springer berlin heidelberg jan 2009 (140 risultati)

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The Sun and stars rotate in di erent ways and at di erent velocity rates. The knowledge of how they rotate is important in understanding the formation and evolution of stars and their structure. The closest star to our Earth, the Sun, is a good laboratory to study in detail the rotation of a G star and allows to test new ideas and develop new techniques to study stellar rotation. More or less massive, more or lessevolved objects, however, can have averydi erent rotation rate, structure and history. In recent years our understanding of the rotation of the Sun has greatly improved. The Sun has a well-known large-scale rotation, which can be m- sured thanks to visible features across the solar disk, such as sunspots, or via spectroscopy. In addition, several studies cast light on di erential rotation in the convective zone and on meridional circulation in the radiative zone of the Sun. Even the rotation of the core of the Sun can now be studied thanks to various methods, such as dynamics of the gravitational moments and of course, helioseismology, through g-modes analysis. Moreover, the magnetic eld is strongly linked to the matter motions in the solar plasma. The solar magnetic eld can be measured only at the surface or in theupperlayers.Itistheproductoftheinternaldynamoorofthelocaldynamos if they exist ¿ in any case magnetic eld and rotation cannot thus be separated.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 276 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on High Performance Embedded Architectures and Compilers, HiPEAC 2009, held in Paphos, Cyprus, in January 2009. The 27 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 97 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on dynamic translation and optimisation, low level scheduling, parallelism and resource control, communication, mapping for CMPs, power, cache issues as well as parallel embedded applications.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 436 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume includes the proceedings of all the ve workshops that were held as part of the International Conference on Service-Oriented Systems 2007 (ICSOC 2007): ¿ Mashups 2007: First International Workshop on Web APIs and Services Mashups ¿ NFPSLA-SOC 2007: Workshop on Non-Functional Properties and Service Level Agreements in Service-Oriented Computing ¿ SeMSoc 2007: Second International SeMSoC Workshop Business-Oriented Aspects Concerning Semantics and Methodologies in Service-Oriented Computing ¿ TSOA 2007: First International Workshop on Telecom Service-Oriented Architectures ¿ WESOA2007:ThirdInternationalWorkshoponEngineeringService-Orie nted Applications: Analysis, Design and Composition These workshops o ered interesting presentations and discussions on a wide rangeofhottopicsinservice-orientedcomputing:developmentofmashups,m- agement of non-functional properties and service level agreements, engineering approaches, and semantic methodologies. Also, the crucial application domain of telecom services and service architectures was investigated. The ve workshops were selected out of eight submissions. During the - lection process we encouraged the merging of workshop proposals with similar scope. We are grateful to all workshop organizers. Without their valuable ideas and support the workshop sessions at ICSOC as well as this volume would not have been possible. We also thank all authors for their active participation in the events, for the quality of their papers, and for being patient with us during the long process of compilation of this volume.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 464 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Black Holes are still considered to be among the most mysterious and fascinating objects in our universe. Awaiting the era of gravitational astronomy, much progress in theoretical modeling and understanding of classical and quantum black holes has already been achieved.The present volume serves as a tutorial, high-level guided tour through the black-hole landscape: information paradox and blackhole thermodynamics, numerical simulations of black-hole formation and collisions, braneworld scenarios and stability of black holes with respect to perturbations are treated in great detail, as is their possible occurrence at the LHC.An outgrowth of a topical and tutorial summer school, this extensive set of carefully edited notes has been set up with the aim of constituting an advanced-level, multi-authored textbook which meets the needs of both postgraduate students and young researchers in the fields of modern cosmology, astrophysics and (quantum) field theory.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 528 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -It is our pleasure to welcome you to the rst edition of the International S- posium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems. This unique events aims at bringing together researchers from Software - gineeringandSecurity Engineering,helping to unite and further developthe two communitiesinthisandfutureeditions.Theparalleltechnicalsponsorshipsfrom the ACM SIGSAC (the ACM interest group in security) and ACM SIGSOFT (the ACM interest groupin softwareengineering) and the IEEE TCSE is a clear sign of the importance of this inter-disciplinary research area and its potential. The di culty of building secure software systems is no longer focused on mastering security technology such as cryptography or access control models. Other important, and less controllable, factors include the complexity of m- ern networked software systems, the unpredictability of practical development lifecycles, the intertwining of and trade-o between functionality, security and other qualities, the di culty of dealing with human factors, and so forth. Over the last few years, an entire research domain has been building up around these problems. And although some battles have been won, the jury is still out on the nal verdict. The conference program included two major keynotes from Axel Van L- sweerde (U. Louvain) and Wolfram Schulte (Microsoft Research) and an int- esting blend of research, industry and idea papers.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume constitutes the revised selected papers of the 6th International Workshop, DALT 2008, held as satellite workshop of AAMAS 2008, the 7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, in Estoril, Portugal, on May 12, 2008. The 12 papers, presented together with 3 invited papers, were carefully reviewed and selected from 14 submissions. The workshop provided a discussion forum to both (i) support the transfer of declarative paradigms and techniques to the broader community of agent researchers and practitioners, and (ii) to bring the issue of designing complex agent systems to the attention of researchers working on declarative languages and technologies.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Despite its explosive growth over the last decade, the Web remains essentially a tool to allow humans to access information. Semantic Web technologies like RDF, OWL and other W3C standards aim to extend the Web¿s capability through increased availability of machine-processable information.Davies, Grobelnik and Mladenic have grouped contributions from renowned researchers into four parts: technology; integration aspects of knowledge management; knowledge discovery and human language technologies; and case studies. Together, they offer a concise vision of semantic knowledge management, ranging from knowledge acquisition to ontology management to knowledge integration, and their applications in domains such as telecommunications, social networks and legal information processing.This book is an excellent combination of fundamental research, tools and applications in Semantic Web technologies. It serves the fundamental interests of researchers and developers in this field in both academia and industry who need to track Web technology developments and to understand their business implications.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Let¿s try to play the music and not the background. Ornette Coleman, liner notes of the LP ¿Free Jazz¿ [20] WhenIbegantocreateacourseonfreejazz,theriskofsuchanenterprise was immediately apparent: I knew that Cecil Taylor had failed to teach such a matter, and that for other, more academic instructors, the topic was still a sort of outlandish adventure. To be clear, we are not talking about tea- ing improvisation here¿a di erent, and also problematic, matter¿rather, we wish to create a scholarly discourse about free jazz as a cultural achievement, and follow its genealogy from the American jazz tradition through its various outbranchings,suchastheEuropeanandJapanesejazzconceptionsandint- pretations. We also wish to discuss some of the underlying mechanisms that are extant in free improvisation, things that could be called technical aspects. Such a discourse bears the avor of a contradicto in adjecto:Teachingthe unteachable, the very negation of rules, above all those posited by white jazz theorists, and talking about the making of sounds without aiming at so-called factual results and all those intellectual sedimentations: is this not a suicidal topic My own endeavors as a free jazz pianist have informed and advanced my conviction that this art has never been theorized in a satisfactory way, not even by Ekkehard Jost in his unequaled, phenomenologically precise p- neering book ¿Free Jazz¿ [57].Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 156 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Synthesis is at the core of organic chemistry. In order for compounds to be studied¿be it as drugs, materials, or because of their physical properties¿ they have to be prepared, often in multistep synthetic sequences. Thus, the target compound is at the outset of synthesis planning. Synthesis involves creating the target compound from smaller, readily available building blocks. Immediately, questions arise: From which bui- ing blocks In which sequence By which reactions Nature creates many highly complex ¿natural products¿ via reaction cascades, in which an asso- ment of starting compounds present within the cell is transformed by speci c (for each target structure) combinations of modular enzymes in speci c - quences into the target compounds [1, 2]. To mimic this ef ciency is the dream of an ideal synthesis [2]. However, we are at present so far from - alising such a ¿one-pot¿ operation that actual synthesis has to be achieved via a sequence of individual discrete steps. Thus, we are left with the task of planning each synthesis individually in an optimal fashion. Synthesis planning must be conducted with regard for certain speci - tions, some of which are due to the structure of the target molecule, and some of which relate to external parameters such as costs, environmental compatibility, or novelty. We will not consider these external aspects in this context. Planning of a synthesis is based on a pool of information regarding chemical reactions that can be executed reliably and in high chemical yield.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This fourth edition of Stochastic Methods is thoroughly revised and augmented, and has been completely reset. While keeping to the spirit of the book I wrote originally, I have reorganised the chapters of Fokker-Planck equations and those on approximation methods, and introduced new material on the white noise limit of driven stochastic systems, and on applications and validity of simulation methods based on the Poisson representation. Further, in response to the revolution in financial markets following from the discovery by Fischer Black and Myron Scholes of a reliable option pricing formula, I have written a chapter on the application of stochastic methods to financial markets. In doing this, I have not restricted myself to the geometric Brownian motion model, but have also attempted to give some favour of the kinds of methods used to take account of the realities of financial markets. This means that I have also given a treatment of Levy processes and their applications to finance, since these are central to most current thinking. Since this book was written the rigorous mathematical formulation of stochastic processes has developed considerably, most particularly towards greater precision and generality, and this has been reflected in the way the subject is presented in modern applications, particularly in finance.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 468 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -MOPGP is an international conference series devoted to multi-objective p- gramming and goal programming (MOP/GP). This conference brings together researchers and practitioners from different disciplines of Computer Science, Operational Research, Optimisation Engineering, Mathematical Programming and Multi-criteria Decision Analysis. Theoretical results and algorithmic developments in the eld of MOP and GP are covered, including practice and applications of MOP/GP in real-life situations. The MOP/GP international conferences are organised in a biennial cycle. The previous editions were held in United Kingdom (1994), Spain (1996), Canada (1998), Poland (2000), Japan (2002), and Tunisia (2004). The Seventh me- ing (MOPGP¿06) was organised in the Loire Valley (Center-West of France) by X. Gandibleux, (University of Nantes, chairman) and V. T¿Kindt (University of Tours, co-chairman). The conference was hosted during three days (June 12¿14, 2006) by the old city hall of Tours which is located in the city centre of Tours. The conference comprised four plenary sessions (M. Ehrgott; P. Perny; R. Caballero and F. Ruiz; S. Oussedik) and six semi-plenary sessions (N. Jussien and V. Barichard; D. Corne and J. Knowles; H. Hoogeveen; M. Wiecek; E. Bampis; F. Ben Abdelaziz) and 82 regular talks. The (semi-)plenary speakers were invited, while the regular talks were selected by the international scienti c committee composed of 61 eminent researchers on basis of a 4-pages abstract.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 316 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transf- mation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the eld and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and c- munities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider rangeof applications reaching across diverse research areas and scienti c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, n- rosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an ab- dant source of stimulation and insights for the eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on thebasisoftheirsigni canceandquality.Itisourhopethatthewiderdissemi- tion of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing eld.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 35th Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, SOFSEM 2009, held in ¿pindleruv Mlýn, Czech Republic, in January 2009.The 49 revised full papers, presented together with 9 invited contributions, were carefully reviewed and selected from 132 submissions. SOFSEM 2009 was organized around the following four tracks: Foundations of Computer Science; Theory and Practice of Software Services; Game Theoretic Aspects of E-commerce; and Techniques and Tools for Formal Verification. 692 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In recent years, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques has been greatly increased. The term ¿intelligence¿ seems to be a ¿must¿ in a large number of European and International project calls. AI Techniques have been used in almost any domain. Application-oriented systems usually incorporate some kind of ¿intelligence¿ by using techniques stemming from intelligent search, knowledge representation, machine learning, knowledge discovery, intelligent agents, computational intelligence etc. The Workshop on ¿Applications with Artificial Intelligence¿ seeks for quality papers on computer applications that incorporate some kind of AI technique. The objective of the workshop was to bring together scientists, engineers and practitioners, who work on designing or developing applications that use intelligent techniques or work on intelligent techniques and apply them to application domains (like medicine, biology, education etc), to present and discuss their research works and exchange ideas in this book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 224 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Web mining has become a popular area of research, integrating the different research areas of data mining and the World Wide Web. According to the taxonomy of Web mining, there are three sub-fields of Web-mining research: Web usage mining, Web content mining and Web structure mining. These three research fields cover most content and activities on the Web. With the rapid growth of the World Wide Web, Web mining has become a hot topic and is now part of the mainstream of Web - search, such as Web information systems and Web intelligence. Among all of the possible applications in Web research, e-commerce and e-services have been iden- fied as important domains for Web-mining techniques. Web-mining techniques also play an important role in e-commerce and e-services, proving to be useful tools for understanding how e-commerce and e-service Web sites and services are used, e- bling the provision of better services for customers and users. Thus, this book will focus upon Web-mining applications in e-commerce and e-services. Some chapters in this book are extended from the papers that presented in WMEE 2008 (the 2nd International Workshop for E-commerce and E-services). In addition, we also sent invitations to researchers that are famous in this research area to contr- ute for this book. The chapters of this book are introduced as follows: In chapter 1, Peter I.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 192 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -What is combinatorial optimization Traditionally, a problem is considered to be c- binatorial if its set of feasible solutions is both nite and discrete, i. e. , enumerable. For example, the traveling salesman problem asks in what order a salesman should visit the cities in his territory if he wants to minimize his total mileage (see Sect. 2. 2. 2). The traveling salesman problem¿s feasible solutions - permutations of city labels - c- prise a nite, discrete set. By contrast, Differential Evolution was originally designed to optimize functions de ned on real spaces. Unlike combinatorial problems, the set of feasible solutions for real parameter optimization is continuous. Although Differential Evolution operates internally with oating-point precision, it has been applied with success to many numerical optimization problems that have t- ditionally been classi ed as combinatorial because their feasible sets are discrete. For example, the knapsack problem¿s goal is to pack objects of differing weight and value so that the knapsack¿s total weight is less than a given maximum and the value of the items inside is maximized (see Sect. 2. 2. 1). The set of feasible solutions - vectors whose components are nonnegative integers - is both numerical and discrete. To handle such problems while retaining full precision, Differential Evolution copies oating-point - lutions to a temporary vector that, prior to being evaluated, is truncated to the nearest feasible solution, e. g. , by rounding the temporary parameters to the nearest nonnegative integer.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Almost a century and a half of study produced substantial progress in our understanding of glial cells and their development. As in other areas of science, major advances were associated with the discovery of new methods. These are summarized first. Most of this account describes development of glia in the CNS. We begin with astroglia because of their known presence and significance in early embryonic stages. Some of Åström' s unpublished evidence is included in this section. After consideration of oligodendroglia, microglia and ependymal cells, we describe the development of Schwann cells, the glia found in the PNS. In general, morphological observations of developing mammalian nervous tissues (mostly rodent) are emphasized; we have also tried to include findings relevant to cytodifferentiation, interactions, functions and regulation of developing glia. Of course, much has been learned about glial development by studying other species and a variety of experimental models, such as tissue culture systems, grafts and mouse mutants. Selected aspects of these subjects are also included.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 120 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -¿It came from nowhere, snapping giant ships in two. No one believed the survivors . . . until now¿ ¿New Scientist magazine cover, June 30, 2001 Rogue waves are the focus of this book. They are among the waves naturally - served by people on the sea surface that represent an inseparable feature of the Ocean. Rogue waves appear from nowhere, cause danger, and disappear at once. They may occur on the surface of a relatively calm sea and not reach very high amplitudes, but still be fatal for ships and crew due to their unexpectedness and abnormal features. Seamen are known to be unsurpassed authors of exciting and horrifying stories about the sea and sea waves. This could explain why, despite the increasing number of documented cases, that sailors¿ observations of ¿walls of - ter¿ have been considered ctitious for a while. These stories are now addressed again due to the amount of doubtless evidence of the existence of the phenomenon, but still without suf cient information to - able interested researchers and engineers to completely understand it. The billows appear suddenly, exceeding the surrounding waves by two times their size and more, and obtaining many names: abnormal, exceptional, extreme, giant, huge, s- den, episodic, freak, monster, rogue, vicious, killer, mad- or rabid-dog waves, cape rollers, holes in the sea, walls of water, three sisters, etc.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 232 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Data mining consists of attempting to discover novel and useful knowledge from data, trying to find patterns among datasets that can help in intelligent decision making. However, reports of real-world case studies are not generally detailed in the literature, due to the fact that they are usually based on proprietary datasets, making it impossible to publish the results. This kind of situation makes hard to evaluate, in a precise way, the degree of effectiveness of data mining techniques in real-world applications. On the other hand, researchers of this field of expertise usually exploit public-domain datasets.This volume offers a wide spectrum of research work developed for data mining for real-world application. In the following, we give a brief introduction of the chapters that are included in this book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 140 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In this monograph, the authors introduce a novel fuzzy rule-base, referred to as the Fuzzy All-permutations Rule-Base (FARB). They show that inferring the FARB, using standard tools from fuzzy logic theory, yields an input-output map that is mathematically equivalent to that of an artificial neural network. Conversely, every standard artificial neural network has an equivalent FARB.The FARB-ANN equivalence integrates the merits of symbolic fuzzy rule-bases and sub-symbolic artificial neural networks, and yields a new approach for knowledge-based neurocomputing in artificial neural networks.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 116 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Self-normalized processes are of common occurrence in probabilistic and statistical studies. A prototypical example is Student's t-statistic introduced in 1908 by Gosset, whose portrait is on the front cover. Due to the highly non-linear nature of these processes, the theory experienced a long period of slow development. In recent years there have been a number of important advances in the theory and applications of self-normalized processes. Some of these developments are closely linked to the study of central limit theorems, which imply that self-normalized processes are approximate pivots for statistical inference.The present volume covers recent developments in the area, including self-normalized large and moderate deviations, and laws of the iterated logarithms for self-normalized martingales. This is the first book that systematically treats the theory and applications of self-normalization.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 292 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -For more than two decades, this work has remained the leading advanced textbook and easy-to-use reference on food chemistry and technology. Its fourth edition has been extensively re-written and enlarged, now also covering topics such as BSE detection or acrylamide. Food allergies, alcoholic drinks, or phystosterols are now treated more extensively.Proven features of the prior editions are maintained: Contains more than 600 tables, almost 500 figures, and about 1100 structural formulae of food components - Logically organized according to food constituents and commodities - Comprehensive subject index.These features provide students and researchers in food science, food technology, agricultural chemistry and nutrition with in-depth insight into food chemistry and technology. They also make the book a valuable on-the-job reference for chemists, food chemists, food technologists, engineers, biochemists, nutritionists, and analytical chemists in food and agricultural research, food industry, nutrition, food control, and service laboratories.From reviews of the first edition'Few books on food chemistry treat the subject as exhaustively¿researchers will find it to be a useful source of information. It is easy to read and the material is systematically presented.' JACSSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 1116 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Knowledge processing and decision making in agent-based systems constitute the key components of intelligent machines. The contributions included in the book are:Innovations in Knowledge Processing and Decision Making in Agent-Based SystemsTowards Real-World HTN Planning AgentsMobile Agent-Based System for Distributed Software MaintenanceSoftware Agents in New Generation Networks: Towards the Automation of Telecom ProcessesMulti-agent Systems and Paraconsistent KnowledgeAn Agent-based Negotiation Platform for Collaborative Decision-Making in Construction Supply ChainAn Event-Driven Algorithm for Agents at the WebA Generic Mobile Agent Framework Toward Ambient IntelligenceDeveloping Actionable Trading StrategiesAgent Uncertainty Model and Quantum Mechanics RepresentationAgent Transportation Layer Adaptation SystemSoftware Agents to Enable Service Composition through NegotiationAdvanced Technology Towards Developing Decentralized Autonomous Flexible Manufacturing SystemsSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 336 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Approximately 60% of all hospital-associated infections, over one million cases per year, are due to biofilms that have formed on indwelling medical devices. Device-related biofilm infections increase hospital stays and add over one billion dollars/year to U.S. hospitalization costs. Since the use and the types of indwelling medical devices commonly used in modern healthcare are continuously expanding, especially with an aging population, the incidence of biofilm infections will also continue to rise. The central problem with microbial biofilm infections of foreign bodies is their propensity to resist clearance by the host immune system and all antimicrobial agents tested to date. In fact, compared to their free floating, planktonic counterparts, microbes within a biofilm are 50 ¿ 500 times more resistant to antimicrobial agents. Therefore, achieving therapeutic and non-lethal dosing regimens within the human host is impossible. The end result is a conversion from an acute infection to one that is persistent, chronic, and recurrent, most often requiring device removal in order to eliminate the infection. This text will describe the major types of device-related infections, and will explain the host, pathogen, and the unique properties of their interactions in order to gain a better understanding of these recalcitrant infections.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 284 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book reviews the current state of knowledge of the atmospheres of the giant gaseous planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The current theories of their formation are reviewed and their recently observed temperature, composition and cloud structures are contrasted and compared with simple thermodynamic, radiative transfer and dynamical models. The instruments and techniques that have been used to remotely measure their atmospheric properties are also reviewed, and the likely development of outer planet observations over the next two decades is outlined.This second edition has been extensively updated following the Cassini mission results for Jupiter/Saturn and the newest ground-based measurements for Uranus/Neptune as well as on the latest development in the theories on planet formation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 456 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The eld of applied nonlinear dynamics has attracted scientists and engineers across many different disciplines to develop innovative ideas and methods to study c- plex behavior exhibited by relatively simple systems. Examples include: population dynamics, uidization processes, applied optics, stochastic resonance, ocking and ightformations,lasers,andmechanicalandelectricaloscillators. Acommontheme among these and many other examples is the underlying universal laws of nonl- ear science that govern the behavior, in space and time, of a given system. These laws are universal in the sense that they transcend the model-speci c features of a system and so they can be readily applied to explain and predict the behavior of a wide ranging phenomena, natural and arti cial ones. Thus the emphasis in the past decades has been in explaining nonlinear phenomena with signi cantly less att- tion paid to exploiting the rich behavior of nonlinear systems to design and fabricate new devices that can operate more ef ciently. Recently, there has been a series of meetings on topics such as Experimental Chaos, Neural Coding, and Stochastic Resonance, which have brought together many researchers in the eld of nonlinear dynamics to discuss, mainly, theoretical ideas that may have the potential for further implementation. In contrast, the goal of the 2007 ICAND (International Conference on Applied Nonlinear Dynamics) was focused more sharply on the implementation of theoretical ideas into actual - vices and systems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 492 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Megaplasmids are extrachromosomal genetic elements in the size range of 100 kb and larger. They are found in physiologically and phylogenetically diverse groups of bacteria and archaea. By definition, megaplasmids are not essential for the viability of their hosts under all growth conditions, but paradoxically many megaplasmids carry the genetic information for the defining and characteristic traits of the organism in which they reside.Microbial Megaplasmids reviews our knowledge of the extensively studied representatives, such as the catabolic plasmids of the pseudomonads, the rhizobial Sym plasmids, the Ti plasmids of the genus Agrobacterium and the giant enterobacterial virulence plasmids. It also presents snapshots of more recently discovered megaplasmids. The contribution of megaplasmids to the biology of their hosts is described, highlighting the interactions between megaplasmid and chromosomal genes.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 360 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major tra- formation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about bythematurityofthe eldandtheadvancesinitsrelatedtechnologies.From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and communities,providingsupportinservices,entertainment,education,heal- care, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across - verse researchareas and scienti c disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are pr- ing an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the eld of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their signi cance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing eld.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Theconcernofthisbookistheuseofemergentcomputingandself-organization modellingwithinvariousapplicationsofcomplexsystems. Wefocusouratt- tion both on the innovative concepts and implementations in order to model self-organizations, but also on the relevant applicative domains in which they can be used e ciently. First part deals with general modelling and methodology as conceptual - proaches for complex systems description. An introductive chapter by Michel Cotsaftis entitled ¿A Passage to Complex Systems¿, treats the notion of ¿Complex Systems¿ in opposition to that of a ¿Complicated System¿. This can be, he claims, comprehended immediately from the latin roots as ¿C- plex¿ comes from ¿cum plexus¿ (tied up with) whereas ¿complicated¿ ori- natesfrom¿cumpliare¿(piledupwith). Thepaperisawideandrichdisser- tion with elements of history (of the technical developement of mankind) with its recents steps : mechanist, quantum and relativistic points of view. Then, the need for a ¿passage¿ is illustrated by the discussion, with tools borrowed from functional analysis, of a typical parametric di erential system. The last and conclusive parts give tracks for the study of Complex Systems, in parti- lar one can hope to pass to quantitative study and control of complex systems even if one has to consent a ¿larger intelligence delegation¿ to them (as - nounced in the introduction) by using and developing tools already present in dissipative Physics and in Mathematical functional analysis and xed point theorems, for instance. This ¿passage¿ is followed by a wide bibliography of more than 90 entries. The (non hasty) reader is invited to read this deep and far reaching account before browsing through the book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 252 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The tremendous growth in the availability of inexpensive computing power and easy availability of computers have generated tremendous interest in the design and imp- mentation of Complex Systems. Computer-based solutions offer great support in the design of Complex Systems. Furthermore, Complex Systems are becoming incre- ingly complex themselves. This research book comprises a selection of state-of-the-art contributions to topics dealing with Complex Systems in a Knowledge-based En- ronment. Complex systems are ubiquitous. Examples comprise, but are not limited to System of Systems, Service-oriented Approaches, Agent-based Systems, and Complex Distributed Virtual Systems. These are application domains that require knowledge of engineering and management methods and are beyond the scope of traditional systems. The chapters in this book deal with a selection of topics which range from unc- tainty representation, management and the use of ontological means which support and are large-scale business integration. All contributions were invited and are based on the recognition of the expertise of the contributing authors in the field. By colle- ing these sources together in one volume, the intention was to present a variety of tools to the reader to assist in both study and work. The second intention was to show how the different facets presented in the chapters are complementary and contribute towards this emerging discipline designed to aid in the analysis of complex systems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 284 pp. Englisch.