The New Science of Astrobiology: From Genesis of the Living Cell to Evolution of Intelligent Behaviour in the Universe.

Proceedings of the Sixth Trieste Conference on Chemical Evolution, Trieste, Italy 18-22 September, 2000. Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers 2004, cm.16,5x24,5, pp.XX,428, legatura editoriale cartonata, copertina figurata a colori. The general topic of this volume concerns the origin, evolution, distribution, and destiny of life in the Universe. Firstly, it discusses the transition from inert matter to cellular life and its evolution to fully developed intelligent beings, and also the possibility of life occurring elsewhere, particularly in other environments in our own and other solar systems. Secondly, the book explores the role that space missions may play in obtaining further insight into the question of the origin of life. Reviews are included of the research for microorganisms in the solar system and the well-established project for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The present work is much broader in its scope than in previous conferences: over one hundred leading scientists have reviewed the entire range of subjects dealt with in these sixty-nine papers. Audience: This book is aimed at advanced students, as well as researchers, in the many areas of basic, earth, and life sciences that contribute to the study of the first steps in the origin of life..

I saggi, riassunti in questo volume, sistemano in unità organica la lunga e meritoria riflessione dell'autore - scienziato di alto prestigio internazionale nel settore della medicina sperimentale - sui problemi epistemologici relativi alla natura delle conoscenze che sono il presupposto culturale nell'esercizio pratico della medicina. La concezione naturalistica della medicina come scienza, propugnata dall'autore, si fonda sull'idea che ciascun gruppo di malattie sia identificabile sulla base della loro sequenza eziopatogenetica e fisiopatologica e possa essere spiegato nel suo meccanismo causale come qualunque altro processo della biologia funzionale. Amsterdam,1998. Venezia, Ist.Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 1998, cm.16x24,5, pp.197, legatura ed.cop.fig.a col. Coll.IVSLA Series,1. Two hundred years after the Copernican-Galileian revolution, a revolutionary change displaced Hippocratic-Galenic views from medicine. The essence of the revolution, prompted by conceptual changes, whose origin, mechanisms and specificity have not yet been clarified, was the transition from the nosological to the physio-pathological classifications of diseases. The medical discoveries of the last century heralded a long period of domination of the deterministic and reductionistic approaches. This domination is now weakened by the recognition that, in living organisms as well as in many diseases, evolutionary processes play a much larger role than previously thought. The mechanisms of causation during the transitions of the alterations from the lower to the higher levels of complexity cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by classical deterministic principles. The full explanation of the aetio- pathogenetic sequences and physio-pathological patterns require the concept of 'evolutionary emergence', the evolutionary generation of new information. Among the arguments to delegitimise medicine as part of the natural sciences are the uniqueness and the historicity of medical entities and events. Natural-science medicine deals, however, with general and not individual knowledge, with phenomena belonging to classes or groups of natural events. Medicine is part of the natural sciences because it deals with objective alterations of natural processes and with the scientific method, and, like the other natural sciences, aims to understand the mechanisms underlying diseases through universal principles. In spite of the difficulties, due to insufficient knowledge of preceding conditions, complexity of living systems and occurrence of variations outside of the observable, medical predictions are not wild guesses but rational scientific anticipations. Similarly to the other natural sciences, clinical explanations aim to show that medical events are expected on the basis of conditions and covering laws.

Springer Verlag 1995, cm.15,5x23,5, pp.220, 123 figures, brossura con copertina figurata. Edizione inglese This book deals with the physical systems and psychophysical processes that intervene in what we broadly call "music. " We shall analyze what objective, physical properties of sound patterns are associated with what subjective, psychological sensations of music. We shall describe how these sound patterns are actually produced in musical instruments, how they propagate through the environment, and how they are detected by the ear and interpreted in the brain. We shall do all this by using the physicist's language and his method of thought and analysis-without, however, using complicated mathematics (this, of course, will necessarily impose serious limitations on our presentation). Although no previous knowledge of physics, physiology, and neurobiology is required, it is assumed that the reader is familiar with music, in particular with musical notation, musical scales, and intervals, that he has at least some basic ideas about musical instruments, and that he has experienced typical musical "sensations

New York, Dover Publications Inc. 1998 cm.13,5x21 pp.480, brossura. Testo Inglese. "An outstanding treatise." &; Review of Scientific Instruments "Astonishing how this treatise &; still retains a place of preeminence in modern acoustical literature." &; Electronics Industry The major work by a Nobel Laureate who was among the greatest of 19th-century physicists is a standard compendium which has served generations of acousticians, physicists, and mathematical physicists as the classic coverage of all aspects of sound, both experimental and theoretical. The book sums up previous research and offers original contributions of Lord Rayleigh. It is, therefore, not only a reference book, but a book of great practical utility for all readers concerned with scientific aspects of sound. Volume 1 covers harmonic vibrations, systems with one degree of freedom, vibrating systems in general, transverse vibrations of strings, longitudinal and torsional vibrations of bars, vibrations of membranes and plates, curved shells and plates, and electrical vibrations. Volume II covers aerial vibrations, vibrations in tubes, reflection and refraction of plane waves, general equations, theory of resonators, Laplace's functions and acoustics, spherical sheets of air, vibration of solid bodies, and facts and theories of audition.

Pisa, Libreria Scientifica Giordano Pellegrini 1972, cm.17x24, pp.276, 132 figure nel testo, brossura. Quarta edizione. Ristampa.