DARPA Grand Challenge : The Great Robot Race
The goal of the new series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field. The volume edited by Martin Buehler, Karl Iagnemma and Sanjiv Singh presents a unique and extensive collection of the scientific results by the teams which took part into the DARPA Grand Challenge in October 2005 in the Nevada desert. This event reached an incredible peak of popularity in the media, the race of the century like someone called it! The Grand Challenge demonstrated the fast growing progress - ward the development of robotics technology, as it showed the feasibility of using mobile robots operating autonomously in real world scenarios.
Current Developments in Bioerosion
The book opens with papers on the evolutionary significance of bioerosion, and subsequently ventures out to explore the remarkable diversity of bioerosive biota. From microboring bacteria to grazing echinoids, the studies use a variety of techniques ranging from field observations to sophisticated micro-computed tomography to investigate the ecological and environmental role of these organisms, including symbiotic interactions and alteration of non-carbonate substrates.
Cold-Water Corals and Ecosystems
Following the exciting exploration of hot vent and cold seep ecosystems, the rediscovery of cold-water coral ecosystems with high-technology instrumentation is currently another hot topic in multidisciplinary marine research. Conventionally, coral reefs are regarded as restricted to warm and well-illuminated tropical seas, not associated with cold and dark waters of higher latitudes. However, ongoing scientific missions have shed light on the global significance of this overlooked ecosystem. Cold-water coral ecosystems are involved in the formation of large seabed structures such as reefs and giant carbonate mounds, and they represent unexploited paleo-environmental archives of earth history. Like their tropical cousins, cold-water coral ecosystems harbour rich species diversity. Despite the great water depths, commercial interests overlap more and more with the coral occurrences. Human activities already impinge directly on cold-water coral reefs causing severe damage to this vulnerable ecosystem. In this volume, the current key institutions involved in cold-water coral research have contributed 62 state-of-the-art articles from geology and oceanography to biology and conservation.
Material Properties under Intensive Dynamic Loading
Understanding the physical and thermomechanical response of materials subjected to intensive dynamic loading is a challenge of great significance in engineering today. This volume assumes the task of gathering both experimental and diagnostic methods in one place, since not much information has been previously disseminated in the scientific literature. This book will thus be an invaluable companion for both the seasoned practioner as well as for the novice entering the field of experimental shock physics.
Marine Anthropogenic Litter
This book describes how man-made litter, primarily plastic, has spread into the remotest parts of the oceans and covers all aspects of this pollution problem from the impacts on wildlife and human health to socio-economic and political issues. Marine litter is a prime threat to marine wildlife, habitats and food webs worldwide. The book illustrates how advanced technologies from deep-sea research, microbiology and mathematic modelling as well as classic beach litter counts by volunteers contributed to the broad awareness of marine litter as a problem of global significance. The authors summarise more than five decades of marine litter research, which receives growing attention after the recent discovery of great oceanic garbage patches and the ubiquity of microscopic plastic particles in marine organisms and habitats.
Managing change for sustainability at higher education sector in Syria : The case of private university
Provides an overview of sustainability in higher education, emphasizing its significance in the scope of environmental, social, and economic initiatives. A clarification between an old and new paradigm is examined, highlighting the challenges, which face the higher education sector. The research review classical model of change drawing on the importance of action research model. The research provides a case example on sustainability in higher education in the South Mediterranean region, drawing on the case of Syrian higher education...
Management in marketing communications ; Vol.22
Provides a comprehensive overview of the essential topics in the field of management in marketing communication. these substantial topics are examined and addressed by scholars from the marketing and management discipline. beginning with the role of culture as a crucial element in marketing communication, the book delves into various matters within the scope of marketing communication. consequently, social media and its significance in modern marketing strategies are examined together with the topic of transition from offline to online marketing, emphasizing the impact of accelerated digitalization and its onset during the third decade of the twenty-first century. furthermore, the book discusses the rapid digital transformation stimulated by the COVID-19 pandemic and thus creates room for further exploration and research.
Machine Learning in Dentistry
This book reviews all aspects of the use of machine learning in contemporary dentistry, clearly explaining its significance for dental imaging, oral diagnosis and treatment, dental designs, and dental research. In this book, readers will find up-to-date information on different machine learning tools and their applicability in various dental specialties.
Lifelong Learning - Signs, Discourses, Practices
This text explores the different ways in which the various social practices in which people participate becomes signed as learning, how and why that occurs and with what consequences. It takes seriously the linguistic turn in social theory to draw upon semiotics and poststructuralism through which to explore the significance of lifelong learning as an emerging discourse in education. The text explores the different ways in which learning conveys meaning and is given meaning. Given this, lifelong learning therefore is a way, and a significant way, in which learning is fashioned. The text then explores the notion that, if learning is lifelong and lifewide, what precisely is learning as distinct from other social practices and how those practices are given meaning as learning.
Levinas Concordance
The concrete impact of the Levinasian philosophy upon the variousdirections of thinking – from ontology and ethics to Jewish thought, theolo-gy, aesthetics or feminism – attests moreover the great significance of thissingular figure of our times.For more than three decades now his philosophy has come to be thesubject of many doctoral theses, articles and books. The complete “Levinasbibliography” counts currently thousands of titles in more than ten lan-guages. The important contribution that a Levinas Concordancewould bring asa valuable instrument for exegetes,
Lenses and Waves : Christiaan Huygens and the Mathematical Science of Optics in the Seventeenth Century
this book offers the first account of the development of Huygens’ mathematical analysis of lenses and telescopes and its significance for the origin of the wave theory of light. As Huygens applied his mathematical proficiency to practical issues pertaining to telescopes – including trying to design a perfect telescope by means of mathematical theory – his dioptrics is significant for our understanding of seventeenth-century relations between theory and practice. With this full account of Huygens’ optics, this book sheds new light on the history of seventeenth-century optics and the rise of the new mathematical sciences, as well as Huygens’ oeuvre as a whole. Students of the history of optics, of early mathematical physics, and the Scientific Revolution, will find this book enlightening.
Knowledge and Information Visualization : Searching for Synergies
The basic ideas underlying knowledge visualization and information vi- alization are outlined. In a short preview of the contributions of this volume, the idea behind each approach and its contribution to the goals of the book are outlined. 2 The Basic Concepts of the Book Three basic concepts are the focus of this book: "data", "information", and "kno- edge". There have been numerous attempts to define the terms "data", "information", and "knowledge", among them, the OTEC Homepage "Data, Information, Kno- edge, and Wisdom" (Bellinger, Castro, & Mills, see http://www.syste- thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm): Data are raw. They are symbols or isolated and non-interpreted facts. Data rep- sent a fact or statement of event without any relation to other data. Data simply exists and has no significance beyond its existence (in and of itself). It can exist in any form, usable or not. It does not have meaning of itself.
Key Account Management in Business-to-Business Markets: An Assessment of Its Economic Value
In times of fierce competition in business-to-business markets strong and economically sound business relationships with a company's customers rank among the main success factors. As a well established marketing management conception, key account management is of particular significance in this context. Interestingly enough, empirical research studies have recently proved that relationship marketing, and particularly key account management, does not achieve the economic value originally expected.
IUTAM symposium on elementary vortices and coherent structures : Significance in turbulence dynamics ; Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium held at Kyoto International Community House, Kyoto, Japan, 26-28 October, 2004
This book contains 40 contributions presented there, the subjects of which cover vortex dynamics, coherent structures, chaotic advection and mixing, statistical properties of turbulence, rotating and stratified turbulence, instability and transition, dynamics of thin vortices, finite-time singularity, and superfluid turbulence. The book should be useful for readers of graduate and advanced levels in the field of fluid turbulence.
Comprehensive biochemistry for dentistry : Textbook for dental students
Combines fundamental concepts of biochemistry and the dental sciences to provide an authentic, coherent and comprehensive text for dental students. It describes in simple language the intricate pathophysiology of biomolecules in health and in diseases of dental and oral tissues. This book also describes the evolution of biochemistry in a chronological order, provides information about the fundamental chemical structure, classification and biological significance of biomolecules, vitamins and hormones, enriched with flow charts and diagrams for easy understanding and quick reference. It includes chapters on nucleic acids, nutrition and serum enzymes and organ function tests, and offers an innovative approach to familiarize dental students with the biochemical composition of enamel, dentine, cementum and saliva, explaining the biochemical basis of dental caries, periodontal diseases, role of fluorides in caries prophylaxis, fluoride toxicity, and the role of amino acids as anti-hypersensitive agents
Complexity Theory : Exploring the Limits of Efficient Algorithms
Complexity theory is the theory of determining the necessary resources for the solution of algorithmic problems and, therefore, the limits of what is possible with the available resources. An understanding of these limits prevents the search for non-existing efficient algorithms. This textbook considers randomization as a key concept and emphasizes the interplay between theory and practice: New branches of complexity theory continue to arise in response to new algorithmic concepts, and its results - such as the theory of NP-completeness - have influenced the development of all areas of computer science. The topics selected have implications for concrete applications, and the significance of complexity theory for today's computer science is stressed throughout.
Common law constitutional rights
Explores both the content and role of individual common law constitutional rights alongside the constitutional significance and broader implications of these developments. It therefore contributes not only to ourunderstanding of what the common law might be capable of offering in terms of the protection of rights, but also to our understanding of the nature of the constitutional order of which such rights are an integral part.
City, climate, and architecture : A theory of collective practice
Based on a history of climate control on urban scales, it promotes the integration of indoors and outdoors in order to reduce environmental and thermal loads in cities. Just as heating and cooling practices inside the buildings are affecting the (urban) climate outdoors, urban heat islands are influencing the energy requirements and thermal conditions inside the buildings. While the first part of the book focuses on the interwar period in Europe, the publication’s second part considers examples from all over the globe, tracing the growing significance of ecological thinking for the design of urban environments.
Chemistry of selected natural products and heterocyclic compounds
Covers the fundamental classification, nomenclature, occurrence, isolation, extraction, occurrence, detection, biosynthesis, medicinal/industrial significance, conversion and inter-conversions, etc.
Chemistry for pharmacy students : General, organic and natural product chemistry ; 2nd ed.
Opens with an overview of the general aspects of chemistry and their importance to modern life, with emphasis on medicinal applications. The text then moves on to discuss the concepts of atomic structure and bonding and the fundamentals of stereochemistry and their significance to pharmacy in relation to drug action and toxicity. Various aspects of organic functional groups, organic reactions, heterocyclic chemistry, nucleic acids and their pharmaceutical importance are then covered in subsequent chapters, with the final chapter dealing with drug discovery and development, and natural product chemistry. Provides a student-friendly introduction to the main areas of chemistry required by pharmacy degree courses. Written at a level suitable for non-chemistry students in pharmacy, but also relevant to those in life sciences, food science, and the health sciences Includes learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter Focuses on the physical properties and actions of drug molecules



















