lap lambert academic publishing okt 2009 (616 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book is the first full treatment of the life and cinema of American film director Paul Thomas Anderson. Beginning with his entry into filmmaking, this work spans each of his first four feature films ¿ Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love - and follows his rise to the pinnacle of the indie circuit. As a major filmmaker in the studio independent filmmaking scene of the 1990s, Anderson has proven himself to be an exceptional storyteller and technician in the art of cinema. This work examines the continuity and similarities that exist in each of Anderson¿s films ¿ his themes, his vision of life and his depiction of the self. It focuses primarily on how the filmmaker uses structural elements ¿ e.g. cinematography, music, lighting, dialogue and tone ¿ as methods of communicating his vision. A must-have for anyone interested in his work, and a great read for those who like independent cinema!Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 64 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The City of Cape Town is estimated to host approximately three million people. Of those three million, it is also estimated that 22 percent are living in what could be considered informal dwellings. In 2000, one of the United Nations Millennium Development Declaration goals for 2020 was ¿to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers as proposed in the Cities without slums initiative.'' The South African government took this initiative on board and has set a goal of eradicating all informal settlements in South Africa by 2014. There is thus a process of formalization currently taking place in South Africa. In Cape Town however, there is currently a backlog of between 300 000 to 400 000 households and this number is growingBooks on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In the wake of the adoption of the SADC Code on Social Security of 2004 and the imminent adoption of the SADC Protocol on the Facilitation of Movement of Persons of 2005, it is imperative that coordination of social security is prioritised in the SADC. currently, people who move from one country to the other loose their social security rights as they cross borders, more so for the workers who would have contributed to the social security systems in their countries of origin or their host countries. They loose their insurance periods, which are crucial in the determinations of entitlement to social security benefits, as well as their social security benefits accrued in the countries where the person crossing the border would have worked. This Monograph, therefore, outlines some of the issues which should be addressed at the very early stages of coordinating social security in the SADC and it suggets priority areas for setting afoot the proposed coordination. It suggests that long-term benefits including old age, invalidity and survivors'' pensions should take a lead. Lessons are drawn from the European Union particularly on how coordination works.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In 1993, a dispute arose in the French literary press concerning the merits of the two French translations of Virginia Woolf''s 'The Waves', a translation by Marguerite Yourcenar, and a second version by Cécile Wajsbrot. Kathleen Shields explains that a critic had accused Wajsbrot of having rendered Woolf incomprehensible to the French reader. This is connected to the fact that, according to feminist translation scholars, the deletion of significant elements in key texts by women writers is a recurrent tendency. This, together with the latest trends in translation studies since the 1980''s, prompted a comparison of two French translations of 'To the Lighthouse', a key text by a writer who has iconic status within modernism and feminism. We took as the basis for the analysis the paradigm proposed by Massardier-Kenney (1997) in order to answer the following questions: are any of these translation strategies implemented by the French translators How does its use or non-use affect the translation product How effective are these in order to translate Woolf This analysis should be of interest to researchers in translation studies and, particularly, those who study feminist translation.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The potential effects of wood chip mill harvests on forest management practices of NIPF landowners in North Carolina were analyzed. The study estimated the impacts of changes in timber market returns to NIPF owners. Economic welfare effects of producer and consumer surpluses attributable to market adjustments were also calculated. Potential savings from reduced site preparation costs from cleaner harvests were estimated. Additionally, the potential changes in financial returns to growing timber with wood chip markets were estimated using discounted cash flow analyses of typical forest management returns. A second component of this research involved the analysis of archival tax data on the North Carolina Use-Value Property Tax Program. An analysis of the effects of property values, property taxes and population density on landowner decisions to sell, subdivide, or withdraw their properties from the use-value program in North Carolina was conducted. Parcel level tax data from nine counties representing the three geophysical regions and urban levels of North Carolina for the period 1987 through 1999 were collected and analyzed using logistic regression.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 116 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -During the nineteen sixties the organization, Students for a Democratic Society, SDS, represented the New Left in the United States. SDS led a political movement whose major goal was to bring about social change. In this book, SDS is examined using Burke''s dramatistic perspective as it moves from order, guilt and the negative through victimage and mortification to catharsis and redemption. The phases of development of a movement as described by Leland Griffin (1969) are also used as a framework for this study to determine if the development of SDS as a movement corresponds with the phases of inception, crisis and consummation. The analysis examines SDS as it developed in the nineteen sixties, and should be of interest to anyone who is interested in learning more about a turbulent historical time in the United States.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 60 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The aim of the study is identify the main determining factor when consumers decide to go for a mortgage loan. No previous study has been carried out in this field and therefore results obtained out of the project will be communicated to the Barclays Bank, where I belong. This paper presents an analysis of customer choice criteria in the home loans market in the following markets of UK, US and Mauritius. In particular, the study investigates the relative importance of choice criteria according to consumers and also analyses differences in the importance of choice criteria with respect to a number of demographic and related factors. Analysis of the date obtained from the survey carried out on a random population of 300 respondents from the telephone directory shows that choosing a home loan institution on the basis of professional advice is the most frequently cited choice criterion on the UK, followed by brand loyalty for the US market and finally for the Mauritian market, the most important factor comes to pricing. The analysis was done by focusing on the three main elements in terms of Focus, Differentiation and Cost Leadership.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The objective of this work was to find for the Museum of the Hudson Highlands an advanced management system that would overcome the Museum''s organizational and communication problems. The assignment resulted with three alternative management systems that can be also applicable by libraries or small organizations. The study shows the increasing role of technology in business and enlightens facilities management functions in business organizations. The work discus how business management has developed in the past years and how important for that was technology revolution. This book emphasizes complexity of facilities manager role in business organizations.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 92 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In an intensely competitive landscape where the boundaries of firms have become increasingly permeable, a firm''s survival is dependent on how well it manages resources within its control to deal with factors outside its direct control. Results of this study show that IC is an important organisational capability which should be considered as a strategic resource. IC provides an important link in explaining that successful firms are those that can respond well to the new dynamics of firm competition by being able to strike an optimal balance between their employment of tangible and intangible resources through exploiting the firm''s dynamic capabilities in responding to the dynamisms in the environment. Environmental dynamism is shown to positively moderate the relationship between human capital and performance. In a dynamic environment, frequent changes occur with a lesser degree of predictability. Whether a firm would succumb to or triumph over the detriments brought about by the frequent changes depends largely on the resources available at its disposal.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 76 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Dimensions of the well-Being of nations Economic research on what determines the well-being of nations is one of the most active inquiries. Yet, while tremendous progress has been made with respect to the effects of economic factors and forces on the well-being of nations, both economic theory and practice continue to treat lightly non-economic determinants of well-being across countries. The overemphasis on economic factors and forces is troubling as it leaves a knowledge gap in understanding and advancing effective policy. This little book identifies indirect measures of non- economic determinants, and estimates their effects on the well-being of nations. Measuring well-being by the human development index, analysis reveals important relationships between well-being and investment in physical capital, national symbols, national identity, and even holidays - relationships that represent economic and non-economic dimensions of the well-being of nations. In the end, the book makes a significant contribution to both policy and further research.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 100 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Econometrics has been a rather intimidating academic subject that both undergraduate as well as postgraduate students come across in courses of mainly economic nature. In spite of the daunting element attached to it, econometrics can be a rather exciting subject for both teachers and students. Complicated issues that individuals, businesses and policy makers are trying to address can be investigated thoroughly providing quantitative answers to important quantitative questions. Econometrics provides a platform on which complicated relationships are exposed, driving hence key players in the economy to base their decisions. An Introductory Note on Econometrics is a supplementary book that primarily aims at presenting key themes in econometrics in a rather concise and effective way. It can be perceived as an effort to brush up the memory of students who have been taught econometrics before and/or enable the ¿mere tyros'' to this subject to gain an insight into the basic concepts that pervades the world of econometrics.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Modeling land degradation & food import This research develops a soil conservation model for smallholder farmers who apply little or no fertilizer. Empirical results drawn from northern Tanzania imply that ignoring the fertility mining problem in model specification leads to overestimation of profits for farms that apply little or no fertilizer. Wheat cultivation in the Hanang wheat complex, northern Tanzania erodes an average of 11 mm of soil each year. The rate of soil fertility mining averaged 22.2 kg of nitrogen/ton of wheat. Consequently, wheat yields in HWC have been decreasing. Part II of this research examined the international trade for foods with uncertain quality attributes. It is shown that enforcement is the most effective instrument for reducing importation of poor quality foods. This implies, for the government of Tanzania to check the current upward trend of importation of poor quality foods, it needs to increase its current efforts of enforcing the quality of imported foods.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 76 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The FDI is a kind of long term commitment on behalf of foreign countries and MNE''s together that brings significant benefits for the hosting countries in the shape of economic growth and reduction of external vulnerability. Pakistan has tremendous GDP growth and notable FDI flow during last few years. The industrial growth and increasing demand of energy from the consumers has disturbed the supply and demand of energy. The country categorizes a power shortage despite of having tremendous abundant energy resources, prices of oil and gas has surged because of international prices and more and more demand from the consumer. The country has potential abundant sources of energy and the Government Of Pakistan is trying to attract the private investor to made contribution to meet the future energy needs. This book highlights the some historical and recent Foreign Direct Investment flows and policies related to FDI. The focus of this book is particularly related to potential investment opportunities in the energy sector with the evidence of projected future energy needs and required investment.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 48 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The Brazilian ethanol fuel program (Proalcool) is the world¿s largest biomass to energy program. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the Brazilian experience with ethanol as a substitute for gasoline and analyse its future prospects in both Brazil and the world market. Initiated in 1975 as a response to the first oil crisis and the resulting sharp increase in worldwide oil prices, the program has experienced prolonged periods of both splendour and gloom. Early success was followed by a period during which the program came under intense criticism on economic grounds due to low oil prices and high ethanol production costs. On the verge of collapsing, Proalcool was only lately revived due to a multiplicity of socioeconomic and environmental reasons. In recent years there has been renewed global interest in biofuels and a rapid expansion of biofuels markets. This book will therefore be of great help to policymakers, academics and business people curious to learn how was Brazil able to create the competitive assets that made Proalcool a success in terms of developing institutional and technological capabilities for using a renewable fuel in large scale.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 64 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Restoration of degraded images has become an important and effective tool for many technological applications like space imaging, medical imaging and many other post-processing techniques. Most of the image restoration techniques model the degradation phenomena, usually blur and noise, and then obtain an approximation of the image. Whereas, in realistic situation, one has to estimate both the true image and the blur from the degraded image characteristics in the absence of any a priori information about the blurring system. The objective of this book is to present new punctual kriging based image restoration approaches using machine-learning techniques. To achieve this objective, this book concentrates on the restoration of images corrupted with Gaussian noise by making good tradeoffs between two contradicting properties; smoothness versus edge preservation. This book makes the following contributions: Quantitative analysis of the at hand punctual kriging based image restoration techniques, applications of artificial neural networks are discussed for image denoising. Furthermore, hybrid techniques for image restoration are presented in this book.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 116 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Hyperspectral imaging is utilised in many applications, where measured data are processed, interpreted and converted into physical, chemical and/or biological properties of the target objects and/or processes being studied. In this thesis, various methods were proposed and applied to crop reflectance data (acquired by hand-held spectrometers) to detect, characterise and quantify disease severity and plant density. Furthermore, various surface water quality parameters of inland waters have been monitored using hyperspectral images acquired by airborne systems. However, the large size of these images raises the need for efficient data reduction. A new type of self- organising weighted neural networks was proposed and used for efficient reduction, mapping and clustering of large high-dimensional data sets, such as hyperspectral images. Finally, the analysis can be reversed to generate high resolution spectra from simpler measurements using multiple colour-filter mosaics, as suggested in the thesis. The acquired instantaneous image is demosaicked to generate a multi-band image that can finally be transformed into a hyperspectral image.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 64 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book offers a new approach to control design for DC converter-based power distribution systems, which are an attractive alternative to AC power distribution due to flexible power sharing and nearly instantaneous reconfiguration; a decrease of overall system cost and weight; and an increase of reliability. The Synergetic Control Theory offers solutions to such challenges of control design as nonlinearity, multi-connectivity, and high-dimensionality of these systems. This control design uses an analytical procedure to shift the focus of the designer from analysis of the closed loop system behavior to synthesis of the specified behavior of the system by constructing invariant-manifolds. Contraction of the state space allows to evaluate stability conditions of the high order systems. The resulting control laws ensure global or semi-global stability of the system and improve transient response and performance of the system. This work illustrates application of Synergetic Control Theory for DC autonomous power distribution systems, which, as a result, fully utilize capacity for flexible power sharing and nearly instantaneous reconfiguration.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 104 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This text is concerned with the relationship between spectral decomposition of operators, the functional calculi that operators admit, and Banach space structure. The deep connection between the first two of these concepts has long been known. The aim of this text is to provide an introduction to the modern techniques of AC- operators and prespectral operators in spectral theory. Topics include the basic results of AC- operators and prespectral operators on Banach spaces and the application of spectral theory on c\*-algebras. Much of the subject matter, particularly with respect to AC- operators, prespectral operators, and c\*-algebras, is comprised of new results.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 112 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -High performance liquid chromatogarphy (HPLC) is one of the major techniques in separation sciences. Faster separation and higher efficiency are required to meet ever-growing demands. Despite numerous efforts on improving mass transfer in particulate packings discontinuity seems to be the cornerstone. Macroporous continuous beds or monoliths are, therefore, a promising alternative to the particle medium. The work deals with the preparation of new monoliths used as support for HPLC stationary phase. Two different approaches were developed: one based on the polycondensation of epoxy resins which were dispersed in aqueous polyamine phase with the aid of a surfactant. The other involved a traverse of linear polyamides solutions around their upper critical solution temperatures (UCST). The polymers, dissolved in a solvent at temperatures higher than their UCSTs followed by slow cooling to below these temperatures to precipitate the polymers. Partly re-established hydrogen bonds resulted in the formation of crystallites that interconnected into a network structure. The study also deals with surface modifying for chromatographic applications.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 108 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Environmental degradation has become a worlwide concern. This kind of problem may affect the governability and the sustainability of a society. It is important to have reliable data and research results in which informed decisions can be based on. This book focus just on one kind of environmental problem: land cover change in a river watershed due to urban development. The study area is located in Northeast Mexico in San Juan River watershed where Monterrey metropolitan area is found. A computer model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool, SWAT) was used to relate physical characteristics such as soil type, rainfall and land cover type with the water balance of the watershed.This work, and the previous research in which is based, can show that there is a systematic way to assess this kind of problems. It also describes the data collection and analysis experience. It should be useful to students and professionals that may be considering the use of GIS technology applied to watershed hydrology analysis.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 116 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Due to the importance of controlling the X- ray (package) beam in the diagnostic field, and the high prices of the control kids and devices for both engineer and the medical physicist, and due to the importance of recognizing the presence or absence of an X-ray beam, the researcher found it necessary to search for tools not to measure but to work as indications of the presence of X-ray beam and to know whether or not the X-ray tube has generated the X-ray. The designed device was very simple in its construction. It is composed of a wooden box lined from inside with phosphoric plates in all sides except two sides which are lined with two plane mirrors, in order to increase reflection of light inside the wooden box. The light emitted from the phosphoric plates affects a photo resistance, which works as an electric switch, and can be in connection state when there is light or in disconnection state when there is no light (Dark). This photo cell is connected to an electronic warning circuit which makes a sound when there is light from the phosphoric plate, which indicates the presence of X-ray beam,The design unit called CMRS. .Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 68 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Arsenic is a natural element found in the environment in organic and inorganic form. The inorganic form is much more toxic and is found in ground water, surface water and many foods. This form is responsible for many adverse health effects like cancer and cardiovascular and neurological effects. Present work is based on the available mortality data on lung, bladder and liver cancer. The purpose of the study is to see the effect of various predictors like Gender, Cancer Type (Lung, Liver and Bladder), Arsenic Concentration (High, Medium and low), Age and Person Years on Mortality. We take a model-based approach to analyze this data. Three regression techniques: Logistic, Poisson and Negative Binomial Models are used to assess the effect of these explanatory variables on the response or dependent variable. The major finding of the study is that either all or most of the categories of the predictors are significantly associated with the mortality. The logistic model finds Age as the only significant predictor (pBooks on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 76 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Transport is an inevitable part of today¿s life. Load carried on vehicles is exposed to dynamic forces which tend to change its position on a loading platform. This change can influence vehicle driving properties or cause a fall from a vehicle, thus endanger road traffic safety. To prevent this movement load securing equipment is necessary. Web lashings are the most frequently used lashing devices for load securing by lashing. Top over lashing presents the most commonly used lashing method in practice. Securing of load by top over lashing is influenced by pretension in lashing. Pretension is influenced by many parameters. Standard Tension Force measured in laboratory conditions for manufactured lashing devices with tensioner was defined as standard pretension. This work offers measurement results, theoretical background and parameters influencing pretension in lashing for commonly used 50 mm two-piece web lashing with ratchet tensioner. It should be especially useful for professionals such as lashing manufacturers, testing institutes and educational institutions or anyone else, who works with load securing.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 84 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Vehicles with an internal combustion engine, as single power source, have for a long time dominated the market. However more energy efficient alternative powertrains, like hybrid powertrains, become more and more attractive. The major reasons are the reduced cost of electrical components and the risk of higher fossil fuel prices. Many design options are present when it comes to powertrain design. The powertrain components can be configured, chosen and sized in numerous ways. The most cost effective choice depends on factors like fuel price, application and interest rate. Especially in future when many powertrain concepts will be offered, it will not be clear for a customer which powertrain to choose. In this thesis a method for transforming prerequisites to cost effective powertrains is presented. Powertrains are ranked by evaluating the life-cycle cost. Fuel-, capital- and component wear cost are included in the life-cycle cost. In one case study a powertrain is adapted to a city bus route in Sweden. It is indicated that new powertrain technologies can be competitive from a cost perspective, in some applications, already at present time.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 112 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Three dimensional (3D) face recognition is a frequently used biometric and its performance is dependent on registration. Registration aligns two faces and makes a comparison possible between the two surfaces. In the literature, best results have been achieved by a one-to-all approach, where a test face is aligned to each gallery face separately. To overcome the computational bottleneck of this approach, we examine registration based on an Average Face Model (AFM). To improve the registration, we propose to group faces and register with category-specific AFMs. We see that gender and morphology classes exist, when faces are categorized with the clustering approach. As another factor causing diversity in the face space, we explore expression variations. To reduce the negative effect of expressions in registration, we divide the facial surface into logical segments, and for each segment we create an Average Region Model (ARM). Registering via each ARM separately, we examine regional recognition performance. Even though some regions are less affected by expression variations, no single region is sufficient by itself and the use of all regions is beneficial.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 88 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Oneida Lake formed as a relict arm of glacial Lake Iroquois near the Pleistocene-Holocene transition (13-8 ka). As the southeastern portion of the Lake Ontario Basin settled into its Holocene drainage patterns during the Younger Dryas period (11-10 ka), Oneida Lake receded, leaving a series of exposed beach ridges on the southeastern lacustrine plain. The easternmost ridge of Oneida Lake, having been previously dated at 10.7 14C ka BP, marks the limit of the area under investigation; the western limit is the modern Oneida Lake shoreline ¿ Verona Beach. This demarcates a study area of 2.25 km2. With ground-penetrating radar, AMS shell dating, and sediment analysis I support the conclusion that the ancient beach deposits at Oneida Lake record earliest coastal development at Oneida Lake in the form of two consecutive series of beach-ridges representing (1) a cold, wet Younger Dryas phase and (2) a drier post-Younger Dryas phase.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 108 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The ecological value of urban landscape patches includes serving not only as major habitats for species, but also as stepping stones for animal dispersal, for enabling recolonization based on the metapopulation theory, for mitigating air pollution through dry deposit, and for controlling microclimate. Nonetheless, the removal, shrinkage, degradation, and fragmentation of patches has been common during the rapid urbanization of East Asian cities. This book provides a GIS-based simulation method in analyzing the spatial patterns of landscape patches, and discusses its ecological implications in two case-study cities ¿ Seoul and Tokyo''s 23 Special Wards, based on the evaluative criteria such as bio-diversity, species movement, and air pollution mitigation. This book attempts to motivate general readers, students, as well as researchers, with critical interests in the spatial patterns of urban forms and its ecological implication.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 96 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Wireless devices find their ways into our everyday life. Experts say in a near future we will be immersed in environments where we can use small handheld wireless devices to make seamless connections to the Internet via body area networks, homes/offices networks, city networks, and cellular phone networks. Adaptive wireless transceivers enable these networks to handle multimedia traffic and operate robustly in many difficult channel conditions. The wireless channel is unpredictable and diverse. Its response can change very fast when users are in moving platforms. Its signal strength can fade away and responses can exhibit large delay dispersion due to multipath propagation of radio waves. This book provides adaptive wireless transceiver techniques capable of handling these harsh channel conditions and offering high spectrum efficient channels. A computer simulation model accurate but simple enough for fast evaluation is given. System components such as channel estimation, equalization, and sequence detection are discussed in details. Theoretical analyses are provided in each part so that simulation results can be cross-validated.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 304 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Drying lumber with little variation in its target moisture content leads to increased cost savings and reduced wet claims. The variability of moisture content is typically monitored using quality control charts, which graph process central tendency (average) and process dispersion (standard deviation) over time. The usual assumption in constructing and using these charts is that the moisture content follows a normal (Gaussian) statistical distribution. However, due to the nature of the kiln-drying process, the resulting lumber moisture content distribution is often left-bounded and asymmetrical, which is characteristic of a log-normal distribution. In these cases, the normality assumption can lead to errors such as false out-of-control signals. This book outlines graphical and analytical goodness-of-fit methods for assessing the (non)normality of lumber moisture content data, discusses appropriate monitoring parameters for process central tendency and dispersion, and presents practical procedures for calculating the centerline and upper/lower control limits of log-normal control charts.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 104 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -As part of a broad strategy of enlisting market forces to restrain the growth in health care costs, U.S. regulators have adapted antitrust law, developed for the industrial economy of the nineteenth century, to the modern health care system, with little evidence that consumers in fact benefit. This study, based primarily on evidence from the late 1990s, examines the results of this strategy in terms of both economic theory and empirical research on the impact of the profit motive on the health care. In their myopic view of for- profit managed care organizations as proxies for consumer interests, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have allowed these corporations to consolidate until they now exert overwhelming economic power over both health care providers and patients. Both economic theory and, increasingly, empirical evidence support the assertion that Federal antitrust policy is failing utterly in its mission to protect consumers. Furthermore, government reliance on profit-driven market forces to reform the health care system is failing to constrain costs, and is leading to reduction in both health care quality and access to care.Books on Demand GmbH, Überseering 33, 22297 Hamburg 80 pp. Englisch.