Astrophysics is easy! : An introduction for the amateur astronomer
With some justification, many amateur astronomers believe astrophysics is a very difficult subject, requiring at least degree-level mathematics to understand it properly. This isn’t necessarily the case. Mike Inglis' quantitative approach to the subject explains all aspects of astrophysics in simple terms and cuts through the incomprehensible mathematics with which this fascinating subject is all too often associated. Astrophysics is Easy! begins by looking at the H-R diagram and other basic tools of astrophysics, then ranges across the universe, from a first look at the interstellar medium and nebulae, through the birth, evolution and death of stars, to the physics of galaxies and clusters of galaxies.
Astronomy with a home computer
Here is a one-volume guide to just about everything computer-related for amateur astronomers!Today’s amateur astronomy is inextricably linked to personal computers. Computer-controlled "go-to" telescopes are inexpensive. CCD and webcam imaging make intensive use of the technology for capturing and processing images. Planetarium software provides information and an easy interface for telescopes. The Internet offers links to other astronomers, information, and software. The list goes on and on.
Astronomical sketching : A step-by-step introduction
At some time we have all gazed through the telescope eyepiece at the magnificent rings and banded globe of Saturn, or seen long shadows reaching across crater floors at the Moon’s terminator – and wondered at the sheer beauty of the sight. It seems almost anachronistic to think of sketching when CCD imaging is available, but astronomical sketching provides an entirely different and deeply personal experience. It means spending time at the eyepiece to really look at what you can see, training your eye to perceive ever greater detail to take the fullest advantage of your telescope's light grasp and resolution.
Assistive technologies, robotics, and automated machines in the health domain
The field of healthcare is constantly evolving and advancing with new technologies and innovations. Among these, assistive technologies, robotics, and automated machines are rapidly gaining ground as powerful tools to improve the quality of care and enhance patient outcomes. From wearable devices that monitor vital signs to surgical robots that assist in complex procedures, these technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way we deliver healthcare. The development and the integration of assistive technologies, care robots, and automated machines are strategic both as single components, when paired together, and when interconnected in the health domain.This reprint explores the latest developments in assistive technologies, robotics, and automated machines in the health domain, providing a comprehensive overview of their applications and potential impact. The reprint is for the benefit of healthcare professionals, researchers, engineers, and students interested in these rapidly evolving fields.
Assetization : Turning Things into Assets in Technoscientific Capitalism
In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines argue that the asset—meaning anything that can be controlled, traded, and capitalized as a revenue stream—has become the primary basis of technoscientific capitalism. An asset can be an object or an experience, a sum of money or a life form, a patent or a bodily function. A process of assetization prevails, imposing investment and return as the key rationale, and overtaking commodification and its speculative logic. Although assets can be bought and sold, the point is to get a durable economic rent from them rather than make a killing on the market. Assetization examines how assets are constructed and how a variety of things can be turned into assets, analyzing the interests, activities, skills, organizations, and relations entangled in this process.
Assessment Reform in Science : Fairness and Fear
The conclusions and recommendations made in this book are derived from a study of ten teachers in Hong Kong as they tried to change their practice following a reform of the Hong Kong assessment system.
Assessment of the fate and effects of toxic agents on water resources
Like all limited and vulnerable resources, water has become one of the potential targets of terrorists. Coastal lagoons are especially vulnerable as they are densely populated centers of commerce and/or tourism. This volume addresses the basic scientific concepts that must be integrated by decisionmakers to minimize damages and optimize recovery operations in the aftermath of such an attack. Scientists from many disciplines including water resource management, hydrodynamics, aquatic ecology and social science combine their expertise in an effort to assess and model emergency scenarios for coastal lagoon systems. This case study uses existing numerical models such as-EFCD, WASP and AQUATOX are used to demonstrate how to optimize rapid response and decision-making
Assessing Quality in European Higher Education Institutions : Dissemination, Methods and Procedures
This book collects the evaluation and accreditation experiences gathered by higher education institutions in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Aspectual Inquiries
The papers in this volume represent the results of a workshop on the syntax, semantics and acquisition of aspect held in 2002 whose purpose was to foment active cross-disciplinary communication. A number of the papers examine the syntactic representation of lexical or situation aspect, while others focus on the syntactic interaction of lexical aspect with grammatical aspect, and of grammatical aspect and tense. Other papers examine the role of aspect in discourse representations, while a third group of papers reports on results of empirical studies on the acquisition of aspect in both first and second language acquisition, and patterns of loss of morphosyntactic reflexes of aspect in language attrition.
Asia-Pacific fishing livelihoods
Where fishing livelihoods come from and where they are going are simple questions with no simple answers. Using examples of small-scale fisheries in Asia-Pacific, Fabinyi and Barclay offer eloquent analyses of how fishing livelihoods are shaped, resting on a relational approach idea
Asian century … on a knife-edge : A 360 degree analysis of Asia's recent economic development
This book delves into the widely held belief that the 21st century will be the "Asian Century" by examining the Asia's rapid economic development in the post-war era and the challenges it faces in forging ahead of world leaders in the West. The impact of the current turbulent global political climate on Asia is critically analyzed, employing a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, combining economic, social, political and geopolitical perspectives. Written in an accessible style, the book offers students, business, government, and civil society players powerful insights on Asia.
As Pastoralists settle : Social, health, and economic consequences of the pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya
Formerly nomadic livestock-keeping pastoralists have settled in many regions of the world in the past century. Some groups, including those in the former Soviet Union, Iran, and Israel, have settled in response to state-enforced measures; others including Saami in Norway or Bedouins in Saudi Arabia, in response to changing economic opportunities. East Africa, home to many cattle- and camel-keeping pastoral societies, has been among the most recent to change. The shift to sedentism by East African pastoralists increased d- matically in the late 20th century as a result of sharp economic, political, demographic, and environmental changes.
Arts and health promotion : Tools and bridges for practice, research, and social transformation
This book offers an overview of the beautiful, powerful, and dynamic array of opportunities to promote health through the arts from theoretical, methodological, pedagogical, and critical perspectives. This is the first-known text to connect the disparate inter-disciplinary literatures into a coherent volume for health promotion practitioners, researchers, and teachers. It provides a one-stop depository for using the arts as tools for health promotion in many settings and as bridges across communities, cultures, and sectors.
Artistic cartography and design explorations towards the pluriverse
Explores the pluriverse of art and design through epistemological and methodological considerations. What kinds of sustainable ways are there for knowledge transfer, supporting plural agendas, finding novel ways for unsettling conversations, unlearning and learning and challenging power structures with marginalised groups and contexts through art and design? The main themes of the book are art and design methods, epistemologies and practices that provide critical, interdisciplinary, pluriversal and decolonial considerations. The book challenges the domination of the white logic of art and design and shifts away from the Anglo-European one-world system towards the pluriverse.
Artificial Nutrition and Hydration : The New Catholic Debate
This collection of essays by some of the most prominent Catholic bioethicists addresses the Pope’s statements, the moral issues surrounding artificial feeding and hydration, the refusal of treatment, and the ethics of care for those at the end of life.
Artificial markets modeling : Methods and applications
Agent-based computational modeling with its intrinsic multidisciplinary approach is gaining increasing recognition in the social sciences, particularly in economics, business and finance. This volume is devoted to recent contributions to the field from both the social sciences and computer sciences.
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.
Artificial intelligence for multisource geospatial information
Collects 10 original research contributions published in the Special Issue entitled “Artificial Intelligence for Multisource Geospatial Information” of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. The focus is on different methods of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) based on deep learning using different network architectures, clustering, soft computing, and semantic approaches. They are proposed to deal with a variety of Geospatial Big Data (GBD), such as georeferenced texts and photos in social networks, remote sensing images, cartographic maps, multidimensional geo databases, metadata in spatial data infrastructures, and for different tasks, such as for multisource georeferenced text integration and geodata flexible querying, for social sensing by applying sentiment analysis, clustering and geo analysis, for segmentation of roads, clouds and snow, and for detection of small targets and people on the streets.
Artificial intelligence for customer relationship management : Solving customer problems
This book describes a number of applications of Artificial Intelligence in the field of Customer Relationship Management with the focus of solving customer problems. We design a system that tries to understand the customer complaint, his mood, and what can be done to resolve an issue with the product or service. To solve a customer problem efficiently, we maintain a dialogue with the customer so that the problem can be clarified and multiple ways to fix it can be sought. We introduce dialogue management based on discourse analysis: a systematic linguistic way to handle the thought process of the author of the content to be delivered. We analyze user sentiments and personal traits to tailor dialogue management to individual customers. We also design a number of dialogue scenarios for CRM with replies following certain patterns and propose virtual and social dialogues for various modalities of communication with a customer.
Artificial Intelligence for a better future : An ecosystem perspective on the ethics of AI and emerging digital technologies
This book proposes a novel approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics. AI offers many advantages: better and faster medical diagnoses, improved business processes and efficiency, and the automation of boring work.



















