Springer Us Jun 2013 (666 results)

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - IT Governance is finally getting the Board's and top management's attention. The value that IT needs to return and the associated risks that need to be managed, have become so important in many industries that enterprise survival depends on it. Information integrity is a significant part of the IT Governance challenge. Among other things, this conference will explore how Information Integrity contributes to the overall control and governance frameworks that enterprises need to put in place for IT to deliver business value and for corporate officers to be comfortable about the IT risks the enterprise faces. The goals for this international working conference are to find answers to the following questions: - what precisely do business managers need in order to have confidence in the integrity of their information systems and their data; - what is the status quo of research and development in this area; - where are the gaps between business needs on the one hand and research I development on the other; what needs to be done to bridge these gaps. The contributions have been divided in the following sections: - Refereed papers. These are papers that have been selected through a blind refereeing process by an international programme committee. - Invited papers. Well known experts present practice and research papers upon invitation by the programme committee. - Tutorial. Two papers describe the background, status quo and future development of CobiT as well as a case of an implementation of Co biT.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This book concerns measuring reading skills. It is not meant to be a compre hensive survey of reading research or a review of all possible approaches to reading measurement (although considerable attention is given to both subjects). Instead, the purpose of this book is to present a coherent, theoretically based approach to measuring reading competence. The ability to measure a phenomenon is an important prerequisite for scientific analysis. As Lord Kelvin said, 'One's knowledge of science begins when he can measure what he is speaking about and express it in numbers.' Unfortunately, not just any numbers will do. Presently available reading tests provide their users with a plethora of numbers-age levels, percentiles, grade equivalents-but their scientific value is questionable. The problem is that there is more to scientific measurement than merely assigning numbers to arbitrarily chosen behaviors. Scientific measurement occurs only within the confines of a theory, and most reading tests are atheoretical. Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth in reading research.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - In this groundbreaking work, distinguished contributors explore the myriad relationships between networks of social support and the development, treatment, and rehabilitation of individuals with cardiovascular disease. Chapters span the range from conceptual to methodological issues, and take into account gender, environmental, and cultural differences. The book will provide a wealth of information for clinicians and students in the fields of behavioral medicine, psychophysiology, and cardiovascular disease.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This volume initiates a series devoted to theory and research in behavioral pedi atrics. Focusing attention on the limited scientific contributions to understanding the development of behavior will, we hope, stimulate further research in this vitally important area of human knowledge. The ability of an individual to achieve his or her full potential as an adult is to a significant degree determined by critical variables in this development within a given society. Study of this aspect of human biology, therefore, may have far-reaching effects on the evolving human species. An awareness of the complexity of the behavioral patterns in infancy is of relatively recent origin and is an obvious essential starting point for this series of publications. The need to discriminate between objective observations and theo retical constructs and to design scientifically valid experiments is vital to progress in understanding early infant behavior. It is easy to misinterpret apparent responses to interventions, especially in infants at biological risk. Preterm infants and their caretakers are particularly challenging as subjects but very difficult to assess scientifically. The interactions between mother and newborn and father and newborn hold promise of substantial additional insights into the development of behavior. Thus, this volume provides interesting perspectives into the relationship of the evolving immature neurological system to complex behavior patterns in newborn infants which raise many new questions and exciting opportunities to extend our very limited knowledge about the newborn infant's psychosocial, emo tional, and cognitive development. RICHARD E. BEHRMAN, M. D.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This book presents the work on aphasia coming out of the Institute for Aphasia and Stroke in Norway during its 10 years of existence. Rather than reviewing previously presented work, it was my desire to give a unified analysis and discussion of our accumulated data. The empirical basis for the analysis is a fairly large group (249 patients) investigated with a standard, comprehensive set of procedures. Tests of language functions must be developed anew for each language, but comparison of my findings with other recent compre hensive studies of aphasia is faciliated by close parallels in test meth ods (Chapter 2). The classification system used is currently the most accepted neurological system, but I have operationalized it for research purposes (Chapter 3). The analyses presented are based on the view that aphasia is an aspect of a multidimensional disturbance of brain function. Find ings of associated disturbances and variations in the aphasic condition over time have been dismissed by some as irrelevant to the study of aphasia as a language deficit. My view is that this rich and complex set of findings gives important clues to the organization of brain functions in humans. I present analyses of the relationship of aphasia to neuropsychological disorders in conceptual organization, memory, visuospatial abilities and apraxia (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), and I study the variations with time of the aphasic condition (Chapter 8).…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - During May 21-June 1 1990, the eleventh course of the International School of Pure and Applied Biostructure, a NATO Advanced Study Institute, was held at the Ettore Majorana Center for Scientific Culture in Erice, Italy, co-sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Universities and of Scientific and Technological Research, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Italian National Research Council, the Sicilian Regional Government and Technobiochip. The subject of the course was 'Molecular Basis of Human Cancer' with participants selected worldwide from 15 different countries. The purpose of the course was to address, in a tutorial and structural fashion, the molecular basis of human cancer, including the mechanism of signal transduction in mammalian cells, the genetic mechanism of malignant transformation in man, growth factors, hormone receptors, cell membrane and cytoskeleton, and DNA high order structure. The course had this as its major objective and the resulting book reflects it. The participants were exposed to a critical evaluation of current knowledge about cancer and to some of the key problems that remain as stumbling blocks to our eventual understanding of this important biological and medical problem. Through the media of formal and informal lectures, workshops, symposia and informal discussions, a select group of interested young and senior scientists were acquainted with many of the aspects of human cancer.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - - __ ___ __ - __ e _e __ M-A-S-S S-P- Pds. -C-T-R-O-M- Pds. -T-R-Y in Morse code This volume collects descriptions of selected recent developments in state-of the-art mass spectrometric methods and reflects the broad-based approaches that mass spectroscopists apply to a variety of important clinical and bio medical problems. One chapter reviews current mass-spectrometric instrumen tation and techniques, and other chapters describe the use of mass-spectro metric methods for the analysis of diacylglycerylphospholipids; modifications to DNA molecules; the characterization of variant hemoglobins; and charac terization of urinary nucleosides. The final chapter describes the new technique of combined microdialysis/mass spectrometry. This volume represents the collected efforts of several highly productive researchers who have developed new methods and instrumentation and have applied them to current research problems, such as lipid storage diseases, cancer, hemoglobinopathies, and brain neurochemistry. The chapters in Vol umes 1 and 2 define the outlines of clinical and biomedical mass spectrometry and attest to the flexibility and creativity of mass spectroscopists and their interaction with biologic and clinical scientists. The authors in this volume are to be congratulated for their writing efforts, their scientific vigor and rigor, their intellectual contributions, and the ex perimental details that are described in these chapters. I thank each author for collaborating with me on the production of this volume, and I hope these chapters will help the practitioners of, and the newcomers to, the field of mass spectrometry.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Molecular clusters, in the broad sense that the term is commonly understood, today comprise an enormous class of species extending into virtually every important area of chemistry: 'naked' metal clusters, transition metal carbonyl clusters, hydrocarbon cages such as cubane (C H ) and dodecahedrane (C H ), 8 8 20 20 organometallic cluster complexes, enzymes containing Fe S or MoFe S 4 4 3 4 cores, high polymers based on carborane units, and, of course, the many kinds of polyhedral borane species. So large is the area spanned by these diverse classes that any attempt to deal with them comprehensively in one volume would, to say the least, be ambitious-and also premature. We are presently at a stage where intriguing relationships between the various cluster families are becoming apparent (particularly in terms of bonding descriptions), and despite large dif ferences in their chemistry an underlying unity is gradually developing in the field. For example, structural changes occurring in Fe S cores as electrons are 4 4 pumped in and out, in some measure resemble those observed in boranes and carboranes. The cleavage of alkynes via incorporation into carborane cages and subsequent cage rearrangement, a sequence familiar to boron chemists, is a thermodynamically favored process which may be related to the behavior of unsaturated hydrocarbons on metal surfaces; analogies of this sort have drawn attention from theorists and experimentalists.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - How are we to understand the complex forces that shape human be havior A variety of diverse perspectives, drawing on studies of human behavioral ontogeny, as well as humanity's evolutionary heritage, seem to provide the best likelihood of success. It is in an attempt to synthesize such potentially disparate approaches to human development into an integrated whole that we undertake this series on the genesis of behav ior. In many respects, the incredible burgeoning of research in child development over the last decade or two seems like a thousand lines of inquiry spreading outward in an incoherent starburst of effort. The need exists to provide, on an ongoing basis, an arena of discourse within which the threads of continuity between those diverse lines of research on human development can be woven into a fabric of meaning and understanding. Scientists, scholars, and those who attempt to translate their efforts into the practical realities of the care and guidance of infants and children are the audience that we seek to reach. Each requires the opportunity to see-to the degree that our knowledge in given areas permits-various aspects of development in a coherent, integrated fash ion. It is hoped that this series-which will bring together research on infant biology, developing infant capacities, animal models, the impact of social, cultural, and familial forces on development, and the distorted products of such forces under certain circumstances-will serve these important social and scientific needs.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This volume contains the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute which was held in Alghero, Sardinia, in July 1991. The development of computers in the recent years has lead to the emergence of unconventional ideas aiming at solving old problems. Among these, the possibility of computing directly fluid flows from the trajectories of constituent particles has been much exploited in the last few years: lattice gases cellular automata and more generally Molecular Dynamics have been used to reproduce and study complex flows. Whether or not these methods may someday compete with more traditional approaches is a question which cannot be answered at the present time: it will depend on the new computer architectures as well as on the possibility to develop very simple models to reproduce the most complex phenomena taking place in the approach of fully developed turbulence or plastic flows. In any event, these molecular methods are already used, and sometimes in an applied engineering context, to study strong shock waves, chemistry induced shocks or motion of dislocations in plastic flows, that is in domains where a fully continuum description appears insufficient. The main topic of our Institute was the molecular simulations of fluid flows. The project to hold this Institute was made three years ago, in the summer of 1989 during a NATO workshop in Brussels on the same subject.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - When, forty years ago, as a student of Charles Coulson in Oxford I began work in theoretical chemistry, I was provided with a Brunsviga calculator-a small mechanical device with a handle for propulsion, metal levers for setting the numbers, and a bell that rang to indicate overflow. What has since come to be known as computational chemistry was just beginning. There followed a long period in which the fundamental theory of the 'golden age' (1925-1935) was extended and refined and in which the dreams of the early practitioners were gradually turned into hard arithmetic reality. As a still-computing survivor from the early postwar days now enjoying the benefits of unbelievably improved hardware, I am glad to contribute a foreword to this series and to have the opportunity of providing a little historical perspective. After the Brunsviga came the electromechanical machines of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and a great reduction in the burden of calculating molecular wavefunctions. We were now happy. At least for systems con taining a few electrons it was possible to make fully ab initio calculations, even though semiempirical models remained indispensable for most molecules of everyday interest. The 1950 papers of Hall and of Roothaan represented an important milestone along the road to larger-scale non empirical calculations, extending the prewar work of Hartree and Fock from many-electron atoms to many-electron molecules-and thus into 'real chemistry.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Psychotherapy research is undoubtedly one of the most puzzling, diverse, com plex, controversial, and multidimensional areas tackled by clinical psycholo gists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric social workers. The numerous theoretical, methodological, and clinical-research issues dealt with by workers in the field have increased exponentially in the past three decades. To do full justice to the area, monographs in each of the specific subareas would be warranted. In this volume, we, as editors, have endeavored to present the student and interested professional and practitioner with an understanding of the most salient issues and trends confronted by the psychotherapy researcher. In order to accomplish this task, we asked our colleagues, who are experts in their respective areas, to share their current thinking with us and with you, the read ers. Thus, many theoretical viewpoints are represented, with none having a monopoly over the others. This is as it should be, given the data collected by clinical researchers at this time. We have also attempted to capture the excite ment that has permeated the field in the past 30 years or so.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - It is well known that behavior problems are a salient characteristic of children and adults with mental retardation. That is not to say that all persons with mental retardation experience behavior disorders; how ever, most studies indicate that the incidence of emotional disturbance in this population is four to six times greater than that observed in similar intellectually nonhandicapped children and adults. It is equally well known that the principal form of treatment accorded clients with mental retardation and behavior disorders is pharmacotherapy or the prescrip tion of behavior modifying drugs. Recent studies show that 6 out of every 10 individuals with mental retardation have been prescribed drugs as treatment for disorders of emotion or behavior. Unfortunately, further studies indicate that only one or 2 out of every 10 clients receiving medication are determined to be 'responders,' such that some thera peutic benefit is derived from their drug treatment. As noted by the title, the single major thrust of this volume is to review approaches to the treatment of behavior disorders in persons with mental retardation from a nondrug perspective. This requires the presentation of a wide range of material on treatment: basic behavior modification programming, cognitive-behavioral strategies, habilitative approaches, counseling and psychotherapy, designing therapeutic living environments, managing medical factors bearing relevance to emotional illness, intervening with families, training special education teachers and direct care staff, and supplying information on the client's rights to obtain treatment in the least restrictive and least intrusive manner.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The purpose of this and future volumes of the Handbook of Genetics is to bring together a collection of relatively short, authoritative essays or annotated compilations of data on topics of significance to geneticists. Many of the essays will deal with various aspects of the biology of certain species selected because they are favorite subjects for genetic investigation in nature or the laboratory. Often there will be an encyclopedic amount of information available on such a species, with new papers appearing daily. Most of these will be written for specialists in a jargon that is be wildering to a novice, and sometimes even to a veteran geneticist working with evolutionarily distant organisms. For such readers what is needed is a written introduction to the morphology, life cycle, reproductive be havior, and culture methods for the species in question. What are its par ticular advantages (and disadvantages) for genetic study, and what have we learned from it Where are the classic papers, the key bibliographies, and how does one get stocks of wild type or mutant strains The chapters devoted to different species will contain information of this sort. Only a few hundreds of the millions of species available to biologists have been subjected to detailed genetic study. However, those that have make up a very heterogeneous sample of the living world.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This volume is based on a FEMS Symposium entitled 'Bacterial Growth and Lysis: Metabolism and Structure of the Bacterial Sacculus' held at the Monastery of Lluc (Mallorca, Spain) on 5-10 April, 1992. The goals of the symposium were to assess the present state of knowledge on the structure and physiology of the bacterial murein sacculus, and to develop new hypotheses and strategies to promote further development of the field. Consequently, the contributions compiled in this volume include broadly different approaches, from the introduction of new analytical methods to the presentation of provocative models for cell wall growth and division. Structural, biochemical, and genetic aspects are widely covered with special emphasis on the enzymology and regulation of murein hydrolases (autolysins). Comprehensive reviews on bacterial S layers and yeast cell walls are included to stimulate conceptual cross-feeding with these closely related topics. We believe that this book will provide the reader with a useful and up-to-date review of the topic. We would feel deeply rewarded by any positive influence this book may have on the future progress of the field, whereby all the scientific credit for it should be given to the authors of the excellent contributions presented.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Over the last decade the volume Membrane Fusion. edited by Poste and Nicholson, has probably served as one of the major sources of review in formation on fusion in membrane systems. Since its publication much new information has been collected. New methods of inducing fusion have been invented or discovered, and new applications for fusion have been found. The need for an up-to-date monograph that covers and in tegrates these subjects, reviews established material, and rationalizes and integrates the old and the new is thus obvious. This book is the product of efforts to meet this need. Most of the current work in the field of membrane fusion takes place within the context of intact or modified cells. Hence this book emphasizes the plasma membrane. Each chapter is either a review, a report, or a short historical overview, depending, respectively, on whether the subject is large in scope and has a long history, or the subject is in such an early stage of development that most of what is known is still in the hands of a relatively small number of investigators and is best covered in report form.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The following are the proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Perception held in Pavia, Italy, on September 27-30, 1993, under the auspices of four institutions: the Group of Cybernetic and Biophysics (GNCB)s of the National Research Council (CNR), the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AI \* IA), the Italian Association of Psychology (AlP), and the Italian Chapter of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR). The theme of this third workshop was: 'Human and Machine Vision: Analogies and Divergencies.' A wide spectrum of topics was covered, ranging from neurophysiology, to computer architecture, to psychology, to image understanding, etc. For this reason the structure of this workshop was quite different from those of the first two held in Parma (1991), and Trieste (1992). This time the workshop was composed of just eight modules, each one consisting of two invited lectures (dealing with vision in nature and machines, respectively) and a common panel discussion (including the two lecturers and three invited panellists). …

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This volume is concerned with the enzymes of the nervous system. Cerebral enzymes form the basis of the functional brain. They are needed for the control of the energetics of the nervous system, whether it be their release or their direction; for the elaboration of transmitters and for their destruction; for the synthesis, transport, and breakdown of all metabolites of the nervous system. They are indispensable for the control of the multitude of factors that govern our thinking and our behavior. They make it possible for us to comprehend what is taking place around us and perhaps to understand what may be in store for us. Enzymes are the stuff of life, and no living cell can be without them. They are the results of many millions of years of evolution, from the time when biological membranes first came into being and were folded to produce the first cells within which the earliest enzymes were wrought. Countless changes have taken place within them, so that, now, only those enzymes exist that play specific roles in the functions of the living cells of today. Those in the nervous system possess a mUltiple role: in the creation, maintenance, and ultimate breakdown of the component cells and in enabling consciousness, perception, memory, and thought to become possible. But though life may go on forever, the enzymes that make life possible will undergo the many changes involved in the evolutionary process.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Michael Cole To the unwary reader, even the table of contents of this book will appear incon gruous. What notion, let alone set of principles, could bring coherence to the follow ing concepts: playing peekaboo with small children, aging, human alienation, con versations with Uzbeki peasants, toolmaking, sexism, the world of the deaf, the ecology of hunting groups After sfhe has had a chance to scan the entire set, the reader can see that this book seems to center on language. But it clearly is not a book about linguistics. It is about a notion that combines two other notions that we usually find located in very different kinds of books, language and human nature. There is no widely accepted term for this combined notion. It does not fit into those ways of thinking of the world that have gotten us where we are. Walker Percy, philosopher novelist, succinctly nails the source of our problem: The importance of a study of language, as opposed to a scientific study of a space-time event like a solar eclipse or rat behavior is that as soon as one scratches the surface of the familiar and comes face to face with the nature of language, one also finds himself face to face with the nature of man. (1975, p. 10) Once we reinvent this insight, its implications begin to work into our lives; our central problem becomes to figure out how to deal with the dilemmas it implies.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The intestinal protozoan Giardia was first described over 300 years ago in 1681 by Leeuwenhoek, from his own stools. In his description of Giardia, he noted the size, movement, and morphology of the organism, and associated its presence with the diarrheic nature of his stools and his dietary habits. This truly remarkable account contains the first description of Giardia in morphologic, pathogenic, and epidemiologic terms. Our knowledge of the organisms in the genus Giardia has advanced tremendously in the past two decades. With the advent of new tech nologies, including techniques in electron microscopy, biochemistry, immunochemistry, tissue culture, and physiology, a tidal wave of information has appeared on the organization and function of this parasitic protozoan and its interaction with its host. The purpose of this book is to celebrate the tricentennial discovery of Giardia by Leeuwenhoek by presenting the above-mentioned advances in our knowledge of Giardia and giardiasis. In the first section of this book, the dominant theme is the biology of the organism and the correlation of structure-function relationships.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - How does the brain code and process incoming information, how does it recog nize a certain object, how does a certain Gestalt come into our awareness One of the key issues to conscious realization of an object, of a Gestalt is the attention de voted to the corresponding sensory input which evokes the neural pattern underly ing the Gestalt. This requires that the attention be devoted to one set of objects at a time. However, the attention may be switched quickly between different objects or ongoing input processes. It is to be expected that such mechanisms are reflected in the neural dynamics: Neurons or neuronal assemblies which pertain to one object may fire, possibly in rapid bursts at a time. Such firing bursts may enhance the synaptic strength in the corresponding cell assembly and thereby form the substrate of short-term memory. However, we may well become aware of two different objects at a time. How can we avoid that the firing patterns which may relate to say a certain type of move ment (columns in V5) or to a color (V 4) of one object do not become mixed with those of another object Such a blend may only happen if the presentation times be come very short (below 20-30 ms). One possibility is that neurons pertaining to one cell assembly fire syn chronously. Then different cell assemblies firing at different rates may code different information.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This volume is based on the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Slow Potential Changes in the Human Brain that was held at II Ciocco, Tuscany, Italy over the period 13-16th May, 1990. The Workshop Director was Dr. W. C. McCallum of the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, England. The meeting was superbly organised and proved to be both stimulating and productive. On behalf of everyone who attended the meeting, I would like to II Ciocco for express my appreciation to NATO for the provision of funding and to providing such a marvellous conference venue. I must apologise to everyone who has contributed to this volume for the length of time it has taken to produce a finished book. As you are all aware, the untimely death of Cheyne McCallum, who was to have been the sole editor of this volume, was very disruptive to both the book and myself. Following Cheyne's death I assumed the responsibility for completing the book as was his wish. I would like to thank you all for your patience and understanding. I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Burden Neurological Institute in general and very specifically to Mrs. Chris Gough who has laboured extensively in the production of this volume.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The role of high pressure experiments in the discovery of supercon ducting materials with a T. above liquid nitrogen temperature has demon strated the importance of such experiments. The same role holds true in the tailoring of materials for optoelectronic devices. In addition, much progress has been made recently in the search for metallic hydro gen, and the application of high pressure in polymer research has brought forth interesting results. These facts together with the suc cess of previous small size meetings (such as the 'First International Conference on the Physics of Solids at High Pressure', held in 1965 in Tucson, Arizona, U. S. A. ; 'High Pressure and Low Temperature Physics', held in 1977 in Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A. ; and 'Physics of Solids Under High Pressure', held in 1981 in bad Honnef, Germany), motivated us to organize a workshop with emphasis on the newest results and trends in these fields of high pressure research. Furthermore, it was intended to mix experienced and young scien tists to realize an idea best expressed in a letter by Prof. Weinstein: 'I think it is an excellent idea. I have often felt that the number of excellent young researchers in the high pressure field need an opportu nity to put forward their work with due recognition. ' Thanks to the support of the key speakers, we were able to achieve this goal and had more than 50 young participants.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - From the President of the Research Society on Alcoholism In recent years, increasingly convincing evidence in support of a biobehavioral conceptual model of the etiology of alcoholism has emerged. In this model, the disorder is perceived as arising from the interaction of geneticlbiological vulnerability and psychosocial risk. Drinking, or alcohol-seeking, is a metric trait. Alcoholism, which is a state of abnormally intense alcohol-seeking be havior that, over time, leads to the alcohol dependence syndrome, lies at the extreme, high end of this quantitative measure. Metric traits are influenced by multiple genes; the extent of genetic loading of biological risk for alcoholism would be different in different individuals. Added to this kind of variability is the wide range of options for exposure to the psychosocial risk factors of heavy drinking provided by modern society. Further, environmental prov ocation also changes when life events change. It is not surprising, therefore, from the combination of the kinds of genetic and environmental variability described above that there is a wide array of patterns of expression of the disorder alcoholism, referred to by some as 'alcoholisms. ' In the search for understanding of underlying mechanisms and rational bases for potential therapy, it is important to focus our attention on the final common pathway of this disorder, alcohol-seeking behavior. This series, ever since its beginning in 1983, has been sensitive to the complexities of the interaction between biological and psychosocial risk factors in alcoholism.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - I was pleased and at the same time filled with some misgivings when Professors Alberto Giotti end Ryan Huxtable asked me to introduce this book. The book is the outcome of the Symposium held in Firenze-San Miniato (PI), October 6-9, 1986. The symposium was entitled 'Sulfur Amino Acids, Peptides and Related Compounds' and was the 7th international symposium on taurine ßnd assooiated substances. It is always difficult to introduce, with the right brevity end emphasis, a topic which has been studied in depth by numerous experte. Nevertheless, I shall do my best to give a historical perspeotive of the subjects of the meeting which I consider to be very important for the frontiers of researoh on taurine. ~he following topios have also beoome coherent areas of study during the development of researoh on taurine: metabolism, nutrition, neurochemistry, cardiovasoular regulation. Although taurine was isolated in 1821 by ~iedman and Gmel1n, its only biochemioal role known at the time was the synthesis of bile saIte in mammalian tissue. There has been an inoreasing interest in the biologioal action of taurine from metabolio aspects to other biologioal aspects (nutrition, development, eto.). In 1975 it was first demonstrated that taurine deprivation produoed retinal degeneration in cats; more reoent studies showed that a taurine-free diet or the administration of taurine transport inhibitors caused retinal degeneration in other mammlas. More reoent studies have pointed out the role of taurine in development, and the first part of this book is dedicated to these topios.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Virus Variability and Impact on Epidemiology and Control of Diseases E. Kurstak and A. Hossain I. INTRODUCTION An important number of virus infections and their epidemic developments demonstrate that ineffec tiveness of prevention measures is often due to the mutation rate and variability of viruses (Kurstak et al., 1984, 1987). The new human immunodeficiency retroviruses and old influenza viruses are only one among several examples of virus variation that prevent, or make very difficult. the production of reliable vaccines. It could be stated that the most important factor limiting the effectiveness of vaccines against virus infections is apparently virus variation. Not much is, how ever, known about the factors influencing and responsible for the dramatically diverse patterns of virus variability. II. MUTATION RATE AND VARIABILITY OF HUMAN AND ANIMAL VIRUSES Mutation is undoubtedly the primary source of variation, and several reports in the literature suggest that extreme variability of some viruses may be a consequence of an unusually high mutation rate (Holland et al., 1982; Domingo et al., 1985; Smith and Inglis, 1987). The mutation rate of a virus is defined as the probability that during a single replication of the virus genome a particular nucleotide position is altered through substitution, deletion, insertion. or recombination. Different techniques have been utilized to measure virus mutation rates, and these have been noted in the extent of application to different viruses.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The development of radioimmunoassay (RIA) by R.S. Yalow and S.A. Berson in 1959 opens up a new avenue in ultra sensitive analysis of trace substances in complex biological systems. In recognition of the enormous contributions of RIA to basic research in biology and to routine clinical tests in laboratory medicine, R.S. Yalow, the co-developer of RIA, was awarded, in 1977, the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. The basic principle of RIA is elegantly simple. It is based on a specific, competitive binding reaction between the analyte and the radio-labeled analog of the analyte for the specific antibody raised to the analyte. The combination of high specificity and affinity of an antibody molecule makes it a very versatile analytical reagent capable of reacting specifically with analytes at a very low concentration in a complex solution such as serum. The sensitivity of RIA is provided by using a radioactive tracer.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The Symposium Symmetries in Science VI: From the Rotation Group to Quantum Algebras was held at the Cloister Mehrerau, Bregenz, Austria, during the period August 2-7, 1992. The Symposium was held in honor of Professor Lawrence C. Biedenharn on the occasion of his 70th birthday. During the academic year 1966/67 I worked as research associate with Larry at Duke University and we have ever since maintained close contact. It was thus natural for me to take the initiative and to organize this Symposium in honor of Larry as a great scientist and friend. The response which the Symposium received showed the favorable reaction by the scientific community to the opportunity provided by the Symposium to honor our colleague, teacher and friend. Equally, the scientific contributions contained in this volume illustrate the high esteem in which he is held. I wish to thank all the scientists who participated in the Symposium and who contributed to this volume. It is due to their commitment that the Symposium was successful. Finally I need to thank those who provided financial and logistical assistance to the Symposium: Dr. John H. Guyon, President of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Dr. Russell R. Dutcher, Dean, College of Science at SIUC, Dr. Maurice A. Wright, Chairman, Department of Physics, SIUC, Dr. Victoria J. Molfese, Office of Research Developement and Administration, SIUC, as well as Dr. Martin Purtscher, Landeshauptmann, Land Vorarlberg Dr. Guntram Lins, Landesrat, Land Vorarlberg.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - The order Rodentia is the most abundant and successful group of mammals, and it has been a focal point of attention for compar ative and evolutionary biologists for many years. In addition, rodents are the most commonly used experimental mammals for bio medical research, and they have played a central role in investi gations of the genetic and molecular mechanisms of speciation in mammals. During recent decades, a tremendous amount of new data from various aspects of the biology of living and fossil rodents has been accumulated by specialists from different disciplines, ranging from molecular biology to paleontology. Paradoxically, our understanding of the possible evolutionary relationships among different rodent families, as well as the possible affinities of rodents with other eutherian mammals, has not kept pace with this information 'explosion. ' This abundance of new biological data has not been incorporated into a broad synthesis of rodent phylo geny, in part because of the difficulty for any single student of rodent evolution to evaluate the phylogenetic significance of new findings from such diverse disciplines as paleontology, embryology, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, and cytogenetics. The origin and subsequent radiation of the order Rodentia were based primarily on the acquisition of a key character complex: specializations of the incisors, cheek teeth, and associated mus culoskeletal features of the jaws and skull for gnawing and chewing.…

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. This item is printed on demand - it takes 3-4 days longer - Neuware -The completion of this volume would not have been possible without the generous and dedicated help of numerous people. The book had its genesis in a conference held at Cornell University in the fall of 1990 that was organized by Dudley Poston, Paul Eberts, and Michael Hannan, all professors at the time at Cornell. With the very generous financial assistance of David Call, then the dean of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Poston, Eberts, and Hannan put together a two-day conference oflectures and papers by human ecologists from Cornell University and elsewhere. The conference focused on sociological human ecology and celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Amos Hawley's Human Ecology (Ronald Press 1950). Professor Hawley was the keynote speaker at the conference. Many of the authors of the chapters in this volume presented earlier versions at the Cornell conference in 1990. Cornell's Departments of Rural Sociology and Sociology also contrib uted financial assistance; however, without Dean Call's very generous support, the conference would not have been possible. A few months after the conference, Poston and Michael Micklin discussed the possibility of asking the various authors of the Cornell conference papers to revise them for publication in a volume on sociological human ecology. Many opted to do so, but others did not because of time and other kinds of commitments and constraints. 392 pp. Englisch.…