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High-Latitude Bioerosion : The Kosterfjord Experiment
Bioerosion is the major force driving the degradation of marine skeletal carbonates and limestone coasts. A wide spectrum of mechanical and/or chemical boring, scraping or crushing organisms break down calcereous substrates, comprising various grazers, macroborers and especially microborers. Their traces on and within hard substrates are known from fossil carbonates as old as the Precambrian and serve as valuable palaeoenvironmental indicators. Bioerosion processes have been extensively studied in tropical seas, while corrsponding investigations from cold-temperate to polar settings remain sparse. For the first time, an experimental study yields insight into the pace of carbonate degradation and the chronology of boring community development along a bathymetric gradient in a high-latitude setting.
Guanxi and Business Strategy : Theory and Implications for Multinational Companies in China
Guanxi and Business Strategy" elaborates upon a topic of paramount importance to both academic scholars and managers doing business with China: the impact of personal relationships (guanxi) on business affairs. In the Chinese cultural and socio-economic environment, how are the ubiquitous practices of guanxi to be considered in entrepreneurial strategies,Rather than explaining the emergence of guanxi and its persistence – in spite of the existence of a market economy – with Confucianism, the author applies the phenomenon to the methodology of New Economic Sociology. By integrating guanxi into a business context, he shows that the commercial utilization of guanxi with suppliers, customers, competitors and authorities yields significant sustainable competitive advantages.
Groundwater Recharge from Run-off, Infiltration and Percolation
This book first discusses the recharge fluxes relating both to the quantity and quality of groundwater. In order to face the threats to the water supply and to be able to maintain a sustainable water management policy, detailed knowledge is needed in between others on the surface to subsurface transformation link in the water cycle. Secondly, the presentation and comparison of both the traditional and modern approach to determine groundwater recharge is discussed. The traditional approach to determine groundwater recharge, is based on water balance estimates and hydraulic considerations, which yield instantaneous values at best but do not integrate the totality of recharge pathways in time and space. In contrast, environmental tracers do integrate these factors. Finally, the fate of groundwater recharge in the subsurface by hydraulic and geologic means is discussed in detail, in order to stimulate adapted groundwater management strategies and to better assess consequences of climate changes on groundwater resources as a whole.
Global Production : A Handbook for Strategy and Implementation
What is the best configuration for a global production network? What are the different dynamics in low-cost vs. high-cost countries? Getting the answers right is key to building a competitive and efficient global production network. Centers of economic activity are shifting profoundly, globally and even regionally. Production is shifting even more dramatically than the economy as a whole, making it critical for decision makers to know what criteria matter most and how to make the right decisions on where to invest. Regardless of the industry involved, an optimized global footprint can translate to a competitive advantage. A comprehensive redesign typically yields a 20 to 40 percent reduction in manufacturing costs. Global production and purchasing operations create a platform for entry into new markets. Planning and implementing a sustainable globalization strategy, however, takes considerable effort; this book is there to help in that task.
German Buyouts Adopting a Buy and Build Strategy : Key Characteristics, Value Creation and Success Factors
The number of follow-on acquisitions after the buyout of a company by a financial sponsor, so-called "buy and build strategies", has been increasing in Germany during the last years. Given that M&A transactions by strategic investors were not successful in at least half of the cases analyzed in former research studies, the question remains if and how financial sponsors manage to yield the ambitious target return of a minimum of 20% p.a. on the capital invested.
Genetic surgery : from genes to solutions
As a tool for modifying the genome, gene editing technologies has developed rapidly in recent years, the application of these technologies in basic biomedical research has yielded significant advances in identifying and studying key molecular targets relevant to human diseases and their treatment. The clinical translation of genome editing techniques offers unprecedented biomedical engineering capabilities in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of disease or disability...
Generalized Plasticity
The book is divided into five major parts: 1. Yield function and choice; 2. Constitutive relation; 3. Slip-line Field Theory for plane strain problems, Characteristics Field Theory for plane stress problems and Characteristics Field Theory for spatial axisymmetrical problems; 4. Plastic zone analysis at crack tip and fracture criterion for mixed mode crack; 5. Limit loads and shakedown loads for pressure vessel. Examples of applications and problems are given for most chapters.
Gender Designs IT : Construction and Deconstruction of Information Society Technology
The book not only offers a gender analysis of information society technologies, it also shows practical examples of how IT can be different. A gender perspective on IT design can serve as an eye-opener for what tends to be overlooked and left out. It yields innovative ideas and high quality software systems that may empower a large diversity of users for an active participation in our information society.
Ganong's review of medical physiology
Focuses particularly on including only material that is of the highest yield. We have thoroughly revised the learning objectives for every chapter, reorganized and updated the text to ensure that all objectives are clearly addressed in a logical order, aligned chapter summaries so that the take-home messages quickly address each learning objective in turn, and expanded the number of review questions so that readers also have the ability to check their understanding and retention of every objective covered.
Future Spacecraft Propulsion Systems : Enabling Technologies for Space Exploration
In Future Spacecraft Propulsion Systems the authors demonstrate the need to break free from the old established concepts of expendable rockets, using chemical propulsion, and to develop new breeds of launch vehicle capable of both launching payloads into orbit at dramatically reduced cost, and for sustained operations in low-Earth orbit. The next steps, they explain, to establishing a permanent "presence" in the solar system beyond Earth are the commercialisation of sustained operations on the Moon, and the development of advanced nuclear or high-energy space propulsion systems for solar system exploration out to the boundary of interstellar space. In the future, high-energy particle research facilities may one day yield a very high-energy propulsion system that will take us to the nearby stars, or even beyond. This is a timely and comprehensive book, putting spacecraft propulsion systems in perspective.
From Gestalt Theory to Image Analysis : A Probabilistic Approach
This book introduces the reader to a recent theory in Computer Vision yielding elementary techniques to analyse digital images. These techniques are inspired from and are a mathematical formalization of the Gestalt theory. Gestalt theory, which had never been formalized is a rigorous realm of vision psychology developped between 1923 and 1975. From the mathematical viewpoint the closest field to it is stochastic geometry, involving basic probability and statistics, in the context of image analysis.
Financial economics and econometrics
Covers financial data and univariate models; asset returns; interest rates, yields and spreads; volatility and correlation; and corporate finance and policy. Each chapter begins with a theory in financial economics, followed by econometric methodologies which have been used to explore the theory. Next, the chapter presents empirical evidence and discusses seminal papers on the topic. Boxes offer insights on how an idea can be applied to other disciplines such as management, marketing and medicine, showing the relevance of the material beyond finance. Readers are supported with plenty of worked examples and intuitive explanations throughout the book, while key takeaways, ‘test your knowledge’ and ‘test your intuition’ features at the end of each chapter also aid student learning.
Filtering Theory : With Applications to Fault Detection, Isolation, and Estimation
The focus of this book is on filtering for linear processes, and its primary goal is to design filters from a class of linear stable unbiased filters that yield an estimation error with the lowest root-mean-square (RMS) norm. Various hierarchical classes of filtering problems are defined based on the availability of statistical knowledge regarding noise, disturbances, and other uncertainties. An important characteristic of the approach employed in this work for several aspects of filter analysis and design is structural in nature, revealing an inherent freedom to incorporate other classical secondary engineering constraints—such as placement of filter poles at desired locations—in filter design. Such a structural approach requires an understanding of powerful tools that then may be used in several engineering applications besides filtering.
Evaluating evidence of mechanisms in medicine : Principles and procedures
This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. In addition, it develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for evaluating evidence of mechanisms, and for combining this evaluation with evidence of association in order to yield an overall assessment of effectiveness.
Essential Sports Medicine
Every medical student, resident, fellow and attending physician who deals with sports medicine injuries needs a high yield, comprehensive and practical resource to refer to time and time again. Comprehensive and accessible, Essential Sports Medicine provides an overview of the most salient and useful points in the field.
Elasto-Plastic and Damage Analysis of Plates and Shells
This book presents a finite element model for the elasto-plastic and damage analysis of thin and thick shells. Linear elastic, inelastic and softening behaviors caused by damage in structural shells, as well as large rotations are investigated.
Elastic Multibody Dynamics : A Direct Ritz Approach
This textbook is an introduction to and exploration of a number of core topics in the field of applied mechanics: On the basis of Lagrange's Principle, a Central Equation of Dynamics is presented which yields a unified view on existing methods. From these, the Projection Equation is selected for the derivation of the motion equations of holonomic and of non-holonomic systems. The method is applied to rigid multibody systems where the rigid body is defined such that, by relaxation of the rigidity constraints, one can directly proceed to elastic bodies. A decomposition into subsystems leads to a minimal representation and to a recursive representation, respectively, of the equations of motion.
Economic evaluations in exploration
This textbook, now in its second English edition, is originally a translation of the G- man textbook “Rechnen für Lagerstättenkundler und Rohstoffwirtschaftler, Teil 1”, also translated into the Chinese and Russian languages. Compared to the previous English and German editions the chapters have been updated with new examples and in many cases amended. The textbook is intended for the economic geologist who deals with the evaluation of deposits at an early stage of development. Once an exploration project has reached the feasibility stage, the exact calculations that are necessary for a comprehensive te- nical and economic assessment will be performed by a team of geologists, mining engineers, metallurgists, and economists. In the early stages of exploration, however, any evaluator of deposits must be able to cover the whole spectrum himself. Since only order of magnitude parameters are available at this early stage, the c- culations can only yield order of magnitude results.
Dynamics of Flexible Multibody Systems : Rigid Finite Element Method
A new approach is presented for modelling multi-body systems, which constitutes a substantial enhancement of the Rigid Finite Element method. The new approach is based on homogeneous transformations and joint coordinates, and it yields the advantage that equations of motion are automatically generated for systems consisting of alternate rigid and flexible links. Apart from its simple physical interpretation and easy computer implementation, the method is also valuable for educational purposes since it impressively illustrates the impact of mechanical features on the mathematical model. This novel modelling approach is then applied to systems such as offshore-cranes and telescopic rapiers.
Dynamic Asset Allocation with Forwards and Futures
DYNAMIC ASSET ALLOCATION WITH FORWARD AND FUTURES is an advanced text on the theory of forward and futures markets which aims at providing readers with a comprehensive knowledge of how prices are established and evolve over time, what optimal strategies one can expect from the participants, what characterizes such markets, and what major theoretical and practical differences distinguish futures from forward contracts. The book proposes an approach of these markets from the perspective of dynamic asset allocation and asset pricing theory within an inter-temporal framework. The main ingredients that are used are the assumed absence of frictions and arbitrage opportunities in financial and real markets, the uniqueness of the economic general equilibrium, when such an equilibrium is required and the tools of continuous time finance, namely martingale theory and stochastic dynamic programming. The scope of DYNAMIC ASSET ALLOCATION WITH FORWARD AND FUTURES is essentially theoretical, with emphasis on economic meaning and financial interpretation. Regarding investment and/or hedging, focus is on optimal strategies rather than on actual practice. Simulations, however, are performed when important insights can be delivered as to the practical relevance of some theoretical results. Also, optimal strategies using futures are shown to differ markedly from those using forwards. The following issues are examined: pure hedging, investment and hedging in complete or incomplete markets, currency risk, optimal spreading, presence of stochastic dividend or convenience yields, pricing of non-redundant futures or forwards by means of general equilibrium analysis, and revisiting of existing Capital Asset Pricing Models.
