Challenges in Language Testing Around the World : Insights for language test users
This book combines insights from language assessment literacy and critical language testing through critical analyses and research about challenges in language assessment around the world. It investigates problematic practices in language testing which are relevant to language test users such as language program directors, testing centers, and language teachers, as well as teachers-in-training in Graduate Diploma and Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics programs. These issues involve aspects of language testing such as test development, test administration, scoring, and interpretation/use of test results.
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.
Buildings : Theory and Applications
This book treats Jacques Tits's beautiful theory of buildings, making that theory accessible to readers with minimal background. It includes all the material of the earlier book Buildings by the second-named author, published by Springer-Verlag in 1989, which gave an introduction to buildings from the classical (simplicial) point of view. This new book also includes two other approaches to buildings, which nicely complement the simplicial approach: On the one hand, buildings may be viewed as abstract sets of chambers with a Weyl-group-valued distance function; this point of view has become increasingly important in the theory and applications of buildings. On the other hand, buildings may be viewed as metric spaces. Beginners can still use parts of the new book as a friendly introduction to buildings, but the book also contains valuable material for the active researcher.
Broadband Opto-Electrical Receivers in Standard CMOS
Broadband Opto-Electrical Receivers in Standard CMOS starts from the basic fundamentals, necessary for the design of opto-electronic interface circuits. The book continues with an in-depth analysis of the photodiode, transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and limiting amplifier (LA). To thoroughly understand the light detection mechanisms in silicon, first a one-dimensional and second a two-dimensional model is developed. Analytical design equations are derived to guide the design of the amplifying circuits. For the TIA, the focus lies on the sensitivity-speed trade-off. For the LA, a high gain-bandwidth is pursued. Several practical design examples reveal the subtleties and challenges encountered during the design of high-performance analog circuits.
Borderless Knowledge : Understanding the “New” Internationalisation of Research and Higher Education in Norway
this book analyses patterns of internationalisation comprising the national and supranational level, the level of higher education institutions and private companies, as well as the level of individual researchers and graduates. As a laboratory for studying internationalisation the book uses the case of Norway, a small knowledge system set in an open society, political system and economy. The case offers exceptionally good data on the developments in its research and higher education system that record changes over time and across the different parts and levels of a national knowledge system.
Bonding in Microsystem Technology
Bonding in Microsystem Technology starts with descriptions of terminology, kinds of microsystems and market analysis. Followed by the presentation of mechanisms of wet etching, set of process parameters, description of micromachining methods, examples of procedures, process flow-charts and applications of basic micromechanical structures in microsystems are shown. Next, high-temperature, low temperature and room-temperature bonding and their applications in microsystem technology are presented. The following part of the book contains the detailed description of anodic bonding, starting from analysis of properties of glasses suitable for anodic bonding, and discussion of the nature of the process. Next all types of anodic bonding and sealing procedures used in microsystem technology are presented.
Blind Speech Separation
This is the first book to provide a cutting edge reference to the fascinating topic of blind source separation (BSS) for convolved speech mixtures. Through contributions by the foremost experts on the subject, the book provides an up-to-date account of research findings, explains the underlying theory, and discusses potential applications. The individual chapters are designed to be tutorial in nature with specific emphasis on an in-depth treatment of state of the art techniques. Blind Speech Separation is divided into three parts:Part 1 presents overdetermined or critically determined BSS. Here the main technology is independent component analysis (ICA). ICA is a statistical method for extracting mutually independent sources from their mixtures. Part 2 addresses underdetermined BSS, where there are fewer microphones than source signals. Here, the sparseness of speech sources is very useful; we can utilize time-frequency diversity, where sources are active in different regions of the time-frequency plane.Part 3 presents monaural BSS where there is only one microphone. Here, we can separate a mixture by using the harmonicity and temporal structure of the sources. We can build a probabilistic framework by assuming a source model, and separate a mixture by maximizing the a posteriori probability of the sources.
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.
Bioactive components of milk
Of all food products dairy foods have the most potential concerning functional foods. Therefore, there is a tremendous amount of interest in value-added milk products and the identification of components in food which have health benefits. Bioactive Components of Milk provides an overview of these derived components and their diverse activities including: the stimulation of beneficial microflora, alerting the immune system to the presence of potential pathogens and allergens, binding and eliminating toxins, etc. The book is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on bioactive milk lipid components, which very widely among mammalian species. The second part describes different aspects of biological active colostrums and milk proteins and their derivatives, with special concern on species specific effects. The third part reviews the production of recombinant human proteins in the milk of livestock animals - including ethical issues - and the aims of altering milk composition for the benefit of both the animals themselves and the consumers. The final part focuses on the influence of ruminants nutrition on the biological activity of milk.
Becoming a teacher educator : Theory and practice for teacher educators
It is the first book that addresses a range of important topics related to the work of teacher educators, the induction of teacher educators and their further professional development.Becoming a Teacher Educator has a practical focus and it provides theoretical insights, experiences of experts and practical recommendations. The book is rooted in the Association of Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) and many of the chapters are written by authors who are active members of the ATEE. Distinguished researchers and practitioners from different parts of Europe, and beyond, joined their efforts to write a book that is truly international and combines research, practice and reflection.
Basic theoretical physics : A concise overview
This concise treatment embraces, in four parts, all the main aspects of theoretical physics (I . Mechanics and Basic Relativity, II. Electrodynamics and Aspects of Optics, III. Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics, IV. Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics). It summarizes the material that every graduate student, physicist working in industry, or physics teacher should master during his or her degree course. It thus serves both as an excellent revision and preparation tool, and as a convenient reference source, covering the whole of theoretical physics. It may also be successfully employed to deepen its readers' insight and add new dimensions to their understanding of these fundamental concepts. Recent topics such as holography and quantum cryptography are included, thus making this a unique contribution to the learning material for theoretical physics.
Basic Notions of Algebra
Aims to present a general survey of algebra, of its basic notions and main branches.Those parts of the book devoted to the systematic treatment of notions and results of algebra make very limited demands on the reader: we presuppose only that the reader knows calculus, analytic geometry and linear algebra in the form taught in many high schools and colleges. The extent of the prerequisites required in our treatment of examples is harder to state; an acquaintance with projective space, topological spaces, differentiable and complex analytic manifolds and the basic theory of functions of a complex variable is desirable, but the reader should bear in mind that difficulties arising in the treatment of some specific example are likely to be purely local in nature, and not to affect the understanding of the rest of the book.
Axial flux permanent magnet brushless machines
Axial Flux Permanent Magnet (AFPM) brushless machines are modern electrical machines with a lot of advantageous merits over their conventional counterparts. They are increasingly used in power generation, domestic appliances, industrial drives, electric vehicles, and marine propulsion drives and many other applications. This book deals with the analysis, construction, design, optimisation, control and applications of AFPM machines. The authors present their own research results, as well as significant research contributions made by others. This monograph will be of interest to electrical engineers and other engineers involved in the design and application of AFPM brushless machine drives. It will be an important resource for researchers and graduate students in the field of electrical machine and drives.
AVENUE21. Connected and Automated Driving : Prospects for Urban Europe
This publication examines the impact of connected and automated vehicles on the European city and the conditions that can enable this technology to make a positive contribution to urban development. The authors argue for two theses that have thus far received little attention in scientific discourse: as connected and automated vehicles will not be ready for use in all parts of the city for a long time, previously assumed effects – from traffic safety to traffic performance as well as spatial effects – will need to be re-evaluated.
Autotuning of PID Controllers : A Relay Feedback Approach
Recognising the benefits of improved control, the second edition of Autotuning of PID Controllers provides simple yet effective methods for improving PID controller performance. The practical issues of controller tuning are examined using numerous worked examples and case studies in association with specially written autotuning MATLAB® programs to bridge the gap between conventional tuning practice and novel autotuning methods. Autotuning of PID Controllers is more than just a monograph, it is an independent learning tool applicable to the work of academic control engineers and of their counterparts in industry looking for more effective process control and automation.
Annual bibliography of the history of the printed book and libraries ; Vol.31 : Publications of 2000 and additions from the preceding years
The Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries aims at recording articles of scholarly value which relate to the history of the printed book, to the history of arts, crafts, techniques and equipment, and of the economic social and cultural environment, involved in its production, distribution, conservation and description.
Analytic Methods for Design Practice
In the competitive world of modern engineering, rigorous and definite design methodologies are needed. However, many parts of engineering design are performed in either an ad-hoc manner or based on the intuition of the engineer.Analytic Methods for Design Practice is the first book to look at both stages of the design process – conceptual design and detailed design – and detail design methodologies for every step of the entire design process. The book introduces the following analytic design methodologies and explores their usefulness with many mathematical and practical examples: Axiomatic design; Optimization; Design of experiments; Robust design; Structural optimization; Dynamic response optimization; and Multidisciplinary optimization. A chapter of the book is devoted to case studies showing how practical design problems can be solved with analytic design methods based on Professor Park’s experiences of teaching design engineering over the past ten years.
Analog Design Essentials
The book starts with elementary stages in building up operational amplifiers. The synthesis of opamps is covered in great detail, such that lowest power consumption is always guaranteed. Many examples are included, operating at low supply voltages. Chapters on noise, distortion, filters, ADC/DACs and oscillators follow. These are all based on the extensive amount of teaching that the author has carried out both at universities and companies world-wide. All chapters have been drawn up specifically for self-study. They aim, however, at different levels of understanding. All start with elementary material. Most chapters also contain advanced material, especially from Chapter 9 onwards.
An Introduction to Sobolev Spaces and Interpolation Spaces
After publishing an introduction to the Navier–Stokes equation and oceanography (Vol. 1 of this series), Luc Tartar follows with another set of lecture notes based on a graduate course in two parts, as indicated by the title. A draft has been available on the internet for a few years. The author has now revised and polished it into a text accessible to a larger audience.
Ambient intelligence
Ambient intelligence is the vision of a technology that will become invisibly embedded in our natural surroundings, present whenever we need it, enabled by simple and effortless interactions, attuned to all our senses, adaptive to users and context-sensitive, and autonomous.



















