Advances in Urban Ecology : Integrating Humans and Ecological Processes in Urban Ecosystems
The future of Earth’s ecosystems is increasingly influenced by the pace and patterns of urbanization. One of the greatest challenges for natural and social scientists is to understand how urbanizing regions evolve through the complex interactions between humans and ecological processes. Questions and methods of inquiry specific to our traditional disciplinary domains yield partial views that reflect different epistemologies and understandings of the world. In order to achieve the level of synthesis required to see the urban ecosystem as a whole we must change the way we pose questions and search for answers. Cities are the result of human and ecological processes occurring simultaneously in time and in space and the legacy of the simultaneous processes of the past. Urban ecology is the study of the co-evolution of human-ecological systems. Scholars of both urban systems and ecology must challenge the assumptions and world views within their disciplines and work towards a hybrid theory that builds on multiple world views.
Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles : State of the Art and the Road to Autonomy
There has been tremendous emphasis in unmanned aerial vehicles, both of fixed (airplanes) and rotary wing (vertical take off and landing, helicopters) types over the past ten years. Applications span both civilian and military domains, the latter being the most important at this stage. This edited book provides a solid and diversified reference source related to basic, applied research and development on small and miniature unmanned aerial vehicles, both fixed and rotary wing. As such, the book offers background information on the evolution of such vehicles over the years, followed by modeling and control fundamentals that are of paramount importance due to unmanned aerial vehicle model complexity, nonlinearity, coupling, inhirent instability and parameter values uncertainty. Aspects of navigation, including visual-based navigation and target tracking are discussed, followed by applications to attitude estimation on micro unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous solar unmanned aerial vehicle, biomimetic sensing for autonomous flights in near-earth environments, localization of air-ground wireless sensor networks, decentralized formation tracking, design of an unmanned aerial vehicle for volcanic gas sampling and design of an on-board processing controller for miniature helicopters.
Advances in solid state physics ; Vol. 47
The present volume 47 of the Advances in Solid State Physics contains the written version of a large number of the invited talks of the 2007 Spring Meeting of the Arbeitskreis Festkörperphysik which was held in Regensburg, Germany, from March 26 to 30, 2007 in conjunction with the 71st Annual Meeting of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.It gives an overview of the present status of solid state physics where low-dimensional systems such as quantum dots and quantum wires are dominating. The importance of magnetic materials is reflected by the large number of contributions in the part dealing with ferromagnetic films and particles. One of the most exciting achievements of the last couple of years is the successful application of electrical contacts to and the investigation of single layers of graphene.
Advances in Open Domain Question Answering
This book gives a comprehensive and detailed look at the current approaches to automated question answering. The book can serve as a "how-to" handbook for IT practitioners and system developers.
Advances in Mathematical and Statistical Modeling
Enrique Castillo is a leading figure in several mathematical, statistical, and engineering fields, having contributed seminal work in such areas as statistical modeling, extreme value analysis, multivariate distribution theory, Bayesian networks, neural networks, functional equations, artificial intelligence, linear algebra, optimization methods, numerical methods, reliability engineering, as well as sensitivity analysis and its applications. Organized to honor Castillo's significant contributions, this volume is an outgrowth of the International Conference on Mathematical and Statistical Modeling and covers recent advances in the field. Also presented are applications to safety, reliability and life-testing, financial modeling, quality control, general inference, as well as neural networks and computational techniques.
Advances in Human-Robot Interaction
The book addresses key issues of human-robot interaction concerned with perception, modelling, control, planning and cognition, covering a wide spectrum of applications. This includes interaction and communication with robots in manufacturing environments and the collaboration and co-existence with assistive robots in domestic environments. Among the presented examples are a robotic bartender, a new programming paradigm for a cleaning robot, or an approach to interactive teaching of a robot assistant in manufacturing environment. This carefully edited book reports on contributions from leading German academic institutions and industrial companies brought together within MORPHA, a 4 year project on interaction and communication between humans and anthropomorphic robot assistants
Advances in Evolutionary Algorithms : Theory, Design and Practice
The goal of this book is to provide effective optimization algorithms for solving a broad class of problems quickly, accurately, and reliably by employing evolutionary mechanisms. In this regard, five significant issues have been investigated: Bridging the gap between theory and practice of GEAs, thereby providing practical design guidelines. Demonstrating the practical use of the suggested road map. Offering a useful tool to significantly enhance the exploratory power in time-constrained and memory-limited applications. Providing a class of promising procedures that are capable of scalably solving hard problems in the continuous domain. Opening an important track for multiobjective GEA research that relies on decomposition principle.
Advances in Dynamic Games : Applications to Economics, Management Science, Engineering, and Environmental Management
This book—an outgrowth of the 10th International Symposium on Dynamic Games—presents current developments of the theory of dynamic games and its applications to various domains, in particular energy-environment economics and management sciences.The volume uses dynamic game models of various sorts to approach and solve several problems pertaining to pursuit-evasion, marketing, finance, climate and environmental economics, resource exploitation, as well as auditing and tax evasions. In addition, it includes some chapters on cooperative games, which are increasingly drawing dynamic approaches to their classical solutions.
Advances in Distribution Theory, Order Statistics, and Inference
Barry Arnold has made fundamental contributions to many different areas of statistics, including distribution theory, Bayesian inference, multivariate analysis, bounds and orderings, and characterization problems. Organized to honor Arnold’s significant contributions to the field, this volume is an outgrowth of the "International Conference on Distribution Theory, Order Statistics, and Inference," held at the University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain.Several distinguished and active researchers highlight some of the recent developments in statistical distribution theory, order statistics and their properties, as well as inferential methods associated with them. Applications to survival analysis, reliability, quality control, and environmental problems are emphasized.
Advanced strategies in control systems with Input and Output Constraints
The different techniques described throughout the book are particularly attractive for industrial applications not only in aeronautical or space domains but also in the context of biological systems domain. Such methods are well suited for the development of tools that help engineers to solve analysis and synthesis problems in the context of control systems with input and output constraints
Advanced Numerical Methods to Optimize Cutting Operations of Five-Axis Milling Machines
Presents new optimization algorithms designed to improve the efficiency of tool paths for five-axis NC machining of sculptured surfaces. The book introduces the reader to fundamental issues involved in the tool path planning such as the kinematics of five-axis machines, types of 5 axis machines, part surface representation, machining strips, optimal tool orientation, gouging avoidance and forward step error. It also introduces new methods of optimization based on research conducted by the authors, including schemes performed in the spatial domain, angular domain as well as procedures to optimize the initial setup. The book can be used by undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in the field of NC machining and CAD/CAM as well as by the corporate research groups for advanced optimization of cutting operations.
Advanced Methods in Material Forming
The book contains the most relevant papers presented in the International Conference on Materials Forming, ESAFORM 2005. The list below presents some of the most successful minisymposia of the conference: - New and advanced numerical strategies in forming process simulation; - Sheet metal forming technologies and modeling; - Anisotropy and formability of materials; - Polymer processing and modeling; - Composite forming technologies and modeling; - Superplastic forming. This volume gathers selected plenary and keynote papers presented in the conference, offering an up-to-date synthesis of the academic and industrial research in the fields of physical and numerical modeling of materials forming processes. The book is useful for the doctoral fellows, scientists and engineers involved in various domains of materials processing technology.
Advanced Intelligent Paradigms in Computer Games
This book presents a sample of the most recent research concerning the application of computational intelligence techniques and internet technology in computer games. The contents include: - COMMONS GAME in intelligent environment - Adaptive generation of dilemma-based interactive narratives - Computational intelligence in racing games - Evolutionary algorithms for board game players with domain knowledge - The ChessBrain project - Electronic market games - EVE’s entropy - Capturing player enjoyment in computer games This book is directed to researchers, practicing engineers/scientists and students.
Advanced computer simulation approaches for soft matter sciences I
Soft matter science is nowadays an acronym for an increasingly important class of materials, which ranges from polymers, liquid crystals, colloids up to complex macromolecular assemblies, covering sizes from the nanoscale up the microscale. Computer simulations have proven as an indispensable, if not the most powerful, tool to understand properties of these materials and link theoretical models to experiments. In this first volume of a small series recognized leaders of the field review advanced topics and provide critical insight into the state-of-the-art methods and scientific questions of this lively domain of soft condensed matter research.
Adaptive and Personalized Semantic Web
Web Personalization can be defined as any set of actions that can tailor the Web experience to a particular user or set of users. To achieve effective personalization, organizations must rely on all available data, including the usage and click-stream data (reflecting user behaviour), the site content, the site structure, domain knowledge, as well as user demographics and profiles. In addition, efficient and intelligent techniques are needed to mine this data for actionable knowledge, and to effectively use the discovered knowledge to enhance the users' Web experience.
Activist Business Ethics
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.
Abuse of Dominant Position : New Interpretation, New Enforcement Mechanisms?
As part of its review of competition law that started in the late 1990s, the European Commission proposes to revise its interpretation and application of the Treaty’s prohibition of abuses of dominant positions. Also, it has instigated a debate about the promotion of private enforcement of EC competition law. The chapters in this volume critically appraise the Commission’s proposals, including the most recent ones. The authors also highlight the repercussions of the proposed ‘more economic approach’ to abuses of dominant positions on private litigants’ opportunities to bring damages actions in national courts for such abuses.
A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia : The Masonic Circle of N.I. Novikov
The author undertakes an investigation into the history of Russian Freemasonry that has not been attempted previously. Her premise is that the Russian Enlightenment shows peculiar features, which prevent the application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. The author deals with the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the ‘programme’ of Rosicrucianism and the character of its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State. The author concludes that the defenders of the Ancien Régime were not wrong. In fact the democratic behaviour, the critical attitude, the practice of participation, the freedom of thought, the tolerance for the diversity, the search for a direct communication with the divinity.
A Natural Introduction to Probability Theory
According to Leo Breiman (1968), probability theory has a right and a left hand. The right hand refers to rigorous mathematics, and the left hand refers to ‘pro- bilistic thinking’. The combination of these two aspects makes probability theory one of the most exciting ?elds in mathematics. One can study probability as a purely mathematical enterprise, but even when you do that, all the concepts that arisedo haveameaningontheintuitivelevel.Forinstance,wehaveto de?newhat we mean exactly by independent events as a mathematical concept, but clearly, we all know that when we ?ip a coin twice, the event that the ?rst gives heads is independent of the event that the second gives tails.
A Modern Introduction to Probability and Statistics : Understanding Why and How
A Modern Introduction to Probability and Statistics has numerous quick exercises to give direct feedback to the students. In addition the book contains over 350 exercises, half of which have answers, of which half have full solutions. A website at www.springeronline.com/1-85233-896-2 gives access to the data files used in the text, and, for instructors, the remaining solutions. The only pre-requisite for the book is a first course in calculus; the text covers standard statistics and probability material, and develops beyond traditional parametric models to the Poisson process, and on to useful modern methods such as the bootstrap.



















