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Cores to Clusters : Star Formation with Next Generation Telescopes
Toward the second half of this decade, several major telescope facilities operating in the infrared, sub-millimeter, and millimeter wave bands will become operational. These missions are expected to throw much light on our understanding of the star formation phenomenon, which is one of the primary science goals in these wave bands. This book contains the proceedings of the "Cores to Clusters" workshop held at Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto. The mission of the workshop was to discuss current and future issues in star formation physics in the light of these Next Generation Telescopes. This book is comprised of a mixture of articles that provide a comprehensive coverage of current topics including both low and high mass star formation. It serves as a practical compendium for graduate students and young researchers working in the field of star formation.
Cooperative Information Agents XI ; Matthias Klusch, Koen V. Hindriks, Mike P. Papazoglou, Leon Sterling
In today’s world of ubiquitously connected heterogeneous information systems and computing devices, the intelligent coordination and provision of relevant added-value information at any time, anywhere is of key importance to a va- ety of applications. This challenge is envisioned to be coped with by means of appropriate intelligent and cooperative information agents. An information agent is a computational software entity that has access to one or multiple heterogeneous and geographically dispersed data and infor- tion sources. It pro-actively searches for and maintains information on behalf of its human users, or other agents preferably just in time. In other words, it is managing and overcoming the di?culties associated with information overload in open, pervasive information and service landscapes. Each component of a modern cooperative information system is represented by an appropriate intelligent information agent capable of resolving system and semantic heterogeneities in a given context on demand. Cooperative infor- tion agents are supposed to accomplish both individual and shared joint goals depending on the actual user preferences in line with given or deduced limits of time, budget and resources available.
Cooperative Bug Isolation : Winning Thesis of the 2005 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Competition
Efforts to understand and predict the behavior of software date back to the earliest days of computer programming,over half a century ago. In the intervening decades, the need for effective methods of understanding software has only increased; so- ware has spread to become the underpinning of much of modern society, and the potentially disastrous consequences of broken or poorly understood software have become all too apparent.
Controlled Nanoscale Motion : Nobel Symposium 131
This volume provides an introduction to the state-of-the-art of controlled nanoscale motion in biological and artificial systems. Topics include the control and function of protein motors, the physics of non-equilibrium Brownian motion, and the physics and fabrication of synthetic molecular motors.
Continuum Thermomechanics
The general goal of this book is to deduce rigorously, from the first principles, the partial differential equations governing the thermodynamic processes undergone by continuum media under forces and heat. Solids and fluids are considered in a unified framework. Reacting mixtures of fluids are also included for which general notions of thermodynamics are recalled, such as the Gibbs equilibrium theory.Linear approximate models are mathematically obtained by calculating the derivatives of the constitutive response functions. They include the classical models for linear vibrations of thermoelastic solids and also for wave propagation in fluids (dissipative and non-dissipative acoustics and internal gravity waves).
Congenital infections : Toxoplasmosis and rubella
Torch syndrome is caused by a uterine infection with one of the factors that cause Torch syndrome, which disrupts the development of the fetus. Torch syndrome can be prevented by treating the infected pregnant woman, and thus preventing transmission of the infection to the fetus. And some of the factors that cause Torch Syndrome can give the mother permanent immunity, preventing the arrival of the disease and thus fetal malformations. They include a group of symptoms caused by a congenital infection such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, CMV and herpes, or due to other organisms such as syphilis, small viruses, and varicella zoster virus. The Toxoplasma parasite and the rubella virus can provide lasting immunity if the mother was infected before pregnancy in both or if she was vaccinated before pregnancy in Rubella.
Conditionals, Information, and Inference
Conditionals are fascinating and versatile objects of knowledge representation. On the one hand, they may express rules in a very general sense, representing, for example, plausible relationships, physical laws, and social norms. On the other hand, as default rules or general implications, they constitute a basic tool for reasoning, even in the presence of uncertainty. In this sense, conditionals are intimately connected both to information and inference. Due to their non-Boolean nature, however, conditionals are not easily dealt with. They are not simply true or false — rather, a conditional “if A then B” provides a context, A, for B to be plausible (or true) and must not be confused with “A entails B” or with the material implication “not A or B.” This ill- trates how conditionals represent information, understood in its strict sense as reduction of uncertainty. To learn that, in the context A, the proposition B is plausible, may reduce uncertainty about B and hence is information. The ab- ity to predict such conditioned propositions is knowledge and as such (earlier) acquired information. The ?rst work on conditional objects dates back to Boole in the 19th c- tury, and the interest in conditionals was revived in the second half of the 20th century, when the emerging Arti?cial Intelligence made claims for appropriate formaltoolstohandle“generalizedrules.”Sincethen,conditionalshavebeenthe topic of countless publications, each emphasizing their relevance for knowledge representation, plausible reasoning, nonmonotonic inference, and belief revision.
Computational logic in multi-agent systems ; Vol. 3487 ; 5th International Workshop, CLIMA V, Lisbon, Portugal, September 29-30, 2004, Revised Selected and Invited Papers
The notion of agency has recently increased its in?uence in the research and - velopment of computational logic based systems, while at the same time sign- cantly gaining from decades of research in computational logic. Computational logic provides a well-de?ned, general, and rigorous framework for studying s- tax, semantics and procedures, for implementations, environments, tools, and standards, facilitating the ever important link between speci?cation and ver- cation of computational systems. The purpose of the Computational Logic in Multi-agent Systems (CLIMA) international workshop series is to discuss techniques, based on computational logic, for representing, programming, and reasoning about multi-agent systems in a formal way. Former CLIMA editions were conducted in conjunction with other major computational logic and AI events Thesubmittedpapersshowedthatthelogicalfoundationsofmulti-agent systems are felt by a large community to be a very important research topic, upon which classical AI and agent-related issues are to be addressed.
Combinatorial Image Analysis ; Vol.4040 : 11th International Workshop, IWCIA 2006, Berlin, Germany, June 19-21, 2006, Proceedings
Constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Workshop on Combinatorial Image Analysis, IWCIA 2006, held in Berlin, June 2006. The book presents 34 revised full papers together with two invited papers, covering topics including combinatorial image analysis; grammars and models for analysis and recognition of scenes and images; combinatorial topology and geometry for images; digital geometry of curves and surfaces; algebraic approaches to image processing, and more.
Collective Actions in Europe : A Comparative, Economic and Transsystemic Analysis
This book offers an analytical presentation of how Europe has created its own version of collective actions. In the last three decades, Europe has seen a remarkable proliferation of collective action legislation, making class actions the most successful export product of the American legal scholarship. While its spread has been surrounded by distrust and suspiciousness, today more than half of the EU Member States have introduced collective actions for damages and from those who did, more than half chose, to some extent, the opt-out system. This book demonstrates why collective actions have been felt needed from the perspective of access to justice and effectiveness of law, the European debate and the deep layers of the European reaction and resistance, revealing how the Copernican turn of class actions questions the fundamentals of the European thinking about market and public interest. Using a transsystemic presentation of the European national models, it analyzes the way collective actions were accommodated with the European regulatory environment, the novel and peculiar regulatory questions they had to address and how and why they work differently on this side of the Atlantic.
Coal combustion byproducts and environmental issues
Coal Combustion Byproducts and Environmental Issues addresses the major implications and critical issues surrounding coal combustion products and their impact upon the environment. It provides essential information for scientists conducting research on coal and coal combustion products, but also serves as a valuable reference for a wide variety of researchers and other professionals in the energy industry and in the fields of public health, engineering, and environmental sciences. The ultimate goal of this volume is to benefit both our economy and our environment as humanity enters the second half of the fossil fuel era.
Clocks in the Sky : The Story of Pulsars
In this book, Geoff McNamara explores the history, subsequent discovery and contemporary research into pulsar astronomy. The story of pulsars is brought right up to date with the announcement in 2006 of a new breed of pulsar, Rotating Radio Transients (RRATs), which emit short bursts of radio signals separated by long pauses. These may outnumber conventional radio pulsars by a ratio of four to one. Geoff McNamara ends by pointing out that, despite the enormous success of pulsar research in the second half of the twentieth century, the real discoveries are yet to be made including, perhaps, the detection of the hypothetical pulsar black hole binary system by the proposed Square Kilometre Array - the largest single radio telescope in the world.
Markell & Voge's Medical Parasitology
An updated and fresh look that highlights the comprehensive material students have trusted for over 40 years. Completely redrawn line drawings and improved halftones provide visual examples related directly to the textual material. The content explores the etiologic agents of human disease belonging to the animal kingdom: protozoa, helminths (worms), and arthropods (insects and spiders), all of which are a significant cause of, or link to illness encountered both in tropical and temperate environments.
Marine Biotechnology I
Oceans, which occupy up to two thirds of the surface of our planet, were not really approached from scientific point of view until the second half of the 19th century and even the 20th with regard to microbial and unicellular life. Today, the importance of marine biodiversity has been fully recognized. It is, indeed, one of the aspects which, over the two past decades, have made a major contribution to our knowledge and vision of the living planetThis volume of Advances in Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology illustrates several topics in line with the following broad objectives: thinking ofmarine biotechnology as the controlled production and use of marine organisms and molecules for useful purposes, firstly by exploring aspects of marine biodiversity and exploitation of biomass, then considering the identification, production and processing of marine products.
Manual of intracytoplasmic sperm injection in human assisted reproduction
For around half of the couples who have trouble conceiving the cause of infertility is sperm-related. Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is the most common and successful treatment for male infertility. Here, the pioneers for the technique, along with authorities in the field, describe the underlying science of ICSI and other micromanipulation techniques. Practical advice for performing the techniques is covered in depth, including sperm selection, laser-assisted ICSI, and the use of piezo in ICSI. Examining the safety of ICSI in animal models as well as the impact of ICSI on the health and well-being of the children conceived through the procedure is discussed. This manual is an essential resource for clinical embryologists and laboratory personnel wishing to refine or develop techniques and improve outcomes.
Managed Software Evolution
This book presents the outcomes of the “Design for Future – Managed Software Evolution” .The different lifecycles of software and hardware platforms lead to interoperability problems in such systems. Instead of separating the development, adaptation and evolution of software and its platforms, as well as aspects like operation, monitoring and maintenance, they should all be integrated into one overarching process. Accordingly, the book is split into three major parts, the first of which includes an introduction to the nature of software evolution, followed by an overview of the specific challenges and a general introduction to the case studies used in the project. The second part of the book consists of the main chapters on knowledge carrying software, and cover tacit knowledge in software evolution, continuous design decision support, model-based round-trip engineering for software product lines, performance analysis strategies, maintaining security in software evolution, learning from evolution for evolution, and formal verification of evolutionary changes. In turn, the last part of the book presents key findings and spin-offs. The individual chapters there describe various case studies, along with their benefits, deliverables and the respective lessons learned. An overview of future research topics rounds out the coverage.
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.
Logistics Systems Analysis
It has two new sections, a new appendix, and more than half a dozen new figures. A few references have also been added, Much of the new material is based on work , The financial support of the National Science Foundation and the Volvo Foundations Center of Excellence for the Future of Urban Transportation at U. C. Berkeley is also acknowledged. The new appendix presents the logic behind the traveling salesman and vehicle routing results used in Sec. 4. 2 to describe the transportation ope- tion; Chapter 4 is more self-contained as a result. New section 5. 6 int- duces and evaluates a general method that automatically translates the c- tinuum approximation recipes of Chapters 4 and 5 into discrete system designs. This closes a gap in previous editions. Other additions include an explanation of how to develop system designs that can efficiently acc- modate real-time control strategies to manage uncertainty (new section 4. 6. 3), and extensions of the many-to-many design ideas of Chap. 6
Logica Universalis : Towards a General Theory of Logic
Signifies the arrival of a new renaissance in logic, a new revival not only of logic, but of the vision of logic as a unifying tool for science as a whole, including mathematics, physics, cosmology, computer science and AI. The book and the vision behind it give logic, conceived as a scientific study of rationality, new unifying power, new perspectives, and new horizons.Universal Logic is not a new logic, but a general theory of logics, considered as mathematical structures. The name was introduced about ten years ago, but the subject is as old as the beginning of modern logic: Alfred Tarski and other Polish logicians such as Adolf Lindenbaum developed a general theory of logics at the end of the 1920s based on consequence operations and logical matrices. The subject was revived after the flowering of thousands of new logics during the last thirty years: there was a need for a systematic theory of logics to put some order in this chaotic multiplicity.
Local-Moment Ferromagnets : Unique Properties for Modern Applications
Some ferromagnetic materials with localized magnetic moments have become a hot topic in modern solid-state physics because of their potential applications, e.g. in spintronic devices. The magnetic systems of interest comprise diluted magnetic semiconductors and half-metallic ferromagnets. Like conventional concentrated local-moment systems, they are characterized by an exchange interaction between localized magnetic moments and quasi-free charge carriers. The current research on local-moment ferromagnetism is reviewed in a tutorial style by leading experts in this field. Experimentalists present the latest approaches to characterize the unique material properties, and theoreticians propose definitive ideas to explain the observed phenomena. Students and researches alike will benefit from this status report.
