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Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Although everybody is familiar with the dodo bird, very few people know its history. Yet this history is compelling when read as a fable of the negative impact of humans on Earth's ecosystems. The author describes the complexity of the factors involved in animal extinction. Although we think of ourselves as more ecologically aware than our ancestors, we are propelling extinction to alarming rates.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 236 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Over the years, Jeremy Bernstein has been in contact with many of the world¿s most renowned physicists and other scientists, many of whom were involved in politics, literature, and language. In this diverse collection of essays, he reflects on their work, their personal relationships, their motives, and their contributions. Even for those people he writes about that he did not know personally, he provides important insights into their lives and work, and questions their character, their decisions, and the lives they led.In the first three essays, Professor Bernstein looks at economic theory and how some physicists who developed interesting economic models based on derivatives and hedge funds almost led to the country into bankruptcy. In later essays, he discusses a suspect visit to Poland by the great Heisenberg during the Nazi era, a visit that there is almost nothing written about.Included also are essays on ancient languages and a nuclear weapons program in South Africa that was supposedly dismantled. In one particularly humorous essay, he describes how an ill-conceived manned spaceship to be powered by an atomic bomb was being developed by some of the country¿s most powerful intellects. The project never got off the ground.Dipping into these pages is like rummaging around in the mind of a genius who has a potpourri of interests and an abundance of fascinating experiences. Bernstein has not only rubbed elbows with some of the finest minds in world, he has worked and played with them. He has sometimes mourned with them and laughed at them. His sharp wit and even sharper analysis make for a fascinating read.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 196 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -These historical narratives of scientific behavior reveal the often irrational way scientists arrive at and assess their theories. There are stories of Einstein¿s stubbornness leading him to reject a correct interpretation of an experiment and miss an important deduction from his own theory, and Newton missing the important deduction from one of his most celebrated discoveries. Copernicus and Galileo are found suppressing information. A theme running throughout the book is the notion that what is obvious today was not so in the past. Scientists seen in their historical context shatter myths and show them to be less modern than we often like to think of them.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 224 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -The proper study of mankind is not merely Man, but Intelligence. 1 ¿Arthur C. Clarke, 1951 In the long-running television series ¿The X-Files,¿ the original Deep Throat said to FBI Special Agent Mulder that ¿there are those like yourself who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life.¿ Ah, but that¿s not the question. If extraterrestrial life exists, most of it may be in simpler forms comparable to the one-celled organisms of Earth biology. Finding such life would be fascinating for scientists, but may be of only passing interest to the general public. What intrigues the average citizen is the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. We want to communicate with other sentient beings, learning what they know and telling them about ourselves. We want to nd out how they are like us and how they are different. Microorganisms don¿t have a lot to say. There is another implication of contact that underlies this book: Intel- gent extraterrestrials might have an impact on our future. The information they send us¿if any¿might change our cultures. They could have c- scious intentions toward us, and possibly the technologies to reach us directly. Their intentions may be benign¿or not. Our interest in alien minds is not new. The idea that intelligent beings exist beyond the Earth has been part of the Western intellectual tradition for more than 2000 years. Sometimes this belief was widespread; at other times, it was out of fashion.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 476 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Explains the methods that rocket scientists use¿expressed in a way that could be applied in everyday life. The book illustrates the methods (the 7 secrets) with anecdotes, quotations and biographical sketches of famous scientists, ideas from sci-fi, personal stories and insights, and occasionally a bit of space history. The author reveals that rocket science is just common sense applied to the extraordinarily uncommon environment of outer space and that rocket scientists are people, too.PRAISE FOR BOOKIt¿s really great!¿Dr. Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot, First Manned Landing on the Moon'People of Earth¿Attention!' Jim Longuski's book takes you on a journey of exploration to that nearly infinite space between the ears and behind the brows of that most mysterious of all creatures¿the rocket scientist! Going well beyond the oft-used aphorisms, where no writer has gone before, he shows you how these gifted individuals think, feel, work, play, fantasize, rationalize, laugh and cry. From the glories of their epoch-making achievements to the tragedies of their magnificent failures, it is all here, told with insight, humor, objectivity and personal perspective. Without being preachy, lessons are offered that apply to anyone seeking to make professional or personal life just a little bit more successful and fun. I just couldn't set this book down!¿Robert Cesarone, Rocket Scientist, Voyager Navigator, Space Communications ArchitectThis book is a must read for everyone¿not just those who think they want to know how Rocket Scientists think. Do not be scared off by the title; it¿s a delightful and wonderfully useful easy read.¿Dr. William J. O¿Neil, Galileo Project Manager, 1990-1998, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of TechnologySpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 180 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -¿ How Prices Matter rices are ubiquitous, so much so that their importance to the smooth operation of a market economy (even one constrained by extensive polit- P ical controls as is the case in China) can go unnoticed and unheralded. Prices are what all trades, whether at the local mall or across the globe, are built around. Tey facilitate trades among buyers and sellers who don¿t know each other, meaning they make less costly, or more socially benefcial, the allocation and redistribution of the planet¿s scarce resources. Indeed, as the late Friedrich Hayek is renowned for having observed, prices summarize a vast amount of - formation on the relative scarcity and, hence, the relative cost of resources (with much of the information subjective in nature) that can be known only by ind-i viduals scattered across markets and cannot be collected in centralized loc- tions, except through market-determined prices. 1 Because they summarize, and largely hide from view of buyers, so much i- formation spread among people throughout the world, prices can be puzzling. Why prices are what they are, and change for reasons that are obscured by a multitude of economic events that can extend backward in time and forward into the future, can be mysterious. Explaining many puzzling prices can be - tective work that the modern-day Sherlock Holmes would surely fnd challenging.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 344 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -In ¿Columbia: Final Voyage¿ aerospace writer Philip Chien, who has over 20 years¿ experience covering the US space program, provides a unique insight into the crew members who lost their lives in the Columbia disaster. Chien interviewed all seven crew members several times and got to know them as individuals. He reviews in detail their training, their scientific work and other activities during their successful 16-day flight, the background of the accident itself and a detailed first-hand account of what happened that fateful day in February 2003. The author provides a comprehensive and personal look at both the Columbia astronauts and the STS-107 mission, together with a behind-the-scenes account of other people involved in the mission and their personal reactions to the accident. Forward by Jonathan B. Clark, widower of Columbia astronaut Laurel Clark Introduction by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz AldrinSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 464 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -1 An Initial Assignment I haven¿t taught the history of mathematics that often, but I do rather like the course. The chief drawbacks to teaching it are that i. it is a lot more work than teaching a regular mathematics course, and ii. in American colleges at least, the students taking the course are not mathematics majors but e- cation majors¿ and and in the past I had found education majors to be somewhat weak and unmotivated. The last time I taught the course, however, themajorityofthestudentsweregraduateeducationstudentsworkingtoward their master¿s degrees. I decided to challenge them right from the start: 1 Assignment. In An Outline of Set Theory, James Henle wrote about mat- matics: Every now and then it must pause to organize and re ect on what it is and where it comes from. This happened in the sixth century B. C. when Euclid thought he had derived most of the mathematical results known at the time from ve postulates. Do a little research to nd as many errors as possible in the second sentence and write a short essay on them. Theresponsesfarexceededmyexpectations. Tobesure,someoftheund- graduates found the assignment unclear: I did not say how many errors they 2 were supposed to nd. But many of the students put their hearts and souls 1 MyapologiestoProf. Henle,atwhoseexpenseIpreviouslyhadalittlefunonthis matter. I used it again not because of any animosity I hold for him, but because I was familiar with it and, dealing with Euclid, it seemed appropriate for the start of my course.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 276 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Former NASA Astronaut Harrison Schmitt advocates a private, investor-based approach to returning humans to the Moon¿to extract Helium 3 for energy production, to use the Moon as a platform for science and manufacturing, and to establish permanent human colonies there in a kind of stepping stone community on the way to deeper space. With governments playing a supporting role¿just as they have in the development of modern commercial aeronautics and agricultural production¿Schmitt believes that a fundamentally private enterprise is the only type of organization capable of sustaining such an effort and, eventually, even making it pay off.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 352 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Undergraduate courses in mathematics are commonly of two types. On the one hand are courses in subjects - such as linear algebra or real analysis - with which it is considered that every student of mathematics should be acquainted. On the other hand are courses given by lecturers in their own areas of specialization, which are intended to serve as a preparation for research. But after taking courses of only these two types, students might not perceive the sometimes surprising interrelationships and analogies between different branches of mathematics, and students who do not go on to become professional mathematicians might never gain a clear understanding of the nature and extent of mathematics. The two-volume Number Theory: An Introduction to Mathematics attempts to provide such an understanding of the nature and extent of mathematics. It is a modern introduction to the theory of numbers, emphasizing its connections with other branches of mathematics. Part A, which should be accessible to a first-year undergraduate, deals with elementary number theory. Part B is more advanced than the first and should give the reader some idea of the scope of mathematics today. The connecting theme is the theory of numbers, at first sight one of the most abstruse and irrelevant branches of mathematics. Yet by exploring its many connections with other branches, we may obtain a broad picture.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 372 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Employee disengagement is one of the most pressing problems plaguing managers today hampering the innovation capacities of countless organizations. According to recent polls, some 20 percent of workers report feeling disconnected from their jobs, in an environment of stagnating wages, massive layoffs, rising health care costs, and other factors that contribute to alienation, distrust, and apathy.In The Organizational Sweet Spot, Dr. Charles Ehin takes a refreshing new look at what it will take to reengage disaffected workers and boost their resolve to advance novel ideas. Applying the latest research from such fields as evolutionary psychology, social neuroscience, organizational behavior, anthropology, and social network analysis, Ehin demonstrates how employee disengagement is rooted in a fundamental misalignment between people¿s instinctive drive to develop their personal and group identities through informal or ¿emergent¿ relationships and the ways in which organizational goals and profit motives are executed through formal bureaucracy.The challenge for today¿s organizations¿which operate under constantly changing conditions¿is to narrow this gap, that is, to find the ¿sweet spot¿, where the formal and informal elements of the organization overlap. Ehin provides practical tools for leaders to support this ¿shared access domain¿ to improve productivity, catalyze innovation, and inspire exceptional performance. His new model is likely to reverberate throughout current management thinking as we move toward creating more vital and meaningful workplaces.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 116 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Reasons for Writing This Book The published literature on the economic appraisal of healthcare acquired infection (HAI) is described by phrases such as: ¿With so many virtues of the cost-benefit approach identified, it is perhaps puzzling why greater use of economic appraisal has not been made in the area of infection control¿ [1] ¿Clinicians should partner with economists and policy analysts to expand and improve the economic evidence available¿ [2] ¿the quality of economic evaluations should be increased to inform decision makers and clinicians¿ [3] ¿The economics of preventing hospital-acquired infections is most often described in general terms. The underlying concepts and mechanisms are rarely made explicit but should be understood for research and policy-making¿ [4] The aim of this book is to describe how economics should be used to inform decisi- making about infection control. Our motivation stems from the previous quotes which show economics is being used within the infection control community, but not to its full potential. Our expectation is that you do not have any formal training in economic analyses. Economic analyses have been used for many decades to argue for increased funding for hospital infection-control. In 1957, Clarke [5] investigated bed wastage in British hospitals due to Staphylococcus aureus in patient¿s wounds. She concluded ¿. ¿the average length of stay in hospital of patients whose wounds were infected with Staph.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 184 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Demonstrational Optics presents a new didactical approach to the study of optics. Emphasizing the importance of elaborate new experimental demonstrations, pictorial illustrations, computer simulations and models of optical phenomena in order to ensure a deeper understanding of wave and geometric optics. It includes problems focused on the pragmatic needs of students, secondary school teachers, university professors and optical engineers. Part 2, Coherent and Statistical Optics, contains chapters on interference, diffraction, Fourier optics, light quanta, thermal radiation (Shot noise and Gaussian light), Correlation of light fields and Correlation of light intensities. A substantial part of this volume is devoted to thermal radiation and its properties, especially with partial coherence. A detailed treatment of the photo-effect with respect to statistical properties leads to the basics of statistical optics. To illustrate the phenomena covered by this volume, a large number of demonstration experiments are described and discussed. In the chapters devoted to statistical phenomena computer simulations are described, the code of all relevant programs being included.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 372 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Dramatic cases of child abuse and neglect are featured with tragic regularity in the news. The stories vividly demonstrate both the urgent need for improved child protection services and the unwieldiness and ineffectiveness of the systems charged with the task. To complicate matters further, the original intent of child welfare policy is becoming increasingly obscured as legal responses to child maltreatment become more complex, intrusive, and even contradictory.Fueled by a consistent narrative and a lucid ethical stance, Child Maltreatment and the Law analyzes the increasing role legal systems play in family life and traces rapidly evolving legal concepts as they apply to child protection. This unique volume helps readers: (1) Navigate the various layers of legal regulation ¿ federal and state ¿ involved in child protection and family life. (2) Identify variations and discrepancies in definitions of maltreatment and legal responses. (3) Critique the relationships and boundary disputes between the criminal and civil justice systems and agencies dedicated to children¿s welfare. (4) Analyze controversies (e.g., removing children from maltreating families) and other prime areas for possible reform.Child Maltreatment and the Law is a must-read for psychologists, developmentalists, sociologists, social workers, criminologists, and researchers focusing on family life as well as policymakers and advocates working within the legal system. The book is particularly useful for courses relating to child welfare law or child abuse and neglect.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Regardless of etiology, such as accident, tumor, stroke or assault, acquired brain injury presents numerous challenges for survivors, caregivers and treating professionals. Interdisciplinary and integrated evaluations, treatment, and management can mean the difference between successful recovery and unfortunate outcomes.The first book to present a comprehensive team approach to rehabilitation of ABI survivors, Acquired Brain Injury gives medical and clinical specialists a deeper understanding of not only each other¿s roles, but also their complementary functions.The medical management of ABI¿neurosurgery, neurology, physiatry¿and the medical specialties involved¿neuropsychiatry, neurourology and neurooptometryIn-depth discussion of the roles of occupational, speech-language, and balance rehabilitationSeparate chapters on nursing, neuropsychology, and case managementBehavioral and emotional challenges common to individuals with ABIThe importance of addressing family needsLong-term challengesCase examples throughout illustrating a wide range of injuries, symptoms, and stages of recoveryBased on the editors¿ combined experience of more than 40 years in the neuro-rehabilitation field, this comprehensive volume clarifies rehabilitation goals and processes for the physician, rehab specialist, the advanced student, and patients¿ advocates. With ABI so prevalent¿roughly 1.5 million new cases per year¿this book couldn¿t be more timely.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 308 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -During the last few decades, human dynamics, institutional change, political relations, and the natural environment have become successively more intertwined. While the increased global economic integration, global forms of governance, globally inter-linked social and environmental developments are often referred to as ¿globalisation,¿ there is no unanimously-agreed upon definition of the term. Depending on the researcher or commentator, it can mean, among other things, the growing integration of markets and nation-states, receding geographical constraints on social and cultural arrangements, the increased dissemination of ideas and technologies, the threat to national sovereignty by trans-national actors; or the transformation of the economic, political and cultural foundations of societies. Regardless of perspective, globalisation permeates our economic, political, and social institutions to a profound degree. Recently, the issue of ¿sustainability¿ has reached the mainstream: are the forces of globalisation ultimately contributing to growth and opportunity¿or to destruction and chaos Against the chorus of globalisation¿s proponents and detractors, the authors propose an approach for measuring globalisation and its consequences. Undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature on globalisation and using data from the MGI and KOF indices, the authors build a framework for defining globalisation and analyzing the relationships among economic, political, and social variables. In particular, they apply the methodology to analyze the effects of globalisation on tax policy, government spending, economic growth, inequality, union power, and the natural environment and consider additional avenues for research, analysis, and decision making. In the process, they hope that by introducing objective measures to enhance our insight into the functioning of the complex global system.Dreher, Gaston and Martens have produced the most systematicand comprehensive research I have seen on both measuring globalisation and analyzing its impact on the most important social and economic issues of our time. Globalisation research is a dense thicket. This books stands out among its many thorns.Geoffrey Garrett, President of the Pacific Council on International PolicyThis is an important contribution to the growing literature on measuring globalization. The analysis is comprehensive and insightful, making it a work that the students of globalization cannot ignore.Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor, Economics and Law, Columbia University and Author of In Defense of GlobalizationSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 240 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Interior Point Methods for Linear Optimization is a comprehensive, thorough textbook on interior point methods (IPMs). The era of IPMs was initiated by N. Karmarkar¿s 1984 paper, which triggered turbulent research and reshaped almost all areas of optimization theory and computational practice. This book gives a comprehensive review of the main results of more than a decade of IPM research. Numerous exercises are provided to aid in understanding the material.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 524 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Paralleling emerging trends in cyber-health technology, concerns are mounting about racial, ethnic, disparities in health care utilization and outcomes. eHealth Solutions for Health Care Disparities brings these currents together, challenging readers to use, promote, and develop new technology-based methods for closing these gaps. Edited by a leading urban health advocate and featuring 16 expert contributors, the book examines cyber-strategies with the greatest potential toward effective, equitable care, improved service delivery and better health outcomes for all.Chapters go well beyond the possibilities of the Electronic Medical Record to discuss emerging roles for information technology in promoting healthful behavior changes (e.g., nutrition, weight loss, smoking cessation), disease prevention (e.g., cancer, HIV), and healthcare utilization, patient education and medicine compliance). The rise of e-Patients and the transformation of the doctor-patient relationship are also discussed. Opportunities for Web based products and interventions are explored in terms of tracking disparities, improving healthcare utilization and health outcomes, reducing disparities and monitoring trends among patients, whether they have Internet capabilities or not.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 188 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Queueing Theory deals with systems where there is contention for resources, but the demands are only known probabilistically.This book can be considered to be a monograph or a textbook, and thus is aimed at two audiences: those who already know Queueing Theory but would like to know more of the Linear Algebraic Approach; and as a rst course for students who don't already have a strong background in probability, and feel more comfortable with algebraic arguments. Also, the equations are well suited to easy computation. In fact, there is much discussion on how various properties can be easily computed in any language that has automatic matrix operations (e.g., MATLAB). To help with physical insight, there are over 80 gures, numerous examples and exercises distributed throughout the book. There are, perhaps 50 books on QT that are available today, and most practitioners have several of them on their shelves. This book would be a good addition, as well as a good supplement to another text.This second edition has been updated throughout including a new chapter on Semi Markov Processes and new material on matrix representations of distributions and Power-tailed distribution.Lester Lipsky is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 572 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Finiteelementmethodhasbeenthedominanttechniqueincomputationalmech- icsinthepastdecades,andithasmadesigni cantcontributionstothedevelopments in engineering and science. Nevertheless, FEM is not well suited to problems h- ing severe mesh distortion owing to extremely large deformations of materials, encountering moving discontinuities such as crack propagation along arbitrary and complex paths, involving considerable meshings and remeshings in structural optimization problems, or having multidomain of in uence in multiphenomena physical problems. It is impossible to completely overcome those mesh-related dif culties by a mesh-based method. The highly structured nature of nite e- ment approximations imposes severe penalties in seeking the solutions of those problems. Distinguishing with nite element, nite difference, and nite volume methods, meshless method discretizes the continuum body only with a set of nodal points andtheapproximationisconstructedentirelyintermsofnodes.Thereisnoneedof mesh or elements in this method. It does not possess the mesh-related dif culties and provides an approach with more exibility in the applications in engineering and science. The meshless method started to capture the interest of a broader community of researchers only several years ago, and now it becomes a growing and evolving eld. It is showing that this is a very rich area to be explored, and has great promise for many very challenging computational problems. On the one hand, great advances of meshless methods have been achieved. On the other hand, there are many aspects of meshless methods that could bene t from improvements. A broadercommunityofresearcherscanbringdiverseskillsandbackgroundstobear on the task of improving this method.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 212 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Dr. Supramaniam Srinivasan (1932-2004) obtained his Bachelor of Science with Honors in Chemistry from the University of Ceylon in l955 and his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963. The title of his PhD is Mechanism of Electrolyte Hydrogen Evolution: An Isotope Effect Study, which he did under the direction of Professor John O¿Mara Bockris. Srini, as he liked to be called, was very productive throughout his career. He spent several years as a po- doc with Dr. Bockris and published his first book on fuel cells with Dr. Bockris in 1969. The title of their book is Fuel Cells: Their Electrochemistry, which was published by McGraw-Hill. In l966, Srini began serving as an Assistant Professor of Electrochemistry in Surgical Research at the Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York (DMC-SUNY) in Brooklyn, New York. While he was there, Srini published several articles on the use of electrochemical methods in medical applications and later wrote a chapter on the subject entitled ¿An Electrochemical Approach to the Solution of Cardiovascular Problems,¿ which appeared as Chapter 8 in Volume 10 of the Comprehensive Treatise of Electrochemistry, Biochemistry. Srini left DMC-SUNY in 1973 and served at several institutions including the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) where he returned to more energy related electrochemical topics. Srini left LANL in 1988 and began serving as the Deputy Director of the Center for Electrochemical Systems and Hydrogen Research at Texas A&M University where I was at that time.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 724 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Manifolds, the higher-dimensional analogs of smooth curves and surfaces, are fundamental objects in modern mathematics. Combining aspects of algebra, topology, and analysis, manifolds have also been applied to classical mechanics, general relativity, and quantum field theory.In this streamlined introduction to the subject, the theory of manifolds is presented with the aim of helping the reader achieve a rapid mastery of the essential topics. By the end of the book the reader should be able to compute, at least for simple spaces, one of the most basic topological invariants of a manifold, its de Rham cohomology. Along the way, the reader acquires the knowledge and skills necessary for further study of geometry and topology. The requisite point-set topology is included in an appendix of twenty pages; other appendices review facts from real analysis and linear algebra. Hints and solutions are provided to many of the exercises and problems.This work may be used as the text for a one-semester graduate or advanced undergraduate course, as well as by students engaged in self-study. Requiring only minimal undergraduate prerequisites, 'Introduction to Manifolds' is also an excellent foundation for Springer's GTM 82, 'Differential Forms in Algebraic Topology'.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 432 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This book is based mainly on the lecture notes that I have been using since 1993 for a course on applied probability for engineers that I teach at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal. This course is given to electrical, computer and physics engineering students, and is normally taken during the second or third year of their curriculum. Therefore, we assume that the reader has acquired a basic knowledge of differential and integral calculus. The main objective of this textbook is to provide a reference that covers the topics that every student in pure or applied sciences, such as physics, computer science, engineering, etc., should learn in probability theory, in addition to the basic notions of stochastic processes and statistics. It is not easy to find a single work on all these topics that is both succinct and also accessible to non-mathematicians. Because the students, who for the most part have never taken a course on prob ability theory, must do a lot of exercises in order to master the material presented, I included a very large number of problems in the book, some of which are solved in detail. Most of the exercises proposed after each chapter are problems written es pecially for examinations over the years. They are not, in general, routine problems, like the ones found in numerous textbooks.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 376 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Why would anyone bid $3. 25 in an auction where the prize is a single dollar bill Can one ¿game¿ explain the apparent irrationality behind both the arms race of the 1980s and the libretto of Puccini¿s opera Tosca How can one calculation suggest the president has 4 percent of the power in the United States federal system while another s- gests that he or she controls 77 percent Is democracy (in the sense of re ecting the will of the people) impossible Questionslikethesequitesurprisinglyprovideaveryniceforumfor some fundamental mathematical activities: symbolic representation and manipulation, model¿theoretic analysis, quantitative represen- tionandcalculation,anddeductionasembodiedinthepresentationof mathematical proof as convincing argument. We believe that an ex- sure to aspects of mathematics such as these should be an integral part of a liberal arts education. Our hope is that this book will serve as a text for freshman-sophomore level courses, aimed primarily at students in the humanities and social sciences, that will provide this sort of exposure. A number of colleges and universities already have interdisciplinary freshman seminars where this could take place. Most mathematics texts for nonscience majors try to show that mathematics can be applied to many different disciplines. A student¿s viii PREFACE interest in a particular application, however, often depends on his or hergeneralinterestintheareainwhichtheapplicationistakingplace. Our experience at Union College and Williams College has been that there is a real advantage in having students enter the course knowing that virtually all the applications will focus on a single discipline¿in this case, political science.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 380 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Building Routes to Customers explains the powerful ¿Routes-to-Market¿ approach for driving profitable growth. World-class organizations including IBM, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Hitachi, Adobe and Plantronics, and hundreds of smaller companies, have adopted RTM to develop and execute highly successful go-to-market strategies and tactics.With a step-by-step approach and dozens of examples, the authors show how you can use RTM to: (1) Determine the optimal level of spending for each function in marketing, sales and customer service, for each market segment, product and service. (2) Optimize your marketing mix and sales and distribution channels to maximize revenue and profitability throughout the product life cycle. (3) Get everyone in product management, marketing, sales, customer service, and your distribution partners aligned and working together to maximize results. (4) Get the right products and services to the right customers at the right time. (5) Retain existing customers and create profitable new ones.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 220 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -This volume is designed as a basic text for upper level and graduate courses in contemporary sociological theory. Most sociology programs require their majors to take at least one course in sociological theory, sometimes two. A typical breakdown is between classical and contemporary theory. Theory is perhaps one of the bro- est areas of sociological inquiry and serves as a foundation or framework for more specialized study in specific substantive areas of the field. In addition, the study of sociological theory can readily be related to various aspects of other social science disciplines as well. From the very beginning sociology has been characterized by alternative theoretical perspectives. Classical theory includes the European founding figures of the dis- pline whose works were produced during the later half of the nineteenth century and the first couple of decades of the twentieth century plus early American th- rists. For most of the second half of the twentieth century, a fairly high consensus has developed among American sociologists regarding these major founders, p- ticularly with regard to the works of Durkheim and Weber in analyzing the overall society and of Simmel in analyzing social interaction processes. Since the late 1960s and early 1970s the influence of Marx has also been recognized. Recent decades have also witnessed an increased emphasis on the important contributions of several pioneering feminist perspectives in the early years of sociology.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 652 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Intended for nonspecialists with some knowledge of physics or engineering, The Quantum Beat covers a wide range of salient topics relevant to atomic clocks, treated in a broad intuitive manner with a minimum of mathematical formalism. Detailed descriptions are given of the design principles of the rubidium, cesium, hydrogen maser, and mercury ion standards; the revolutionary changes that the advent of the laser has made possible, such as laser cooling, optical pumping, the formation of 'optical molasses,' and the cesium 'fountain' standard; and the time-based global navigation systems, Loran-C and the Global Positioning System. Also included are topics that bear on the precision and absolute accuracy of standards, such as noise, resonance line shape, the relativistic Doppler effect as well as more general relativistic notions of time relevant to synchronization of remote clocks, and time reversal symmetry.This edition retains the essentially didactic approach to the treatment of the development of atomic clocks in the first edition, but brings up to date the extraordinary developments in recent years, culminating in clocks based on quantum resonance at optical frequency in individual ions confined in miniature electromagnetic traps. These, together with advances in the generation of wide-band coherent frequency combs spanning the spectrum as far as the optical range, has made possible the direct measurement of phenomena occurring at optical frequencies! As a result of these recent advances, in addition to the time-based GPS and LORAN C navigation systems treated in the first edition, other important applications of a fundamental scientific interest have become feasible. These include satellite-borne tests of the theory of general relativity and the equivalence principle on which it is based.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 492 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Since publication of the first edition of Wine Microbiology in 1997, the volume of new information and concepts has dramatically increased. Even with the tremendous increase in available information, a comprehensive understanding regarding the role of individual microorganisms towards wine quality as well as the impact of complicated interactions between microorganisms and processing techniques is lacking.Wine Microbiology, Second Edition, fills this void. Like the first edition, the book addresses real world problems such as characterization and enumeration of yeast, bacteria and molds common to juice and wine environments and their impact on wine quality and stability. In addition, the potential of solving processing problems through rapid, real-time molecular methods and new applications for using starter cultures of non-Saccharomyces yeast are discussed. The book is a great resource for professionals and students in the field of enology and viticulture.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 416 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Have you ever wondered why the language of modern physics centres on geometry Or how quantum operators and Dirac brackets work What a convolution really is What tensors are all about Or what field theory and lagrangians are, and why gravity is described as curvature This book takes you on a tour of the main ideas forming the language of modern mathematical physics. Here you will meet novel approaches to concepts such as determinants and geometry, wave function evolution, statistics, signal processing, and three-dimensional rotations. You'll see how the accelerated frames of special relativity tell us about gravity. On the journey, you'll discover how tensor notation relates to vector calculus, how differential geometry is built on intuitive concepts, and how variational calculus leads to field theory. You will meet quantum measurement theory, along with Green functions and the art of complex integration, and finally general relativity and cosmology.The book takes a fresh approach to tensor analysis built solely on the metric and vectors, with no need for one-forms. This gives a much more geometrical and intuitive insight into vector and tensor calculus, together with general relativity, than do traditional, more abstract methods.Don Koks is a physicist at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Adelaide, Australia. His doctorate in quantum cosmology was obtained from the Department of Physics and Mathematical Physics at Adelaide University. Prior work at the University of Auckland specialised in applied accelerator physics, along with pure and applied mathematics.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 556 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condizione: Neu. Neuware -Heterogeneous catalysis has shaped our past and will shape our future. Already involved in a trillion dollar¿s worth of gross domestic product, catalysis holds the key to near term impact areas such as improved chemical process efficiency, environmental remediation, development of new energy sources, and new materials. Furthermore, recent advances in understanding and computing chemical reactivity at the quantum level are opening new pathways that will accelerate the design of catalysts for specific functions. This enormous potential will ultimately be turned into reality in laboratory reactors and have its impact on society and the economy in the industrial reactors that lie at the heart of all chemical processes. Because the quanti- tive measure of catalyst performance is the reaction rate, its measurement is central to progress in catalysis. The pages that follow are a comprehensive guide to success for reaction rate measurements and analysis in catalytic systems. The topics chosen, the clarity of presentation, and the liberal use of specific examples illuminate the full slate of issues that must be mastered to produce reliable kinetic results. The unique combination of characterization techniques, thorough disc- sion of how to test for and eliminate heat and mass transfer artifacts, evaluation of and validity tests for rate parameters, and justification of the uniform surface approximation, along with the more standard ideal reactor analyses and development of rate expressions from sequences of elementary steps, will enrich readers from both science and engineering backgrounds.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 260 pp. Englisch.