Latinas/os in the United States : Changing the Face of América
This book also addresses important theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of Latinas/os and presents in-depth analyses (both quantitative and qualitative) of substantive issues relevant to this population, including migration, demographic patterns and processes, education, health, citizenship, political participation, religion, gender and sex roles, literary and cultural production, and the media. The authors seek to educate and increase awareness of the diversity that exists among the Latina/o population, and to carefully examine the social, economic, demographic, cultural, and political impacts and contributions that this growing population has had in the United States. The edited volume presents a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective of this group, and it critically documents how Latinas and Latinos have changed and will continue to change the face of América.
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 additive manufacturing: design, materials, processes and applications
Laser-based additive manufacturing (LAM) is a revolutionary advanced digital manufacturing technology developed in recent decades, which is also a key strategic technology for technological innovation and industrial sustainability. This technology unlocks the design and constraints of traditional manufacturing and meets the needs of complex geometry fabrication and high-performance part fabrication. A deeper understanding of the design, materials, processes, structures, properties and applications is desired to produce novel functional devices, as well as defect-free structurally sound and reliable LAM parts.The topics in this Special Issue reprint include macro- and micro-scale additive manufacturing with lasers, such as structure/material design, fabrication, modeling and simulation, in situ characterization of additive manufacturing processes and ex situ materials characterization and performance, with an overview that covers various applications in aerospace, biomedicine, optics and energy.
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 in our brain : The origins of a uniquely human capacity
Friederici describes the basic language functions and their brain basis; the language networks connecting different language-related brain regions; the brain basis of language acquisition during early childhood and when learning a second language, proposing a neurocognitive model of the ontogeny of language; and the evolution of language and underlying neural constraints. She finds that it is the information exchange between the relevant brain regions, supported by the white matter tract, that is the crucial factor in both language development and evolution.
Land-Use and Land-Cover Change : Local Processes and Global Impacts
The book presents recent estimates of the rates in changes of major land classes such as forest, cropland and pasture. Among the causative mechanisms behind land change, synergetic factor combinations are found to be more common than single key factor explanations. Aggregated globally, multiple impacts of local land changes are shown to significantly affect central aspects of Earth System functioning. Innovative developments and applications in the fields of modeling and scenario construction are presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the most pressing implications for the design of appropriate intervention policies, and on new directions and frontiers of research.
Landslides from Massive Rock Slope Failure
Amongst the thematic topics discussed are global frequency, impacts on society, analysis of initial rock slope failure, monitoring of rock slope movement, analysis and modeling of post-failure behaviour, volcanic landslides, and influences of massive rock slope failure on the geomorphological evolution of mountain regions. Regional contributions include reports on rockslides and rock avalanches in Norway, western Canada, the Andes of Argentina, the Karakoram Himalaya, the European Alps, the Appennines, and the mountains of Central Asia.
Landslide Risk Assessment ; 2nd ed.
Provides guidance to practitioners on establishing the likelihood and extent to which future slope failures could adversely impact society and affect people and property. The only book to focus on risk and landslides, using examples from across the globe, Landslide Risk Assessment examines a variety of approaches to landslide risk assessment and management, introducing the key challenges that practitioners will need to overcome: estimating the probability and consequences of landsliding, combining these to develop a measure of the risk, and making the transition between risk assessment and risk management.
Landscapes of Mars : A Visual Tour
Landscapes of Mars is essentially a picture book that provides a visual tour of Mars. All the major regions and topographical features will be shown and supplemented with chapter introductions and extended captions. In a way, think of it as a visual tourist guide. Other topics covered are Martian uplands on the order of the elevation of Mt. Everest, Giant volcanoes and a rift system, the Grand Canyon of Mars, craters and the absence of craters over large regions (erosion), and wind shadows around craters, sand dunes, and dust devils.
Landscapes of Lifelong Learning Policies across Europe : Comparative Case Studies
This book explores different landscapes of Lifelong Learning policies (LLP), producing case-based examinations of their institutional, discursive, and relational dimensions. Across Europe, young people develop their life courses amidst diverse living conditions and are confronted with a variety of institutional and structural arrangements that impact on their opportunities in education and labour. Considering the relevance of LLP in shaping those opportunities, the chapters draw from multi-level, mixed-methods research and offer original insights on the interplay of discourses and governance patterns in the processes of policy-making and deliverance. The book yields noteworthy insights into the widely differing realities across the European landscape, and also into the diverging ways young people deal with and actively participate in LLP.
Landscapes of a New Cultural Economy of Space
Aims to tie together various perspectives, insights and constructions pertaining to landscapes and landscape representations from different theoretical and methodological positions as well as from diverse geographical and historical contexts in order to elucidate and illustrate processes of cultural transformation inscribed in space.
Landscape Performance Modeling Using Rhino and Grasshopper
A guidebook for landscape architects to learn the fundamental practices and use of the computational software Rhino 3D and the plugin Grasshopper for parametric modeling, landscape inventory, and performative analysis. This process visually connects intangible and abstract information with physical and spatial relationships to signify the impact ecological, climate, and cultural factors have on landscape performance and decision making.
Landscape Design in Color : History, Theory, and Practice 1750 to Today
Posits that though color and lighting effects appear natural, fleeting, and difficult to comprehend, the sensory palette of built landscapes and gardens has been carefully constructed to shape our experience and evoke meaning and place character. Landscape Design in Color: History, Theory, and Practice 1750 to Today is an inquiry into the themes, theories, and debates on color and its impact on practice in Western landscape architecture over the past three centuries.
Land Use and Soil Resources
Land-use change is one of the main drivers of many environmental change processes. It influences the basic resources of land use, including the soil. Its impact on soil often occurs so creepingly that land managers hardly contemplate initiating ameliorative or counterbalance measures. Poor land management has degraded vast amounts of land, reduced our ability to produce enough food, and is a major threat to rural livelihoods in many developing countries. To date, there has been no single unifying volume that addresses the multifaceted impacts of land use on soils. This book has responded to this challenge by bringing together renowned academics and policy experts to analyze the patterns, driving factors and proximate causes, and the socioeconomic impacts of soil degradation. Policy measures to prevent irreversible degradation and rehabilitate degraded soils are also identified.
Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Methods for Nonlinear Control 2006 ; Proceedings from the 3rd IFAC Workshop, Nagoya, Japan, July 2006
A Differential-Geometric Approach for Bernstein’s Degrees-of-Freedom Problem.- Nonsmooth Riemannian Optimization with Applications to Sphere Packing and Grasping.- Synchronization of Networked Lagrangian Systems.- An Algorithm to Discretize One-Dimensional Distributed Port Hamiltonian Systems.- Virtual Lagrangian Construction Method for Infinitedimensional Systems with Homotopy Operators.- Direct Discrete-Time Design for Sampled-Data Hamiltonian Control Systems.- Kinematic Compensation in Port-Hamiltonian Telemanipulation.- Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity-Based Control of a Four-Tank System.- Towards Power-based Control Strategies for a Class of Nonlinear Mechanical Systems.- Power Shaping Control of Nonlinear Systems: A Benchmark Example.- Total Energy Shaping Control of Mechanical Systems: Simplifying the Matching Equations via Coordinate Changes.- Simultaneous Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity–Based Control: Two Practical Examples.
Lagoons and coastal Wetlands in the global change context : Impact and management issues ; Selected papers of the International Conference "CoastWetChange", Venice 26-28 April 2004
This interdisciplinary volume comprehensively reviews recent developments in wetland science and global change. The aim is to identify gaps, problems and successes in the integration of scientific issues into lagoon and coastal wetland management. The major strength of this volume is that it integrates several fields of research including climatology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecology and biology.
La scuola dell’atopia = The school of atopy
The need to clarify the current concepts of atopy, which for too long have oscillated between a primitive purely clinical vision and a subsequent purely immunological one, had been ripe for some time. Understanding that the role of immunoglobulins E is not exhaustive and accepting the Solomonic division between intrinsic and extrinsic atopy were the first two fundamental steps. Recent discoveries of the role of innate immunity, and therefore of antimicrobial peptides, have opened fundamental spaces for understanding in atopy and beyond. What now appears clear is that atopy is not the disease of an organ but rather a defect in the membranes that delimit our "self". The fact that these membranes are called skin, intestines, conjunctiva, bronchi or whatever has artificially fragmented the understanding and treatment of a unitary phenomenon. This book seeks to summarize the different experiences but above all to be a stimulus to ensure that medicine focuses constructively on the same target. If this is the case, we will no longer see "religious wars" between scientists and practicing doctors or, even worse, between the different specialists vying for the patient. If atopy, as we believe, is a global problem, it can only be adequately addressed in a multidisciplinary context and in a collaborative atmosphere, not only between doctor and doctor but also between doctor and patient.
La riabilitazione dei disturbi cognitivi nella sclerosi multipla = The rehabilitation of cognitive disorders in multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is one of the most frequent causes of chronic disability in young adults. It mainly affects individuals between 20 and 50 years of age, with a peak of incidence around the age of 30. This disease is characterized by the presence of demyelinating lesions of an inflammatory nature disseminated in the central nervous system. The different localization of these lesions is at the basis of the variability of clinical symptoms which can be characterized by motor, sensory, neurovegetative and cognitive disorders. The latter concern about half of the patients affected by this pathology and have a significant impact on the personal, family and work situation of these patients.
La protesi di ginocchio di primo impianto = The first-time knee prosthesis
Total knee replacement has now become a routine procedure in our operating rooms. The widespread use of this procedure, however, should not obscure the complexity of this joint surgery, which also relies on sophisticated computer aids. Drawing on their long and proven experience, the authors of this fourth volume in the series provide the reader with an updated overview of the state of the art.
La musica del Big Bang : Come la radiazione cosmica di fondo ci ha svelato i segreti dell’Universo = The music of the Big Bang : How the cosmic background radiation revealed the secrets of the Universe to us
Cosmic microwave background radiation is the residue of the great heat following the Big Bang. A tenuous sign, over 13 billion years old, in which the answers to many of the questions about the nature of our Universe are hidden. Discovered by chance in 1964, in the last forty years this fossil trace of the origins of the Cosmos has been explored with every available means. Two Nobel Prizes in physics have already been awarded for research involving it, the last in 2006 for the results of the COBE satellite. Much of the information encoded in the cosmic background radiation was impressed by the superimposition of acoustic waves present in the early Universe: a "music" of the Big Bang, which cosmologists have tried for years to reconstruct, using techniques similar to those that allow to distinguish the sound of different musical instruments. Only recently have the first notes of this extraordinary cosmic symphony finally been revealed, but the investigation is not over yet. This book illustrates, with a language suitable even for non-specialists, the theories, observations and discoveries that have brought cosmology into a new era.



















