springer apr 2001 (287 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Riemannian, symplectic and complex geometry are often studied by means ofsolutions to systems ofnonlinear differential equations, such as the equa tions of geodesics, minimal surfaces, pseudoholomorphic curves and Yang Mills connections. For studying such equations, a new unified technology has been developed, involving analysis on infinite-dimensional manifolds. A striking applications of the new technology is Donaldson's theory of 'anti-self-dual' connections on SU(2)-bundles over four-manifolds, which applies the Yang-Mills equations from mathematical physics to shed light on the relationship between the classification of topological and smooth four-manifolds. This reverses the expected direction of application from topology to differential equations to mathematical physics. Even though the Yang-Mills equations are only mildly nonlinear, a prodigious amount of nonlinear analysis is necessary to fully understand the properties of the space of solutions. . At our present state of knowledge, understanding smooth structures on topological four-manifolds seems to require nonlinear as opposed to linear PDE's. It is therefore quite surprising that there is a set of PDE's which are even less nonlinear than the Yang-Mills equation, but can yield many of the most important results from Donaldson's theory. These are the Seiberg-Witte~ equations. These lecture notes stem from a graduate course given at the University of California in Santa Barbara during the spring quarter of 1995. The objective was to make the Seiberg-Witten approach to Donaldson theory accessible to second-year graduate students who had already taken basic courses in differential geometry and algebraic topology.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 136 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Astronomy is the oldest and most fundamental of the natural sciences. From the early beginnings of civilization astronomers have attempted to explain not only what the Universe is and how it works, but also how it started, how it evolved to the present day, and how it will develop in the future. The author, a well-known astronomer himself, describes the evolution of astronomical ideas, briefly discussing most of the instrumental developments. Using numerous figures to elucidate the mechanisms involved, the book starts with the astronomical ideas of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian philosophers, moves on to the Greek period, and then to the golden age of astronomy, i.e. to Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and ends with modern theories of cosmology. Written with undergraduate students in mind, this book gives a fascinating survey of astronomical thinking.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 612 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The second International Symposium on Electronic Commerce was held in Hong Kong, April 2001, in conjunction with the fourth International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce. This symposium belongs to the- commerce conference series started in 1998 in Toronto, Canada. Since then, every year, there has been an international workshop on the technological challenges of electronic commerce, and every other year, in conjunction with the workshop, an international symposium on electronic commerce is held. The following workshops have been held so far. ¿ The first International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in September 1998, in Toronto, Canada. ¿ The second International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in May 1999, in Beijing, China. ¿ The third International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in June 2000, in Waterloo, Canada ¿ The fourth International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce was held in April 2001, in Hong Kong. The first International Symposium on Electronic Commerce was held in Beijing, China, May 1999, in conjunction with the second International Workshop on the Technological Challenges of Electronic Commerce.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 204 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Professor Paul Welfens offers a unique and timely approach to the major task of stabilizing and integrating the Balkans. His book is one of the first to assess in depth the progress of reconstruction and to evaluate the success of coordination on the part of various Western governments and international organizations. Professor Welfens sees an intimate connection, in the sense of equal responsibility, between internal reform, restructuring, and revitalization in the region and Western financing, ideas, and programs. Professor Welfens has coined the term 'networked approach' to capture the strategy of Western cooperation among multiple actors, particularly through the mechanism of the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe. In addition to demonstrating where the Stability Pact works well, he identifies problem areas, with respect to both inconsistencies in donor policies and coordination and significant structural variations among Balkan countries and entities. He also flags concerns about EU enlargement overstretch. This book has emerged from a bi-national, cross-disciplinary research project at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies on 'Cooperation and Competition: American, European Union, and German Policies in the Balkans' that explores the opportunities and obstacles regarding cooperation in the political, economic and military realms. The project - financed by a grant from the DaimlerChrysler-Fonds im Stifterverband fur die Deutsche Wissenschaft examines the implications of lessons learned in the Balkans for transatlantic relations, an area Professor Welfens discusses with some concern about potential conflicts. Additional individual and collective products from the AICGS research project will be forthcoming during 2001.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 196 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Business and Finance for IT People gives an insight into the world of business, and its language - the language of finance - for all those involved in information technology IT, whether as practitioners - buyer, sellers, technicians or managers - or students.Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, the book not only takes the reader step by step in plain language, and with many practical examples, through the fundamentals of business and finance, but also through some more advanced topics - leasing, cost/benefit analysis and project evaluation methods - not normally found in an introductory book, but of particular interest to IT people.Areas covered in this book include: Fundamentals of business and finance; Balance sheets, profit and loss accounts, cash flow statements; Different kinds of business and their financial characteristics; Financing and leasing; Cost/benefit analysis; Project evaluation methods, including net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and return on investment (ROI); Budget, costing and pricing - an introductionSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Among the many changes brought by the Internet is the emergence of electronic commerce over the Web. E-commerce activities, such as the online exchange of information, services, and products, are opening up completely new opportunities for business, at new levels of productivity and profitability. In parallel with the emergence of e-commerce, intelligent software agents as entities capable of independent action in open, unpredictable environments have matured into a promising new technology. Quite naturally, e-commerce agents hold great promise for exploiting the Internet's full potential as an electronic marketplace. The 20 coherently written chapters in this book by leading researchers and professionals present the state of the art in agent-mediated e-commerce. Researchers, professionals, and advanced students interested in e-commerce or agent technology will find this book an indispensable source of information and reference.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 360 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -technologycoulddo,oure ortsincomputerizingpayrollandaccountingapp- cationsinrealityseemedpunyanddisappointing. TheWeb,ontheotherhand, didnotseemshackled,inawaythatearlycomputingwas,tothesebure- craticandunimaginativewaysofconductinghumanandorganizationala airs. Itseemedthattheorganizational,spatial,andphysicalconstraintswereabout toloosen,ifnotdisappear,altogether. Andyet,whenwelookedaroundatthewayWebsitesandapplicationswere beingdeveloped,itseemedtousthattheearlypatternofhaphazarddev- opment,minimaltesting,andlackofattentiontothemaintenanceissuesthat characterisedthe¿softwarecrisis¿werestillverymuchwithus. Itwasasthough the¿newgeneration¿insistedonmakingthesamemistakesasitsparents! Thisfeelingofd¿ej`avuledustoquestionthenatureofWeb-basedandW- relatedactivities. Ofcourse,wewerenotalone,aswesoondiscovered. The resultiswhatisbeingcalledWebEngineeringwhichhadits rstintroduction inaworkshopattheSeventhWorldWideWeb(WWW7)conferenceinBrisbane in1998. IthasnowbecomeaserieswithmoreworkshopsatWWW8(Toronto, VI Preface 1999)andWWW9(Amsterdam,2000),andalsoattheInternationalConference onSoftwareEngineering(ICSE99)in1999inLosAngelesandICSE2000in Limerick,Ireland. AnotherworkshopisscheduledforWWW10inHongKong inMay2001. Themainpurposebehindtheseworkshopshasbeentoshareandpoolthe collectiveexperienceofpeople,bothacademicsandpractitioners,whoare- tivelyworkingonWeb-basedsystems. Theworkshopshavegenerallyconsisted ofkeynoteaddresses,peer-reviewedcontributedpapers,andsessionsofopen discussions. About This Book Inthisvolume,weprovideaconsolidatedviewofrecentwork,highlightingdev- opmentsandadvancesintheareaofWebEngineering. Thisselectionofpapers drawsmainlyfromthelastthreeworkshops,heldinconjunctionwithICSE1999, WWW9,andICSE2000. Wealsopresentalistofadditional,usefulresourceson WebEngineeringsuchasbooks,specialissues,articles,andWebsites. Ouraim istoprovideabookthatwillbeaconvenientandusefulreferencetoallthe researchers,practitioners,andstudentsinterestedinWebapplicationdevel- ment.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 376 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Information Retrieval (IR) is concerned with the effective and efficient retrieval of information based on its semantic content. The central problem in IR is the quest to find the set of relevant documents, among a large collection containing the information sought, satisfying a user's information need usually expressed in a natural language query. Documents may be objects or items in any medium: text, image, audio, or indeed a mixture of all three. This book presents 12 revised lectures given at the Third European Summer School in Information Retrieval, ESSIR 2000, held at the Villa Monastero, Varenna, Italy, in September 2000. The first part of the book is devoted to the foundation of IR and related areas; the second part on advanced topics addresses various current issues, from usability aspects to Web searching and browsing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Ecosystem management requires a planning and decision-making process that places land use in its appropriate ecological context. Because ecological assessments must be conducted at various spatial scales and across jurisdictional boundaries, approaches to assessment must be compatible and consistent with each other. A Guidebook for Integrated Ecological Assessment analyzes methods and provides standards and protocols for assessment and the integration of data. 556 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Graph drawing comprises all aspects of visualizing structural relations between objects. The range of topics dealt with extends from graph theory, graph algorithms, geometry, and topology to visual languages, visual perception, and information visualization, and to computer-human interaction and graphics design. This monograph gives a systematic overview of graph drawing and introduces the reader gently to the state of the art in the area. The presentation concentrates on algorithmic aspects, with an emphasis on interesting visualization problems with elegant solutions. Much attention is paid to a uniform style of writing and presentation, consistent terminology, and complementary coverage of the relevant issues throughout the 10 chapters.This tutorial is ideally suited as an introduction for newcomers to graph drawing. Ambitioned practitioners and researchers active in the area will find it a valuable source of reference and information.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 332 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -On the 23rd of April, 2001, the 6th Workshop on High-Level Parallel P- gramming Models and Supportive Environments (LCTES¿98) was held in San Francisco. HIPShas been held over the past six years in conjunction with IPDPS, the Internation Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. The HIPSworkshop focuses on high-level programming of networks of wo- stations, computing clusters and of massively-parallel machines. Its goal is to bring together researchers working in the areas of applications, language design, compilers, system architecture and programming tools to discuss new devel- ments in programming such systems. In recent years, several standards have emerged with an increasing demand of support for parallel and distributed processing. On one end, message-passing frameworks, such as PVM, MPI and VIA, provide support for basic commu- cation. On the other hand, distributed object standards, such as CORBA and DCOM, provide support for handling remote objects in a client-server fashion but also ensure certain guarantees for the quality of services. The key issues for the success of programming parallel and distributed en- ronments are high-level programming concepts and e ciency. In addition, other quality categories have to be taken into account, such as scalability, security, bandwidth guarantees and fault tolerance, just to name a few. Today¿s challenge is to provide high-level programming concepts without s- ri cing e ciency. This is only possible by carefully designing for those concepts and by providing supportive programming environments that facilitate program development and tuning.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 152 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Based on a suitably defined coordination model distinguishing between objective (inter-agent) coordination and subjective (intra-agent) coordination, this book addresses the engineering of multi-agent systems and thus contributes to closing the gap between research and applications in agent technology. After reviewing the state of the art, the author introduces the general coordination model ECM and the corresponding object-oriented coordination language STL++. The practicability of ECM/STL++ is illustrated by the simulation of a particular collective robotics application and the automation of an e-commerce trading system.Situated at the intersection of behavior-based artificial intelligence and concurrent and distributed systems, this monograph is of relevance to the agent R&D community approaching agent technology from the distributed artificial intelligence point of view as well as for the distributed systems community.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 168 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book evolved from notes originally developed for a graduate course, 'Best Approximation in Normed Linear Spaces,' that I began giving at Penn State Uni versity more than 25 years ago. It soon became evident. that many of the students who wanted to take the course (including engineers, computer scientists, and statis ticians, as well as mathematicians) did not have the necessary prerequisites such as a working knowledge of Lp-spaces and some basic functional analysis. (Today such material is typically contained in the first-year graduate course in analysis. ) To accommodate these students, I usually ended up spending nearly half the course on these prerequisites, and the last half was devoted to the 'best approximation' part. I did this a few times and determined that it was not satisfactory: Too much time was being spent on the presumed prerequisites. To be able to devote most of the course to 'best approximation,' I decided to concentrate on the simplest of the normed linear spaces-the inner product spaces-since the theory in inner product spaces can be taught from first principles in much less time, and also since one can give a convincing argument that inner product spaces are the most important of all the normed linear spaces anyway. The success of this approach turned out to be even better than I had originally anticipated: One can develop a fairly complete theory of best approximation in inner product spaces from first principles, and such was my purpose in writing this book.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 360 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The papers in this volume were presented at the 6th International Meeting on DNA Based Computers, organized by the Leiden Center for Natural Computing and held from June 13 to June 17, 2000 at The Lorentz Center, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands. DNA Computing is a novel and fascinating development at the interface of computer science and molecular biology. It has emerged in recent years, not simply as an exciting technology for information processing, but also as a catalyst for knowledge transfer between information processing, nanotechnology, and biology. This area of research has the potential to change our understanding of the theory and practice of computing. The call for papers and poster presentations sought contributions of original research and technical expositions in all areas of bio-computation. A total of 33 abstracts were submitted of which 16 were accepted for presentation and included in the proceedings. The papers were selected by the program committee based on originality and quality of research and on relevance to the bio-computing eld. Invited talks were given by Masami Hagiya (Tokyo University), Laura La- weber (Princeton University), John Reif (Duke University), Thomas Schmidt (Leiden University), and Lloyd M. Smith (University of Wisconsin). Invited - pers based on the talks by Hagiya and Reif are included in this volume, along with the contributed papers. Additional tutorials were held on the rst and last days of the conference. 288 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book is the nal outcome of VECPAR 2000 ¿ 4th International Meeting on Vector and Parallel Processing. VECPAR constitutes a series of conferences, which have been organized by the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto since 1993, with the main objective of disseminating new knowledge on parallel computing. Readership of This Book The book is aimed at an audience of researchers and graduate students in a broad range of scienti c areas, including not only computer science, but also applied mathematics and numerical analysis, physics, and engineering. Book Plan From a total of 66 papers selected on the basis of extended abstracts for p- sentation at the conference, a subset of 34 papers were chosen during a second review process leading to their inclusion in the book, together with the invited talks. The book contains a total of 40 papers organized into 6 chapters, where each may appeal to people in di erent but still related scienti c areas. All ch- ters, with the exception of Chapter 6, are initiated by a short text, providing a quick overview of the organization and papers in the chapter. The 13 papers in Chapter 1 cover the aspects related to the use of multiple processors. Operating systems, languages and software tools for scheduling, and code transformation are the topics included in this chapter, initiated by the talk on computing over the Internet, entitled Grid Computing,byIan Foster.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 600 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book includes the papers presented at the fifth International Conference on Application of Natural Language to Information Systems (NLDB 2000) which was held in Versailles (France) on June 28-30. Following NLDB95 in Versailles, NLDB96 i n Amsterdam, NLDB97 i n Vancouver, and NLDB99 i n Klagenfurt, NLDB 2000 was a forum for exchanging new research results and trends on the benefits of integrating Natural Language resources in Information System Engineering. Since the first NLDB workshop in 1995 it has become apparent that each aspect of an information system life cycle may be improved by natural language techniques: database design (specification, validation, conflict resolution), database query languages, and application programming that use new software engineering research (natural language program specifications). As information systems are now evolving into the communication area, the term databases should be considered in the broader sense of information and communication systems. The main new trend in NLDB 2000 is related to the WEB wave: WEB querying, WEB answering, and information retrieval. Among 47 papers submitted from 18 countries, the program committee selected 29 papers to be presented during the conference. Besides these regular papers, two invited talks (given by Pr. Reind P. van de Riet and Pr. Maurice Gross), and a set of posters and demonstrations are also included in these proceedings.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Scalable parallel systems or, more generally, distributed memory systems offer a challenging model of computing and pose fascinating problems regarding compiler optimization, ranging from language design to run time systems. Research in this area is foundational to many challenges from memory hierarchy optimizations to communication optimization.This unique, handbook-like monograph assesses the state of the art in the area in a systematic and comprehensive way. The 21 coherent chapters by leading researchers provide complete and competent coverage of all relevant aspects of compiler optimization for scalable parallel systems. The book is divided into five parts on languages, analysis, communication optimizations, code generation, and run time systems. This book will serve as a landmark source for education, information, and reference to students, practitioners, professionals, and researchers interested in updating their knowledge about or active in parallel computing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 812 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Typed Lambda Calculi and Applications, TLCA 2001, held in Krakow, Poland in May 2001. The 28 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The volume reports research results on all current aspects of typed lambda calculi. Among the topics addressed are type systems, subtypes, coalgebraic methods, pi-calculus, recursive games, various types of lambda calculi, reductions, substitutions, normalization, linear logic, cut-elimination, prelogical relations, and mu calculus.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 448 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In The Rocket Men authors Rex Hall and Dave Shayler review this Soviet demonstration of technological progress from both the developmental and operational aspects which were clouded in secrecy and in direct contrast to the high profile American programme.As the one-man Mercury spacecraft gave way to the two-man series on the American road to the Moon with Apollo, the multi-crewed Voskhod series which followed the single-seat Vostok was expected to compete with the Gemini programme. By developing the experience and techniques required to send cosmonauts to the Moon the series was planned as a stepping stone to the Soyuz and Zond lunar programmes then under development which would race Apollo to the Moon.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book provides an introduction to a new and emerging area of nursing scholarship, that of philosophy of nursing. It describes the nature of philosophy of nursing and then focuses on three areas of enquiry central to nursing theory and practice: knowledge, persons and care. Having developed positive accounts of these key areas the nature of nursing is then examined. Throughout there is critical engagement with the work of leading nurse writers, in particular Benner and Wrubel, and Carper.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Algebraic graph theory is a combination of two strands. The first is the study of algebraic objects associated with graphs. The second is the use of tools from algebra to derive properties of graphs. The authors' goal has been to present and illustrate the main tools and ideas of algebraic graph theory, with an emphasis on current rather than classical topics. While placing a strong emphasis on concrete examples, the authors tried to keep the treatment self-contained.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 468 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book provides a selection of pioneering papers or extracts ranging from Pascal (1654) to R.A. Fisher (1930). The editors'annotations put the articles in perspective for the modern reader. A special feature of the book is the large number of translations, nearly all made by the authors. There are several reasons for studying the history of statistics: intrinsic interest in how the field of statistics developed, learning from often brilliant ideas and not reinventing the wheel, and livening up general courses in statistics by reference to important contributors.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book presents a fundamental mathematical and logical approach to soft ware and systems engineering. Considering the large number of books de scribing mathematical approaches to program development, it is important to explain what we consider to be the specific contribution of our book, to identify our goals, and to characterize our intended target audience. Most books dealing with the mathematics and logics of programming and system development are mainly devoted to programming in the small. This is in contrast to our book where the emphasis is on modular system development with the help of component specifications with precisely identified interfaces and refinement concepts. Our book aims at systems development carried out in a systematic way, based on a clear mathematical theory. We do not claim that this book presents a full-blown engineering method. In fact, this is certainly not a book for the application-driven software engi neer looking for a practical method for system development in an industrial context. It is much rather a book for the computer scientist and the scientifi cally interested engineer who looks for basic principles of system development and, moreover, its mathematical foundations. It is also a book for method builders interested in a proper mathematical foundation on which they can build a practical development method and industrial-strength support tools.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Computer Graphics through Key Mathematics introduces the mathematics thatsupport computer graphics on a'need to know' basis. Its approach means you don't have to do advancedmathematical manipulation in order tounderstand the capabilities, scope and limitations of the computergraphics systems that create impressive images.The book is written in a clear, easy-to-understand way and is aimed at allthose who have missed out on an extended mathematical education but whoare studying or working in areas where computer graphics or 3D designplays an vital part.All those who have no formal training but who want to understand thefoundations of computer graphics systems should read this book, as shouldmathematicians who want to understand how their subject is used incomputer image synthesis.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 368 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In the period since the first edition was published, I have appreciated the corre spondence from all parts of the world expressing thanks for the presentation of statistics from a user's perspective. It has been particularIy pleasing to have been invited to contribute to course restructuring and development based on the ap proach to learning and applying statistics that underlies this book. In addition, I have taken account of suggestions and criticisms, and I hope that this new edition will address all major concerns. The range of readily accessible statistical methods has greatly expanded over the past decade, particularly with the growing accessibility of comprehensive statisti cal computing packages. The approach adopted in this book has anticipated the changes by its emphasis on building understanding and skills in method selection and interpretation of findings. There has been a reduction in computational for mulas to reflect the fact that basic statistical analyses are now almost universally undertaken on computers. This has allowed the inclusion of a more general cover age of unifying methodology, particularly Generalized linear methodology, which permits users to more accurately match their requirements to statistical models and methods. A major addition is a chapter on the commonly used multivariate methods.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -When I joined Schlumberger in 1982 I was surprised to find very few geologists in the company, and the few there were worked more as log analysts than geol ogists. The reason for this became soon clear to me: Except for the dipmeter there was no tool, and no other service, that was considered 'geological'. Schlumber ger geologists were supposed to work with dipmeters, and, if they had a taste for it, the natural gamma-ray spectroscopy logs. It turned out that my timing was fortunate. At Schlumberger's research center, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a prototype electrical imaging tool had been designed, and after having spent three years in the Middle East I was transferred there. The first field test results were just coming in, and the images were startling. We could see geological details that nobody had ever seen from a log: cross-beds, unconformities, pebbles, fractures, folds, faults. No cores were needed to confirm the reality of these data; they were too real to be artifacts.Springer-Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 388 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The idea for a book dealing specifically with elementary processes in silicon oxidation was formulated after a stimulating symposium that I organized at the American Physical Society meeting in March, 1998. The symposium, en titled 'Dynamics of silicon etching and oxidation', explored the mechanisms governing silicon oxidation. With three experimental talks (Hines, Weldon and Gibson) and two theoretical presentations (Pasquarello and Pantelides), it provided a good cross-section of the recent efforts to characterize the in terfacial region of silicon oxide grown on silicon. The novelty of this work comes from the present experimental and theo retical advances that allow the investigation of the formation of ultra-thin silicon oxides. Although structural characterization of bulk silicon oxides and electrical characterization of thin oxides and their interfaces with silicon have produced an extensive body of work over more than forty years, a mechanis tic understanding of the initial oxidation processes has remained elusive. In the past, both the experimental and theoretical efforts have been thwarted by the complexity of dealing with the formation of a mostly amorphous oxide on a crystalline substrate. In this book we present a survey of the state-of-the-art methods, both ex perimental and theoretical, specifically dealing with the issue of amorphous dielectric growth. Each chapter critically reviews and cross-correlates infor mation provided by experimental techniques, such as microscopy, spectro scopy, or scattering, with results obtained using theoretical methods, such as ab initio electronic structure calculations, molecular dynamics, and Monte Carlo simulations.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 280 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Covering a full range of topics from cardiovascular and pulmonary disease to ophthalmology, hematology and pediatrics, EVIDENCE-BASED DIAGNOSIS is the only single volume, quick reference designed for use in daily practice. Containing over 150 clinical prediction rules as well as need-to-know background information on each rule to determine its validity and relevance for your practice, these rules are essential for every physician in a time of limited health care resources. Designed as an aid in diagnosis and treatment, clinical prediction rules will allow you to make more accurate diagnosis and treatment decisions while eliminating superfluous testing.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 416 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Alexander Romanovitch Luria is widely recognized as one of the most prominent neuropsychologists of the twentieth century. This book - written by his long-standing colleague and published in Russian by Moscow University Press in 1992, fifteen years after his death - is the first serious volume from outside the Luria family devoted to his life and work and includes the most comprehensive bibliography available anywhere of Luria's writings.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 204 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Optimal Control of Credit Risk presents an alternative methodology to deal with a financial problem that has not been well analyzed yet: the control of credit risk. Credit risk has become recently the center of interest of the financial community, with new instruments (such as Credit Risk Derivatives) and new methodologies (such as Credit Metrics) being developed. The recent literature has focused on the pricing of credit risk. On the other hand, practitioners tend to eliminate credit risk rather than price it. They do so via collateralization. The authors propose here a methodological basis for an optimal collateralization.The monograph is organized as follows: Chapter 1 reviews the main avenues of literature related to our problem; Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the main optimal control principles; and Chapter 3 presents the models and their setting.In the remaining chapters, the authors propose two sets of programs. One set of programs will apply in cases where the information on the assets=value is readily available (full observation case), while the other applies when costly audits are needed in order to assess this value (partial observation case).In either case, the modeling stage leads to a set of quasi-variational inequalities which the authors attempt to solve numerically in the simpler case of full observations. This is done in Chapter 6. Finally a simulation analysis is carried out in Chapter 7, in which the authors study the influence on the control process of changes in the different model parameters. This precedes a discussion on possible extensions in Chapter 8 and some concluding remarks in Section 9. 116 pp. Englisch.