Books

Disaster Victim Identification: The Practitioner's Guide
Edited by Professor Sue Black
Dundee University Press
Disaster Victim Identification is an important and growing issue. This guide, authored and edited by the UK's leading specialists, is an "all-you-need-to-know" compendium of contemporary practice and procedure informed by the science on which it is based.

It is the core text for the first certified academic course in the UK and the world, on Disaster Victim Identification. The single key reference book in this burgeoning area for police officers and other professionals, the book also accompanies the University of Dundee course which is currently training 500 UK police officers over a two year period.

In its 300 pages the book covers the police context and the roles of UK DVI, Interpol, Home Office, FCO and coroner; the essential processes such as body recovery, mortuary management, fingerprints and photography; and the work of the "ologists" - DNA, radiology, pathology, odontology, anthropology as well as embalming and repatriation.

Lead editor, Professor Sue Black, Chair of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University is one of the UK's leading forensic anthropologists and had the original idea for course and book.

Nitrogen-fixing Leguminous Symbioses
Dilworth, M.J.; James, E.K.; Sprent, J.I.; Newton, W.E. (Eds.)
This book is the self-contained final volume of a seven-volume series covering the basic and applied science relating to nitrogen fixation.

It addresses the most important nitrogen-fixing symbiosis of all - that between legumes and their root-nodule bacteria - and therefore deals with the properties and behaviour of both macro- and micro-symbiont.

The coverage is comprehensive beginning with the extent of the symbiosis and how it may have arisen in the geological past.

This volume also covers the basic physiology of the variety of root-nodule bacteria infecting legumes, as well as looking at the renewed controversy about the chemical forms of nitrogen exported to the legume.

It will be of interest to a range of audiences including researchers, scientists working with root nodule bacteria or host legumes, agronomists, forestry scientists and soil scientists.

Professor Janet Sprent is emeritus professor of plant biology within the College of Life Sciences. Dr Euan James is a scientific officer within the Division of Cell Biology and Immunology within the College of Life Sciences.

Doorway
Professor Simon Unwin
Routledge
Apart from high-profile (and sometimes notorious) instances, architecture tends to be treated as the background to our lives, as a given within which we must fit ourselves and our activities. But architecture, the organisation of space, exerts an influence over what we do and how we do it; it sets the spatial matrix within which we all live.

One key (and ancient) element of architecture is the doorway. We pass through doorways hundreds of times every day but hardly ever give thought to what they do, to us as well as for us. And yet they impinge on our lives in many ways, influencing our sense of identity and view of the world. Their power underpins their use, from time immemorial, as locations for ceremony and ritual. We find them psychologically comfortable places to sit and watch the world go by. Whilst defining transitions from 'here' to 'there', they seem also to frame the moment.

Unwin's latest book explores the phenomenology of the doorway. Using a wide variety of architectural examples, from ancient times to modern, and illustrations from literature and installation art, it exposes the profound powers attaching to this everyday component of our experience of the world.

Simon Unwin is Professor of Architecture in Dundee School of Architecture. Doorway is his third book. His first, Analysing Architecture (1997 and 2003), is used in schools of architecture around the world, and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Persian and most recently Korean.

Muir's Textbook of Pathology
David A Levison, Robin Reid, Alistair D Burt, David J Harrison, Stewart Fleming
First published in 1924, 'Muir's Textbook of Pathology' has set a standard in this subject by linking the scientific aspects that underlie pathological processes, relating these to pathological changes specific to the various organ systems, and placing all in context for students of clinical medicine and surgery.

This fully-revised fourteenth edition will ensure that the title retains its pre-eminence in the field with a clearly defined and easy-to-follow structure, new photographs and explanatory line diagrams, all in full colour, and applicability to both systems-based and problem-based undergraduate courses.

Focusing on core material without neglecting up-to-the-minute detail, this book is a key text for students, but also has significant appeal for pathology trainees.

Divided into two main sections, the text opens with a series of introductory chapters on the mechanisms of general pathology before moving on to a discussion of pathology in relation to specific body systems.

David Levison is Professor of Pathology in the Division of Pathology and Neuroscience at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School.

Oil and Gas Law
Greg Gordon and John Paterson
Dundee University Press
The UK Continental Shelf is no longer a new frontier of oil and gas exploration. It can now be regarded as on the downward slope of the production profile. As a mature hydrocarbon province, the main question today is - how steep will that decline be? But in reaching this position over the last 40 years or so a strong legal framework has been developed… a framework that can be a model for other areas.

Oil and Gas Law - Current Practice and Emerging Trends draws on the accumulation of experience gained over four decades of hydrocarbon operations on the UK Continental Shelf. Mistakes have been made along the way and lessons have been learned - sometimes the hard way. But the legal and regulatory framework that is now in place on the UKCS can justifiably claim to be one of the most advanced anywhere in the world.

Oil and Gas Law - Current Practice and Emerging Trends brings together the expertise of academics and practising lawyers to consider the key regulatory and contractual dimensions of the mature hydrocarbon province.

Authors Greg Gordon and John Paterson from the University of Aberdeen provide an important in depth volume on this complex area of law, capturing with great clarity the many joint industry and government initiatives which impact the sector and analysing in detail - often for the first time - their legal basis.

Oil and Gas Law - Current Practice and Emerging Trends is a vital reference for all those engaged in the sector. It is available direct from www.dup.dundee.ac.uk.