springer springer jul 2006 (325 risultati)

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -One of the basic ideas in differential geometry is that the study of analytic properties of certain differential operators acting on sections of vector bundles yields geometric and topological properties of the underlying base manifold. Symplectic spinor fields are sections in an L^2-Hilbert space bundle over a symplectic manifold and symplectic Dirac operators, acting on symplectic spinor fields, are associated to the symplectic manifold in a very natural way. They may be expected to give interesting applications in symplectic geometry and symplectic topology. These symplectic Dirac operators are called Dirac operators, since they are defined in an analogous way as the classical Riemannian Dirac operator known from Riemannian spin geometry. They are called symplectic because they are constructed by use of the symplectic setting of the underlying symplectic manifold. This volume is the first one that gives a systematic and self-contained introduction to the theory of symplectic Dirac operators and reflects the current state of the subject. At the same time, it is intended to establish the idea that symplectic spin geometry and symplectic Dirac operators may give valuable tools in symplectic geometry and symplectic topology, which have become important fields and very active areas of mathematical research.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 140 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -From ancient to modern, architects have looked for fundamental underlying principles of geometry and proportion on which to found their designs. Such principles not only provide an order for the formal elements, they ground the architecture in timeless values and provide an order for the formal elements, they ground the architecture in timeless values and provide a source of cultural meaning. This book illustrates the use of fundamental principles of geometry and proportion in two ancient cultures, the Bronze Age and the Roman Age, as well as in twentieth-century North America. 144 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -I don't have my name on anything that I don't really do. ¿Heidi Klum Can the organic chemists associated with so-called ¿Named Reactions¿ make the same claim as supermodel Heidi Klum Many scholars of chemistry do not hesi- te to point out that the names associated with ¿name reactions¿ are often not the actual inventors. For instance, the Arndt-Eistert reaction has nothing to do with either Arndt or Eistert, Pummerer did not discover the ¿Pummerer¿ rearran- ment, and even the famous Birch reduction owes its initial discovery to someone named Charles Wooster (first reported in a DuPont patent). The list goes on and on¿ But does that mean we should ignore, boycott, or outlaw ¿named reac- ons¿ Absolutely not. The above examples are merely exceptions to the rule. In fact, the chemists associated with name reactions are typically the original dis- verers, contribute greatly to its general use, and/or are the first to popularize the transformation. Regardless of the controversial history underlying certain named reactions, it is the students of organic chemistry who benefit the most from the - taloging of reactions by name. Indeed, it is with education in mind that Dr. Jack Li has masterfully brought the chemical community the latest edition of Name Reactions. It is clear why this beautiful treatise has rapidly become a bestseller within the chemical community. 676 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing, SAT 2006. The book presents 26 revised full papers together with 11 revised short papers and 2 invited talks. Coverage extends to all current research issues in propositional and quantified Boolean formula satisfiability testing. The papers are organized in topical sections on proofs and cores, heuristics and algorithms, and more.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 456 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications, RTA 2006, held in Seattle, WA, USA in August 2006. The book presents 23 revised full papers and 4 systems description papers together with 2 invited talks and a plenary talk of the hosting FLoC conference. Topics include equational reasoning, system verification, lambda calculus, theorem proving, system descriptions, termination, higher-order rewriting and unification, and more. 436 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In this revised and extended version of his course notes from a 1-year course at Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, the author provides an introduction ¿ for an audience knowing basic functional analysis and measure theory but not necessarily probability theory ¿ to analysis in a separable Hilbert space of infinite dimension.Starting from the definition of Gaussian measures in Hilbert spaces, concepts such as the Cameron-Martin formula, Brownian motion and Wiener integral are introduced in a simple way. These concepts are then used to illustrate some basic stochastic dynamical systems (including dissipative nonlinearities) and Markov semi-groups, paying special attention to their long-time behavior: ergodicity, invariant measure. Here fundamental results like the theorems of Prokhorov, Von Neumann, Krylov-Bogoliubov and Khas'minski are proved. The last chapter is devoted to gradient systems and their asymptotic behavior.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This is the second volume in a series of lecture notes based on the highly s- cessful Euro Summer School on Exotic Beams that has been running yearly since 1993 (apart from 1999) and is planned to continue to do so. It is the aim of the School and these lecture notes to provide an introduction to - dioactive ion beam (RIB) physics at the level of graduate students and young postdocs starting out in the eld. Each volume will contain lectures covering a range of topics from nuclear theory to experiment to applications. Our understanding of atomic nuclei has undergone a major re-orientation over the past two decades and seen the emergence of an exciting eld of research: the study of exotic nuclei. The availability of energetic beams of short-lived nuclei, referred to as radioactive ion beams (RIBs), has opened the way to the study of the structure and dynamics of thousands of nuclear species never before observed in the laboratory. In its 2004 report ¿Persp- tives for Nuclear Physics Research in Europe in the Coming Decade and - yond¿, the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC) statesthatthe eldofRIBphysicsisoneofthemostimportantdirectionsfor the future science programme in Europe. In 2005 it published its ¿Roadmap for Construction of Nuclear Physics Research Infrastructures in Europe¿. 256 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Thisvolumecontainsrefereedpapersdevotedtocodingandcryptography.These papers arethe full versionsof a selectionof the best extended abstractsaccepted for presentation at the International Workshop on Coding and Cryptography (WCC 2005) held in Bergen, Norway, March 14¿18, 2005. Each of the 118 - tended abstracts originallysubmitted to the workshop were reviewed by at least two members of the Program Committee. As a result of this screening process, 58 papers were selected for presentation, of which 52 were eventually presented at the workshop together with four invited talks. The authors of the presented papers were in turn invited to submit full v- sions of their papers to the full proceedings. Each of the full-version submissions were once again thoroughly examined and commented upon by at least two reviewers. This volume is the end result of this long process. I am grateful to the reviewers who contributed to guaranteeing the high standards of this volume, and who are named on the next pages. It was a pl- sure for me to work with my program co-chair Pascale Charpin, whose expe- enced advice I havefurther bene ted greatly from during the preparationof this ¿ volume. Discussions with Tor Helleseth and Angela Barbero were also useful in putting the volume together. Finally, I would like to thank all the authors and all the other participants of the WCC 2005 for making it in every sense a highly enjoyable event.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 460 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the First International Workshop on Secure Mobile Ad-hoc Networks and Sensors, MADNES 2005, held in Singapore, in September 2005. The book presents 12 revised full papers together with 5 keynote papers and 1 invited paper. These address current topics of all security aspects of constrained network environments with special focus to mobile agents, sensor networks and radio frequency devices. 208 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book studies the relationship between automata and monadic second-order logic, focusing on classes of automata that describe the concurrent behavior of distributed systems. It provides a unifying theory of communicating automata and their logical properties. Based on Hanf's Theorem and Thomas's graph acceptors, it develops a result that allows characterization of many popular models of distributed computation in terms of the existential fragment of monadic second-order logic.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 192 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - Almost continuously in print for 40 years, this classic title describes life on the home front, analyzing the social changes that made Britain of the 1920s a vastly different place from the Britain that went to war in 1914. This reissued second edition features a new Preface by leading historian Joanna Bourke.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Conics and Cubics is an accessible introduction to algebraic curves. Its focus on curves of degree at most three keeps results tangible and proofs transparent. Theorems follow naturally from high school algebra and two key ideas, homogeneous coordinates and intersection multiplicities.By classifying irreducible cubics over the real numbers and proving that their points form Abelian groups, the book gives readers easy access to the study of elliptic curves. It includes a simple proof of Bezout¿s Theorem on the number of intersections of two curves.The book is a text for a one-semester course. The course can serve either as the one undergraduate geometry course taken by mathematics majors in general or as a sequel to college geometry for prospective or current teachers of secondary school mathematics. The only prerequisite is first-year calculus.The new edition additionally discusses the use of power series to parametrize curves and analyze intersection multiplicities and envelopes.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 356 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - These proceedings derive from an international conference on the history of computing and education. This conference is the second of hopefully a series of conferences that will take place within the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and hence, we describe it as the 'Second IFIP Conference on the History of Computing and Education' or simply 'History of Computing and Education 2' (HCE2). This volume consists of a collection of articles presented at the HCE2 conference held in association with the IFIP 2006 World Computer Congress in Santiago, Chile. Articles range from a wide variety of educational and computing perspectives and represent activities from five continents. The HCE2 conference represents a joint effort of the IFIP Working Group 9. 7 on the History of Computing and the IFIP Technical Committee 3 on Education. The HCE2 conference brings to light a broad spectrum of issues. It illustrates topics in computing as they occurred in the 'early days' of computing whose ramifications or overtones remain with us today. Indeed, many of the early challenges remain part of our educational tapestry; most likely, many will evolve into future challenges. Therefore, these proceedings provide additional value to the reader as it will reflect in part the future development of computing and education to stimulate new ideas and models in educational development. These proceedings provide a spectrum of interesting articles spanning many topics of historical interest.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware - . a pure mathematician does what he can do as well as he should, whilst an applied mathematician does what he should do as well as he can. (Gr. C. Moisil Romanian mathematician, 1906-1973) Flows in porous media were initially the starting point for the study which has evolved into this book, because the acquirement and improving of kn- ledge about the analysis and control of water in ltration and solute spreading arechallenginganddemandingpresentissuesinmanydomains,likesoilsci- ces, hydrology, water management, water quality management, ecology. The mathematical modelling required by these processes revealed from the beg- ning interesting and di cult mathematical problems, so that the attention was redirected to the theoretical mathematical aspects involved. Then, the qualitative results found were used for the explanation of certain behaviours of the physical processes which had made the object of the initial study and for giving answers to the real problems that arise in the soil science practice. In this way the work evidences a perfect topic for an applied mathematical research. This book was written in the framework of my research activity within the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Applied Mathematics of the Ro- nianAcademy.SomeresultswereobtainedwithintheprojectCNCSIS33045/ 2004-2006, nanced by the Romanian Ministry of Research and Education. In a preliminary form, part of the results included here were lecture notes for master and Ph.D. students during the scienti c stages (November- December 2003 and May-June 2004) of the author at the Center for Optimal Control and Discrete Mathematics belonging to the Central China Normal University in Wuhan.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Plant disease epidemiologists have a strong scientific tradition in studying climate-pathogen-disease relationships. Biodiversity is also of global concern. The decline of global biodiversity that is currently taking place has been referred to as the sixth great extinction process our planet has experienced during its history, but this time, it is man-made. Generations of plant pathologists, and especially, of plant disease epidemiologists, have been dealing with biodiversity. It is from this diversity that presumably the most potent instrument for disease management has been developed by plant pathologists: host plant resistance. Host plant diversity, and the disease resistance genes it harbours, can be deployed over time and space, according to epidemiological principles. Sustainable production and protection systems also need to be devised which could exploit scarcer resources sparingly, and if possible enhance the resource base. Plant disease epidemiologists alone cannot provide answers to such questions, but certainly could significantly contribute to these new strategies. This book provides an overview of some of the latest research in plant disease epidemiology from researchers at the cutting edge of this important discipline. 148 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Control of Traffic Systems in Buildings, focusing on elevator groups, presents the state of the art in their analysis and control. It covers the theory and design of passenger and cargo traffic systems with actual operational examples and topics of current interest such as: noisy, on-line and algorithmic optimization; identification and tracking of loads; integration of control with security and management; medium- and wide-area networked control; deployment and testing of transport systems.Workers in elevator control have pioneered the development of many modern control systems for use in all sorts of traffic and scheduled systems so this exposition of recent work in in-building transport control will be of interest to researchers and engineers in many areas of control, particularly in optimal or supervisory control, urban transportation systems and intelligent transport systems.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 302 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book emphasizes the application of Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) gain scheduling techniques to the control of wind energy conversion systems. This reformulation of the classical problem of gain scheduling allows straightforward design procedure and simple controller implementation. From an overview of basic wind energy conversion, to analysis of common control strategies, to design details for LPV gain-scheduled controllers for both fixed- and variable-pitch, this is a thorough and informative monograph.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume presents proceedings from the 19th IFIP World Computer Congress in Santiago, Chile. The proceedings of the World Computer Congress are a product of the gathering of 2,000 delegates from more than 70 countries to discuss a myriad of topics in the ICT domain. Of particular note, this marks the first time that a World Computer Congress has been held in a Latin American country.Topics in this series include: The 4th International Conference on Theoretical Computer Science Education for the 21st Century- Impact of ICT and Digital Resources Mobile and Wireless Communication Networks Ad-Hoc Networking Network Control and Engineering for QoS, Security, and Mobility The Past and Future of Information Systems: 1976-2006 and Beyond History of Computing and Education Biologically Inspired Cooperative Computing Artificial Intelligence in Theory and Practice Applications in Artificial Intelligence Advanced Software Engineering: Expanding the Frontiers of SoftwareSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 252 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -It still holds true: information is not always the answer. Information is often part of the problem. While the main goal of information in the business place is to - able adequate decisions and actions, it can also lead to numerous negative effects: it can confuse, block creativity, or it can lead to hectic activism, stress and fatigue. Information can distract and divert attention, and it may even delay important - cisions ¿ the paralysis by analysis. Strategies to avoid these dysfunctional effects of information can be divided into sender-based strategies and receiver-based strategies. In my previous research, I have looked at receiver-based strategies that outline effective ways of dealing with information overload. This book, by c- trast, analyzes sender-based strategies that aim at making content actionable by increasing its information quality. By offering relevant and sound information in a convenient and reliable manner, managers and information providers ranging from analysts to CEOs can not only optimize communication, they can also improve their reputation, employee satisfaction and customer loyalty. In a time where - formation has become a commodity or even a nuisance, this is a valuable strategy. The main premise of this book is consequently that information quality has - ready become a (if not the) decisive factor of the information economy. Many companies, however, are not managing this factor systematically.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 412 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book is an outgrowth of my involvement in two groups of research in solid mechanics, created in 1960 for the French nuclear energy program. At this time, it was decided that France, as a no-oil reservoir country, must be powered by nuclear energy, which represents today 80% of the total - tional energy supply. Long before the construction of the first nuclear plant at Fessenheim in 1973, Electricité de France (EdF) created its first solid mechanics laboratory, appointed researchers and sent them to the universities or abroad in order to learn about theories and new methods of assessment of the safety of structures. Working at EdF, I was training in Professor Jean Mandel¿s laboratory at Ecole Polytechnique (LMS), Paris. My friend René Labbens, working at Framatome (the builder of nuclear plants) was training at the Lehigh University, under the guidance of professors G. R. Irwin and G. C. Sih. We had to work hard, both academically at the u- versities laboratories and performing engineering tasks for our employer. This dual position was a great chance for many of us, since we discovered that real industrial problems are the source of new subjects and research problems to be solved by theoreticians in the universities and conversely we immediately knew if our theoretical work was good or not for appli- tions as revealed in our daily works conducted for our industrial employer.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 408 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Image registration is an emerging topic in image processing with many applications in medical imaging, picture and movie processing. The classical problem of image registration is concerned with nding an appropriate transformation between two data sets. This fuzzy de nition of registration requires a mathematical modeling and in particular a mathematical speci cation of the terms appropriate transformations and correlation between data sets. Depending on the type of application, typically Euler, rigid, plastic, elastic deformations are considered. The variety of similarity p measures ranges from a simpleL distance between the pixel values of the data to mutual information or entropy distances. This goal of this book is to highlight by some experts in industry and medicine relevant and emerging image registration applications and to show new emerging mathematical technologies in these areas. Currently, many registration application are solved based on variational prin- ple requiring sophisticated analysis, such as calculus of variations and the theory of partial differential equations, to name but a few. Due to the numerical compl- ity of registration problems ef cient numerical realization are required. Concepts like multi-level solver for partial differential equations, non-convex optimization, and so on play an important role. Mathematical and numerical issues in the area of registration are discussed by some of the experts in this volume. Moreover, the importance of registration for industry and medical imaging is discussed from a medical doctor and from a manufacturer point of view.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 204 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Recently, expectations of the potential of regenerative medicine have risen because of the exciting results obtained in various areas of research. This book contains contributions from leading researchers in the field who describe their successes and the problems that remain in converting the hopes into concrete therapies. The focus of the book is on the role of stem cells in two main areas -- reproduction and the brain -- described from molecular, cellular, in vivo and clinical perspectives.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 264 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Economic needs as well as ecological demands are major driving forces in improving chemical processes and plants. To meet these goals processes have to be intensified in order to get products of higher quality, to increase yield by reducing or even suppressing by-products and to minimise energy consumption. A preferred principle for such intensifications is process - tegration, especially integration of reaction and separation operations. S- entific research in this field has been boosted by certain extremely succe- ful examples like the Eastman-Kodak process for methyl acetate or the MTBE process which are milestones for this method. In 2002 the German Research Foundation defined process integration as one of the major - search topics for the next decade. In 1998 the Department of Biochemical- and Chemical Engineering at the University of Dortmund decided to pool its activities for concerted - forts in process integration and to form a joint research cluster. Our interest was to find out the general challenges as well as obstacles of integrated processes and to work out methods for their design and valuation. Soon it became clear that theoretical work only cannot give reasonable answers.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 380 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This Addendum to the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, fifth edition, which is the official reference for the field of the IAU, contains all newly published names from the period 2003-2005 as well as corrections and amendments to earlier editions. In total the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names now covers some 12000 named minor planets. It provides authoritative information about the basis for the rich and colorful variety of ingenious names, from heavenly goddesses to more prosaic constructions.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 356 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Ambient intelligence (AI) refers to a developing technology that will increasingly make our everyday environment sensitive and responsive to our presence. The AI vision requires technology invisibly embedded in our everyday surroundings, present whenever we need it that will lead to the seamless integration of lighting, sounds, vision, domestic appliances, and personal healthcare products to enhance our living experience. Written for the non-specialist seeking an authoritative but accessible overview of this interdisciplinary field, True Visions explains how the devices making up the AI world will operate collectively using information and intelligence hidden in the wireless network connecting them. Expert contributions address key AI components such as smart materials and textiles, system architecture, mobile computing, broadband communication, and underlying issues of human-environment interactions. It seeks to unify the perspectives of scientists from diverse backgrounds ranging from the physics of materials to the aesthetics of industrial design as it describes the emergence of ambient intelligence, one of today¿s most compelling areas of innovation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 468 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The authors are very glad to see the publication ofThermodynamicEquilibriaand Extrema in English and would like to express their gratitude to everybody who contributed to this end. The book is devoted to the analysis of attainability regions and partial equilibria in physicochemical and other systems. This analysis employs the extreme models ofclassicalequilibriumthermodynamics. Considerationisgiventotheproblemof choosing, from the set of equilibrium states belonging to the attainability regions, that equilibrium corresponding to the extreme values of a property of interest to a researcher. For example, one might desire to maximize the concentration of target products of a chemical reaction. The problem of coordinating thermodynamics and kinetics is very important in the analysis presented. Ataglance,itmayseemthattheobjectsofstudyinthermodynamics(thescience ofequilibria)andkinetics(thescienceofmotiontowardequilibrium)coincideonly in the case of complete and nal equilibrium. In reality, joint application of th- modynamics and kinetic models gives a clearer understanding of the regularities of the kinetics involved. Relativity of the notions of rest and motion was already rmly established in mechanics when the principles of equilibrium were formulated by Galilei, D¿Alembert, and Lagrange. Historically, the theories of motion and equilibrium states are related. It is precisely the study of gas kinetics that led Clausius and Boltzmann to the main principles of thermodynamics. The systematic analysis of theseprinciplesintheclassicbookbyGibbs,OntheEquilibriumofHeterogeneous Substances [54], demonstrated the feasibility of substituting the models of rest for themodelsofmotionwhenstudyingvariousphysicochemicalprocesses.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 300 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Here are the proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Advanced Data Mining and Applications, ADMA 2006, held in Xi'an, China, August 2006. The book presents 41 revised full papers and 74 revised short papers together with 4 invited papers. The papers are organized in topical sections on association rules, classification, clustering, novel algorithms, multimedia mining, sequential data mining and time series mining, web mining, biomedical mining, advanced applications, and more. 1136 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume contains the papers selected for presentation at the First Int- national Conference on Rough Sets and Knowledge Technology (RSKT 2006) organized in Chongqing, P. R. China, July 24-26, 2003. There were 503 s- missions for RSKT 2006 except for 1 commemorative paper, 4 keynote papers and 10 plenary papers. Except for the 15 commemorative and invited papers, 101 papers were accepted by RSKT 2006 and are included in this volume. The acceptance rate was only 20%. These papers were divided into 43 regular oral presentation papers (each allotted 8 pages), and 58 short oral presentation - pers (each allotted 6 pages) on the basis of reviewer evaluation. Each paper was reviewed by two to four referees. Since the introduction of rough sets in 1981 by Zdzis law Pawlak, many great advances in both the theory and applications have been introduced. Rough set theory is closely related to knowledge technology in a variety of forms such as knowledge discovery, approximate reasoning, intelligent and multiagent systems design, and knowledge intensive computations that signal the emergence of a knowledge technology age. The essence of growth in cutting-edge, state-of-t- art and promising knowledge technologies is closely related to learning, pattern recognition,machine intelligence and automation of acquisition, transformation, communication, exploration and exploitation of knowledge. A principal thrust of such technologies is the utilization of methodologies that facilitate knowledge processing. 840 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The study of the physical processes at work in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) has kept a large number of astronomers busy since the discovery, in the early sixties, of the rst radio galaxies and quasars. After a few decades of debate there is now a clear consensus about the source of energy in AGN, namely gravitational energy released through matter accretion onto a massive black hole. The most commonly accepted ideas regarding AGN are pictured in the so-called AGN uni ed model, although one should remember that this is still a ¿working¿ model. Tremendous progress has been made in unveiling, analyzing, and modeling the di erent components in AGN: the accretion disk, the jets of relativistic particles, the x-ray absorber close to the central engine,the¿torus¿thatfunnelstheionizingradiation,thesurroundingclouds of dense material in the broadline region and narrowline region, the cool molecular and dusty material around the torus, as well as jet-induced e ects on larger scales. Yet, it remains to incorporate all these components and physical processes into a self-consistent AGN model that would take into account, and predict, all the facets of AGN activity. The mere process of matter fueling is far from being totally understood and neither is the link of the AGN with its host galaxy. The birth and growth of massive black holes in the universe is a related question to be investigated and is of prime interest for cosmology. 252 pp. Englisch.