Astronomical image and data analysis
With information and scale as central themes, this comprehensive survey explains how to handle real problems in astronomical data analysis using a modern arsenal of powerful techniques. It treats those innovative methods of image, signal, and data processing that are proving to be both effective and widely relevant. The coverage includes chapters or appendices on: detection and filtering; image compression; multichannel, multiscale, and catalog data analytical methods; wavelets transforms, Picard iteration, and software tools. This second edition of Starck and Murtagh's highly appreciated reference again deals with topics that are at or beyond the state of the art. It presents material which is more algorithmically oriented than most alternatives and broaches new areas like ridgelet and curvelet transforms. Throughout the book various additions and updates have been made.
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.
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.
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.
Assessing Climate Change : Temperatures, Solar Radiation, and Heat Balance
The chapters of the book attempt to answer a number of essential questions in relation to global warming and climate change. He begins by showing how the earth’s climate has varied in the past, discussing ice ages, the Holocene period since the end of the last ice age, particularly during the past 1000 years. He investigates the reliability of "proxies" for historical temperatures and assesses the hockey stick version of global temperatures for the past millennium. To do this effectively he looks carefully at how well near surface temperatures of land and ocean on earth have been monitored during the past 100 years or more, and looks at the utility and significance of a single global average temperature
Assessing and Managing Earthquake Risk : Geo-scientific and Engineering Knowledge for Earthquake Risk Mitigation: developments, tools, techniques
This book points out the need of a multidisciplinary approach in the field of risk assessment and management. It provides an overview of the problems, approaches and common practices directly related to earthquake risk mitigation and, in particular, to the preparation of earthquake emergency plans. Written by a team of specialists from different disciplines, the authors worked together extensively in order to create unity and continuity in the text as a whole. Each topic is illustrated with examples of actual applications taken from the bibliography – including websites with available relevant information. Case studies and information on some relevant international projects are given.
Asphaltenes, heavy oils, and petroleomics
Petroleomics is the prediction of all properties of petroleum based on the Petroleome, or complete listing of all components in a given crude oil. As it is developed, petroleomics will lead petroleum science into a bright new future, and it is the major focus of this book. A necessary step has been to resolve the molecular size and structure of asphaltene and its hierarchical aggregate structures, as well as the dynamics of asphaltenes. This is especially important for heavy oils. Flow assurance concerns and interfacial science are also treated. The technological development of downhole fluid analysis addresses the most important issues in deepwater production of oil.
Aspects of mathematical modelling : Applications in science, medicine, economics and management
The construction of mathematical models is an essential scientific activity. Mathematics has long been associated with developments in the exact sciences and engineering, but more recently mathematical modelling has been used to investigate complex systems that arise in many other fields. The contributors to this book demonstrate the application of mathematics to modern research topics in ecology and environmental science, health and medicine, phylogenetics and neural networks, theoretical chemistry, economics and management. The reader will find some review papers outlining current research directions in hot topics such as pattern formation and applications to medicine, and more targeted research papers on current developments in the various disciplines included.
Aspects of Brownian motion
Stochastic calculus and excursion theory are very efficient tools to obtain either exact or asymptotic results about Brownian motion and related processes. The emphasis of this book is on special classes of such Brownian functionals as: - Gaussian subspaces of the Gaussian space of Brownian motion; - Brownian quadratic funtionals; - Brownian local times, - Exponential functionals of Brownian motion with drift; - Winding number of one or several Brownian motions around one or several points or a straight line, or curves; - Time spent by Brownian motion below a multiple of its one-sided supremum.
Aspects of Automatic Text Analysis
This book It collects contributions of authors from a multidisciplinary area who focus on the topic of automatic text analysis from several (i.e. linguistic, mathematical, and information theoretical) perspectives. It describes methodological as well as methodical foundations and collects approaches in the field of text and corpus linguistics. In this sense, it contributes to the computational linguistic and information theoretical grounding of automatic text analysis.
Asian-Pacific coasts and their management : States of environment
The Asia-Pacific region is home to the world’s largest region of coral reefs and mangroves. It accommodates two-thirds of the world’s human population and its economic activities have the highest growth rate in the world. Ongoing degradation of the environment, resulting from coastal development, deforestation, desertification and over-harvesting, are becoming a matter of great concern, as floods and droughts occur as a result of this degradation. Threats of global environmental change, such as climate change and sea-level rise, will exacerbate such problems. Therefore, appropriate policies and measures are needed for coastal management, to address both the local and global trends. This book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art understanding on the drivers, state, and responses to coastal environmental changes in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides excellent perspectives on current and anticipated environmental changes in the region’s coastal areas, to researchers, students, policy makers, coastal managers and other stakeholders.
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.
Artinian Modules over Group Rings
This book highlights important developments on artinian modules over group rings of generalized nilpotent groups. Along with traditional topics such as direct decompositions of artinian modules, criteria of complementability for some important modules, and criteria of semisimplicity of artinian modules, it also focuses on recent advanced results on these matters.
Artificial neural networks in Vehicular Pollution Modelling
Artificial neural networks (ANNs), which are parallel computational models, comprising of interconnected adaptive processing units (neurons) have the capability to predict accurately the dispersive behavior of vehicular pollutants under complex environmental conditions. This book aims at describing step-by-step procedure for formulation and development of ANN based VP models considering meteorological and traffic parameters. The model predictions are compared with existing line source deterministic/statistical based models to establish the efficacy of the ANN technique in explaining frequent dispersion complexities in urban areas. The book is very useful for hardcore professionals and researchers working in problems associated with urban air pollution management and control.
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 Mind System : Kernel Memory Approach
This book is written from an engineer's perspective of the mind. "Artificial Mind System" exposes the reader to a broad spectrum of interesting areas in general brain science and mind-oriented studies. In this research monograph a picture of the holistic model of an artificial mind system and its behaviour is drawn, as concretely as possible, within a unified context, which could eventually lead to practical realisation in terms of hardware or software. With a view that "the mind is a system always evolving", ideas inspired by many branches of studies related to brain science are integrated within the text, i.e. artificial intelligence, cognitive science / psychology, connectionism, consciousness studies, general neuroscience, linguistics, pattern recognition / data clustering, robotics, and signal processing.
Artificial intelligence in recognition and classification of astrophysical and medical images
This book presents innovative techniques in Recognition and Classification of Astrophysical and Medical Images. The contents include: Introduction to pattern recognition and classification in astrophysical and medical images. Image standardization and enhancement. Region-based methods for pattern recognition in medical and astrophysical images. Advanced information processing using statistical methods. Feature recognition and classification using spectral method
Artificial gravity
"This book reviews the principle and rationale for using artificial gravity during space missions, and describes the current options proposed, including a short-radius centrifuge contained within a spacecraft. In Artificial Gravity, experts provide recommendations on the research needed to assess whether or not short-radius centrifuge workouts can help limit deconditioning of physiological systems.""Aided by an exquisite group of experts, Gilles Clement and Angie Bukley have managed to put together THE new, comprehensive reference book on artificial gravity. This book will be an essential resource for students, scientists, and program planners alike."
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).
Arnheim, Gestalt and Art : A Psychological Theory
The book discovers an unappreciated unity to Arnheim’s thinking. Not content to simply summarize Arnheim’s theory, however, Arnheim, Art, and Gestalt goes on to enrich (and occasionally question) Arnheim’s findings with the contemporary results of gestalt-theoretical research from around the world, but especially in Italy and Germany. The result is a workable overview of the psychology of art with bridges built to contemporary research, making Arnheim’s approach living and sustainable.



















