Astrobiology : Future perspectives
Astrobiology, a new exciting interdisciplinary research field, seeks to unravel the origin and evolution of life wherever it might exist in the Universe. The current view of the origin of life on Earth is that it is strongly connected to the origin and evolution of our planet and, indeed, of the Universe as a whole. We are fortunate to be living in an era where centuries of speculation about the two ancient and fundamental problems: the origin of life and its prevalence in the Universe are being replaced by experimental science. The subject of Astrobiology can be approached from many different perspectives. This book is focused on abiogenic organic matter from the viewpoint of astronomy and planetary science and considers its potential relevance to the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere. Guided by the review papers in this book, the concluding chapter aims to identify key questions to motivate future research and stimulate astrobiological applications of current and future research facilities and space missions. Today’s rich array of new spacecraft, telescopes and dedicated scientists promises a steady flow of discoveries and insights that will ultimately lead us to the answers we seek.
Assessing Recent Soil Erosion Rates through the Use of Beryllium-7 (Be-7)
This book is the first comprehensive guideline for the beryllium-7 (Be-7) technique that can be applied to evaluate short-term patterns and budgets of soil redistribution in agricultural landscapes. While covering the fundamental and basic concepts of the approach, this book distinguishes itself from other publications by offering step-by-step instructions on how to use this isotopic technique effectively. It covers experimental design considerations and clear instruction is given on data processing. As accurate laboratory measurement is crucial to ensure successful use of Be-7 to investigate soil erosion, a full chapter is devoted to its specific determination by gamma spectrometry.
Artificial neural networks for the Modelling and Fault Diagnosis of Technical Processes
In this book, a wide spectrum of fault diagnosis techniques have been developed. A major category of fault diagnosis techniques is the model based one, where an analytical model of the plant to be monitored is assumed to be available.
Artificial Market Experiments with the U-Mart System
Economics went through great development in the 20th century. This development, which was based mainly on mathematical methods, is not an appropriate method of analyzing markets that change every hour and every day. In a stock market, prices constantly change depending on speculation. U-Mart, a manmade market, has been proposed in order to study such instantly moving markets. Although the U-Mart system is internationally acclaimed for being at the forefront of market research, its use is by no means limited to a small number of researchers on the fringe. The whole system, including its source code, is open and is distributed without charge, testifying to a philosophy of creating and providing a common testbed for research into financial markets.
Arnolds Problems
Arnold's Problems contains mathematical problems.The invariable peculiarity of these problems was that Arnold did not consider mathematics a game with deductive reasoning and symbols, but a part of natural science (especially of physics), i.e. an experimental science. Many of these problems are still at the frontier of research today and are still open, and even those that are mainly solved keep stimulating new research, appearing every year in journals all over the world.The second part of the book is a collection of commentaries, mostly by Arnold's former students, on the current progress in the problems' solutions (featuring a bibliography inspired by them).
Applied geotechnics for construction projects ; Vol. 1 : Soil and Experimental Data
Applied Geotechnics for Construction Projects 1 first defines, identifies and classifies soils, exploring their complexities and weaknesses, and then outlines the basic principles of stresses and strains that establish and develop within soils. The third chapter of the book introduces and develops methods of soil investigation in order to experimentally determine the geotechnical parameters that are useful in the design stage of construction projects.
Applied computational materials modeling : Theory, simulation and experiment
this book provides the average person working in the materials field with a more balanced perspective of the role that computational modeling can play in every day research and development efforts. This is done by presenting a series of examples of the successful application of various computational modeling procedures (everything from first principles to quantum approximate to CALPHAD methods) to real life surface and bulk alloy problems.This book should have a large appeal in the materials community, both for experimentalists who would greatly benefit from adding computational methods to their everyday research regimes, as well as for those scientists/engineers familiar with a particular computational method who would like to add complementary techniques to their arsenal of research and development tools
Analysis of variance for random models, Vol. 2 : Unbalanced data : Theory, methods, applications, and data analysis
Analysis of variance (ANOVA) models have become widely used tools and play a fundamental role in much of the application of statistics today. In particular, ANOVA models involving random effects have found widespread application to experimental design in a variety of fields requiring measurements of variance, including agriculture, biology, animal breeding, applied genetics, econometrics, quality control, medicine, engineering, and social sciences. This two-volume work is a comprehensive presentation of different methods and techniques for point estimation, interval estimation, and tests of hypotheses for linear models involving random effects. Both Bayesian and repeated sampling procedures are considered. Volume I examines models with balanced data (orthogonal models); Volume II studies models with unbalanced data (nonorthogonal models).
Analysis of failure in fiber polymer laminates : the theory of Alfred Puck
This book presents for the first time comprehensively the Theory of Alfred Puck on failure in Fiber Polymer Laminates. After a brief introduction into the failure analysis of laminates and its history, the text focuses first on Puck’s fracture criteria and gives detailed information on their physical background, mathematical derivation and application. Another core part of Puck’s Theory is his concept for Post Failure Analysis. Here, too, the physical background and the analytical procedure are presented. The theoretical chapters are completed by the presentation of the latest developments, namely the consideration of residual stresses and probabilistic effects. The second main part of the book deals with the extensive experimental verification program which has been accomplished since the mid 1990’s. As a result of this work, the Puck Theory can be regarded as better verified than any other theory. All experimental set ups and the major results are presented and explained.
Analysis and Simulation of Contact Problems
Contact mechanics was and is an important branch in mechanics which covers a broad field of theoretical, numerical and experimental investigations. In this carefully edited book the reader will obtain a state-of-the-art overview on formulation, mathematical analysis and numerical solution procedures of contact problems. The contributions collected in this volume summarize the lectures presented during the 4th Contact Mechanics International Symposium (CMIS) held in Hannover, Germany, 2005, by leading scientists in the area of contact mechanics.
Analysis and Control of Ultrafast Photoinduced Reactions
The present monograph summarizes, in a comprehensive way, several years of joint experimental and theoretical frontier research on ultrafast laser-induced molecular dynamics and its control. Emphasis is set on the characterization of the nuclear dynamics within molecular systems in various environments (gas phase, surfaces, solids, solution, strong fields) triggered by optical excitations spanning from the infrared to the ultraviolet. Building on the converged analysis between experiment and theory, control of chemical reactions is established by means of optimally shaped laser pulses. This paves the road toward new applications and future challenges in this rapidly developing research field.
Analog-baseband architectures and circuits For multistandard and lowvoltage wireless transceivers
"Analog-Baseband Architectures and Circuits reviews the fundamentals and studies the state-of-the-art multistandard transceivers before describing novel architectural and circuit techniques for implementing multimode and wideband (tens of MHz) baseband analog front-ends under low-voltage constraints. Techniques developed on architecture level for efficient system-in-package (SiP) integration, testability and multi-standardability; and on circuit level for reducing the required supply voltage, power and area are generally applicable for most wireless systems, and are somewhat independent to technology scaling. Experimental 1-V baseband building blocks (i.e., double-quadrature-downconversion filter, programmable-gain amplifier and dc-offset canceler) and a 1-V fully-integrated receiver analog-baseband chain for IEEE 802.11a/b/g WLAN validate the techniques. The implementations are all in standard-VTH CMOS process, and no voltage boosting is required at any node." "Analog-Baseband Architectures and Circuits will be relevant to system architects, circuit designers, professors and students engaged in wireless transceiver front-ends research and development."
Algorithms in Bioinformatics ; Vol.4175 : 6th International Workshop, WABI 2006, Zurich, Switzerland, September 11-13, 2006, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics, WABI 2006, held in Zurich, Switzerland in September 2006 in the course of the ALGO 2006 conference meetings. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 100 submissions. All current issues of algorithms in bioinformatics are addressed, ranging from mathematical tools to experimental studies of approximation algorithms and reports on significant computational analyses. Numerous biological problems are dealt with, including genetic mapping, sequence alignment and sequence analysis, phylogeny, comparative genomics, and protein structure. For the first time also machine-learning approaches along with combinatorial optimization are covered.
Algorithms in Bioinformatics ; 7th International Workshop, WABI 2007, Philadelphia, PA, USA, September 8-9, 2007, Proceedings
All current issues of algorithms in bioinformatics are addressed, ranging from mathematical tools to experimental studies of approximation algorithms and reports on significant computational analyses. Numerous biological problems are dealt with, including genetic mapping, sequence alignment and sequence analysis, phylogeny, comparative genomics, and protein structure. Furthermore the papers feature high-performance computing approaches to computationally hard learning and optimization problems in bioinformatics and cover methods, software and dataset repositories for development and testing of such algorithms and their underlying models.
Algorithms and computation ; Vol. 3827 ; 16th International symposium, ISAAC 2005, Sanya, Hainan, China, December 19-21, 2005, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation, ISAAC 2005, held in China in 2005. The 112 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 549 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on computational geometry, computational optimization, graph drawing and graph algorithms, computational complexity, approximation algorithms, internet algorithms, quantum computing and cryptography, data structure, computational biology, experimental algorithm mehodologies and online algorithms, randomized algorithms, parallel and distributed algorithms, graph drawing and graph algorithms, computational complexity, combinatorial optimization, computational biology, computational complexity, computational optimization, computational geometry, approximation algorithms, graph drawing and graph algorithms, computational geometry, approximation algorithms, graph drawing and graph algorithms, and data structure.
Algorithmic Learning in a Random World
This new monograph integrates mathematical theory and revealing experimental work. It demonstrates mathematically the validity of the reliability claimed by conformal predictors when they are applied to independent and identically distributed data, and it confirms experimentally that the accuracy is sufficient for many practical problems. Later chapters generalize these results to models called repetitive structures, which originate in the algorithmic theory of randomness and statistical physics. The approach is flexible enough to incorporate most existing methods of machine learning, including newer methods such as boosting and support vector machines and older methods such as nearest neighbors and the bootstrap.
Agent-Based Simulation : From Modeling Methodologies to Real-World Applications; Post Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems 2004
Agent-based modeling/simulation is an emerging field that uses bottom-up and experimental analysis in the social sciences. Selected research from that presented at the Third International Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems 2004, held in May 2004 in Kyoto, Japan, is included in this book. The aim of the workshop was to employ the bottom-up approach to social and economic problems by modeling, simulation, and analysis using a software agent. This research area is an emerging interdisciplinary field among the social sciences and computer science, attracting broad attention because it introduces a simulation-based experimental approach to problems that are becoming increasingly complex in an era of globalization and innovation in information technology. The state-of-the-art research and findings presented in this book will be indispensable tools for anyone involved in this rapidly growing discipline.
Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems IV ; Post Proceedings of The AESCS International Workshop 2005
Agent-Based Modeling/Simulation (ABM/ABS) is an emerging field that enables bottom-up and experimental analysis in social sciences such as economics, management, sociology and politics. The chapters of this book are the selected papers from those presented the Third International Workshop on Agent-Based Approaches in Economic and Social Complex Systems held in Tokyo, Japan in 2005. Articles in this book covers methodological issues, computational model/software, combination with gaming simulation, and real-world applications to economic, management/organizational and social issues.
Ageing and the Glass Transition
Understanding cooperative phenomena far from equilibrium is one of fascinating challenges of present-day many-body physics. Glassy behaviour and the physical ageing process of such materials are paradigmatic examples. The present volume, primarily intended as introduction and reference for postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers from related fields, collects six extensive lectures addressing selected experimental and theoretical issues in the field of glassy systems.
Advances on testing and experimentation in civil engineering : Materials, structures and buildings
Presents the most recent advances on testing and experimentation in civil engineering, especially in the branches of materials, structures, and buildings, complementing the authors’ publication Advances on Testing and Experimentation in Civil Engineering - Geotechnics, Transportation, Hydraulics and Natural Resources. It includes advances in physical modelling, monitoring techniques, data acquisition and analysis, and provides an invaluable contribution to the installation of new civil engineering experimental facilities.



















