Mercury Pollution in Minamata
It overviews the poisoning which occurred in the 1950s and 1960s among the residents in Minamata who ate seafood contaminated with methylmercury discharged from the chemical factory, Chisso Corporation. It describes the history, symptoms pathogenesis and research on the causal agent, and discusses the responses of Chisso and the national and local governments to the outbreak, the victims, the compensation and environmental restructuring as well as the court ruling on claims. Based on lecture notes from a university course, it includes students’ suggestions for avoiding a repeat of the tragedy. The issue has not been settled yet, and this analysis of the incident provides useful insights into solutions to the current global mercury pollution problem.
Melting Hadrons, Boiling Quarks - From Hagedorn Temperature to Ultra-Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions at CERN : With a Tribute to Rolf Hagedorn
Shows how the study of multi-hadron production phenomena in the years after the founding of CERN culminated in Hagedorn's pioneering idea of limiting temperature, leading on to the discovery of the quark-gluon plasma -- announced, in February 2000 at CERN.
Mechanics of Civil Engineering Structures
Presents the material needed by practicing engineers engaged in the design of civil engineering structures, and students of civil engineering. The book covers the fundamental principles of mechanics needed to understand the responses of structures to different types of load and provides the analytical and empirical tools for design. The title presents the mechanics of relevant structural elements—including columns, beams, frames, plates and shells—and the use of mechanical models for assessing design code application. Eleven chapters cover topics including stresses and strains; elastic beams and columns; inelastic and composite beams and columns; temperature and other kinematic loads; energy principles; stability and second-order effects for beams and columns; basics of vibration; indeterminate elastic-plastic structures; plates and shells.
Investment Banking : Valuation, LBOs, M&A, and IPOs
This book fulfills an important need as a valuable training material and reliable handbook for finance professionals in these markets. This book also provides essential tools for professionals at corporations, including members of business development, M&A, finance, and treasury departments. These specialists are responsible for corporate finance, valuation, and transaction-related deliverables on a daily basis. They also work with investment bankers on various M&A transactions (including leveraged buyouts (LBOs) and related financings), as well as IPOs, restructurings, and other capital markets transactions.
Investigation and management of soft rock cliffs
Cliff recession and coastal landsliding of soft rock cliffs present significant threats to land use and development. Investigation and management of soft rock cliffs presents state-of-the-art guidance on how eroding cliffs can best be managed, stressing the need to consider both structural and non-structural solutions to cliff recession problems. This authoritative text outlines the investigation approaches, measurement and monitoring techniques, and prediction methods available for obtaining the necessary cliff recession information.
Introduction to Variance Estimation
The book provides instruction on the methods that are vital to data-driven decision making in business, government, and academe. It will appeal to survey statisticians and other scientists engaged in the planning and conduct of survey research, and to those analyzing survey data and charged with extracting compelling information from such data. It will appeal to graduate students and university faculty who are focused on the development of new theory and methods and on the evaluation of alternative methods. Software developers concerned with creating the computer tools necessary to enable sound decision-making will find it essential.
Introduction to Data Envelopment Analysis and Its Uses : With DEA-Solver Software and References
Recent years have seen a great variety of applications of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) for use in evaluating the performances of many different kinds of entities engaged in many different activities in many different contexts in many different countries. One reason is that DEA has opened up possibilities for use in cases which have been resistant to other approaches because of the complex (often unknown) nature of the relations between multiple inputs and multiple outputs involved in many of these activities (which are often reported in non-commeasurable units). It provide a systematic introduction to DEA and its uses as a multifaceted tool for evaluating problems in a variety of contexts.
International Handbook of the Religious, Spiritual and Moral Dimensions in Education
This International Handbook presents the research and professional practice of scholars who are daily engaged in the consideration of these dimensions in education. The result is a collection of essays which reflects the discipline, in all of its internationality, as it is today. Embedded within the chapters is also an agenda for the future, where the religious, moral and spiritual dimensions in education are proposed as an exciting and challenging way forward for educators at all levels in society. As well, it offers a vision for the emergence of a peaceful and just world.
Internal Migration, Urbanization and Poverty in Asia : Dynamics and Interrelationships
The chapters within this volume examine those complexities using a range of traditional and nontraditional measures—such as multidimensional poverty, gaps, and polarization—to arrive at the conclusion that poverty is now an urban issue. This volume offers an essential resource for economic policy makers and students of development economics to understand the interrelationships between internal migration, urbanization, and poverty in Asia, paving the way for the improved management of internal migration, and disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mortality and its Timings : When is Death?
This volume provides a series of illuminating perspectives on the timings of death, through in-depth studies of Shakespearean tragedy, criminal execution, embalming practices, fears of premature burial, rumours of Adolf Hitler’s survival, and the legal concept of brain death. In doing so, it explores a number of questions, including: how do we know if someone is dead or not? What do people experience at the moment when they die? Is death simply a biological event that comes about in temporal stages of decomposition, or is it a social event defined through cultures, practices, and commemorations? In other words, when exactly is death? Taken together, these contributions explore how death emerges in a series of stages that are uncertain, paradoxical, and socially contested.
Intelligent Network Management and Control : Intelligent Security, Multi-criteria Optimization, Cloud Computing, Internet of Vehicles, Intelligent Radio
The management and control of networks can no longer be envisaged without the introduction of artificial intelligence at all stages. Deals with topical issues related mainly to intelligent security of computer networks, deployment of security services in SDN (software-defined networking), optimization of networks using artificial intelligence techniques and multi-criteria optimization methods for selecting networks in a heterogeneous environment. Focuses on selecting cloud computing services, intelligent unloading of calculations in the context of mobile cloud computing, intelligent resource management in a smart grid-cloud system for better energy efficiency, new architectures for the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), the application of artificial intelligence in cognitive radio networks and intelligent radio input to meet the on-road communication needs of autonomous vehicles.
Innovative bioceramics in translational medicine II : Surgical applications
Highlights the latest advances in innovative bioceramics applied in the highly interdisciplinary area referred to as “translational medicine”. This volume predominantly written by surgeons in the fields of craniomaxillofacial, orthopedics, and spinal surgery, examines the translation of innovative bioceramics and bioceramics-based composite from the laboratory to a personalized surgical environment for the repair of damaged and diseased bone tissues.
Innovations in Hybrid Intelligent Systems
Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems (HAIS) combines symbolic and sub-symbolic techniques to construct more robust and reliable problem solving models. This volume focused on "Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems" contains a collection of papers that were presented at the 2nd International Workshop on Hybrid Artificial Intelligence Systems, held in 12 - 13 November, 2007, Salamanca, Spain. This carefully edited book provides a comprehensive overview of the recent advances in the hybrid intelligent systems and covers a wide range of application areas, including data analysis and data mining, intelligent control, pattern recognition, robotics, optimization, etc. The book is aimed at researchers, practitioners and postgraduate students who are engaged in developing and applying advanced intelligent systems principles to solving real-world problems.
Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 2 : Special Themes
Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 2 is the second of the two volumes that comprise this book. The main objectives across both volumes are to study the innovation processes in todays information and knowledge society; to analyze how links between research and business have intensified; and to discuss the methods by which innovation emerges and is managed by firms, not only from a local perspective but also a global one.
Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 : Main Themes
Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 is the first of the two volumes that comprise this book. The main objectives across both volumes are to study the innovation processes in todays information and knowledge society; to analyze how links between research and business have intensified; and to discuss the methods by which innovation emerges and is managed by firms, not only from a local perspective but also a global one.
Informing Digital Futures : Strategies for Citizen Engagement
In the present digital revolution we often seem trapped in a Kafkaesque world of technological advances, some desired, some disliked or even feared, which we cannot influence but must accept. This book discusses the urgent need to redress this situation. The authors argue that technologies succeed or fail according to their relevance and value to people, who need to be actively engaged in order to create shared visions and influence their implementation. Strategies for citizen engagement and empowerment will enable citizens to influence and shape desirable digital futures. The book reviews the currently accepted ways of thinking about the design of systems and the reasons why these methods are no longer adequate. From an academically rigorous analysis of case histories across a wide variety of sectors, knowledge and best practice are captured in a rich, descriptive model of the contributions of citizen engagement to the design process. Finally, it provides specific practical guidance, based on sound academic research, for policy makers, administrators and ICT professionals on the strategies, methodologies, tools and techniques needed to change design practice.
Information theory and machine learning
The recent successes of machine learning, especially regarding systems based on deep neural networks, have encouraged further research activities and raised a new set of challenges in understanding and designing complex machine learning algorithms. New applications require learning algorithms to be distributed, have transferable learning results, use computation resources efficiently, convergence quickly on online settings, have performance guarantees, satisfy fairness or privacy constraints, incorporate domain knowledge on model structures, etc. A new wave of developments in statistical learning theory and information theory has set out to address these challenges.
Indigenous pathways, transitions and participation in higher education : From policy to practice
This book brings together contributions by researchers, scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, professionals and citizens who have an interest in or experience of Indigenous pathways and transitions into higher education. University is not for everyone, but a university should be for everyone. To a certain extent, the choice not to participate in higher education should be respected given that there are other avenues and reasons to participate in education and employment that are culturally, socially and/or economically important for society. Those who choose to pursue higher education should do so knowing that there are multiple pathways into higher education and, once there, appropriate support is provided for a successful transition.
Improving Interagency Collaboration, Innovation and Learning in Criminal Justice Systems : Supporting Offender Rehabilitation
This book to improve collaboration between criminal justice and welfare services in order to help prepare offenders for life after serving a prison sentence. It examines the potential tensions between criminal justice agencies and other organisations which are involved in the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, most notably those engaged in mental health care or third sector organisations
Improving image quality in visual cryptography
This book comprehensively covers the important efforts in improving the quality of images in visual cryptography (VC), with a focus on cases with gray scale images. It not only covers schemes in traditional VC and extended VC for binary secret images, but also the latest development in the analysis-by-synthesis approach.



















