springer springer apr 2014 (Oltre 3.700 risultati)

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Can a computer have a soul Are religion and science mutually exclusive Is there really such a thing as free will If you could time travel to visit Jesus, would you (and should you) For hundreds of years, philosophers, scientists and science fiction writers have pondered these questions and many more.In Holy Sci-Fi!, popular writer Paul Nahin explores the fertile and sometimes uneasy relationship between science fiction and religion. With a scope spanning the history of religion, philosophy and literature, Nahin follows religious themes in science fiction from Feynman to Foucault and from Asimov to Aristotle.An intriguing journey through popular and well-loved books and stories, Holy Sci-Fi! shows how sci-fi has informed humanity's attitudes towards our faiths, our future and ourselves. 244 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Processes of global governance are mostly invisible to ordinary citizens, due to an overall lack of accompanying transnational public discourse. However, there are exceptional occasions on which media around the world do pay attention to global governance: high-level summits, such as the UN climate change conferences. Through a detailed case study of UN climate summits, Manuel Adolphsen investigates the transnational communication strategies and behind-the-scenes coordination processes that prominent governments and NGOs carry out on such occasions. His research reveals political actors' conscious use of summits as public diplomacy resources as well as the prevalence of on-site coproduction routines among journalists and PR professionals. Summits feature complex public diplomacy constellations interweaving transnational, international, and also solely domestic processes. 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -IT is currently going through one of its most critical phases of transformation. IT vendors and IT service organizations are revolutionizing their production and service processes, adopting industrial practices. It is only through the consistent transformation into factory-like structures that quality, effectiveness and efficiency can be increased. By integrating professional concepts and methods taken from the context of industrial production, it is possible to meet functional and qualitative requirements from the departments and therefore from the end user. On top of that this new paradigm enables the implementation of optimal processes in the organization. An interdisciplinary team of authors addresses the current challenges for global IT services organizations and describes the process of IT industrialization. The transformation of the IT industry towards the model of an IT factory is the core theme of this book, which takes the latest findings from applied research, consulting and IT business practices and combines them into a consistent and innovative approach to IT services. 232 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Japanese foreign direct investment has played a leading role in Asian economies for more than two decades. This book, describing the changing industrial dynamics after the Asian currency crisis in 1997, focuses on corporate strategies of Japanese automobile and electronics companies in Asian nations, with detailed analysis of management issues and strategies from the viewpoint of both the home economy and the recipient host economies. Among the cases presented are the global restructuring of the Korean automobile industry and the transfer of automotive technology to China via Taiwan. Other studies, from the electronics industry, look at production sites in Malaysia, backward integration in Singapore, and forward integration in Hong Kong. The contributions of specialists from Asia, Europe, and the United States collected here envision an ongoing process of globalization and provide valuable perspective and background for business management and East Asian studies.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Librarians have been providing support to researchers for many years, typically with a focus on responding to researchers¿ needs for access to the existing literature. However, librarians¿ skills and expertise make them uniquely suited to provide a wide range of assistance to researchers across the entire research process, from conception of the research question to archiving of collected data at the project¿s conclusion. In response to increasingly stringent demands on researchers to share their data, and as computationally intensive and primarily data-driven scientific methods begin to take the place of traditional lab-based research, the ¿research informationist¿ has emerged as a new information profession. With a background in library and information sciences, as well as expertise in best practices for data management, grant funder policies, and informatics tools, the research informationist is capable of implementing a full suite of research support services. This book will discuss how the research informationist role has developed out of the previously established clinical informationist model and how it expands on the model of embedded librarianship. The book will also examine core competencies for the successful research informationist and the training and preparation necessary for students in library and information sciences programs, as well as currently practicing librarians. Finally, this book will consider how research informationists can form collaborative partnerships with research teams and build their services outside the walls of the library, citing practical examples of the types of support research informationists can offer.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 48 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Near Field Communication is a radio frequency technology that allows objects, such as mobile phones, computers, tags, or posters, to exchange information wirelessly across a small distance. This report on the progress of Near Field Communication reviews the features and functionality of the technology and summarizes the broad spectrum of its current and anticipated applications. We explore the development of NFC technology in recent years, introduce the major stakeholders in the NFC ecosystem, and project its movement toward mainstream adoption. Several examples of early implementation of NFC in libraries are highlighted, primarily involving the use of NFC to enhance discovery by linking books or other physical objects with digital information about library resources, but also including applications of NFC to collection management and self-checkout. Future uses of NFC in libraries, such as smart posters or other enhanced outreach, are envisioned as well as the potential for the 'touchparadigm' and 'Internet of things' to transform the ways in which library users interact with the information environment. Conscious of the privacy and security of our patrons, we also address continuing concerns related to NFC technology and its expected applications, recommending caution, awareness, and education as immediate next steps for librarians.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -From proposal to examination, producing a dissertation or thesis is a challenge. Grounded in decades of experience with research training and supervision, this fully updated and revised edition takes an integrated, down-to-earth approach drawing on case studies and examples to guide you step-by-step towards productive success.Early chapters frame the tasks ahead and show you how to get started. From there, practical advice and illustrations take you through the elements of formulating research questions, working with software, and purposeful writing of each of the different kinds of chapters, and finishes with a focus on revision, dissemination and deadlines. How to Write a Better Thesis presents a cohesive approach to research that will help you succeed.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 184 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Image understanding has been playing an increasingly crucial role in several inverse problems and computer vision. Sparse models form an important component in image understanding, since they emulate the activity of neural receptors in the primary visual cortex of the human brain. Sparse methods have been utilized in several learning problems because of their ability to provide parsimonious, interpretable, and efficient models. Exploiting the sparsity of natural signals has led to advances in several application areas including image compression, denoising, inpainting, compressed sensing, blind source separation, super-resolution, and classification. The primary goal of this book is to present the theory and algorithmic considerations in using sparse models for image understanding and computer vision applications. To this end, algorithms for obtaining sparse representations and their performance guarantees are discussed in the initial chapters. Furthermore, approaches for designing overcomplete, data-adapted dictionaries to model natural images are described. The development of theory behind dictionary learning involves exploring its connection to unsupervised clustering and analyzing its generalization characteristics using principles from statistical learning theory. An exciting application area that has benefited extensively from the theory of sparse representations is compressed sensing of image and video data. Theory and algorithms pertinent to measurement design, recovery, and model-based compressed sensing are presented. The paradigm of sparse models, when suitably integrated with powerful machine learning frameworks, can lead to advances in computer vision applications such as object recognition, clustering, segmentation, and activity recognition. Frameworks that enhance the performance of sparse models in such applications by imposing constraints based on the prior discriminatory information and the underlying geometrical structure, and kernelizing the sparse coding and dictionary learning methods are presented. In addition to presenting theoretical fundamentals in sparse learning, this book provides a platform for interested readers to explore the vastly growing application domains of sparse representations.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 120 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Learning from Demonstration (LfD) explores techniques for learning a task policy from examples provided by a human teacher. The field of LfD has grown into an extensive body of literature over the past 30 years, with a wide variety of approaches for encoding human demonstrations and modeling skills and tasks. Additionally, we have recently seen a focus on gathering data from non-expert human teachers (i.e., domain experts but not robotics experts). In this book, we provide an introduction to the field with a focus on the unique technical challenges associated with designing robots that learn from naive human teachers. We begin, in the introduction, with a unification of the various terminology seen in the literature as well as an outline of the design choices one has in designing an LfD system. Chapter 2 gives a brief survey of the psychology literature that provides insights from human social learning that are relevant to designing robotic social learners. Chapter 3 walks through an LfD interaction, surveying the design choices one makes and state of the art approaches in prior work. First, is the choice of input, how the human teacher interacts with the robot to provide demonstrations. Next, is the choice of modeling technique. Currently, there is a dichotomy in the field between approaches that model low-level motor skills and those that model high-level tasks composed of primitive actions. We devote a chapter to each of these. Chapter 7 is devoted to interactive and active learning approaches that allow the robot to refine an existing task model. And finally, Chapter 8 provides best practices for evaluation of LfD systems, with a focus on how to approach experiments with human subjects in this domain.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 124 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Vladimir Maz'ya (born 1937) is an outstanding mathematician who systematically made fundamental contributions to a wide array of areas in mathematical analysis and in the theory of partial differential equations. In this fascinating book he describes the first thirty years of his life. He starts with the story of his family, speaks about his childhood, high school and university years, describe his formative years as a mathematician. Behind the author's personal recollections, with his own joys, sorrows and hopes, one sees a vivid picture of the time. He speaks warmly about his friends, both outside and inside mathematics. The author describes the awakening of his passion for mathematics and his early achievements. He mentions a number of mathematicians who influenced his professional life. The book is written in a readable and inviting way sometimes with a touch of humor. It can be of interest for a very broad readership.Springer Basel AG in Springer Science + Business Media, Heidelberger Platz 3, 14197 Berlin 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 208 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Outlier (or anomaly) detection is a very broad field which has been studied in the context of a large number of research areas like statistics, data mining, sensor networks, environmental science, distributed systems, spatio-temporal mining, etc. Initial research in outlier detection focused on time series-based outliers (in statistics). Since then, outlier detection has been studied on a large variety of data types including high-dimensional data, uncertain data, stream data, network data, time series data, spatial data, and spatio-temporal data. While there have been many tutorials and surveys for general outlier detection, we focus on outlier detection for temporal data in this book. A large number of applications generate temporal datasets. For example, in our everyday life, various kinds of records like credit, personnel, financial, judicial, medical, etc., are all temporal. This stresses the need for an organized and detailed study of outliers with respect to such temporal data.In the past decade, there has been a lot of research on various forms of temporal data including consecutive data snapshots, series of data snapshots and data streams. Besides the initial work on time series, researchers have focused on rich forms of data including multiple data streams, spatio-temporal data, network data, community distribution data, etc. Compared to general outlier detection, techniques for temporal outlier detection are very different. In this book, we will present an organized picture of both recent and past research in temporal outlier detection. We start with the basics and then ramp up the reader to the main ideas in state-of-the-art outlier detection techniques. We motivate the importance of temporal outlier detection and brief the challenges beyond usual outlier detection. Then, we list down a taxonomy of proposed techniques for temporal outlier detection. Such techniques broadly include statistical techniques (like AR models, Markov models, histograms, neuralnetworks), distance- and density-based approaches, grouping-based approaches (clustering, community detection), network-based approaches, and spatio-temporal outlier detection approaches. We summarize by presenting a wide collection of applications where temporal outlier detection techniques have been applied to discover interesting outliers. Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Figure Credits / Introduction and Challenges / Outlier Detection for Time Series and Data Sequences / Outlier Detection for Data Streams / Outlier Detection for Distributed Data Streams / Outlier Detection for Spatio-Temporal Data / Outlier Detection for Temporal Network Data / Applications of Outlier Detection for Temporal Data / Conclusions and Research Directions / Bibliography / Authors' BiographiesSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 132 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Can a computer have a soul Are religion and science mutually exclusive Is there really such a thing as free will If you could time travel to visit Jesus, would you (and should you) For hundreds of years, philosophers, scientists and science fiction writers have pondered these questions and many more.In Holy Sci-Fi!, popular writer Paul Nahin explores the fertile and sometimes uneasy relationship between science fiction and religion. With a scope spanning the history of religion, philosophy and literature, Nahin follows religious themes in science fiction from Feynman to Foucault and from Asimov to Aristotle.An intriguing journey through popular and well-loved books and stories, Holy Sci-Fi! shows how sci-fi has informed humanity's attitudes towards our faiths, our future and ourselves.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 244 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In this book, there is a strong emphasis on application with the necessary mathematical grounding. There are plenty of worked examples with all solutions provided. This enlarged new edition includes generalised Fourier series and a completely new chapter on wavelets.Only knowledge of elementary trigonometry and calculus are required as prerequisites. An Introduction to Laplace Transforms and Fourier Series will be useful for second and third year undergraduate students in engineering, physics or mathematics, as well as for graduates in any discipline such as financial mathematics, econometrics and biological modelling requiring techniques for solving initial value problems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 336 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed scientific proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Subject-Oriented Business Process Management, S-BPM ONE 2014, held in Eichstätt, Germany, in April 2014.The 13 papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 contributions. They explore the many facets of network-driven business process management,in particular issues related to correctness, interchange and transformation of business models, as well as dynamic handling of changes through agile process management.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 200 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed post-proceedings of two workshops held at the 5th International Conference on Social Informatics, SocInfo 2013, in Kyoto, Japan, in November 2013: the First Workshop on Quality, Motivation and Coordination of Open Collaboration, QMC 2013 and the First International Workshop on Histoinformatics, HISTOINFORMATICS 2013. The 11 revised papers presented at the workshops were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. They cover specific areas of social informatics. The QMC 2013 workshop attracted papers on new algorithms and methods to improve the quality or to increase the motivation of open collaboration, to reduce the cost of financial motivation or to decrease the time needed to finish collaborative tasks. The papers presented at HISTOINFORMATICS 2013 aim at improving the interaction between computer science and historical science towards fostering a new research direction of computational history.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 156 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 14th International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation, MABS 2013, held in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, in May 2013. The workshop was help in conjunction with Twelfth International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2013. The 11 revised full papers included in this volume were carefully selected from 29 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on MABS for real-time and online data, formal approaches in MABS: design and validation, MABS in environmental modeling, simulating social phenomena.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 176 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Traffic Monitoring and Analysis, TMA 2014, held in London, UK, in April 2014.The thoroughly refereed 11 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 30 submissions. The contributions are organized in topical sections on tools and lessons learned from passive measurement, performance at the edge and Web, content and inter domain.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -To large organizations, business intelligence (BI) promises the capability of collecting and analyzing internal and external data to generate knowledge and value, thus providing decision support at the strategic, tactical, and operational levels. BI is now impacted by the ¿Big Datä phenomena and the evolution of society and users. In particular, BI applications must cope with additional heterogeneous (often Web-based) sources, e.g., from social networks, blogs, competitors¿, suppliers¿, or distributors¿ data, governmental or NGO-based analysis and papers, or from research publications. In addition, they must be able to provide their results also on mobile devices, taking into account location-based or time-based environmental data.The lectures held at the Third European Business Intelligence Summer School (eBISS), which are presented here in an extended and refined format, cover not only established BI and BPM technologies, but extend into innovative aspects that are important in this new environment and for novel applications, e.g., pattern and process mining, business semantics, Linked Open Data, and large-scale data management and analysis.Combining papers by leading researchers in the field, this volume equips the reader with the state-of-the-art background necessary for creating the future of BI. It also provides the reader with an excellent basis and many pointers for further research in this growing field.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 256 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book brings together arepresentative collection of perspectives on the way how corporate governanceis beingaligned with the social responsibility of an organization and the accountability of its management both in large corporations and in medium sized businesses. Examples are given from various industries and branches as well as from different countries and regions across the globe. All examples are commented and explained in detail. Written by a group of selected academic teachers this book is suitable for adoption as a resource for a case driven approach to teaching 'Corporate Governance' courses at an upper undergraduate or graduate level.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 412 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The literature on business model innovation mainly regards large enterprises and is not tailored to SME characteristics. Oana Buliga takes an exploratory look at whether SMEs use strategies which are mainly designed for large enterprises for innovating their business models. The results show that SMEs generally follow successful innovations of large enterprises. Another main finding is that SMEs innovate intuitively: from common sense changes to bold innovations, which severely reshape the value creation systems on the whole. Yet, business model innovation is still a rather ambiguous term and depends on what is considered to be the industry-standard.Springer Gabler in Springer Science + Business Media, Tiergartenstr. 15-17, 69121 Heidelberg 88 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Approximately one-third of the world¿s population lives in poverty at the global Base of the economic Pyramid (BoP). Sarah Friderieke Praceus quantitatively investigates patterns and characteristics of a large sample of innovations developed by people living at the BoP in India. Differences and commonalities versus consumer innovations from the developed world are assessed and effects of innovation-relevant resources and contextual factors on the innovative outcomes are examined. The findings indicate that poor consumer innovators and their wealthier counterparts share similar stable demographic predispositions and preferences while the phenomenon adapts to the specific resource-scarce context and different living conditions at the BoP. Finally, user innovation research from developed markets appears not to be entirely transferable to subsistence markets.Springer Gabler in Springer Science + Business Media, Tiergartenstr. 15-17, 69121 Heidelberg 188 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Firms are increasingly collaborating with outside partners to access external knowledge that will enable them to successfully innovate and remain competitive in the marketplace. To apply external knowledge, they must have a distinctive capacity to absorb knowledge. One of the main influencing factors for absorptive capacity is a knowledge-friendly organizational culture, because the knowledge absorbing behavior of individuals can be better coordinated through implicit values and norms than through structural coordination instruments. When focusing on an organization¿s overall behavior, it is important to investigate in detail how a knowledge-friendly organizational culture influences absorptive capacity. Therefore, the author analysis the relationship between organizational culture and absorptive capacity and shows how a knowledge-friendly organizational culture should be designed to support the absorption of external knowledge in SMEs.Springer Gabler in Springer Science + Business Media, Tiergartenstr. 15-17, 69121 Heidelberg 304 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Processes of global governance are mostly invisible to ordinary citizens, due to an overall lack of accompanying transnational public discourse. However, there are exceptional occasions on which media around the world do pay attention to global governance: high-level summits, such as the UN climate change conferences. Through a detailed case study of UN climate summits, Manuel Adolphsen investigates the transnational communication strategies and behind-the-scenes coordination processes that prominent governments and NGOs carry out on such occasions. His research reveals political actors¿ conscious use of summits as public diplomacy resources as well as the prevalence of on-site coproduction routines among journalists and PR professionals. Summits feature complex public diplomacy constellations interweaving transnational, international, and also solely domestic processes.Springer VS in Springer Science + Business Media, Abraham-Lincoln-Straße 46, 65189 Wiesbaden 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book offers a systematic view of social analysis that will advance the communication of results between different academic disciplines. It overcomes misunderstandings that are due to the use of an unstructured variety of methodological traditions in the analysis of complex socioeconomic and political processes. The book focuses on the special features of human society: humans as subjects, non-repetitiveness and irreversibility of social actions and the peculiar relations between necessity and possibility in human action. It defines methodological criteria, procedures and rules that enable researchers to select and classify realistic hypotheses to derive general principles and basic organizational features. It then applies these criteria in critical reviews of major theories and interpretations of society and history, offering clarifications and alternative proposals with regard to crucial aspects of anthropological, political, juridical, sociological and religious thought.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 340 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -From comparative perspective, this book explores the dynamics of child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border (i.e., Kachin and Shan States of Myanmar). At the same time, this book examines the structural factors and specific relationships between child soldiers, which have impacts on child soldiering. This book reveals that Myanmar has limited power to reduce child soldiering on the Myanmar-China border, and there is no optimal solution for reducing child soldiering in the near future. Instead, the book introduces the ¿transnational public-private partnership¿ approach as a ¿second best¿ solution and proposes suitable countermeasures for all the stakeholders.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 112 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Every book has its own personal story and my book on the Jaqaj people is no exception. I collected my initial data at the time when the Dutch government was responsible for what is now lrian Jaya, a province of Indonesia. At the time that I worked in the field and gathered my information, I enjoyed the enduring interest and support of the late Mgr. H. Tillemans, m. s. c. , archbishop of Merauke. I wish to dedicate this book to his memory. my studies, written in Dutch, appeared in 1958 A first summary of under the tide Papoea's aan de Mappi. Further research in the area persuaded me that some of my previous views needed correction and that publication of more data was necessary as weIl. In 1969 I finished the Dutch draft of the present book. For its translation I was very fortuna te to have help of my colleague Mr. M. van Dijck. It appeared that the text was too long and had to be reduced to better, workable my homework for the following years. The final proportions. That was draft was corrected by my friend Dr. W. Beek, former teacher of English at several colleges, and finally retyped by Father A. Bodden, m. s. c. I owe all of these people my sincere thanks for the many hours spent on this work.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 336 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 468 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Law and economics can be considered as the most exciting development in legal scholarship in recent decades. This volume is the first all-encompassing bibliography in this area. It lists approximately 7000 publications, covering the whole area of law and economics, including `old' law and economics (topics such as antitrust law, labor law, tax law, social security, economic regulation, etc.) as well as `new' law and economics with such topics as tort law, contract law, family law, procedure, criminal law, etc.). The volume also includes the literature on the philosophical foundations and the fundamental concepts of the approach.Part Two gives a special survey of law and economics publications in Europe, written in other languages than English.The Bibliography of Law and Economics is an invaluable reference work for students, scholars, lawyers, economists and other people interested in this field.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 684 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Identifying and customizing suitable control strategies is a challenging task, especially when production systems have to cope with variable demands, forecast error, and unstable processes. The focus of this book lies on helping companies with complex and discrete production systems to tailor a production control strategy to their needs. Thereby, the mutual merits of ¿push¿ and ¿pull¿ systems are taken into account, leading to hybrid strategies. Consequently, the book addresses practitioners who are interested in looking behind the scenes and into the physics of production control. A real-life case study demonstrates the practical applicability of the presented framework.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 188 pp. Englisch.