springer springer dez 1996 (379 risultati)

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This text on a central area of number theory covers p-adic L-functions, class numbers, cyclotomic units, Fermat's Last Theorem, and Iwasawa's theory of Z_p-extensions. This edition contains a new chapter on the work of Thaine, Kolyvagin, and Rubin, including a proof of the Main Conjecture, as well as a chapter on other recent developments, such as primality testing via Jacobi sums and Sinnott's proof of the vanishing of Iwasawa's f-invariant. 508 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - NT as an Operating System Microsoft developed Windows NT as an alternative to Unix. The company sees it as a part of its overall Enterprise Computing plan.It scales up from basic 486 systems to high-end RISC sys tems from companies like Digital, NEC,and PCvendors offering PowerPC systems for NT. The basic operating system consists of a user interface shell (similar in appearance to Windows 3.1 for NT 3.1 to 3.5, and changing to look and feel more like Windows 95 for NT 4.0) de signed to run 32-bit programs. This makes it ideal for the multi media nature of Web browsers, and for the heavy-duty require ments of a Web server. There are a number of elements in the as that are special to NT. These include the control panelsand administrativesupport tools relating to NT's services and support mechanisms. TCP/IP is included for Internetaccess throughtraditional networks.You can also connect from Windows NTWorkstation via MS Remote Access to any Internet Access Providersupporting PPP. Basic requirements for Windows NT Workstation are a 486 system with at least 8 MB of RAM, although 16 MB is recom mended. The client software needed to connect to a corporate server is included, as is the Remote Access software mentioned earlier. 1. Introduction FIGURE 1.1. NT4.0 operating system.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Volume 27 provides a comprehensive review of current knowledge of lysosome function in mammalian cells. The book's unique contribution is its series of chapters that offers unparalleled treatment of the metabolic activities of lysosomes.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In the study of forms of legal reasoning, logic and argumentation theory long followed separate tracks. `Legal logicians' tended to focus on a deductive reconstruction of justifying a decision, disregarding the dialectical process leading to the chosen justification. Others instead emphasized the adversarial and discretionary nature of legal reasoning, involving reasonable evaluation of alternative choices, and the use of analogical reasoning.Recently, however, developments in Artificial Intelligence and Law have paved the way for overcoming this separation. Logic has widened its scope to defensible argumentation, and informal accounts of analogy and dialectics have inspired the construction of computer programs. Thus the prospect is emerging of an integrated logical and dialectical account of legal argument, adding to the understanding of legal reasoning, and providing a formal basis for computer tools that assist and mediate legal debates while leaving room for human initiative.This book presents contributions to this development. From a logical point of view it covers topics such as evaluating conflicting arguments, weighing reasons, modelling legal disputes as a dialogue game, the role of the burden of proof, the relation between principles, rules, reasons and facts, and the relation between deductive and nondeductive arguments. Written by leading scholars in the field and building on recent developments in logic and Artificial Intelligence, the chapters provide a state-of-the-art account of research on the logical aspects of legal argument.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - In this volume leading international authorities present the results of their original scientific studies of aggressive behavior. Written in honor of the eminent Polish psychologist, Adam Fraczec, for this work in this area, the contributed chapters highlight the similarities and differences in the findings provided by investigators working in diverse cultural settings.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Knowledge-Based Software Engineering brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this important area. Knowledge-Based Software Engineering serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most important research issues in the field.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - This book introduces several state-of-the-art VLSI implementations of artificial neural networks (ANNs). It reviews various hardware approaches to ANN implementations: analog, digital and pulse-coded. The analog approach is emphasized as the main one taken in the later chapters of the book. The area of VLSI implementation of ANNs has been progressing for the last 15 years, but not at the fast pace originally predicted. Several reasons have contributed to the slow progress, with the main one being that VLSI implementation of ANNs is an interdisciplinaly area where only a few researchers, academics and graduate students are willing to venture. The work of Professors Fakhraie and Smith, presented in this book, is a welcome addition to the state-of-the-art and will greatly benefit researchers and students working in this area. Of particular value is the use of experimental results to backup extensive simulations and in-depth modeling. The introduction of a synapse-MOS device is novel. The book applies the concept to a number of applications and guides the reader through more possible applications for future work. I am confident that the book will benefit a potentially wide readership. M. I. Elmasry University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada Preface Neural Networks (NNs), generally defined as parallel networks that employ a large number of simple processing elements to perform computation in a distributed fashion, have attracted a lot of attention in the past fifty years. As the result. many new discoveries have been made.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Eastern and Western, NATO partner and member country specialists discuss recent accomplishments in the sharing of timely, accurate data and information to protect the water resources of the Danube Basin, a strategic region shared by two Western and 11 former Communist countries. An International Commission, continuing the work of an ad hoc environmental management programme, is expected to take over in 1997 and may well adopt the recommendations of this timely workshop. These recommendations include the establishment of a central source of water quality data and information on levels of pollution, government standards and their enforcement, NGO environmental groups, and other programmes and policies. The editor, Dr. Irene Lyons Murphy, received support from the United States Institute of Peace during 1995- a study of the cooperative management of Danube River resources which began with the end of the Cold War. It analyzes the development and ratification of the Danube River Protection Convention and other aspects of joint pro-environment activities from 1991 to 1996. Its title The Danube: A River Basin in Transition is to be published in early 1997. Users, investors in new and/or joint business ventures, national and international governments, research scientists, the media, NGOs and the general public will be served on the Internet and through the distribution of CD-ROM and diskettes.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - This book is an invitation to study managerial uses of accounting infonnation. Three themes run throughout. First, the accounting system is profitably thought of as a library of financial statistics. Answers to a variety of questions are unlikely to be found in prefabricated fonnat, but valuable infonnation awaits those equipped to in the accounting library is most interrogate the library. Second, the infonnation unlikely to be the only infonnation at the manger's disposal. So knowing how to combine accounting and nonaccounting bits of infonnation is an important, indeed indispensable, managerial skill. Finally, the role of a professional manager is emphasized. This is an individual with skill, talent, and imagination, an individual who brings professional quality skills to the ta sk of managing. This book also makes demands on the reader. It assumes the reader has had prior exposure to financial accounting, economics, statistics, and the economics of uncertainty (in the fonn of risk aversion and decision trees). A modest acquaintance with strategic, or equilibrium, modeling is also presumed, as is patience with abstract notation. The hook does not make deep mathematical demands on the reader. An acquaintance with linearprogramming and the ability to take a simple derivative are presumed. The major prerequisite is a tolerance for (if not a predisposition toward) abstract notation. This st yle and list of prerequisites are not matters of taste or author imposition.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Mechanical engineering, an engineering discipline borne of the needs of the industrial revolution, is once again asked to do its substantial share in the call for industrial renewal. The general call is urgent as we face profound issues of productivity and competitiveness that require engineering solutions, among others. The Mechanical Engineering Series features graduate texts and research monographs intended to address the need for information in con temporary areas of mechanical engineering. The series is conceived as a comprehensive one that covers a broad range of concentrations important to mechanical engineering graduate education and research. We are fortunate to have a distinguished roster of consulting editors on the advisory board, each an expert in one of the areas of concen tration. The names of the consulting editors are listed on the next page of this volume. The areas of concentration are: applied mechanics; bio mechanics; computational mechanics; dynamic systems and control; energetics; mechanics of materials; processing; thermal science; and tribology. Professor Marshek, the consulting editor for dynamic systems and control, and I are pleased to present the second edition of Vibration of Discrete and Continuous Systems by Professor Shabana. We note that this is the second of two volumes. The first deals with the theory of vibration.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - ical) and to self-fulfilling currency crisis, respectively. Research stressing the former approach was pioneered by Krugman (1979) and Flood and Garber (1984). According to this line of research, the failure of governments to adopt domestic monetary and fiscal policies consistent with their stated exchange rate targets leads to a gradual diminution of reserves and eventually a stock adjustment that depletes reserves suddenly in one attack (Sachs, Tornell, and Velasco, 1996, page 47). The result is either a devaluation of the exchange rate or a switch to floating. Subsequent work of this genre has specified a number of other channels, in addition to that involving inconsistent and unsustainable monetary and fiscal policies, that can precipitate an attack: 1. Inconsistency between external and internal objectives. The stances of monetary and fiscal policies may be consistent with the authorities' exchange rate target, but domestic economic indicators (such as the unemployment rate) may be inconsistent with internal balance, resulting in pressures on the authorities to relax macroeconomic policies. Private agents, aware of this inconsistency, perceive an opportunity for profits from a currency devaluation and precipitate an attack. 2. Contagion effects. Prior to an attack on another currency (say that of country B), the market may view a country's (say, country A's) exchange rate as consistent with economic fundamentals and, thus, sustainable.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - This volume contains the proceedings of the William Harvey Research Conference held in New Orleans on the 15th and 16th of April 1996. It reviews the general pathophysiological significance of the isoforms of cyclooxygenase and the likely value of selective COX-2 inhibitors in the treatment of rheumatoid conditions. The volume also covers the possible use of antibodies against cytokines and cell adhesion receptors in the treatment of inflammatory conditions.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - In the study of forms of legal reasoning, logic and argumentation theory long followed separate tracks. `Legal logicians' tended to focus on a deductive reconstruction of justifying a decision, disregarding the dialectical process leading to the chosen justification. Others instead emphasized the adversarial and discretionary nature of legal reasoning, involving reasonable evaluation of alternative choices, and the use of analogical reasoning. Recently, however, developments in Artificial Intelligence and Law have paved the way for overcoming this separation. Logic has widened its scope to defensible argumentation, and informal accounts of analogy and dialectics have inspired the construction of computer programs. Thus the prospect is emerging of an integrated logical and dialectical account of legal argument, adding to the understanding of legal reasoning, and providing a formal basis for computer tools that assist and mediate legal debates while leaving room for human initiative. This book presents contributions to this development. From a logical point of view it covers topics such as evaluating conflicting arguments, weighing reasons, modelling legal disputes as a dialogue game, the role of the burden of proof, the relation between principles, rules, reasons and facts, and the relation between deductive and nondeductive arguments. Written by leading scholars in the field and building on recent developments in logic and Artificial Intelligence, the chapters provide a state-of-the-art account of research on the logical aspects of legal argument.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Arterial and venous diseases are major causes of morbidity and mortality in most of the world, especially in the western hemisphere. Not only of interest to angiologists, these illnesses are also of concern to most physicians in various fields ranging from cardiology, general medicine and cardiovascular surgery to physiology, pathology and clinical pharmacology. Specialists in diabetes, hypertension and epidemiology find these illnesses as challenging in their own fields of interest due to the gross interrelation of these diseases with their specialities. This book of 35 chapters contains an up-to-date discussion of various arterial and venous illnesses presenting major clinical applications ranging from basic pathology, haemodynamics and haemorheology to clinical features and management. Special attention has also been paid to epidemiology and prevention, discussing all the issues concerned. A special section on vascular emergency has also been included, thereby extending its usefulness to physicians and surgeons working in accident and emergency units.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - During the last two decades, a tremendous growth in the popularity and applications of computers in manufacturing has occurred. Computer aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, flexible manufacturing systems, group technology and many others are considered by many manufacturing executives as the most promising technologies and philosophies that, if successfully implemented, can reduce costs and enable the US manufacturing companies to become more competitive in the global market. In the computer-integrated manufacturing environ ment, the decision processes are often more involved. The decision makers are frequently required to have access to a vast amount of data to support and analyze their complex decision problems at strategic and tactical levels. Decision support systems are often referred to as computer-based information technologies that allow the decision makers to interactively communicate and solve the decision problems. Manufacturing Decision Support Systems is intended to report the latest developments and address the central issues in this area. This volume consists of 14 refereed chapters, written by leading researchers from academia and industry.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Since the beginning of agricultural production, there has been a continuous effort to grow more and better quality food to feed ever increasing popula tions. Both improved cultural practices and improved crop plants have allowed us to divert more human resources to non-agricultural activities while still increasing agricultural production. Malthusian population predictions continue to alarm agricultural researchers, especially plant breeders, to seek new technologies that will continue to allow us to produce more and better food by fewer people on less land. Both improvement of existing cultivars and development of new high-yielding cultivars are common goals for breeders of all crops. In vitro haploid production is among the new technologies that show great promise toward the goal of increasing crop yields by making similar germplasm available for many crops that was used to implement one of the greatest plant breeding success stories of this century, i. e. , the development of hybrid maize by crosses of inbred lines. One of the main applications of anther culture has been to produce diploid homozygous pure lines in a single generation, thus saving many generations of backcrossing to reach homozygosity by traditional means or in crops where self-pollination is not possible. Because doubled haploids are equivalent to inbred lines, their value has been appreciated by plant breeders for decades. The search for natural haploids and methods to induce them has been ongoing since the beginning of the 20th century.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - It is beyond any doubt that East-Central European countries such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia has dramatically changed its shape through its radical transition from centrally planned to the market economies in last 7 years. Many economists divide the process of economic transformation into areas of Stabilization, Liberalization, and Privatization/Restructuring. The traditional view is that stabilization and liberalization can be achieved rather quickly-by balancing budgets, balance of payments, tightening money supply, freeing prices and liberalizing trade-but that the area of privatization is one that could be moved to the future and will require much more time. Until 1991, none of the post-communist nations except former East Germany (which had a large decree of support from West Germany) had succeeded in privatizing large numbers of enterprises, even though more than two years had passed since the changes in government in these nations. The privatization has been, however, seen as an extremely important part of reform package together with stabilization and liberalization especially in the Czech Republic from the very beginning. The Czechs originally as a part of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic embarked on an unprecedented path that should have lead not only to stabilization and liberalization, but also to very rapid, mass privatization of its sector of large enterprises that have dominated its economy to an extreme extent.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Solid Freeform Fabrication is a set of manufacturing processes that are capable of producing complex freeform solid objects directly from a computer model of an object without part-specific tooling or knowledge. In essence, these methods are miniature manufacturing plants which come complete with material handling, information processing and materials processing. As such, these methods require technical knowledge from many disciplines; therefore, researchers, engineers, and students in Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, and Manufacturing Engineering and Materials and Computer Science will all find some interest in this subject. Particular subareas of concern include manufacturing methods, polymer chemistry, computational geometry, control, heat transfer, metallurgy, ceramics, optics, and fluid mechanics. History of technology specialists may also find Chapter 1 of interest. Although this book covers the spectrum of different processes, the emphasis is clearly on the area in which the authors have the most experience, thermal laser processing. In particular, the authors have all been developers and inventors of techniques for the Selective Laser Sintering process and laser gas phase techniques (Selective Area Laser Deposition). This is a research book on the subject of Solid Freeform Fabrication.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - 2 Concept ( Tools - Specification ( Tools + Design Stages ( Tools - Implementation ( Tools Figure 1-1. A nominal, multi-stage development process From that beginning, we have progressed to the point where the EDA community at large, including both users and developers of the tools, are interested in more unified environments. Here, the notion is that the tools used at the various stages in the development process need to be able to complement each other, and to communicate with one another efficiently using effective file exchange capabilities. Furthermore, the idea of capturing all the tool support needed for an EDA development into a unified support environment is now becoming a reality. This reality is evidenced by some of the EDA suites we now see emerging, wherein several tool functions are integrated under a common graphical user interface (GUI), with supporting file exchange and libraries to enable all tool functions to operate effectively and synergistically. This concept, which we illustrate in Figure 1- 2, is the true future ofEDA.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - 3. 1 Techniques of Comminution 35 3. 2 Solid-Solid Reactions 42 3. 2. 1 Mixing and Calcination 42 3. 2. 2 Modem Techniques 45 3. 3 Solution Techniques 46 3. 3. 1 Precipitation and Co-precipitation 46 Forced Hydrolysis 3. 3. 2 49 3. 3. 3 Hydrotbennal Synthesis 51 The Sol-Gel Process 3. 3. 4 53 3. 3. 5 Hydrolysis of Metal-Organics 56 The Emulsion Process 3. 3. 6 56 Solvent Vaporization 3. 4 59 3. 4. 1 Simple Evaporation 59 3. 4. 2 Spray Drying 60 3. 4. 3 Spray Pyrolysis 64 3. 4. 4 Freeze Drying 66 3. 5 Vapour-Phase Techniques 68 3. 5. 1 Vaporization-Condensation 68 3. 5. 2 Vapour-Vapour Reaction 68 3. 5. 3 Vapour-Liquid Reaction 70 3. 5. 4 Vapour-Solid Reaction 71 3. 6 Precursor Decomposition 72 3. 6. 1 Salt Decomposition 72 3. 6. 2 Polymer Pyrolysis 73 4. Synthetic Powders : Options in Preparation 75 4. 0 Introduction 75 4. 1 Single and Multiple Oxide Powders 75 4. 1. 1 Aluminium Oxide 75 4. 1. 2 Zirconium Oxide 85 4. 1. 3 Titanium Oxide 96 4. 1. 4 Magnesium Oxide 99 4. 1. 5 Silicon Dioxide 101 4. 1. 6 Rare Earth Oxides 105 Yttrium Oxide 105 Cerium Oxide 106 4. 1. 7 Zinc Oxide 107 [vi] 4. 1. 8 Mullite 110 4. 1. 9 Magnesium Aluminate Spinel 114 4. 1.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Surfactants are vital components in biological systems, are key ingredients in many formulated products and play an important role in many industrial processes. The property which makes surfactants so useful is their ability to stabilize complex colloidal and interfacial systems. It is not surprising therefore that many new surfactant materials are developed, many of which have novel properties. However because their potential is not fully appreciated they remain underutilized by industry. The main purpose of this book is to illustrate the utility of a range of novel surfactants, in particular those which have been found useful in specific areas and which seem to offer promise across a wider range of applications. The contributors are drawn from industry and academic research and provide a comprehensive account of the preparation, properties and applications of these specialist surfactants. Research chemists in industry and academia will find this book a concise and authoritative account of this important group of surfactants.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In the study of forms of legal reasoning, logic and argumentation theory long followed separate tracks. `Legal logicians' tended to focus on a deductive reconstruction of justifying a decision, disregarding the dialectical process leading to the chosen justification. Others instead emphasized the adversarial and discretionary nature of legal reasoning, involving reasonable evaluation of alternative choices, and the use of analogical reasoning.Recently, however, developments in Artificial Intelligence and Law have paved the way for overcoming this separation. Logic has widened its scope to defensible argumentation, and informal accounts of analogy and dialectics have inspired the construction of computer programs. Thus the prospect is emerging of an integrated logical and dialectical account of legal argument, adding to the understanding of legal reasoning, and providing a formal basis for computer tools that assist and mediate legal debates while leaving room for human initiative.This book presents contributions to this development. From a logical point of view it covers topics such as evaluating conflicting arguments, weighing reasons, modelling legal disputes as a dialogue game, the role of the burden of proof, the relation between principles, rules, reasons and facts, and the relation between deductive and nondeductive arguments. Written by leading scholars in the field and building on recent developments in logic and Artificial Intelligence, the chapters provide a state-of-the-art account of research on the logical aspects of legal argument. 224 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Intelligent Unmanned Ground Vehicles describes the technology developed and the results obtained by the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute in the course of the DARPA Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) project. The goal of this work was to equip off-road vehicles with computer-controlled, unmanned driving capabilities. The book describes contributions in the area of mobility for UGVs including: tools for assembling complex autonomous mobility systems; on-road and off-road navigation; sensing techniques; and route planning algorithms. In addition to basic mobility technology, the book covers a number of integrated systems demonstrated in the field in realistic scenarios. The approaches presented in this book can be applied to a wide range of mobile robotics applications, from automated passenger cars to planetary exploration, and construction and agricultural machines. Intelligent Unmanned Ground Vehicles shows the progress that was achieved during this program, from brittle specially-built robots operating under highly constrained conditions, to groups of modified commercial vehicles operating in tough environments. One measure of progress is how much of this technology is being used in other applications. For example, much of the work in road-following, architectures and obstacle detection has been the basis for the Automated Highway Systems (AHS) prototypes currently under development. AHS will lead to commercial prototypes within a few years. The cross-country technology is also being used in the development of planetary rovers with a projected launch date within a few years. The architectural tools built under this program have been used in numerous applications, from an automated harvester to an autonomous excavator. The results reported in this work provide tools for further research development leading to practical, reliable and economical mobile robots.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - A great deal of research is being done in the areas of artificial vision and neural networks. Although much of this research has been theoretical in nature, many of the techniques developed through these efforts are now mature enough for use in practical applications. Automated Visual Inspection Using Artificial Neural Networks explains the application of recently emerging technology in the areas of artificial vision and neural networks to automated visual inspection. The information is organised in a clear, informative manner, bridging the gap between theoretical research and practical application. Significantly this book includes: \* broad coverage of all aspects of the automated visual inspection problem, \* details of the HAVENET neural network and the CAMERA vision model, and \* detailed descriptions of practical applications of intelligent visual inspection.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Stringent legislation is forcing manufacturing industry to be aware of the impact its operations have on the environment, in order to control and reduce the affect of those operations. Increasingly sophisticated equipment is required for this monitoring, and development of that equipment and strategies for its use is a multi-disciplinary field involving chemists, analytical scientists and engineers. This volume is divided into two parts, the first introducing the reader to the various sensor systems and illustrating the advantages and disadvantages those systems have for monitoring programmes, and the second introducing the problems associated with environmental monitoring, and showing how the sensors discussed in the first section can be applied to produce a thorough monitoring programme.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - There is a growing demand for electronic signal processing at elevated temperatures. A number of approaches have been used to develop this capability. Silicon circuits could be developed and fabricated with an appropriate technology to cover increased temperature ranges. In a search for semiconductors with a wider energy gap to avoid leakage currents at high operating temperatures, one developed compound semiconductors such as GaAIAs on GaAs substrates. Efforts to use GaN are also useful, although difficult due to the lack of a suitable substrate material for lattice-matched epitaxial growth. Other work concerns electronic compo nent and circuit developments with SiC. Preliminary results have proved interesting. This book attempts to present the possibilities of such circuitry. Some of the solutions obtained so far are directly usable for the many applications where high environmental temperatures exist. Other concepts, particularly the more demanding ones, such as operation above 500 °C, still need much more researching. This also concerns estimates of device lifetimes for con tinuous high temperature operation. This book may help the potential user of such circuitry to find a suitable solution. It should also stimulate more research groups to enter this demanding effort. And finally, it should stimulate a broad awareness of the need and the solutions for this type of electronics. That is why Part One is devoted to high temperature applications.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Synthesis and Properties of Advanced Materials provides an overview of some of the most exciting developments in advanced materials. The book contains review papers based on tutorial lectures given at The First Pan American Advanced Study Institute held in Merida, Mexico, 1995. Each paper serves as a comprehensive introduction and review to the topic covered. Topics included: diamond and related materials, nanocrystalline metals and ceramics, Co-based alloys for biomedical applications, high-temperature superconductivity materials, composite materials, cement-based materials, ion-implanted ceramics and structural ceramics. Each chapter emphasizes the relationships among processing parameters, micro-structure and properties. Synthesis and Properties of Advanced Materials provides an excellent review of the state of the art in advanced materials for the working engineer or researcher. Students will also find this text an accessible introduction to the field.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - As its title suggests, 'Uncertainty Management in Information Systems' is a book about how information systems can be made to manage information permeated with uncertainty. This subject is at the intersection of two areas of knowledge: information systems is an area that concentrates on the design of practical systems that can store and retrieve information; uncertainty modeling is an area in artificial intelligence concerned with accurate representation of uncertain information and with inference and decision-making under conditions infused with uncertainty. New applications of information systems require stronger capabilities in the area of uncertainty management. Our hope is that lasting interaction between these two areas would facilitate a new generation of information systems that will be capable of servicing these applications. Although there are researchers in information systems who have addressed themselves to issues of uncertainty, as well as researchers in uncertainty modeling who have considered the pragmatic demands and constraints of information systems, to a large extent there has been only limited interaction between these two areas. As the subtitle, 'From Needs to Solutions,' indicates, this book presents view points of information systems experts on the needs that challenge the uncer tainty capabilities of present information systems, and it provides a forum to researchers in uncertainty modeling to describe models and systems that can address these needs.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Electro-optic devices based on doped wide-band materials are present in industrial uses, in military applications and in everyday life. Whether one engages in laser surgery with a neodymium-Y AG laser or one communicates overseas using optical fibers, the development of these materials is both scientifically and commercially of great interest. Much of the most innovative work has been done in the last 15 years in this area. A minor revolution in optical fiber communications has occurred with the development of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. Solid-state laser development shifted into high-gear with the theoretical and experimental study of doubly-doped garnet lasers. Recent developments on semiconductor laser arrays are making diode pumped solid-state lasers commercially feasible. The purpose of this book is to detail these developments and to point out that many of the same underlying physical processes control advances in several diverse applications. For example, the basic science of energy transfer will be discussed by Zharikov et al. and Rotman for energy transfer and dopant-defect interactions, respectively; it will also be crucial in understanding cerium-doped scintilla tors, neodymium-chromium lasers, and up-conversion fiber lasers. As another example, phonon-induced non-radiative relaxation will appear in every chapter in this book.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Cost cutting by transferring the production capacity to low-wage countries cannot by itself guarantee the survival of the manufacturing industry in the European Community. This book poses a number of topical questions, regarding competitive production for the 21st century, in four key areas.