Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science : Ideas, Disciplines, Practices
This volume owes its origin to the perception of a puzzling paradox. Hans Christian Ørsted, the great Danish scientist and philosopher, was one of the founders of modern physics through his experimental discovery in 1820 of the interaction of electricity and magnetism—a key step and model for the further unification of the forces of nature. Followers such as Maxwell and Einstein were, and today searchers worldwide are, enchanted by the hope for a completion of that grand program. In addition to Ørsted’s discovery of electromagnetism, his work in science included other fields, chiefly high-pressure physics and acoustics.
Computational Methods
Contains the proceeding of the First International Conference on Computational Methods (ICCM04), held in Singapore, December 15-17, 2004. This book covers a range of topics such as meshfree particle methods, Generalized FE and Extended FE methods, inverse analysis and optimization methods.
Biogeochemistry of Trace Elements in Arid Environments
Global warming has worsened the water resource crisis in many arid zones worldwide, from Africa to Asia, affecting millions of people and putting them at risk of hunger. Effective management of arid zone resources, including understanding the risks of toxic trace and heavy elements to humans, coupled with the need to produce more food to feed the world’s growing population, has thus become increasingly important. This very timely book, the only one of its kind on the market, fills the gap of our knowledge of trace elements in these regions. This book begins by introducing the nature and properties of arid zone soil, followed by an updated overview and comprehensive coverage of the major aspects of the trace elements and heavy metals of most concern in the world’s arid and semi-arid soils. These aspects include: - content and distribution - solution chemistry - solid-phase chemistry - selective sequential dissolution techniques - transfer fluxes - bioavailability - pollution and remediation In order to illustrate the themes, a comprehensive and focused case study on transfer fluxes of trace elements in Israeli arid soils is presented. Finally it closes with the global perspectives on anthropogenic interferences in the natural trace elements’ distribution.


