those dynamics play in project outcomes.
- Subjects:
- Management
- Keywords:
- Time management Textbooks Project management
- Resource Type:
- e-book
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e-book
Principles of Microeconomics: Scarcity and Social Provisioning takes a pluralistic approach to the standard topics of an introductory microeconomics course. The text builds on the chiefly neoclassical material of the OpenStax Principles of Economics text, adding extensive content from heterodox economic thought. Emphasizing the importance of pluralism and critical thinking, the text presents the method and theory of neoclassical economics alongside critiques thereof and heterodox alternatives in both method and theory. This approach is taken from the outset of the text, where contrasting definitions of economics are discussed in the context of the various ways in which neoclassical and heterodox economists study the subject. The same approach–of theory and method, critique, and alternative theory theory and method–is taken in the study of consumption, production, and market exchange, as well as in the applied theory chapters. Historical and contemporary examples are given throughout, and both theory and application are presented with a balanced approach. This textbook will be of interest especially to instructors and students who wish to go beyond the traditional approach to the fundamentals of microeconomic theory, and explore the wider spectrum of economic thought. Instructors may contact Open Oregon Educational Resources for quiz question test banks associated with each chapter.
- Subjects:
- Economics
- Keywords:
- Microeconomics Textbooks
- Resource Type:
- e-book