Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization
Large-Scale Nonlinear Optimization reviews and discusses recent advances in the development of methods and algorithms for nonlinear optimization and its applications, focusing on the large-dimensional case, the current forefront of much research.The chapters of the book including theoretical analysis, algorithmic development, implementation issues and applications.
Large-Scale Cognitive Assessment : Analyzing PIAAC Data
Summarises existing analysing techniques using data from PIAAC, a study initiated by the OECD that assesses key cognitive and occupational skills of the adult population in more than 40 countries. The approximately 65 PIAAC datasets that has been published worldwide to date has been widely received and used by an interdisciplinary research community
Large Eddy Simulation for Incompressible Flows : An Introduction
First concise textbook on Large-Eddy Simulation, a very important method in scientific computing and engineeringFrom the foreword to the third edition written by Charles Meneveau: ".
Language Learning Motivation and L2 Pragmatic Competence
It presents an original study that not only enriches our knowledge of the feasibility of modern technology in collecting large-scale data related to pragmatic competence but also eminently connects L2 pragmatics more closely with mainstream second language acquisition research by focusing on the role of motivation in pragmatic learning.
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.
Knowledge and Networks
This book discusses a core question in many fields of the social sciences, namely how to create, share and adopt new knowledge. It creates an original space for conversation between two lines of research that have developed largely in parallel for a long time: social network theory and the geography of knowledge. This book considers that relational thinking has become increasingly important for scholars to capture societal outcomes by studying social relations and networks, whereas the role of place, space and spatial scales has been somewhat neglected outside an emergent geography of knowledge.
Kinetics of Water-Rock Interaction
Systems at the surface of the Earth are continually responding to energy inputs derived from solar radiation or from the radiogenic heat in the interior. These energy inputs drive plate movements and erosion, exposing metastable mineral phases at the Earth’s surface. In addition, these energy fluxes are harvested and transformed by living organisms. As long as these processes persist, chemical disequilibrium at the Earth’s surface will be perpetuated. Chemical disequilibrium is also driven by human activities related to production of food, extraction of water and energy resources, and burial of wastes. To understand how the surface of the Earth will change over time, we must understand the rates at which reactions occur and the chemical feedbacks that relate these reactions across extreme temporal and spatial scales. This book addresses fundamental and applied questions concerning the rates of water-rock interactions driven by tectonic, climatic, and anthropogenic forcings.
IUTAM Symposium on Multiscale Problems in Multibody System Contacts ; Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium held in Stuttgart, Germany, February 20–23, 2006
The investigation of multiscale problems in multibody system contacts is an interesting and timely topic which has been the subject of intensive research. This proceedings volume summarizes contributions of many authors active in the field and gives insight in very different areas of this fascinating research.
Community Schools in Africa : Reaching the Unreached
Over the past decade, community schools similar to those supported by Save the Children have been established in many developing countries, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. As large numbers of children attend schools started and managed by their own communities and/or by nongovernmental organizations, questions have come up about the impact of such schools at large scale: "Can village-based or community schools have a national impact on access to education, spur improved long-term development strategies and education policy, or achieve or influence Education for All? This book explores these and related questions, drawing on Save the Children’s experience with community-based schooling in four countries: Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, and Uganda.
Climate prediction and agriculture : Advances and challenges
Improved adaptation of food production, particularly in areas where climate variability is large, holds the key to improving food security for human populations. Increasing climate knowledge and improved prediction capabilities facilitate the development of relevant climate information and prediction products for applications in agriculture to reduce the negative impacts due to climate variations and to enhance planning activities based on the developing capacity of climate science. This book, based on an International Workshop held in Geneva in 2005, reviews the advances made so far in seasonal climate predictions and their applications for management and decision-making in agriculture and identifies the challenges to be addressed in the next 5 to 10 years to further enhance operational applications of climate predictions in agriculture, especially in the developing countries.
Characterization of Corrosion Products on Steel Surfaces
It is well known that corrosion products, i.e. rust, on iron and steel surfaces cannot be assigned a typical crystallographic structure with long-range order. In fact, the structure of rust is considered to be very complicated, and some forms of rust are assigned to the amorphous state for this reason. Accurate information about the atomic-scale structure of rust is important to shed light on corrosion mechanisms of metallic materials. And, since life of steel structures is often dominated by environmental degradation or corrosion of the surface, the structure of the rust formed on iron and steel surfaces during prolonged exposure to air is of great interest. This book describes the fundamental aspects of materials characterization for the ferric oxyhydroxides formed on steel surfaces.
Cell Motility
Cell motility is a fascinating example of cell behavior which is fundamentally important to a number of biological and pathological processes. It is based on a complex self-organized mechano-chemical machine consisting of cytoskeletal filaments and molecular motors. In general, the cytoskeleton is responsible for the movement of the entire cell and for movements within the cell. The main challenge in the field of cell motility is to develop a complete physical description on how and why cells move. For this purpose new ways of modeling the properties of biological cells have to be found. This long term goal can only be achieved if new experimental techniques are developed to extract physical information from these living systems and if theoretical models are found which bridge the gap between molecular and mesoscopic length scales. Cell Motility gives an authoritative overview of the fundamental biological facts, theoretical models, and current experimental developments in this fascinating area.
Calibrating the Cosmos : How Cosmology Explains Our Big Bang Universe
Calibrating the Cosmos describes hard science, but is gently written. It explains in clear, non-mathematical language the measurements and the interpretation of the resulting data that have led to the current understanding of the origin, evolution and properties of our expanding Big Bang universe. Many people have a sketchy idea of the work of cosmologists, but Professor Levin’s experience in teaching both scientific and liberal arts students has enabled him to impart much of our current thinking without resorting to difficult mathematics. Theoretical concepts are emphasized, in particular the symmetries of homogeneity and isotropy enjoyed by our universe on the largest scales, how these symmetries lead to only one quantity being needed to describe the growth of the universe from its infancy to the present time, and how the so-called parameters of the universe are the ingredients used to construct the model universes to which ours – the real thing – is compared.
Buried Waste in the Seabed – Acoustic Imaging and Bio-Toxicity : Results from the European SITAR Project
Buried waste on the seabed is a major source of pollution. But, very often, waste sites are not known until a serious problem occurs, or are not adequately mapped. Recent examples around Europe include WWI and WWII ammunition dump sites (e.g. Beufort Dyke in the UK), dumped nuclear submarines in the Arctic Seas, clandestine or hidden toxic-waste in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.. Even if properly documented, waste sites evolve with time (dumped material can move with currents and tides, especially on a scale of decades; toxic-material barrels can corrode and leak). This book shows the results of a concerted EU-funded effort to tackle this problem and find innovative ways to identify and map toxic waste sites ona the seabed, whether they have been covered with sediments or not. These results are applicable to any region on the seabed in the entire world.
Bringing the sun down to earth : Designing inexpensive instruments for monitoring the atmosphere
The book describes in detail how to design, build, calibrate, and use inexpensive instruments for measuring solar radiation, ranging from total radiation from the entire sky to narrow spectral bands of radiation travelling along a path directly from the sun. Students and their teachers will learn a great deal about weather, the seasons, and the atmosphere, and they will develop a much better understanding of how to measure the physical world around them.
Biotechnology for Odor and Air Pollution Control
An international board of authors from universities, research institutes, and industries describe various biotechnological methods ranging from laboratory, to pilot evaluation and to full-scale process implementation. Topics include bioprocesses for the treatment of odors and air pollutants in wastewater treatment plants, rendering plants, chemical production facilities, and food and flavor manufacturing facilities. In addition to the basic microbiological and engineering aspects, the design, modeling and control of bioreactors are also presented.
BioMEMS and biomedical nanotechnology ; Vol. III : Therapeutic Micro/Nanotechnology
The human body is composed of structures organized in a hierarchical fashion: from biomolecules assembled into polymers, to multimeric assemblies such as cellular or-ganelles, to individual cells, to tissues, to organ systems working together in health and disease- each dominated by a characteristic length scale. Decades of science and engineer-ing are now converging to provide tools that enable the orderly manipulation of biological systems at previously inaccessible, though critically important, length scales (<100 mi-crons). Thus, the approaches described in this volume provide a snapshot of how micro-and nanotechnologies can enable the investigation, prevention, and treatment of human disease.The volume is divided into three parts. The first part, Cell-based therapeutics; cov- ers the merger of cells with micro- and anosystems for applications in regenerative medicine spanning the development of novel nanobiomaterials.
BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnology : Vol. I: Biological and Biomedical Nanotechnology
Abe Lee has been working on micro/ and nanotechnology for biomedical and biotech applications since 1992. His recent research focuses on the development of integrated micro and nano fluidic chip processors for the following applications: point-of-care diagnostics, "smart" nanomedicine for early detection and treatment, stem cell biology and therapeutics, the synthesis of novel and pure materials, and biosensors to detect environmental and terrorism threats. Jim Lee's research interest includes BioMEMS/NEMS, and polymer micro/nanotechnology. In the last 4 years, he has over 20 refereed journal publications, 2 book chapters, and 5 patents in these areas. He is now leading an NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymer Biomedical Devices at OSU.
Biology and mechanics of blood flows ; Part II : Mechanics and medical aspects
Biology and Mechanics of Blood Flows presents the basic knowledge and state-of-the-art techniques necessary to carry out investigations of the cardiovascular system using modeling and simulation. Part II of this two-volume sequence, Mechanics and Medical Aspects, refers to the extraction of input data at the macroscopic scale for modeling the cardiovascular system, and complements Part I, which focuses on nanoscopic and microscopic components and processes. This volume contains chapters on anatomy, physiology, continuum mechanics, as well as pathological changes in the vasculature walls including the heart and their treatments. Methods of numerical simulations are given and illustrated in particular by application to wall diseases. This authoritative book will appeal to any biologist, chemist, physicist, or applied mathematician interested in the functioning of the cardiovascular system.
Biology and mechanics of blood flows ; Part I : Biology
Biology and Mechanics of Blood Flows presents the basic knowledge and state-of-the-art techniques necessary to carry out investigations of the cardiovascular system using modeling and simulation. Part I of this two-volume sequence, Biology, addresses the nanoscopic and microscopic scales. The nanoscale corresponds to the scale of biochemical reaction cascades involved in cell adaptation to mechanical stresses among other stimuli. The microscale is the scale of stress-induced tissue remodeling associated with acute or chronic loadings. The cardiovascular system, like any physiological system, has a complicated three-dimensional structure and composition. Its time dependent behavior is regulated, and this complex system has many components.



















