springer new york springer us dez 2011 (317 risultati)

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -chapter1 Bees in the Animal Kingdom and in Earth¿s History 1 chapter2 The Bee¿An Insect chapter3 What Does ¿Social¿ Mean in the Animal Kingdom 25 Anonymous Societies 26 Family Associations 28 The Insect Colony 30 Social Classifications 34 chapter4 The Traits of Bees and Their System chapter5 Solitary Bees and Social Development 45 Solitary Bees 45 On the Way to a Colony Unique Mating Behavior 75 Threats from Outside, and Enemies Within the Ranks 77 chapter6 Bumblebees and Stingless Bees Bumblebees Stingless Bees 97 84 83 63 35 15 chapter7 On the Summit of Social Insect Life 7 The Genus Apis: Species and Races The Domestic Honeybee The Comb The Colony and Its Individuals Brood Rearing and Division of Labor What Holds a Colony Together 8 How New Colonies Originate Sensory Capabilities 2 Artists of Orientation The Language of Honeybees 8 chapter8 Nest Aids for Wild Bees 145 Abridged Bibliography and Further Reading 1 Index 155 15 13 136 13 130 12 126 122 118 118 108 10 Preface People generally think of bees as insects that fly out of hives and make us honey. Actually, there are many different kinds of bees, most of which live relatively hidden from our view. Maybe some of us are familiar with bumblebees, but who would recognize the solitary bees, which considerably o- number the social bees These little-observed bees are often dubbed ¿wild bees¿ to distinguish them from our honeymakers.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 172 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars is about the costs of health care and their impact on health. The U.S. health care system is the largest sector in the biggest economy, and the US spends significantly more per capita on health care than any other country, yet it ranks last among comparison nations on the major health indicators. Within the U.S., there is evidence that regions that spend more do not have better outcomes, and some evidence suggests that quality of care is lower in the regions that spend more, not less, on health care.Robert Kaplan takes the controversial position that mass markets have been created for services that may offer little or no benefit to patients. Many of these markets are for preventive medicine, making healthy people a market for expensive pharmaceutical products and tests. These include cancer screening tests and medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose. Kaplan forcefully argues that the overuse of medications and tests runs up the costs of health care. As more employers drop health insurance for their employees when costs accelerate, the expanded use of ineffective preventive medicine may have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of uninsured patients, potentially damaging the health of others in the community.The concluding chapters of Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars offer suggestions for policy makers and for patients. Methods for systematically evaluating the cost-effectiveness of new guidelines are discussed. The final chapter provides practical suggestions to enable patients to share in decisions about treatments or tests that can have uncertain benefits.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book is an attempt to share some of the fascinating and exciting ideas of modern theoretical physics with a non-mathematical audience. I also hope to give some appreciation of the exceptionally creative people who have generated these ideas. I had no intention of writing a comprehen sive history of these ideas, however; I apologize to those physicists whose important contributions I may have omitted. Several people have contributed directly to the writing of this book, and I would like to take this chance to thank them. Clive Horwood of Praxis Publishing and Paul Farrell of Copernicus Books have both been supportive of the project. Anna Painter has been an exceptionally thorough editor and has provided invaluable advice. Dr John Mason and Lyman Lyons both offered constructive criticism of an early draft. The errors that remai- and errors and misinterpretations are inevitable in any attempt to explain the subtle ideas of theoretical physics without the aid of mathematics - are my sole responsibility. I would like to thank Ron, Ronnie, Peter, Jackie, Emily, and Abigail for their support. And, most importantly, I would like to thank Heike and Jessica for their patience. Stephen Webb Milton Keynes, April 2004 1X FIGURE CREDITS I would like to acknowledge the following sources and copyright holders for granting permission to use their images. Figure 8 is from the Wilson A. Bentley collection. Figure 14 is courtesy ofNASA.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 324 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Where were the amino acids, the molecules of life, created: perhaps in a lightning storm in the early Earth, or perhaps elsewhere in the cosmos This book argues that at least some of them must have been produced in the cosmos, and that the fact that the Earthly amino acids have a specific handedness provides an important clue for that explanation. The book discusses several models that purport to explain the handedness, ultimately proposing a new explanation that involves cosmic processing of the amino acids produced in space. The book provides a tour for laypersons that includes a definition of life, the Big Bang, stellar nucleosynthesis, the electromagnetic spectrum, molecules, and supernovae and the particles they produce.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Increasingly, physicians are leveraging their medical training and expertise to pursue careers in non-traditional arenas. Their goals are diverse: Explore consulting as a way to improve patient care Lay the foundation for a career in academic medicine Provide leadership in healthcare Strengthen ties between a clinic and the community Broaden one¿s experience as a medical student As a journalist or writer, open a window onto medicine for non-expertsSome physicians will pursue another degree, while others may not, in anticipation of moving into public service, business, education, law, or organized medicine. Their common ground is the desire to enhance their professional fulfillment.Drs. Urman and Ehrenfeld¿s book features individual chapters on the wide array of non-traditional careers for physicians, each one written by an outstanding leader in medicine who him- or herself has successfully forged a unique career path. A final chapter brings together fascinating brief profiles ¿ ¿case studies¿ ¿ of physicians who have distinguished themselves professionally outside of traditional settings.Suitable for readers at any point in their medical career ¿ practitioners, fellows, residents, and medical students ¿ who want to explore possibilities beyond traditional medical practice, the book also sets out common-sense advice on topics such as work-life balance, mentorship, and the relationship between personality and job satisfaction.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 404 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -We are at the dawn of a new era in the study of space, all thanks to the Galileo space probe. Mission Jupiter brings us the exciting story of the Galileo mission to investigate Jupiter. The noted astronomer Daniel Fischer, co-author of Hubble: A New Window to the Universe and Hubble Revisited: New Images from the Discovery Machine, weaves together the many disparate facts learned about Jupiter and its satellites into a coherent description of this most fascinating planet, after stepping back to review the history of planetary exploration. Mission Jupiter tells the entire story of Galileo: a behind-the-scenes look at its difficult course from idea to reality; its launch; the problems it encountered early on and how these were resolved; and finally, what will become of the probe. Along the way, the author describes what wee learned about Jupiter, including what the Jovian atmosphere is really like, and the peculiar reality of the planet's magnetic field. The story of the journey to Jupiter is combined with interesting details about Galileo's capacities and a graphic description of the solar system, with an entertaining episode on how Galileo would judge the chances of finding life on Earth. The book concludes with a look to the future, closing on the Cassini probe to Saturn, launched just last year. Beautifully illustrated and well written, Mission Jupiter shows us space exploration at its best and conveys the essential science clearly and vividly. 'Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 368 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Great Health Care is enlightening and entertaining. It¿s a must read for physicians, patients, health policymakers and administrators, and the interested public---anyone who wants to understand what great health care is, and how we might build it together.The authors share their stories and motivations and the methods they have used to transform care for their own patients within their own practices and health systems. They thoughtfully explore how we got into this mess, how we can get out of it, and the barriers to making it happen.¿It is not only the impact of chronic diseases on our health and economy that draws us to this subject. It is the intriguing and rewarding potential for improving the status quo through redesigning how chronic disease care is provided and paid for.¿ (Timothy Harrington, MD)'You can't do things differently until you see things differently.' (Eric Newman, MD)¿We start people on the road to recovery, but the 12 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation is just the warm-up period. The really important part is what happens afterward.¿ (Richard Lueker, MD, Beth McCormick, MS)¿We believe the extra-ordinary efforts of our program coordinators are key to our clients¿ wellbeing and our unusually low readmission rate.¿ (Kathi Farrell, RN, BSN, PHN, Kathleen Sullivan, RN, MSN)¿In real life, we are not usually given the chance to have a do-over. But we are given the chance to continuously improve. With the right skill sets, and the right partners, we can transform.¿ (Eric Newman, MD)Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 272 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Before the arrival of penicillin in the 1940s, phage therapy was one of the few weapons doctors had against bacterial infections. It saved the life of Hollywood legend Tom Mix before being abandoned by Western science. Now, researchers and physicians are rediscovering the treatment, which pits phage viruses against their natural bacterial hosts, as a potential weapon against antibiotic-resistant infections.The Forgotten Cure traces the story of phages from Paris, where they were discovered in 1917; to Tbilisi, Georgia, where one of phage therapy¿s earliest proponents died at the hands of Stalin; to the Nobel podium, where prominent scientists have been recognized for breakthroughs stemming from phage research. Today, a crop of biotech startups and dedicated physicians is racing to win regulatory approval for phage therapy before superbugs exhaust the last drug in the medical arsenal. Will they clear the hurdles in time Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 148 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Topology is a relatively young and very important branch of mathematics. It studies properties of objects that are preserved by deformations, twistings, and stretchings, but not tearing. This book deals with the topology of curves and surfaces as well as with the fundamental concepts of homotopy and homology, and does this in a lively and well-motivated way. There is hardly an area of mathematics that does not make use of topological results and concepts. The importance of topological methods for different areas of physics is also beyond doubt. They are used in field theory and general relativity, in the physics of low temperatures, and in modern quantum theory. The book is well suited not only as preparation for students who plan to take a course in algebraic topology but also for advanced undergraduates or beginning graduates interested in finding out what topology is all about. The book has more than 200 problems, many examples, and over 200 illustrations.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 156 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book is intended to provide a mathematical bridge from a general physics course to intermediate-level courses in classical mechanics, electricity and mag netism, and quantum mechanics. The book begins with a short review of a few topics that should be familiar to the student from a general physics course. These examples will be used throughout the rest of the book to provide physical con texts for introducing the mathematical applications. The next two chapters are devoted to making the student familiar with vector operations in algebra and cal culus. Students will have already become acquainted with vectors in the general physics course. The notion of magnetic flux provides a physical connection with the integral theorems of vector calculus. A very short chapter on complex num bers is sufficient to supply the needed background for the minor role played by complex numbers in the remainder of the text. Mathematical applications in in termediate and advanced undergraduate courses in physics are often in the form of ordinary or partial differential equations. Ordinary differential equations are introduced in Chapter 5. The ubiquitous simple harmonic oscillator is used to il lustrate the series method of solving an ordinary, linear, second-order differential equation. The one-dimensional, time-dependent SchrOdinger equation provides an illus tration for solving a partial differential equation by the method of separation of variables in Chapter 6.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 260 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -For anyone artistically inclined, observing the Moon and attempting to sketch or paint it can easily become a passion. The Moon presents a broad array of tone, texture, and form. Capturing this in a painting or sketch at the eyepiece of a telescope ¿ or even with binoculars ¿ develops observational skills, leaves a record of the observation, and can also be a delightful and rewarding pastime. However, the choice of media available is extensive (acrylic paint, oils, pen, charcoal, etc., and even computer art programs), and there is no existing text that fully explains all lunar sketching and painting techniques in each respective medium. This beautiful and graphically rich book fulfills this requirement. It presents detailed step-by-step instructions, in the form of illustrated tutorials for every major medium employed to represent the Moon. It also provides practical advice on how to sketch outdoors at night (not ideal conditions for an artist!).This is easily the most extensive book on the subject of lunar art for amateur astronomers, particularly those observing through a telescope. The diverse features of the lunar surface will attract and entice readers to review the number of different media presented, exciting and inspiring them with the possibilities of learning to depict all of the fascinating aspects of Earth's very own satellite.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 268 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -I wrote this book because I wanted to learn more about interstel lar flight. Not the Star Trek notion of tearing around the Galaxy in a huge spaceship-that was obviously beyond existing tech nology-but a more realistic mission. In 1989 I had videotaped Voyager 2's encounter with Neptune and watched the drama of robotic exploration over and over again. I started to wonder whether we could do something similar with Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Everyone seemed to agree that manned flight to the stars was out of the question, if not permanently then for the indefinitely foreseeable future. But surely we could do something with robotics. And if we could figure out a theoretical way to do it, how far were we from the actual technology that would make it happen In other words, what was the state of our interstellar technology today, those concepts and systems that might translate into a Voyager to the stars Finding answers meant talking to people inside and outside of NASA. I was surprised to learn that there is a large literature of interstellar flight. Nobody knows for sure how to propel a space craft fast enough to make the interstellar crossing within a time scale that would fit the conventional idea of a mission, but there are candidate systems that are under active investigation. Some of this effort begins with small systems that we'll use near the Earth and later hope to extend to deep space missions.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -¿¿The trend is your friend¿is a practical principle often used by business managers, who seek to forecast future sales, expenditures, and profitability in order to make production and other operational decisions. The problem is how best to identify and discover business trends and utilize trend information for attaining objectives of firms.This book contains an Excel-based solution to this problem, applying principles of the authors¿ ¿profit system model¿ of the firm that enables forecasts of trends in sales, expenditures, profits and other business variables. The program, called FIRM, which runs on Windows with Microsoft Excel 2010, useshistorical time series of total sales, total costs, and total assets of the firm from its financial statements (income statements and balance sheets), estimates relationships among these variables, and then employs the estimated relationships to forecasts trends in these vital business variables. Featuring step-by-step case examples, the goalis to equip business managers and students with easy-to-use tools for understanding and forecasting trends in important business variables, thereby empowering them to make better business decisions.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 60 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In most developed countries, the epidemiological disease profile has changed from infectious to degenerative, causing major alterations in epidemiological thinking and public health policies. Less developed nations have to deal with a more complex situation, because social disparities create highly unequal health conditions, the affluent being afflicted by degenerative conditions, whereas the poorer social segments continue to suffer infectious diseases, but also begin to feel the effects of chronic illness. At the turn of the 21st century, equity in health care is not being served, and social justice has lost credibility as a conceptual driving force of public health policies. Rampant injustice confirms that theories, reality and suggested practices of just social orders are flawed, leaving the needy without help or hope in a world of flagrant ethical inadequacy. And yet, mainstream bioethics loses meaning and relevance as it clings to the principle of justice and hails such concepts as global justice and universal health-care equity, misleadingly focusing on justice as a desideratum. This book pleads for an urgent turn towards directly addressing injustice as a reality that requires pressingly needed arguments and proposals to inspire realistic public health policies and programs based on an ethics of protection. Ever since Hobbes, all shades of political philosophy accept that the basic obligation of the ruling power is to protect its subjects. The ethics of protection emphasizes aiding the needy and the disempowered in obtaining access to basic goods and services related to health-care. Public health is called upon to fulfill protective obligations to guarantee disease prevention and medical services to the population, taking special care to safeguard those unable to cover their health-care needs in market-oriented medical services and institutions. The bioethics of protection developed in this text presents specific and explicit guide-lines to assure that protective public health actions be efficacious (problem-solving), efficient (sustainable cost/benefit relation) and ethically sound (respecting human rights and the common weal). These guide-lines are designed to give ethical support and justification to public health policies even when they require some unavoidable limitations of individual autonomy to promote social health benefits.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 116 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Creating New Medical Ontologies for Image Annotation focuses on the problem of the medical images automatic annotation process, which is solved in an original manner by the authors. All the steps of this process are described in detail with algorithms, experiments and results. The original algorithms proposed by authors are compared with other efficient similar algorithms.In addition, the authors treat the problem of creating ontologies in an automatic way, starting from Medical Subject Headings (MESH). They have presented some efficient and relevant annotation models and also the basics of the annotation model used by the proposed system: Cross Media Relevance Models. Based on a text query the system will retrieve the images that contain objects described by the keywords.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 120 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Inequalities of Ostrowski and Trapezoidal Type for Functions of Selfadjoint Operators on Hilbert Spaces presents recent results concerning Ostrowski and Trapezoidal type inequalities for continuous functions of bounded Selfadjoint operators on complex Hilbert spaces.The first chapter recalls some fundamental facts concerning bounded Selfadjoint operators on complex Hilbert spaces. The generalized Schwarz¿s inequality for positive Selfadjoint operators as well as some results for the spectrum of this class of operators are presented. The author also introduces and explores the fundamental results for polynomials in a linear operator, continuous functions of selfadjoint operators that will play a central role throughout the book. The following chapter is devoted to the Ostrowski¿s type inequalities, which provide sharp error estimates in approximating the value of a function by its integral mean and can be used to obtain a priory error bounds for different quadrature rules in approximating the Riemann integral by different Riemann sums. The author also presents recent results extending Ostrowski inequality in various directions for continuous functions of selfadjoint operators in complex Hilbert spaces. The final chapter illustrates recent results obtained in extending trapezoidal type inequality in various directions for continuous functions of selfadjoint operators in complex Hilbert spaces. Applications for mid-point inequalities and some elementary functions of operators as also provided.This book is intended for use by researchers in various fields of Linear Operator Theory and Mathematical Inequalities. As well as postgraduate students and scientists applying inequalities in their specific areas.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 124 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Developed and developing economies alike face increased resource scarcity and competitive rivalry. In this context, science and technology appear as an essential source of competitive and sustainable advantage at national and regional levels. However, the key determinant of their efficacy is the quality and quantity of entrepreneurship-enabled innovation that unlocks and captures the benefits of the science enterprise in the form of private, public or hybrid goods. Linking basic and applied research with the market, via technology transfer and commercialization mechanisms, including government-university-industry partnerships and capital investments, constitutes the essential trigger mechanism and driving force of sustainable competitive advantage and prosperity. In this volume, the authors define the terms and principles of knowledge creation, diffusion, and use, and establish a theoretical framework for their study. In particular, they focus on the ¿Quadruple Helix¿ model, through which government, academia, industry, and civil society are seen as key actors promoting a democratic approach to innovation through which strategy development and decision making are exposed to feedback from key stakeholders, resulting in socially accountable policies and practices.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 72 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Personality and Roles: Sources of Regularities in Social Behavior For behavioral scientists, whether they identify primarily with the science of psychology or with that of sociology, there may be no challenge greater than that of discovering regularities and consistencies in social behavior. After all, it is such regularities and consistencies that lend predictability to the behavior of individuals in social contexts-in particular, to those events that constitute dyadic interactions and group processes. In the search for behavioral consistencies, two theoretical constructs have emerged as guiding principles: personality and roles. The theoretical construct of personality seeks to understand regularities and consistencies in social behavior in terms of relatively stable traits, enduring dispositions, and other propensities (for example, needs, motives, and attitudes) that are thought to reside within individuals. Because it focuses primarily on the features of individuals, the construct of personality is fundamentally psychological in nature. By contrast, the theoretical construct of roles seeks to understand regularities and consistencies in social behavior in terms of the directive influence of coherent sets of rules and prescriptions that are provided by the interpersonal, occupational, and societal categories of which individuals are continuing members. Because it focuses primarily on features of social structures, the construct of roles is fundamentally sociological in nature.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 384 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This text is designed to provide a comprehensive guide to students, researchers, or consultants who wish to carry out and to interpret analyses of economic performance, with an emphasis on productivity growth. The text includes an overview of standard productivity growth measurement techniques and adaptations, and data construc tion procedures. It goes further, however, by expanding the tradition al growth accounting (index number) framework to allow consider ation of how different aspects of firm behavior underlying productivity growth are interrelated, how they can be measured con sistently in a parametric model, and how they permit a well-defined decomposition of standard productivity growth measures. These ideas are developed by considering in detail a number of underlying theoretical results and econometric issues. The impacts of various production characteristics on productivity growth trends are also evaluated by overviewing selected methodological extensions and em pirical evidence. More specifically, in the methodological extensions, emphasis is placed on incorporation of cost and demand characteristics, such as fixity and adjustment costs, returns to scale, and the existence of market power, into analyses of productivity growth. These character istics, generally disregarded in such analyses, can have very important impacts on production structure and firm behavior, and thus on economic performance. They also provide the conceptual basis for vii viii PREFACE measures that are often used independently as indicators of economic performance, such as investment, capacity utilization, and profit measures.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 316 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Communication satellites are a $144 billion industry. Is there any space-based industry that could possibly beat that market 'Solar Power Satellites' shows why and how the space satellite industry will soon begin expanding its market from relaying signals to Earth to generating energy in space and delivering it to the ground as electricity. In all industrialized nations, energy demand is growing exponentially. In the developing world, the need for energy is as basic as food and water. The Sun's energy is available everywhere, and it is non-polluting. As business plans demonstrate its technical feasibility, commercial potential, and environmental acceptability, every country on Earth will look to space for the power it needs.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 120 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -One of the basic tenets of science is that deterministic systems are completely predictable-given the initial condition and the equations describing a system, the behavior of the system can be predicted 1 for all time. The discovery of chaotic systems has eliminated this viewpoint. Simply put, a chaotic system is a deterministic system that exhibits random behavior. Though identified as a robust phenomenon only twenty years ago, chaos has almost certainly been encountered by scientists and engi neers many times during the last century only to be dismissed as physical noise. Chaos is such a wide-spread phenomenon that it has now been reported in virtually every scientific discipline: astronomy, biology, biophysics, chemistry, engineering, geology, mathematics, medicine, meteorology, plasmas, physics, and even the social sci ences. It is no coincidence that during the same two decades in which chaos has grown into an independent field of research, computers have permeated society. It is, in fact, the wide availability of inex pensive computing power that has spurred much of the research in chaotic dynamics. The reason is simple: the computer can calculate a solution of a nonlinear system. This is no small feat. Unlike lin ear systems, where closed-form solutions can be written in terms of the system's eigenvalues and eigenvectors, few nonlinear systems and virtually no chaotic systems possess closed-form solutions.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 368 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells are mature cells that have been genetically reprogrammed so that they return to their embryonic state. It is not yet known if iPS stem cells and embryonic stem cells differ significantly. Today many fundamental belief systems in biology are shifting towards accepting that mature body cells can be reverted to an embryonic state without the help of eggs or embryos. With their changed identities, iPS cells are then ready to serve as new tools for research in the fields of disease pathogenesis, drug discovery, oncology, and cell transplantation. One example of this would be using iPS from a patient¿s mature cells to repair damaged tissue; it is thought that there would be very low incidence of rejection of the ¿new¿ tissue in these cases. For the last four years, this therapeutic promise has been studied by hundreds of researchers worldwide in an effort to understand the ability of these cells to reverse their biological clocks.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 84 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book is intended for students familiar with a beginner's version of differential and integral calculus stressing only manipulation offormulas and who are now looking for a closer study of basic concepts combined with a more creative use of information. The work is primarily aimed at students in mathematics, engineering, and science who find themselves in transition from elementary calculus to rigorous courses in analysis. In addition, this book may also be of interest to those preparing to teach a course in calculus. Instead of exposing the reader to an excess of premature abstractions that so easily can degenerate into pedantry, I felt it more useful to stress instruc tive and stimulating examples. The book contains numerous worked out examples and many of the exercises are provided with helpful hints or a solution in outline. For further exercises the interested reader may want to consult a problem book by the author entitled Problems and Propositions in Analysis (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1979). For the history of calculus I recommend the book by C. B. Boyer, The Concepts of the Calculus (New York: Dover, 1949).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 532 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Much of that which is ordinal is modeled as analog. Most computational engines on the other hand are dig- ital. Transforming from analog to digital is straightforward: we simply sample. Regaining the original signal from these samples or assessing the information lost in the sampling process are the fundamental questions addressed by sampling and interpolation theory. This book deals with understanding, generalizing, and extending the cardinal series of Shannon sampling theory. The fundamental form of this series states, remarkably, that a bandlimited signal is uniquely specified by its sufficiently close equally spaced samples. The contents of this book evolved from a set of lecture notes prepared for a graduate survey course on Shannon sampling and interpolation theory. The course was taught at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. Each of the seven chapters in this book includes a list of references specific to that chapter. A sequel to this book will contain an extensive bibliography on the subject. The author has also opted to include solutions to selected exercises in the Appendix.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 344 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Optimization is the process by which the optimal solution to a problem, or optimum, is produced. The word optimum has come from the Latin word optimus, meaning best. And since the beginning of his existence Man has strived for that which is best. There has been a host of contributions, from Archimedes to the present day, scattered across many disciplines. Many of the earlier ideas, although interesting from a theoretical point of view, were originally of little practical use, as they involved a daunting amount of com putational effort. Now modern computers perform calculations, whose time was once estimated in man-years, in the figurative blink of an eye. Thus it has been worthwhile to resurrect many of these earlier methods. The advent of the computer has helped bring about the unification of optimization theory into a rapidly growing branch of applied mathematics. The major objective of this book is to provide an introduction to the main optimization tech niques which are at present in use. It has been written for final year undergrad uates or first year graduates studying mathematics, engineering, business, or the physical or social sciences. The book does not assume much mathemati cal knowledge. It has an appendix containing the necessary linear algebra and basic calculus, making it virtually self-contained. This text evolved out of the experience of teaching the material to finishing undergraduates and beginning graduates.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 520 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book provides extensive insight into the possibilities and challenges of XML in building new information management solutions in networked organizations. After a brief introduction to Web communication features and XML fundamentals, the book examines the benefits of adopting XML and illustrates various types of XML use: XML in document management; XML for data-centric and multimedia components; XML as a format for metadata, including metadata for the Semantic Web; and XML in support of data interchange between software applications and among organizations. The challenges of adopting XML in large-scale information management are also discussed. In addition, applications across a broad spectrum are examined and numerous case studies pertaining to the adoption of XML are presented.The book is particularly suitable for courses offered in Information Studies, Information Systems, or Information Technology. It also serves as an excellent practical guide for professionals in information management and provides important support material for courses in Computer Science and in Business.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This graduate textbook presents the basics of representation theory for finite groups from the point of view of semisimple algebras and modules over them. The presentation interweaves insights from specific examples with development of general and powerful tools based on the notion of semisimplicity. The elegant ideas of commutant duality are introduced, along with an introduction to representations of unitary groups.The text progresses systematically and the presentation is friendly and inviting. Central concepts are revisited and exploredfrom multiple viewpoints. Exercises at the end of the chapter help reinforce the material.Representing Finite Groups: A Semisimple Introduction would serve as a textbook for graduate and some advanced undergraduate courses in mathematics. Prerequisites include acquaintance with elementary group theory and some familiarity with rings and modules. A final chapter presents a self-contained account of notions and results in algebra that are used. Researchers in mathematics and mathematical physics will also find this book useful.A separate solutions manual is available for instructors.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Challenges of Astronomy in a unique collection of thirty astronomy experiments ranging from ancient astronomy to cosmology. Each of the experiments contains one or more challenges for the reader. The progression is from the Earth outward through the solar system to the stellar and galactic realm. Topics include the shape of the sky, Stonehenge as a stoneage abacus, determination of the size of the Earth, the distance of the Moon and planets, Kepler's laws, planetary mass and density, the temperatures and atmospheres of planets, the speed of light, the distances of stars, the nature of the quiet and active Sun, photometry and spectroscopy, stars clusters and variable stars, fundamental properties of stars, and Olber's paradox.Challenges of Astronomy is a translation and extensive revision of a German-language resource book for secondary school teachers of science. Physical science teachers will find this edition too a rich resource of experiments to their own milieus, but it is suitable for many other English-language readers too, from northern and southern hemisphere locations. The beginning experiments are suitable for bright high school and non-science major university students while the later experiments which offer increasingly difficult challenges are more suitable for sciences majors. Amateurs with a variety of skills will find this hands-on book entertaining, informative, and useful.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 248 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Solid-state lasers have seen a fast and steady development and are the ubiquitous tool both for research and industrial applications. The author's monograph Solid-State Lasers has become the most-used reference book in this area. The present graduate text on solid-state lasers takes advantage of this rich source by focusing on the needs at the graduate level and those who need an introduction. Numerous exercises with hints for solution, new text and updated material where needed make this text very accessible.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 424 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Pediatric oncology is a considerably complex discipline requiring frequent need for reference material. Emergencies in Pediatric Oncology meets this objective by serving as a concise, practical resource for the hurried physician. Replete with diagrams and written in a clear, succinct style, this title offers an easy-to-read guide especially useful for residents, fellows, and nurses. Providing an overview of the epidemiology of childhood cancer and the history of its treatment, this title also addresses a range of key problems in the pediatric oncologic setting, covering the most common emergencies and providing short, practical guidelines on how to handle them. Written by authorities from an array of disciplines, this helpful resource provides answers and concrete guidance and is a valuable contribution to the literature in pediatric oncology.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 200 pp. Englisch.