Refine Results
Sort By
From
To
Page 14
Page 14
Managing Weather and Climate Risks in Agriculture
In many parts of the world, weather and climate are one of the biggest production risks and uncertainty factors impacting on agricultural systems performance and management. Both structural and non-structural measures can be used to reduce the impacts of the variability (including extremes) of climate resources on crop production. While the structural measures include strategies such as irrigation, water harvesting, windbreaks etc., the non-structural measures include use of seasonal to interannual climate forecasts, improved application of medium-range weather forecasts and crop insurance. This book based on an International Workshop held in New Delhi, India should be of interest to all organizations and agencies interested in improved risk management in agriculture.
Managing Forest Ecosystems : The Challenge of Climate Change
With climate change now charging up the political agenda, there are three issues commonly making the headlines: carbon budgets, renewable energy, and the anticipated impacts of climate change. Equally important, though currently less well covered, is the issue how these effects might be mitigated. Given the significant role that forests play in the climate system – as sources, sinks, and through carbon trading – this book discusses the current scientific evidence on the relationships between climate, forest resources and forest management practices around the world. Drawing on expertise from forest scientists from several continents, the book presents both in depth analysis of the current knowledge, and a series of case studies which assess the biological and the economic impacts of climate change. It includes sections on forest responses to climate change, monitoring and modeling changes, economic and management implications, and carbon sequestration under specific management systems.
Managing Critical Infrastructure Risks
At the beginning of each year, there is a deluge of top-10 lists on just about every subject you can imagine. A top-10 list of biggest news stories, best-selling books, most popular music and movies, richest companies, and best places to visit or live. It seems everyone has his or her own top-10 list, reflecting, perhaps, differences in regional, national, and cultural values. Companies and governments most often tend to focus their top-10 lists on economic priorities, or priorities related to national defense, security, public health, and new infrastructure. This year, 2007, was no exception. Yet, increasingly, we see governments, private organizations, and companies advocating a new type of prioritization. This framework needs to reach beyond the realms of economics, world trade, and corporate management to include the environment, stakeholders, public preferences, and social goals. Moreover, corporations and individuals are not only interested in generic 10-best lists; they want lists tailored to their values, goals, and current economic and social state. For example, the U. S.
Magneto-Science : Magnetic Field Effects on Materials: Fundamentals and Applications
It is a dream of chemists and physicists to use magnetism, an important physical property of many materials, to control chemical and physical processes. With new manufacturing technologies for superconducting magnets, it has become possible to produce strong magnetic fields of 10 Tesla or more for applications in chemistry and physics. New magnetic phenomena, useful for processing functional molecules with improved quality, have been discovered recently. They open up exciting possibilities for studying and applying magnetic field effects in the chemical and physical processes of diamagnetic, paramagnetic and ferromagnetic materials. This volume will serve as a useful reference for specialists and non-specialists interested in this exciting new area of megneto-science.
Magnetic Nanostructures
Addresses the exciting and rapidly developing topic of nanostructured magnetic materials. It combines modern topics in nanoscale magnetism with issues relating to the fabrication and characterization of magnetic nanostructures. The chapters describe a wide range of physical aspects, together with theoretical and experimental methods. "Magnetic Nanostructures" will be of interest to researchers and specialists both in academic and industrial research. Graduate students will also find in this book an accessible introduction to the essential issues.
Low-Dimensional Molecular Metals
Assimilating new research in the field of low-dimensional metals, this monograph provides a detailed overview of the current status of research on quasi-one- and two-dimensional molecular metals, describing normal-state properties, magnetic field effects, superconductivity, and the phenomena of interacting p and d electrons. It will be useful not only for frontier researchers with a broad interest in low-dimensional electronic and magnetic properties, but also for graduate students of solid-state physics and chemistry with some background knowledge of solid-state physics. It includes a number of fundamental and novel findings relating to the characteristics of these low-dimensional metals, which in future are likely to become standard material in textbooks on solid-state physics.
Lonely Minds in the Universe
Probes the subject of extraterrestrial intelligent life, offering scientific and technological implications, discussing the philosophical and religious connotations and rebuffing pseudo-scientific assertions such as 'rare earth'.
Logic in Reality
The interface of logic, philosophy and science. It is intended for readers with interest and/or current involvement in process philosophy, ontology and in the philosophy or metaphysical aspects of science, especially, quantum physics, biology and cosmology. The content requires competence in reasoning, but not detailed knowledge of the fields discussed.
Location Based Services and TeleCartography
Provides for the first time a general overview of research activities related to location and map-based services. These activities have emerged over the last years, especially around issues of positioning, spatial modelling, cartographic communication as well as in the fields of ubiquitious cartography, geo-pervasive services, user-centered modelling and geo-wiki activities. Topics cover an enormous range with heterogenous relationships to the main book issues. Whilst contemporary cartography aims at looking at new and efficient ways for communicating spatial information the development and availability of technologies like mobile networking, mobile devices or short-range sensors lead to interesting new possibilities for achieving this aim.
Local-Moment Ferromagnets : Unique Properties for Modern Applications
Some ferromagnetic materials with localized magnetic moments have become a hot topic in modern solid-state physics because of their potential applications, e.g. in spintronic devices. The magnetic systems of interest comprise diluted magnetic semiconductors and half-metallic ferromagnets. Like conventional concentrated local-moment systems, they are characterized by an exchange interaction between localized magnetic moments and quasi-free charge carriers. The current research on local-moment ferromagnetism is reviewed in a tutorial style by leading experts in this field. Experimentalists present the latest approaches to characterize the unique material properties, and theoreticians propose definitive ideas to explain the observed phenomena. Students and researches alike will benefit from this status report.
Living Off the Land in Space : Green Roads to the Cosmos
Draws parallels with the settlement of terrestrial frontiers to investigate how new space propulsion techniques may help future space settlers exploit extraterrestrial resources to establish independence from the Earth. "Living Off the Land in Space," a collaboration among two space scientists and an artist, is illuminated with many NASA-derived computer-generated images, including drawings, and presents the human (as well as the technological) side of space settlement. It will be an inspiring and indispensible source for those wishing to share in this great adventure.
Linear Optimization Problems with Inexact Data
Linear programming attracted the interest of mathematicians during and after World War II when the first computers were constructed and methods for solving large linear programming problems were sought in connection with specific practical problems—for example, providing logistical support for the U.S. Armed Forces or modeling national economies. Early attempts to apply linear programming methods to solve practical problems failed to satisfy expectations. There were various reasons for the failure. One of them, which is the central topic of this book, was the inexactness of the data used to create the models. This phenomenon, inherent in most pratical problems, has been dealt with in several ways. At first, linear programming models used "average” values of inherently vague coefficients, but the optimal solutions of these models were not always optimal for the original problem itself. Later researchers developed the stochastic linear programming approach, but this too has its limitations. Recently, interest has been given to linear programming problems with data given as intervals, convex sets and/or fuzzy sets. The individual results of these studies have been promising, but the literature has not presented a unified theory. Linear Optimization Problems with Inexact Data attempts to present a comprehensive treatment of linear optimization with inexact data, summarizing existing results and presenting new ones within a unifying framework.
Limit Cycles of Differential Equations
Contains the lecture series originally delivered at the "Advanced Course on Limit Cycles of Differential Equations" in the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica Barcelona in 2006.The topics covered are the center-focus problem for polynomial vector fields, and the application of abelian integrals to limit cycle bifurcations. Both topics are related to Hilbert's sixteenth problem. In particular, the book will be of interest to students and researchers working in the qualitative theory of dynamical systems.
Lights in the Sky : Identifying and Understanding Astronomical and Meteorological Phenomena
Lights in the Sky is a truly comprehensive guide to observing, identifying, and imaging sky glows and other unusual atmospheric/astronomical phenomena, in both the night and daytime skies.
Light Scattering from Polymer Solutions and Nanoparticle Dispersions
Light scattering is a very powerful method to characterize the structure of polymers and nanoparticles in solution. Recent technical developments have strongly enhanced the possible applications of this technique, overcoming previous limitations like sample turbidity or insufficient experimental time scales. However, despite their importance, these new developments have not yet been presented in a comprehensive form. In addition, and maybe even more important to the broad audience, there lacks a simple-to-read textbook for students and non-experts interested in the basic principles and fundamental techniques of light scattering. As part of the Springer Laboratory series, this book tries not only to provide such a simple-to-read and illustrative textbook about the seemingly very complicated topic of light scattering from polymers and nanoparticles in dilute solution, but also intends to cover some of the newest technical developments in experimental light scattering.
Light Scattering by Optically Soft Particles: Theory and Applications
Deals with a particular class of approximation methods in the context of light scattering by small particles. This class of approximations has been termed as eikonal or soft particle approximations. The eikonal approximation was studied extensively in the potential scattering and then adopted in optical scattering problems. In this context, the eikonal and other soft particle approximations pertain to scatterers whose relative refractive index compared to surrounding medium is close to unity. The study of these approximations is very important because soft particles occur abundantly in nature. For example, the particles that occur in ocean optics, biomedical optics, atmospheric optics and in many industrial applications can be classified as soft particles. This book was written in recognition of the long-standing and current interest in the field of scattering approximations for soft particles. It should prove to be a useful addition for researchers in the field of light scattering.
Life in the Universe : Expectations and Constraints
Energy, chemistry, solvents, and habitats -- the basic elements of living systems - define the opportunities and limitations for life on other worlds. This class-tested text examines each of these parameters in crucial depth and makes the argument that life forms we would recognize may be more common in our solar system than many assume. It also considers, however, exotic forms of life that would not have to rely on carbon as basic chemical element, solar energy as a main energy source, or water as primary solvent. Finally the question of detecting bio- and geosignature of such life forms is discussed, ranging from Earth environments to deep space. While speculative considerations in this emerging field of science cannot be avoided, the authors have tried to present their study with the breadth and seriousness that a scientific approach to this issue requires. They seek an operational definition of life and investigate the realm of possibilities that nature offers to realize this very special state of matter and avoid scientific jargon wherever possible to make this intrinsically interdisciplinary subject understandable to a broad range of readers.
Lie Theory Vol.229 : Unitary Representations and Compactifications of Symmetric Spaces
It focuses on two fundamental questions in the theory of semisimple Lie groups: the geometry of Riemannian symmetric spaces and their compactifications; and branching laws for unitary representations, i.e., restricting unitary representations to (typically, but not exclusively, symmetric) subgroups and decomposing the ensuing representations into irreducibles.Ji's introductory chapter motivates the subject of symmetric spaces and their compactifications with carefully selected examples. A discussion of Satake and Furstenberg boundaries and a survey of the geometry of Riemannian symmetric spaces in general provide a good background for the second chapter, namely, the Borel–Ji authoritative treatment of various types of compactifications useful for studying symmetric and locally symmetric spaces. Borel–Ji further examine constructions of Oshima, De Concini, Procesi, and Melrose, which demonstrate the wide applicability of compactification techniques. Kobayashi examines the important subject of branching laws. Important concepts from modern representation theory, such as Harish–Chandra modules, associated varieties, microlocal analysis, derived functor modules, and geometric quantization are introduced. Concrete examples and relevant exercises engage the reader.
Lie Sphere Geometry : With Applications to Submanifolds
Provides a clear and comprehensive modern treatment of Lie sphere geometry and its applications to the study of Euclidean submanifolds. It begins with the construction of the space of spheres, including the fundamental notions of oriented contact, parabolic pencils of spheres, and Lie sphere transformations. The link with Euclidean submanifold theory is established via the Legendre map, which provides a powerful framework for the study of submanifolds, especially those characterized by restrictions on their curvature spheres.
Lie Algebras and Applications
This book, designed for advanced graduate students and post-graduate researchers, provides an introduction to Lie algebras and some of their applications to the spectroscopy of molecules, atoms, nuclei and hadrons. In the first part, a concise exposition is given of the basic concepts of Lie algebras, their representations and their invariants. The second part contains a description of how Lie algebras are used in practice in the treatment of bosonic and fermionic systems. Physical applications considered include rotations and vibrations of molecules (vibron model), collective modes in nuclei (interacting boson model), the atomic shell model, the nuclear shell model, and the quark model of hadrons. One of the key concepts in the application of Lie algebraic methods in physics, that of spectrum generating algebras and their associated dynamic symmetries, is also discussed. The book contains many examples that help to elucidate the abstract algebraic definitions. It provides a summary of many formulas of practical interest, such as the eigenvalues of Casimir operators and the dimensions of the representations of all classical Lie algebras.
