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Feflow
by Hans-Jörg G. DierschFEFLOW is an acronym of Finite Element subsurface FLOW simulation system and solves the governing flow, mass and heat transport equations in porous and fractured media by a multidimensional finite element method for complex geometric and parametric situations including variable fluid density, variable saturation, free surface(s), multispecies reaction kinetics, non-isothermal flow and multidiffusive effects. FEFLOW comprises theoretical work, modeling experiences and simulation practice from a period of about 40 years. In this light, the main objective of the present book is to share this achieved level of modeling with all required details of the physical and numerical background with the reader. The book is intended to put advanced theoretical and numerical methods into the hands of modeling practitioners and scientists. It starts with a more general theory for all relevant flow and transport phenomena on the basis of the continuum approach, systematically develops the basic framework for important classes of problems (e. g. , multiphase/multispecies non-isothermal flow and transport phenomena, discrete features, aquifer-averaged equations, geothermal processes), introduces finite-element techniques for solving the basic balance equations, in detail discusses advanced numerical algorithms for the resulting nonlinear and linear problems and completes with a number of benchmarks, applications and exercises to illustrate the different types of problems and ways to tackle them successfully (e. g. , flow and seepage problems, unsaturated-saturated flow, advective-diffusion transport, saltwater intrusion, geothermal and thermohaline flow).
Successful Case-based Reasoning Applications - 2
by Lakhmi C. Jain Stefania MontaniCase-based reasoning paradigms offer automatic reasoning capabilities which are useful for the implementation of human like machines in a limited sense. This research book is the second volume in a series devoted to presenting Case-based reasoning (CBR) applications. The first volume, published in 2010, testified the flexibility of CBR, and its applicability in all those fields where experiential knowledge is available. This second volume further witnesses the heterogeneity of the domains in which CBR can be exploited, but also reveals some common directions that are clearly emerging in recent years. This book will prove useful to the application engineers, scientists, professors and students who wish to develop successful case-based reasoning applications.
Ecosystem Services and Management Strategy in China
by Jamie Pittock Yiyu Chen Beate Jessel Bojie Fu Xiubo Yu"Ecosystem Services and Management Strategy in China" is a two-year international cooperation project that culminated from the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development's Task Force on Ecosystem Services and Management. It combines case studies, scenario analysis, and stakeholder consultations that focus on Chinese forest, grassland and wetland ecosystems and assesses the economic and social benefits of sustainable ecosystems management. It also identifies better practices in ecosystem management from Chinese and international experience and recommends a more intensive integration of ecosystem services into decision-making processes. In November 2010, the Task Force presented five strategic policy proposals for the implementation of sustainable management for Chinese ecosystems. These proposals were extremely well-received by senior decision makers and have since been adopted by national government agencies. The book represents a valuable reference work for researchers and professionals working in related areas. Professor Yiyu Chen worked as president at the National Natural Science Foundation of China from 2004 to early 2013 and is Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Beate Jessel works as president at the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Germany. Professor Bojie Fu works at the Research Center of Eco-Environment Sciences, CAS and is Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Professor Xiubo Yu works at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr.Jamie Pittock is a Senior Lecturer at the Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Australia.
Principles of Polymer Design and Synthesis
by Wei-Fang SuHow can a scientist or engineer synthesize and utilize polymers to solve our daily problems? This introductory text, aimed at the advanced undergraduate or graduate student, provides future scientists and engineers with the fundamental knowledge of polymer design and synthesis to achieve specific properties required in everyday applications. In the first five chapters, this book discusses the properties and characterization of polymers, since designing a polymer initially requires us to understand the effects of chemical structure on physical and chemical characteristics. Six further chapters discuss the principles of polymerization reactions including step, radical chain, ionic chain, chain copolymerization, coordination and ring opening. Finally, material is also included on how commonly known polymers are synthesized in a laboratory and a factory. This book is suitable for a one semester course in polymer chemistry and does not demand prior knowledge of polymer science.
Hiroshima to Fukushima
by Eiichiro OchiaiSet against a backdrop of the recent disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, "Hiroshima to Fukushima" examines the issue of radiation safety. The author provides important and accurate scientific information about the radioactive substances arising from nuclear power plants and weapons, including the effects of this radiation on living organisms. Currently, humankind is at a crossroads and must decide whether to phase out or increase its reliance on nuclear power as weapons and an energy source. Although a few countries, mostly European, have vowed to abolish nuclear power as an energy source, many other countries are about to increase their nuclear power programs. This book is written from a Japanese perspective and thus provides an alternative to views of Western writers. The author includes rigorous scientific analyses, however maintains a broad scope, which allows the book to be accessible to decision-makers and non-specialists.
Ontology Matching
by Jérôme Euzenat Pavel ShvaikoOntologies tend to be found everywhere. They are viewed as the silver bullet for many applications, such as database integration, peer-to-peer systems, e-commerce, semantic web services, or social networks. However, in open or evolving systems, such as the semantic web, different parties would, in general, adopt different ontologies. Thus, merely using ontologies, like using XML, does not reduce heterogeneity: it just raises heterogeneity problems to a higher level. Euzenat and Shvaiko's book is devoted to ontology matching as a solution to the semantic heterogeneity problem faced by computer systems. Ontology matching aims at finding correspondences between semantically related entities of different ontologies. These correspondences may stand for equivalence as well as other relations, such as consequence, subsumption, or disjointness, between ontology entities. Many different matching solutions have been proposed so far from various viewpoints, e. g. , databases, information systems, and artificial intelligence. The second edition of Ontology Matching has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the most recent advances in this quickly developing area, which resulted in more than 150 pages of new content. In particular, the book includes a new chapter dedicated to the methodology for performing ontology matching. It also covers emerging topics, such as data interlinking, ontology partitioning and pruning, context-based matching, matcher tuning, alignment debugging, and user involvement in matching, to mention a few. More than 100 state-of-the-art matching systems and frameworks were reviewed. With Ontology Matching, researchers and practitioners will find a reference book that presents currently available work in a uniform framework. In particular, the work and the techniques presented in this book can be equally applied to database schema matching, catalog integration, XML schema matching and other related problems. The objectives of the book include presenting (i) the state of the art and (ii) the latest research results in ontology matching by providing a systematic and detailed account of matching techniques and matching systems from theoretical, practical and application perspectives.
Healthcare Management
by Volker Eric AmelungWithin the international discussion on the structure of healthcare systems, managed care is an increasingly important topic. Over more than twenty years managed care approaches have fundamentally influenced healthcare systems in terms of patient orientation, efficiency, and quality. Experts assume that up to 20% of healthcare expenses can be saved by applying high-quality managed care approaches. By using suitable organisational forms and management principles, not only can costs be reduced, but the quality of medical service provision can be augmented. Managed care is therefore much more than a cost-cutting strategy. The goal of this book is to offer a systematic overview of the organisational forms and management instruments implemented in managed care. Advocates consider managed care to be a logical and necessary developmental step in modern healthcare systems. An increase in quality and at the same time a reduction of costs is not seen as contradictory but rather as consistent. Therefore, managed care is a response to changed challenges in the provision of healthcare.
Healthcare Management: Managed Care Organisations and Instruments (Springer Texts in Business and Economics)
by Volker Eric AmelungWithin the international discussion on the structure of healthcare systems, managed care is an increasingly important topic. Over more than twenty years managed care approaches have fundamentally influenced healthcare systems in terms of patient orientation, efficiency, and quality. Experts assume that up to 20% of healthcare expenses can be saved by applying high-quality managed care approaches. By using suitable organisational forms and management principles, not only can costs be reduced, but the quality of medical service provision can be augmented. Managed care is therefore much more than a cost-cutting strategy. The goal of this book is to offer a systematic overview of the organisational forms and management instruments implemented in managed care. Advocates consider managed care to be a logical and necessary developmental step in modern healthcare systems. An increase in quality and at the same time a reduction of costs is not seen as contradictory but rather as consistent. Therefore, managed care is a response to changed challenges in the provision of healthcare.
Mindful Change in Times of Permanent Reorganization
by Guido BeckeSince the 1990ies, organizations from different sectors have been operating in increasingly dynamic socio-economic environments characterized by unexpected events and instability. Organizations tend to adjust to dynamic environments by change initiatives promoting permanent reorganization. Such change initiatives often induce unintended effects, e. g. an erosion of trust, the violation of 'psychological contracts' in employees' eyes or a decrease in organizational effectiveness. This book explores and analyzes whether such unintended effects can be anticipated or constructively dealt with by mindful change. The latter refers to the concept of organizational mindfulness that originally is linked to risk and safety research, e. g. in respect to 'High Reliability Organizations'. In this book, organizational mindfulness is re-conceptualized addressing organizational change in the perspective of organizational sustainability. Moreover, it is explored how institutions foster or restrict organizations' capability of organizational mindfulness in change processes.
Laura Bassi and Science in 18th Century Europe: The Extraordinary Life and Role of Italy's Pioneering Female Professor
by Monique FrizeThis book presents the extraordinary story of a Bolognese woman of the settecento. Laura Maria Caterina Bassi (1711-1778) defended 49 Theses at the University of Bologna on April 17, 1732 and was awarded a doctoral degree on May 12 of the same year. Three weeks before her defense, she was made a member of the Academy of Sciences in Bologna. On June 27 she defended 12 additional Theses. Several of the 61 Theses were on physics and other science topics. Laura was drawn by the philosophy of Newton at a time when most scientists in Europe were still focused on Descartes and Galen. This last set of Theses was to encourage the University of Bologna to provide a lectureship to Laura, which they did on October 29, 1732. Although quite famous in her day, Laura Bassi is unfortunately not remembered much today. This book presents Bassi within the context of the century when she lived and worked, an era where no women could attend university anywhere in the world, and even less become a professor or a member of an academy. Laura was appointed to the Chair of experimental physics in 1776 until her death. Her story is an amazing one. Laura was a mother, a wife and a good scientist for over 30 years. She made the transition from the old science to the new very early on in her career. Her work was centered on real problems that the City of Bologna needed to solve. It was an exciting time of discovery and she was at the edge of it all the way.
Benchmarking Peer-to-Peer Systems: Understanding Quality of Service in Large-Scale Distributed Systems (Lecture Notes in Computer Science #7847)
by Wolfgang Effelsberg Thorsten Strufe Ralf SteinmetzPeer-to-peer systems are now widely used and have become the focus of attention for many researchers over the past decade. A number of algorithms for decentralized search, content distribution, and media streaming have been developed. This book provides fundamental concepts for the benchmarking of those algorithms in peer-to-peer systems. It also contains a collection of characteristic benchmarking results. The chapters of the book have been organized in three topical sections on: Fundamentals of Benchmarking in P2P Systems; Synthetic Benchmarks for Peer-to-Peer Systems; and Application Benchmarks for Peer-to-Peer Systems. They are preceded by a detailed introduction to the subject.
Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation
by Walter Leal FilhoThe Handbook of Climate Change Adaptation addresses the scientific, social, political and cultural aspects of climate change in an integrated and coherent way. The multi-volume reference focuses on one of the key aspects of climate change: adaptation and how to handle its impacts on physical, biotic and human systems, analyzing the social and normative scientific concerns and presenting the tools, approaches and methods aimed at management of climate change impacts. The high-quality, interdisciplinary contributions provides state-of-the-art descriptions of the topics at hand with the collective aim of offering, for a broad readership, an authoritative, balanced and accessible presentation of the best current understanding of the nature and challenges posed by climate change. It serves not only as a valuable information source but also as a tool to support teaching and research and as help for professionals to assist in decision-making.
Fuzzy Information & Engineering and Operations Research & Management
by Bing-Yuan Cao Hadi NasseriFuzzy Information & Engineering and Operations Research & Management is the monograph from submissions by the 6th International Conference on Fuzzy Information and Engineering (ICFIE2012, Iran) and by the 6th academic conference from Fuzzy Information Engineering Branch of Operation Research Society of China (FIEBORSC2012, Shenzhen,China). It is published by Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing (AISC). We have received more than 300 submissions. Each paper of it has undergone a rigorous review process. Only high-quality papers are included in it containing papers as follows: I Programming and Optimization. II Lattice and Measures. III Algebras and Equation. IV Forecasting, Clustering and Recognition. V Systems and Algorithm. VI Graph and Network. VII Others.
Pharmacotherapy of Pulmonary Hypertension
by Marc Humbert Oleg V. Evgenov Johannes-Peter StaschThis volume focuses on current evidence-based pharmacological treatments of various forms of pulmonary hypertension and provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in this area. The first part of the book covers the definition, classification, pathophysiology, pathology, biomarkers and animal models of the disease, thus laying the conceptual basis for what follows. The middle section provides an overview of the established therapies, such as calcium channel blockers, prostanoids, endothelin receptor antagonists, phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors and inhaled nitric oxide. The last section explores novel pathways and emerging therapeutic approaches including soluble guanylate cyclase stimulators, Rho-kinase inhibitors, inhibitors of serotonin receptors and transporters, peptide growth factors, vasoactive peptides, modulators of redox equilibrium and cyclic nucleotide homeostasis, as well as immunosuppressive and anti-proliferative agents. Particular attention is given to the clinical applications of these experimental therapies, that are on the horizon. The book thus spans the continuum from basic science to clinical applications.
Pharmacotherapy of Pulmonary Hypertension (Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology #218)
by Marc Humbert, Oleg V. Evgenov and Johannes-Peter StaschThis volume focuses on current evidence-based pharmacological treatments of various forms of pulmonary hypertension and provides a comprehensive review of the latest developments in this area. The first part of the book covers the definition, classification, pathophysiology, pathology, biomarkers and animal models of the disease, thus laying the conceptual basis for what follows. The middle section provides an overview of the established therapies, such as calcium channel blockers, prostanoids, endothelin receptor antagonists, phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors and inhaled nitric oxide. The last section explores novel pathways and emerging therapeutic approaches including soluble guanylate cyclase stimulators, Rho-kinase inhibitors, inhibitors of serotonin receptors and transporters, peptide growth factors, vasoactive peptides, modulators of redox equilibrium and cyclic nucleotide homeostasis, as well as immunosuppressive and anti-proliferative agents. Particular attention is given to the clinical applications of these experimental therapies, that are on the horizon. The book thus spans the continuum from basic science to clinical applications.
Particle Physics
by Anwar KamalThis textbook teaches particle physics very didactically. It supports learning and teaching with numerous worked examples, questions and problems with answers. Numerous tables and diagrams lead to a better understanding of the explanations. The content of the book covers all important topics of particle physics: Elementary particles are classified from the point of view of the four fundamental interactions. The nomenclature used in particle physics is explained. The discoveries and properties of known elementary particles and resonances are given. The particles considered are positrons, muon, pions, anti-protons, strange particles, neutrino and hadrons. The conservation laws governing the interactions of elementary particles are given. The concepts of parity, spin, charge conjugation, time reversal and gauge invariance are explained. The quark theory is introduced to explain the hadron structure and strong interactions. The solar neutrino problem is considered. Weak interactions are classified into various types, and the selection rules are stated. Non-conservation of parity and the universality of the weak interactions are discussed. Neutral and charged currents, discovery of W and Z bosons and the early universe form important topics of the electroweak interactions. The principles of high energy accelerators including colliders are elaborately explained. Additionally, in the book detectors used in nuclear and particle physics are described. This book is on the upper undergraduate level.
Nuclear Physics
by Anwar KamalThis textbook explains the experimental basics, effects and theory of nuclear physics. It supports learning and teaching with numerous worked examples, questions and problems with answers. Numerous tables and diagrams help to better understand the explanations. A better feeling to the subject of the book is given with sketches about the historical development of nuclear physics. The main topics of this book include the phenomena associated with passage of charged particles and radiation through matter which are related to nuclear resonance fluorescence and the Moessbauer effect. , Gamov's theory of alpha decay, Fermi theory of beta decay, electron capture and gamma decay. The discussion of general properties of nuclei covers nuclear sizes and nuclear force, nuclear spin, magnetic dipole moment and electric quadrupole moment. Nuclear instability against various modes of decay and Yukawa theory are explained. Nuclear models such as Fermi Gas Model, Shell Model, Liquid Drop Model, Collective Model and Optical Model are outlined to explain various experimental facts related to nuclear structure. Heavy ion reactions, including nuclear fusion, are explained. Nuclear fission and fusion power production is treated elaborately.
Handbook of Polymernanocomposites. Processing, Performance and Application
by Jitendra K. Pandey Kummetha Raghunatha Reddy Amar Kumar Mohanty Manjusri MisraVolume A of Handbook of Polymer Nanocomposites deals with Layered Silicates. In some 20 chapters the preparation, architecture, characterisation, properties and application of polymer nanocomposites are discussed by experts in their respective fields
Introduction to Scientific Publishing: Backgrounds, Concepts, Strategies
by Andreas ÖchsnerThis book is a very concise introduction to the basic knowledge of scientific publishing. It starts with the basics of writing a scientific paper, and recalls the different types of scientific documents. In gives an overview on the major scientific publishing companies and different business models. The book also introduces to abstracting and indexing services and how they can be used for the evaluation of science, scientists, and institutions. Last but not least, this short book faces the problem of plagiarism and publication ethics.
Rare Diseases in the Age of Health 2.0
by Michael Christopher Gibbons Lodewijk Bos Rajeev K. Bali Simon IbellThis text focuses on various factors associated with orphan diseases and the influence and role of health information technologies. Orphan diseases have not been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry because they provide little financial incentive to treat or prevent it. It is estimated that 6,000-7,000 orphan diseases exist today; as medical knowledge continues to expand, this number is likely to become much greater. The book highlights the opportunities and challenges in this increasingly important area. The book explores new avenues which are opened by information technologies and Health 2. 0, and highlights also economic opportunities of orphan disease medicine. The editors of this new book have international experience and competencies in the key areas of patient empowerment, healthcare and clinical knowledge management, healthcare inequalities and disparities, rare diseases and patient advocacy.
Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering
by Awais Rashid João Araújo Ana Moreira Ruzanna ChitchyanBroadly-scoped requirements such as security, privacy, and response time are a major source of complexity in modern software systems. This is due to their tangled inter-relationships with and effects on other requirements. Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering (AORE) aims to facilitate modularisation of such broadly-scoped requirements, so that software developers are able to reason about them in isolation - one at a time. AORE also captures these inter-relationships and effects in well-defined composition specifications, and, in so doing exposes the causes for potential conflicts, trade-offs, and roots for the key early architectural decisions. Over the last decade, significant work has been carried out in the field of AORE. With this book the editors aim to provide a consolidated overview of these efforts and results. The individual contributions discuss how aspects can be identified, represented, composed and reasoned about, as well as how they are used in specific domains and in industry. Thus, the book does not present one particular AORE approach, but conveys a broad understanding of the aspect-oriented perspective on requirements engineering. The chapters are organized into five sections: concern identification in requirements, concern modelling and composition, domain-specific use of AORE, aspect interactions, and AORE in industry. This book provides readers with the most comprehensive coverage of AORE and the capabilities it offers to those grappling with the complexity arising from broadly-scoped requirements - a phenomenon that is, without doubt, universal across software systems. Software engineers and related professionals in industry, as well as advanced undergraduate and post-graduate students and researchers, will benefit from these comprehensive descriptions and the industrial case studies.
Structures and Interactions of Ionic Liquids
by Qing Zhou Suojiang Zhang Jianji Wang Xingmei LuStructures, Bonding and Hydrogen Bonds, by Kun Dong, Qian Wang, Xingmei Lu, Suojiang Zhang Aggregation in System of Ionic Liquids, by Jianji Wang, Huiyong Wang Dissolution of Biomass Using Ionic Liquids, by Hui Wang, Gabriela Gurau, Robin D. Rogers Effect of the Structures of Ionic Liquids on Their Physical-Chemical Properties, by Yu-Feng Hu, Xiao-Ming Peng Microstructure study of Ionic liquids by spectroscopy, by Haoran Li Structures and Thermodynamic Properties of Ionic Liquids, by Tiancheng Mu, Buxing Han
The Turkmen Lake Altyn Asyr and Water Resources in Turkmenistan
by Andrey G. Kostianoy Igor S. ZonnThis book offers a concise description of the environment and water resources in Turkmenistan. The focus is on the water bodies of Turkmenistan - the Caspian Sea, Kara-Bogaz-Gol Bay, Sarykamysh Lake, Amu Darya River, and the Karakum Canal. Respected experts from six different countries cover the landscape-geographical features, the Karakum Desert, biodiversity (especially of birds and fishes) and ecosystems, as well as regional climate change. Special attention is paid to the Altyn Asyr Lake water reclamation project, to the morphometric characteristics of the Karashor Depression, and to the four-year-long satellite monitoring of the construction area in the vicinity of the Karashor Depression. The information presented is based on observational data and scientific literature, mainly published in Russian. This is the first English book on the Altyn Asyr Project. It addresses specialists working in various fields of environmental problems and ecology, water resources and management, land reclamation and agriculture, regional climate change, and international cooperation in the water sector in Turkmenistan and Central Asia.
Risk-Informed Management of European River Basins
by Werner Brack Philippe Négrel Dietmar Müller Jos Brils Jan E. VermaatThe growing impacts of economic activities and climate change on the conditions of rivers throughout the world, require a new, integrated approach towards river basin management, an approach that can also cope with an uncertain future. In this volume, leading European scientists and representatives of major stakeholder groups present risk-informed management as this new approach, as developed in the European Commission-funded project RISKBASE. It aims to improve the ecological quality of river basins and thus to sustain the goods and services they provide for the benefit of society. Risk-informed management involves the integrated application of three key-principles: · Being well informed · Managing adaptively · Pursuing a participatory approach The authors explain and underpin these principles in detail, offer inspiring examples from practice and connect them to the implementation of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD). This book is intended for scientists, consultants and practitioners concerned about river basins, world-wide, as well as the drafters and implementers of the WFD River Basin Management Plans.
Arctic Marine Governance: Opportunities for Transatlantic Cooperation
by Elizabeth Tedsen Sandra Cavalieri R. Andreas KraemerThe Arctic region plays an important role in regulating the world's climate and is also highly impacted by climate change, with average temperatures rising almost twice as fast as the rest of the world and sea ice melting much faster than previously predicted. These rapid changes will have significant impacts on human activity in the region and on the Arctic marine environment. This book draws on the results of the 2008-2009 Arctic TRANSFORM project, funded by the European Commission's Directorate General of External Relations, which engaged experts in a transatlantic discussion on the roles of the European Union and United States in light of the Arctic's changing climate and political and legal complexities. . The book addresses the significant changes and developments in the marine Arctic, with descriptions and recommendations reflecting the current governance environment. A comprehensive overview of environmental governance and sustainable development in the Arctic is created. Chapters explore impacts and activities by sector, looking at fisheries, shipping, and offshore hydrocarbon in the Arctic, and at policy options and strategies for improving marine governance in the region. A particular focus is given to the roles of the European Union and United States and opportunities for cooperation to enhance Arctic environmental governance. .