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Mars, A Cosmic Stepping Stone : Uncovering Humanity’s Cosmic Context
The questions of our origin and cosmic abundance of life are among the compelling facing humanity. For all of the difficulties facing us however, the planet Mars may act as a cosmic stepping stone in uncovering the answers. This book examines these issues in one of the comprehensive treatments about Mars and our legacy of engagement with it.
Markov Decision Processes with Their Applications
Markov decision processes (MDPs), also called stochastic dynamic programming, were first studied in the 1960s. MDPs can be used to model and solve dynamic decision-making problems that are multi-period and occur in stochastic circumstances. There are three basic branches in MDPs: discrete-time MDPs, continuous-time MDPs and semi-Markov decision processes. Starting from these three branches, many generalized MDPs models have been applied to various practical problems. These models include partially observable MDPs, adaptive MDPs, MDPs in stochastic environments, and MDPs with multiple objectives, constraints or imprecise parameters.
Market-Consistent Actuarial Valuation
It is a challenging task to read the balance sheet of an insurance company. This derives from the fact that different positions are often measured by different yardsticks. Assets, for example, are mostly valued at market prices whereas liabilities are often measured by established actuarial methods. Market-Consistent Actuarial Valuation presents powerful methods to measure liabilities and assets in the same way. The mathematical framework that leads to market-consistent values for insurance liabilities is explained in detail by the authors. Topics covered are Stochastic discounting, Valuation portfolio in life and non-life insurance, Asset and liability management, Financial risks, Insurance technical risks, and Solvency.
Maritime Work Law Fundamentals : Responsible Shipowners, Reliable Seafarers
As the title suggests, a fundamental challenge of this branch of international maritime law is to achieve a balance between the interests of the two main stakeholders. Institutionally, the effort to achieve this balance dates back a number of decades with its genesis mainly found in the work of the International Labour Organization. It has to be said that whilst this effort achieved great progress, it has led to a haphazard, plethora of legal instruments.
Mapping the Galaxy and Nearby Galaxies
This is a proceedings book of the symposium "Mapping the Galaxy and Nearby Galaxies" held on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa, Japan, on June 25 – 30, 2006. The symposium focused on mapping the interstellar media and other components in galaxies.
Map-based Mobile Services : Design, Interaction and Usability
It addresses methods and techniques for topics that range from design and rendering, context modelling, personalisation, multimodal interaction to usability test. Instead of striving for a seamless coverage of all essential theoretical and technical issues with an equal depth and extent, we attempt to pinpoint a number of research highlights and representative development activities at universities, research institutions and so- ware industry. The operational prototypes and platforms reported in the book are on the one hand outcome and feasibility proof of various approaches. On the other hand, they serve as a new starting point for the refinement of user interfaces and iterative usability tests.
Managing Forest Ecosystems : The Challenge of Climate Change
With climate change now charging up the political agenda, there are three issues commonly making the headlines: carbon budgets, renewable energy, and the anticipated impacts of climate change. Equally important, though currently less well covered, is the issue how these effects might be mitigated. Given the significant role that forests play in the climate system – as sources, sinks, and through carbon trading – this book discusses the current scientific evidence on the relationships between climate, forest resources and forest management practices around the world. Drawing on expertise from forest scientists from several continents, the book presents both in depth analysis of the current knowledge, and a series of case studies which assess the biological and the economic impacts of climate change. It includes sections on forest responses to climate change, monitoring and modeling changes, economic and management implications, and carbon sequestration under specific management systems.
Managing Diversity in Intergovernmental Organisations
Intensifying worldwide environmental changes as well as political, cultural, religious, and economic crises have made intergovernmental organisations (IGOs) important instruments in international and global cooperation. In order to cope with their diverse stakeholders, it is more imperative than ever for intergovernmental organisations to engage in personnel policy on an international scale. Successful diversity management is an essential prerequisite for organisational performance, conflict management, and dynamics of IGOs. Björn A. Peters examines the challenges of diversity and managing diversity in IGOs on the basis of the Mekong River Commission case study.
Managing Complexity : Insights, Concepts, Applications
Each chapter in Managing Complexity focuses on analyzing real-world complex systems and transferring knowledge from the complex-systems sciences to applications in business, industry and society. The interdisciplinary contributions range from markets and production through logistics, traffic control, and critical infrastructures, up to network design, information systems, social conflicts and building consensus. They serve to raise readers' awareness concerning the often counter-intuitive behavior of complex systems and to help them integrate insights gained in complexity research into everyday planning, decision making, strategic optimization, and policy.
Management of Transboundary Rivers and Lakes
As it circulates in the atmosphere, in the rivers, lakes, soil, rock, and in the oceans, it is the major conveyer of va- ous chemical substances and of energy, and it can also be called as the blood of the ecosystems of this planet. But at the same time water is interwoven in the va- ous functions of the nature and the human society in countless ways which makes water one of the most complicated challenges of the mankind today.Human beings are exploiting and enjoying, but at the same time polluting and deteriorating, the waters in various ways and water is equally important to the - man socio-economic system as it is to the nature. It may sound a bit anecdotal to say that water obeys no borders, but that is true; the hydrologic cycle with its r- ers, river basins, lakes, aquifers, rainfalls, oceans, etc., cross administrational b- ders without any passport control. River and lake basins are in most cases very different from the administrational borders that the human beings have set up.
Making Fisheries Management Work : Implementation of Policies for Sustainable Fishing
This book seeks to widen the perspective taken on implementation in fisheries management. The cases presented in this volume addresses legal, administrative, and political challenges regarding implementation of resource conservation policies. The book addresses problems relating to goal achievement, but also causes of deliberate change of political goals during implementation. Fisheries management systems are embedded in inert social structures and natural conditions that vary among different states. Consequently, the book takes a historical and comparative approach, describing the historical developments of national implementation systems and the conditions that shaped their development. It thus seeks to explain why national fisheries management systems have evolved differently, focusing on Norwegian, Faeroese, and EU/Danish management systems. The descriptive and explanatory outlines are accompanied by qualitative assessments of the systems effectiveness as tools for collective action.
Magnetic Nanostructures in Modern Technology ; Spintronics, Magnetic MEMS and Recording
A team of outstanding scientists in the field of modern magnetic nanotechnologies illustrates the state of the art in several areas of advanced magneto-electronic devices, magnetic micro-electromechanical systems and high density information storage technologies.The physics and chemistry of nano-scale systems have made rapid advances and there are real prospects of translating exciting scientific findings into a new generation of processes and high technology products with a potential impact on several industrial sectors. In particular the development of nano-structured magnetic materials plays a leading role in the increasing miniaturization of devices with superior performances.
Magnetic Heterostructures : Advances and Perspectives in Spinstructures and Spintransport
Magnetic heterostructures constitute an important field in magnetism and nanotechnology, which has developed over the past fifteen years due to important advances in epitaxial- growth techniques and lithographic processes. Magnetic heterostructures combine different physical properties which do not exist in nature. Examples are semiconductors/ferromagnets, superconductors/ferromagnets, and ferromagnets/antiferromagnets. These combinations display rich and novel physical properties different from those that exit in any single one of them. Interlayer exchange coupling, exchange bias, proximity effects, giant magneto-resistance, tunneling magneto-resistance, spininjection and spintransport are examples of new physical phenomena that rely on the combination of different materials layers
Magnetic Control of Tokamak Plasmas
The main topic of Magnetic Control of Tokamak Plasmas is the design of feedback control systems guaranteeing the stability of plasma equilibrium inside a tokamak and the regulation of the plasma position and shape during plasma pulses. Modelling and control details are presented, allowing the non-expert to understand the control problem. Starting from equations of magneto-hydro-dynamics, all the steps needed for the derivation of plasma state-space models are enumerated. The basics of electromagnetics are frequently recalled. The control problem is then described beginning with control of current and position – vertical and radial – and progressing to the more challenging shape control. The solutions proposed vary from simple PIDs to more sophisticated MIMO controllers.
Magnesium Injection Molding
Injection molding of metallic alloys is a modern and environment-friendly technology with universal features, capable of implementing many conventional and novel processing methods based on semisolid and liquid routes. After its application to magnesium and recent commercialization, it is used to manufacture millions of light-weight, fully-recyclable components for various markets, including consumer electronics housings, automotive parts, sporting goods, household devices and office equipment.
Machining: Fundamentals and Recent Advances
Machining is one of the most important manufacturing processes. Parts manufactured by others processes often require further operations before the product is ready for application. Machining is the broad term used to describe the removal of material from a work-piece. Machining processes can be applied to work metallic and non-metallic materials such as polymers, wood, ceramics and composites.
Machine Learning in Document Analysis and Recognition
The objective of Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) is to recognize the text and graphicalcomponents of a document and to extract information. With ?rst papers dating back to the 1960’s, DAR is a mature but still gr- ing research?eld with consolidated and known techniques. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engines are some of the most widely recognized pr- ucts of the research in this ?eld, while broader DAR techniques are nowadays studied and applied to other industrial and o?ce automation systems. In the machine learning community, one of the most widely known - search problems addressed in DAR is recognition of unconstrained handwr- ten characters which has been frequently used in the past as a benchmark for evaluating machine learning algorithms, especially supervised classi?ers.
Low-Power High-Speed ADCs for Nanometer CMOS Integration
Low-Power High-Speed ADCs for Nanometer CMOS Integration is about the design and implementation of ADC in nanometer CMOS processes that achieve lower power consumption for a given speed and resolution than previous designs, through architectural and circuit innovations that take advantage of unique features of nanometer CMOS processes. A phase lock loop (PLL) clock multiplier has also been designed using new circuit techniques and successfully tested.
Low-Power High-Level Synthesis for Nanoscale CMOS Circuits
Low-Power High-Level Synthesis for Nanoscale CMOS Circuits addresses the need for analysis, characterization, estimation, and optimization of the various forms of power dissipation in the presence of process variations of nano-CMOS technologies. The authors show very large-scale integration (VLSI) researchers and engineers how to minimize the different types of power consumption of digital circuits.
Low Power Uwb Cmos Radar Sensors
Low Power UWB CMOS Radar Sensors deals with the problem of designing low cost CMOS radar sensors. The radar sensor uses UWB signals in order to obtain a reasonable target separation capability, while maintaining a maximum signal frequency below 2 GHz. This maximum frequency value is well within the reach of current CMOS technologies. The use of UWB signals means that most of the methodologies used in the design of circuits and systems that process narrow band signals, can no longer be applied. Low Power UWB CMOS Radar Sensors provides an analysis between the interaction of UWB signals, the antennas and the processing circuits.
