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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.
Landscapes Under Pressure : Theory and Practice of Cultural Heritage Research and Preservation
This book investigates the newly emerging scope of interests and project agendas to investigate and preserve cultural landscapes. It presents the historic, archaeological, ethnographic, and environmental traditions of cultural landscape study and the attempts to reconstruct and analyze the complex processes of cultural changes through prehistoric and historic times.The "guiding light" of the book is that the fullest understanding of a cultural landscape will materialize through interdisciplinary cooperation, which should involve an ecological approach with historical ecology as the guiding tool, applied archaeology, and environmental planning.
Landscape Analysis and Visualisation : Spatial Models for Natural Resource Management and Planning
This book presents a collection and synthesis of many of these perspectives — perhaps it could only be produced in a land urb- ised in the tiniest of pockets, and yet so daunting with respect to the way non-populated landscapes dwarf its cities. Many travel to Australia to its cities and never see the landscapes — but it is these that give the country its power and imagery. It is the landscapes that so impress on us the need to consider how our intervention, through activities ranging from resource exploitation and settled agriculture to climate change, poses one of the greatest crises facing the modern world. In this sense, Australia and its landscape provide a mirror through which we can glimpse the extent to which our intervention in the world threatens its very existence.
Lagrangian Transport in Geophysical Jets and Waves : The Dynamical Systems Approach
This book provides an accessible introduction to a new set of methods for the analysis of Lagrangian motion in geophysical flows. These methods were originally developed in the abstract mathematical setting of dynamical systems theory, through a geometric approach to differential equations. Despite the recent developments in this field and the existence of a substantial body of work on geophysical fluid problems in the dynamical systems and geophysical literature, this is the first introductory text that presents these methods in the context of geophysical fluid flow. The book is organized into seven chapters; the first introduces the geophysical context and the mathematical models of geophysical fluid flow that are explored in subsequent chapters. The second and third cover the simplest case of steady flow, develop basic mathematical concepts and definitions, and touch on some important topics from the classical theory of Hamiltonian systems. The fundamental elements and methods of Lagrangian transport analysis in time-dependent flows that are the main subject of the book are described in the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters. The seventh chapter gives a brief survey of some of the rapidly evolving research in geophysical fluid dynamics that makes use of this new approach. Related supplementary material, including a glossary and an introduction to numerical methods, is given in the appendices.
Lagrangian Probability Distributions
Lagrangian expansions can be used to obtain numerous useful probability models, which have been applied to real life situations including, but not limited to: branching processes, queuing processes, stochastic processes, environmental toxicology, diffusion of information, ecology, strikes in industries, sales of new products, and production targets for optimum profits. This book presents a comprehensive, systematic treatment of the class of Lagrangian probability distributions, along with some of its families, their properties, and important applications.
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.
La mente medica : Che significa "umanizzazione" della medicina? = The Medical Mind : What does "humanization" of medicine mean?
Il presente testo intende chiarire misconoscimenti e riduzionismi che paralizzano il pur auspicato mutamento della medicina e le sue articolazioni in differenti professionalità. La Psicologia Clinica si pone come chiave per leggere la mentalità collettiva che sottende l’attuale cultura sanitaria medicalizzante, che si scontra con le esigenze della persona umana, negando, oltretutto, quanto la psicosomatica oggi ci dice circa la costante modulazione psichica di tutti i processi organici, nella salute così come in tutte le malattie. L’umanizzazione della medicina non è un surplus eticamente giusto per il malato: è un indispensabile agente terapeutico. La sua mancanza è iatrogena.
La correspondance entre Henri Poincaré et les physiciens, chimistes et ingénieurs = The correspondence between Henri Poincaré and physicists, chemists and engineers
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.
L’osservazione delle stelle variabili = The observation of variable stars
The observation of variable stars is one of the main contributions that amateur astronomers can offer to science and this book provides all the information necessary to pursue it profitably. In the first part the different classes of variables are presented in detail, with examples, light curves and physical descriptions. The second section, on the other hand, covers all the practical aspects of observation: from preparation and planning, to observation techniques, up to the management and processing of data.
Kramers-Kronig Relations in Optical Materials Research
This is the first one-volume work to provide a thorough and comprehensive description of the physical background, rigorous theory and applications of Kramers-Kronig relations in the fields of linear and nonlinear optical spectroscopy. Currently, Kramers-Kronig relations have become basic tools in the investigation of the optical properties of materials. A brief presentation of the related data-retrieval technique, the maximum entropy method, is also given. The contents and style potentially make this a standard text for physicists, chemists and engineers interested in optical-materials research and development.
Kolmogorovs Heritage in Mathematics
A.N. Kolmogorov (b. Tambov 1903, d. Moscow 1987) was one of the most brilliant mathematicians that the world has ever known. Incredibly deep and creative, he was able to approach each subject with a completely new point of view: in a few magnificent pages, which are models of shrewdness and imagination, and which astounded his contemporaries, he changed drastically the landscape of the subject.Most mathematicians prove what they can, Kolmogorov was of those who prove what they want. For this book several world experts were asked to present one part of the mathematical heritage left to us by Kolmogorov.
Knowledge-Driven Computing : Knowledge Engineering and Intelligent Computations
Knowledge-Driven Computing constitutes an emerging area of intensive research located at the intersection of Computational Intelligence and Knowledge Engineering with strong mathematical foundations. It embraces methods and approaches coming from diverse computational paradigms, such as evolutionary computation and nature-inspired algorithms, logic programming and constraint programming, rule-based systems, fuzzy sets and many others. The use of various knowledge representation formalisms and knowledge processing and computing paradigms is oriented towards the efficient resolution of computationally complex and difficult problems.
Knowledge Representation Techniques : A Rough Set Approach
The basis for the material in this book centers around a long term research project with autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle systems. One of the main research topics in the project is knowledge representation and reasoning. The focus of the research has been on the development of tractable combinations of approximate and nonmonotonic reasoning systems. The techniques developed are based on intuitions from rough set theory. Efforts have been made to take theory into practice by instantiating research results in the context of traditional relational database or deductive database systems.
Knowledge and Reality : Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga
Comprises essays presented to Alvin Plantinga on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Plantinga is one of the leading figures in Anglo-American metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion; his work in these areas has been the focus of wide scholarly attention. This collection of essays, all of which were written specifically for this volume in honor of Plantinga’s 70th birthday, ranges broadly over topics in metaphysics and epistemology and includes contributions by some of the best philosophers writing today. The volume will be of particular interest to metaphysicians, epistemologists, philosophers of religion and theologians as it includes important recent work by some of the leading thinkers in these fields.
Knot Theory and Its Applications
The book contains most of the fundamental classical facts about the theory, such as knot diagrams, braid representations, Seifert surfaces, tangles, and Alexander polynomials; also included are key newer developments and special topics such as chord diagrams and covering spaces. The work introduces the fascinating study of knots and provides insight into applications to such studies as DNA research and graph theory. In addition, each chapter includes a supplement that consists of interesting historical as well as mathematical comments.
Kernel Based Algorithms for Mining Huge Data Sets : Supervised, Semi-supervised, and Unsupervised Learning
"Kernel Based Algorithms for Mining Huge Data Sets" is the first book treating the fields of supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised machine learning collectively. The book presents both the theory and the algorithms for mining huge data sets by using support vector machines (SVMs) in an iterative way. It demonstrates how kernel based SVMs can be used for dimensionality reduction (feature elimination) and shows the similarities and differences between the two most popular unsupervised techniques, the principal component analysis (PCA) and the independent component analysis (ICA).
Junge Perspektiven der Türkeiforschung in Deutschland = Young perspectives of Turkey research in Germany
This volume creates an interdisciplinary forum for contemporary Turkey research in Germany. It presents research results from young scientists who are characterized by a fresh view of Turkey, methodological diversity and interdisciplinary approaches. The volume thus contributes to a better understanding of the society, politics, economy, history and culture of the country, which is playing an increasingly important role both regionally and in the European context.
Jets From Young Stars III : Numerical MHD and Instabilities
This volume contains the lecture notes of the Third JETSET School on Jets from Young Stars focussing on Numerical MHD and Instabilities. The introductory lectures presented here cover the basic concepts of the numerical methods for the integration of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic equations and of the applications of these methods to the treatment of the instabilities relevant for the physics of stellar jets. The first part of the book contains an introduction to the finite difference and finite volume methods for computing the solutions of hyperbolic partial differential equations and a discussion of approximate Riemann solvers for both hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic problems. The second part is devoted to the discussion of some of the main instability processes that may take place in stellar jets, namely: the Kelvin-Helmholtz, the radiative shock, the pressure driven and the thermal instabilities.
Jacopo da Firenze’s Tractatus Algorismi and Early Italian Abbacus Culture
In the city republics of Renaissance Italy, it was a common practice among the merchant class to send sons for a two-year course of study at an "abbacus school", where they learned practical, mostly commercial mathematics, known as abbaco. From this school institution, several hundred manuscripts survive, all in Italian, often containing not only what the masters needed in their teaching but also algebra or other advanced mathematical material. A signal feature of the book by Jens Høyrup is the first translation of one of these abbacus manuscripts into English.
Iterative Learning Control : Robustness and Monotonic Convergence for Interval Systems
This monograph studies the design of robust, monotonically-convergent iterative learning controllers for discrete-time systems. Two key problems with the fundamentals of iterative learning control (ILC) design as treated by existing work are: first, many ILC design strategies assume nominal knowledge of the system to be controlled and; second, it is well-known that many ILC algorithms do not produce monotonic convergence, though in applications monotonic convergence is often essential. Iterative Learning Control takes account of the recently-developed comprehensive approach to robust ILC analysis and design established to handle the situation where the plant model is uncertain. Considering ILC in the iteration domain, it presents a unified analysis and design framework that enables designers to consider both robustness and monotonic convergence for typical uncertainty models, including parametric interval uncertainties, iteration-domain frequency uncertainty, and iteration-domain stochastic uncertainty.
