Learning from clusters : A critical assessment from an economic-geographical perspective
Edited volumes run the danger of being a hotchpotch of contributions on a wide variety of topics. Here, we have explicitly focused on a central theme in contemporary economic geography and regional science, namely the relationship between learning, innovation and clustering. Internationally renowned scientists made both theoretical and empirical contributions to this volume. We think this book constitutes a broad palette of contemporary thinking and research on the relationship between spatial concentration and innovation and hope it will play a significant role in future debates on this issue.
Learners in a Changing Learning Landscape: Reflections from a Dialogue on New Roles and Expectations
Today's learners face constant change. Adaptive learner expertise is key to their survival on a learning journey that lasts a lifetime. This requires new thinking of all actors in the learning environment. The fundamental process through which this book was created is an extended in-depth dialogue among researchers, lifelong learners, educators, and thinkers.
Lead-Free Electronic Solders : A Special Issue of the Journal of Materials Science : Materials in Electronics
In the last few decades the effect of lead contamination on human health has received significant attention. Based on such concerns, elimination of lead from ceramic glaze, paint, plumbing etc. has been legislated and implemented. However, until recently, solders used in electronics, based on suitability and knowledge-base developed over a long period of time, remained lead-based. Successive rapid advances in microelectronic devices in recent decades make them obsolete within a very short period after their introduction resulting in significant quantities of electronic wastes in landfills. Leaching of toxic lead from such electronic wastes can result in contamination of the human food chain causing serious health hazards. As a consequence, several European and Pacific Rim countries have passed legislations warranting elimination of lead from electronic solders by fast approaching deadlines. Global economic pressures brought on by such legislations have resulted in a flurry of research activities to find suitable lead-free substitutes for the traditional leaded electronic solders.
Lattices and Ordered Sets
This book is intended to be a thorough introduction to the subject of ordered sets and lattices, with an emphasis on the latter. It can be used for a course at the graduate or advanced undergraduate level or for independent study. Prerequisites are kept to a minimum, but an introductory course in abstract algebra is highly recommended, since many of the examples are drawn from this area. The book has an excellent choice of topics, including a chapter on well ordering and ordinal numbers, which is not usually found in other texts. The approach is user-friendly and the presentation is lucid. There are more than 240 carefully chosen exercises.
Lattice Boltzmann Modeling : An Introduction for Geoscientists and Engineers
Lattice Boltzmann models have a remarkable ability to simulate single- and multi-phase fluids and transport processes within them. A rich variety of behaviors, including higher Reynolds numbers flows, phase separation, evaporation, condensation, cavitation, buoyancy, and interactions with surfaces can readily be simulated. This book provides a basic introduction that emphasizes intuition and simplistic conceptualization of processes. It avoids the more difficult mathematics that underlies LB models. The model is viewed from a particle perspective where collisions, streaming, and particle-particle/particle-surface interactions constitute the entire conceptual framework. Beginners and those with more interest in model application than detailed mathematical foundations will find this a powerful "quick start" guide. Example simulations, exercises, and computer codes are included. Working code is provided on the Internet.
Lateral Alignment of Epitaxial Quantum Dots
Accurate positioning of self-organized nanostructures on a substrate surface can be regarded as the Achilles’ heel of nanotechnology. This perception also applies to self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots. This book describes the full range of possible strategies to laterally align self-assembled quantum dots on a substrate surface, starting from pure self-ordering mechanisms and culminating with forced alignment by lithographic positioning. The text addresses both short- and long-range ordering phenomena and paves the way for the future high integration of single quantum dot devices on a single chip. Contributions by the best-known experts in this field ensure that all relevant quantum-dot heterostructures are elucidated from diverse relevant perspectives.
Lasers, Clocks and Drag-Free Control : Exploration of Relativistic Gravity in Space
Over the next decade the gravitational physics community will benefit from dramatic improvements in many technologies critical to testing gravity. Highly accurate deep space navigation, interplanetary laser communication, interferometry and metrology, high precision frequency standards, precise pointing and attitude control, together with drag-free technologies, will revolutionize the field of experimental gravitational physics. The centennial of the general theory of relativity in 2015 will motivate a significant number of experiments designed to test this theory with unprecedented accuracy.
Laser Spectroscopy : Vol.2 Experimental Techniques
Keeping abreast of the latest techniques and applications, this new edition of the standard reference and graduate text on laser spectroscopy has been completely revised and expanded. While the general concept is unchanged, the new edition features a broad array of new material, e.g. frequency doubling in external cavities, reliable cw-parametric oscillators, tunable narrow-band UV sources, more sensitive detection techniques, tunable femtosecond and sub-femtosecond lasers (X-ray region and the attosecond range), control of atomic and molecular excitations, frequency combs able to synchronize independent femtosecond lasers, coherent matter waves, and still more applications in chemical analysis, medical diagnostics, and engineering.
Laser Spectroscopy : Vol.1 Basic Principles
Keeping abreast of the latest techniques and applications, this new edition of the standard reference and graduate text on laser spectroscopy has been completely revised and expanded. While the general concept is unchanged, the new edition features a broad array of new material, e.g., frequency doubling in external cavities, reliable cw-parametric oscillators, tunable narrow-band UV sources, more sensitive detection techniques, tunable femtosecond and sub-femtosecond lasers (X-ray region and the attosecond range), control of atomic and molecular excitations, frequency combs able to synchronize independent femtosecond lasers, coherent matter waves, and still more applications in chemical analysis, medical diagnostics, and engineering.
Laser Resonators and Beam Propagation : Fundamentals, Advanced Concepts, Applications
Optical Resonators provides a detailed discussion of the properties of optical resonators for lasers from basic theory to recent research. In addition to describing the fundamental theories of resonators such as geometrical optics, diffraction, and polarisation the characteristics of all important resonator schemes and their calculation are presented. Experimental examples, practical problems and a collection of measurement techniques support the comprehensive treatment of the subject. Optical Resonators is the only book currently available that provides a comprehensive overview of the the subject. Combined with the structure of the text and the autonomous nature of the chapters this work will be as suitable for those new to the field as it will be invaluable to specialists conducting research. This second edition has been enlarged by new sections on Q-switching and resonators with internal phase/amplitude control. In addition, the whole book has been brought up-to-date.
Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization
Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization reviews and discusses recent advances in the development of methods and algorithms for nonlinear optimization and its applications, focusing on the large-dimensional case, the current forefront of much research.The chapters of the book including theoretical analysis, algorithmic development, implementation issues and applications.
Large-Scale Cognitive Assessment : Analyzing PIAAC Data
Summarises existing analysing techniques using data from PIAAC, a study initiated by the OECD that assesses key cognitive and occupational skills of the adult population in more than 40 countries. The approximately 65 PIAAC datasets that has been published worldwide to date has been widely received and used by an interdisciplinary research community
Large Eddy Simulation for Incompressible Flows : An Introduction
First concise textbook on Large-Eddy Simulation, a very important method in scientific computing and engineeringFrom the foreword to the third edition written by Charles Meneveau: ".
Large Coulomb Systems: Lecture Notes on Mathematical Aspects of QED
A mathematically consistent formulation of relativistic quantum electrodynamics (QED) has still to be found. Nevertheless, there are several simplified effective models that successfully describe many body quantum systems and the interaction of radiation with matter. Large Coulomb Systems explores a selection of mathematical topics inspired by QED. It comprises selected, expanded and edited lectures given by international experts at a topical summer school and is intended as a high-level introduction for graduate students, postdocs and nonspecialists from related fields.
Laplacian Eigenvectors of Graphs : Perron-Frobenius and Faber-Krahn Type Theorems
Eigenvectors of graph Laplacians have not, to date, been the subject of expository articles and thus they may seem a surprising topic for a book. The authors propose two motivations for this new LNM volume: (1) There are fascinating subtle differences between the properties of solutions of Schrödinger equations on manifolds on the one hand, and their discrete analogs on graphs. (2) "Geometric" properties of (cost) functions defined on the vertex sets of graphs are of practical interest for heuristic optimization algorithms. The observation that the cost functions of quite a few of the well-studied combinatorial optimization problems are eigenvectors of associated graph Laplacians has prompted the investigation of such eigenvectors.
Language, Meaning, Interpretation
Philosophy of logic and language, and of meaning and communication are central to this volume. The discussion of these issues involves analytical approaches, including semantics and semiotics, philosophy of science, mathematical logic, phenomenology, hermeneutics and some aspects of philosophical anthropology and aesthetics. Philosophy of the Absolute also belongs to this broad repertoire of philosophical problems and disciplines. A number of problems and viewpoints derive from the metaphysical system; any relativistic view on ethical values, for instance, makes sense in relation to some absolute. Metaphysical system building may have come to an end, but after all it belongs to philosophy to remind us of our past.
Language, Expressivity and Cognition
The book presents how language shapes communicative and cognitive processes but at the same time is also shaped by those processes. The chapters put forward a number of disciplinary and methodological perspectives encompassing insights from cognitive and social psychology, (critical) discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics. Both intralingual as well as contrastive, each chapter also engages with qualitative and quantitative methods.
Language Production
This comprehensive text presents an up-to-date overview of the key topics in the field, providing important theoretical and empirical challenges to the traditional and accepted modal view of language production. Each chapter explores in detail a different aspect of language production, covering traditional methods including written and signed production alongside emerging research on joint action production. Emphasizing the neurobiological underpinnings of language, chapter authors showcase research that moves from a monologue-only approach to one that that considers production in more ecologically valid circumstances.
Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia : Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand
This volume considers the ways in which modernity challenges and informs the language policies of various Southeast Asians nations. Using case studies from Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, the authors examine language policies that are explicitly articulated either in the form of State constitutions or in the public proclamations of political leaders. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which English, often seen as the language of globalization, impacts the status of indigenous Southeast Asian language.
Language Choice in a Nation Under Transition : English Language Spread in Cambodia
This book examines language choice in contemporary Cambodia, and uses the case study to explore and evaluate competing explanations for the spread of English globally. the multiple contexts in which Cambodians make individual and institutional language policy choices are considered. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the economic and political contexts for language choice, as Cambodia has transitioned from a planned economy and communism to a market economy and democracy. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 examine the assistance context for language choice; the bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental development agencies that have recently begun to work in Cambodia demand certain language skills of Cambodian employees and government counterparts, and support the learning of these languages in both nonformal and formal education.



















