springer netherlands feb 2001 (28 results)

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Unique and stimulating, this book addresses metacognition in both the neglected area of teaching and the more well-established area of learning. It addresses domain-general and domain-specific aspects of metacognition, including applications to the particular subjects of reading, speaking, mathematics, and science. This collection spans theory, research and practice related to metacognition in education at all school levels, from elementary through university. 312 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In response to ETA's 1997 kidnappings and murders thousands of Spaniards attended mass demonstrations to express their contempt for violence as a means of political pressure. The demand that public authorities prosecute and condemn those who directly or indirectly support ETA and its terrorist attacks was one of the most prevalent slogans in the marches. Indeed, the social response was aimed not only against the terrorist group, but also against Herri Batasuna (HB), the political party that openly endorse ETA's armed actions in the Basque Country. From the legal point of view, it is interesting to examine what it is citizens are requesting from the government in the above-mentioned case. How do these collective claims translate into legal language One may think it fit to answer that Spanish citizens want violence to be met with the institutional punishment prescribed by the legal order. Nonetheless, it could also be argued that citizens in fact demand that certain kinds of behaviour be regulated by the law in their country. While from the latter viewpoint citizens wish for the creation of new legal norms, from the former they are just calling for the application of the law. What reasons may render us inclined to sympathise with one of these two views rather than the other Which one of these two options is most appropriate At first sight, this may appear to be a simple question. 252 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In this book we address robustness issues at the speech recognition and natural language parsing levels, with a focus on feature extraction and noise robust recognition, adaptive systems, language modeling, parsing, and natural language understanding. This book attempts to give a clear overview of the main technologies used in language and speech processing, along with an extensive bibliography to enable topics of interest to be pursued further. It also brings together speech and language technologies often considered separately. Robustness in Language and Speech Technology serves as a valuable reference and although not intended as a formal university textbook, contains some material that can be used for a course at the graduate or undergraduate level. 286 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Stellar pulsations provide a complex system in stars. This complexity is studied by analyzing the non-sinusoidal, semi-regular, or irregular light curves. This unique volume summarizes the application of recent theoretical results obtained from stellar pulsation studies. In addition, the latest developments in hydrodynamic simulations are discussed. A historical sketch of the study of beat Cepheids, first known for their variable amplitudes, is given as an introduction to the book. This introduction clearly demonstrates how complicated the study of variable stars can be, and therefore challenges and invites the reader to study the entire book. 244 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In recent years, the contemporary social sciences have again turned their attention to space and places. The hypothesis is that these are not accidental episodes but a full-blown revolution in the way of viewing economic processes and their links with social and cultural structures. In other words, this new sensitivity to places offers the possibility of rethinking issues typical of economics in a different perspective that might be defined as local development, one of the terms most (ab)used in the contemporary scientific and political debate. In this book the authors will thus try to support more strongly, although in a necessarily simplified manner, the possibility of constructing a theory of local development. The key idea is that there is no single development model operating at a given time and valid for all places, but that it is more correct to talk of multiple development paths that co-exist in the same place at the same time (multiplicity of development paths). The central point is not to identify the succession of distinct hegemonic models (Fordism versus post-Fordism, mass production versus lean production and so on), but to show how the complexity of the contemporary economy demands new concepts to explain its apparent contradictions. In the authors' view, the conception of a theory of local development implies radical rethinking in institutionalist terms of the way of viewing the economy and production, recognising that behind economic development lies a wealth of institutional assets that make the encounter between local and global more open and varied than ever before (institutional biodiversity). 300 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Today, any regular newspaper reader is likely to be exposed to reports on manifold forms of (physical, emotional, sexual) child abuse on the one hand, and abnormal behavior, misconduct or offences of children and minors on the other hand. Occasionally reports on children as victims and children as offenders may appear on the same issue or even the same page. Rather seldom the more complex and largely hidden phenomena of structural hostility or indifference of society with a view to children are being dealt with in the press. Such fragmentary, ambiguous, incoherent or even contradictory perception of children in modem society indicates that, firstly, there is a lack of reliable information on modem childhood, and secondly, children are still treated as a comparatively irrelevant population group in society. This conclusion may be surprising in particular when drawn at the end of The Century of the Child proclaimed by Ellen Key as early as 1902. Actually, there exist unclarities and ambiguities about the evolution of childhood in the last century not only in public opinion, but also in scientific literature. While De Mause with his psycho-historic model of the evolution of childhood, comprising different stages from infanticide, abandonment, ambivalence, intrusion, socialisation to support, underlines the continuous improvement of the condition of childhood throughout history and thus rather confirms Key's expectations, Aries, with his social history of childhood, seems to hold a more culturally pessimistic view. 188 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The articles in this volume of ARCHIMEDES examine particular cases of `reception' in ways that emphasize pressing historiographical and methodological issues. Such issues arise in any consideration of the transmission and appropriation of scientific concepts and practices that originated in the several `centers' of European learning, subsequently to appear (often in considerably altered guise) in regions at the European periphery. They discuss the transfer of new scientific ideas, the mechanisms of their introduction, and the processes of their appropriation at the periphery. The themes that frame the discussions of the complex relationship between the origination of ideas and their reception include the ways in which the ideas of the Scientific Revolution were introduced, the particularities of their expression in each place, the specific forms of resistance encountered by these new ideas, the extent to which such expression and resistance displays national characteristics, the procedures through which new ways of dealing with nature were made legitimate, and the commonalities and differences between the methods developed by scholars for handling scientific issues. 236 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Landmarks are preferred image features for a variety of computer vision tasks such as image mensuration, registration, camera calibration, motion analysis, 3D scene reconstruction, and object recognition. Main advantages of using landmarks are robustness w. r. t. lightning conditions and other radiometric vari ations as well as the ability to cope with large displacements in registration or motion analysis tasks. Also, landmark-based approaches are in general com putationally efficient, particularly when using point landmarks. Note, that the term landmark comprises both artificial and natural landmarks. Examples are comers or other characteristic points in video images, ground control points in aerial images, anatomical landmarks in medical images, prominent facial points used for biometric verification, markers at human joints used for motion capture in virtual reality applications, or in- and outdoor landmarks used for autonomous navigation of robots. This book covers the extraction oflandmarks from images as well as the use of these features for elastic image registration. Our emphasis is onmodel-based approaches, i. e. on the use of explicitly represented knowledge in image analy sis. We principally distinguish between geometric models describing the shape of objects (typically their contours) and intensity models, which directly repre sent the image intensities, i. e. ,the appearance of objects. Based on these classes of models we develop algorithms and methods for analyzing multimodality im ages such as traditional 20 video images or 3D medical tomographic images. 324 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In spite of many years of intensive study, our current abilities to quantify and predict contaminant migration in natural geological formations remain severely limited. The heterogeneity of these formations over a wide range of scales necessitates consideration of sophisticated transport theories. The evolution of such theories has escalated to the point that a review of the subject seems timely. While conceptual and mathematical developments were crucial to the introduction of these new approaches, there are now too many publications that contain theoretical abstractions without regard to real systems, or incremental improvements to existing theories which are known not to be applicable. This volume brings together articles representing a broad spectrum of state-of-the-art approaches for characterization and quantification of contaminant dispersion in heterogeneous porous media. Audience: The contributions are intended to be as accessible as possible to a wide readership of academics and professionals with diverse backgrounds such as earth sciences, subsurface hydrology, petroleum engineering, and soil physics. 272 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -THE 'LITTLE ICE AGE': LOCAL AND GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES P. D. JONES and K. R. BRIFFA Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. This volume of Climatic Change is devoted to the study of the climate of the last 1000 years, with a major emphasis on the last few centuries. The timespan encompasses what has been referred to as the 'Little Ice Age' (Bradley, 1992). This term was originally coined by glaciologists, with reference to the most recent major glacial advance of the Holocene (Bradley and Jones, 1993). Although other such advances in different parts of the world may not have been synchronous, the term 'Little Ice Age' has come to be associated with the period of a widespread foreward movement of European glaciers between about 14 50 to 1850, as well as with relatively cooler temperatures. The issue of whether or not this concept is appropriate, is a major theme of many of the papers included in this volume. 276 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -A revival of interest in morphology has occurred during recent years. The Yearbook of Morphology series, published since 1988, has proven to be an eminent support for this upswing of morphological research, since it contains articles on topics which are central in the current theoretical debates which are frequently referred to. The Yearbook of Morphology 1999 focuses on diachronic morphology, and shows, in a number of articles by renowned specialists, how complicated morphological systems develop in the course of time. In addition, this volume deals with a number of hotly debated issues in theoretical morphology: its interaction with phonology (including Optimality Theory), the relation between inflection and word formation, and the formal modeling of inflectional systems. A special feature of this volume is an article on morphology in sign language, a very new and exciting area of research in linguistics. The relevant evidence comes from a wide variety of languages, amongst which Germanic, Romance, and Slavic languages are prominent. Audience: Theoretical, descriptive, and historical linguists, morphologists, phonologists, and psycholinguists will find this book of interest. 332 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -John von Neumann (1903-1957) was undoubtedly one of the scientific geniuses of the 20th century. The main fields to which he contributed include various disciplines of pure and applied mathematics, mathematical and theoretical physics, logic, theoretical computer science, and computer architecture. Von Neumann was also actively involved in politics and science management and he had a major impact on US government decisions during, and especially after, the Second World War. There exist several popular books on his personality and various collections focusing on his achievements in mathematics, computer science, and economy. Strangely enough, to date no detailed appraisal of his seminal contributions to the mathematical foundations of quantum physics has appeared. Von Neumann's theory of measurement and his critique of hidden variables became the touchstone of most debates in the foundations of quantum mechanics. Today, his name also figures most prominently in the mathematically rigorous branches of contemporary quantum mechanics of large systems and quantum field theory. And finally - as one of his last lectures, published in this volume for the first time, shows - he considered the relation of quantum logic and quantum mechanical probability as his most important problem for the second half of the twentieth century. The present volume embraces both historical and systematic analyses of his methodology of mathematical physics, and of the various aspects of his work in the foundations of quantum physics, such as theory of measurement, quantum logic, and quantum mechanical entropy. The volume is rounded off by previously unpublished letters and lectures documenting von Neumann's thinking about quantum theory after his 1932 Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. The general part of the Yearbook contains papers emerging from the Institute's annual lecture series and reviews of important publications of philosophy of science and its history. 388 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This is the first book to examine comprehensively the chlorine industry and its effects on the environment. It covers not only the history of chlorine production, but also looks at its products, their effects on the global environment, and the international legislation which controls their use, release, and disposal. Individual chapters are dedicated to subjects such as releases of organochlorines into the environment, and the environmental impact of ozone depletion, providing simple explanations of these complex issues. These are backed up with case studies of landmark events in the history of the chlorine industry - for example the Seveso explosion or the Yusho and Yu-Cheng mass poisonings. With a clear, concise text and numerous compilations of critical data, this book will prove an invaluable source reference for environmental scientists, students, and policy makers with an interest in this subject. 452 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In recent years public awareness of the long term toxic affects heavy metal ions in waters and wastewaters has increased significantly. Environmental agencies have been imposing more and more stringent discharge limits on industries involved in processes using metal ions. Numerous industries produce aqueous effluents con taining metal ions and particularly copper and cadmium. Copper sulfate is used on a large scale in the electroplating industries. In addition, copper salts are used as fungicides, timber preservatives, insecticides, paint corrosion inhibitors and in dyestuffs. Cadmium is used in the manufacture of nickel-cadmium batteries, as a corrosion inhibitor and control rods in the nuclear industry. The European Com munity has listed cadmium as one of the most dangerous metal due to its toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation in List 1 of its Directive 76/464/EEC. Therefore, it is important that methods for the removal of these metal ions are found and that the mechanism of removal is characterized and understood. A number of adsorb ents have been identified which are capable of removing copper (Panday et aI. , 1985; Ho et aI. , 1996; Low and Lee, 1987; Low et aI. , 1993; Quek et aI. , 1998) and cadmium (Battacharya and Venkobachar, 1984; Namasivayam and Ranganathan, 1995; Periasamy and Namasivayam, 1994) from aqueous solutions. Sorption kin etic models have been proposed for some systems. 356 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Information on future mortality trends is essential for population forecasts, public health policy, actuarial studies, and many other purposes. Realising the importance of such needs, this volume contains contributions to the theory and practice of forecasting mortality in the relatively favourable circumstances in developed countries of Western Europe. In this context techniques from mathematical statistics and econometrics can provide useful descriptions of past mortality. The naive forecast obtained by extrapolating a fitted model may give as good a forecast as any but forecasting by extrapolation requires careful justification since it assumes the prolongation of historical conditions. On the other hand, whilst it is generally accepted that scientific and other advances will continue to impact on mortality, perhaps dramatically so, it is impossible to quantify more than the outline of future consequences with a strong degree of confidence. The decision to modify an extrapolation of a model fitted to historical data (or conversely choosing not to modify it) in order to obtain a forecast is therefore strongly influenced by subjective and judgmental elements, with the quality of the latter dependent on demographic, epidemiological and indeed perhaps more general considerations. The thread running through the book reflects therefore the necessity of integrating demographic, epidemiological, and statistical factors to obtain an improvement in the prediction of mortality. 338 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -During the last century international trade has become indispensable for many economies. This is not only the case for trade in primary raw materials and consumer products but also for secondary (recyclable) materials. With the rapid growth of the recycling sector worldwide, trade in recyclables increased tremendously. It is striking that most of this trade flows from developed to developing countries. This book addresses the main causes of this typical trade pattern and investigates its economic and environmental effects by carrying out case studies on waste paper imports in India, waste plastics imports in China, and used-tyre trade in Europe. The book concludes by recommending policies that are aimed at preventing negative economic and environmental effects potentially resulting from trade in recyclables. The book offers new ideas to researchers who are involved in international trade, material flows, and waste management, and provides new insights for decision-makers who are interested in WTO and the Basel Convention. 244 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -ICD therapy has become the standard form of treatment for ventricular tachyarrhythmias. With clinical data showing its efficacy in both secondary and primary prevention of premature sudden death, its use is likely to increase dramatically in the next decade. Technological advancement has been instrumental in simplifying ICD implantation. However, technical additions to the device have also made its scope of functions more complex. In addition to providing rapid and effective therapy for ventricular tachycardia and fibrillation, the ICD is now capable of providing a full spectrum dual-chamber pacing as well as therapies for atrial fibrillation. Soon, it will also be able to provide treatment for congestive heart failure using multi-site ventricular pacing and provide continuous hemodynamic monitoring. This book serves as an introductory text to those who are relatively new to this technology. In its manual form, it outlines the pertinent components of ICD functions and the basic differences among the various models. It provides practical points in ICD implantation, and in its programming and trouble-shooting. 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This volume contains the courses given at the Sixth Summer School on Complex Systems held at Facultad de Ciencias Fisicas y Maternaticas, Universidad de Chile at Santiago, Chile, from 14th to 18th December 1998. This school was addressed to graduate students and researchers working on areas related with recent trends in Complex Systems, including dynamical systems, cellular automata, complexity and cutoff in Markov chains. Each contribution is devoted to one of these subjects. In some cases they are structured as surveys, presenting at the same time an original point of view and showing mostly new results. The paper of Pierre Arnoux investigates the relation between low complex systems and chaotic systems, showing that they can be put into relation by some re normalization operations. The case of quasi-crystals is fully studied, in particular the Sturmian quasi-crystals. The paper of Franco Bagnoli and Raul Rechtman establishes relations be tween Lyapunov exponents and synchronization processes in cellular automata. The principal goal is to associate tools, usually used in physical problems, to an important problem in cellularautomata and computer science, the synchronization problem. The paper of Jacques Demongeot and colleagues gives a presentation of at tractors of dynamical systems appearing in biological situations. For instance, the relation between positive or negative loops and regulation systems. 316 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -In this well-researched, comprehensive study of J.S. Mill, Professor Habibi argues that the persistent, dominant theme of Mill's life and work was his passionate belief in human improvement and progress. Several Mill scholars recognize this; however, numerous writers overlook his 'growth ethic', and this has led to misunderstandings about his value system. This study defines and establishes the importance of Mill's growth ethic and clears up misinterpretations surrounding his notions of higher and lower pleasures, positive and negative freedom, the status of children, the legitimacy of authority, and support for British colonialism. Drawing from the entire corpus of Mill's writings, as well as the extensive secondary literature, Habibi has written the most focused, sustained analysis of Mill's grand, leading principle. This book will be useful to college students in philosophy and intellectual history as well as specialists in these fields. 308 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Current debate in cognitive science, from robotics to analysis of vision, deals with problems like the perception of form, the structure and formation of mental images and their modelling, the ecological development of artificial intelligence, and cognitive analysis of natural language. It focuses in particular on the presence of a hierarchy of intellectual constructions in different formats of representation. These diverse approaches, which share a common assumption of the inner nature of representation, call for a new epistemology - even a new psychophysics - based on a theory of reference which is intrinsically cognitive. As a contribution to contemporary research, the reading presents the core of theories developed in Central Europe between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by philosophers, physicists, psychologists and semanticists who shared a dynamic approach and a pronounced concern with problems of interaction and dependence. These theories offer innovative solutions to some of the epistemological and philosophical problems currently at the centre of debate, like part-whole, theory of relations, and conceptual and linguistic categorization. 380 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The present book entitled 'Novel Frontiers in the Production of Compounds for Biomedical Uses' can perhaps be placed in its best perspective by the Shakespearean character in The Tempest who exclaimed' What's past is prologue'. Indeed, this compilation of some of the outstanding presentations in the field of biomedicine made at th the 9 European Congress on Biotechnology (Brussels, Belgium, July 11-15, 1999) not only reflects the achievements of the recent past, but provides a privileged glimpse of the biotechnology that is emerging in the first decade of the new Millennium. It is becoming increasingly apparent that biotechnology is offering biomedicine novel approaches and solutions to develop a sorely needed new generation of biopharmaceuticals. This is all the more necessary because in recent years, new diseases have emerged with extraordinary lethality in all corners of the globe, while age-related chronic illnesses have filled the gap wherever biomedicine has made successful inroads. The rise of antibiotic resistance also poses major threats to public health. Thus, as disease patterns evolve, the rational development of new drugs is becoming urgent, not only for the clinical outcome of patients, but also in optimising the allocation of scarce health care resources through the use of cost-effective productions methods. It is in response to all these challenges that biotechnology offers new strategies that go beyond the more traditional approaches. By the mid-1990's, the number of recombinant products approved annually for therapeutic use reached double digits. With the advent of the genomics revolution. 464 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book contains selected contributions from the Sixth Meeting of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification, held in Perth, Australia, in September 1999. Collectively, these contributions explicitly seek to understand not only the mechanisms responsible for the problem of land degradation but their social and economic implications, the means of overcoming the problems, and the policy instruments whereby remedial measures may be implemented. This breadth of approach is both distinctive and essential if the problems are to be tackled effectively. The authorship comprises of specialists (mostly geographers) from universities, research organizations, and government agencies, who provide a truly international perspective with contributions from Iceland to Australia and from the USA to Japan. Audience: The book presents current research findings which will be of particular benefit to professionals and practitioners, as well as researchers and tertiary-level educationalists who are involved with land degradation. 404 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The strength of this book is that it is written by someone who has spent a lifetime devoted to the science of economic botany. The author has brought together his vast experience in the field in Africa with his studies of arid land plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The result is an informative and reliable text that covers a vast range of topics. It is also firmly based upon the author's research and interest in plant taxonomy and therefore fully acknowledges the importance of correct naming and classification in the field of science of economic botany. The coverage is of economic botany in its broadest sense. I was delighted to find such topics as ecophysiology, plant breeding, the environment and conservation are included in the text. This gives the book a much more comprehensive coverage than most other texts on the subject. I was also glad to see that the book covers the use of various organisms that are no longer considered part of the plant kingdom such as various species of fungi and algae. It is indeed a broad ranging book that will be of use to many people interested in the uses of plants and fungi. Economic botany is once again being given more prominence as a discipline because of its enormous relevance to both conservation and sustainable development. Those people involved in those topics shOUld find this a most useful resource. 550 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The word cleaning covers a wide range of activities from good housekeeping and janitorial duties to clinical process cleaning applications that form part of our everyday lives, most people are not aware of their existence, and yet without them, many of the services and products we take for granted would not be available. Most chapters include case studies of various cleaning problems together with the solutions offered. Emphasis is placed on the practical aspects of designing, manufacturing and operating cleaning equipment, this includes a detailed examination of traditional cleaning methods, and considers a number of lessor known techniques that have been developed over recent years together with a glimpse of the future trends in the industry In addition to the actual cleaning techniques, the book examines the effect, of increasing international health, safety, training, and environmental legislation together with regulations that control cleaning standards in the pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food and drinks manufacturing industries. In this respect, the book is not intended to be a definitive reference book. Legislation and regulations are continually being upgraded, particularly those relating to European Directives. No apologies are given for the fact that the reader will be continually reminded of the need to obtain up to date copies of the various documents referred to, and to secure expert advice on those issues that are crucial in terms of health, safety and hazardous conditions. To assist the reader, useful information sources are listed in the reference section following each chapter.jkljk 312 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book presents a model-based approach to quality improvement through design of experiments. After a description of statistical methods for data analysis and design of experiments it addresses the following topics: Taguchi's approach to quality improvement; Reduction of errors transmitted from factors to the response; Robustness against errors in product/process parameters and external noise factors; Optimization procedures for product/process design; Quality improvement through mechanistic models; Quality improvement of products with both qualitative and quantitative factors; and Quality improvement based on replicated observations. The book provides systematic and detailed practical guidance to a model-based approach to quality engineering problems. All methods are illustrated by real-world examples that make them readily accessible to readers. All mathematical proofs are given in appendices to the relevant chapters. The book is written for a wide range of engineers, quality engineering professionals, engineering designers, engineering statisticians, and all those who want to apply design of experiments to solving quality improvement problems. The text is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in engineering and statistics. 528 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -PERTH Western Australia March 2000 Increasingly explorationists are seeking to find new ore deposits in poorly prospected areas, be they geographically remote, such as in the Arctic, or geologically remote, such as those under sedimentary cover. Modern prospecting techniques, including low-detection-level geochemistry and the use of advanced geophysical instrumentation have greatly assisted explorers but fundamental to any soundly based exploration program remains an understanding of the geological framework of ore deposits. This allows the development of deposit models on macroscopic and mesoscopic scales. This book by Dr. Franeo Pirajno draws on his extensive and wide global experience. To set the scene for a discussion of ore deposit generation Franeo details the Earths internal structures and mantle dynamics. He then explores the impact of mantle plumes on the crust and in particular their role in the production of magmatic environments, and in continental scale rifting. This includes a descriptive section on magmatic provinces around the globe, which highlights the importance of plumes. Any study of Earth processes needs to take into account the effects of extraterrestrial bombardment, and in particular the results from the impacts of large bolides. The effects of these impacts on the atmosphere and on life have now been recognised as profound. It is likely that the effect ofthese impacts on the Earth's crust is as equally profound. 584 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -Competition is one of the most important factors controlling the distribution and abundance of living creatures. Sperm cells racing up reproductive tracts, beetle larvae battling inside single seeds, birds defending territories, and trees interfering with the light available to neighbours, are all engaged in competition for limited resources. Along with predation and mutualism, competition is one of the three major biological forces that assemble living communities. Recent experimental work, much of it only from the last few decades, has enhanced human knowledge of the prevalence of competition in nature. There are acacia trees that use ants to damage vines, beetles that compete in arenas for access to dung balls, tadpoles that apparently poison their neighbours, birds that smash the eggs of potential competitors, and plants that associate with fungi in order to increase access to soil resources. While intended as an up-to-date reference work on the state of this branch of ecology, the many non-technical examples will make interesting reading for those with a general interest in nature. Greatly expanded from the first prize-winning edition, there are entirely new chapters, including one on resources and another on competition gradients in nature. The author freely ranges across all major taxonomic groups in search of evidence. The question of whether competition occurs is no longer useful, the author maintains; rather the challenge is to determine when and where each kind of competition is important in natural systems. For this reason, variants of competition such as intensity, asymmetry and hierarchies are singled out for particular attention. The book concludes with the difficulties of finding general principles in complex ecological communities, and illustrates the limitations on knowledge that arise out of the biased conduct of scientists themselves. Competition can be found elsewhere in living systems other than ecological communities, at sub-microscopic scales in the interactions of enzymes and neural pathways, and over large geographic areas in the spread of human populations and contrasting ideas about the world. Human societies are therefore also examined for evidence of the kinds of competition found among other living organisms. Using an array of historical examples, including Biblical conflicts, the use of noblemen's sons in the Crusades, the Viking raids in Europe, strategic bombing campaigns in the Second World War, and ethnic battles of the Balkans, the book illustrates how most of the aspects of competition illustrated with plants and animals can be extended to the interactions of human beings and their societies. 576 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -This book provides an updated discussion of some aspects of snow and glacier hydrology, drawing on the results of investigations in recent years in Arctic, Antarctic, Himalayas, Alps, Rocky Mountains, and other mountains of the world. This book is not meant to be an encyclopaedia in its treatment of snow and glaciers. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the book can serve as a source of reference at the senior undergraduate or beginning graduate level and that it will stimulate further interest and research in this important part of the hydrologic cycle. Audience: The book should be useful to those who are engaged in the practice of agricultural and civil engineering, earth sciences, environmental sciences and engineering, ecosystem management, forest and watershed sciences, and others. 764 pp. Englisch.