Astronomical sketching : A step-by-step introduction
At some time we have all gazed through the telescope eyepiece at the magnificent rings and banded globe of Saturn, or seen long shadows reaching across crater floors at the Moon’s terminator – and wondered at the sheer beauty of the sight. It seems almost anachronistic to think of sketching when CCD imaging is available, but astronomical sketching provides an entirely different and deeply personal experience. It means spending time at the eyepiece to really look at what you can see, training your eye to perceive ever greater detail to take the fullest advantage of your telescope's light grasp and resolution.
Astrobiology : Future perspectives
Astrobiology, a new exciting interdisciplinary research field, seeks to unravel the origin and evolution of life wherever it might exist in the Universe. The current view of the origin of life on Earth is that it is strongly connected to the origin and evolution of our planet and, indeed, of the Universe as a whole. We are fortunate to be living in an era where centuries of speculation about the two ancient and fundamental problems: the origin of life and its prevalence in the Universe are being replaced by experimental science. The subject of Astrobiology can be approached from many different perspectives. This book is focused on abiogenic organic matter from the viewpoint of astronomy and planetary science and considers its potential relevance to the origins of life on Earth and elsewhere. Guided by the review papers in this book, the concluding chapter aims to identify key questions to motivate future research and stimulate astrobiological applications of current and future research facilities and space missions. Today’s rich array of new spacecraft, telescopes and dedicated scientists promises a steady flow of discoveries and insights that will ultimately lead us to the answers we seek.
Associative and endophytic nitrogen-fixing bacteria and cyanobacterial associations
Associative and Endophytic Nitrogen-fixing Bacteria and Cyanobacterial Associations This book is part of the seven-volume series that was launched a few years ago with the ambitious objectives of reviewing the field of nitrogen fixation from its earliest beginnings through the millennium change and of consolidating the relevant information - from fundamental to agricultural and environmental aspects – all in one place. Volume 5 covers the biology of bacteria that associate with n- leguminous plants. The subject matter includes a wide range of associations; it covers the bacterial species that associate either with the surface or within the tissues of grasses (often referred as plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria) and also the symbiotic associations that cyanobacteria form with fungi, algae, and both lower and higher plants. This volume does not deal with the Frankia-actinorhizal plant associations, which is the topic of Volume 6
Assessment Reform in Science : Fairness and Fear
The conclusions and recommendations made in this book are derived from a study of ten teachers in Hong Kong as they tried to change their practice following a reform of the Hong Kong assessment system.
Assessment of Energy-Efficient Building Details for Seismic Regions
Presents a methodology for the assessment of structural building details, taking into account the contemporary guidelines for earthquake-resistant and energy-efficient buildings. A review of structural details for energy-efficient buildings revealed that in some cases the structural system is interrupted, leading to solutions which are not suitable for earthquake-prone regions. Such typical examples would be the use of thermal insulation under the building foundation and reduction of the load-bearing elements’ dimensions – also at the potential locations of plastic hinges which are crucial for the dissipation of seismic energy.
Assembly language for x86 processors ; 8th ed.
Focuses on its primary goal, to teach students how to write and debug programs at the machine level. It will never replace a complete book on computer architecture, but it does give students the first-hand experience of writing software in an environment that teaches them how a computer works. Our premise is that students retain knowledge better when theory is combined with experience. In an engineering course, students construct prototypes; in a computer architecture course, students should write machine-level programs.
Assembly Language for x86 Processors ; 7th ed.
Focuses on its primary goal, to teach students how to write and debug programs at the machine level. It will never replace a complete book on computer architecture, but it does give students the first-hand experience of writing software in an environment that teaches them how a computer works. Our premise is that students retain knowledge better when theory is combined with experience. In an engineering course, students construct prototypes; in a computer architecture course, students should write machine-level programs.
Aspects of physical biology : Biological water, protein solutions, transport and replication
The present volume focuses on three main subtopics (biological water, protein solutions as well as transport and replication), presenting for each of the them the on-going debates on recent results. The role of water in biological processes, the mechanisms of protein folding, the phases and cooperative effects in biological solutions, the thermodynamic description of replication, transport and neural activity, all are subjects that are revised in this volume, based on new experiments and new theoretical interpretations.
Arts of Allusion : Object, Ornament, and Architecture in Medieval Islam
The art of the object reached unparalleled heights in the medieval Islamic world, yet the deep intellectual dimensions of ceramics, metalwares, and other plastic arts in this milieu have not always been acknowledged. Arts of Allusion reveals the object as a crucial site where premodern craftsmen of the eastern Mediterranean and Persianate realms engaged their creations in fertile dialogue with poetry, literature, painting, and, perhaps most strikingly, architecture. Through close studies of objects from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, this book reveals that allusions to architecture abound across media in the portable arts of the medieval Islamic world.
Artificial neural networks – ICANN 2007 ; 17th International Conference, Porto, Portugal, September 9-13, 2007, Proceedings, Part I
This book contains learning theory, advances in neural network learning methods, ensemble learning, spiking neural networks, advances in neural network architectures neural network technologies, neural dynamics and complex systems, data analysis, estimation, spatial and spatio-temporal learning, evolutionary computing, meta learning, agents learning, complex-valued neural networks, as well as temporal synchronization and nonlinear dynamics in neural networks.
Artificial life models in software
Artificial Life Models in Software presents software tools, environments and realities dealing with creation, imitation and analysis of artefactual, virtual and living forms, written by those who personally design and produce software, hardware and art installations in artificial life, simulated complex systems and virtual worlds. This timely volume offers a nearly exhaustive overview and original analysis of major non-profit artificial life software packages. The carefully selected topics include: · simulation of real and imaginary life forms and their evolution · self-organization · emergent behaviours · swarm intelligence · evolutionary robotics · agent-based simulations · adaptive, complex and biologically inspired ecosystems · creative computer art There has long been a need within the academic and research community for an informal introduction and guidance to modern software tools for modelling and simulation of life-like phenomena – Artificial Life Models in Software fills this gap and provides invaluable information to both professional and amateur readers, offering detailed reviews of contemporary software for artificial life.
Artificial intelligence in medicine ; 10th conference on artificial intelligence in medicine, AIME 2005, Aberdeen, UK, July 23-27, 2005, Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine in Europe, AIME 2005, held in Aberdeen, UK in July 2005. The 35 revised full papers and 34 revised short papers presented together with 2 invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 148 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on temporal representation and reasoning, decision support systems, clinical guidelines and protocols, ontology and terminology, case-based reasoning, signal interpretation, visual mining, computer vision and imaging, knowledge management, machine learning, knowledge discovery, and data mining.
Artificial intelligence in mechatronics and civil engineering : Bridging the gap
Recent studies highlight the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and simulation techniques in engineering. This book covers the successful implementation of different intelligent techniques in various areas of engineering focusing on common areas between mechatronics and civil engineering. The power of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques in solving some examples of real-life problems in engineering is highlighted in this book. The implementation process to design the optimum intelligent models is discussed in this book.
Artificial intelligence for multisource geospatial information
Collects 10 original research contributions published in the Special Issue entitled “Artificial Intelligence for Multisource Geospatial Information” of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. The focus is on different methods of Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) based on deep learning using different network architectures, clustering, soft computing, and semantic approaches. They are proposed to deal with a variety of Geospatial Big Data (GBD), such as georeferenced texts and photos in social networks, remote sensing images, cartographic maps, multidimensional geo databases, metadata in spatial data infrastructures, and for different tasks, such as for multisource georeferenced text integration and geodata flexible querying, for social sensing by applying sentiment analysis, clustering and geo analysis, for segmentation of roads, clouds and snow, and for detection of small targets and people on the streets.
Artificial intelligence applied to medical imaging and computational biology
Medical imaging and computational biology continuously pose new fundamental medical and biological questions that often give rise to novel challenges in Artificial Intelligence. These research fields present an increasing need for the application of cutting-edge computational approaches that generally involve machine learning or computational intelligence techniques, which can effectively perform bioimage and biosignal processing in different clinical areas.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning in health care and medical sciences : Best practices and pitfalls
Provides a detailed review of the latest methods and applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in medicine. With chapters focusing on enabling the reader to develop a thorough understanding of the key concepts in these subject areas along with a range of methods and resulting models that can be utilized to solve healthcare problems, the use of causal and predictive models are comprehensively discussed. Care is taken to systematically describe the concepts to facilitate the reader in developing a thorough conceptual understanding of how different methods and resulting models function and how these relate to their applicability to various issues in health care and medical sciences. Guidance is also given on how to avoid pitfalls that can be encountered on a day-to-day basis and stratify potential clinical risks.
Artificial immune systems ; 7th International Conference, ICARIS 2008, Phuket, Thailand, August 10-13, 2008. Proceedings
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems, ICARIS 2008, held in Phuket, Thailand, in August 2008.
Artificial general intelligence
This book focused on engineering general intelligence – autonomous, self-reflective, self-improving, commonsensical intelligence.Each author explains a specific aspect of AGI in detail in each chapter, while also investigating the common themes in the work of diverse groups, and posing the big, open questions in this vital area.
Arrhythmogenic RV cardiomyopathy / dysplasia : Recent advances
This book covers all aspects (biological, pathological, genetic, clinical and therapeutical) of arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy/dysplasia, a recent cardiomyopathy which represents a very high risk of sudden death in the young and in athletes. The monograph presents the results of 5-year research program on ARVC/D supported by grants of both the European Commission and the NIH, which enabled the discovery of seven disease-causing genes, thus opening new avenues for the early identification of affected patients and for sudden death prevention.
Aritmetica, crittografia e codici = Arithmetic, cryptography and codes
The basic techniques of algebra and number theory useful in recent applications to cryptography and codes are developed, with the aim of being elementary and self-sufficient. The emphasis is on computational problems. This part of the volume can be useful as a textbook for a first course in algebra for mathematicians, computer scientists or engineers. Important applications of algebra and geometry to cryptography and codes are then illustrated. Both, cryptography and codes have significant applications in daily life which are illustrated here. Cryptography is developed in detail in much of its classic and current aspects, and both private and public key cryptography are developed. Cryptography with the use of elliptic curves on finite fields is also illustrated. A chapter introducing the subject is dedicated to linear codes.



















