Swiss Public Administration : Making the State Work Successfully
Swiss citizens approve of their government and the way democracy is practiced; they trust the authorities and are satisfied with the range of services Swiss governments provide. This is quite unusual when compared to other countries. This book provides insight into the organization and the functioning of the Swiss state. It claims that, beyond politics, institutions and public administration, there are other factors which make a country successful. The authors argue that Switzerland is an interesting case, from a theoretical, scientific and a more practice-oriented perspective. While confronted with the same challenges as other countries, Switzerland offers different solutions, some of which work astonishingly well.
Sustainable Resource Use and Economic Dynamics
Pollution of the environment increased while the stock of worldwide natural resources declined. Consequently, the concern that environmental restrictions, especially the bounded supply of natural resources end energies, will limit economic development in the long run is widespread. Most prominently, it has been expressed in the prediction of ‘limits to growth’ by the Club of Rome in the 1970s. Today, the notion of ‘sustainable growth’ is widely accepted as a main principle in the theoretical and political discussion. But a general consensus on the consequences for the use of natural capital has still to be established. This holds true not only for economics, but also for interdisciplinary research programs and the public debate.
Sustainable Metals Management : Securing Our Future - Steps Towards a Closed Loop Economy
Metals have been vital to human civilization for many thousands of years. This book assembles experts from many fields to discuss the conditions and limits of sustainable metals management. The contributors examine the theoretical ideas and goals of sustainability, and apply them across the metal making and trading process.
Sustainable leadership practices in promoting a learning organization in the new Syria
Examines the relationship between sustainable leadership practices and organizational learning in private higher education institutions in Syria. Based on the theoretical framework of sustainable leadership, it focuses on five key dimensions : capacity building, diversity, conservation, strategic distribution, and innovation. A quantitative methodology was applied, using a structured questionnaire distributed to faculty members across various faculties, resulting in 40 valid responses. Statistical analyses, including correlation and regression, indicated significant positive relationships between all sustainable leadership dimensions and organizational learning.
Sustainability Accounting and Reporting
This is the best contributions on environmental management accounting (EMA) from around the world. It has been developed by the Environmental Management Accounting Network (EMAN). Contributions are drawn primarily from papers presented at EMAN-EU and EMAN-Asia Pacific conferences in the last two years. Brought together in this volume are international examples of leading thinking and practice in this rapidly developing area. The book discusses new developments in environmental accounting and investigates topics in and links between corporate environmental and sustainability issues as well as between strategy, measurement and information management, and between accounting and reporting.
Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering : Physics and Applications
Almost 30 years after the first reports on surface-enhanced Raman signals, the phenomenon of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is now well established. Yet, explaining the enhancement of a spectroscopic signal by fouteen orders of magnitude continues to attract the attention of physicists and chemists alike. And, at the same time and rapidly growing, SERS is becoming a very useful spectroscopic tool with exciting applications in many fields. SERS gained particular interest after single-molecule Raman spectroscopy had been demonstrated. This bookl summarizes and discusses present theoretical approaches that explain the phenomenon of SERS and reports on new and exciting experiments and applications of the fascinating spectroscopic effect.
Supramolecular Dye Chemistry
Dye chemistry was one of the initial topics of chemical research in the academicas well as industrial field. At the early stage of dye research, in the last decades ofthe 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the focus was on the elucidationof structures of natural dyes aiming at the development of their chemicalsyntheses and to establish theoretical concepts for the understanding of thecolor–constitution relationship as a prerequisite for the design of new artificialcolorants. The major outcome of these pioneering efforts for mankind was thatcolor is no more a privilege of nature and, hence, multi-colored paints enteredour everyday life and textiles of any desirable shade became accessible.Nowadays most colorants have the purpose to satisfy our aesthetical needsand, thus, thousands of dyes and pigments are produced on industrial scales.Nevertheless, nearly periodically new demands arise for so-called “functionaldyes” whoseπ-conjugated systems exhibit novel functionalities beyond aes-thetical purposes. Optical brighteners or near-infrared absorbers are exampleswhere even transparency in the visible spectrum is desired and dyes for non-linear optics, holographic optical data storage and two photon absorptionare further examples where the color properties of “dyes” are insignificantlyrelated to the functional demands. Each chapter begins with an outline, abstract, and set of key words and ends with a ‘forward look’ that provides suggestions for further studies in the field. In summary, this book complements earlier ones in the field pertaining to functional dyes in general and supramolecular assemblies specifically.
Support Vector Machines for Pattern Classification
I was shocked to see a student’s report on performance comparisons between support vector machines (SVMs) and fuzzy classi?ers that we had developed withourbestendeavors.Classi?cationperformanceofourfuzzyclassi?erswas comparable, but in most cases inferior, to that of support vector machines. This tendency was especially evident when the numbers of class data were small. I shifted my research e?orts from developing fuzzy classi?ers with high generalization ability to developing support vector machine–based classi?ers. This book focuses on the application of support vector machines to p- tern classi?cation. Speci?cally, we discuss the properties of support vector machines that are useful for pattern classi?cation applications, several m- ticlass models, and variants of support vector machines. To clarify their - plicability to real-world problems, we compare performance of most models discussed in the book using real-world benchmark data. Readers interested in the theoretical aspect of support vector machines should refer to books such as [109, 215, 256, 257].
Superconductivity ; Vol.1 : Conventional and Unconventional Superconductors ; Vol.2 : Novel Superconductors
Conceived as the definitive reference in a classic and important field of modern physics, this extensive and comprehensive handbook systematically reviews the basic physics, theory and recent advances in the field of superconductivity. Leading researchers, including Nobel laureates, describe the state-of-the-art in conventional and unconventional superconductors at a particularly opportune time, as new experimental techniques and field-theoretical methods have emerged. In addition to full-coverage of novel materials and underlying mechanisms, the handbook reflects continued intense research into electron-phone based superconductivity. Considerable attention is devoted to high-Tc superconductivity, novel superconductivity, including triplet pairing in the ruthenates, novel superconductors, such as heavy-Fermion metals and organic materials, and also granular superconductors.
Successful Science and Engineering Teaching : Theoretical and Learning Perspectives
Describes how a professor can provide a learning environment that assists students to come to grips with the nature of science and engineering, to understand science and engineering concepts, and to solve problems in science and engineering courses. As such, this book is intended to be useful for any science or engineering professor, who wants to change their course to include more effective teaching methods, to instructors at post-secondary institutions, who are beginning their careers, and as a handbook for TA’s. Since the book is based upon articles that I have had published in Science Educational Research and which are grounded in educational research that I have performed (both quantitative and qualitative) over many years, it will also be of interest to anyone engaged in research into teaching science and engineering at the post-secondary level.
Struggles for Survival : Institutional and Organizational Changes in Japan's High-Tech Industries
Takes a comprehensive look at the question by integrating the fields of institutional economics and corporate strategy, an approach that will be of significant interest theoretically and empirically to scholars, professionals, and graduate students.
Structure Formation in Solution: Ionic Polymers and Colloidal Particles
Designed to critically review experimental findings on ionic polymers and colloidal particles and to prove a theoretical framework based on the Poisson-Boltzmann approach. Structure formation in ionic polymer solutions has attracted attention since the days of H. Staudinger and J.D. Bernal. An independent study on ionic colloidal dispersions with microscopy provided a compelling evidence of structure formation. Recent technical developments have made it possible to accumulate relevant information for both ionic polymers and colloidal particles in dilute systems. The outstanding phenomenon experimentally found is microscopic inhomogeneity in the solute distribution in macroscopically homogeneous systems. To account for the observation, the present authors have invoked the existence of the counterion-mediated attraction between similarly charged solute species, in addition to the widely accepted electrostatic repulsion.
Structural information and communication complexity ; 28th International Colloquium, SIROCCO 2021, Wrocław, Poland, June 28 – July 1, 2021, Proceedings
Constitutes the refereed conference proceedings of the 28th International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2021, held in Wrocław, Poland, in June 2021. The 20 full papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 48 submissions. The papers are solicited from all areas of study of local structural knowledge and global communication and computational complexities. Among the typical areas are distributed computing, communication networks, game theory, parallel computing, social networks, mobile computing
Structural Change and Exchange Rate Dynamics : The Economics of EU Eastern Enlargement
Structural change, economic growth and adequate exchange rate adjustment are key challenges in the context of EU eastern enlargement as are consistent macroeconomic policies. The authors focus on sectoral adjustment across industries in catching-up countries and explain changes in the composition of output – this includes new aspects of the Chenery model. They describe and analyze the spatial pattern of specialization and adjustment in many countries. Theoretical and empirical analysis of foreign direct investment, innovation and structural change shed new light on economic dynamics in Old Europe and New Europe. As regards exchange rate dynamics both traditional aspects (such as the Balassa-Samuelson effect) and new approaches to understanding exchange rate developments are presented. Links between exchange rate changes and innovation are particularly emphasized.
Structural Analysis with Finite Elements
Provides a solid introduction to the foundation and the application of the finite element method in structural analysis. It offers new theoretical insight and practical advice on why finite element results are 'wrong,' why support reactions are relatively accurate, why stresses at midpoints are more reliable, why averaging the stresses sometimes may not help or why the equilibrium conditions are violated. This second edition contains additional sections on sensitivity analysis, on retrofitting structures, on the Generalized FEM (X-FEM) and on model adaptivity. An additional chapter treats the boundary element method.
Structural analysis of multi-storey buildings
Relies on creating continuum models approach and presents the theoretical background and the governing differential equations (for researchers) and simple closed-form solutions (for practicing structural engineers). The continuum models also help to understand how the stiffness and geometrical characteristics influence the three-dimensional behaviour of complex bracing systems. The back-of-the-envelop formulae for the maximum deflection and rotation, load shares, fundamental frequency and critical load facilitate quick global structural analysis for even large buildings. It is shown how the global critical load ratio can be used for monitoring the "health" of the structure acting as a performance indicator and "safety factor".
String Theory and Fundamental Interactions : Gabriele Veneziano and Theoretical Physics : Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Examines the many ramifications this and similar early work has spawned over the past decades and the reader will find state-of-the art tutorial reviews on string cosmology, string dualities and symmetries, and much more. The book includes a concise updated scientific biography of, and an interview with, Prof. Veneziano, in which he relates his personal views about the present and future of fundamental physics.
Strategy, planning and organization of Test processes : Basis for successful project execution in software testing
Provides concrete tips for the successful organization of software tests. Because: Planning and conception in advance are essential for successful test projects. Setting the right course prevents problems from the outset and highlights the need for action in software testing. In addition to theoretical basics, this work shows the implementation in practice and deals with typical problems.
Strategy and Organization of Corporate Banking
The impressive development of the finance literature with its emphasis on asset pricing and the formal modeling of incentive systems during the past three decades, has largely relegated the business and operational aspects of banking as an industry from the agenda of academic research. Though this is understandable, it is especially regrettable in view of the dynamic dev- opments in the banking industry which have started about a decade ago and are currently in full swing. Fortunately, there are now signs of a change to the effect that banking is back on the research agenda. The p- sent book by Professor De Laurentis and his co-authors is a highly inno- tive and interesting manifestation of this reorientation. Banking is an important part of any financial system, and it is especially important in the financial systems of the countries of Continental Europe, such as Italy, France, and Germany, which have been bank-based for d- ades and which are, in my view, likely to remain bank-based for the fo- seeable future. There are many reasons, based on empirical and theoretical considerations, to believe that strong banks are not only important for the banking industry itself, but also for the respective national economies.
Strategy and Governance of Networks : Cooperatives, Franchising, and Strategic Alliances
The book emphasizes research in economics and management of networks as an interdisciplinary field by offering new theoretical perspectives and presenting new empirical results on strategic and governance structure issues in cooperatives, franchising networks, alliances, joint ventures and venture capital relations. The authors apply different theoretical views on networks, such as transaction cost theory, property rights theory, resource- and knowledge-based theory, evolutionary theory, information richness theory and social exchange theory.



















