First Light in the Universe : Saas-Fee Advanced Course 36. Swiss Society for Astrophysics and Astronomy
The exploration of the first billion years of the history of the Universe, from the so-called Dark Ages to cosmic reionisation, represents one of the great challenges of contemporary astrophysics and one of the main drivers for future observational facilities. The book contains the elaborated notes of lectures given at the 36th Saas-Fee Advanced Course "First Light in the Universe" by three eminent scientists in the field: Abraham Loeb, Andrea Ferrara, and Richard Ellis. The formation of the first stars and black holes, the initial mass function, feedback effects, early dust formation, the history of cosmic star formation, distant galaxies, cosmic reionisation and the cosmic infrared background are the main topics treated. This book provides an accessible and up-to-date review of the field and will be useful to graduate students of astronomy, cosmologists, physicists and researchers.
Experimental analysis of nano and engineering materials and structures ; Proceedings of the 13th international conference on experimental mechanics, Alexandroupolis, Greece, July 1-6, 2007
ICEM13 focused on all aspects of experimental mechanics of solids with emphasis on mechanical characterization and testing at the micro and nano scale levels. The technical program of ICEM13 was the product of hard work and devotion of more than 100 world leading experts. This volume contains two-page abstracts of the 482 papers presented at ICEM13. The accompanying CD contains the full length papers. The abstracts of the fifteen plenary lectures are included in the beginning of the book. The remaining 467 abstracts are arranged in 23 tracks and 28 special symposia/sessions with 225 and 242 abstracts, respectively. The papers of the tracks have been contributed from open call, while the papers of the symposia/sessions have been solicited by the respective organizers.
Environments for Multi-Agent Systems II ; 2nd International Workshop, E4MAS 2005, Utrecht, The Netherlands, July 25, 2005, Selected Revised and Invited Papers
This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Environments for Multiagent Systems, E4MAS 2005, held in July 2005. The 16 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from the lectures given at the workshop.
Enumerative Invariants in Algebraic Geometry and String Theory : Lectures given at the C.I.M.E. Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy June 6–11, 2005
Starting in the middle of the 80s, there has been a growing and fruitful interaction between algebraic geometry and certain areas of theoretical high-energy physics, especially the various versions of string theory. Physical heuristics have provided inspiration for new mathematical definitions (such as that of Gromov-Witten invariants) leading in turn to the solution of problems in enumerative geometry. Conversely, the availability of mathematically rigorous definitions and theorems has benefited the physics research by providing the required evidence in fields where experimental testing seems problematic. The aim of this volume, a result of the CIME Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, in 2005, is to cover part of the most recent and interesting findings in this subject.
Entropy Methods for the Boltzmann Equation : Lectures from a Special Semester at the Centre Émile Borel, Institut H. Poincaré, Paris, 2001
Entropy and entropy production have recently become mathematical tools for kinetic and hydrodynamic limits, when deriving the macroscopic behaviour of systems from the interaction dynamics of their many microscopic elementary constituents at the atomic or molecular level. During a special semester on Hydrodynamic Limits at the Centre Émile Borel in Paris, 2001 two of the research courses were held by C. Villani and F. Rezakhanlou. Both illustrate the major role of entropy and entropy production in a mutual and complementary manner and have been written up and updated for joint publication. Villani describes the mathematical theory of convergence to equilibrium for the Boltzmann equation and its relation to various problems and fields, including information theory, logarithmic Sobolev inequalities and fluid mechanics. Rezakhanlou discusses four conjectures for the kinetic behaviour of the hard sphere models and formulates four stochastic variations of this model, also reviewing known results for these.
Enterprise Information Systems V
ICEIS focuses on real world applications and aims at bringing together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in the advances and business applications of information systems. As in previous years, ICEIS’2003 held four simultaneous tracks covering different aspects of enterprise computing: Databases and Information Systems Integration, Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Analysis and Specification and Software Agents and Internet Computing. Although ICEIS’2003 received 546 paper submissions from over 50 countries, only 80 were accepted as full papers and presented in 30-minutes oral presentations. With an acceptance rate of 15%, these numbers demonstrate the intention of preserving a high quality forum for future editions of this conference. From the articles accepted as long papers for the conference, only 32 were selected for inclusion in this book Additional keynote lectures, tutorials and industrial sessions were also held during ICEIS’2003, and, for the first time this year, the 1st Doctoral Consortium on Enterprise Information Systems gave PhD students an opportunity to present their work to an international audience of experts in the field of information systems.
Engineering Environment-Mediated Multi-Agent Systems ; International Workshop, EEMMAS 2007, Dresden, Germany, October 5, 2007. Selected Revised and Invited Papers
This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Engineering Environment-Mediated Multi-Agent Systems, held in Dresden,The volume includes 16 thoroughly revised papers, selected from the lectures given at the workshop, together with 2 papers resulting from invited talks by prominent researchers in the field. The papers are organized in sections on engineering self-organizing applications, stigmergic interaction, modeling and structuring mediating environments, and environment-based support for context and organizations.
Empire under the microscope : Parasitology and the British literary imagination, 1885–1935
This book considers science and empire, and the stories we tell ourselves about them. Emilie Taylor-Pirie examines a wealth of archival material including medical lectures, scientific publications, popular biography, and personal and professional correspondence, alongside novels, poems, newspaper articles, and political speeches, to excavate the shared vocabularies of literature and medicine. She demonstrates how forms such as poetry and biography; genres such as imperial romance and detective fiction; and modes such as adventure and the Gothic, together informed how tropical diseases, their parasites, and their vectors, were understood in relation to race, gender, and nation.
Electromagnetic Radiation : Variational Methods, Waveguides and Accelerators
This is a graduate level textbook on the theory of electromagnetic radiation and its application to waveguides, transmission lines, accelerator physics and synchrotron radiation. It has grown out of lectures and manuscripts by Julian Schwinger prepared during the war at MIT's Radiation Laboratory, updated with material developed by Schwinger at UCLA in the 1970s and 1980s, and by Milton at the University of Oklahoma since 1994. The book includes a great number of straightforward and challenging exercises and problems. It is addressed to students in physics, electrical engineering, and applied mathematics seeking a thorough introduction to electromagnetism with emphasis on radiation theory and its applications.
Effects of Space Weather on Technology Infrastructure ; Proceedings of the NATO ARW on Effects of Space Weather on Technology Infrastructure, Rhodes, Greece, from 25 to 29 March 2003
The 17 chapters of this book grew out of the tutorial lectures given by leading world-class experts at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop “Effects of Space Weather on Technology Infrastructure” - ESPRIT, which was held in Rhodes on March 25-29, 2004. All manuscripts were refereed and subsequently meticulously edited by the editor to ensure the highest quality for this monograph. I owe particular thanks to the lecturers of the ESPRIT Advanced Research Workshop for producing these excellent tutorial reviews, which convey the essential knowledge and the latest advances in our field. Due to the breadth, extensive literature citations and quality of the reviews we expect this publication to serve extremely well as a reference book. Multimedia material referring to individual chapters of the book is accessible on the accompanying CD. The aim of ESPRIT was to assess existing knowledge and identify future actions regarding monitoring, forecasting and mitigation of space weather induced malfunction and damage of vital technological systems operating in space and on the ground.
Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering ; 4th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering-Invited Lectures
This book contains the full papers on which the invited lectures of the 4th International Conference on Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering (4ICEGE) were based. It provides a comprehensive overview of the progress achieved to date in soil dynamics and geotechnical earthquake engineering, as well as in engineering seismology and seismic risk assessment and management. In situ and laboratory testing, theoretical issues and numerical modeling of soil dynamics, seismic hazard with emphasis on the long-period ground motion displacements, site effects and microzonation, liquefaction assessment and mitigation, soil-structure interaction, performance based design of geotechnical structures, earthquake resistant design and performance of shallow and deep foundations, retaining structures, embankments and dams, underground structures and lifelines, are all among the different topics covered in this book. Interdisciplinary subjects such as vulnerability assessment of, transportation networks and lifelines as well as of geotechnical structures are also discussed. Finally, the book provides a thorough presentation of the existing worldwide important large-scale testing facilities and geotechnical strong ground motion arrays.
Dynamics of Dissipation
This collection of lectures treats the dynamics of open systems with a strong emphasis on dissipation phenomena related to dynamical chaos. This research area is very broad, covering topics such as nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, environment-system coupling (decoherence) and applications of Markov semi-groups to name but a few. The book addresses not only experienced researchers in the field but also nonspecialists from related areas of research, postgraduate students wishing to enter the field and lecturers searching for advanced textbook material.
Dynamic brain : From neural spikes to behaviors ; 12th International Summer School on Neural Networks, Erice, Italy, December 5-12, 2007, Revised Lectures
The volume presents 12 thoroughly revised tutorial papers based on lectures given by leading researchers at the 12th International Summer School on Neural Networks in Erice, Italy, in December 2007.
Domain Modeling and the Duration Calculus : International Training School, Shanghai, China, September 17-21, 2007, Advanced Lectures
The book presented provide competent coverage of software security, domain modeling of software engineering, and duration calculus for real time systems - originating from lectures of leading experts in these fields from Europe and Asia.It addressed in detail are: development of real-time systems, domain engineering using abstract modeling, the area of duration calculus, and formal methods like language description using the operational semantics approach.
Discrete Differential Geometry
Discrete differential geometry is an active mathematical terrain where differential geometry and discrete geometry meet and interact. It provides discrete equivalents of the geometric notions and methods of differential geometry, such as notions of curvature and integrability for polyhedral surfaces. Current progress in this field is to a large extent stimulated by its relevance for computer graphics and mathematical physics. This collection of essays, which documents the main lectures of the 2004 Oberwolfach Seminar on the topic, as well as a number of additional contributions by key participants, gives a lively, multi-facetted introduction to this emerging field.
Deterministic and statistical methods in Machine Learning ; 1st International Workshop, Sheffield, UK, September 7-10, 2004. Revised Lectures
This book consitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Workshop on Machine Learning held in Sheffield, UK, in September 2004. The 19 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. They address all current issues in the rapidly maturing field of machine learning that aims to provide practical methods for data discovery, categorisation and modelling. The particular focus of the workshop was advanced research methods in machine learning and statistical signal processing.
Dependability Metrics : Advanced Lectures
This tutorial book gives an overview of the current state of the art in measuring the different aspects of dependability of systems: reliability, security and performance.
Datatype-Generic Programming ; International Spring School, SSDGP 2006, Nottingham, UK, April 24-27, 2006, Revised Lectures
A leitmotif in the evolution of programming paradigms has been the level and extent of parametrisation that is facilitated — the so-called genericity of the paradigm. The sorts of parameters that can be envisaged in a programming language range from simple values, like integers and fioating-point numbers, through structured values, types and classes, to kinds (the type of types and/or classes).Datatype-generic programming is about parametrising programsby the structure of the data that they manipulate. To appreciate the importance of data type genericity,one need look no further than the internet. The internet is a massive repository of structured data, but the structure is rarely exploited. For example, compression of data can be much more efiective if its structure is known, but most compression algorithms regard the input data as simply a string of bits, and take no account of its internal organisation. Datatype-generic programming is about exploiting the structure of data when it is relevant and ignoring it when it is not. Programming languages most c- monly used at the present time do not provide efiective mechanisms for do- menting and implementing datatype genericity.
Dark Matter in Astro- and Particle Physics ; Proceedings of the International Conference DARK 2004, College Station, USA, 3-9 October, 2004
The search for dark matter in the universe has established itself as one of the most exciting and central fields of astrophysics, particle physics and cosmology. The lectures and talks in this book emphasize the experimental and theoretical status and future perspectives, stressing in particular the interplay between astro- and particle physics.
CP Violation in Particle, Nuclear and Astrophysics
This book provides a collection of up-to-date lectures on the physics of CP violation. As such it covers all relevant modern fields of elementary particle, nuclear and astrophysics. Special attention is paid to the neutral meson systems and the recent confirmation of CP violation in the B meson system. The theory and the novel methods needed for these experiments are given in detail. The classical and ongoing searches for the electric dipole moment of the neutron and other null tests of time-reversal symmetry are included. An elementary introduction is given to the astrophysical implications of CP violation, to tackle the puzzle of matter--antimatter asymmetry in our Universe. The aim of the book is to present recent achievements and discuss future developments in a way accessible to both postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers. For the experienced researcher, the book will serve as a modern source of reference on this topic.



















