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Barry's Introduction to Construction of Buildings ; 4th ed.

Based mainly on domestic and residential buildings—and filled with extensive illustrations throughout—this concise text is the ideal introduction to the subject of building construction. It provides the basic material that readers need in order to understand the construction process for the majority of low rise buildings. The book explains construction technology through the key functional and performance requirements for the main elements common to all buildings. With a strong focus on building efficiency and meeting the challenges posed by limiting the environmental impact of buildings, and new “at a glance” summaries allowing you to grasp the salient points of each chapter, readers will find the text fully up to date with the latest building regulations and construction technology. Deals with design, technology, site assembly, and environmental issues of domestic and residential buildings. Thoroughly updated, with particular attention paid to the concept of building efficiency and improved integration of the topics covered to match current student needs. New “at a glance” summaries at the beginning of each chapter.

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Barriers and Biases in Computer-Mediated Knowledge Communication : And How They May Be Overcome

This books deals with computer-mediated cooperation and communication scenarios in teaching and learning situations, leisure activities (e.g. laypersons looking for expert information on the internet), and net-based communication at work. Such scenarios will become increasingly important. But the successful use of such computer-mediated settings is not trivial. Cooperative learning and work itself requires special skills and strategies. And the technical settings with sometimes restricted, sometimes new possibilities for communication add problems on top of the cooperation itself. What are the barriers in computer-mediated communication for cooperative learning and work? Which are the most relevant biases in computer-mediated information processing? Based on empirical research the contributors from psychology, education and computer sciences offer different perspectives on the nature and causes of such barriers.

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Banking for Family Business: A New Challenge for Wealth Management

Hints of globalization have actually been around for several decades, even though they made only a modest impact; however, the availability of global capital and advances in communication technology have emp- sized the process of internationalization and the tools available to connect and integrate business activities to answer to more complex needs of c- ents. Moreover, the financial scandals and the review of mutual fund trade activity in the US by the Attorney General Elliot Spitzer have highlighted the importance to focus all efforts on renewing the confidence of prof- sional investors and their clients who have entrusted their capital to asset managers. Therefore, there is a growing need in the market to reinforce the concept of “Shared Positive Values” among the entire industry and among its stakeholders.

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Balancing Exploration and Exploitation by Creating Organizational Think Tanks

Key for successful knowledge management is a balance between exploration and exploitation. Danger arises when exploration is neglected in favour of exploitation since that may result in an organization which lacks innovation capability. In order to prevent this, an idea has been put forward in recent knowledge management research called ambidexterity, which means the simultaneous and balanced pursuing of both exploration and exploitations activities. Tatjana-Xenia Puhan follows up on this idea by concluding that ambidexterity need not necessarily be implemented in one single organization but can also be realised in a network of associated organizations. The interorganizational ambidexterity is based on co-specialisation: one organisation is devoted solely to exploration while associated organizations focus on their competences in exploitation. Furthermore, the author develops the concept of think tanks as organizations that concentrate on radical innovations while their network associates exploit this newly generated knowledge commercially.

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Balanced Website Design : Optimising Aesthetics, Usability and Purpose

Balanced Website Design (BWD) is a new methodology that fuses the strengths of traditional structured, stepped, and iterative approaches with a sharp focus on defining and achieving the desired characteristics of purpose, usability and aesthetics – absolutely essential requirements for any website. The book includes discussions of new perspectives on usability and aesthetics in the special context of website design. BWD is suitable for all types of websites, for individual and/or team projects, and should prove to be of significant value for even the most experienced of website designers. BWD provides guidance, structure and detailed documentation/process support for the activity of designing and implementing your next website – helping you to maximise its effectiveness and relevance.

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Bacteriophage therapy: From lab to clinical practice

Details new and updated experimental approaches for isolating, formulating, and engineering bacteriophage medicinal products. Authored by leading experts and written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, each chapter includes introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step reproducible laboratory protocols, and valuable tips for troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

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Bacteriocins : Ecology and Evolution

Microbes produce an extraordinary array of defense systems. These include bacteriocins, a class of antimicrobial molecules with narrow killing spectra, produced by bacteria. The book describes the diversity and ecological role of bacteriocins of Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, presenting a new classification scheme for the former and a state-of-the-art look at the role of bacteriocins in bacterial communication. It discusses the molecular evolution of colicins and colicin-like bacteriocins, and provides a contemporary overview of archaeocins, bacteriocin-like antimicrobials produced by archaebacteria. Furthermore, various modeling (in silico) studies elucidate the role of bacteriocins in microbial community dynamics and fitness, delving into rock-paper-scissors competition and the counter-intuitive survival of the weakest. The book makes compelling reading for a multi-faceted scientific audience, including those working in the fields of biodiversity and biotechnology, notably in the human and animal health domain.

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Bacterial signal transduction : Networks and drug targets

Interactions among different TCSs enable one system to respond to multiple signals, which is important for bacteria to minutely adjust themselves to complex environmental changes. Such interactions are found or predicted in various bacteria in this book. Over the past decade, a vast amount of exciting new information on the signal transduction pathway in bacteria has been brought to light. Reports on these develop› ments have been put together in this book, Bacterial Signal Transduction: Networks andDrug Targets. This book Offers an incentive for graduate students, academic scientists, and researchers in the pharmaceutical industry to further elucidate the TCS networks and apply them in the search for novel drugs.

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Bacterial regulatory RNA : Methods and protocols

Details new and updated methods used for studying prokaryotic non-coding RNAs and their protein accomplices. Chapters detail discovery of ncRNAs, characterization of their structure, functions, and their interactomes. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

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Bacterial Physiology : A Molecular Approach

The application of new molecular methodologies in the study of bacterial behaviour and cell architecture has enabled new revolutionary insights and discoveries in these areas. While this has also raised a number of scientific mysteries about bacteria, it certainly improved our understanding of these organisms as complex and adaptive entities rather than just simple tiny buckets of enzymes. The value of this recent knowledge in bacterial physiology is not only restricted to fundamental biology, but it also extends to biotechnology and drug-discovery disciplines where understanding cell behaviour and structure is essential for better exploitation of useful bacteria and effective eradication of harmful ones. This makes a new text accommodating recent developments in bacterial physiology highly relevant to a wide range of readership including those interested in basic and applied knowledge.

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Bacterial Fish Pathogens : Disease of Farmed and Wild Fish

This completely revised and updated edition of Bacterial Fish Pathogens is a comprehensive discussion of the biological aspects of the bacterial taxa which cause disease in fish. Since the 3rd edition was published in 1999, much has changed in the control of disease of farmes and wild fish. New pathogens such as Pasteurella skyensis have been described, and antimicrobial compounds for the control of disease have been replaced by alternative methods, such as probiotics. Consideration is given to all the bacterial taxa which have at some time been reported as fish pathogens, whether they are secondary invaders of already damaged tissues or serious, primary pathogens.

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Bacterial chromatin : Methods and protocols

Brings together new and updated methods to explore the structure and function of bacterial chromatin from molecular to the cellular scale. Chapters detail experimental protocols of in vivo and in vitro approaches, approaches to genome structure modeling, and data analysis. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and key tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.

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Axially chiral compounds : Asymmetric synthesis and applications

Appearing widely in natural products, biologically active molecules, asymmetric chemistry, and material science, axially chiral motifs constitute the core backbones of the majority of chiral ligands and organocatalysts in asymmetric catalysis. In a new work of particular relevance to synthetic chemists, Axially Chiral Compounds: Asymmetric Synthesis and Applications delivers a clearly structured and authoritative volume covering the classification, characteristics, synthesis, and applications of axial chirality.

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Average-Cost Control of Stochastic Manufacturing Systems

This book is concerned with hierarchical control of manufacturing systems under uncertainty. It focuses on system performance measured in long-run average cost criteria, exploring the relationship between control problems with a discounted cost and that with a long-run average cost in connection with hierarchical control. A new theory is articulated that shows that hierarchical decision making in the context of a goal-seeking manufacturing system can lead to a near optimization of its objective. The approach in the book considers manufacturing systems in which events occur at different time scales.

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Avengers assemblel : Critical perspectives on the marvel cinematic universe

We are living in the age of the superhero and we cannot deny it. 'Avengers Assemble!' is a vibrant and theoretically informed interrogation of one of the defining and most financially successful film franchises of the new millennium

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Autonomy oriented computing : From problem solving to complex systems modeling

Autonomy Oriented Computing explores the important theoretical and practical issues in AOC, by analyzing methodologies and presenting experimental case studies. The book serves as a comprehensive reference source for researchers, scientists, engineers, and professionals in all fields concerned with this promising new development in computer science. It can also be used as a main or supplementary text in graduate and undergraduate programs across a broad range of computer-related disciplines, including Robotics and Automation, Amorphous Computing, Image Processing and Computer Vision, Programming Paradigms, Computational Biology, and many others. The first part of the book, Fundamentals, describes the basic concepts and characteristics of an AOC system, and then it enumerates the critical design and engineering issues faced in AOC system development. The second part of the book, AOC in Depth, provides a detailed analysis of methodologies and case studies to evaluate the use of AOC in problem solving and complex system modeling. The final chapter reviews the essential features of the AOC paradigm and outlines a number of possibilities for future research and development.

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Autonomous Robots and Agents

This book deals with the theoretical and methodological aspects of incorporating intelligence in Autonomous Robots and Agents. Challenges faced in the real world to accomplish complex tasks, which require collaborative efforts, and methods to overcome them, are detailed. Several informative articles deal with navigation, localization and mapping of mobile robots, a problem that engineers and researchers are grappling with all the time.This edited volume is targeted to present the latest state-of-the-art methodologies in Robotics. It is a compilation of the extended versions of the very best papers selected from the many that were presented at the 3rd International Conference on Autonomous Robots and Agents (ICARA 2006) which was held at Palmerston North, New Zealand from 11-14 December, 2006. Scientists and engineers who work with mobile robots will find this book very useful and stimulating.

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Autonomous Navigation in Dynamic Environments

The purpose of this book is to address the challenging problem of Autonomous Navigation in Dynamic Environments, and to present new ideas and approaches in this newly emerging technical domain. The book surveys the state-of-the-art, discusses in detail various related challenging technical aspects, and addresses upcoming technologies in this field. The aim of the book is to establish a foundation for a broad class of mobile robot mapping and navigation methodologies for indoor, outdoor, and exploratory missions.Three main topics located on the cutting edge of the state of the art are addressed, from both the theoretical and technological point of views: Dynamic world understanding and modelling for safe navigation, Obstacle avoidance and motion planning in dynamic environments, and Human-robot physical interactions. Several models and approaches are proposed for solving problems such as Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) in dynamic environments, Mobile obstacle detection and tracking, World state estimation and motion prediction, Safe navigation in dynamic environments, Motion planning in dynamic environments, Robust decision making under uncertainty, and Human-Robot physical interactions.

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Autonomous intelligent systems : Multi-agents and data mining ; 2nd International workshop, AIS-ADM 2007, St. Petersburg, Russia, June 3-5, 2007, Proceedings

MAS offiers powerful metaphors for information system conceptualization, a range of new techniques, and technologies specifically focused on the design and implementation of lar- scale open distributed intelligent systems. KDD also provides intelligent inf- mation technology with powerful ideas, algorithms, and software means to help cope with the main problem of artificial intelligence, formulated in the we- known question “Where does the knowledge come from?”, thus actually making modern applications intelligent and adaptive. The evident recent trend in both science and industry is to integrate and take advantage of both technologies. The existing experience with combined application of multi-agent technology to design architectures of distributed (- erarchical and peer-to-peer) data mining and KDD systems, as well as the u- lization of data mining and KDD achievements to provide enhanced intelligence of MAS, confirms the fact that both technologies are capable of mutual enri- ment and their integrateduse may result in intelligent information systems with new emergent properties.

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Autonomic communication ; Vol. 3457 ; 1st International IFIP Workshop, WAC 2004, Berlin, Germany, October 18-19, 2004, Revised Selected Papers

The ?rst IFIP Workshop on Autonomic Communication (WAC 2004) was held 2004 in Berlin, Germany. The purpose of this workshop was to discuss Autonomic Communication—a new communication paradigm to assist the design of the next-generation n- works. WAC 2004 was explicitly focused on the principles that help to achieve purposeful behavior on top of self-organization (self-management, self-healing, self-awareness, etc. ). The workshop intended to derive these common principles from submissions that study network element’s autonomic behavior exposed by innovative (cross-layer optimized, context-aware, and securely programmable) protocol stack (or its middleware emulations) in its interaction with numerous, often dynamic network groups and communities. The goals were to understand how autonomic behaviors are learned, in?uenced or changed, and how, in turn, these a?ect other elements, groups and the network. Panel reports were compiled by panel moderators and conclude this volume.

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