الصفحة 29
الصفحة 29
Equilibrium statistical physics : Phases of matter and phase transitions
This is a textbook which gradually introduces the student to the statistical mechanical study of the different phases of matter and to the phase transitions between them. Throughout, only simple models of both ordinary and soft matter are used but these are studied in full detail. The subject is developed in a pedagogical manner, starting from the basics, going from the simple ideal systems to the interacting systems, and ending with the more modern topics. The latter include the renormalisation group approach to critical phenomena, the density functional theory of interfaces, the topological defects of nematic liquid crystals and the kinematic aspects of the phase transformation process. This textbook provides the student with a complete overview, intentionally at an introductory level, of the theory of phase transitions. References include suggestions for more detailed treatments and four appendices supply overviews of the mathematical tools employed in the text.
Equidosimetry : Ecological Standardization and Equidosimetry for Radioecology and Environmental Ecology
Considerable experience with radioecological and related ecological research on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems has been achieved, especially after the Chernobyl accident. The combined effects of the radiation, chemical and biological factors, after a contamination of the environment and during its remediation have shown an interactive complexity that highlights the need for equidosimetrical evaluations of the influence of the various stressors and the need for their ecological normalization. In radioecology and radiation protection, methods of radiation dosimetry are key for dose assessment. It is therefore highly desirable to develop a clear theoretical approach as well as a practical method of equidosimetry that would allow for an ecological normalization of the different stressors in unified uniform units, especially for comparison purposes.
Epidemiology of Drug Abuse
As the drug abuse epidemic evolves, so do the tools needed to understand and treat it. Accordingly, Epidemiology of Drug Abuse takes the long view, cogently outlining what the book calls "the natural history of drug abuse" and redefining its complex phenomena to reflect our present-day knowledge. Twenty-six eminent contributors discuss the state and future of the field, balancing the practical concerns involved in gathering drug abuse data with the ethics of using the information.
Environments for Multi-Agent Systems II ; 2nd International Workshop, E4MAS 2005, Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 25, 2005, Selected Revised and Invited Papers
This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Environments for Multiagent Systems, E4MAS 2005, held in July 2005. The 16 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from the lectures given at the workshop.
Environments for Multi-Agent Systems ; 1st International Workshop, E4MAS, 2004, New York, NY, July 19, 2004, Revised Selected Papers
The modern ?eld of multiagent systems has developed from two main lines of earlier research. Its practitioners generally regard it as a form of arti?cial intelligence (AI). Some of its earliest work was reported in a series of workshops in the US dating from1980,revealinglyentitled,“DistributedArti?cialIntelligence,”andpioneers often quoted a statement attributed to Nils Nilsson that “all AI is distributed. ” The locus of classical AI was what happens in the head of a single agent, and much MAS research re?ects this heritage with its emphasis on detailed modeling of the mental state and processes of individual agents. From this perspective, intelligenceisultimatelythepurviewofasinglemind,thoughitcanbeampli?ed by appropriate interactions with other minds. These interactions are typically mediated by structured protocols of various sorts, modeled on human conver- tional behavior. But the modern ?eld of MAS was not born of a single parent. A few - searchershavepersistentlyadvocatedideasfromthe?eldofarti?ciallife(ALife). These scientists were impressed by the complex adaptive behaviors of commu- ties of animals (often extremely simple animals, such as insects or even micro- ganisms). The computational models on which they drew were often created by biologists who used them not to solve practical engineering problems but to test their hypotheses about the mechanisms used by natural systems. In the ar- ?cial life model, intelligence need not reside in a single agent, but emerges at the level of the community from the nonlinear interactions among agents. - cause the individual agents are often subcognitive, their interactions cannot be modeled by protocols that presume linguistic competence.
Environmental Simulation Chambers : Application to Atmospheric Chemical Processes
Atmospheric pollution has many different detrimental impacts on air quality at urban, regional and global scales. Large volume photoreactors (often referred to as smog or simulation chambers) have been used very effectively to investigate and understand many varied aspects of atmospheric chemistry related to air pollution problems. Photochemical smog formation, which was first observed around 1945 in Los Angeles, is now a major environmental problem for all industrialised and densely populated regions of the world. Over the years many different modelling and experimental tools have been developed to analyse and simulate the complex chemical processes associated with tropspheric photooxidant formation. Work in environmental chambers has played a key role in the development of our understanding of the atmospheric chemistry associated with pollution problems on local, regional and global scales.
Environmental Health in Central and Eastern Europe
Complex chemical mixtures impact our health every day. In the United States, and also in Central and Eastern Europe, there are a number of locations where complex chemical mixtures have been released to environmental media. Although exposure to mixtures is common, minimal information exists to quantify these exposures, or to determine their impact on human or ecological receptors. These proceedings present some of the most current research conducted to quantify complex mixtures in the environment and investigate their potential impact on human health. Many of the manuscripts reported in these proceedings represent the most up-to-date measurements of population exposures in Central and Eastern Europe. These studies are of value to health and environmental professionals around the world as they develop strategies for assessing exposures, remediating contaminated environments, and improving public health.
Environmental health impacts of transport and mobility
Transport and mobility are essential parts of the current organization of society. Complex activities are interwoven in such a way that problems occurring from the actual process of constant movement cannot be separated, as they are so tightly interconnected. This book examines the health effects of transport and mobility by addressing the major issues related to the subject and analyzing their consequences. Thus not only are air pollution, noise, and sedentarism and its related endocrine problems discussed, but topics such as jet-lag, accidents and violent displacement are also addressed. The strength of this book over others in the field lies in its multidisciplinary approach to the issues by a number of experts in different scientific fields who are documenting the health effects of transport and mobility. Moreover, it enhances the understanding of the issues by integrating information from different geographical regions.
Environmental Governance in Latin America
The multiple purposes of nature – livelihood for communities, revenues for states, commodities for companies, and biodiversity for conservationists – have turned environmental governance in Latin America into a highly contested arena. In such a resource-rich region, unequal power relations, conflicting priorities, and trade-offs among multiple goals have led to a myriad of contrasting initiatives that are reshaping social relations and rural territories. This edited collection addresses these tensions by unpacking environmental governance as a complex process of formulating and contesting values, procedures and practices shaping the access, control and use of natural resources. Contributors from various fields address the challenges, limitations, and possibilities for a more sustainable, equal, and fair development. In this book, environmental governance is seen as an overarching concept defining the dynamic and multi-layered repertoire of society-nature interactions, where images of nature and discourses on the use of natural resources are mediated by contextual processes at multiple scales.
Environmental Chemistry : Green Chemistry and Pollutants in Ecosystems
Environmental chemistry is a new, fast developing science aimed at deciphering fundamental mechanisms ruling the behaviour of pollutants in ecosystems. Applying this knowledge to current environmental issues leads to the remediation of environmental media, and to new, low energy, low emission, sustainable processes. This book describes the state-of-the-art advances regarding the pollution of water, soils, atmosphere, food and living organisms by toxic metals, fossil fuels, pesticides and other organic pollutants. Furthermore, the eco-toxicology section presents novel bio-assays to assess the toxicity of various pollutants such as dioxins and endocrine disrupters within complex media. The green chemistry section highlights novel chemical reactions based upon environmentally friendly conditions. The analytical chemistry section describes very sensitive methods which trace the fate of pollutants in complex ecosystems.
Environmental change and human security : Recognizing and acting on hazard impacts
This book focuses on the linkage between human and environmental security and takes both a conceptual and a pragmatic approach to complex environmental issues (such as soil erosion, desertification, water degradation, demographic shifts, food security and agricultural prospects, urbanization trends, hazard-induced migrations) that affect human security. The book is the direct outcome of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW), sponsored by the Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS), Salve Regina University, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The book summarizes the collective work of both natural and social science disciplines in regard to how best address, mitigate, adapt, or achieve resilience
Entry Inhibitors in HIV Therapy
The introductory chapters of this book present an overview of entry inhibitors, review current knowledge of how Env mediates entry, and discuss the challenge of genetic diversity in this region of the viral genome. Subsequent chapters feature current information on individual classes of entry inhibitors that target each step of the virus entry pathway, from attachment to membrane fusion. There is an emphasis on the complex determinants of entry inhibitor susceptibility, resistance mechanisms, the need for clinical phenotyping, and how these issues create new challenges for antiretroviral therapy. Encouraging pre-clinical studies of entry inhibitors as microbicidesare also discussed. The final chapters highlight the current status of entry inhibitors in clinical studies, the major milestone achieved with FDA approval of enfuvirtide, and review drug development, past and present.
Entropy, Search, Complexity
The present volume is a collection of survey papers in the fields of entropy, search and complexity. They summarize the latest developments in their respective areas.More than half of the papers belong to search theory which lies on the borderline of mathematics and computer science, information theory and combinatorics, respectively. Search theory has variegated applications, among others in bioinformatics. Some of these papers also have links to linear statistics and communicational complexity.
Enterprise ontology : Theory and methodology
Such a theory and a matching methodology, which has passed the test of practical experience, constitute the contents of this book. The enterprise ontology, as developed by Dietz, is the starting point for profoundly understanding the organization of an enterprise and subsequently for analyzing, (re)designing, and (re)engineering it. The approach covers numerous issues in an integrated way: business processes, in- and outsourcing, information systems, management control, staffing etc.
Enterprise interoperability : New challenges and approaches
Interoperability: the ability of a system or a product to work with other systems or products without special effort from the user is a key issue in manufacturing and industrial enterprise generally. It is fundamental to the production of goods and services quickly and at low cost at the same time as maintaining levels of quality and customisation. Interoperability is achieved if internal and external collaborators can interact on at least three levels: data, applications and business enterprise (through the architecture of an enterprise model and making allowance for the semantics of both partners). Not only a problem of software and IT technologies, it implies support for communication and transactions between different organisations that must be based on shared business references. Today, a new and important consideration must be taken into account – economic business evaluation and the definition of dissemination policy.
Enterprise Architecture for Strategic : Management of Modern IT Solutions
Enterprise Architecture for strategic Management of Modern IT Solutions provides guidance on how to employ EA in deploying and managing IT solutions from pragmatic and implementable perspectives. Until now, implementation and practice of EA have been slow, despite its growing popularity and interest from all sectors. This book employs sociotechnical theories such as actor-network theory (ANT) and structuration theory (ST) as lenses to examine and explain why and how challenges and complexities exist and derail the implementation or practice of EA in organisations.
Enterprise architecture at work : Modelling, communication and analysis
n enterprise architecture tries to describe and control an organisation’s structure, processes, applications, systems and techniques in an integrated way. The unambiguous specification and description of components and their relationships in such an architecture requires a coherent architecture modelling language.Since an architecture model is useful not only for providing insight into the current or future situation but can also be used to evaluate the transition from ‘as-is’ to ‘to-be’, the authors also describe analysis methods for assessing both the qualitative impact of changes to an architecture and the quantitative aspects of architectures, such as performance and cost issues. The modelling language and the other techniques presented have been proven in practice in many real-life case studies. So this book is an ideal companion for enterprise IT or business architects in industry as well as for computer or management science students studying the field of enterprise architecture.
Entering Emerging Markets : Motorola's Blueprint for Going Global
The book describes the strategies and processes of a multi-national US corporation applied in entering emerging markets around the globe. It details the structured approach, innovative ways and concerted efforts involved. Executives learned how to gain foothold in unknown territory and how to deal with complexity and diversity.
Engineering Stochastic Local Search Algorithms. Designing, Implementing and Analyzing Effective Heuristics ; International Workshop, SLS 2007, Brussels, Belgium, September 6-8, 2007, Proceedings
Stochastic local search (SLS) algorithms enjoy great popularity as powerful and versatile tools for tackling computationally hard decision and optimization pr- lems from many areas of computer science, operations research, and engineering. However, in recent years it has become evident that at the core of this development task there is a highly complex engineering process, which combines various aspects of algorithm design with empirical analysis techniques and problem-specific background, and which relies heavily on knowledge from a number of disciplines and areas, including computer science, operations research, artificial intelligence, and statistics. This development process needs to be - sisted by a sound methodology that addresses the issues arising in the various phases of algorithm design, implementation, tuning, and experimental eval- tion.
Engineering Societies in the Agents World VIII ; 8th International Workshop, ESAW 2007, Athens, Greece, October 22-24, 2007, Revised Selected Papers
This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 7th International Workshop on Engineering Societies in the Agents World, ESAW 2007, held in Athens, Greece, in October 2007. The 19 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. The papers are organized in topical sections on electronic institutions, models of complex distributed systems with agents and societies; interaction in agent societies; engineering social intelligence in multi-agent systems; trust and reputation in agent societies; analysis, design and development of agent societies.
