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Adaptive, tolerant and efficient composite structures: Adaptive, Tolerant And Efficient Composite Structures (Research Topics in Aerospace)
by Martin Wiedemann Michael SinapiusComposite structures are most efficient in performance and production cost when combined with smart materials making them adaptable to changing operational conditions. The specific production processes of composites offer the possibility to integrate more functions thus making the structure more valuable. Active functions can be realized by smart materials, e.g. morphing, active vibration control, active structure acoustic control or structure health monitoring. The foundation is a sound understanding of materials, design methods, design principles, production technologies and adaptronics. Along the complete process chain this disciplines together deliver advanced lightweight solutions for applications ranging from mechanical engineering to vehicles, airframe and finally space structures. This book provides the scientific foundations as well as inspiring new ideas for engineers working in the field of composite lightweight structures.
China Satellite Navigation Conference: The 3rd China Satellite Navigation Conference (csnc): Guangzhou, China, May 15-19, 2012: Revised Selected Papers (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #159)
by Jiadong Sun Jingnan Liu Shiwei Fan Yuanxi YangProceedings of the 3rd China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC2012) presents selected research papers from CSNC2012, held on 15-19 May in Guanzhou, China. These papers discuss the technologies and applications of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the latest progress made in the China BeiDou system especially. They are divided into 9 topics to match the corresponding sessions in CSNC2012, which broadly covered key topics in GNSS. Readers can learn about the BeiDou system and keep abreast of the latest advances in GNSS techniques and applications. SUN Jiadong is the Chief Designer of the Compass/BeiDou system, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences; LIU Jingnan is a professor at Wuhan University, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering; YANG Yuanxi is a professor at China National Administration of GNSS and Applications, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences; FAN Shiwei is a researcher on satellite navigation.
Globalization of Professional Services: Innovative Strategies, Successful Processes, Inspired Talent Management, and First-Hand Experiences
by Ulrich Bäumer Peter Kreutter Wolfgang MessnerIn the past, services had a strong local and national focus. Professional services were very likely to be independently and autonomously organized from country to country in order to cater to local needs and local legal requirements. This has since changed radically, and highly integrated business and delivery models around the globe have become the status quo in clients' businesses and strategies. Serving clients on a global level requires professional services firms to adopt a structural change from local to distributed global sales and delivery. This book brings together many years of experience, current perspectives and future ideas of international business practitioners, academics, and market researchers. Along those lines it is structured into four parts. Part I "Winning Strategies and Innovative Ideas" lays the book's foundation: it discusses core strategies behind the globalization movement and introduces the major paradigms and ideas. Part II "Successful Processes for Realization" provides solutions for how to establish successful processes for delivering global professional services. Part III "Inspired Talent Management" goes to the core of the professional services industry: attracting, developing, and keeping the right talent in the right locations. Finally, Part IV offers "Experiences and Case Studies" on all aspects related to successfully building a globalized professional services firm. In short, this handbook provides professional services firms and their clients alike with a sound foundation for responding strategically to fundamental global changes and turning them into business advantages. It offers a comprehensive perspective of why and how to successfully globalize a professional services firm.
China Satellite Navigation Conference: The 3rd China Satellite Navigation Conference (csnc): Guangzhou, China, May 15-19, 2012: Revised Selected Papers (Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering #160)
by Jiadong Sun Jingnan Liu Shiwei Fan Yuanxi YangProceedings of the 3rd China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC2012) presents selected research papers from CSNC2012, held on 15-19 May in Guanzhou, China. These papers discuss the technologies and applications of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the latest progress made in the China BeiDou system especially. They are divided into 9 topics to match the corresponding sessions in CSNC2012, which broadly covered key topics in GNSS. Readers can learn about the BeiDou system and keep abreast of the latest advances in GNSS techniques and applications. SUN Jiadong is the Chief Designer of the Compass/BeiDou system, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences; LIU Jingnan is a professor at Wuhan University, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering; YANG Yuanxi is a professor at China National Administration of GNSS and Applications, and the Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences; FAN Shiwei is a researcher on satellite navigation.
Advances in Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics (Springer Atmospheric Sciences)
by Costas G. Helmis Panagiotis T. NastosThis book essentially comprises the proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Meteorology, Climatology and Atmospheric Physics (COMECAP 2012) that is held in Athens from 30 May to 1 June 2012. The Conference addresses researchers, professionals and students interested in the following topics: Agricultural Meteorology and Climatology, Air Quality, Applied Meteorology and Climatology, Applications of Meteorology in the Energy Sector, Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry, Atmospheric Radiation, Atmospheric Boundary Layer, Biometeorology and Bioclimatology, Climate Dynamics, Climatic Changes, Cloud Physics, Dynamic and Synoptic Μeteorology, Extreme Events, Hydrology and Hydrometeorology, Mesoscale Meteorology, Micrometeorology/Urban Microclimate, Remote Sensing/ Satellite Meteorology and Climatology, Weather Analysis and Forecasting. The book includes all papers that have been accepted for presentation at the conference.
Sales Excellence
by Christian Homburg Heiko Schäfer Janna SchneiderThis book presents a very novel and strategic approach to Sales Management, an area that has suffered from a lack of sophistication in practice. This content-rich and thought-provoking book has a very unique positioning: It considers the sales performance of an organization at a very high, strategic level and offers specific guidance in managing not just a few direct reports but an entire organization?s sales function. The book includes many useful tools and guidelines and is enhanced with numerous examples that help bring the concepts to life and make them very approachable for the trade market. A checklist-based scoring system that is utilized throughout the book allows readers to specifically evaluate their own company as well as to track its progress as concepts are applied over time. This work is an essential resource and thought-provoking read for ambitious Sales Managers, including CEO-level executives.
Coating Substrates and Textiles: A Practical Guide to Coating and Laminating Technologies
by Andreas GiessmannThis book provides knowledge on the finishing of substrates with a functionalising coating, emphasizing on technical textiles. The spectrum of topics covers different substrates and coating materials, process engineering and equipment components as well as complex machinery. The reader is presented with an overview of the technical capabilities of substrate coating, enabling the practitioner to design and implement new products. Furthermore the author goes into detail on various air pollution control procedures and economic issues of asset valuation.
Random Regret-based Discrete Choice Modeling: A Tutorial
by Caspar G. ChorusThis tutorial presents a hands-on introduction to a new discrete choice modeling approach based on the behavioral notion of regret-minimization. This so-called Random Regret Minimization-approach (RRM) forms a counterpart of the Random Utility Maximization-approach (RUM) to discrete choice modeling, which has for decades dominated the field of choice modeling and adjacent fields such as transportation, marketing and environmental economics. Being as parsimonious as conventional RUM-models and compatible with popular software packages, the RRM-approach provides an alternative and appealing account of choice behavior. Rather than providing highly technical discussions as usually encountered in scholarly journals, this tutorial aims to allow readers to explore the RRM-approach and its potential and limitations hands-on and based on a detailed discussion of examples. This tutorial is written for students, scholars and practitioners who have a basic background in choice modeling in general and RUM-modeling in particular. It has been taken care of that all concepts and results should be clear to readers that do not have an advanced knowledge of econometrics.
Protocol Engineering
by Hartmut KönigCommunication protocols form the operational basis of computer networks and telecommunication systems. They are behavior conventions that describe how communication systems interact with each other, defining the temporal order of the interactions and the formats of the data units exchanged - essentially they determine the efficiency and reliability of computer networks. Protocol Engineering is an important discipline covering the design, validation, and implementation of communication protocols. Part I of this book is devoted to the fundamentals of communication protocols, describing their working principles and implicitly also those of computer networks. The author introduces the concepts of service, protocol, layer, and layered architecture, and introduces the main elements required in the description of protocols using a model language. He then presents the most important protocol functions. Part II deals with the description of communication protocols, offering an overview of the various formal methods, the essence of Protocol Engineering. The author introduces the fundamental description methods, such as finite state machines, Petri nets, process calculi, and temporal logics, that are in part used as semantic models for formal description techniques. He then introduces one representative technique for each of the main description approaches, among others SDL and LOTOS, and surveys the use of UML for describing protocols. Part III covers the protocol life cycle and the most important development stages, presenting the reader with approaches for systematic protocol design, with various verification methods, with the main implementation techniques, and with strategies for their testing, in particular with conformance and interoperability tests, and the test description language TTCN. The author uses the simple data transfer example protocol XDT (eXample Data Transfer) throughout the book as a reference protocol to exemplify the various description techniques and to demonstrate important validation and implementation approaches. The book is an introduction to communication protocols and their development for undergraduate and graduate students of computer science and communication technology, and it is also a suitable reference for engineers and programmers. Most chapters contain exercises, and the author's accompanying website provides further online material including a complete formal description of the XDT protocol and an animated simulation visualizing its behavior.
Eating Disorders and the Skin
by Renata StrumiaAt least 40 skin signs are associated with eating disorders (EDs), and some of them are considered guiding signs because they are indicative of an otherwise hidden ED. The role of the dermatologist in this context is to suspect the presence of a hidden ED based on these guiding signs. With this in mind, the most important specialists in the field come together in this book to document all of the dermatological aspects of EDs. General topics such as classification of EDs, epidemiology, and medical complications are first addressed, and skin signs attributable to various causes are then discussed in a series of detailed chapters. Characteristic changes in the hair, nails, and oral cavity are also carefully documented, and the closing chapters address various other related issues of interest. "Eating Disorders and the Skin" will be an invaluable source of up-to-date information for both novice and experienced dermatologists, as well as other practitioners, psychiatrists, and nurses.
Lehrbuch der ökonomischen Analyse des Zivilrechts
by Hans-Bernd Schäfer Claus OttDie Grundlagen der ökonomischen Analyse des Zivilrechts werden in diesem Buch anschaulich erörtert. Die Autoren des einzigen deutschen Lehrbuchs zu diesem Thema berücksichtigen dabei das Delikts-, Vertrags- und Sachenrecht, das Immaterialgüterrecht sowie das Insolvenzrecht und Grundzüge des Unternehmensrechts. Ein neuer Schwerpunkt der umfassend aktualisierten 5. Auflage ist der Einfluss der verhaltensökonomischen Forschung auf diese Analyse. Zudem werden die Europäisierung des Rechts und die internationale Konkurrenz von Rechtsnormen einbezogen.
Plant Electrophysiology
by Alexander G. VolkovThis book compiles new findings from the work of internationally renowned experts in plant electrophysiology, biophysics, bioelectrochemistry, ion channels, membrane transport, imaging of water transport, photosynthesis, mechanosensors, osmotic motors, sensing and actuation in plants. First volume covers modern methods in plant electrophysiology and cell electrophysiology. Second volume deals with signal transduction and responses in plants.
Progress of Geo-Disaster Mitigation Technology in Asia
by Tonglu Li Fawu Wang Wei Shan Masakatsu Miyajima Teuku Faisal FathaniThis book includes the recent 10-year achievement of geo-disaster mitigation by leading Asian scientists from Japan, China, Indonesia, Korea, Iran and Far East of Russia. Case studies on recent occurred geo-disasters in Asian region have been presented. The forming mechanics of hazards such as earthquake and landslide are deeply discussed, and the disaster mitigation technology for building and pipeline safety, landslide hazard assessment and risk management are introduced.
Arid Lands Water Evaluation and Management (Environmental Science and Engineering)
by Robert Maliva Thomas MissimerA large part of the global population lives in arid lands which have low rainfall and often lack the water required for sustainable population and economic growth. This book presents a comprehensive description of the hydrogeology and hydrologic processes at work in arid lands. It describes the techniques that can be used to assess and manage the water resources of these areas with an emphasis on groundwater resources, including recent advances in hydrologic evaluation and the differences between how aquifer systems behave in arid lands versus more humid areas. Water management techniques are described and summarized to show how a more comprehensive approach to water management is required in these areas, including the need to be aware of cultural sensitivities and conditions unique to many arid regions. The integration of existing resources with the addition of new water sources, such as desalination of brackish water and seawater, along with reusing treated wastewater, will be required to meet future water supply needs. Also, changing climatic conditions will force water management systems to be more robust so that future water supply demands can be met as droughts become more intense and rainfall events become more intense. A range of water management techniques are described and discussed in order to illustrate the methods for integrating these measures within the context of arid lands conditions.
Freezing of Lakes and the Evolution of their Ice Cover
by Matti LeppärantaA large number of boreal lakes are ice-covered in winter. However, research and literature of these lakes concerns by far only the open water season. In particular, no textbook on physics of ice-covered lakes exists, and now it would be a proper time to prepare such. Winter limnology has become an increasing active field of research recently. A series of winter limnology symposia was started in 2008 in Finland with nearly 100 participants. The second symposium was held in Berlin in 2010 and the third one is coming in 2012 in Norway. Winter limnologists need strongly a textbook on lake ice physics since the ice acts as their boundary condition.
Novelty, Information and Surprise
by Günther PalmThe book offers a new approach to information theory that is more general then the classical approach by Shannon. The classical definition of information is given for an alphabet of symbols or for a set of mutually exclusive propositions (a partition of the probability space Ω) with corresponding probabilities adding up to 1. The new definition is given for an arbitrary cover of Ω, i.e. for a set of possibly overlapping propositions. The generalized information concept is called novelty and it is accompanied by two new concepts derived from it, designated as information and surprise, which describe "opposite" versions of novelty, information being related more to classical information theory and surprise being related more to the classical concept of statistical significance. In the discussion of these three concepts and their interrelations several properties or classes of covers are defined, which turn out to be lattices. The book also presents applications of these new concepts, mostly in statistics and in neuroscience.
Montage in der industriellen Produktion
by Hans-Peter Wiendahl Bruno LotterStarker Kostendruck, schnelle Produktwechsel sowie ein kurzer Planungshorizont kennzeichnen die industrielle Montage. Die Rationalisierung der Abläufe ist ebenso wichtig wie eine hochflexible Technik und qualifiziertes Personal. Die zweite Auflage des Handbuchs vermittelt die Grundlagen der industriellen Montage von Unternehmen der Elektro- und Feinwerktechnik, des Maschinenbaus und der Automobilzulieferindustrie. Neben genauer Beschreibung der Planung, der Betriebsmittel und des Betriebs wird die praktische Umsetzung durch Beispiele erläutert.
Comparative Physiology of Fasting, Starvation, and Food Limitation
by Marshall D. MccueAll animals face the possibility of food limitation and ultimately starvation-induced mortality. This book summarizes state of the art of starvation biology from the ecological causes of food limitation to the physiological and evolutionary consequences of prolonged fasting. It is written for an audience with an understanding of general principles in animal physiology, yet offers a level of analysis and interpretation that will engage seasoned scientists. Each chapter is written by active researchers in the field of comparative physiology and draws on the primary literature of starvation both in nature and the laboratory. The chapters are organized among broad taxonomic categories, such as protists, arthropods, fishes, reptiles, birds, and flying, aquatic, and terrestrial mammals including humans; particularly well-studied animal models, e.g. endotherms are further organized by experimental approaches, such as analyses of blood metabolites, stable isotopes, thermobiology, and modeling of body composition.
Mathematical Modeling in Mechanics of Granular Materials
by Holm Altenbach Oxana Sadovskaya Vladimir SadovskiiThis monograph contains original results in the field of mathematical and numerical modeling of mechanical behavior of granular materials and materials with different strengths. It proposes new models helping to define zones of the strain localization. The book shows how to analyze processes of the propagation of elastic and elastic-plastic waves in loosened materials, and constructs models of mixed type, describing the flow of granular materials in the presence of quasi-static deformation zones. In a last part, the book studies a numerical realization of the models on multiprocessor computer systems. The book is intended for scientific researchers, lecturers of universities, post-graduates and senior students, who specialize in the field of the deformable materials mechanics, mathematical modeling and adjacent fields of applied and calculus mathematics.
Experimentation in Software Engineering
by Per Runeson Martin Höst Björn Regnell Anders Wesslén Claes Wohlin Magnus C. OhlssonLike other sciences and engineering disciplines, software engineering requires a cycle of model building, experimentation, and learning. Experiments are valuable tools for all software engineers who are involved in evaluating and choosing between different methods, techniques, languages and tools. The purpose of Experimentation in Software Engineering is to introduce students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners to empirical studies in software engineering, using controlled experiments. The introduction to experimentation is provided through a process perspective, and the focus is on the steps that we have to go through to perform an experiment. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a background of theories and methods used in experimentation. Part II then devotes one chapter to each of the five experiment steps: scoping, planning, execution, analysis, and result presentation. Part III completes the presentation with two examples. Assignments and statistical material are provided in appendixes. Overall the book provides indispensable information regarding empirical studies in particular for experiments, but also for case studies, systematic literature reviews, and surveys. It is a revision of the authors' book, which was published in 2000. In addition, substantial new material, e.g. concerning systematic literature reviews and case study research, is introduced. The book is self-contained and it is suitable as a course book in undergraduate or graduate studies where the need for empirical studies in software engineering is stressed. Exercises and assignments are included to combine the more theoretical material with practical aspects. Researchers will also benefit from the book, learning more about how to conduct empirical studies, and likewise practitioners may use it as a "cookbook" when evaluating new methods or techniques before implementing them in their organization.
Resilience Assessment and Evaluation of Computing Systems
by Katinka Wolter Aad Van Moorsel Alberto Avritzer Marco VieiraThe resilience of computing systems includes their dependability as well as their fault tolerance and security. It defines the ability of a computing system to perform properly in the presence of various kinds of disturbances and to recover from any service degradation. These properties are immensely important in a world where many aspects of our daily life depend on the correct, reliable and secure operation of often large-scale distributed computing systems. Wolter and her co-editors grouped the 20 chapters from leading researchers into seven parts: an introduction and motivating examples, modeling techniques, model-driven prediction, measurement and metrics, testing techniques, case studies, and conclusions. The core is formed by 12 technical papers, which are framed by motivating real-world examples and case studies, thus illustrating the necessity and the application of the presented methods. While the technical chapters are independent of each other and can be read in any order, the reader will benefit more from the case studies if he or she reads them together with the related techniques. The papers combine topics like modeling, benchmarking, testing, performance evaluation, and dependability, and aim at academic and industrial researchers in these areas as well as graduate students and lecturers in related fields. In this volume, they will find a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in a field of continuously growing practical importance.
Animals in Traditional Folk Medicine: Implications for Conservation
by Ierecê Lucena Rosa Rômulo Romeu AlvesPeople have relied on medicinal products derived from natural sources for millennia, and animals have long been an important part of that repertoire; nearly all cultures, from ancient times to the present, have used animals as a source of medicine. Ingredients derived from wild animals are not only widely used in traditional remedies, but are also increasingly valued as raw materials in the preparation of modern medicines. Regrettably, the unsustainable use of plants and animals in traditional medicine is recognized as a threat to wildlife conservation, as a result of which discussions concerning the links between traditional medicine and biodiversity are becoming increasingly imperative, particularly in view of the fact that folk medicine is the primary source of health care for 80% of the world's population. This book discusses the role of animals in traditional folk medicine and its meaning for wildlife conservation. We hope to further stimulate further discussions about the use of biodiversity and its implications for wildlife conservation strategies.
Passerine Migration
by Nikita ChernetsovMost birds cannot cover the distance between their breeding and winter quarters in one hop. They have to make multiple flights alternated with stopovers. Which factors govern the birds' decisions to stop, to stop for how long, when to resume flight? What is better - to accumulate much fuel and to make long flights for many hundreds of kilometres, or to travel in small steps? Is it necessary to find habitats similar to the breeding ones or other habitats would do? Are long migratory flights indeed so costly energetically as usually assumed? This monograph summarizes our current knowledge on the ecology of songbird migrants during migratory stopovers and on their behaviour.
Male Genital Lesions
by Homero Gustavo Campos Guidi Alberto Rosenblatt Walter Belda Jr.With the increased incidence of HPV-related genital diseases, including premalignant and malignant penile lesions, urologists and practitioners in general face numerous difficult challenges when attempting to diagnose genital lesions correctly. Despite the importance of genital lesions in the male, there are few books on the subject in the English medical literature. Male Genital Lesions will serve as an invaluable aid to the differential diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections, benign dermatological genital lesions, and premalignant and malignant genital disorders. More than 700 high-definition full-color figures of common disease presentations are included, with legends describing real clinical cases. The illustrations are supported by a concise, up-to-date text that describes etiology, pathology, clinical manifestations, laboratory tests, and treatment options for the individual diseases.
Soft Tissue Biomechanical Modeling for Computer Assisted Surgery
by Yohan PayanThis volume focuses on the biomechanical modeling of biological tissues in the context of Computer Assisted Surgery (CAS). More specifically, deformable soft tissues are addressed since they are the subject of the most recent developments in this field. The pioneering works on this CAS topic date from the 1980's, with applications in orthopaedics and biomechanical models of bones. More recently, however, biomechanical models of soft tissues have been proposed since most of the human body is made of soft organs that can be deformed by the surgical gesture. Such models are much more complicated to handle since the tissues can be subject to large deformations (non-linear geometrical framework) as well as complex stress/strain relationships (non-linear mechanical framework). Part 1 of the volume presents biomechanical models that have been developed in a CAS context and used during surgery. This is particularly new since most of the soft tissues models already proposed concern Computer Assisted Planning, with a pre-operative use of the models. Then, the volume addresses the two key issues raised for an intra-operative use of soft tissues models, namely (Part 2) "how to estimate the in vivo mechanical behavior of the tissues?" (i.e. what are the values of the mechanical parameters that can deliver realistic patient-specific behavior?) and (Part 3) "how to build a modeling platform that provides generic real-time (or at least interactive-time) numerical simulations?"