Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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The Adventure of Physics - Vol. I: Fall, Flow, and Heat
Christoph Schiller · Motion Mountain · 1990
This book is written for anybody who is curious about nature and motion. Curiosity about how people, animals, things, images and space move leads to many adventures. This volume presents the best of them in the domain of everyday life. Carefully observing everyday motion allows us to deduce six essential statements: everyday motion is continuous, conserved, relative, reversible, mirror-invariant – and lazy. Yes, nature is indeed lazy: in every motion, it minimizes change. This text explores how these six results are deduced and how they fit with all those observations that seem to contradict them. In the structure of modern physics, shown in Figure 1, the results on everyday motion form the major part of the starting point at the bottom. The present volume is the first of a six-volume overview of physics. It resulted from a threefold aim I have pursued since 1990: to present motion in a way that is simple, up to date and captivating. In order to be simple, the text focuses on concepts, while keeping mathematics to the necessary minimum. Understanding the concepts of physics is given precedence over using formulae in calculations. The whole text is within the reach of an undergraduate. In order to be up to date, the text is enriched by the many gems – both theoretical and empirical – that are scattered throughout the scientific literature. In order to be captivating, the text tries to startle the reader as much as possible. Read- ing a book on general physics should be like going to a magic show. We watch, we are astonished, we do not believe our eyes, we think, and finally we understand the trick. When we look at nature, we often have the same experience. Indeed, every page presents at least one surprise or provocation for the reader to think about. Numerous interesting challenges are proposed. The motto of the text, die Menschen stärken, die Sachen klären, a famous statement by Hartmut von Hentig on pedagogy, translates as: ‘To fortify people, to clarify things.' C
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Introductory Chemistry
David Ball · Saylor Foundation · 2011
David W. Ball of Cleveland State University brings his new survey of general chemistry text, Introductory Chemistry, to the market with a fresh theme that will be sure to hold student interest: "Chemistry is Everywhere." Introductory Chemistry is intended for a one-semester introductory or preparatory chemistry course. Throughout the chapters, David presents two features that reinforce the theme of the textbook, that chemistry is everywhere. The first is the boxed feature titled, appropriately, ”Chemistry is Everywhere“. This feature takes a topic of the chapter and demonstrates how this topic shows up in everyday life. In the introductory chapter, ”Chemistry is Everywhere“ focuses on the personal hygiene products that students may use every morning: toothpaste, soap, shampoo among others. These products are chemicals, aren't they? This book explores some of the chemical reactions like the ones that give students clean and healthy teeth, and shiny hair. This feature makes it clear to students that chemistry is, indeed, everywhere, and it will promote student retention in what is sometimes considered an intimidating course. The second boxed feature focuses on chemistry that students likely indulge in every day: eating and drinking. In the ”Food and Drink App“, David discusses how the chemistry of the chapter applies to things that students eat and drink every day. Carbonated beverages depend on the behavior of gases, foods contain acids and bases, and everyone actually eats certain rocks. (Yikes!) Cooking, eating, drinking, metabolism — all chemical processes students are involved with all the time. These features allow students to see the things we interact with every day in a new light — as chemistry. Just like many of the one-semester chemistry books you may be used to, each section in David Ball's starts with one or more Learning Objectives, which list the main points of the section. Each section ends with Key Takeaways, which are reviews of the main points of th
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Food Preparation Lab Manual for FSHN 1150
Erica Beirman; Kate Gilbert; ISU Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition · Iowa State University Digital Press · 2025
This lab book is intended for use in both the lab and kitchen. Each section of the book contains learning objectives, lab problems to be solved, recipes, questions, and observation charts for the input of data. This book is aligned with the introductory Food Preparation Laboratory course at Iowa State University.
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Basic Scientific Food Preparation Lab Manual
Iowa State University Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition · Iowa State University Digital Press · 2023
This lab book is intended for use in both the lab and kitchen. Each section of the book contains learning objectives, lab problems to be solved, recipes, questions, and observation charts for the input of data.
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Ultrasound Physics and its Application in Medicine
Arbin Thapaliya; Alec Sithole; Michael Welsh; Gaston Dana · PALNI · 2024
Ultrasound has a wide range of medical applications. Some of these include obstetrics (monitoring the progress of pregnancy), oncology (monitoring the growth of tumors), cardiology (visualizing the heart function and physiology), biopsy (guiding needles in various procedures), and physiotherapy. For example, today, an estimated 60-70% of pregnant women in the United States undergo ultrasound examination during pregnancy. An estimated 250 million fetal ultrasound examinations are performed every year in the USA. In the last few decades, ultrasound technology has expanded to medical imaging in various other specialties: Anesthesiology, Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, General Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN), Pediatric Emergency Medicine, Physiatry, Sports Medicine, and Surgery. The increasing demand in the use of ultrasound technology in various biomedical fields points to a future in which medical professionals will be required to possess a general knowledge of ultrasound technology. While currently most medical professionals rely on technicians to perform the imaging studies, there can be a high degree of operator dependent results. Therefore, a solid foundation of the technological properties of ultrasound would give health care providers a competitive advantage in the future. This is one of the first goals of this textbook. This textbook also covers general aspects of diagnostic ultrasound providing an excellent reference for both beginners and professionals. In addition, this textbook has end-of-the-chapter experiments that will help educators conduct labs for students and any other learners to enhance their learning and solidify the practical skills.
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Human Reproduction
Hala Bastawros · Iowa State University Digital Press · 2023
This open textbook is designed to provide a deep understanding of the biological and biomedical aspects of human reproduction, covering a wide range of topics from basic reproductive biology to clinical applications. The book starts with foundational knowledge and progresses to more advanced topics while also including real-world clinical orientation for practical contexts.
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Community interventions in obesity-related chronic diseases
Sherri Cirignano; Sara Elnakib; Karen Ensle; Christine Zellers · Rutgers University Libraries (RUcore) · 2023
The rate of obesity continues to climb in the United States in all age groups. National reports, including the Trust for America’s Health annual report State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, highlight key findings and policy recommendations. The need to continue to work towards stabilization of the obesity epidemic could not be more important as consequences of this chronic disease can be dire, potentially affecting physical health with an increase in risk for chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and several types of cancer as well as potentially affecting behavioral health. Curbing the high rates of obesity is particularly of importance when considering the prevalence of childhood obesity, which is on the rise not only in the United States but is also increasing globally. Although there are certain risk factors such as genetics that are not modifiable in this group, there are many dietary, physical activity and environmental factors that are modifiable through lifestyle changes. This course will explore ways to address these lifestyle changes for children through adults with both federally- and NGO- based community interventions that are working towards combating overweight and obesity and how they aim to do so with a health equity lens in mind.
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Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students
Renée LeClair · Virginia Tech Publishing · 2022
Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students covers neuroenergetics, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and selected amino acid metabolism and degradation. This USMLE-aligned text is designed for a first-year undergraduate medical course and is meant to provide the essential biochemical information from these content areas in a concise format to enable students to engage in an active classroom. Hence, it does not cover neurophysiology and neuroanatomy; and clinical correlates and additional application of content are intended to be provided in the classroom experience. The text assumes that the students will have completed medical school prerequisites (including the MCAT) in which they will have been introduced to the most fundamental concepts of biology and chemistry that are essential to understand the content presented here. With its focus on high-yield concepts, this resource will assist the learner later in medical school and for exam preparation. The 49-page text was created specifically for use by pre-clinical students at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and was based on faculty experience and peer review to guide development and hone important topics. Instructors reviewing, adopting, or adapting parts or the whole of the text are requested to register their interest at: https://bit.ly/interest-preclinical. Instructors and subject matter experts interested in and sharing their original course materials relevant to pre-clinical education are requested to join the instructor portal at https://www.oercommons.org/groups/pre-clinical-resources/10133.
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Cell Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry for Pre-Clinical Students
Renee LeClair · Virginia Tech Publishing · 2021
Cell Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry for Pre-Clinical Students is an undergraduate medical-level resource for foundational knowledge across the disciplines of genetics, cell biology and biochemistry. This USMLE-aligned text is designed for a course in first-year undergraduate medical course that is delivered typically before students start to explore systems physiology and pathophysiology. The text is meant to provide the essential information from these content areas in a concise format that would allow learner preparation to engage in an active classroom. Clinical correlates and additional application of content is intended to be provided in the classroom experience. The text assumes that the students will have completed medical school prerequisites (including the MCAT) in which they will have been introduced to the most fundamental concepts of biology and chemistry that are essential to understand the content presented here. This resource should be assistive to the learner later in medical school and for exam preparation given the material is presented in a succinct manner, with a focus on high-yield concepts. The 276-page text was created specifically for use by pre-clinical students at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and was based on faculty experience and peer review to guide development and hone important topics. Instructors reviewing, adopting, or adapting parts or the whole of the text are requested to register their interest at: https://bit.ly/interest-preclinical. Instructors and subject matter experts interested in and sharing their original course materials relevant to pre-clinical education are requested to join the instructor portal at https://www.oercommons.org/groups/pre-clinical-resources/10133. Suggested Citation LeClair, Renée J., (2021). Cell Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry for Pre-Clinical Students, Blackburg, VA: Virginia Tech Publishing. https://doi.org/10.21061/cellbio. Licensed with CC BY NC-SA 4.0.
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Transition to Higher Mathematics: Structure and Proof
Bob Dumas; John McCarthy · Open Scholarship · 2015
This book is written for students who have taken calculus and want to learn what “real mathematics" is. We hope you will find the material engaging and interesting, and that you will be encouraged to learn more advanced mathematics. This is the second edition of our text. It is intended for students who have taken a calculus course, and are interested in learning what higher mathematics is all about. It can be used as a textbook for an "Introduction to Proofs" course, or for self-study. Chapter 1: Preliminaries, Chapter 2: Relations, Chapter 3: Proofs, Chapter 4: Principles of Induction, Chapter 5: Limits, Chapter 6: Cardinality, Chapter 7: Divisibility, Chapter 8: The Real Numbers, Chapter 9: Complex Numbers. The last 4 chapters can also be used as independent introductions to four topics in mathematics: Cardinality; Divisibility; Real Numbers; Complex Numbers.
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Precalculus
David Collingwood; K. Prince; Matthew Conroy · A.T. Still University · 2016
Prior to 1990, the performance of a student in precalculus at the University of Washington was not a predictor of success in calculus. For this reason, the mathematics department set out to create a new course with a specific set of goals in mind: A review of the essential mathematics needed to succeed in calculus. An emphasis on problem solving, the idea being to gain both experience and confidence in working with a particular set of mathematical tools. This text was created to achieve these goals and the 2004-05 academic year marks the eleventh year in which it has been used. Several thousand students have successfully passed through the course. This book is full of worked out examples. We use the the notation “Soluion.” to indicate where the reasoning for a problem begins; the symbol ?? is used to indicate the end of the solution to a problem. There is a Table of Contents that is useful in helping you find a topic treated earlier in the course. It is also a good rough outline when it comes time to study for the final examination. The book also includes an index at the end. Finally, there is an appendix at the end of the text with ”answers” to most of the problems in the text. It should be emphasized these are ”answers” as opposed to ”solutions”. Any homework problems you may be asked to turn in will require you include all your work; in other words, a detailed solution. Simply writing down the answer from the back of the text would never be sufficient; the answers are intended to be a guide to help insure you are on the right track.
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Multivariable Calculus
Don Shimamoto · Don Shimamoto · 2019
This book covers the standard material for a one-semester course in multivariable calculus. The topics include curves, differentiability and partial derivatives, multiple integrals, vector fields, line and surface integrals, and the theorems of Green, Stokes, and Gauss. Roughly speaking the book is organized into three main parts corresponding to the type of function being studied: vector-valued functions of one variable, real-valued functions of many variables, and finally the general case of vector-valued functions of many variables. As is always the case, the most productive way for students to learn is by doing problems, and the book is written to get to the exercises as quickly as possible. The presentation is geared towards students who enjoy learning mathematics for its own sake. As a result, there is a priority placed on understanding why things are true and a recognition that, when details are sketched or omitted, that should be acknowledged. Otherwise the level of rigor is fairly normal. Matrices are introduced and used freely. Prior experience with linear algebra is helpful, but not required.
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Teaching Mathematics at Secondary Level
Tony Gardiner · Open Book Publishers · 2016
Teaching Mathematics is nothing less than a mathematical manifesto. Arising in response to a limited National Curriculum, and engaged with secondary schooling for those aged 11 ̶ 14 (Key Stage 3) in particular, this handbook for teachers will help them broaden and enrich their students’ mathematical education. It avoids specifying how to teach, and focuses instead on the central principles and concepts that need to be borne in mind by all teachers and textbook authors—but which are little appreciated in the UK at present. This study is aimed at anyone who would like to think more deeply about the discipline of ‘elementary mathematics’, in England and Wales and anywhere else. By analysing and supplementing the current curriculum, Teaching Mathematics provides food for thought for all those involved in school mathematics, whether as aspiring teachers or as experienced professionals. It challenges us all to reflect upon what it is that makes secondary school mathematics educationally, culturally, and socially important.
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The Essence of Mathematics Through Elementary Problems
Alexandre Borovik; Tony Gardiner · Open Book Publishers · 2019
It is increasingly clear that the shapes of reality – whether of the natural world, or of the built environment – are in some profound sense mathematical. Therefore it would benefit students and educated adults to understand what makes mathematics itself ‘tick’, and to appreciate why its shapes, patterns and formulae provide us with precisely the language we need to make sense of the world around us. The second part of this challenge may require some specialist experience, but the authors of this book concentrate on the first part, and explore the extent to which elementary mathematics allows us all to understand something of the nature of mathematics from the inside. The Essence of Mathematics consists of a sequence of 270 problems – with commentary and full solutions. The reader is assumed to have a reasonable grasp of school mathematics. More importantly, s/he should want to understand something of mathematics beyond the classroom, and be willing to engage with (and to reflect upon) challenging problems that highlight the essence of the discipline. The book consists of six chapters of increasing sophistication (Mental Skills; Arithmetic; Word Problems; Algebra; Geometry; Infinity), with interleaved commentary. The content will appeal to students considering further study of mathematics at university, teachers of mathematics at age 14-18, and anyone who wants to see what this kind of elementary content has to tell us about how mathematics really works.
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Fundamentals of Matrix Algebra
Gregory Hartman · APEX Calculus · 2011
A college (or advanced high school) level text dealing with the basic principles of matrix and linear algebra. It covers solving systems of linear equations, matrix arithmetic, the determinant, eigenvalues, and linear transformations. Numerous examples are given within the easy to read text. This third edition corrects several errors in the text and updates the font faces.
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APEX PreCalculus
Amy Chapman; Meagan Herald; Jessica Libertini · APEX Calculus · 2017
This text was written as a prequel to the APEXCalculus series, a three–volume series on Calculus. This text is not intended to fully prepare students with all of the mathematical knowledge they need to tackle Calculus, rather it is designed to review mathematical concepts that are often stumbling blocks in the Calculus sequence. It starts basic and builds to more complex topics. This text is written so that each section and topic largely stands on its own, making it a good resource for students in Calculus who are struggling with the supporting mathemathics found in Calculus courses. The topics were chosen based on experience; several instructors in the Applied Mathemathics Department at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) compiled a list of topics that Calculus students commonly struggle with, giving the focus of this text. This allows for a more focused approach; at first glance one of the obvious differences from a standard Pre-Calculus text is its size.
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Open Resources for Community College Algebra
Portland Community College Faculty · Portland Community College · 2018
Open Resources for Community College Algebra (ORCCA) is an open-source, openly-licensed textbook package (eBook, print, and online homework) for basic and intermediate algebra. At Portland Community College, Part 1 is used in MTH 60, Part 2 is used in MTH 65, and Part 3 is used in MTH 95.
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Python for Introductory Statistics
Simon Aman · City Colleges of Chicago · 2021
The purpose of this material is to provide an overview of the free programming language, Python, and a few of its software libraries that are most useful for improving Introductory Statistics students' learning and for providing an alternative statistical software package for those who perform statistical data analysis and plotting. This material, along with the companion workbook and a free web-based Python platform, could easily replace the use of other software packages and calculators in an Introductory Statistics course. Part I, Sections 1 to 4, covers the basics of the Python programming language. Part II, Sections 5 to 13, focuses on Python for introductory statistics, and Part III, Section 14, covers selected advanced statistics topics in Python. Additionally, there are demo video links accompanying key steps for further instruction. No prior programming knowledge is required or assumed.
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Linear Algebra Done Right
Sheldon Axler · Springer · 2024
Now available in Open Access, this best-selling textbook for a second course in linear algebra is aimed at undergraduate math majors and graduate students. The fourth edition gives an expanded treatment of the singular value decomposition and its consequences. It includes a new chapter on multilinear algebra, treating bilinear forms, quadratic forms, tensor products, and an approach to determinants via alternating multilinear forms. This new edition also increases the use of the minimal polynomial to provide cleaner proofs of multiple results. Also, over 250 new exercises have been added. The novel approach taken here banishes determinants to the end of the book. The text focuses on the central goal of linear algebra: understanding the structure of linear operators on finite-dimensional vector spaces. The author has taken unusual care to motivate concepts and simplify proofs. A variety of interesting exercises in each chapter helps students understand and manipulate the objects of linear algebra. Beautiful formatting creates pages with an unusually student-friendly appearance in both print and electronic versions. No prerequisites are assumed other than the usual demand for suitable mathematical maturity. The text starts by discussing vector spaces, linear independence, span, basis, and dimension. The book then deals with linear maps, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors. Inner-product spaces are introduced, leading to the finite-dimensional spectral theorem and its consequences. Generalized eigenvectors are then used to provide insight into the structure of a linear operator.
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Statistics Minus The Math
Nathan Favero · Nathan Favero · 2024
This book was largely adapted from the public domain resource Online Statistics Education: A Multimedia Course of Study (https://onlinestatbook.com Project Leader: David M. Lane, Rice University). A huge thanks to David Lane and his colleagues at Rice University for their creation of this wonderful resource. I use footnotes throughout to indicate precisely where the various sections of each chapter came from. Chapters 11-13 (as well as Section 3.5, Section 4.2.2, most of Section 4.2.3, and Section 9.3.1) were written by me (Nathan). This book is meant to be a free resource and is licensed under CC BY 4.0. You’re welcome to share or adapt it, as long as you provide attribution to any work of mine that you use. This book was made using Quarto and is hosted using GitHub Pages. There are still formatting inconsistencies, and this is ever a work in progress. If you find errors, feel free to reach out (find updated contact info here: https://nathanfavero.com) so I can correct them for the next version I publish.