- Table View
- List View
Dupuytren’s Disease and Related Hyperproliferative Disorders
by M. Heinrich Seegenschmiedt Ardeshir Bayat Charles Eaton Giulio Gabbiani Paul Werker Wolfgang WachThis book is based on results of the 2010 International Symposium on Dupuytren's disease held in Miami, Florida, but it also includes new data and additional chapters. It is hoped that it will raise awareness of this underestimated condition and promote cooperative efforts to work towards a cure. Up to date information is provided on the epidemiology, biology, and pathology of the disease. The principles and specifics of treatment are explored in detail. The indications for and techniques of radiotherapy, minimally invasive treatments and open surgery are fully explained. The role of physical therapy is considered as well as the care of relapse and complications. The treatment of Ledderhose's disease and Peyronie's disease is also discussed. This book provides invaluable information for hand surgeons, podiatrists, orthopedists, radiation therapy specialists and general practitioners. It will help to foster an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding and management of this debilitating disorder.
Manual of Spine Surgery
by Frank Grochulla Uwe ViewegThe success of any spinal operation depends on good definition of the indications, consideration of the contraindications, technical and organizational factors, good operating technique and correct preoperative preparation and positioning of the patient. These points are presented in this book as clearly as possible and are illustrated with detailed high quality artwork.
Haptics Technologies
by Jongeun Cha Mauricio Orozco Mohamad Eid Abdulmotaleb El SaddikThe term "haptics" refers to the science of sensing and manipulation through touch. Multiple disciplines such as biomechanics, psychophysics, robotics, neuroscience, and software engineering converge to support haptics, and generally, haptic research is done by three communities: the robotics community, the human computer interface community, and the virtual reality community. This book is different from any other book that has looked at haptics. The authors treat haptics as a new medium rather than just a domain within one of the above areas. They describe human haptic perception and interfaces and present fundamentals in haptic rendering and modeling in virtual environments. Diverse software architectures for standalone and networked haptic systems are explained, and the authors demonstrate the vast application spectrum of this emerging technology along with its accompanying trends. The primary objective is to provide a comprehensive overview and a practical understanding of haptic technologies. An appreciation of the close relationship between the wide range of disciplines that constitute a haptic system is a key principle towards being able to build successful collaborative haptic environments. Structured as a reference to allow for fast accommodation of the issues concerned, this book is intended for researchers interested in studying touch and force feedback for use in technological multimedia systems in computer science, electrical engineering, or other related disciplines. With its novel approach, it paves the way for exploring research trends and challenges in such fields as interpersonal communication, games, or military applications.
Encyclopedia of Lubricants and Lubrication
by Theo MangThe importance of lubricants in virtually all fields of the engineering industry is reflected by an increasing scientific research of the basic principles. Energy efficiency and material saving are just two core objectives of the employment of high-tech lubricants. The encyclopedia presents a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in the realm of lubrication. All the aspects of fundamental data, underlying concepts and use cases, as well as theoretical research and last but not least terminology are covered in hundreds of essays and definitions, authored by experts in their respective fields, from industry and academic institutes.
Praxisleitfaden Immobilienanschaffung und Immobilienfinanzierung
by Guido RennertDer Praxisleitfaden ist für alle diejenigen geschrieben, die in Deutschland eine (kreditfinanzierte) Immobilie kaufen oder selbst bauen wollen. Der Autor stellt das Thema anschaulich und leicht verständlich dar, wobei er prägnant und detailliert sowohl an rechtliche als auch an wirtschaftliche Fragestellungen heranführt. Die Inhalte werden anhand von Beispielen mit konkreten Berechnungen und Bezügen zur aktuellen Rechtslage illustriert. Das Berechnungs-Tool hilft bei der Ermittlung der tatsächlichen Kosten einer Kreditfinanzierung.
Im Fokus: Bodenschätze
by Nadja Podbregar Dieter LohmannDer Rohstoffverbrauch der Menschheit steigt. Allein in Deutschland verbraucht jeder im Laufe seines Lebens durchschnittlich rund 1.000 Tonnen Erze, Erden und Mineralien. Auch der Energiebedarf verlangt ständig Nachschub. Doch die Rohstoffreserven sind endlich - entsprechend intensiv ist die Suche nach neuen Lagerstätten oder ganz neuen Ressourcen. Der Autor erklärt in dem Buch u. a., was Handys mit Gorillas zu tun haben, warum Manganknollen zum Rohstoff der Zukunft werden könnten und wo in Deutschland wichtige Bodenschätze und Energiequellen warten.
Theory of Phase Transitions in Polypeptides and Proteins
by Alexander V. YakubovichThere are nearly 100 000 different protein sequences encoded in the human genome, each with its own specific fold. Understanding how a newly formed polypeptide sequence finds its way to the correct fold is one of the greatest challenges in the modern structural biology. The aim of this thesis is to provide novel insights into protein folding by considering the problem from the point of view of statistical mechanics. The thesis starts by investigating the fundamental degrees of freedom in polypeptides that are responsible for the conformational transitions. This knowledge is then applied in the statistical mechanics description of helix coil transitions in polypeptides. Finally, the theoretical formalism is generalized to the case of proteins in an aqueous environment. The major novelty of this work lies in combining (a) a formalism based on fundamental physical properties of the system and (b) the resulting possibility of describing the folding unfolding transitions quantitatively. The clear physical nature of the formalism opens the way to further applications in a large variety of systems and processes.
Physeal Injury Other Than Fracture
by Hamlet A. PetersonThis book documents all the ways a growth plate can be damaged, other than fracture. This damage can be inflicted by a wide variety of insults, most of which are uncommon occurrences. They all, however, have two similar characteristics: normal roentgenographs at the time of insult and premature complete or partial arrest noted weeks, months, or years later. Because of this delay, the arrest is often not suspected or recognised early. The resulting bone deformity and relative shortening usually go undetected until corrective surgery is needed. This book emphasises etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of these injuries.
The Crossing of Heaven
by Karl Gustafson Ioannis AntoniouAmong the group of physics honors students huddled in 1957 on a Colorado mountain watching Sputnik bisect the heavens, one young scientist was destined, three short years later, to become a key player in America's own top-secret spy satellite program. One of our era's most prolific mathematicians, Karl Gustafson was given just two weeks to write the first US spy satellite's software. The project would fundamentally alter America's Cold War strategy, and this autobiographical account of a remarkable academic life spent in the top flight tells this fascinating inside story for the first time. Gustafson takes you from his early pioneering work in computing, through fascinating encounters with Nobel laureates and Fields medalists, to his current observations on mathematics, science and life. He tells of brushes with death, being struck by lightning, and the beautiful women who have been a part of his journey.
Young Sun, Early Earth and the Origins of Life
by Storm Dunlop Muriel Gargaud Purificación López-García Hervé Martin Robert Pascal Thierry Montmerle- How did the Sun come into existence? - How was the Earth formed? - How long has Earth been the way it is now, with its combination of oceans and continents? - How do you define "life"? - How did the first life forms emerge? - What conditions made it possible for living things to evolve? All these questions are answered in this colourful textbook addressing undergraduate students in "Origins of Life" courses and the scientifically interested public. The authors take the reader on an amazing voyage through time, beginning five thousand million years ago in a cloud of interstellar dust and ending five hundred million years ago, when the living world that we see today was finally formed. A chapter on exoplanets provides an overview of the search for planets outside the solar system, especially for habitable ones. The appendix closes the book with a glossary, a bibliography of further readings and a summary of the Origins of the Earth and life in fourteen boxes.
Variations of the Welfare State
by Franz-Xaver KaufmannIn the burgeoning literature on welfare regimes and typologies, this comparative study offers a stimulating new perspective. Kaufmann, the doyen of the sociology of social policy in Germany, emphasizes norms, culture and history, in contrast to political economy approaches. Comparing Britain, Sweden, France and Germany, Kaufmann highlights the "idiosyncrasy" of each welfare state: countries are compared with regard to their state traditions and the relationship between state and civil society; their national "social questions"; their economic systems, including the unions and labour law; social security and redistribution; and their personal social services and education. The socio-cultural approach enables Kaufmann to show that not all modern states are welfare states. Some are just "capitalism" (the USA), others are "socialism" (the former Soviet Union). In this light, the (essentially North-West European) welfare state is portrayed as a third way between capitalism and socialism.
The Rise and Fall of a Socialist Welfare State: The German Democratic Republic (1949-1990) and German Unification (1989-1994)
by Gerhard A. Ritter Manfred G. SchmidtThis book provides a comprehensive analysis of social policy in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, 1949-1990), followed by an analysis of the "Social Union", the transformation of social policy in the process of German unification in 1990. Schmidt's analysis of the GDR also depicts commonalities and differences between the welfare state in East and West Germany as well as in other East European and Western countries. He concludes that the GDR was unable to cope with the trade-off between ambitious social policy goals and a deteriorating economic performance. Ritter embeds his analysis of the Social Union in a general study of German unification, its international circumstances and its domestic repercussions (1989-1994). He argues that social policy played a pivotal role in German unification, and that there was no alternative to extending the West German welfare state to the East. Ritter, a distinguished historian, bases his contribution on an award-winning study for which he drew on archival sources and interviews with key actors. Schmidt is a distinguished political scientist.
Social Policy in the Federal Republic of Germany: The Constitution of the Social
by Hans F. ZacherThis book investigates the history of the post-war welfare state in Germany and its normative foundations, with special emphasis on constitutional issues. The author, formerly Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Social Law, Munich, and President of the Max-Planck-Society, argues that social policy - not only in Germany - is about struggles over the "social". The "social" is an open and changing concept that reflects the modern quest for equality, voiced in semantics like justice, participation, inclusion and security. The "social" and the "social state" (the German term for welfare state) are enshrined in the German Constitution of 1949, the Grundgesetz. The book sets out the phases of welfare state development in depth. Social policies are analyzed in view of wider contexts, especially the nation state, the rule of law (Rechtsstaat), federalism and democracy. The author emphasizes the dialectics between the national character of the welfare state and its manifold international references.
Origins of the German Welfare State
by Michael StolleisThis book traces the origins of the German welfare state. The author, formerly director at the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt, provides a perceptive overview of the history of social security and social welfare in Germany from early modern times to the end of World War II, including Bismarck's pioneering introduction of social insurance in the 1880s. The author unravels "layers" of social security that have piled up in the course of history and, so he argues, still linger in the present-day welfare state. The account begins with the first efforts by public authorities to regulate poverty and then proceeds to the "social question" that arose during the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. World War I had a major impact on the development of social security, both during the war and after, through the exigencies of the war economy, inflation and unemployment. The ruptures as well as the continuities of social policy under National Socialism and World War II are also investigated.
Regulatory RNAs
by Zhumur Ghosh Bibekanand MallickRecent progress in high-throughput technologies and genome wide transcriptome studies have lead to a significant scientific milestone of discovering non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) which spans through a major portion of the genome. These RNAs most often act as riboregulators, and actively participate in the regulation of important cellular functions at the transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional levels rather than simply being an intermediated messenger between DNA and proteins. As the appreciation for the importance of ncRNAs continues to emerge, it is also increasingly clear that these play critical roles in gene regulatory processes during development and differentiation. Further, regulatory RNAs are useful biomarkers for diagnosis of diseases. Hence these RNA regulators are essential to the development of therapeutics. This book on "Regulatory RNAs" offers a comprehensive view on our current understanding of these regulatory RNAs viz. siRNA, miRNA, piRNA, snoRNA, long non-coding RNA, small RNA etc. It addresses both the biogenesis and mechanism of action of regulatory RNAs with a primary focus on their annotation, experimental methodologies (microarray, next-gen sequencing etc.) for their discovery, computational tools for their prediction, and above all, applications of these revolutionary regulatory molecules in understanding biological systems and diseases, including therapeutics. This comprehensive volume is intended for readers with research or teaching interests in ncRNA biology and will provide a major information resource on current research in the fast-moving fields of RNA and gene expression regulation. Cutting-edge and concise, "Regulatory RNAs: Basics, Methods and Applications" promises to support vital research in the field of regulatory RNAs, ever-continuing to grow rapidly and gain increasing importance in basic and translational biology.
Regulatory RNAs: Basics, Methods and Applications
by Bibekanand Mallick and Zhumur GhoshRecent progress in high-throughput technologies and genome wide transcriptome studies have lead to a significant scientific milestone of discovering non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) which spans through a major portion of the genome. These RNAs most often act as riboregulators, and actively participate in the regulation of important cellular functions at the transcriptional and/or post-transcriptional levels rather than simply being an intermediated messenger between DNA and proteins. As the appreciation for the importance of ncRNAs continues to emerge, it is also increasingly clear that these play critical roles in gene regulatory processes during development and differentiation. Further, regulatory RNAs are useful biomarkers for diagnosis of diseases. Hence these RNA regulators are essential to the development of therapeutics. This book on “Regulatory RNAs” offers a comprehensive view on our current understanding of these regulatory RNAs viz. siRNA, miRNA, piRNA, snoRNA, long non-coding RNA, small RNA etc. It addresses both the biogenesis and mechanism of action of regulatory RNAs with a primary focus on their annotation, experimental methodologies (microarray, next-gen sequencing etc.) for their discovery, computational tools for their prediction, and above all, applications of these revolutionary regulatory molecules in understanding biological systems and diseases, including therapeutics. This comprehensive volume is intended for readers with research or teaching interests in ncRNA biology and will provide a major information resource on current research in the fast-moving fields of RNA and gene expression regulation. Cutting-edge and concise, “Regulatory RNAs: Basics, Methods and Applications” promises to support vital research in the field of regulatory RNAs, ever-continuing to grow rapidly and gain increasing importance in basic and translational biology.
Long-Term Field Studies of Primates
by Peter M. Kappeler David P. WattsSome primate field studies have been on-going for decades, covering significant portions of individual life cycles or even multiple generations. In this volume, leading field workers report on the history and infrastructure of their projects in Madagascar, Africa, Asia and South America. More importantly, they provide summaries of their long-term research efforts on primate behaviour, ecology and life history, highlighting insights that were only possible because of the long-term nature of the study. The chapters of this volume collectively outline the many scientific reasons for studying primate behaviour, ecology and demography over multiple generations. This kind of research is typically necessitated by the relatively slow life histories of primates. Moreover, a complete understanding of social organization and behaviour, factors often influenced by rare but important events, requires long-term data collection. Finally, long-term field projects are also becoming increasingly important foci of local conservation activities.
Teaching and Learning in Information Retrieval
by Andrew Macfarlane Juan F. Huete Juan M. Fernández-Luna Efthimis EfthimiadisInformation Retrieval has become a very active research field in the 21st century. Many from academia and industry present their innovations in the field in a wide variety of conferences and journals. Companies transfer this new knowledge directly to the general public via services such as web search engines in order to improve their information seeking experience. In parallel, teaching IR is turning into an important aspect of IR generally, not only because it is necessary to impart effective search techniques to make the most of the IR tools available, but also because we must provide a good foundation for those students who will become the driving force of future IR technologies. There are very few resources for teaching and learning in IR, the major problem which this book is designed to solve. The objective is to provide ideas and practical experience of teaching and learning IR, for those whose job requires them to teach in one form or another, and where delivering IR courses is a major part of their working lives. In this context of providing a higher profile for teaching and learning as applied to IR, the co-editor of this book, Efthimis Efthimiathis, had maintained a leading role in teaching and learning within the domain of IR for a number of years. This book represents a posthumous example of his efforts in the area, as he passed away in April 2011. This book, his book, is dedicated to his memory.
Gold and Gold Mining in Ancient Egypt and Nubia
by Dietrich Klemm Rosemarie KlemmThe book presents the historical evolution of gold mining activities in the Egyptian and Nubian Desert (Sudan) from about 4000 BC until the Early Islamic Period (~800-1350 AD), subdivided into the main classical epochs including the Early Dynastic - Old and Middle Kingdoms - New Kingdom (including Kushitic) - Ptolemaic - Roman and Early Islamic. It is illustrated with many informative colour images, maps and drawings. An up to date comprehensive geological introduction gives a general overview on the gold production zones in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and northern (Nubian) Sudan, including the various formation processes of the gold bearing quartz veins mined in these ancient periods. The more than 250 gold production sites presented, are described both, from their archaeological (as far as surface inventory is concerned) and geological environmental conditions, resulting in an evolution scheme of prospection and mining methods within the main periods of mining activities. The book offers for the first time a complete catalogue of the many gold production sites in Egypt and Nubia under geological and archaeological aspects. It provides information about the importance of gold for the Pharaohs and the spectacular gold rush in Early Arab times.
Organizational Interoperability in E-Government: Lessons from 77 European Good-Practice Cases
by Herbert Kubicek Hans Jochen Scholl Ralf CimanderIn the e-government research community as well as in many national e-government programs, interoperability is widely seen as a key factor in developing effective and attractive e-services. There is also agreement that interoperability encompasses not only mere technical standards and interfaces, but also includes organizational, legal, and cultural aspects. Several interoperability frameworks have been introduced on national and international levels, and recommendations have been made for the adaptation of enterprise architectures in the public sector. Common to all these approaches is their top-down deductive procedure, which does not connect very well to the real world of e-government projects. In contrast, in this volume, which is based on empirical research, the authors introduce a bottom-up inductive approach to deal with the challenges of interoperability-related governance. Based on so-called "good-practice" cases of interoperability in e-government, they derive concepts and classifications that help to uncover and assess similarities and differences between the cases. As a result, they present an empirically based conceptual framework that details the options for IT governance of interoperability in government. In addition, their findings also make it possible to critically assess and improve other existing frameworks. With this work, which combines different thematic foci as well as a European and a US background the authors situate empirical results in the broader context of theoretical and political reflection. Thus they provide insights into strategic choices for CIOs in e-government at a national or regional level, experiences and lessons learned for managers and developers in e-government projects, and a huge set of empirical data for administrative and political scientists.
Chemical Evolution of Galaxies (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library #253)
by Francesca MatteucciThe term "chemical evolution of galaxies" refers to the evolution of abundances of chemical species in galaxies, which is due to nuclear processes occurring in stars and to gas flows into and out of galaxies. This book deals with the chemical evolution of galaxies of all morphological types (ellipticals, spirals and irregulars) and stresses the importance of the star formation histories in determining the properties of stellar populations in different galaxies. The topic is approached in a didactical and logical manner via galaxy evolution models which are compared with observational results obtained in the last two decades: The reader is given an introduction to the concept of chemical abundances and learns about the main stellar populations in our Galaxy as well as about the classification of galaxy types and their main observables. In the core of the book, the construction and solution of chemical evolution models are discussed in detail, followed by descriptions and interpretations of observations of the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, spheroidal galaxies, irregular galaxies and of cosmic chemical evolution. The aim of this book is to provide an introduction to students as well as to amend our present ideas in research; the book also summarizes the efforts made by authors in the past several years in order to further future research in the field.
Im Netz der Nachricht
by Thomas Holzinger Martin SturmerDie beiden Kommunikationsprofis zeichnen in ihrem Roman ein Sittenbild der aktuellen Medienlandschaft und liefern zugleich ein Beispiel dafür, wie die "Newsroom-Strategie" in der Unternehmenskommunikation umgesetzt werden kann. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Nachricht als ältester und schwierigster Teil der menschlichen Massenkommunikation: knapp, schnell und bedeutend. Die moderne Kommunikationsabteilung wird zum Newsroom, der multimedial und grenzenlos agiert und alle Zielgruppen auf allen Plattformen bedient - von der Lokalzeitung bis Twitter.
Im Netz der Nachricht: Die Newsroom-Strategie als PR-Roman
by Thomas Holzinger Martin SturmerDie beiden Kommunikationsprofis zeichnen in ihrem Roman ein Sittenbild der aktuellen Medienlandschaft und liefern zugleich ein Beispiel dafür, wie die „Newsroom-Strategie“ in der Unternehmenskommunikation umgesetzt werden kann. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Nachricht als ältester und schwierigster Teil der menschlichen Massenkommunikation: knapp, schnell und bedeutend. Die moderne Kommunikationsabteilung wird zum Newsroom, der multimedial und grenzenlos agiert und alle Zielgruppen auf allen Plattformen bedient – von der Lokalzeitung bis Twitter.
Retail Category Management
by Alexander HübnerRetail shelf management means cost-efficiently aligning retail operations with consumer demand. As consumers expect high product availability and low prices, and retailers are constantly increasing product variety and striving towards high service levels, the complexity of managing retail business and its operations is growing enormously. Retailers need to match consumer demand with shelf supply by balancing variety (number of products) and service levels (number of items of a product), and by optimizing demand and profit through carefully calibrated prices. As a result the core strategic decisions a retailer must make involve assortment sizes, shelf space assignment and pricing levels. Rigorous quantitative methods have emerged as the most promising solution to this problem. The individual chapters in this book therefore focus on three areas: (1) combining assortment and shelf space planning, (2) providing efficient decision support systems for practically relevant problem sizes, and (3) integrating inventory and price optimization into shelf management.
eHealth: Legal, Ethical and Governance Challenges
by Carlisle George Diane Whitehouse Penny DuquenoyThis publication identifies and discusses important challenges affecting eHealth in the EU and North America in the three areas of law, ethics and governance. It makes meaningful contributions to the eHealth discourse by suggesting solutions and making recommendations for good practice and potential ways forward. Legal challenges discussed include issues related to electronic medical records, telemedicine, the Internet and pharmaceutical drugs, healthcare information systems and medical liability. Ethical challenges focus on telehealth and service delivery in the home, Web 2.0 and the Internet, patient perceptions and ethical frameworks. Governance challenges focus on IT governance in healthcare, governance and decision-making in acute care hospitals, and different models of eHealth governance. The publication provides useful support materials and readings for persons active in developing current understandings of the legal, ethical and governance challenges involved in the eHealth context.