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Complex Medical Engineering
In the twenty-first century, applications in medicine and engineering must acquire greater safety and flexibility if they are to yield better products at higher efficiency. To this end, complex science and technology must be integrated in medicine and engineering. Complex medical engineering (CME) is a new field that merges medical science and technology, and includes biomedical robotics and biomechatronics, complex virtual technology in medicine, information and communication technology in medicine, complex technology in rehabilitation, cognitive neuroscience and technology, and complex bioinformatics. Experts from academia, industry, and government research laboratories who have pioneered CME ideas and technologies describe its concept and research approach and discuss related hardware and software, science and technology, and medicine and engineering. This book will be invaluable to scientists, researchers, and graduates in the emerging field of CME.
Competitiveness in the Tourism Sector : A Comprehensive Approach from Economic and Management Points
International tourism is expected to be a major vehicle of economic development in industrializing countries in the 21st century, especially for Asia. To generate long-term growth, countries with tourism-based economies must develop strategies for employing their comparative advantages to achieve competitive advantages. However, competitiveness in the tourist industry is multi-dimensional and complex. This study evaluates the competitiveness of the Taiwanese tourism sector by a multi-dimensional framework. The theoretical model proposes that the competitiveness of tourist destinations should be composed of Ricardian comparative advantages (like the conditions of natural endowments and the degree of technological change); Porterian competitive advantages; tourism management, i.e., providing high quality education and job training, public goods, support services and reduced transaction costs to enhance comparative and competitive advantages; and environmental conditions.
Climate Variability and Extremes during the Past 100 Years
This volume provides an up to date overview of climate variability during the 20th century in the context of natural and anthropogenic variability. It compiles a number of contributions to a workshop held in Gwatt, Switzerland, in July 2006 dealing with different aspects of climate change, variability, and extremes during the past 100 years.
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux : Architecture and uopia in the era of the French revolution
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1736-1806) is today regarded as chief representative of French revolutionary architecture. With his extraordinary inventiveness he projected the architectural ideals of his era. Ledoux's influential buildings and projects are presented and interpreted both aesthetically and historically in this book. His best-known projects - the Royal Saltwords of Arc-et-Senans, the tollgates of Paris, the ideal city of Chaux - reveal the architect's allegiance to the principles of antiquity and Renaissance but also illustrate the evolution of his own utopian language. With the French Revolution, Ledoux ceased building as his contemporaries perceived him as a royal architect. He focused on the development of his architectural theory and redefined the vision of the modern architect
Classification Algorithms for Codes and Designs
Almost a century earlier, in 1782, Euler [180] published some results on classifying small Latin squares, but for the ?rst few steps in this direction one should actually go at least as far back as ancient Greece and the proof that there are exactly ?ve Platonic solids. One of the most remarkable achievements in the early, pre-computer era is the classi?cation of the Steiner triple systems of order 15, quoted above. An onerous task that, today, no sensible person would attempt by hand calcu- tion. Because, with the exception of occasional parameters for which com- natorial arguments are e?ective (often to prove nonexistence or uniqueness), classi?cation in general is about algorithms and computation.
Child Protection in England, 1960–2000 : Expertise, Experience, and Emotion
Explores how children, parents, and survivors reshaped the politics of child protection in late twentieth-century England. Activism by these groups, often manifested in small voluntary organisations, drew upon and constructed an expertise grounded in experience and emotion that supported, challenged, and subverted medical, social work, legal, and political authority. New forms of experiential and emotional expertise were manifested in politics – through consultation, voting, and lobbying – but also in the reshaping of everyday life, and in new partnerships formed between voluntary spokespeople and media. While becoming subjects of, and agents in, child protection politics over the late twentieth century, children, parents, and survivors also faced barriers to enacting change, and the book traces how long-standing structural hierarchies, particularly around gender and age, mediated and inhibited the realisation of experiential and emotional expertise.
Charting a new course : Natural language processing and information retrieval : Essays in Honour of Karen Spärck Jones
This book celebrates the life and work of Karen Spärck Jones in her seventieth year. she is one of the major figures of 20th century and early 21st Century computing and information processing. It book consists of fifteen new and original chapters written by leading international authorities reviewing the state of the art and her influence in the areas in which Karen Spärck Jones has been active. Although she has a publication record which goes back over forty years, it is clear even the very early work reviewed in the book can be read with profit by those working on recent developments in information processing like bioinformatics and the semantic web.
Changing Forests : Collective Action, Common Property, and Coffee in Honduras
It merges political ecology, collective-action theories, and institutional analysis to study how the people and forests have changed through socioeconomic and political transitions. It studies the complex, often contradictory relationships between the people and their natural resources to understand why forest cover endures."Changing Forests" therefore encompasses three broad phases: (1) the premodern period, which considers historic perturbations in western Honduras from the period of colonialism into the middle of the twentieth century; (2) the period of state-led logging and intervention in La Campa, which caused major degradation in forest cover; and (3) the recent period in which export coffee production transformed property rights, and people’s perceptions of the forest gained new conservationist and economic dimensions. Each phase entails perspectives and experiences that influenced human use of forests, and shaped subsequent transformations.
Challenging American Leadership : Impact of National Quality on Risk of Losing Leadership
After leading the world during most of the 20th century in economic, political, technological, military, and even social terms, America’s role is now being challenged. Its values questioned, and its methods often disparaged, America had become the clear example to be followed or even copied, yet its more recent strategic and political decisions gained little international support and a lot of outright opposition. The quality of its national planning and decision making has been severely compromised, and risk management appears to be largely absent. India and China are now emerging as new economic powers, with advancing technological prowess. Their focus is on socioeconomic development, but their capabilities and potentials are much broader and may challenge America's leadership before long, unless it recognizes the changing demands of the new wide open globalized world.
Challenges to the second law of thermodynamics : Theory and experiment
The second law of thermodynamics is considered one of the central laws of science, engineering and technology. For over a century it has been assumed to be inviolable by the scientific community. Over the last 10-20 years, however, more than two dozen challenges to it have appeared in the physical literature - more than during any other period in its 150-year history. The number and variety of these represent a cogent threat to its absolute status. This is the first book to document and critique these modern challenges. Written by two leading exponents of this rapidly emerging field, it covers the theoretical and experimental aspects of principal challenges. In addition, unresolved foundational issues concerning entropy and the second law are explored. This book should be of interest to anyone whose work or research is touched by the second law.
Ceramic and Glass Materials : Structure, Properties and Processing
Ceramic and Glass Materials: Structure, Properties and Processing is a concise and comprehensive guide to the key ceramic and glass materials used in modern technology. Each chapter focuses on the structure-property relationships for these important materials and expands the reader’s understanding of their nature by simultaneously discussing the technology of their processing methods. In each case, the resulting understanding of the contemporary applications of the materials provides insights as to their future roles in twenty first century engineering and technology. Organized to be a practical and comprehensive resource, each chapter is dedicated to a specific material such as: alumina, mullite, sillimanite minerals, aluminates, quartz and silicas, refractory oxides, clays, concrete and cement, lead compounds, and zirconia.
Cell-Cell Channels
The biological sciences are dominated by the idea that cells are the functionally autonomous, physically separated, discrete units of life. This concept was propounded in the 19th century by discoveries of the cellular structuring of both plants and animals. Moreover, the ap parent autonomy of unicellular eukaryotes, as well as the cellular basis of the mammalian brain (an organ whose anatomy for a long while defied attempts to validate the idea of the cellular nature of its neurons), seemed to provide the final conclusive evidence for the completeness of *cell theory', a theory which has persisted in an almost dogmatic form up to the present day. However, it is very obvious that there are numerous observations which indicate that it is not the cells which serve as the basic units of biological life but that this property falls to some other, subcellular assemblage. To deal with this intricate problem concerning the fundamental unit of living matter, we proposed the so-called Cell Body concept which, in fact, devel ops an exceedingly original idea proposed by Julius Sachs at the end of the 19th century. In the case of eukaryotic cells, DNA-enriched nuclei are intimately associated with a microtubular cytoskeleton. In this configuration—as a Cell Body—these two items comprise the fundamental functional and struc tural unit of eukaryotic living matter. The Cell Body seems to be inherent to all cells in all organisms.
Carbon monoxide in drug discovery, basics, pharmacology, and therapeutic potential
Carbon monoxide, one of the smallest organic natural molecules, is widely known for its toxicity. Formation of CO via incomplete combustion is a major contributing factor to accidental or intentional CO poisoning, leading to severe health consequences or death. In addition, CO is a by-product of tobacco smoking, and has been associated with some of the harmful effects of smoking. However, less known and probably far more important is the recognition of the essential physiological roles of CO as a signaling molecule in mammals. Against over more than a century of negative connotation, the last few decades have proven that CO possesses a multitude of physiological roles and therapeutic functions including regulation of the immune response, cellular proliferation, and control of cell survival. This concept is supported by the discovery that CO is produced by all cells and more so under conditions of stress. This book comprehensively summarizes key aspects of CO's endogenous roles, therapeutic functions, and challenges that we face in its development as a therapeutic agent. We hope this preface will provide a thread for reading this book and a birds-eye view of the landscape for understanding this field, and more importantly lay out the challenges ahead in understanding the detailed mechanisms of action of CO and in its development as a therapeutic agent.
Capital Punishment and the Criminal Corpse in Scotland, 1740–1834
This book provides the most in-depth study of capital punishment in Scotland between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth century to date. Based upon an extensive gathering and analysis of previously untapped resources, it takes the reader on a journey from the courtrooms of Scotland to the theatre of the gallows. It introduces them to several of the malefactors who faced the hangman’s noose and explores the traditional hallmarks of the spectacle of the scaffold. It demonstrates that the period between 1740 and 1834 was one of discussion, debate and fundamental change in the use of the death sentence and how it was staged in practice. In addition, the study provides an innovative investigation of the post-mortem punishment of the criminal corpse. It offers the reader an insight into the scene at the foot of the gibbets from which criminal bodies were displayed, and around the dissection tables of Scotland’s main universities where criminal bodies were used as cadavers for anatomical demonstration. In doing so it reveals an intermediate stage in the long-term disappearance of public bodily punishment.
Cambridge and Vienna : Frank P. Ramsey and the Vienna Circle
The Institute Vienna Circle held a conference in 2003, Cambridge and Vienna: Frank P. Ramsey and the Vienna Circle, to commemorate the philosophical and scientific work of Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903-1930). This Ramsey conference provided historical and biographical perspectives on one of the most gifted thinkers of the Twentieth Century.
Business ethics from the 19th century to today : An economist's view
Combines elements of economic and business history to study business ethics from the nineteenth century to today. It concentrates on American and British business history, delving into issues such as slavery, industrialization, firm behavior and monopolies, and Ponzi schemes. This book draws on the work of economists and historians to highlight the importance of changing technologies, religious beliefs, and cultural attitudes, showing that what is considered ethical differs across time and place.
Building Theories : Architecture as the Art of Building
Discusses the content of treatises, essays, articles, and letters by those who have been, throughout history, committed to the art of building. In this, Building Theories argues for the return of a practice of architectural theory that is set amongst building, buildings, and builders. This journey of close reading reinterprets the words of Vitruvius, Alberti, de L’Orme, Le Camus de Mézières, Boullée, Laugier, Rondelet, Semper, Viollet-le-Duc, Hübsch, Bötticher, Berlage, Muthesius, Wagner, Behrendt, Gropius, and Arup. With chapters dedicated to texts from antiquity, the Renaissance, and the nineteenth century, and with a critical eye on architectural theory popularized in the Anglo-Saxon world post-1968, readers are introduced to a wider, more inclusive definition of architectural ideas.
Building the judiciary : law, courts, and the politics of institutional development
Building the Judiciary uncovers the causes and consequences of judicial institution-building in the United States from the commencement of the new government in 1789 through the close of the twentieth century.Explaining why and how the federal judiciary became an independent, autonomous, and powerful political institution.
Building from tradition : Local materials and methods in contemporary architecture
Examines the recent resurgence of interest in the handmade building and the use of local and renewable materials in contemporary construction. In the past, raw materials were shaped to provide shelter and to accommodate the cultural, social, and economic needs of individuals and communities. This is still true today as architects, engineers, and builders turn once again to local resources and methods, not simply for constructing buildings, but also as a strategy for supporting social engagement, sustainable development, and cultural continuity. Building from Tradition features global case studies that allow readers to understand how building practices-developed and refined by previous generations-continue to be adapted to suit a broad range of cultural and environmental contexts. The book provides: a survey of historical and technical information about geologic and plant-based materials such as: stone, earth, reed and grass, wood, and bamboo; 24 detailed case studies examining the disadvantages and benefits to using traditional materials and methods and how they are currently being integrated with contemporary construction practices
Building a Future with BRICs : The Next Decade for Offshoring
In 2003, Goldman Sachs published a startling report on the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) region: These four countries would be larger than the G6 economics within 40 years, muscling their way to economic dominance over the coming decades, and powering past developed countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. This book focuses on the technology and technology-enabled services that underpin this social and economic revolution. The editor analyses the reasons why these four countries are in a unique position to lead a 21st century growth in international services. He then features 12 chapters written by the most important chief executives from the BRICs service economy. Indian technology leaders, such as Nandan Nilekani (Infosys), Shiv Nadar (HCL), and Rajendra Pawar (NIIT), feature alongside their peers from Brazil, Russia, and China outlining their views on the next decade for offshoring.
