springer us nov 2001 (147 results)

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The armaments of chemical and biological warfare (CBW), as Eric Coddy shows in this introduction for the concerned layman, are now widely held not just by nation-states, but by terrorist and criminal enterprises. The weapons themselves are relatively inexpensive and very easy to hide, and organizations of just a few dozen people are capable of deploying potentially devastating attacks with them. While in the twentieth century most of our arms-control effort focused, rightly, on nuclear arsenals, in the twenty-first century CBW will almost certainly require just as much attention. This book defines the basics of CBW for the concerned citizen, including non-alarmist scientific descriptions of the weapons and their antidotes, methods of deployment and defensive response, and the likelihood in the current global political climate of additional proliferation.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 332 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Praise for the first edition:'.Lang's present book is a source of interesting ideas and brilliant techniques.' Acta Scientiarum Mathematicarum'.It is an admirable straightforward introduction to calculus.' MathematikaThis is a reprint of A First Course in Calculus, which has gone through five editions since the early sixties. It covers all the topics traditionally taught in the first-year calculus sequence in a brief and elementary fashion. As sociological and educational conditions have evolved in various ways over the past four decades, it has been found worthwhile to make the original edition available again. The audience consists of those taking the first calculus course, in high school or college. The approach is the one which was successful decades ago, involving clarity, and adjusted to a time when the students' background was not as substantial as it might be. We are now back to those times, so its time to start over again.There are no epsilons-delta, but this does not imply that the book is not rigorous. Lang learned this attitude from Emil Artin, around 1950.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 276 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Alan Charles Raul The devastating and reprehensible acts of terrorism committed against the 11, 2001 have greatly affected our lives, our United States on September livelihoods, and perhaps our way of living. The system of government embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights was designed to inhibit excessively efficient government. By imposing checks and balances against over-reaching governmental power, the Founders intended to promote the rule of laws, not men - and to protect the prerogatives of citizens over and above their rulers. No faction was to become so powerful that the rights and interests of any other groups or individuals could be easily trampled. Specifically, the Framers of our constitutional structure prohibited the government from suppressing speech, inhibiting the right of free association, of people, conducting unreasonable preventing (peaceful) assemblies searches and seizures, or acting without observing the dictates of due process and fair play. After September 11, there is a risk that the philosophical protections of the Constitution could appear more than a trifle 'academic. ' Indeed, our tradional notions of 'fair play' will be sorely tested in the context of our compelling requirements for effective self-defense against brutal, evil killers who hate the very idea of America. Now that we witness the grave physical dangers that confront our families, friends, neighbors, and businesses, our commitment to limited government and robust individual liberties will of our inevitably - and understandably - be challenged.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 164 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This is a comprehensive textbook for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in physics or astrophysics, developing both the formalism and the physical ideas of special and general relativity in a logical and coherent way. The book is in two parts. Part one focuses on the special theory and begins with the study of relativistic kinematics from three points of view: the physical (the classic gedanken experiments), the algebraic (the Lorentz transformations), and the graphic (the Minkowski diagrams). Part one concludes with chapters on relativistic dynamics and electrodynamics. Part two begins with a chapter introducing differential geometry to set the mathematical background for general relativity. The physical basis for the theory is begun in the chapter on uniform accelerations. Subsequent chapters cover rotation, the electromagnetic field, and material media. A second chapter on differential geometry provides the background for Einstein's gravitational-field equation and Schwarzschild's solution. The physical significance of this solution is examined together with the challenges to the theory that have been successfully met inside the solar system. Other applications follow in the final chapters on astronomy and cosmology: These include black holes, quasars, and gravity waves as well as the relativistic features of an expanding universe including a section on the inflationary model.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 468 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This monograph focusing on gas flows addresses mostly theoretical issues and develops semi-analytical models as well as numerical methods for stimulating micro flows. It is appropriate for researchers in fluid mechanics interested in this new flow field as well as for electrical or mechanical engineers or physicists who need to incorporate flow modeling into their work. 360 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -New and expanded to reflect changes on the Internet, especially the explosive growth of the World Wide Web, this best-selling book is primer to the Internet for those who have little or no computer experience and a time-saving guide to resources for the more experienced surfer. In plain language it describes the Internet, how it works, and how to use various Internet tools. In addition, it provides an extensive listing of health-related Internet resources accompanied by reviews and descriptions - not just URLs - of dozens of health-related topics. From the online 'American Journal of Nursing' to the 'Virtual Nursing Centre,' this third edition contains hundreds of new sites, as well as an expanded section devoted to the use of search engines.The reader will find this directory a treasure trove of information resources available for health care professionals on the Internet. When you need to have up-to-the-minute information at your fingertips, when you need to know about the latest changes in health care reform - that's when you discover the real power of the Internet. It allows you to exchange information with peers around the world instantly, giving you the knowledge edge to keep your nursing or health care practice professional and progressive.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -detailed historical description of how the facts presented here were or- inally discovered. The text strives to explain in a manner that can be grasped by undergraduates the major ideas and scienti c discoveries that have allowed us to understand perception as it occurs in humans. A similarly hard choice was deciding how many citations to include to the primary scienti c literature. Almost every paragraph in this book could have numerous citations to published studies or references to the names of individuals who developed the ideas being discussed. However, speci c citations are not included in the text, which only refers to a few individual scientists by name, thereby neglecting a vast army of other researchers who made the discoveries summarized here. In some cases, particularly when describing a very speci c nding or set of studies by contemporary workers, the name of the author in whose lab the study was conducted is mentioned. However, the inclusion of num- ous citations or names of scientists interfered with the primary goal of introducing the major concepts and facts in an uncluttered manner. Also, at times, complex results had to be simpli ed in a manner that remains true to the spirit of the original research ndings, but may differ enough in some speci c details that a speci c citation might give offense rather than credit. To compensate, a limited list of suggested readings appears at the end of each chapter.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 420 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - This wide-ranging handbook presents in-depth discussions on the array of subspecialties that comprise the field of sociological theory. Prominent theorists working in a variety of traditions discuss methodologies and strategies; the cultural turn in sociological theorizing; interaction processes; theorizing from the systemic and macro level; new directions in evolutionary theorizing; power, conflict, and change; and theorizing from assumptions of rationality.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -In one sentence, quantum calculus is the ordinary calculus without taking limits. This undergraduate text develops two types of quantum calculi, the q-calculus and the h-calculus. As this book develops quantum calculus along the lines of traditional calculus, we discover, with a remarkable inevitability, many important notions and results of classical mathematics. This book is written at the level of a first course in calculus and linear algebra and is aimed at undergraduate and beginning graduate students in mathematics, computer science, and physics. It is based on lectures and seminars given by the second author over the last few years at MIT.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 124 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This book is based on the author's experience with calculations involving polynomial splines. It presents those parts of the theory that are especially useful in calculations and stresses the representation of splines as weighted sums of B-splines. This revised edition has been typeset, and all figures have been redrawn. In a major change, the B-spline theory is now developed directly from the recurrence relations without recourse to divided differences. Almost all formal statements are now provided with proofs, and many minor changes have been made throughout, including the correction of errors.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 372 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The notion of information is multifaceted. According to the case, it is a simple signal or already knowledge. lt responds to codes and is inscribed into a social relationship. There are clearly many perspectives which the social sciences can take to analyse the notion of information. The economy cannot account for the majority of situations where, in the activities of production, consumption or exchange, the notion of information finds itself implied, although each school of thought has its own understanding of the notion of information. This book takes this observation as a starting point and goes on to clarify a contemporary debate on the economy of information which remains quite vague, making use of the ways in which different theoretical approaches deal with information. To seize the nature and scope of the transformations in our societies, a consequence of our new ways of handling, stocking and circulating information in the workings of the markets like Organisations, such a theoretical exercise seems useful. The organisation of the book results from this choice. The contributions gathered in one part deal with the role of information in the functioning of the markets, those featuring in another are more interested in the organisations. To favour an enriching cross-reading of approaches developed in the two sections already referred to, we have preceded these with a section gathering approaches (which are more transversal) developing different theories of information (according to perspectives which are, respectively, systematic, statistical or strategic).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This chapter has set out in detail the models which are employed below in order to analyse the labour market effects of changes in tax rates and in alterations in the tax structure. The fundamental mechanisms underlying the different approaches have been pointed out. Moreover, vital assumptions have been emphasised. By delineating the models which are used for the subsequent analyses, implicitly statements have also been made about topics or aspects which this study does not cover. For example, all workers and firms are identical ex ante. However, ex-post differences are allowed for, inter alia, if unemploy ment occurs or if some firms have to close down. These restrictions indicate areas of future research insofar as that the findings for homogeneous workers or firms yield an unambiguous proposal for changes in tax rates or the tax structure in order to promote employment. This is because it would be desir able for tax policy to know whether the predicted effects also hold in a world with ex-ante heterogeneity. Furthermore, the product market has not played a role. Therefore, repercussions from labour markets outcomes on product demand - and vice versa - are absent. 55 Moreover, neither the process of capital accumulation, be it physical or human capital, nor substitution pos sibilities between labour and capital in the firms' production function are taken into account. Finally, international competition is not modelled.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 316 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -David O. Loomis Illinois State University The explosive growth of the Internet has caught most industry experts off guard. While data communications was expected to be the 'wave of the future,' few industry observers foresaw how rapid the change in focus from voice communications towards data would be. Understanding the data communications revolution has become an urgent priority for many in the telecommunications industry. Demand analysis and forecasting are critical tools to understanding these trends for both Internet access and Internet backbone service. Businesses have led residential customers in the demand for data services, but residential demand is currently increasing exponentiall y. Even as business demand for data communications is becoming better understood, residential broadband access demand is still largely unexplored. Cable modems and ADSL appear to be the current residential broadband choices yet demand elasticities and econometric model-based forecasts for these services are not currently available. The responsiveness of customers to price and income changes and customer's perceptions of the tradeoff in product characteristics between cable modems and ADSL is largely unknown. Demand for Internet access is derived from the demand for applications which utilize this access; access is not demanded independent of its usage. Thus it is important to understand Internet applications in order to understand the demand for access.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 272 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -This chapter is organized as follows. The economic problem on which this book focuses is motivated in Section 1. The two tools used to study this economic problem, which are real options theory and game theory, are discussed in Sections 2 and 3, respectively. Section 4 surveys the contents of this book. In Section 5 some promising extensions of the research presented in this book are listed. 1. TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT Investment expenditures of companies govern economic growth. Es pecially investments in new and more efficient technologies are an impor tant determinant. In particular, in the last two decades an increasing part of the investment expenditures concerns investments in informa tion and communication technology. Kriebel, 1989 notes that (already) in 1989 roughly 50 percent of new corporate capital expenditures by major United States companies was in information and communication technology. Due to the rapid progress in these technologies, the tech nology investment decision of the individual firm has become a very complex matter. As an example of the very high pace of technological improvement consider the market for personal computers. IBM intro duced its Pentium personal computers in the early 1990s at the same price at which it introduced its 80286 personal computers in the 1980s. Therefore it took less than a decade to improve on the order of twenty times in terms of both speed and memory capacities, without increasing the cost (Yorukoglu, 1998).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 276 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The Ontogeny of Human Bonding Systems takes an interdisciplinary look at the phenomena of human bonding. The authors draw upon behavioral genetics, molecular genetics of behavior, cognitive and affective neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, human ethology, behavioral ecology, and the study of attachment processes within developmental psychology. The topics will emphasize human reproduction, and fertility-related behavior in particular, and the evolutionary origins and neural underpinnings of such behavior.This book is for anyone interested in the evolutionary origins, neural underpinnings, and psychological structure involved in human relationships.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 164 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Since it was introduced less than 100 years ago, analysis of the circulatory response to exercise as a measure of cardiac function has undergone remarkable development. Most recently this approach has incorporated the burgeoning technology of the last half of the 20th century to meet the physiological and diagnostic needs of scientist and clinicians. The ease of administration, economy and abundant data that characterize exercise testing for its relative staying power as the most frequently utilized noninvasive method of cardiovascular evaluation. The basic modalities of exercise electrocardiography of treadmill and bicycle have been extended by noninvasive cardiac imaging techniques, including scintigraphy and echocardiography, that have provided new insights in myocardial function during exertion and pharmacologic stress. At the same time, traditional exercise electrocardiography has also been refined by innovations that have broadened its applications.Exercise Testing: Current Concepts and Recent Advances affords the reader a state-of-the-art presentation of the diverse and expanding methods of exercise testing and their roles in patient management. The contributors to this volume include individuals who have made seminal contributions to the field during the last several decades. Indeed, it is legitimate to designate this group as a `Who's Who of Exercise Testing'. It is our hope that this book will enhance the reader's understanding of contemporary methods of exercise testing, as well as provide a glimpse into future directions of this science, that this knowledge is applied to optimal diagnosis and management of our patients.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 200 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Proteomics is an introduction to the exciting new field of proteomics, an interdisciplinary science that includes biology, bioinformatics, and protein chemistry. The purpose of this book is to provide the active researcher with an overview of the types of questions being addressed in proteomics studies and the technologies used to address those questions.Key subjects covered in this book include: an assessment of the limitations of this approach and outlines new developments in mass spectrometry that will advance future researchhigh-throughput recombinant DNA cloning methods used to systematically clone all of the open reading frames of an organism into plasmid vectors for large scale protein expression and functional studies such as protein-protein interactions with the two-hybrid systemprotein structurean overview of large-scale experimental attempts to determine the three-dimensional structures of representative sets of proteinscomputational approaches to determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins.Proteomics provides a starting point for researchers who would like a theoretical understanding of the new technologies in the field, and obtain a solid grasp of the fundamentals before integrating new tools into their experiments. Written with attention to detail, but without being overwhelmingly technical, Proteomics is a user-friendly guide needed by most biologists today.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 140 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -The 5th Workshop on Case Studies in Bayesian Statistics was held at the Carnegie Mellon University campus on September 24-25, 1999. As in the past, the workshop featured both invited and contributed case studies. The former were presented and discussed in detail while the latter were presented in poster format. This volume contains the three invited case studies with the accompanying discussion as well as ten contributed pa pers selected by a refereeing process. The majority of case studies in the volume come from biomedical research. However, the reader will also find studies in education and public policy, environmental pollution, agricul ture, and robotics. INVITED PAPERS The three invited cases studies at the workshop discuss problems in ed ucational policy, clinical trials design, and environmental epidemiology, respectively. 1. In School Choice in NY City: A Bayesian Analysis ofan Imperfect Randomized Experiment J. Barnard, C. Frangakis, J. Hill, and D. Rubin report on the analysis of the data from a randomized study conducted to evaluate the New YorkSchool Choice Scholarship Pro gram. The focus ofthe paper is on Bayesian methods for addressing the analytic challenges posed by extensive non-compliance among study participants and substantial levels of missing data. 2. In Adaptive Bayesian Designs for Dose-Ranging Drug Trials D. Berry, P. Mueller, A. Grieve, M. Smith, T. Parke, R. Blazek, N.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 456 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Life expectancy in countries of Central and Eastern Europe is substantially shorter than in Western Europe, and a similar divide exists in self-rated health.This exhaustive study of populations in seven Central and European countries - Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary - examines the social and psychosocial determinants of this divide. Practitioners and graduate students of public health and social psychology will find this an invaluable resource.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 244 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - 'If there would be no God ~ then what a staff-captain am I ' ~ said one of the characters in a novel by Dostoevskii. In a similar way we can exclaim: 'If there would be no nonlinearity ~ than what physics would that be' '. Really, the most interesting and exciting effects are described by non linear equations, and vanish in the linear approximation. For example, the general theory of relativity by A.Einstein comes to mind first - one of the most beautiful physical theories, which is in fact essentially nonlinear. Next, the phase transitions crystal ~ liquid and liquid ~ gas are due to the anhar monicity of inter-particle interactions, to dissociation and infinite motion. Similarly, transitions into the superconducting state or the superftuid would be impossible with purely harmonic interaction potentials. Another bril liant achievement in nonlinear physics was the construction of a laser and the subsequent development of nonlinear optics. The latter describes the in teraction of the matter with light of super-high intensity, when multi-quanta intra-molecular transitions become essential. Last, we should note here the very beautiful mathematical theory ~ the theory of catastrophes. Its subject is the study of invariant general properties of multi-dimensional surfaces in the vicinity of bifurcation points with respect to continuous transformations.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Jacques Cory's second book Activist Business Ethics expands upon the theoretical concepts developed in his first book Business Ethics: The Ethical Revolution of Minority Shareholders published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in March 2001. Activist business ethics is needed in order to remedy the wrongdoing committed to stakeholders and minority shareholders. This will be achieved by cooperation between ethical businessmen, activist academics, stakeholders and minority shareholders. We should treat others as we would want others to treat us, not through interest, but by conviction. Yet this principle is not the guideline of many companies in the modern business world, despite the fact that most religions and philosophers have advocated it in the last 3,000 years. How can we convince or compel modern business to apply this principle And is it essential to the success of economy In order to answer these questions this book examines the evolution of activist business ethics in business, in democracies, in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, in philosophy and psychology. The book examines international aspects, the personification of stakeholders, the predominance of values and ethics for CEOs and the inefficient safeguards of the stakeholders' interests. The book presents new vehicles for the safeguard of those interests, such as the Internet, Transparency, Ethical Funds and Activist Associations, and future activist vehicles, such as the Supervision Board and the Institute of Ethics. Today everybody is a stakeholder and a minority shareholder of a company, directly or through our pension funds, or as a client, a supplier, a member of a community and a citizen. The principal premise of the book is, therefore, that ultimately the wrongdoers act against themselves. The book is woven with many references on ethics and business ethics from the professional and classic world literature, the Bibleand other religious texts, poetry, maxims, and folk tales; showing that ethical problems are similar throughout the ages and cultures, but some of the solutions given in this book are new and original. Activist Business Ethics is primarily intended for the academic market and is particularly appropriate for academics in business administration, ethics and finance. It should also appeal strongly to the professional business/finance market, and to stakeholders and minority shareholders as well, who are aware of the wrongdoing committed to them and who want to remedy the situation by activist conduct.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Wireless communication is witnessing tremendous growth with p- liferation of different standards covering wide, local and personal area networks (WAN, LAN and PAN). The trends call for designs that - low 1) smooth migration to future generations of wireless standards with higher data rates for multimedia applications, 2) convergence of wireless services allowing access to different standards from the same wireless device, 3) inter-continental roaming. This requires designs that work across multiple wireless standards, can easily be reused, achieve maximum hardware share at a minimum power consumption levels p- ticularly for mobile battery-operated devices. All this calls for higher levels of system integration of both the radio and the digital baseband parts. It also calls for radio design solutions with mixed signal strategies that take full advantage of technology sca- down by moving functions, such as channel select filtering, modulation and demodulation, to the digital domain. Central to achieving these goals is the design of data converters for these emerging standards in the context of technology and market trends.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - Passive Components for Dense Optical Integration presents a theoretical and numerical investigation of high index-contrast (HIC) passive components that can serve as building blocks at the end-points and nodes of WDM communications systems. The main characteristic of these structures is their miniature size and their low radiation loss due to the strong light confinement in high index-contrast systems. Thus large scale, high density optical integration may be possible with the associated advantages of increased functionality, compactness and cost. Passive Components for Dense Optical Integration presents novel devices for filtering, optical interconnections and coupling to fibers. The latter part of the book explores coupling structures that are only a few wavelengths long yet can provide efficient coupling. Also discussed are possible future directions for this technology. Passive Components for Dense Optical Integration will be of interest to researchers and development engineers in integrated optics and fiber optics. It also provides an excellent supplement to a graduate course in optics.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - These are the proceedings of the conference 'Symbolic Computation, Number Theory, Special Functions, Physics and Combinatorics' held at the Department of Mathematics, University of Florida, Gainesville, from November 11 to 13, 1999. The main emphasis of the conference was Com puter Algebra (i. e. symbolic computation) and how it related to the fields of Number Theory, Special Functions, Physics and Combinatorics. A subject that is common to all of these fields is q-series. We brought together those who do symbolic computation with q-series and those who need q-series in cluding workers in Physics and Combinatorics. The goal of the conference was to inform mathematicians and physicists who use q-series of the latest developments in the field of q-series and especially how symbolic computa tion has aided these developments. Over 60 people were invited to participate in the conference. We ended up having 45 participants at the conference, including six one hour plenary speakers and 28 half hour speakers. There were talks in all the areas we were hoping for. There were three software demonstrations.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Risk Analysis: Foundations, Models, and Methods fully addresses the questions of 'What is health risk analysis ' and 'How can its potentialities be developed to be most valuable to public health decision-makers and other health risk managers ' Risk analysis provides methods and principles for answering these questions. It is divided into methods for assessing, communicating, and managing health risks. Risk assessment quantitatively estimates the health risks to individuals and to groups from hazardous exposures and from the decisions or activities that create them. It applies specialized models and methods to quantify likely exposures and their resulting health risks. Its goal is to produce information to improve decisions. It does this by relating alternative decisions to their probable consequences and by identifying those decisions that make preferred outcomes more likely. Health risk assessment draws on explicit engineering, biomathematical, and statistical consequence models to describe or simulate the causal relations between actions and their probable effects on health. Risk communication characterizes and presents information about health risks and uncertainties to decision-makers and stakeholders. Risk management applies principles for choosing among alternative decision alternatives or actions that affect exposure, health risks, or their consequences.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 580 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Regardless of where we live, the management of the public sector impacts on our lives. Hence, we all have an interest, one way or another, in the achievement of efficiency and productivity improvements in the activities of the public sector. For a government agency that provides a public service, striving for unreasonable benchmark targets for efficiency may lead to a deterioration of service quality, along with an increase in stress and job dissatisfaction for public sector employees. Slack performance targets may lead to gross inefficiency, poor quality of service, and low self-esteem for employees. In the case of regulation, inappropriate policies can lead to unprecedented disasters. Examples include the decimation of fish stocks through mismanagement of fisheries, and power blackouts through inappropriate restrictions on electricity generators and distributors. Efficient taxation policies minimise the tax bill for citizens.In all of these cases, efficient management is required, although it is often unclear how to assess this efficiency. In this volume, several authors consider various aspects and contexts of performance measurement. Hence, this volume represents a unique collection of advances in efficiency assessment for the public sector by leading researchers in the field.Efficiency in the Public Sector is divided into two sections. The first is titled 'Issues in Public Sector Efficiency Evaluation' and comprises of chapters 1-4. The second section is titled 'Efficiency Analysis in the Public Sector - Advances in Theory and Practice.' This division is somewhat arbitrary, in the sense there are significant overlapping themes in both sections. However, it serves to separate chapters that can be characterised as dealing with broader issues (Section I), from chapters that can be characterised as focusing on specific theoretical problems and empirical cases (Section II).Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 316 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Technology, people, e-workplaces: these are the elements that fast moving organizations use to meet changing business requirements by using technology to invent new business processes, to re-align organizational structures, and to implement new management practices. Moreover, it has become apparent in today's global information economy, the most critical-indeed the primary-resource that distinguishes market leaders from everyone else is human talent! Countries, communities, and organizations are suddenly very interested in developing the human capacities that will allow them to compete in a networked world. Successful growing organizations have placed the combined development of information technology and human resources as their top priority.With the help of human resource professionals, organizations must grasp the pertinent aspects of both people and technology issues to create an effective e-workplace. These issues occur at the intersection of the disciplines of computer science, operation research, and human resource development. Because these issues are complex, they can best be understood through cross-disciplinary collaboration among experts who approach them from a range of perspectives. Human Resource Development and Information Technology: Making Global Connections presents just such a collaborative effort from leaders in the field. This book describes the changes that are occurring as technology plays a more central role in human resource development. It compares methods and tools that organizations can use to create their own practices for developing their most critical resource-people! In addition, the authors pose a set of interesting research questions that will help us further explore how countries, local communities, and organizations build dynamic systems for developing a sustained competitive advantage with human talent.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 296 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Animal Cognition and Sequential Behavior: Behavioral, Biological, and Computational Perspectives brings together psychologists studying cognitive skill in animal and human subjects, connectionist theorists, and neuroscientists who have a common interest in understanding function and dysfunction in the realm of complex cognitive behavior. In this volume, discussion focuses on behavioral, cognitive, psychobiological, and computational approaches to understanding the integration of ongoing behavior, with particular attention to models of timing and the organization of sequential behavior.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 364 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Current Ornithology publishes authoritative, up-to-date, scholarly reviews of topics selected from the full range of current research in avian biology. Topics cover the spectrum from the molecular level of organization to population biology and community ecology. The series seeks especially to review 1) fields in which abundant recent literature will benefit from synthesis and organization, 2) newly emerging fields that are gaining recognition as the result of recent discoveries or shifts in perspective, and 3) fields in which students of vertebrates may benefit from comparisons of birds with other classes. All chapters are invited, and authors are chosen for their leadership in the subjects under review.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 452 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Condition: Neu. Neuware -Multi-carrier technologies have emerged as important instruments in telecommunications. OFDM is in the forefront, with its adoption by the IEEE 802.11 standards committee and the European HYPERLAN standards group. Following OFDM, MC-CDMA is also demonstrating considerable promise when compared to competing technologies. According to the authors, these technologies are just the beginning in the coming multi-carrier revolution.In Multi-Carrier Technologies for Wireless Communication, the authors explain how a common multi-carrier platform is being designed for DS-CDMA, TDMA, OFDM and MC-CDMA systems. Findings are presented which show how this multi-carrier platform enhances network capacity and probability of error performance.Specific results include (1) innovation in multi-carrier technologies that are enabling them to become an integral part of TDMA and DS-CDMA systems; and (2) the design of multi-carrier systems to overcome PAPR problems (in, e.g., OFDM).Multi-Carrier Technologies for Wireless Communication is an important book for engineers who work with DS-CDMA, TDMA, OFDM, or MC-CDMA systems, and are seeking new ways of exploiting the wireless medium based on a 'smarter' signal processing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 220 pp. Englisch.