A Companion to islamic art and architecture ; 2 Vol. Set : Blackwell companions to art history
Bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeurEssays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span. Represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting,
A Closer Look at Antibiotic Resistance
Bacterial infections have become more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to treat due to antibiotic resistance, which occurs when bacteria develop the ability to defeat the available drugs designed to kill them. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each year, 2 million Americans become sick with antibiotic-resistant infections, and of that, about 23,000 die. This book examines the challenges related to antibiotic resistance, the development and use of diagnostic testing to identify antibiotic resistance, the development of treatments for resistant infections, and appropriate antibiotic use.
A City in Blue and Green : The Singapore Story
Highlights Singapore’s development into a city in which water and greenery, along with associated environmental, technical, social and political aspects have been harnessed and cultivated into a liveable sustainable way of life. It is also a story about a unique and thoroughgoing approach to large-scale and potentially transferable water sustainability, within largely urbanized circumstances, which can be achieved, along with complementary roles of environmental conservation, ecology, public open-space management and the greening of buildings, together with infrastructural improvements.
A Changing World : Challenges for Landscape Research
"Written primarily for researchers and advanced students in environmental and social sciences, this latest book in Springer’s Landscape Series looks at some of the emerging fields and new challenges in landscape research. These include: the role of value systems in perceiving, appreciating, and managing landscapes / the ‘space’ and ‘place’ concept in landscape research GIS and remote sensing techniques for gathering and processing spatially and temporally explicit land cover, vegetation, and land use data / methods of landscape history / landscape genetics and genetic methods to test landscape connectivity and dispersal of plant and animal species"
A beginner's guide to urban design and development : the ABC of quality, sustainable design
Provides invaluable guidance to all those with an interest in placemaking and the built environment, from those with no experience to those who have worked for many years in industry, illustrating key principles that will secure higher quality, more sustainable design in accessible, jargon-free language. Explains the design process in a straightforward way, exploring the different roles and highlighting the opportunities and limitations different agencies have to influence design over the various stages of the process. Examples from the UK and worldwide look at how the system operates and how best practice can make a real difference on the ground. Case studies examine situations where quality or sustainability fell short – and how this could have been avoided. This book also showcases a variety of evaluation tools, explaining how they operate, and giving guidance on how to create project-specific tools to drive schemes forward. With community empowerment at its core, the book explains technical language and shares bountiful knowledge to broaden place democracy and make influencing design accessible to many, not just a few.
7th Asian-Pacific Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering : APCMBE 2008 22–25 April 2008 Beijing, China
Presents the proceedings of the 7th Asian-Pacific Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering (APCMBE 2008). Themed "Biomedical Engineering – Promoting Sustainable Development of Modern Medicine" the proceedings address a broad spectrum of topics from Bioengineering and Biomedicine.
50 Years of EU Economic Dynamics : Integration, Financial Markets and Innovations
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the European Union experts present their analyses of historical developments and new economic challenges for the EU. After a reflection on historical dynamics, the contributors point out the dramatic economic shifts between Europe, Asia and the US. Representatives from major central banks (including the ECB), other leading banks, and academia analyze the dynamics of the Eurozone and financial market integration in the context of globalization and economic growth. Furthermore, the authors discuss the challenges of information and communication technologies by means of various country analyses. Moreover, the Schumpeterian prospects for Europe and the Lisbon Agenda, the long-term challenges of EU pension reforms, emission trading systems in the EU, and options for a new EU constitution are highlighted. At the bottom line of this EU analysis are major implications for investors, managers, policy-makers and the public at large in both the EU and the global economy.
3D Radiative Transfer in Cloudy Atmospheres
Assessing developments in three-dimensional cloud radiation, this volume treats two main application areas: the impact of clouds on the Earth's radiation budget, and remote observation of clouds. It is suitable for graduate students, researchers, and also for those interested in cloud-radiation processes in the solar and infrared spectral regions.
3D Printing in Oral Health Science : Applications and Future Directions
Equips readers with a sound understanding of contemporary clinical applications in all fields of dentistry and their future directions. In the last few years, the development of 3D printing for medical and dental applications has increased tremendously. Advancements in 3D printing create the possibility of customized products, savings on small-scale productions, ease of sharing and processing of patient image data, and educational up-gradation. Looking at the dental specialties, it is evident that 3D printing has applications in all aspects of oral health science including prosthodontics, oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, and orthodontics. This book will cover all major fields in dentistry and will help the practitioner in the process of decision-making and apply concepts in clinical or laboratory practice. It is based on current scientific evidence to provide readers with an up-to-date contemporary underst
3D Mesh processing and character animation : with examples using OpenGL, OpenMesh and Assimp
Focusses specifically on topics that are important in three-dimensional modelling, surface design and real-time character animation. It provides an in-depth coverage of data structures and popular methods used in geometry processing, keyframe and inverse kinematics animations and shader based processing of mesh objects. It also introduces two powerful and versatile libraries, OpenMesh and Assimp, and demonstrates their usefulness through implementations of a wide range of algorithms in mesh processing and character animation respectively. This Textbook is written for students at an advanced undergraduate or postgraduate level who are interested in the study and development of graphics algorithms for three-dimensional mesh modeling and analysis, and animations of rigged character models.
25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries : Reform and Continuity
A result of the first ever study of the transformations of the higher education institutional landscape in fifteen former USSR countries after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. It explores how the single Soviet model that developed across the vast and diverse territory of the Soviet Union over several decades has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, systems that have responded to national and global developments while still bearing some traces of the past. The book is distinctive as it presents a comprehensive analysis of the reforms and transformations in the region in the last 25 years; and it focuses on institutional landscape through the evolution of the institutional types established and developed in Pre-Soviet, Soviet and Post-Soviet time. It also embraces all fifteen countries of the former USSR, and provides a comparative analysis of transformations of institutional landscape across Post-Soviet systems.
25 Years of P53 Research
Communication, awareness and access to information: Given the complexity of the field and the fact that data pertaining to each particular aspects of p53 biology or deregulation are scattered in many different publications, it is extremely difficult to access the full scale of relevant information of any specific p53-related topic. This book may help in this task by putting into perspective both general considerations on the p53 pathway and more specific information on various aspects of p53. In the longer term, however, open access to p53 complexity will require the development of knowledge bases accessible through the web and using simple navigation tools to guide users towards the specific information they need. Several efforts are currently being developed in that direction. They need to be strenghtened and better integrated within the rapidly growing galaxy of web-based information sources on molecular and individual variations in cancer. 2. Reference functional assays and structural analysis: Given the huge diversity of cellular and animal models for wild-type or mutant p53 functions, it will be important to set up standard, universally accepted assays to measure critical p53 protein functions.
2050 China : Becoming a Great Modern Socialist Country
Arranged and developed around the theme of “2050 China,” it analyzes the factors and advantages of the Chinese road to socialist modernization, explores and summarizes the development goal and the basic logic of the socialist modernization of China, and further shows the general basis of the primary stage of socialism.
11th Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biomedical Engineering and Computing 2007 ; MEDICON 2007, 26-30 June 2007, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Biomedical engineering today is a well-recognized area of research. It brings together bright minds from diverse disciplines ranging from engineering, physics, and computer sciences on one side to biology and medicine on the other side. With valuable assistance of members of the International Advisory Committee and Scientific Program Committee, the co-organizing institutions and societies, our sponsors, and distinguished invited lecturers we will ensure that the research and development presented at MEDICON 2007 plenary meetings, scientific sessions, and workshops will truly be relevant and up-to-date. The MEDICON conferences are international events of high scientific standards with long lasting tradition held every third year in one of the Mediterranean countries under the auspices of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.
10 Years Southeast European Cooperative Initiative : From Dayton to Brussels
The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) was the first international instrument for "peace keeping and peace making". Conceived by the United States with full partnership and participation of the European Union, SECI was a response to the Dayton Agreement. SECI was convinced that sending troops and diplomats did not suffice. It called for a new strategy and approach that would promote economic and social development through regional cooperation. SECI understood that despite their differences, the countries of South East Europe shared many mutual concerns. For the international community, SECI was a prelude to a broader instrument - the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, launched in 1999. The approach was a success! This compendium of documents, agreements, analyses and essays gives a glimpse into decision-making processes and results achieved.
.NET 2.0 Interoperability Recipes : A Problem-Solution Approach
.NET represents a new and improved way of developing software for the Windows platform. Given the chance, you'd probably rewrite all of your existing code in the newer managed code environment that .NET provides. But it is difficult or impossible to throw out all existing legacy code and start over when a new technology arrives. Instead, you need to find a way to move forward with new .NET development while reusing existing pieces of tested, working code. You need a way to interoperate with the existing code until you have a chance to finally rewrite all of it in .NET.
(R)Evolution : Organizations and the Dynamics of the Environment
Investigates the possible changes needed for industrial organizations to adapt to and remain competitive in their ever evolving environment. (R)Evolution’s main area of contribution to these very complex issues is embedded in the work’s ambitious attempt to borrow from evolutionary biology and genetics not only metaphors but also concepts and models to be adapted to the management of business organizations. The work provides us with a comprehensive vision of adaptation and variation in the business community, integrating various intellectual inputs which are based on an evolutionary vision of economic behavior. Using an extensive study of the literature in management science, and applying new models and methodologies in numerous case studies, Dekkers draws many insightful conclusions including the claim that companies often evolve slower than generally expected. Furthermore the research calls into question the effectiveness of the common practice of corporate reorganization. Embracing and merging most major contemporary developments in the theories of change into a comprehensive integrated approach, (R)Evolution is an invaluable resource for researchers specializing in the management of technological change.
















