springer springer jan 1997 (326 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Volume 5 of the series 'Advances in Research on Neurodegeneration' is concerned with themes which are currently the focus of intensive research, and in which advances in our understanding of the pathological mechanisms un derlying neurodegenerative diseases are expected in the near future. The first section contains five reviews devoted to the various neuroimaging technolo gies. The discussion is concerned with the question of whether neuroimaging techniques make it possible to follow the process of degeneration as it occurs, and which methods offer the required sensitivity and quantifiability for this purpose. However, the question needs to be examined of whether, given the physical and chemical limitations of these techniques, even under optimal conditions, anatomical resolution can be improved to the extent that neuro degenerative diseases can be diagnosed earlier than currently possible and a confident diagnosis made. The possibilities of using neuroimaging techniques to provide information regarding the effects of neuroprotective or neuroregen erative therapeutic strategies, and for correlating the results of neuropsycho logical research with imaging data are also discussed. The second section is concerned with the significance of endogenous or exogenous neurotoxins as triggers for neurodegenerative processes that may lead to Parkinsonism. Vulnerability factors, which include such factors as nerve ending sensitivity, the synergistic effects of drugs and the various mechanisms underlying different toxins are discussed.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 228 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Environmental pollution is one of the main problems to confront humanity, with the heavy metals occupying a leading role among the most pernicious pollutants. The metals cause cancer and other sicknesses. Their cytotoxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic potentials are not fully understood, and any thorough investigation demands the combined efforts of scientists drawn from many different disciplines. But the effects of heavy metals are not all negative: some, like cis-DDP, and some ruthenium and tin complexes, have antitumour activity.The idea underlying the present work is therefore to present a multidisciplinary perspective on heavy metals in the environment, affording a better understanding of their action on human organisms and health, aiming to make them less polluting and more environmentally friendly.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 656 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Organic solids exhibit a wide range of electrical and related properties. They occur as crystals, glasses, polymers and thin films; they may be insulators, semiconductors, conductors or superconductors; and they may show luminescence, nonlinear optical response, and complex dynamical behaviour. The book provides a broad survey of this area, written by international experts, one third being drawn from Eastern Europe. Electrical, optical, spectroscopic and structural aspects are all treated in a way that gives an excellent introduction to current themes in this highly interdisciplinary and practically important area. The coverage is especially strong in the areas where electrical and optical properties overlap, such as photoconductivity, electroluminescence, electroabsorption, electro-optics and photorefraction. 464 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Schools concentrate too much on knowledge and not enough on insite. Jostein Gaarder, philosopher, Bergen The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by sceptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. John F. Kennedy, Dublin, Ireland, 28 June 1963 It is only when practitioners realize what they are dealing with that they can even begin to understand how to begin to help. This book was of starting the ball rolling, and is compiled and written with the intention a general overview of as much as possible. Practitioners from other disciplines have asked me to direct the book at their professions, so that I may achieve a greater readership. This is impossible: I am an osteopath. Due to the scope of sports medicine, especially in the field of osteopathy, this book is by no me ans complete. I may have omitted some basic concepts but they can be found elsewhere as the reader searches the references. What I have included is some basic concepts that I feel need driving horne.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 408 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The future of healthcare may be very simple. You will sit in your living room chair and drink your tea, coffee, and beer. As you sip, the chair will absorb an encyclopedia of knowledge about your physical state of affairs. A life-management computer in your kitchen will integrate the data and then display it for you on your watch face. A daily physical work-up precisely tailored to your body will pop up on the display, showing you what you have to do over the next 24 hours to avoid all the major disease processes currently plaguing the world. This comprehensive data bank will draw on all the world's medical databases, which have been integrated to help you prevent disease. You will rise from your chair and undertake an exact modicum of exercise tailored to your requirements, performing proscribed activities that will build your stamina precisely based on your 'chair data. ' The health status-monitoring sweatshirt that you wear during exercise will continue its analysis throughout the day. Your diet will be calibrated from your medical database, which vii viii 21st-CENTURY MIRACLE MEDICINE will be stored in a now-common bathroom appliance, the special preventive care server. In fact, clothed in your own domestic decor, the home will become the most sophisticated medical center in the world. All you have to do is keep going, as medicine becomes an invisible service, and your life will be effortlessly extended ten to twenty years.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 372 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This book is primarily concerned with the study of cohomology theories of general topological spaces with 'general coefficient systems.' Sheaves play several roles in this study. For example, they provide a suitable notion of 'general coefficient systems.' Moreover, they furnish us with a common method of defining various cohomology theories and of comparison between different cohomology theories. The parts of the theory of sheaves covered here are those areas important to algebraic topology. Sheaf theory is also important in other fields of mathematics, notably algebraic geometry, but that is outside the scope of the present book. Thus a more descriptive title for this book might have been Algebraic Topology from the Point of View of Sheaf Theory. Several innovations will be found in this book. Notably, the concept of the 'tautness' of a subspace (an adaptation of an analogous notion of Spanier to sheaf-theoretic cohomology) is introduced and exploited throughout the book. The factthat sheaf-theoretic cohomology satisfies 1 the homotopy property is proved for general topological spaces. Also, relative cohomology is introduced into sheaf theory. Concerning relative cohomology, it should be noted that sheaf-theoretic cohomology is usually considered as a 'single space' theory.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 520 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -ThiS is not only a book of instruction in chainmaking but it is also a work celebrating man's continuous creativity over thousands of years. At times something that man creates has far-reach ing effects; an example that quickly comes to mind is the wheel, which has enabled many devel opments, from pottery to computers. At this point it is important to note that these same wheels could not have been made without metal tools. From early Neolithic times on gold was a favorite choice in the making of jewelry. During the Neolithic period these 'shining stones,' probably alluvial, were prized. Actually gold was cold worked as if it were a stone. There is a surviving example of cold-worked gold from Catahuyuk (present day Turkey) estimated to have been made in 6500 B. C. There were only four metals on the earth's surface that were found in sufficient quantity to be used: gold, copper, silver, and meteoric iron. An understanding of the malleability of gold, and of the annealing effect of fire, changed jewelry making; new forms were found. Gold was no longer a piece of stone but a material that could be flattened and made very thin. Sheet and foil are the oldest forms of worked gold. The smiths' tools were stone, wood, and horn. 212 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Bifurcation Problems for Variational Inequalities presents an up-to-date and unified treatment of bifurcation theory for variational inequalities in reflexive spaces and the use of the theory in a variety of applications, such as: obstacle problems from elasticity theory, unilateral problems; torsion problems; equations from fluid mechanics and quasilinear elliptic partial differential equations. The tools employed are the tools of modern nonlinear analysis. This book is accessible to graduate students and researchers who work in nonlinear analysis, nonlinear partial differential equations, and additional research disciplines that use nonlinear mathematics.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book presents an algebraic development of the theory of countable state space Markov chains with discrete- and continuous-time parameters. A Markov chain is a stochastic process characterized by the Markov prop erty that the distribution of future depends only on the current state, not on the whole history. Despite its simple form of dependency, the Markov property has enabled us to develop a rich system of concepts and theorems and to derive many results that are useful in applications. In fact, the areas that can be modeled, with varying degrees of success, by Markov chains are vast and are still expanding. The aim of this book is a discussion of the time-dependent behavior, called the transient behavior, of Markov chains. From the practical point of view, when modeling a stochastic system by a Markov chain, there are many instances in which time-limiting results such as stationary distributions have no meaning. Or, even when the stationary distribution is of some importance, it is often dangerous to use the stationary result alone without knowing the transient behavior of the Markov chain. Not many books have paid much attention to this topic, despite its obvious importance.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Henkin-Keisler models emanate from a modification of the Henkin construction introduced by Keisler to motivate the definition of ultraproducts. Keisler modified the Henkin construction at that point at which `new' individual constants are introduced and did so in a way that illuminates a connection between Henkin-Keisler models and ultraproducts. The resulting construction can be viewed both as a specialization of the Henkin construction and as an alternative to the ultraproduct construction. These aspects of the Henkin-Keisler construction are utilized here to present a perspective on ultraproducts and their applications accessible to the reader familiar with Henkin's proof of the completeness of first order logic and naive set theory. This approach culminates in proofs of various forms of the Keisler-Shelah characterizations of elementary equivalence and elementary classes via Henkin-Keisler models. The presentation is self-contained and proofs of more advanced results from set theory are introduced as needed. Audience: Logicians in philosophy, computer science, linguistics and mathematics.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In the 15 years of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) pandemic much has been learnt about its natural history and complications. It is clear that the lung is a major target organ both for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and a wide array of infectious and non-infectious pulmonary complications. A great deal of information on the epidemiology, microbiology, immunology, clinical features, diagnosis and management of these pulmonary complications has accumulated during the past 15 years. Given the enormous explosion in information, it is now timely to bring together this knowledge in this 25-chapter volume on AIDS and respiratory medicine. The contributors to this volume are prominent epidemiologists, doctors, microbiologists and scientists from Europe, USA and Africa. Professors Chretien and Enarson give a masterful account of the epidemiology of lung complications of HIV. Drs Zumla, Rowland Jones and Professor McMichael give a detailed summary of the lung immune responses to HIV. They outline normal lung defenses and discuss the consequences of HIV infection on them. The pulmonary radiological features of HIV and its complications as seen in the USA and Europe are illustrated by Professors Armstrong and Dee and this is compared and contrasted by Professor Tshibwabwa-Tumba who brings together his vast experience of chest X-rays in AIDS patients from Central Africa. Drs O'Doherty and Miller deal with the uses, and potential applications, of nuclear medicine in imaging of the chest in AIDS patients.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -We have inserted, in this edition, an extra chapter (Chapter X) entitled 'Some Applications and Recent Developments.' The first section of this chapter describes how homological algebra arose by abstraction from algebraic topology and how it has contributed to the knowledge of topology. The other four sections describe applications of the methods and results of homological algebra to other parts of algebra. Most of the material presented in these four sections was not available when this text was first published. Naturally, the treatments in these five sections are somewhat cursory, the intention being to give the flavor of the homo logical methods rather than the details of the arguments and results. We would like to express our appreciation of help received in writing Chapter X; in particular, to Ross Geoghegan and Peter Kropholler (Section 3), and to Jacques Thevenaz (Sections 4 and 5). The only other changes consist of the correction of small errors and, of course, the enlargement of the Index. Peter Hilton Binghamton, New York, USA Urs Stammbach Zurich, Switzerland Contents Preface to the Second Edition vii Introduction. . I. Modules.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 384 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -ThiS is not only a book of instruction in chainmaking but it is also a work celebrating man's continuous creativity over thousands of years. At times something that man creates has far-reach ing effects; an example that quickly comes to mind is the wheel, which has enabled many devel opments, from pottery to computers. At this point it is important to note that these same wheels could not have been made without metal tools. From early Neolithic times on gold was a favorite choice in the making of jewelry. During the Neolithic period these 'shining stones,' probably alluvial, were prized. Actually gold was cold worked as if it were a stone. There is a surviving example of cold-worked gold from Catahuyuk (present day Turkey) estimated to have been made in 6500 B. C. There were only four metals on the earth's surface that were found in sufficient quantity to be used: gold, copper, silver, and meteoric iron. An understanding of the malleability of gold, and of the annealing effect of fire, changed jewelry making; new forms were found. Gold was no longer a piece of stone but a material that could be flattened and made very thin. Sheet and foil are the oldest forms of worked gold. The smiths' tools were stone, wood, and horn.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 212 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Intended for undergraduate students of electrical engineering, this introduction to electromagnetic fields emphasizes the computation of fields as well as the development of theoretical relations. The first part thus presents the electromagnetic field and Maxwell's equations with a view toward connecting the disparate applications to the underlying relations, while the second part presents computational methods of solving the equations - which for most practical calses cannot be solved analytically.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 588 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Esteemed researchers from different European laboratories provide state-of-the-art studies on biology and ageing, along with guidelines for future investigations. They cover such issues in molecular gerontological research as regulation of gene expression from DNA to RNA to functional proteins, origin of various age-associated diseases, genetic regulation of ageing and longevity, and different mechanisms of defense and repair. Other contributions evaluate new technologies, including transgenic organisms, and the use of nutritional and chemical modulators of ageing and lifespan.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Forests comprise the greatest storage of carbon on land, provide fuel for millions, are the habitat for most terrestrial biodiversity, and are critical to the economies of many countries. Yet changes in the extent and dynamics of forests are inherently difficult to detect and quantify. Remote sensing technologies may facilitate the measurement of some key forest properties which, when combined with other information contained in various computer models, may allow for the quantification of critical forest functions. This book explores how remote sensing and computer modeling can be combined to estimate changes in the carbon storage, or productivity, of forests - from the level of the leaf to the level of the globe. Land managers, researchers, policy makers and students will all find stimulating discussions among an international set of experts at the cutting edge of the interface between science, technology and management.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Industrial: Industrial Protein Xray Crystallography: An Overview (J.D. Oliver) Recent Advances in the Use of Synchrotron Radiation for Protein Crystallography (R. Sweet). The Crystal Structures of Some New Forms of Aluminum Fluoride as Determined from Their Synchrotron Powder Diffraction Patterns (R.L. Harlow et al.). Synchrotron Radiationbased Research at the Dow Chemical Company (R.A. Bubeck et al.). Chemical: The Chemical Dynamics Beamline at the Advanced Light Source (A.G. Suits et al.). High Resolution Photoionization and Excitation Using Third Generation Radiation Sources (N. Berrah et al.). Recent Advances toward a Structural Model for the Photosynthetic Oxygenevolving Manganes Cluster (M.J. Latimer et al.). Cesium XAFS Studies of Solution Phase Csionophore Complexation (K.M. Kemner et al.). Materials Science: Studies of Magnetic Material with Circular Polarized Soft Xrays (V. Chakarian et al.). Resonant Photoemission in Polymers (J. Kikuma et al.). Characterization of the Complexation of Uranyl Ions with Humic Acids by Xray Absorption Spectroscopy (T. Reich et al.). Spectroscopic Studies of Lanthanide Coordination in Crystalline and Amorphous Phosphates (L.R. Morss et al.). 5 additional articles. Index.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Sensorialities: Information Extraction and Perceptual Grouping in the Auditory System; B.C.J. Moore. Ultrasonic Techniques for Environment Perception; D. Dotti. The Vestibular System; E. Mira. Perception and Integration: Integration and Storage of Sensory Motor Information: Computation in the Cerebellum; E. D¿Angelo. Field Computation and Sensory Fusion; V. Sanguineti, et al. Panel Summary-Plasticity and Reconfigurability in Sensory Systems; S. Vallerga, et al. Perception and Decision: Solving by Redundancy and Misunderstanding by Simplification; W. Gerbino. Perception for Decision or Decision for Perception ;B.Y. Zavidovique. Perception and Action: Integrating Reflexes and Voluntary Behaviors: Coordination and Adaptation Controls in Man; G.M. Gauthier, et al. Motion Perception as an Area Process; Y. Hermush, Y. Yeshurun. Perception and Representation: Representation and Integration of Multiple Knowledge Sources: Issues and Questions; C. Castelfranchi. Symbolic, Conceptual and Subconceptual Representations; P. Gardenfors. Percepton and Communication: Picture Icon and Word Icon; J.P. Rossi, G. Querrioux-Coulombier. Panel Summary. Characters, Pixels, and Phonemes; S. Levialdi, et al. 4 Additional Articles. 4 Panel Summaries. Index.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This text is an introduction to the feedback control of lightly damped flexible structures; the emphasis is placed on basic issues such as actuator and sensor selection, placement and dynamics, and actual implementation for solving practical problems. The book consists of 11 chapters; in chapters 2 to 5, the open-loop transfer functions of various active structures are derived from their constitutive equations; the discussion includes a truss and sandwich beams and plates with embedded piezoelectric actuators and sensors. The virtues of collocated actuator-sensor configurations are pointed out and used to develop active damping with guaranteed stability. Chapters 6 to 8 are devoted to the model-based control of SISO systems; optimal control is developed graphically using the symmetric root locus; the gain-phase relationship is discussed and the design tradeoffs are explained in the frequency domain. The issues of robustness with respect to the parametric uncertainty and the spillover instability are examined. After two short chapters on controllability (ch. 9) and stability (ch. 10), the book concludes with a set of applications to active damping and precision positioning of a set of aerospace, mechanical and civil engineering structures. The book is intended for structural engineers who want to acquire some background in vibration control; it can be used as a textbook for a graduate course on vibration control or active structures. The text is supplemented with 98 problems.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -We have tried to design this book for both instructional and reference use, during and after a first course in algebraic topology aimed at users rather than developers; indeed, the book arose from such courses taught by the authors. We start gently, with numerous pictures to illustrate the fundamental ideas and constructions in homotopy theory that are needed in later chapters. A certain amount of redundancy is built in for the reader's convenience: we hope to minimize :fiipping back and forth, and we have provided some appendices for reference. The first three are concerned with background material in algebra, general topology, manifolds, geometry and bundles. Another gives tables of homo topy groups that should prove useful in computations, and the last outlines the use of a computer algebra package for exterior calculus. Our approach has been that whenever a construction from a proof is needed, we have explicitly noted and referenced this. In general, wehavenot given a proof unless it yields something useful for computations. As always, the only way to un derstand mathematics is to do it and use it. To encourage this, Ex denotes either an example or an exercise. The choice is usually up to you the reader, depending on the amount of work you wish to do; however, some are explicitly stated as ( unanswered) questions. In such cases, our implicit claim is that you will greatly benefit from at least thinking about how to answer them.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 424 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This text is concerned with Bayesian learning, inference and forecasting in dynamic environments. We describe the structure and theory of classes of dynamic models and their uses in forecasting and time series analysis. The principles, models and methods of Bayesian forecasting and time - ries analysis have been developed extensively during the last thirty years. Thisdevelopmenthasinvolvedthoroughinvestigationofmathematicaland statistical aspects of forecasting models and related techniques. With this has come experience with applications in a variety of areas in commercial, industrial, scienti c, and socio-economic elds. Much of the technical - velopment has been driven by the needs of forecasting practitioners and applied researchers. As a result, there now exists a relatively complete statistical and mathematical framework, presented and illustrated here. In writing and revising this book, our primary goals have been to present a reasonably comprehensive view of Bayesian ideas and methods in m- elling and forecasting, particularly to provide a solid reference source for advanced university students and research workers.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 700 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -In writing this book, our goal was to produce a text suitable for a first course in mathematical logic more attuned than the traditional textbooks to the re cent dramatic growth in the applications oflogic to computer science. Thus, our choice oftopics has been heavily influenced by such applications. Of course, we cover the basic traditional topics: syntax, semantics, soundnes5, completeness and compactness as well as a few more advanced results such as the theorems of Skolem-Lowenheim and Herbrand. Much ofour book, however, deals with other less traditional topics. Resolution theorem proving plays a major role in our treatment of logic especially in its application to Logic Programming and PRO LOG. We deal extensively with the mathematical foundations ofall three ofthese subjects. In addition, we include two chapters on nonclassical logics - modal and intuitionistic - that are becoming increasingly important in computer sci ence. We develop the basic material on the syntax and semantics (via Kripke frames) for each of these logics. In both cases, our approach to formal proofs, soundness and completeness uses modifications of the same tableau method in troduced for classical logic. We indicate how it can easily be adapted to various other special types of modal logics. A number of more advanced topics (includ ing nonmonotonic logic) are also briefly introduced both in the nonclassical logic chapters and in the material on Logic Programming and PROLOG.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 476 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Representation and Retrieval of Video Data in Multimedia Systems brings together in one place important contributions and up-to-date research results in this important area. Representation and Retrieval of Video Data in Multimedia Systems serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most important research issues in the field.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Media are objects with content and character that we describe using in- phrases: in the story, in the picture, in the movie, in the dream. Like the propositional attitudes, these objects present a variety of hard problems for semantic and philosophical analysis. The Semantics of Media is an organized exploration of fundamental questions in the semantics of media. The first three chapters set out a straightforward model within the possible-worlds framework, and consider how it might account for a range of notions applying to media generally: implicit vs. explicit content, propositional vs. individual content, causal vs. intentional content and the idea of a single World of the Medium. The final three chapters examine ways of elaborating the model to cover a range of phenomena keyed to the functionality of particular forms of media. Chapter Four is a discussion of fiction and our apparent reference to fictional characters. Chapter Five deals with the phenomenon of viewpoint in pictorial media. Chapter Six is a study of interactions between users and characters of media centering on the puzzling case of seeing in films. The Semantics of Media will be of interest to specialists in the fields of linguistics, philosophy and communications.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The editors of the Applied Logic Series are happy to present to the reader the fifth volume in the series, a collection of papers on Logic, Language and Computation. One very striking feature of the application of logic to language and to computation is that it requires the combination, the integration and the use of many diverse systems and methodologies - all in the same single application. The papers in this volume will give the reader a glimpse into the problems of this active frontier of logic. The Editors CONTENTS Preface IX 1. S. AKAMA Recent Issues in Logic, Language and Computation 1 2. M. J. CRESSWELL Restricted Quantification 27 3. B. H. SLATER The Epsilon Calculus' Problematic 39 4. K. VON HEUSINGER Definite Descriptions and Choice Functions 61 5. N. ASHER Spatio-Temporal Structure in Text 93 6. Y. NAKAYAMA DRT and Many-Valued Logics 131 7. S. AKAMA On Constructive Modality 143 8. H. W ANSING Displaying as Temporalizing: Sequent Systems for Subintuitionistic Logics 159 9. L. FARINAS DEL CERRO AND V. LUGARDON 179 Quantification and Dependence Logics 10. R. SYLVAN Relevant Conditionals, and Relevant Application Thereof 191 Index 245 Preface This is a collection of papers by distinguished researchers on Logic, Lin guistics, Philosophy and Computer Science. The aim of this book is to address a broad picture of the recent research on related areas. In particular, the contributions focus on natural language semantics and non-classical logics from different viewpoints.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Demand side management (DSM) is one of the most topical issues in regulating electric utilities, both in the United States and internationally. What is DSM It consists of various measures at the level of demand (households, commerce, industry, others), which are at least partially financed by electric utilities and which should either conserve energy or reduce the peak load. The practice of DSM originates from The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 (PURPA) that provided the political and legal framework to set energy conservation as a national goal, which encouraged regulatory commissions to initiate utility conservation programs; see e.g., Nowell-Tschirhart (1990) and Fox-Penner (1990). Moreover, integrated resource planning, which must account for DSM on a level playing field with supply, is written into the 1992 Energy Policy Act as the U.S. Government's preferred method of electric power planning. Although PURPA set energy conservation as a national priority, its implementation was left to the states with the consequence of considerable differences concerning efforts and rules. By 1993 16 states had already implemented integrated resource planning, 9 were in the process of doing so and further 9 considered implementation, (EPRI 1993b). Due to the Clean Air Act of 1990, 24 states are considering to include external costs in integrated resource planning.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 224 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -For the first time in power electronics, this comprehensive treatment of switch-mode DC/DC converter designs addresses many analytical closed form equations such as duty cycle prediction, output regulation, output ripple, control loop-gain, and steady state time-domain waveform. Each of these equations are given various topologists and configurations, including forward, flyback, and boost converters. Pulse Width Modulated DC/DC Converters begins with a detailed approach to the quiescent operating locus of a power plant under open-loop. The reader is then led through other supporting circuits once again in the quiescent condition. These exercises result in the close-loop formulations of the subject system, providing designers with the ability to study the sensitivities of a system against disturbances. With the quiescent conditions well established, the book then guides the reader further into the territories of system stability where small signal behaviors are explored. Finally, some important large signal time-domain studies cap the treatment. Some distinctive features of this book include: \*detailed coverage of dynamic close-loop converter simulations using only personal computer and modern mathematical software \*Steady-state, time-domain analysis based on the concept of continuity of states Voltage-mode and current-mode control techniques and their differences of merits A detailed description on setting up different equations for DC/DC converters'simulation using only PCSpringer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 252 pp. Englisch.

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -Here are two physicists looking over the fence of physics, getting thrilled by the life and growth of trees, taking an altogether different, exciting view of wood: trees produce wood for their own benefit. They do not live for the benefit of man who builds his world using wood as a raw material. Timber is revealed in a different light, and the reader is taught to stop thinking of it in terms of defective beams and boards. Wood only fails as a part of the living tree. To us, the tree and wood biologists, this new definition is a real, inspiring challenge, which is just what Kubler and Mattheck intended it to be. Their answers may seem too simple or little logical to some of us; but the authors are not at a loss for sound and solid arguments. Their field studies prove the incredible, their hypotheses makes us want to get to the bottom of the un proven unbelievable. The authors' answers and arguments are bold and cour ageous. They arouse our curiosity and force us to fathom the facts. It seems as if Kubler and Mattheck wanted to trick us into believing that trees only live and react following mechanical rules and strategies. To tell the truth, that was what I first suspected the authors of: but I was wrong.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 144 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -This volume offers comprehensive treatment of the latest developments in critical systems thinking and practice. The book features contributions by researchers at the prestigious Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull, England. The emphasis is on rigorous analysis of the wide range of approaches to problem solving reported in the research literature. This work will enhance the studies of researchers and students in the areas of systems problem solving, action research, management science, and operational research.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 320 pp. Englisch.

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware -The recent development of ideas on biodiversity conservation was already being considered almost three-quarters of a century ago for crop plants and the wild species related to them, by the Russian geneticist N.! Vavilov. He was undoubtedly the first scientist to understand the impor tance for humankind of conserving for utilization the genetic diversity of our ancient crop plants and their wild relatives from their centres of diversity. His collections showed various traits of adaptation to environ mental extremes and biotypes of crop diseases and pests which were unknown to most plant breeders in the first quarter of the twentieth cen tury. Later, in the 1940s-1960s scientists began to realize that the pool of genetic diversity known to Vavilov and his colleagues was beginning to disappear. Through the replacement of the old, primitive and highly diverse land races by uniform modem varieties created by plant breed ers, the crop gene pool was being eroded. The genetic diversity of wild species was equally being threatened by human activities: over-exploita tion, habitat destruction or fragmentation, competition resulting from the introduction of alien species or varieties, changes and intensification of land use, environmental pollution and possible climate change.Springer Verlag GmbH, Tiergartenstr. 17, 69121 Heidelberg 476 pp. Englisch.